#not to sound like a snob but i promise there's better literature out there

[lazylittledragon]

i don't think ANY franchise should be considered good or revolutionary enough to be able to put aside blatant antisemitism/racism/queerphobia/etc etc ETC but harry potter is absolutely NOT it

[clairecrive]

“Great expectations”- modern!Alfie Solomons x reader imagine

The lovely @kingarthurscat​ requested this imagine with the prompt “ you better have a very good reason for waking me up at four in the morning.” with Alfie. Thanks again for the request honey, I had a lot of fun writing this! Hope you like it! 

I haven’t proofread it so I’m sorry if there are any mistakes. Oh and btw, everything mentioned is true. 

As always, feedback and requests are always appreciated!

Tag list: @mollybegger-blog​ (let me know if you wanna be added)

“No way!” you whispered excitedly at what you had discovered.

It never occurred to you that you can literally find anything on the internet. And by anything you mean, the endless content about your latest obsession, whatever it was. You had always been passionate about literature and learned as much as you could about the little things of authors’ lives.

You couldn’t put into words the joy and the bliss you felt whenever you learned something, completely useless academically, but that gave you a better insight about the author personality all the same. For example, lately, you had discovered that Lord Byron vaccinated his children against cowpox or that he named his dog smut which you found incredibly funny seeing that nowadays the word is used to describe scenes of sexual natures, which surprisingly fits perfectly with Byron’s lifestyle. Or that one time Shelly wrote a letter to Keats worried about Byron’s mysterious disappearance and then wrote a follow-up letter in which he explained that the Lord had almost died of dehydration and malnutrition because he was too engaged in other activities, if you what I mean. Keat’s answer was the best thing though, he basically told Shelly that he should have left him there. The three most famous poets argued like petty girls in high school and you loved it!

Not to mention all the stuff you learned about Greek Mythology and Etymology which were somehow deeply related.

However, what sent you into pure bliss as of right now was the sudden realisation that no one really knew about author’s voices, which sounds like an obvious thing but somehow that never occurred to you. No one knew about Byron’s or Keat’s or even Plato’s voices. What if they had a funny voice? Or like a lift or something? Wouldn’t be absolutely ironic if someone like Plato who is so snob and racist have a shrill, high-pitched voice? That would be karma’s doing but much to your dismay there was absolutely no way to know. Imagine how upsetting it would be to find out that someone like Lord Byron whose name alone is enough to send you shivers and was able to be a token of his status, who you had always thought to have a very deep, husky voice that it must have been one of the reasons why people of both sexes found him so irresistible had instead a strident or thin voice? That would be mindblowing. As it was the fact that if Oscar Wilde had lived just a little longer maybe we would have registrations of his voice. How cool would that be?

This were the little things you lived for. It’s unusual, you’re aware of that. For that reason, you had always been very careful in sharing this interest with the people in your life. Some of them shared the same excitement, to your surprise; others didn’t really care for it but usually smiled politely just not to upset you. You’d always understand when someone was on your same wavelength but were grateful nonetheless that you were lucky enough to have supportive people in your life that even if they found you weird were kind enough not to tell you.

When you first started dating Alfie, you never really let him on this unusual hobby you had. Sure, he knew about your love for literature and reading but that was it. It was only after the first month that you had gradually initiated him to it to see what his reaction was. At first, you justified your discoveries by saying that your teacher had said them or that you had read them in the book you were studying, which sometimes was the truth. Letting him know that that was exactly what you spent your free time doing and sometimes even the time you should be sleeping or studying was a whole other thing.

Over the dates you had been to, you had found out that Alfie was quite the intellectual. Despite his rough exterior he had read his fair share of books and was very passionate about literature. That was one of the things that had attracted you to him, to be honest. Your head was saying that you should go ahead and share this new piece of information you had found casually, without making it too much of a thing. If he wasn’t as excited by it as you were then in the worst-case scenario you wouldn’t share those kinds of things with him anymore and in the best case, he’d enjoy hearing it just because he loved you and he would appreciate every little thing you shared with him. Just like you’d listen to him complain about work problems or over the difference between rum and bread which apparently wasn’t discussed.

So tonight, you let your enthusiasm carry you away and called him to share the realisation that had hit you. Currently, Alfie was in the USA for business reasons. Something about making a deal with a potential partner which would allow him to expand his rum overseas. However, that didn’t register to you until you were met with his sleepy grunt and the blackness of his room.

“Y/N?” his raspy voice was the only thing you could hear along the sounds of him shifting in the sheets. When he called you last time he had told you that he would leave his phone on so that whatever happened you could call him. He wasn’t expecting you to actually do it though.

“Oh shoot. I forgot about the time difference Alfie, I’m sorry. Go back to sleep, this can wait until later.” you quickly apologised

“What is it?” he ignored you and moved around so that he could turn on the light on his bedside table.

“It’s really nothing babe, I’m sorry. I got carried away from the excitement and forgot you were in the States.”

“Well now I’m up, ain’t I? So you better have a very good reason for waking me up at four in the morning,” he said rubbing the sleep from his eyes finally letting you see his face. Gosh, how could he be so handsome when he literally just woke up? You really were lucky.

“So, I was wasting my time on the internet like I usually do until I came across a post that left me shook.” you started explaining

“So far this doesn’t seem like a good reason to wake me, love,” he muttered but you could see it from his eyes that he didn’t really mean it. To be fair, only the fact that he didn’t tell you to go to hell and actually was ready to hear you out got him the “best boyfriend of the year” award.

“It wasn’t a normal post, Alfie. Hear me out. Have you ever thought about how we have never listened to the voice of the most famous poets of all times?” Now it was out and it was time to study his reaction.

“That- well I’ve never thought about it pet. That’s weird, innit?” The gods were smiling upon you and had graced you with the most fantastic human being in the whole world. He had actually stopped to think about it before answering you and had a face of utter surprise just like you had when you first read the post.

“You know what’s even more mind-blowing? The fact that if Oscar Wilde had lived a little longer we would have known his voice? Now how cool would it have been?!” By now you weren't sure anymore if your enthusiasm was for the fact itself or for how much you loved and appreciated the man laying on a bed on the other side of the planet.

“Fuck, that really would have been cool. Is it because he died in the 1900s?” he asked engaged with the conversation just as much as you were.

“Yes! I did a little research, right? And I found out that first gramophones were being patented in that time. So ten years or so later and now we would have known his voice. What an unfortunate series of coincidences.” you shared his feelings and what you learned with him.

“What?” you asked when you noticed that he was staring intently at you without saying anything. He had a little smile on his face and the intensity of his gaze was actually starting to make you feel self-conscious.

“You really are a geek, aren’t you love?” he asked and it was one of those rare times where the word was told with affection and not with scorn.

“I guess so.” you timidly admit. Love wasn’t the only thing you could see in his eyes, there was also a lot of tiredness.

