Snerf argle honk blargh

[cleolinda]

A thought that welled up in my feverish brain sometime last night while I couldn't sleep due to repeated doses of Tylenol Sinus: What, exactly, is a podcast? And what makes it a podcast rather than just, you know, something with people talking that you downloaded online? Urban Dictionary to the rescue. Sort of. ("Trend whore for 'streaming audio,'" "An online audio blog, made by people who typically sound like slightly camp nerds who most likely have no lives," "Another example of Apple trying to brand everything with their name. It's a fucking MP3. Nothing more." So I shouldn't do one, is what you're saying?)

(I'm kidding. If I'm not doing one--right now, at least--it's because I'm drowning in phlegm. Although I did notice that the Zen Nano apparently has recorder capabilities.)

Anyway, I spent all night reading because I couldn't sleep at all. Like, at all. Like, "I finally dozed off at six this morning and slept like a dead thing until noon." At which point I woke up with a fever. Yay. Finished Queen Isabella, which posits not only that Isabella and Mortimer didn't have Edward II killed up the ass with a red-hot poker (I am being totally serious, y'all. This is how most people assume he died), but that they didn't have him killed at all, because he didn't die. Alison Weir makes a pretty good case for the theory that Edward escaped from captivity, and the porter he killed on his way out was buried in his name to cover up that he was on the loose (therefore making sure no one started a new revolution around him), and that Edward himself was so broken by the whole revolt/abdication experience that he went into hiding as a hermit, and may have met with his son Edward III one last time before dying quietly in obscurity. The one thing I would call Weir on is a late, offhand declaration that "Edward [II] wasn't interested in women anyway," after she spent the beginning of the book establishing that he was very likely bisexual, since he did, after all, manage to have not just an heir, or even an heir and a spare, but four children by Isabella.

Anyhoo. I likes me some royal biographies. The next one I started in on was David Starkey's Six Wives, because apparently I am incapable of getting my fill of Tudors. I think my fascination with the Tudors is more about medieval/renaissance court culture than anything; it's just that there's a lot more documentation still extant on the Tudor period as opposed to, say, the court of Aquitaine, as you see when Weir's Eleanor bio devolves into a history of her sons' reigns for lack of information about Eleanor herself. But after Six Wives I'm probably moving on to the Sin City collection, or try to take a stab at the piles of Pratchett and Gregory Maguire I got for Christmas as well.

More fragmented thoughts:

An electric kettle! That's what I want! (Thank you to the umpteen thousand people who responded, particularly those in Britain who let me know that to be without one is like being naked in the wilderness, to which I can only say that I am used to drinking "the house wine of the South"--unsweetened, ironically.)

Another "Year in Pictures" feature, this time from the NY Times.

sigma7: "Slate on how "Lazy Sunday" might save rap. Double true!" (Heh: "If you haven't seen Saturday Night Live's Chronicles of Narnia rap, then you don't have any friends.")

A little about-the-author footnote to that article: "Josh Levin explained why bloggers are like rappers and wrote a guide to managing your entourage." (I'm going to have to take deep exception to his claim, no matter how tongue-in-cheek, in that first article that "women can't win an audience in either profession without raunching it up like Lil' Kim or Wonkette." If you don't know good female bloggers who don't have to wallow in "lewdness and vulgarity," to take an assist from the American Heritage, maybe you don't have friends either you're not really looking for anything but raunch in the first place.

Calling-card shorts now mostly a long shot. Summary: Blah blah my Star Wars fan film didn't make me a famous director wah. Interesting, though, for one sentence tucked inside: "Peter Cornwell, an Australian sound man, spent years crafting 'Ward 13,' a 14-minute short about a man waking up in an insane asylum, trying to break free, facing all sorts of bad guys. With the idea of crafting a calling card, Cornwell began constructing the figurines and sets in his bedroom, and when the project expanded, he started moving pieces and construction into his friends' homes. His hard work paid off when, in November, he was hired to direct 'The Dionaea House,' a horror thriller that Harry Potter producer David Heyman is producing for Warner Bros. Pictures." The door is open, y'all.

Comments

[arayuldaiel.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, a Dionaea House movie? There's no way I could see that without, like, five of my friends on each side of me. At 3:00 in the afternoon.

And I think I'm more amused by the fact that the Wiki article on sweet tea is linked to an article about grits than I really should be.

[pinstripe-bindi.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. I'm gonna HAVE to read Queen Isabella now. I mean, I probably would have anyway, because I likes me some Alison Weir, but that's an awfully compelling synopsis.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know it was possible to exist without an electric kettle.

[kira002.livejournal.com]

Finished Queen Isabella, which posits not only that Isabella and Mortimer didn't have Edward II killed up the ass with a red-hot poker (I am being totally serious, y'all. This is how most people assume he died), but that they didn't have him killed at all, because he didn't die. Alison Weir makes a pretty good case for the theory that Edward escaped from captivity, and the porter he killed on his way out was buried in his name to cover up that he was on the loose (therefore making sure no one started a new revolution around him), and that Edward himself was so broken by the whole revolt/abdication experience that he went into hiding as a hermit, and may have met with his son Edward III one last time before dying quietly in obscurity. The one thing I would call Weir on is a late, offhand declaration that "Edward [II] wasn't interested in women anyway," after she spent the beginning of the book establishing that he was very likely bisexual, since he did, after all, manage to have not just an heir, or even an heir and a spare, but four children by Isabella.

