life update

[rushthatspeaks]

I am sitting surrounded by various Christmas detritus: wrapping paper, the boxes of Japanese sweets that were in everybody's stockings, packages for presents, twists of ribbon. I'm between the tree (which has a figure of Kaworu from Evangelion at the top) and the stockings, of which there are eight: me, wife, weirdquark, Thrud, Thrud's Dad, the two cats, Thrud's beloved fish. There are piles of pomegranates and nuts on the table. Electric candles in the windows.

It feels good.

It's really the first time this household has done Christmas; usually people scatter to their separate parents or extendeds, and last year we were in Europe, and Thrud has never been home for Christmas before. We may have gone slightly overboard, but I don't think so. We trimmed the tree with origami, instead of buying ornaments; this is not only very decorative but solves the age-old problem of what to do with origami after having folded it. I think we will get a box and put the origami ornaments in it, and throughout the year when I fold something I will put it into the box, and then next time we want a tree we can take it out and go through and replace anything that has gotten squished. And the stockings were made of things around the house already. And I have only had one catastrophic baking failure, although it was pretty dire.

Household and Thrud's Dad went to Sweeney Todd, and I enjoyed it a great deal; certainly Burton's best work in a long while, although I was slightly dubious about Johnny Depp's hair. Thrud, however, loved it. *Loved* it loved it. Those of you who know Thrud will understand that I am therefore expecting that I shall have both the score and the movie memorized within a couple of months via a process of osmosis, especially since she has set herself to learning the songs. Therefore I both enjoyed it and am quite glad, independently, that I enjoyed it. Certainly not a movie for those without a high tolerance for violence, however. (I have already recced it to the boyfriend.)

And that is pretty much that, except that I haven't been doing much productive because of the business of the holiday and a slight touch of Mongolian Death Sinus. Hopefully I will be able to get back to writing productively fairly soon: as soon as I stop sounding like a goth poet when I breathe.

Comments

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

I loved Sweeney. I went and got the soundtrack today.

[ryenna.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about the baking disaster. I almost had one of my own but it's amazing what one can do with a cast iron skillet.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I tried a recipe that involved two risings of the dough, and I think something went wonky during the second rising, because the whole thing suddenly smelled like beer. Granted I had left it longer than it said, because the first rising took twice the length of time necessary and then rose, but it still went to smelling of beer faster than I think was really reasonable; I think I blame the fact that due to Christmas lights it is about eighty degrees in here. Anyway, I made up a preliminary batch using only some of the dough, and it tasted like ick, so I threw the rest of the dough out.

Sigh.

[ryenna.livejournal.com]

Ah well. I have not been brave enough to face yeast yet, though I really want to make a bread with nuts rolled into it that my mother usually makes. It scares me though, as she always fusses over it.

[sovay]

I remain dubious that I will love Burton's Sweeney Todd because I love the musical (which is more like an opera; at the very least an operetta—regardless of its precise taxonomy, it is one of my favorite and important anythings that involve music), but I do keep hearing from people how much they enjoyed it, so I will probably give it a chance before it disappears.

May you get over your consumption soon.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

We Netflixed and watched the DVD of the George Hearn-Angela Lansbury Broadway production the day after seeing the Burton movie.

I have to say, I like the Burton movie better in almost every particular, which surprised me. The changes they made made sense to me; the thing I was most uncertain about really was Johnny Depp's hair. That and the opening credits, which are maybe a tad too Grand Guignol for right off the bat. But it's still an opera.

Depp plays a different Sweeney than Hearn did, a very withdrawn one, almost catatonic with flashes of occasional sudden brilliance and charm. More inflicted damage, less natural sociopath. And Helena Bonham Carter, whom I had thought was probably too young, really lives up to her part: I prefer Angela Lansbury, but it's not a preference based on objective quality. (I was uncertain about Bonham Carter's hair too, and then I saw that it was taken directly from the stage show.) And the subsidiary parts-- Toby, the young lovers-- were I thought no question better in the movie; stage Joanna made me want to throw things at her, and movie Toby benefits from actually being about twelve. (The tenor had a better look in the stage version, though, like something swiped out of Gilbert and Sullivan. Such a creature could not I think exist at all in a Burton cosmos, however.)

Alan Rickman was slightly underutilized but still awesome.

They cut the chorus narrations in the movie, but I understood why: Burton was going for a naturalistic representation of events in a stylized cosmos, rather than a penny-dreadful version of events in a naturalistic cosmos, so breaking the fourth wall would not have worked at all. As it is, everyone just sings for so much of the time that you don't wonder whether they ought to be talking the way you do with many modern attempts at musicals.

I do not know what you will think of the movie having a love of the stage version, and I don't know whether you know a different version of the stage show better; but we watched them in the order we did because we were expecting the film to compare poorly with the stage and wanted to maximize enjoyment of both, and we were rather surprised to find our opinions the other way round.

[shahnasa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the details on Sweeney Todd. I'm a Burton and Depp lover, and my friends down here like it, but I don't have much of a stomach for violence. I may wait for it on DVD, when I can easily fast-forward those parts, or just leave the room.