Tabula Rasa lj

The things you learn: today, that Escher created a portion of the Garden of Earthly Delights as a lithograph called Hell (1935).

Apparently he used other figures from the painting in his art, such as in Belvedere. An excellent combination...

It's been reported elsewhere, but for those who haven't heard, Kyla has an article on Australian Gargoyles in the current issue of Art Monthly Australia (#200, June '07).

You may remember Kyla's sister, Rebecca, showed us around Camperdown Cemetery last year, in her role as Cemetery Conservation officer. Now she's hit the papers. From today's Daily Terror:

( Ward Sister )

kylaw has provided her impressions of the Writing History festival so I'll just add a couple of notes. I was surprised to see such a small crossover with Magic Casements, since alternate and SF history seems such a big thing at the moment. Kate Forsyth was the only person we recognised (which admittedly may just have been us. Apparently she was at the romance one as well). Certainly there were a lot more professional accomplishments and degrees on display — but less of ancient history, strangely enough. As Kyla said, the sessions were more like individual presentations than any sort of discussion.

And for future reference: staggered starting times for sessions is a really bad idea. Don't know where that one came from.

A couple of piccies that turned up on the weekend:

( Family Portraits )

Yesterday was the Blue Moon festival and, in particular, our tour of Camperdown cemetery hosted by Kyla's sister, who has a much-envied job with the National Trust. It was quite a party, with Rob H, catsparx, jack_ryder, murasaki_1966, deborahb, Andrew S and Nicole C. We were introduced to a number of inhabitants, had the history explained (for example, why it's probably not a good idea to dig holes in the park next door) and given an idea of the conservation problems they face. A good time was had by all, and though there was much fretting about the weather, in the end it was just wet enough to be atmospheric rather than a wash-out.

Again, there's not really enough photos for a proper gallery, but here's some highlights.

• The group (photo by Cat Sparks)
• Our tour guide, Rebecca
• And again
• St Stephen's Church
• Picturesque
• Not so much

We also wandered about the festival, bought some DVDs (the oft proposed double bill of M and Twitch of the Death Nerve) and ended up with good food and lively discussion in Newtown.

ETA: No, Kyla doen't have a pointy hat, it's just a cunning illusion.

Well, that was interesting. I said yesterday we suspected Prism — the disease at the heart of Prismatic, lying quiescent on the banks of the Lane Cover river — in the death of Dr Bogle and Mrs Chandler. We weren't too far wrong.

But Kyla only got a frame or two.

We also watched the following doco on Carthage, in which I have long been interested. Has anyone done an alternate history in which Hannibal defeated Rome? It would seem to require little tweaking, yet the cumulative effect would be enormous.

Last night we dashed off on a ghost tour of the Old Quarantine Station at Manly. Fun was had by all, and the tour guide was doing his best (in a somewhat bemused fashion), though I don't think it did much for our belief in ghosts and greeblies. A non-confirmed bandicoot sighting was made by Kyla.

There are photos.

Can we review anything without comparisons to what has come before? Kingdom of Heaven didn't have the gravitas of Gladiator nor, quite frankly, that of Troy (you may mock, but I thought the motivations of those in Troy made good sense in their own strange and self-centred ways).

Which is a bit of a shame, because I thought the 'good' faction in KoH (that being the king of Jerusalem and Jeremy Irons) were taking a sensible and, as I understand it, entirely realistic stand for peace. Likewise the 'bad guys' (some guy with a French accent and a loony Templar) were equally believable. Then along comes a suspiciously competent blacksmith with no thought of politics or compromise (but a whole dose of comparative religion), and things go somewhat askew. Even that archetype would likely have some representatives on the day, but I don't think the slippery interface between the personal and the politic worked.

But hey. It all looked nice, Orlando Bloom did fairly well for himself, and the battle scenes were fascinating (even if, again, they weren't entirely persuasive).

In the meanwhile, I've finished Building Better Plots (which ended up synchronising with Writing Horror more than originally apparent) and Conjure Wife (just for the hell of it). Weirdest event of the week was probably the sudden appearance of free Hitchhiker tickets (plus book and poster). Speaking of which, go check out shellshear's Film Forensics: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but only if you've seen the movie first. He has a fab suggestion for Zaphod's second head.

I'm sure more stuff happened as well, but enough of last week. Tomorrow it's me, a whole stack of 3" x 5" cards, and a plot. Banzai.