“I love you, Alfie, thank you for listening to me even if I interrupted your beauty sleep.”

“Don’t even say it, love, you can always count on me. Even if it’s to share something like that at four in the morning.” he snickered lightly but behind his words was the unspoken promise that whatever it was you could share everything with him and that almost made you cry of happiness.

“Well, I promise I won’t do it again. I mean the four am part. Go to sleep baby, I’ll see you tomorrow right?” you softly said.

“You will pet. Goodnight, well I guess it’s a good morning now. I love you.” his sweet words were the last one you exchanged before hanging up.

Well, that had gone way better than your greatest expectations.

[ryanmeft]

Ryan’s Favorite Films of 2019

A stuttering detective,

A top hat-wearing vamp

A forced-perspective war,

A bit of Blaxploitation camp

Prisoners on a space ship

Having sex with bears

A writer goes remembering

Whenever his pain flares

  A prancing, dancing Hitler

A gambler high on strife

Here will go cavorting with

A mom who becomes a wife

A family plot with many threads

Three men against their own

A stuntman and his actor

A mobster now quite alone

Doubles under the earth

Two men in a tall house

Are here to watch a woman who

Is battling with her spouse

A family’s plans for their strong son

Go awry one night

A man rejects his country

Which is spoiling for a fight

 A house built by his grandpa

(Maybe; we’re not sure)

Looks out upon three prisoners

Whose passions are a lure

  All these are on my list this year

It’s longer than before

Because picking only ten this time

Was too great of a chore

  What are limits anyway?

They’re just things we invented

I don’t really find them useful

So, this year, I’ve dissented

  You may have noticed this time out

That numbers, I did grant

Promise they’ll stay in this order, though?

Now that, I just can’t

  I’m always changing my mind

Because, after all, you see

Good film is about the heart

And mine’s rather finicky

  There are a lot more I could name

(And I’ll change my mind at any time)

For now, though, consider these

The ones I found sublime

 20. Motherless Brooklyn

I’ve got a (hard-boiled) soft spot for 90’s neo-noirs like L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West and Seven, and Edward Norton’s ‘50’s take on Jonathan Lethem’s 90’s -set novel can stand firmly in that company.

19. Doctor Sleep

There’s something about Stephen King’s best writing that transcends mere popularity; his work may not be fine literature, but it is immune to the fads of the moment. So, too, are the best movies based on that work. This one, an engaging adventure-horror, deserved better than it got from audiences.

18. Jojo Rabbit

There was a time when the anything-goes satire of Mel Brooks could produce a major box office hit.  Disney’s prudish refusal to market the film coupled with the dominance of franchises means that’s no longer the case. If you bothered to give Jojo a shot, though, you got the strange-but-rewarding experience of guffawing one moment and being horrified the next.

17. By The Grace of God

I’d venture this is the least-seen film on my list; even among us brie-eating, wine-sniffing art house snobs, I rarely hear it mentioned. Focusing on the perspectives of three men dealing with a particularly heinous and unrepentant abusive priest and the hierarchy that protects him, it’s every bit as disquieting and infuriating as 2015’s Oscar-winning Spotlight.

16. Waves

You think Trey Edward Shultz’s Waves will be one thing---a domestic drama about an affluent African-American family (and that in and of itself is a rarity). Then it becomes something else entirely. It addresses something movies often avoid: that as life goes on, the person telling the story will always change.

15. Transit

You’re better off not questioning exactly where and when the film is set (it is based on a book about Nazi Germany but has been changed to be a more generalized Fascist state). The central theme here is identity, as three people change theirs back and forth based on need and desire.

14. American Woman

Movies about regular, working class, small-town American usually focus on men. This one is about a much-too-young mother and grandmother, played brilliantly by Sierra Miller, dealing with unexpected loss and the attendant responsibilities she isn’t ready for. 

13. Marriage Story

There is an argument between a married couple in here that is as true a human moment as ever was on screen---free of trumped-up screenplay drama and accurate to how angry people really argue. The entire movie strives to be about the kind of realistic divorce you don’t see on-screen. It is oddly refreshing.

12. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to 70’s Tinseltown is essentially a question: What if the murder that changed the industry forever had gone down differently? Along the way, it also manages to be a clever and insightful study of fame and fulfillment, or lack thereof.

11. High Life

Claire Denis is damned determined not to be boring. Your reaction to her latest film will probably depend on how receptive you are to that as the driving force of a film. Myself, I’m very receptive. I want to see the personal struggles of convicts unwittingly shipped into space, told without Action-Adventure tropes, in a movie that sometimes misfires but is never dull.

 10. Dolemite Is My Name

And fuckin’ up motherfuckers is my game! Look, if you don’t like naughty words, you probably shouldn’t be reading my columns---and you definitely shouldn’t be watching this movie. Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, the ambitious, irrepressible and endlessly optimistic creator of Blaxpoitation character Dolemite. Have you seen the 1975 film? It’s either terrible and wonderful, or wonderful and terrible, and the jury’s still out. Either way, Moore in the film is a self-made comic who establishes himself by talking in a unique rhyming style that speaks to black Americans at a time when black pop culture (and not just the white rendition of it) was finally beginning to pierce the American consciousness. What The Disaster Artist did for The Room, this movie does for Dolemite---with the difference being I felt like I learned something I didn’t know here.

 9. 1917

Breathless, nerve-wracking and somehow intensely personal even though it almost never takes time to slow down, it is fair to call Sam Mendes’s film a thrill ride---but it’s one that enlightens us on a fading historical time, rather than simply being empty calories. Filmed in such a way as to make it seem like one continuous, two-hour take, for which some critics dismissed it as a gimmick, the technique is used to lock us in with the soldiers whose mission it is to save an entire division from disaster. We are given no information or perspective that the two central soldiers---merely two, in a countless multitude---do not have, and so we are with them at every moment, deprived of the relief of omniscience. I freely admit I tend to give anything about World War I the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no doubt that the movie earns my trust.

8. Ash Is Purest White

Known by the much less cool-sounding name Sons and Daughters of Jianghu in China, here is a story that starts off ostensibly about crime---a young woman and her boyfriend are powerful in the small-potatoes mob scene of a dying industrial town---but after the surprising first act becomes a meditation on life, perseverance and exactly how much power is worth, anyway, when it is so fleeting and so easily lost. What do you do when everything that defined you is gone? You go on living. This is my first exposure to writer-director Jia Zhangke, an oversight I must strive hard to correct in future.

