Merry Christmas Everyone! Happy Holidays!
Dec. 25th, 2025 07:57 amA happy and safe Christmas to everyone! Happy and safe holidays! I figured in times like these we all might need a bit of magic :-)
A happy and safe Christmas to everyone! Happy and safe holidays! I figured in times like these we all might need a bit of magic :-)
Cavendish and I finished season three today, and strangely enough it turns out that the two episodes I feel I have anything reasonably substantial to say about, are these two.
3.16 "Revenging Angel":
During previous watches I never noticed how incredibly calm and at peace Moya John seems in the life action coma scenes. Almost as if dying at this point wouldn't matter and the big scary traumatizing thing really is to continue living. An impression which is not only created by costuming (Crichton is wearing a civilian outfit, jeans and plaid shirt most of the time), but also by deliberate acting and directing choices. Ben Browder plays Crichton incredibly still in this episode, slower movements, kinetic energy and frantic running almost dimmed down to zero. This lends a very haunting undercurrent to an episode that is otherwise brilliantly funny.
3.17 "The Choice":
Speaking of haunting, apparently I had to watch this episode three different times (2003, 2011 and now) to notice how the episode's soundtrack picks up the death knells we hear ringing for Talyn John two episodes earlier. Also, with its setting mostly reduced to the oddly timeless hotel on Valldon where Aeryn is staying, there is a distinct "staged like a theatre play" vibe to this episode. The ghostly vision of Talyn John, mostly lit in silver and blue, comes across as mirroring Moya John's stillness in "Revenging Angel" while taking it just one tiny step further, into the realm of the dead. Also, civilian clothing again, the exact shirt and jeans John was wearing in 1.16 "A Human Reaction".
Alphabetical Fic Meme
Oct. 27th, 2025 12:38 pmFic meme as snagged from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespirit , selenak and astrogirl :)
Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.
A - And Then You Know (Nice Guys. Just a day in the life of Holly March)
B -
C -
D -
E -
F - The Fabric That God Weaves (Doctor Who.Human beings are time-blind.)
G -
H -
J -
K -
L -Light as a Feather (Nice Guys. Last Christmas, March had phoned from a restaurant on South Flower street.)
M -Mimesis (ST: DS9. Essentially it's spin control.)
N - Not There - Yet (Farscape. John spiraling and Rygel… well, being Rygel. John has never been all that much into horror movies.)
O -
P - Prometheus's Wake (Farscape. Uncle John has shown mankind a glimpse of the universe, stolen the fire and torn the lid off the tricky box.)
Q -
R -
S - Shadows (SW. After Qui-Gon's death, Obi-Wan is coming to terms with his role as Anakin's new master.)
T - True Grit (Dairy Aisle Ghosts) (Nice Guys.Holland March must have some neighbours, right?)
U -
V -
W -
X -
Y -
Z -
Farscape Fanfic: Not There - Yet
Oct. 11th, 2025 11:57 amOkay, I haven't written any fan fiction in ages, but here we go:
Not There - Yet by Bimo (AO3 link)
Summary: Just a brief "DNA Mad Scientist" post ep with John spiraling and Rygel… well being Rygel. John has never been all that much into horror movies.
Characters: John Crichton, Rygel XVI
Genre: Gen, Post Ep, Character Study
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Word Count: 956
So, this is probably just for the handful of people who know what I've been up to so far, but anyway I thought I could share:
Cavendish and I now have progressed to early season 2. And while yesterday evening's episode 2.02 "Vitas Mortis" is more or less a random filler with a somewhat Star Trek-ish feel about it (basically the whole "Nilaam, the Orican accidentally drawing energy from Moya instead of D'Argo and not wanting to die" plot with all its ethical implications), I think there is actually some quite noteworthy stuff going on in the background.
Firstly, we are getting valuable glimpses into D'Argo's warrior past which, unlike his weird infatuation with Nilaam, speak volumes about his loyalty, courage and ability to come up with rather creative out of the box solutions in emergency situations. What I'm really wondering about now: Back when the Peacekeepers captured D'Argo, did they assume they had imprisoned an actual Luxan general? Or were they aware those markings were false?