We saw Alexander last week and, y'know, it wasn't all bad. In fact, there's a lot of really good stuff in there, albeit lost amongst a messy structure, some miscasting (Hephaistion as an adult just looked wrong to me, and having Olympias appear younger than her son is a bit silly), and failing to actually convey why Alexander was such a world-changing force. He apparently strolled into much of Asia.

The first big battle scene probably couldn't be called crystal clear story-telling, but I thought it conveyed a lot of what was necessary -- you could actually tell that some of the people following him actually liked him, for example (even if his generals never did), and that he had an inkling about conducting war. I did like his relationships, some of the surrounding commentary was interesting, and much of the movie looks fabulous (such things don't leave much of an impression on me, but it certainly uses the big screen). But to pack a powerful punch in three hours of screen time I think you need more focus and control than was evident here.

Pity.

"in terms of the puerile writing, confused plotting, shockingly off-note performances and storytelling that lacks either of the two necessary ingredients for films of this type, pop or gravitas." -- The NY Times

"With all of these elements in place, only inspired directorial flourishes could keep the film from freezing into a museum piece, but by summoning his inner classicist, Stone has made an excruciating disaster for the ages." -- The Onion

"We accept great deeds from great people, not from sniveling whiners." -- James Berardinelli

I don't know about you, but I'm picking up a negative vibe here. Pity.

Then again, I thought Troy was better than most seemed to find it, and will undoubtedly be going along to see Alexander when it opens -- as long as (all together now) I have time...

I had highish hopes for King Arthur, since I've quite enjoyed the recent historical epics, and this seemed to be going for a more intimate and gritty level of action. And some of it is indeed very pretty (which could possibly be taken as a comment on Kiera Knightly's 'Woad Rage' outfit, but it just seemed to blend in, really).

Plotwise, however, the movie makes no sense whatsoever. Almost every single plot point seems to fall apart, and seeing 6 guys standing in the middle of a field waiting for the hordes of enemy to appear doesn't strike me as brave and heroic, just stupid. They built that wall for a reason, you know. Or did they?

Oh well.

In much nicer news, we went to a birthday party down in Wollongong yesterday, with some fabulous Asian food (in itself something of a miracle, for our ornery palates), and interesting discussion. We even managed to escape before Blakes Seven made an appearance.

Questions from kateorman

1. jidru mah ecgiri2 cibir tug2 mah nam-sipad nam-lugal me-a?

His relationship with farm animals doesn't mean he's a crook. It's only circumstantial.

2. [nam]-egir3-zid nam-nin-dijir nam-icib nam-lu2-mah nam-gudug me-a?

First against the wall when the revolution happened (so much for the daughter).

3. [nij2]-/gen6\-na si TUR si ed2? kur ed3-de3 kur ed3-da kur-jar-ra me-a?

Seems to me Enki should just clean his fingernails more often.

Questions from benpeek

1) Pigs Blood was used in

early surgery. It was well known that the slaughter of pigs was a crime against the gods, and that divine punishment was swift and overrode all other sensation. Trouble was the gods were such an ambivalent bunch -- unsure precisely of the role of punishment in the reduction of overall blasphemy rates -- that their punishments were usually much to be preferred over, say, someone cutting your limbs off with an iron knife that had already seen one thigh bone too many.

2) You carry that knife because

of the need to remove the lids of things. Eyes mostly.

3) The Perfect World begins with

pee.

Not many people know this, but the One actually brought three creations into being. The first was derived from the semen of the sacred bull, and thus the world was full of teeming individuals all fighting for the ultimate prize with little concern for those around them. The second was derived from the blood of the sacred bull, and the world was full of great tribes swift to mete punishment on anything alien to them. The third was derived from the urine of the sacred calf, purified by the sacred kidneys, and the Many thought that was much the best.

Imshi took Lirael to the Robing Room, a huge room full of all the equipment, weapons, and miscellaneous items the librarians needed, from climbing ropes to boathooks.

I've just read Victoria: Born to be a Warrior, by Frances Hendry, a book I suspect is doomed to obscurity, but which was certainly better than I expected. Some very interesting ideas, characters and detail, if not always able to rise above its Young Adult limitations.

In the meantime, I'm a quarter of the way through Lirael, finally (the sequel to Sabriel). Garth Nix is good, and it doesn't have the unseemly rush that hindered Mister Monday. I'd be fascinated to see what a RPG could make of his various magic systems.