7. Knives Out

The whodunit is a lost art, a standard genre belonging to a time when mass audiences could appreciate a picture even if someone didn’t run, yell or explode while running and yelling every ten minutes. Rian Johnson and an all-star cast rescued it from the brink of cinematic extinction and gave it just enough of a modern injection to keep it relevant. Every second of the film is engaging; Johnson even manages to have a character whose central trait is throwing up when asked to lie, and he makes it seem sympathetic rather than juvenile. The fantastic cast of characters is backed up with all the qualities of “true” cinema: perfect camerawork, an effective score, mesmerizing production design. As someone who didn’t much care for Johnson’s Star Wars outing, I’m honestly put out this didn’t do better at the box office than it did.

6. A Hidden Life

After a few questionable efforts and completely losing the thread with the execrable vanity project Song to Song, Terence Malick returns to his bread and butter: meditative dramas on the nature of faith, family, and being on the outside looking in, which encompass a healthy dose of nature, philosophy and people talking without moving their lips. That last is a little dig, but it’s true: Malick does Malick, and if you don’t like his thing, this true story about a German dissenter in World War II will not change your mind. For me, what Malick has done is that rarest of things: he had made a movie about faith, and about a character who is faithful, without proselytizing. That the closeness and repressiveness of the Nazi regime is characterized against Malick’s typical soaring backdrops is a masterstroke, and the best-ever use of his visual style.

5. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is a different kind of horror filmmaker. After redefining what was possible with traditional horror monsters in The Witch, he returned with something that couldn’t be more different: an exploration of madness more in the vein of European film than American. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are two men stranded in a lighthouse together slowly losing their minds, or what is left of them. The haunting score and stark, black-and-white photography evoke a nightmare caught on tape, something we’re not supposed to be seeing. It’s not satisfying in a traditional way, but for those craving something more cerebral from horror, Eggers has it covered.

4. Us

I have become slightly notorious in my own little circle for not thinking Get Out was the greatest film ever made, and now I’ve become rather known for thinking Us just might be. Ok, so that’s definite hyperbole: “greatest” is a tall claim for almost any horror movie. Yet here Jordan Peele shows that he can command an audience’s attention even when not benefiting from a popular cultural zeitgeist in terms of subject matter. It’s a movie with no easy or clear message, one that specializes in simply unsettling us with the idea that the world is fundamentally Not Right. I firmly believe that if Peele becomes a force in the genre, 50 years from now when he and all of us are gone, his first film will be remembered as a competent start, while this will be remembered as the beginning of his greatness.

3. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Ostensibly about urban gentrification, this story of a young black man trying to save his ancestral home from the grasping reach of white encroachment is a flower with many petals to reveal. Don’t let my political-sounding description turn you off: the movie is not a polemic in the slightest, but rather a wry, sensitive look at people, their personalities and how those personalities are intertwined with the places they call home. Though the movie is the directorial debut of Joe Talbot, it is based loosely on the memories and feelings of his friend Jimmie Falls, who also plays one of the two central characters. If you’ve ever watched a place you love fall to the ravages of time and change, this movie may strike quite a chord with you.

2. Uncut Gems

When asked why this movie is great, I usually say that it was unbelievably stressful and caused me great anxiety. This description is not usually successful in selling it. The Safdie Brothers have essentially filmed chaos: a man self-destructing in slow-motion, if you can call it slow. Howard Ratner has probably been gradually exploding all his life; he strikes you as someone who came out of the womb throwing punches. He’s an addictive gambler who loves the risk much more than the reward, and can’t gain anything good in life without risking it on a proverbial roll of the dice. His behavior is destructive. His attitude is toxic. Why do we root for him? Perhaps because, as played by Adam Sandler, he never has any doubt as to who he is---something few of us can say. He’s an asshole, but he’s a genuine asshole, and somehow that’s appealing even when you’re in his line of fire.

1. Pain and Glory

When I realized I would, for the first time, have the chance to see a Pedro Almodovar film on the screen, I was overjoyed. His movies aren’t always great, but that was of little concern: he’s one of the handful of directors on the planet who can fairly call back to the avant-garde traditions of Bergman or Truffaut, making the movies he wants to make about the things he want to make them about, and I’d never seen one of his films when it was new and fresh, only months or years later on DVD.

It seems I picked right, as his latest has been almost universally hailed as one of the best of his long career. An aging, aching filmmaker spends his days in his apartment, ignoring the fans of his original hit film and most of his own acquaintances, alive or dead---he tries hard to put his memories away. Throughout the course of the movie, he re-engages with most of them in one way or another, coming to terms with who he is and where he’s been, though not in a Hallmark-movie-of-the-week way. Antonio Banderas plays him in the role that was always denied him by his stud status in Hollywood. It isn’t simply him, though: every person we meet is engaging and, we sense, has their own story outside of how they intersect with his. Most engaging is that of his deceased mother, who in her youth was played vivaciously by a sun-toughened Penelope Cruz. Perhaps Almodovar will tell us some of their stories some day. Perhaps not. I would read an entire book of short fiction all about them. This is the year’s best film.

[journeysintowebcomics]

Stand Still Stay Silent Liveblog #14

UPDATE 14: Expeditions for Fun and Profit

Last time Chapter 2 had started! The three team members so far had arrived to Mora. The city looks rather nice; dare I even say ‘normal’, like this is all before the disease killed the world. Let’s continue.

Tuuri had expected to see more mechanical vehicles, but looks like in cities they’re not used at all, horses are the main transportation method here. Cars and the such...they’re used only by the military, because it’d be expensive to keep those vehicles working well. Judging by the way Emil says ‘commoners’, I suppose when they were rich they could have afforded to have a car.

Apparently what amazes Tuuri the most is how safe it feels to be here, that people live without fears of an outbreak happening. So that explains why she was so surprised by how she didn’t have to stay two weeks in quarantine when she arrived to Mora...she couldn’t fathom the possibility people were safe against outbreaks – and for good reason, looks like outbreaks used to happen where she and Lalli used to live at. Before being at the military settlement, perhaps? Because I think the settlement would be rather careful about outbreaks.

Well it does sound convenient for everyone that the towns were on islands. Being surrounded by water seems to help a lot to survive in these times, and it makes it easier to control what comes and goes out. Not that it was infallible. From what I understand here, neither Tuuri or Lalli saw an outbreak, but they’re aware outbreaks happened in other places. Hm. I wonder...if when an outbreak happens it can be contained. It sounds like it’d be catastrophic, but who knows...maybe in these times there’s enough technology and ways to stop it before annihilates everyone.

Oh, no more backstory for now? Oh well. Maybe next time.

It doesn’t take long for them to arrive to the headquarters, or as it’s colloquially known: the Vasterstrom home. It’s the last nice thing they have, from the times before losing their wealth. As soon as they open the door, they’re all accosted by three gremlins. Oh, sorry, I meant ‘kids’. They’re kids. The nanny that’s quitting right now may have agreed with my first choice of words, hah.