Holy Whoa! So there's another book to go on the reading list...

[bardintraining.livejournal.com]

Jay-zus. I was just thinking about the Dionaea House last night, for the first time since--well, Hallowe'en.
*glances around*
I'd go see that movie, despite my inability to cope with horror movies in any sensible way. Again, probably already previously stated at some point that horror movies tend to make me drive with my eyes closed in fear of supernatural repercussions from looking where I'm going...

[perrie.livejournal.com]

If you're into the Tudor stuff, have you ever tried Phillipa Gregory's 'The Other Boleyn Girl'? She's got about six books all set in the Tudor period. It is fiction rather than biographies, but her eye for detail is amazing.

[pistolharris.livejournal.com]

YES! They're making The Dionea House into a movie! Took them long enough. They'd better not screw it up, because that gave me the major creeps and it'd make an awesomely scary movie.

Brrr.

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

One of my finest childhood memories is of Ian McKellan as Edward II. Well, I say 'finest'. One of the ones that scarred me for life. But that's nothing to what happened to Edward, eh?

[the_powerlines.livejournal.com]

I'm a few chapters into Queen Isabella right now. Big Alison Weir fan, and a huge Tudor nerd as well. My latest descent into nerd-dom was a coffee mug with the pictures of Henry VIII and his six wives on it (and when you put hot liquid in the mug, the wives disappear). It's a fascinating time period.

I've read Starkey's Six Wives and was really pleased with it; I think that it is, on the whole, more balanced than Weir's take. For some reason Alison Weir has a real hate-on for Anne Boleyn that I could never really figure out.

[the_powerlines.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really like The Other Boleyn Girl too. Completely stretched as far as actual historical information goes, of course, and pretty worthless if you're looking for a scholarly read, but really fun. I love her characterization of the Boleyns.

[emerybored.livejournal.com]

Two things:

Also in the Tudor historical fiction-but-really-good category: The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George.

Don't forget to take something with guaifenesin in it, like Robitussin or Non-Drying Sudafed. It'll keep that phlegm moving. Trust me on this. I am currently suffering as well (started as cedar allergies, turned into cold, turned into bronchitis/sinusitis). My personal magic combo: chlortrimeton, non-drying sudafed, a couple of advil.

I hope you feel better soon!

[rorqual.livejournal.com]

That exact electric kettle was reccomended to me by a guy I know who has one. He's the kind of guy who reads nine million reviews and consumer reports things before he buys anything that plugs in, so not only can he say he loves it, but he can speak with unerring authority in saying that it is awesome. So, there you go.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

re electric kettle - one of the funniest critiques I read about HP:GOF was how unrealistic it was that the groundskeeper in the houe at the beginning didn't have one - Everyone in the UK has one!

Whereas we go in for funky looking high-tech manual kettles :D (yeah, I have one too)

MMMMM house wine of the south! Once MrVoodoo introduced me to it, I order it all the time!

Oooh 'The Dionaea House' is gonna be made!

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

P.S. Have ordered new Weir book. Will join the rest of my 20/30/way too many historical biographies.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I'm actually not surprised at all, since it turned out that the DH writer was a screenwriter in the first place. Well, a little surprised that it did, in fact, get picked up... I'm going to go lie down now.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

The interesting thing is that I had actually read the Marlowe play "Edward II" for a class a couple years back, and it was basically about the hot poker story. Which is why Isabella is apparently totally reviled in England (which I didn't know, because: American). Or at least by people who know their history.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

You know, I have that one--I got it last Christmas and haven't read it yet. There's a reason my top New Year's resolution is "Read more books."

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Wasn't he Richard III? Or--wait, did you see him in the theater in the Marlowe play?

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I've just started the Starkey Boleyn section, and the only Weir book I've read on Henry VIII is the "Court of" book (which I love) so I can't really compare yet. Thinking back... yeah, it probably isn't a flattering portrait of Anne. But Weir does say that Anne was pretty clearly framed on the whole incest thing, at least. I always got the feeling from her portrayal in that book that Anne was a bitch on wheels, if that's what you mean, but that's kind of why I like her. I mean, how many years did she lead Henry around on a string? Respect, yo.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I know that what I'm taking has the guanihoohah in it because I saw the word on the box and went, "The hell?" In fact, the phlegm moving is one of the things currently driving me batshit, but I know it's the only way I'll get rid of it.

(I keep getting recommended the George book--I'll have to get that.)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

I'm just thrilled that she wrote about someone other than the Tudor family, because I *would* have bought whatever she wrote, but this way I get to branch out. ; )

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

So true! Right now, my shelves look like I have a rather unhealthy obsession with the Tudors :D

Is this an American thing? Because it scares me.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

That's basically what I was thinking. I read the joy on Cleo's journal and wondered what she had been living with until now. Sticks and matches then holding the water cupped in her hands above the resulting open flame?

Re: Is this an American thing? Because it scares me.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Mountain Dew, basically.

[sweetle.livejournal.com]

I second the rec for The Other Boleyn Girl and Philippa Gregory's other stuff. And wheee, more books to add to my list at the library. I went through a phase ages ago where I read through a whole bunch of Jean Plaidy's books and have been hooked on British royalty ever since.

Re: electric kettles -- I was amazed last time I was in England, with a couple American friends, because they were so impressed by the idea of electric kettles and they're so common up here in Canada. How else do university students make soup in their dorm rooms, for one thing?