And then there is Crichton. Tense, driven, jumpy, fast and loose with his gun and played by Ben Browder with the type of body language that screams traumatized, a distinct, decidedly impactful characterization which most other shows probably would have scaled back noticeably once the grand season 1 finale was over. But Farscape being Farscape it just amps the depiction of Crichton's condition, and leaves it to a mere filler episode to ram home the point that on this show there will be no reset buttons. Ever. So I have to admit I was impressed by an ep which, by all means, actually should have been rather forgettable.
Well, I turned 50 this spring and over the last decade there have been quite a number of shows which I enjoyed, admired, or which left me absolutely breathless (most recently Andor, Foundation), but for a long while there hasn't been anything that I felt this degree of connection and fannish excitement for that I used to have far more often in earlier days.
Yesterday I looked at my AO3 account only to realize that the last time I published a story was way back in December 2017, so I haven't written anything new in almost eight years. But to get back on track with this entry...
After finishing Foundation, Cavendish and I started with Farscape, mostly because I got this very nice Blu-ray set for my birthday, and there it was, lying on a shelf and we both thought "Well yeah, let's have a go at it!". (Cavendish has only ever watched a handful of random episodes, for me it's actually the third watching, with my last one being sometime around 2011-2012.)
And where to start? One of the first things I noticed is that except for minor missteps, the show has actually aged incredibly well in my opinion and already in season 1 feels exactly as amazingly poignant, crazy and subversive as I remembered it.
Also, while I'm not sure whether this has anything to do just with me getting older or with the horrifying times that we are currently living in, many episodes now seem to make a much stronger impact on me. Especially, because we are right as this point with our rewatch where the show starts pick up steam with larger overall plot lines and descent into madness character development, while at the same time coming up with all those small, shining moments of beauty like Aeryn experiencing rain on her face for the very first time in her life in "A Human Reaction".
And I truly missed that, so I guess all I can do now is to say a huge thank you to Farscape people old and new, starting with selenak who introduced me to the show some odd 22 years ago and everybody else that I met along the way.
Somewhat defiant art post and picture spam
Mar. 5th, 2025 01:29 pmLast Saturday, Cavendish and I took advantage of the long weekend and went to see the “New Objectivity” (“Neue Sachlickeit” in German) exhibition at the Kunsthalle Mannheim, just a couple of days before the exhibition’s closing date on March, 9th.
In short, a great day out. Fantastic art and after that a nice stroll through the inner city of Mannheim, including a visit to Mannheim Baroque Palace, which is one of the largest palaces in Europe and nowadays serves as one of the main buildings to host the city’s university.
Pleasant and safe train ride back home.
I have no words for how I felt when, two days later, on Rose Monday, around lunch time the news broke that two people had just been killed in a deliberate attack by a 40-year-old German who had driven his car right into the crowds at Mannheim’s main city centre shopping area.
In light of this, it took me a while to decide whether I really wanted to post an entry that was originally intended to be nothing more than an artsy picture spam with a few extra words how poignant, inspired and incredibly well curated “The New Objectivity - A Centennial -2024/11/22 - 2025/03/09” is as an exhibition.
Lonesome Dove - TV miniseries, 1989
Feb. 22nd, 2025 12:38 pmThough I am not exactly the biggest fan of Western as a genre (and trust me, I have seen my fair share of Westerns because of Cavendish), I found this 1989 four-part tv adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s novel of the same name surprisingly captivating.
I guess what I liked best is that in its strongest moments, the show doesn’t seem so much about getting a cattle drive halfway across the continent from point A to point B, but rather a character-driven exploration of human relationships and concepts of values in a changing frame of reference. It’s the 1870s after all, an increasing part of the country is being settled and the old is West disappearing.
Of course, there are the usual caveats that apply whenever you are watching a piece of media that is not quite up to present day standards of representation. (Native Americans, women, you name it, it’s there) These issues aside, however, what you are left with is an exceptionally well-written, epic miniseries with high production values and an insanely impressive cast featuring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover and Anjelica Huston. Especially Huston and Duvall lend their characters a level of emotional depth that is nothing but touching.