Hah! She’s calling them ‘changelings’! While Tobjorn tries to deal with the fallout of leaving three little monsters alone with a nanny for a couple days, said children try to meet Lalli through the tried and true method of...patting over and over. Like he’s some kind of cat. Well I suppose that’s not surprising, he does kind of remind me of a cat. Emil gets along rather well with the kids, though.

Oh my, that’s a sucker punch. Children really say the dastardliest things, don’t they? I had never seen Tuuri so annoyed. Guess she won’t be seeing them as cute anymore.

Okay, Lalli really is like a cat. He’s hissing and all. This is...kinda fitting, now that I think about it, what with the importance of cats. I don’t know if Lalli will end being as useful as cats are, but given his role as a scout, it does kind of fit him.

The living room of the house was transformed into what seems to be...I’m not sure what it is. It resembles a control room, but looks like it hasn’t been well maintained. I suppose it’s not used nowadays. Emil takes his partners to the study, passing in front of a photograph I find familiar.

Right, those are the ancestor Vasterstroms, the ones from the prologue. Must have been rough to live in their cabin for an unknown amount of time, but at least they survived? Enough to die of old age, I hope, or at least to have descendants. Good for them.

The study is crammed full with books and papers; it looks rather disorganized. I see a map I recognize, that on the wall is the same map that was shown long ago, the one that showed the known areas of the world. There’s a camera, more maps...and a cat. A grumpy-looking cat, like so many cats manage to look. I have always thought it’s funny how cats seem to look unimpressed so easily. So this cat here...he’s not trained, maybe? I don’t remember it clearly, but trained cats have these collars on them, don’t they? So yeah, I suppose this is a Grade C cat.

There are profiles about their future teammates. Of course they’re not very detailed because Ms. Sundberg isn’t going to reveal all info about other characters before they’re introduced, but I like what I’m seeing.

So...one’s last name is Madsen, the other is Eide. Cool! And one of them has been fired a lot before. Could it be Madsen? His ancestors got fired in the prologue, maybe getting fired is genetic, through some impossibility of this world. Who knows.

There’s a profile about Emil too – profile with a photo that even shows the sparkles around his hair – and it reveals a couple tidbits. Like he has been in the army for two years, and he had a private tutor who let him tailor his curriculum. Said curriculum didn’t include languages. Yeah...looks like two out of three only talk a single language. If there aren’t more multilingual characters here, then this group will be in trouble, but hey, at least Tuuri can hold a conversation in Swedish and Finnish.

Okay, it wouldn’t be a surprise for a single teacher to dislike you, but all of them? Yeah...I have a hard time believing that. If I had to guess, Emil’s tutor was pretty damn awful and didn’t have the guts to correct Emil. Well, this all led to Emil noticing the poster about cleansers and finding his true calling, so...maybe it was for the better he believed the teacher had it in for him.

Oh, buddy. So...Emil is skeptical. I wonder if it’s normal for Swedes and other people from countries that don’t have mages to doubt the existence of magic. I want to see Lalli do some magic, though! Other than being able to fall asleep whenever he wants and on the oddest places.

Lalli, do some magic to prove this skeptic you can do magic! ‘No’. I suppose that, depending of the magic he can do, it may be for the better he doesn’t do any here. Besides, given how bad the Silent World is, there’ll be plenty of chances for Lalli to show his mage skills. There’s no hurry to do it.

Torbjorn arrives to tell a bit more about the mission they’re going to do. Tuuri, as the skald of the group, has quite a lot of information to read to do her research properly – including book salvation lists. So...the crew is supposed to save a few books along the way, hm. Nice! Emil doesn’t seem very impressed, but he pays attention when Torbjorn says it’s bound to net them a lot of money...unofficially. Ah. I see where this is going. I’m not sure if this is ethical or not...but...maybe there’s no harm in doing it? Salvaging a few books along the way? I really doubt it’s going to be easy, though. Torbjorn should prepare himself for disappointment, just in case.

Turns out Torbjorn wasn’t the most enthusiastic worker ever. His job was to copy word for word the old world literature, and during that, he found out how expensive the original books can get. That’s his incentive to make this expedition, the loads of cash this could bring them. What’s more attractive to an impoverished patrician than a way to recover the lost money? Honestly I’m...not too sure if I disapprove or not Torbjorn’s motivation, it’s not like he’s doing anything illegal, right? Besides, it’s not like this expedition is only for this. They’ll need to present results to the council that approved this mission. That said...given this motivation, I’d approve it more if it wasn’t so dangerous.

Siv’s job wasn’t very fulfilling either. Sample 681 means there were 680 samples before this one – 680 failures. Or...make that 681, another one failed. I can’t blame Siv for not liking her job, it must be really frustrating to crash against a brick wall over and over – metaphorically. They were lucky to know Taru Hollola, and Taru knew Trond. Wow. That was a much less heroic and more whimsical backstory than I expected. Oh well.

The Danes are the best targets—he means benefactors...the best benefactors for any old world knowledge they can find. Okay, at least it can’t be denied Torbjorn didn’t plan this all carefully. He has potential buyers, he’s working with the right people, and he has found subordinates that’ll work with them. Um...it’s a pity he doesn’t have the most important part: knowledge of where to find the promised product. If nothing is found then they better hope Tuuri’s research ends being hella useful for the government, or this was all for nothing. At least Tuuri is enthused about being part of this!

I had forgotten Taru was around. The equipment and stuff the crew will need is ready, so even though Tuuri and Lalli didn’t pack any useful stuff, they should be okay. There’s a brief scene that shows how well Emil gets along with the kids – it’s nice to see this, it’s a trait I didn’t think Emil would have – before they all leave the house, it started raining outside. With some luck this won’t be an omen about the expedition.

Apparently this is the end of Chapter 2. This was a much shorter chapter than I expected, it took me only two updates to finish it. It was so short I’m not sure of what to say!

Well, I at least can say that it was nice to see different sides of the main characters’ personalities. Lalli is rather cautious and hesitant, especially in places he doesn’t know. Emil is good with kids and is really a kindhearted person, even if he is a bit of a snob. Tuuri can be quite nasty when annoyed, and her way to be so interested in the new surroundings is endearing.

It was also good to know the main motivation – or one of the motivations – behind the expedition: money. No surprise there, how many discoveries and scientific achievements were done with money being one of the objectives? This could be par for the course. That said, the danger of this expedition kind of worries me. It’s true they’re gathering capable people, but it’s still worrying. Being capable doesn’t guarantee their safety.

I’ll start the next chapter next time.

Next update: in four updates

[sweetie-buttons]

Fear Street commentary: How to Be a Vampire

Here’s what really killed Andrew: Emily thought she was perfect! She thought she was so good at softball. So smart. She thought she had a million friends. Plus she always bragged about her great taste in clothes. Personally, Andrew thought she looked like a moron, running around school in her little pleated skirts and stupid fake pearls. But here was the biggest joke of all—Emily thought she was gorgeous! Andrew knew he wasn’t great looking. He was skinny. His hair was somewhere between brown and red. His eyes were plain old brown. He had a million freckles. But so what? Big deal. At least his nose wasn’t stuck up in the air like Emily’s. This sounds suspiciously like someone trying to convince themselves they’re not jealous.

