5 things, miscellaneous brain dump edition

[truepenny]

1. Happy Fourth of July! Also, belatedly, happy Canada Day!

2. I was very sad to discover that Edward Hardwicke died this May. He was my favorite Dr. Watson, and he was astonishingly excellent in Sir Ian McKellen's Richard III. It's obvious from reading what he says about Jeremy Brett, just on the IMDb page, and then reading what Brett had to say about him (and I am still sad, sixteen years on, that the world now lacks Jeremy Brett), that he was a lovely human being and that the friendship he and Brett show between Holmes and Watson was also part of their real-life relationship.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hardwicke. And thank you.

3. And a quote from Jeremy Brett on playing Sherlock Holmes: "I'm so miscast; I'm a romantic-heroic actor. So I was terribly aware that I had to hide an awful lot of me, and in so doing I think I look quite often brusque, or maybe sometimes even slightly rude. In fact Dame Jean Conan Doyle, Doyle's daughter, who's a great personal friend of mine, did once say to me, 'I don't think my father meant You-Know-Who to be quite so rude', and I said, 'I'm terribly sorry, Dame Jean, I'm just trying to hide me'."

4. So, after fifteen years of living in this piece of the Upper Midwest, mirrorthaw and I have finally started exploring its natural wonders, starting with the state parks. The bit of it I want to blog about is, in one of the state parks, there's a pine plantation--i.e., planted by someone who intended to harvest the trees for lumber. (The park information is very carefully passive voice, so it's hard to tell quite how we ended up with a pine plantation in a state park.) Walking from the mostly oak forest into the pine plantation was one of the more eerie experiences I've had recently. Because, you see, the thing about pine plantations is that they kill all the other vegetation. No smaller trees, no bushes. No Virginia creeper, no grape vines, no mayflowers or ferns. No animals. No birds. Just these tall, straight trees, and a carpet of dead pine needles. And the mosquitoes who followed us in.

It'll probably get into a story eventually, but in the meantime, it's this odd lump of experience like an inclusion in quartz.

5. There's nothing like disgusting humid sweltering heat to make Catzilla feel snuggly.

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

I think it might have been a while since Dame Jean last re-read the Holmes stories. *g*

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Fer instance, here are the very first lines of the novel, The Valley of Fear:
__________________

"I am inclined to think—" said I.

"I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.

I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. "Really, Holmes," said I severely, "you are a little trying at times."

He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate answer to my remonstrance.
_________________

Oh, Watson, poor dear. It's a dysfunctional relationship. I could give you a prosthetic spine, but I think you're too far gone for that.

[anidawehi.livejournal.com]

I thought you might like to know... I'm writing my short story essay for my English Composition II class on your story "After the Dragon." It's a beautifully written story and I knew right away that it was the story I wanted to use. If, for some reason, you would like to read it just let me know and I'll be happy to email it to you!

Either way, thank you so much for sharing it with us all!

[pameladean]

Oh, Wisconsin has some amazing state parks.

There are various logging-company plantations in a bunch of Minnesota State Parks, too. In many cases, once the current batch of intentional trees are logged, the park gets to have the land and restore it to whatever it was like before. I don't know how such arrangements come about.

P.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Koshka, the late Black Cat of Chaos, was never so snuggly as when it was 90F and 80% humidity.

[libskrat]

Yep, I believe I've been to the park you mention.

Could be worse. They coulda harvested the thing. When we were in Scotland we saw clearcut pine plantations. Horrible.

[wl551.livejournal.com]

#4 reminded me of when I was a kid; every year for six years, I spent a week at church camp. One of the things I remember vividly and fondly is a section of woods near the cabins. I loved that place the best. All the trees were beautiful old white pines tall enough to walk under. (the lower branches might've been cut, I can't remember that detail.) But I remember the hush. The soft, cushion-y ground covered in inches of fallen needles. The crisp smell of evergreen. I would often wander off into that woods during my stays there. I've wished many times I could go back there or find some place similar. :)

[sillylilly-bird.livejournal.com]

re #5, the summer of '95, that long HOT HOT HOT summer when I was still living in that rooming house on Mifflin with just a fan and 8 foot windows, my first cat Ninja spent nights curled up in my armpit as I was sprawled in front of the fan spreadeagled. She did have the option of sprawling on the cool linoleum in the kitchen, but apparently my armpits were the choicer option.....

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Andrew Hardwicke was a splendid man and a fine actor, and we will miss him. Jeremy Brett's first wife, the luminous Anna Massey, died yesterday, too. I grew up with her as one of our brightest British stars: we are losing more and more of that generation and I grieve for it. (Looks pointedly and worriedly in the direction of the peerless John Hurt.)