So the seven Emmys and two Golden Globes that Lonesome Dove won strike me as quite justified.
In times like these...
Feb. 7th, 2025 12:16 pmI’ve been wondering whether I should get back into some sort of (semi) regular posting mode instead of just lurking and leaving the odd occasional comment in friends’ journals. Mostly, I’d like to have some sort of record of the various things that I watched or read during these *cough* interesting times. Also, I’d love to let people know I am still out there and enjoying their posts. So, here we go, just for starters.
Recent movies:
Better Man, Juror #2
Recent shows:
For All Mankind, SW: Skeleton Crew, The Good Place
Recent books:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriél Garcia Márquez (which I started ages ago, completely unrelated to the current Netflix adaption), and could only now bring myself to finish.
Current books (non fiction):
Post-Aufklärungsgesellschaft by German Professor of philosophy and didactics at TU Dresden, Markus Tiedemann, in which Tiedemann makes a quite convincing case for the age of enlightenment being one of humanity’s greatest achievements before setting out to argue how and why we are currently about to throw away all the humanist and secular-rationalist principles that we, as a society, have gained.
Current books (fiction):
Antichristie by Mithu Sanyal, in which a fifty-ish screenwriter of half German, half Indian descent working on an anti-imperialist, politically correct take on adapting an Agatha Christie crime novel gets transported to early 20th century London and involved with leading revolutionary Indian nationalists of that time.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
Dec. 25th, 2021 09:55 amA happy and safe Christmas to every one! I figured in times like these we all might need a bit of "magic" :-)
I just wanted to share the playlist that Cavendish and I have created for this year’s Halloween! A Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates! :-)
Bimo
The X-Files Theme (Main Title: Materia Primoris), The X-Files Theme, 03:21
Sunrise, Uriah Heep, The Magician’s Birthday, 04:20
Hide and Seek, The White Buffalo, Darkest Darks, Lightest Lights [Explicit], 03:03
Time Warp, Little Nell, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Original Soundtrack, 03:19
I Put A Spell On You, Nina Simone, I Put A Spell On You, 02:35
Stairway to Heaven (Remaster), Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV (Deluxe Edition), 08:02
Black Wings, Tom Waits, Bone Machine, 04:35
Sympathy For The Devil, The Rolling Stones, Hot Rocks (1964-1971), 06:17
Highway to Hell, AC/DC, Highway to Hell, 03:28
Lady in Black, Uriah Heep, Celebration, 05:30
Where the Wild Roses Grow (2011 - Remaster), Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads (2011 Remastered Version) [Explicit], 03:57
Over at the Frankenstein Place, Richard O'Brien, The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Original Soundtrack, 02:45
The Nameless Murderess, The Once, Departures, 05:26
Black Wings, Tom Waits, Bone Machine, 04:35
Sympathy For The Devil, The Rolling Stones, Hot Rocks (1964-1971), 06:17
Highway to Hell, AC/DC, Highway to Hell, 03:28
Lady in Black, Uriah Heep, Celebration, 05:30
Where the Wild Roses Grow (2011 - Remaster), Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads (2011 Remastered Version) [Explicit], 03:57
Over at the Frankenstein Place, The Rocky Horror Picture Show - Original Soundtrack, 02:45
The Nameless Murderess, The Once, Departures, 05:26
Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair, Hugh Laurie, Didn't It Rain, 05:26
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, B.B. King, One Kind Favor, 04:48
Ghost Riders In The Sky, Johnny Cash, Ze Best - Johnny Cash, 03:47
Paint It, Black, The Rolling Stones, Hot Rocks (1964-1971), 03:22
Ghostbusters (From ''Ghostbusters''), Ray Parker Jr., 80s 100 Hits, 03:58
Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf, Heaven & Hell, 04:53
Personal Jesus, Depeche Mode, The Best of Depeche Mode, Vol. 1 (Deluxe) [Explicit,] 03:45
Red Right Hand (2011 Remastered Version), Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Red Right Hand (Theme from 'Peaky Blinders'), 06:12
Vagabonds, New Model Army, Thunder And Consolation, 04:20
Bohemian Rhapsody (Remastered 2011), Queen, A Night At The Opera (2011 Remaster), 05:54
Still Out There :-)
Feb. 26th, 2021 11:19 amQuite hard to believe that another year has gone by without any proper entry from me, when I’m actually doing fine (considering there’s a global pandemic going on) and reading and waching stuff just as usual. Albeit with a slightly nostalgic, comforting twist to it.