“It is too,” Emily said. “I read good books. I’ve read almost every book on Ms. Parma’s literature list in the library.” Don’t you just hate book snobs?

“I don’t remember seeing Vampire Secrets on Ms. Parma’s list,” Emily went on. “Or that thing you were reading last week.” “You mean The Mummies Are Coming?” Andrew asked. “That was totally awesome.” Sounds like rejected GB book titles.

Emily laughed. “Okay. Maybe you two are tied for weirdness. All you and T.J. ever talk about is monsters. No wonder neither of you has any other friends.” Lucy Dark should join those two.

“Oh, man!” he cried. “That was awesome, T.J.!” *insert Amazing Atheist joke*

“She kept making fun of one of his monster books, Alien Slime from Mars. Then one night he and T.J. arranged for her to see some slime for herself. Andrew giggled, thinking about how she stared in horror as green goo dripped down from her light fixture.” Was it made by a redheaded cat witch or mad scientist named Dr. Grey, by any chance?

“With a groan, Andrew made himself open his eyes. He needed more sleep. Much more sleep. He wished he hadn’t stayed up so late the night before, reading. He wished he could sink back onto his soft pillow again. And close his eyes . . .” Me every morning. Between this and the affinity for monster tales, our hero is basically me.

He could skip brushing his teeth for once. And washing his face. I agree, books are more important than hygiene.

HOW TO BE A VAMPIRE Roll credits!

“No!” Andrew’s voice hit a high note. “Nothing’s wrong! I can’t find my sneakers. That’s all.” Mrs. Griffin glanced at Andrew’s feet. “You’re wearing them, dear,” she pointed out. “Oh, right,” Andrew said. He pulled his head out from under his bed. “I mean, I couldn’t find them. And then I found them. Under my bed. There they were. So . . . I better tie them.” A+ lying skills

Andrew shut his eyes. He waited for T.J. to say the V word. *insert immature joke*

“What are you talking about?” T.J. asked him. “Um . . . you want the rest of this bagel?” What are friends for, if not to eat your food?

“But, Andrew,” T.J. said. “Think about it! You’re going to be around forever. Forever! And you’ll be able to fly. Every night you can go zipping around through the clouds!” I mean, there’s just the minor downsides of being destroyed by sunlight, allergic to garlic and addicted to blood. But apart from that, I don’t see the problem.

Andrew shrugged. “I’m starved,” he said. He didn’t waste any more time talking. He dug into that spaghetti. Mmmmm! The sauce was even better than it looked! He stuffed a whole meatball into his mouth. Are large appetites also a vampire trait?

“But ghosts have it easier. They don’t have to eat or drink or anything.” How is that easier? If you’re on a diet, maybe.

“We’re walking, Mr. Metz,” T.J. said. “Suit yourself.” The driver opened the door of the bus.” Are bus drivers allowed to do that?

“Vampires can’t cross running water,” T.J. went on. “It’s one of the rules. So the bus couldn’t go until Andrew got off.” It’s a good thing the bus could tell that one of the passengers inside it was slowly turning into a vampire and that vampire can’t cross running water, and was considerate enough to stop so Andrew could get out.

Now every dog began to bark at the top of its lungs. “Holy cow!” T.J. exclaimed.” No, those are dogs. Can’t you tell your animals apart?

“ ‘As a vampire-in-training,’ ” Andrew read, “ ‘you must obey the vampire rules. One. Avoid garlic. All parts of the plant will cause you to sicken and retreat.’ ” “Now it tells you,” T.J. commented.” To be fair, vampires being allergic to garlic is basically common knowledge about them.

In the basement, he found a battered cardboard refrigerator box. You mean the box the refrigerator comes in? At first I thought it meant a cardboard refrigerator, and I was about to question if those exist.

The dogs swarming around him? The cookie in his pocket. Except they attacked you after you offered them it.

But it was shaped like one—a coffin standing on end. So you’ll sleep vertically?

If a coffin cannot be found, any small, dark place will do. It could be his bedroom if it’s a small one and the lights are off.

“Talk with an accent,” he suggested. “Maybe he’ll think you’re a new student from some other country.” If he’s blind and deaf, maybe.

“Because then you can make me one!” T.J. explained. “It’ll be great! We can hang out together all night and play pranks! We’ll scare people out of their minds! And flying! Think about it, Andrew! Flying is going to be so cool!” There’s just the minor downsides of…wait, I said this already.

Maybe a snack would help. Milk and cookies. Hopefully vampires aren’t allergic to that.

An old cape of his mother’s. A long, black cape. Cool! Maybe she used to be a vampire.

“You figured that out all by yourself?” The vampire rolled his red eyes. I like him already.

“What are you, a genius?” The vampire shook his head. “Of course I left you the book. Of course I bit you.” He raised a fist and knocked on Andrew’s head. “Hello? Anybody in there?” I like to think this vampire’s had to coach so many children and put up with so much bullshit that he’s officially Done and now uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism.

“Count Humphrey Ved.” Alright. One. …That was lame.

“You’ll see. You will develop a taste for being a vampire!” He threw back his head and cackled at his own joke.”

-

“Your fangs will come, kid.” The vampire put an arm around Andrew’s shoulder. “Hey, maybe they’ll show up in time for Fangsgiving!” Again the vampire cackled at his own joke. Do all vampires have such a sense of humor?

“How could you do this to me?” Emily cried. “How am I supposed to explain this to my friends?” Her feelings matter more than his humanity. That’s siblings for you.

“Awesome!” T.J. exclaimed. “Totally awesome! You have to make me your first victim! Promise?” Does no one consider the downsides, minor as they are?

“Don’t do me any big favors,” Andrew said. “I’m not,” Emily said matter-of-factly. “It’s for me. You think I want to be known as the girl with the vampire brother?” Her reputation is worth more than his humanity. Again, classic siblings.

“Right.” Emily nodded. “Okay. I read about how vampires hate garlic and mustard seeds. How they hypnotize their victims. How, when they see lots of little things, they can’t resist counting them. How they get confused at a crossroads. How they don’t reflect in mirrors . . .” Due to some The Girl Who Cried Monster meta, I know they don’t show up in pictures and have OCD.

“You have to do three things,” T.J. told him. “You have to drive a stake through his heart. Then you have to cut off his head. And then you have to stuff his mouth with garlic.” Better safe than sorry, right?

“Wow! We should tune in to the weather channel,” Andrew told the vampire. “See what they make of all this. I bet it’s never snowed at this time of—” Reminds me of the unexpected snowfall in Life is Strange.

