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Dec. 30th, 2023 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Super's Wife aka Monica vs. the Package Thieves Take III
If you've been following this? Probably not. I'll catch you up. To date, Monica has fended off a thief with a gun. Called the cops - testified against them, only to see them let go. Posted security photos of them in the entry-way. Posted them on the internet. Only to have one of them threaten her with a gun. Then she began hiding the packages in her apartment, or in containers - like an automaton. She even takes pictures of them.
Latest? She came around the apartment complex with laryngitis tonight, with her eight year old son in tow - to tell everyone not to buzz anyone in. To instead go downstairs and ensure it is actually Amazon or a delivery person, if they are expecting a package. That three thieves have come in three times to steal, and they look like Amazon delivery folks.
Amazon now sends people who take the packages to the doors, and take pictures of the packages - showing they've been delivered.
I'm thinking we should up our game like a few folks in the neighborhood have, and fill packages with junk or trash, wrap them up and make it look like they contain expensive merchandise. Or we could give them poison.
If I were the super, I'd invest in pepper spray, and spray the thieves in the face with it. Blind them for life.
2. Rather liked what John Scalzi said about pre-1920s literature:
Most of 19th century English language literature is a rough ride for me because it jars my brain. The words are the same but the sentences and paragraphs don’t hang together right for me, and it’s not really until the 1920s that language usage snaps into a form I can flow through, instead of feeling it chug in my head. This is, I assure you, a me problem. Neither Austen nor any of the rest of the 19th Century English language literary world needed to take my preferences into account, not least because I would not even exist until well into the second half of the 20th Century. Austen was a fantastic writer. Just not so much for me.
With the exception of Jane Austen (which I did barrel through with delight) and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, I feel more or less the same way.
Proof, we all think differently, I guess. I'm willing to work to get to the story - but I have my limits.
3. Saw Saltburn today, and kind of fell asleep during it. So had to rewind. I found it hard to follow. It's partly because the film is very dark - and a great deal of it appears to be filmed at night or in shadows.
It's also filmed in square box format not letterbox.
Emerald Fernnel, who wrote and directed Promising Young Woman, has written another biting satire that borrows heavily from Patricia Highsmith, in particular The Talented Mr. Ripley. That novel has been adapted numerous times now by filmmakers - making me wonder about them. It's being adapted yet again into a mini-series, by someone, can't remember who.
Saltburn is about a middle-class Oxford student, who is kind of mundane, not overly attractive or popular. Oliver. But he is rather clever. And he becomes enamored of the rather attractive, charming, and exceedingly wealthy Felix. Who he manages to attach himself to, and become friends with, to the extent that Felix invites him home for the summer to his family's sprawling country estate, Saltburn.
Since we're in Patricia Highsmith territory or "satire" - no one is likable in the movie. Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, and Barry Keogugh are knowable stars. It's also hard to tell what is going on at times, because of how it is shot, and how dark the film is - it may work better in the theater, because of this. ("You have to see my movie in a dark theater, because I shot it mainly at night and in shadows!")
I'm not a big fan of Highsmith or this sort of satire (mainly because I care more about characters than plot), but I will give the director/writer credit for being subtle, along Highsmith. The satire is not over the top, and more subtly biting than most. In this regard, I'd say it's better than the Menu, and more in line with say, White Lotus or Talented Mr. Ripley.
4. Been having issues with my sinuses of late. But not badly enough for it to be a cold, I think residual allergies.
Mother called in tears today - turns out one of her close and dear friends who had been previously diagnosed with ALS, has fourth stage lung cancer. Mother is losing her friends, many to cancer, and alzheimers. And it's painful.
If you've been following this? Probably not. I'll catch you up. To date, Monica has fended off a thief with a gun. Called the cops - testified against them, only to see them let go. Posted security photos of them in the entry-way. Posted them on the internet. Only to have one of them threaten her with a gun. Then she began hiding the packages in her apartment, or in containers - like an automaton. She even takes pictures of them.
Latest? She came around the apartment complex with laryngitis tonight, with her eight year old son in tow - to tell everyone not to buzz anyone in. To instead go downstairs and ensure it is actually Amazon or a delivery person, if they are expecting a package. That three thieves have come in three times to steal, and they look like Amazon delivery folks.
Amazon now sends people who take the packages to the doors, and take pictures of the packages - showing they've been delivered.
I'm thinking we should up our game like a few folks in the neighborhood have, and fill packages with junk or trash, wrap them up and make it look like they contain expensive merchandise. Or we could give them poison.
If I were the super, I'd invest in pepper spray, and spray the thieves in the face with it. Blind them for life.
2. Rather liked what John Scalzi said about pre-1920s literature:
Most of 19th century English language literature is a rough ride for me because it jars my brain. The words are the same but the sentences and paragraphs don’t hang together right for me, and it’s not really until the 1920s that language usage snaps into a form I can flow through, instead of feeling it chug in my head. This is, I assure you, a me problem. Neither Austen nor any of the rest of the 19th Century English language literary world needed to take my preferences into account, not least because I would not even exist until well into the second half of the 20th Century. Austen was a fantastic writer. Just not so much for me.
With the exception of Jane Austen (which I did barrel through with delight) and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, I feel more or less the same way.
Proof, we all think differently, I guess. I'm willing to work to get to the story - but I have my limits.
3. Saw Saltburn today, and kind of fell asleep during it. So had to rewind. I found it hard to follow. It's partly because the film is very dark - and a great deal of it appears to be filmed at night or in shadows.
It's also filmed in square box format not letterbox.
Emerald Fernnel, who wrote and directed Promising Young Woman, has written another biting satire that borrows heavily from Patricia Highsmith, in particular The Talented Mr. Ripley. That novel has been adapted numerous times now by filmmakers - making me wonder about them. It's being adapted yet again into a mini-series, by someone, can't remember who.
Saltburn is about a middle-class Oxford student, who is kind of mundane, not overly attractive or popular. Oliver. But he is rather clever. And he becomes enamored of the rather attractive, charming, and exceedingly wealthy Felix. Who he manages to attach himself to, and become friends with, to the extent that Felix invites him home for the summer to his family's sprawling country estate, Saltburn.
Since we're in Patricia Highsmith territory or "satire" - no one is likable in the movie. Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, and Barry Keogugh are knowable stars. It's also hard to tell what is going on at times, because of how it is shot, and how dark the film is - it may work better in the theater, because of this. ("You have to see my movie in a dark theater, because I shot it mainly at night and in shadows!")
I'm not a big fan of Highsmith or this sort of satire (mainly because I care more about characters than plot), but I will give the director/writer credit for being subtle, along Highsmith. The satire is not over the top, and more subtly biting than most. In this regard, I'd say it's better than the Menu, and more in line with say, White Lotus or Talented Mr. Ripley.
4. Been having issues with my sinuses of late. But not badly enough for it to be a cold, I think residual allergies.
Mother called in tears today - turns out one of her close and dear friends who had been previously diagnosed with ALS, has fourth stage lung cancer. Mother is losing her friends, many to cancer, and alzheimers. And it's painful.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 04:45 am (UTC)The writers I struggle the most with are Henry Fielding, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Fenimoore Cooper, Wilkie, and that lot. Edith Wharton - a bit less so. Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson - a bit as well, but not to the same degree. Twain - was much easier going.
Slang though can be tough going for works from roughly 1900-1960. But, as a writer - you kind of have to use slang to get across the natural cadence of speech. I mean people do not talk formerly to each other. They use slang and abbreviate words. And that's how most of us think.