First a complete Babylon 5 rewatch, now ST:DS9. Oh, and lots of Doctor Who, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor, complete runs, before finally turning back to Ten and Donna. (No way on Earth I am going to watch any more Thirteenth Doctor episodes than I already have at this point, well except for the unlikely case Chris Chibnall should quit as a showrunner while Jodie Whittaker is still being around.)
As for books: Lots of them, yes. Mostly fiction from a variety of genres, the three most memorable novels probably being Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead , Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds.
Take care!
So I turned 45 last Wednesday
Mar. 13th, 2020 11:41 amCelebrating your 45th birthday at a time when the German federal state that you live in is also the federal state with the highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases (1041 so far, and rising) is a pretty strange experience, I can tell you. Filled with a kind of decisions I wouldn’t have dreamed of a month ago.
Cavendish and I are, luckily, still young enough not to fall into any of the high risk groups; however it’s a different matter with our 75+ parents, especially with my father-in-law, who is terminally ill with colon cancer.
So we are thinking a lot about risk minimising measures these days, for example stuff like cancelling our reservation for the super-nice but also somewhat crowded Indian restaurant where we had originally wanted to take my own Dad on Saturday for a slightly belated birthday dinner. The restaurant owner, who is of the loveliest, helpful and most welcoming type you can imagine, is having a three course takeaway meal prepared for us now, so that we can enjoy at least part of what their sumptuous weekend buffet has to offer without having to consume our food in a room full of people.
Not that I believe contracting SARS-CoV-2 right at this point is all that likely, the case numbers even here in North-Rhine Westphalia are still too low for that. But what I believe in are the accumulated effects of people’s behaviour. Science, mathematics and expert projections. Everything coming down to the inconvenient, unpleasant fact that every decision with potential to slow down the virus’s spread is a good decision and a responsible one.
Thus I’m still rather torn about the Lichtburg Essen’s decision to have their great Star Trek: Wrath of Khan screening on March 11th take place exactly as scheduled. (The theatre usually holds 1250 people but apparently managed to keep the audience under 1000 by cancelling evening ticket sales and not putting any returned tickets back into sale.) William Shatner, in his late eighties now and still very much William Shatner as you know, love, or hate him, is touring Europe with Wrath of Khan at the moment. Movie screening followed by extensive Q&A stage program.
The film, with its opening scenes taking place on Kirk’s birthday, is a wonderful film to see on your own birthday. Especially if you are someone like me for whom Star Trek has been there all their lives. (One of my earliest conscious memories of watching TV is a Star Trek one, my Dad was watching, I was about three years old and sitting next to him on the sofa.)
Cavendish and I had bought our tickets sometime last September, practically as soon as we had seen the event first announced. Very much looking foward to it and learning that, against all odds, Wrath of Khan would definitely take place, we decided to go (The ratio behind this being that it was just the two of us, and it would be several days before we would meet with any of our parents again.)
Wonderful evening, full of fun, excitement and the priceless experience of feeling like the Star Trek loving kid I once was all over again. But a lot of anxiety and scruples before and after.