“I’m not sure,” Andrew said. “Could you go over the stalking part again?” I kind of wish he accidentally said staking because he was thinking of his plan to kill him and then quickly corrected himself.

“Stop!” the vampire cried. “I don’t care about your puny human activities! We have to get on with our hunt!” I bet hunting is a cakewalk compared to listening to the rambling of children.

“Loud and clear,” Andrew answered. “Oh, man! This kid is going to be so sorry he ever picked on me!” He was annoying in art class, so he deserves to get his blood drunk.

“You’re not getting the Dark Gift now,” the vampire said. “You’re getting death.” He smiled. “I’m going to kill you.” Anthony, this is your fault. You could’ve enjoyed being a vampire, but instead you had to try to kill your teacher instead of being grateful for his help. Sure, there’s the minor downsides of being destroyed by sunlight, allergic to garlic and addicted to blood, but that’s surely better than death.

“He can’t resist counting little things!” Does it have something to do with the “count” in his name?

“I made a mistake choosing you,” the vampire growled. “A bad mistake. But then, it’s the first mistake I’ve made in six hundred years. That’s not too bad. Still, it was a mistake.” I bet this is some kind of metaphor for your mom saying that about your birth.

“And one more thing!” he shouted. “Humphrey is a stupid name for a vampire!” He should’ve called him Humpty Dumpty to annoy him.

With a growl, Humphrey the vampire lunged across the room. It’s the first time he’s been called his name instead of “the vampire”.

The vampire shuddered. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the top of his head. A terrible scream escaped from his throat. Then his whole body vanished in a cloud of smoke. RIP Humphrey. Never will there be such a sassy vampire.

Sunlight. Why hadn’t he thought of that in the first place? It was much easier than staking the vampire. Much less messy too. And best of all—it worked. I feel like you’re forgetting something…

Andrew said, “Emily? Are you getting . . . bossy?” You act like it’s different for her, but you said it was regular behavior at the start.

T.J. frowned. “But, remember what my book said? Sunlight kills a vampire. But that’s all it does. It doesn’t remove the curse from the vampire’s victims. Only staking can do that.” I actually appreciate this twist. It isn’t shoehorned and addresses a plot hole. If it wasn’t there, it’s leave the reader noting that there was a specific way of killing the vampire that they didn’t execute. And at least you prevented Humphrey from turning more people.

[wendyimmiller]

Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd.

Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden built on the remains of an old car park gives hope to gardeners everywhere that matching the plant to one’s conditions can spell success.

Guest Rant by Marianne Wilburn 

Given the choice of dinner companions at an industry event, with fourteen topics on the table and the wine flowing softly and smoothly, Scott Beuerlein would be at the top of my list. He is entertaining, clever, and charmingly self-deprecating — and an excellent conversationalist.

That’s why it pains me greatly to say that he has his head right up his smart ass.

When, in his July/August column for Horticulture[1], he advocated for the total abandonment of British garden writers by American gardeners, and went so far as to tell the late and sainted Beth Chatto to “bugger off,” he no doubt knew he’d get some pushback.

And as it happens, I’m just in the mood.

“Brit garden writers have had it so good for so long!” he wailed. “[Their] books, gloriously illustrated…filled with classic design ideas and expert care instructions – are naught but works of deception. They have brought us Yanks nothing but suffering and heartbreak.”

Beuerlein’s passionate words went on to decry the injustice of meconopsis. Christopher Lloyd’s name was taken in vain. A Big Gulp was inexplicably referenced.

“Just sell your damn books to the Australians,” he ended. Or at least he should have done.

I am not a British garden writer. But I admit to a dog in the fight in that I hold two passports.

Although one of them will no longer be looked upon with favor in European airports after Brexit (the other one never was), I have a certain fondness for the country.

I went to university there. My son was born there. I developed a deep and abiding love for gin and tonics there, and have recently begun guiding other like-minded souls around its great gardens under the auspices of CarexTours.

These admissions might crush all pretense of neutrality if it were not for the following statement: I am not and never have been an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest — the only region in North America whose populace can guzzle from the well-spring of British garden literature and never taste bitterness.

Instead I live in Northern Virginia, bitterly cold in February, life-suckingly humid in July.  Each year we are offered the promise of an English spring and then delivered an Amazonian summer.

Oh yes, I have tasted the bitterness. Big frothy gulps of it.

And yet my shelves are overflowing with the very best of the Brits. In addition to scores of excellent books and articles penned by American garden writers, there lurk the Vereys, the Chattos, the Lloyds and the Dons. Three shelves are given over entirely to British garden essayists, and I admit to the profligacy of international subscriptions to Gardens Illustrated and Country Living UK.

And Scott, here’s why:

Prose as poetry

Musa basjoo towers over the century-old yew hedge at Great Dixter, where in 1993, Christopher Lloyd shocked the establishment by ripping out roses and planting an exotic garden.

Christopher Lloyd was as caustic & clever as Dorothy Parker, but as loveable as Ogden Nash. Chatto beguiled us with the humble words of a self-taught gardener, but won ten successive gold medals at Chelsea and created a global masterpiece in the Essex countryside. Monty Don (as author, not as television sex symbol and international man of mystery) writes with a sensuousness worthy of Coleridge:

There are peaches to be eaten warm from the brick of the wall they are grown against, peas picked off the tendrilly plant and shucked straight from pod to mouth…tomatoes waiting to release their own musty muskiness as teeth break their skin.[2]

When he starts undressing figs with his fingers I need a moment to compose myself.

Critical eyes, witty tongues

Wit is an elusive quality in gardening prose. There are millions of outrage merchants out there, but it’s quiet, clever criticism that gets my attention – and keeps it. At this the British excel.

Here’s Christopher Lloyd, calling out the snobs:

There are some gardeners in whose company I feel vulgar.  They will expect you to fall on your knees with a magnifying glass to worship before the shrine of a spikelet of tiny green flowers…yet will themselves turn away disgusted from a huge, opulent quilt of hortensia hydrangeas.[3]

Or the ideologues:

I confess to being unattracted to the concept of gardening with a moral implication. It puts a dampener on going all out to garden full-bloodedly in whatever way appeals to you most.[4]

The best British garden writers have honed the ability to inflict dagger-sized wounds with the prick of a pin. Even when it’s your own ideologies that lie bloodied and martyred, you cannot help but smile.

And read more.

An abundance of foliage and flower leading to The Hovel at Great Dixter.

Gardening as a cultural premise

The British population is presented at birth with a trowel and a bit of twine. They are also presented with a packet of Bishop’s flower and sternly told to call it Ammi majus. Thus the population is primed and ready for garden writers who won’t have to waste precious time explaining what a cold-frame is before they can explain what to do with it.

The British don’t have to vainly search an HGTV channel to find a bit of G. Gardening programs run freely through their radio and television networks, their streaming choices, and quite possibly through their dreams at night.