To quote Mr. Spock: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Whatever you do, people,wherever you are, take care!ETA: It has just been publicly announced that all North-Rhine Westphalian schools are going to be closed down until the end of the Easter holidays, which means no school until April 17th. We are living in interesting times…
An awful lot of cooking
Jan. 27th, 2020 12:14 pmOur annual Burns Night supper, six guests, so altogether a group of eight. This year, Cavendish and I came up with the following menu:
My Heart is in the Highlands
~Traditional: The Skye Boat Song~
1st course: Traditional Cullen Skink
~Toast to the Lassies: Afton Water by Robert Burns~
2nd course: Black and white pudding and pan-fried scallops with pea and mint puree at the side.
~Traditional: Come by the Hills~
3rd course: Haggis with pumpkin, mixed vegetables and mash at the side
~Traditional: Loch Lomond~
4th course: Apple Crumble with blueberries (absolutely delicious and kindly provided by one of our guests)
~Auld Lang Syne: Sing Along ~
All in all an awful lot of cooking, since I did most of the food from scratch. (Well practically everything except the Haggis and puddings, which were store-bought.) Never having done the pea and mint puree, black pudding, scallop dish before, I was rather worried about it and also rather surprised how well it turned out.Almost a year without any proper entry
Jan. 15th, 2020 01:59 pmWhich is really a shame, because just like I recently mentioned in a conversation with kathyh , there is this weird feeling that the older I get, the more I would actually love to have some sort of account of both my fannish and real life, just to look back and marvel. ;)
So it’s probably high time for me to get back into journalling again! Hello to anyone still out there! :)
Current book: Amy Waldman, The Submission
Current or recently enjoyed shows: The Expanse S4, Lost in Space S2, The Crown, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel S3, Mindhunter, Doctor Who Series 12 (Though after seeing “Orphan 55″ I’ve decided to give up on the current series/showrunner and quit, because for my personal taste that was just one cringeworthy script too many, and I’m definitely not in the business of hate-watching.)
It seldom snows in north-western Rhineland, but the weather forecast says that it might, with the first flakes likely to fall around five o’clock this afternoon.
Current book: Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver.
Current shows: Only Star Trek: Discovery and A Series of Unfortunate Events, I’m afraid, since the latest seasons of other shows that I follow haven’t been released yet. (Or still aren’t $&/&!*** legally available in Germany. I’m looking at you, The Expanse.)Since Halloween is fast approaching
Oct. 18th, 2018 12:38 pmAnyone else watching The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix?
The show is a very smart, atmospherically intense reimagination of both the Robert Wise’s 1963 black and white genre classic The Haunting as well as the original Shirley Jackson novel.
Somewhat sceptical at first whether any modern day TV adaption could pull off the same level of psychological horror and deeply intense fright, I was soon taken in by the effective story telling (seemingly non-chronologic and elliptical, but in fact revealing itself to be perfectly concentric in a dark, twisted dream logic kind of way).
Also, intriguing characters, well-nuanced and coming with fascinating dynamics. (If you are familiar with their Robert Wise versions, names and depictions will be a sheer delight!)
The show’s ensemble cast is as female-dominated as it is superb.
Oh, and then there is that! cameo! Chilling and brilliant! Hell, yes, on so many levels! ;)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jul. 23rd, 2018 03:03 pmYeah, I know. But BimoDad and I have been watching the various Jurassic Park/ Jurassic World movies together ever since the first one came out back in 1993.Thus, no way we were going to miss this latest installment.
A few mostly spoiler-free observations:
- Pure popcorn entertainment and actually great fun, however offering very few surprises since the film displays exactly the same strengths and weaknesses as the previous one.
- Cookie cutter characters, but perfectly likeable, or, in case of the villains, properly despicable.
- Simply gorgeous dino animation, done in a way that really makes you care for these beasts.
- It totally escapes me why Fallen Kingdom’s rather obvious Frankenstein theme (all complete with Gothic mansion, thunder, and discussion of scientific ethics) doesn’t show up in reviews. (I’ve read various ones, none of them cared to mention it.) Fallen Kingdom is Frankenstein, as much as one of its predecessors, The Lost World, was King Kong.
- Oh, and I couldn’t help smiling about the scenes showing Chris Pratt’s character raising young Velociraptor Blue. So reminiscent of training Little Jasper. ;)