This premise results in a different approach toward garden writing. Authors don’t need to claim that “it’s easy.”  They assume you know it may be difficult, but it’s worth it.

In the words of St. Beth:

If Damp Gardening sounds like hard work, I can assure you that, unless Nature provides for you, initially it is…But when it is successful I think it is possibly one of the most beautiful forms of gardening.[5]

We’re frightened to do this as American garden writers. We know we’re often holding people by the fine thread that connects ‘lifestyle’ to ‘the garden.’ Saying “it’s difficult” could send them over to scrapbooking.

Garden gravitas

They’ve simply been doing it longer. Their gardens are older. Their tools are better oiled. There is nothing television-worthy about a rumpled and grubby Monty Don; except, there is.

We can chafe and grumble at such cosmic injustice and lash out with words like ‘stodgy’ and ‘predictable,’ but Lloyd was never predictable, nor is Noel Kingsbury, nor Dan Pearson, nor Keith Wiley. And they get to apply all that generational knowledge and exciting innovation to gardens that sport stone walls older than a bit of Brooklyn Brownstone.

Green, juicy envy

Scott, sometimes we need a bit of envy in our lives. We need inspiration. We need something that, by its sheer sumptuousness, primes the engines within us and gets us moving.

Something that gets us thinking. Gets us creating. Makes us fall in love again.

That’s Christopher Lloyd’s Flower Garden, Hugh Johnson’s The Principles of Gardening, Rosemary Verey’s The Making of a Garden; and, I have no doubt, Jimi Blake & Noel Kingsbury’s new book A Beautiful Obsession.

Have you ever read Hugh Johnson, Scott?  You’d think the man wouldn’t have time to pen clever words about magnolias with the amount of French wine he’s quaffing from his veranda in central France.  Johnson’s words could ignite envy in the Dalai Lama.

I want to be Hugh Johnson. Failing that, I want to read Hugh Johnson.

The long border at Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire on a sunny September day.

The Accent

The only thing better than reading Monty Don is listening to Monty Don read Monty Don.

That’s got to piss you off, Scott.

I understand. A Cincinnati short-a accent grappling with ‘clematis’ just doesn’t have the same…well…gravitas.

Sure, these people garden with the sweet Gulf Stream at their backs and beautiful French plonk just a day-trip away. My garden no more resembles theirs than Vita Sackville-West resembles Mama June.

But then, my garden doesn’t resemble Jenks Farmer’s gorgeous farm in South Carolina either, or Nan Sterman’s xeriscaped designs in Southern California. This is, after all a big country.

I study their words anyway, and try Farmer’s crinums when winters are kind, and Sterman’s agaves even though they never are. I appreciate Henry Mitchell’s wit and the grace of Elizabeth Lawrence, and lap up anything Andrea Wulf is serving on either side of the Atlantic.

We take what we can from each of these authors – British or American – and feel connected in our shared passion. Particularly over a very large gin and tonic.

Therefore I urge readers to reject the obviously tortured, Zone 6, possibly 5b words of Scott Beuerlein. Do not give up on the gorgeousness of great British garden porn in a burst of American Puritanism, or avoid an occasional doomed flirtation with meconopsis. Let those Brits tempt and tickle you. Love affairs should not be squelched because they are hopeless.

Sometimes those are the very best ones.

__________________________________________________________

Marianne is a garden columnist and the author of Big Dreams, Small Garden. Read more at smalltowngardener.com or follow @smalltowngardener on Facebook and Instagram.

[1] Scott Beuerlein, “Time for a Grexit,” Horticulture, July/August 2019, 64.

[2] Monty Don, Gardening Mad, London: Bloomsbury,  1997, 108.

[3] Christopher Lloyd, In My Garden, New York: Macmillian, 1984, 220-221.

[4] Christopher Lloyd & Beth Chatto, Dear Friend and Gardener, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd., 1998, 15.

[5] Beth Chatto, The Damp Garden, Second ed., Sagaponack, NY: Sagapress Inc. 1996, 13-14.

Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd. originally appeared on GardenRant on July 18, 2019.

from Gardening https://www.gardenrant.com/2019/07/dismiss-british-garden-writers-absurd.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[turfandlawncare]

Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd.

Beth Chatto’s Gravel Garden built on the remains of an old car park gives hope to gardeners everywhere that matching the plant to one’s conditions can spell success.

Guest Rant by Marianne Wilburn 

Given the choice of dinner companions at an industry event, with fourteen topics on the table and the wine flowing softly and smoothly, Scott Beuerlein would be at the top of my list. He is entertaining, clever, and charmingly self-deprecating — and an excellent conversationalist.

That’s why it pains me greatly to say that he has his head right up his smart ass.

When, in his July/August column for Horticulture[1], he advocated for the total abandonment of British garden writers by American gardeners, and went so far as to tell the late and sainted Beth Chatto to “bugger off,” he no doubt knew he’d get some pushback.

And as it happens, I’m just in the mood.

“Brit garden writers have had it so good for so long!” he wailed. “[Their] books, gloriously illustrated…filled with classic design ideas and expert care instructions – are naught but works of deception. They have brought us Yanks nothing but suffering and heartbreak.”

Beuerlein’s passionate words went on to decry the injustice of meconopsis. Christopher Lloyd’s name was taken in vain. A Big Gulp was inexplicably referenced.

“Just sell your damn books to the Australians,” he ended. Or at least he should have done.

I am not a British garden writer. But I admit to a dog in the fight in that I hold two passports.

Although one of them will no longer be looked upon with favor in European airports after Brexit (the other one never was), I have a certain fondness for the country.

I went to university there. My son was born there. I developed a deep and abiding love for gin and tonics there, and have recently begun guiding other like-minded souls around its great gardens under the auspices of CarexTours.

These admissions might crush all pretense of neutrality if it were not for the following statement: I am not and never have been an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest — the only region in North America whose populace can guzzle from the well-spring of British garden literature and never taste bitterness.

Instead I live in Northern Virginia, bitterly cold in February, life-suckingly humid in July.  Each year we are offered the promise of an English spring and then delivered an Amazonian summer.

Oh yes, I have tasted the bitterness. Big frothy gulps of it.

And yet my shelves are overflowing with the very best of the Brits. In addition to scores of excellent books and articles penned by American garden writers, there lurk the Vereys, the Chattos, the Lloyds and the Dons. Three shelves are given over entirely to British garden essayists, and I admit to the profligacy of international subscriptions to Gardens Illustrated and Country Living UK.

And Scott, here’s why:

Prose as poetry

Musa basjoo towers over the century-old yew hedge at Great Dixter, where in 1993, Christopher Lloyd shocked the establishment by ripping out roses and planting an exotic garden.

Christopher Lloyd was as caustic & clever as Dorothy Parker, but as loveable as Ogden Nash. Chatto beguiled us with the humble words of a self-taught gardener, but won ten successive gold medals at Chelsea and created a global masterpiece in the Essex countryside. Monty Don (as author, not as television sex symbol and international man of mystery) writes with a sensuousness worthy of Coleridge:

There are peaches to be eaten warm from the brick of the wall they are grown against, peas picked off the tendrilly plant and shucked straight from pod to mouth…tomatoes waiting to release their own musty muskiness as teeth break their skin.[2]

When he starts undressing figs with his fingers I need a moment to compose myself.

Critical eyes, witty tongues

Wit is an elusive quality in gardening prose. There are millions of outrage merchants out there, but it’s quiet, clever criticism that gets my attention – and keeps it. At this the British excel.

Here’s Christopher Lloyd, calling out the snobs:

There are some gardeners in whose company I feel vulgar.  They will expect you to fall on your knees with a magnifying glass to worship before the shrine of a spikelet of tiny green flowers…yet will themselves turn away disgusted from a huge, opulent quilt of hortensia hydrangeas.[3]

Or the ideologues:

I confess to being unattracted to the concept of gardening with a moral implication. It puts a dampener on going all out to garden full-bloodedly in whatever way appeals to you most.[4]

The best British garden writers have honed the ability to inflict dagger-sized wounds with the prick of a pin. Even when it’s your own ideologies that lie bloodied and martyred, you cannot help but smile.

And read more.

An abundance of foliage and flower leading to The Hovel at Great Dixter.

Gardening as a cultural premise

The British population is presented at birth with a trowel and a bit of twine. They are also presented with a packet of Bishop’s flower and sternly told to call it Ammi majus. Thus the population is primed and ready for garden writers who won’t have to waste precious time explaining what a cold-frame is before they can explain what to do with it.

The British don’t have to vainly search an HGTV channel to find a bit of G. Gardening programs run freely through their radio and television networks, their streaming choices, and quite possibly through their dreams at night.

This premise results in a different approach toward garden writing. Authors don’t need to claim that “it’s easy.”  They assume you know it may be difficult, but it’s worth it.

In the words of St. Beth:

If Damp Gardening sounds like hard work, I can assure you that, unless Nature provides for you, initially it is…But when it is successful I think it is possibly one of the most beautiful forms of gardening.[5]

We’re frightened to do this as American garden writers. We know we’re often holding people by the fine thread that connects ‘lifestyle’ to ‘the garden.’ Saying “it’s difficult” could send them over to scrapbooking.

Garden gravitas

They’ve simply been doing it longer. Their gardens are older. Their tools are better oiled. There is nothing television-worthy about a rumpled and grubby Monty Don; except, there is.

We can chafe and grumble at such cosmic injustice and lash out with words like ‘stodgy’ and ‘predictable,’ but Lloyd was never predictable, nor is Noel Kingsbury, nor Dan Pearson, nor Keith Wiley. And they get to apply all that generational knowledge and exciting innovation to gardens that sport stone walls older than a bit of Brooklyn Brownstone.

Green, juicy envy

Scott, sometimes we need a bit of envy in our lives. We need inspiration. We need something that, by its sheer sumptuousness, primes the engines within us and gets us moving.

Something that gets us thinking. Gets us creating. Makes us fall in love again.

That’s Christopher Lloyd’s Flower Garden, Hugh Johnson’s The Principles of Gardening, Rosemary Verey’s The Making of a Garden; and, I have no doubt, Jimi Blake & Noel Kingsbury’s new book A Beautiful Obsession.

Have you ever read Hugh Johnson, Scott?  You’d think the man wouldn’t have time to pen clever words about magnolias with the amount of French wine he’s quaffing from his veranda in central France.  Johnson’s words could ignite envy in the Dalai Lama.

I want to be Hugh Johnson. Failing that, I want to read Hugh Johnson.

The long border at Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire on a sunny September day.

The Accent

The only thing better than reading Monty Don is listening to Monty Don read Monty Don.

That’s got to piss you off, Scott.

I understand. A Cincinnati short-a accent grappling with ‘clematis’ just doesn’t have the same…well…gravitas.

Sure, these people garden with the sweet Gulf Stream at their backs and beautiful French plonk just a day-trip away. My garden no more resembles theirs than Vita Sackville-West resembles Mama June.

But then, my garden doesn’t resemble Jenks Farmer’s gorgeous farm in South Carolina either, or Nan Sterman’s xeriscaped designs in Southern California. This is, after all a big country.

I study their words anyway, and try Farmer’s crinums when winters are kind, and Sterman’s agaves even though they never are. I appreciate Henry Mitchell’s wit and the grace of Elizabeth Lawrence, and lap up anything Andrea Wulf is serving on either side of the Atlantic.

We take what we can from each of these authors – British or American – and feel connected in our shared passion. Particularly over a very large gin and tonic.

Therefore I urge readers to reject the obviously tortured, Zone 6, possibly 5b words of Scott Beuerlein. Do not give up on the gorgeousness of great British garden porn in a burst of American Puritanism, or avoid an occasional doomed flirtation with meconopsis. Let those Brits tempt and tickle you. Love affairs should not be squelched because they are hopeless.

Sometimes those are the very best ones.

__________________________________________________________

Marianne is a garden columnist and the author of Big Dreams, Small Garden. Read more at smalltowngardener.com or follow @smalltowngardener on Facebook and Instagram.

[1] Scott Beuerlein, “Time for a Grexit,” Horticulture, July/August 2019, 64.

[2] Monty Don, Gardening Mad, London: Bloomsbury,  1997, 108.

[3] Christopher Lloyd, In My Garden, New York: Macmillian, 1984, 220-221.

[4] Christopher Lloyd & Beth Chatto, Dear Friend and Gardener, London: Frances Lincoln Ltd., 1998, 15.

[5] Beth Chatto, The Damp Garden, Second ed., Sagaponack, NY: Sagapress Inc. 1996, 13-14.

Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd. originally appeared on GardenRant on July 18, 2019.

from GardenRant https://ift.tt/2JNypiC

[littlemsterious]

nostalgia is incredibly blinding but it baffles me how much more so it is with harry potter

i think it’s because of just how big the harry potter fandom was, especially with the beginning of the internet. it was the first thing a lot of people connected to and help connect them with other people.

but y’all,

harry potter isnt good.

i haven’t read it since the first time when i was 11, and i probably won’t, but there’s so much stuff i’ll remember or be reminded of online and, so much of harry potter either doesn’t make sense or is questionable at best.

i know it sucks to lose something that meant a lot as a kid, but there are other books. harry potter is not worth it.

i don't think ANY franchise should be considered good or revolutionary enough to be able to put aside blatant antisemitism/racism/queerphobia/etc etc ETC but harry potter is absolutely NOT it