I noticed something while watching Children of Earth. Apparently on Torchwood, the gritty, “adult” adjunct to the Whoniverse, we can show:

• Bombings
  
• Multiple deaths by gunshot
  
• A skinless man screaming
  
• Projectile vomiting aliens
  
• The exploitation, torture and deaths of children

but we cannot use the word “abortion.”

As part of my ongoing effort to come to terms with Children of Earth I’ve been contributing to TV Tropes. ’Ware spoilers under the cuts.

( Heroic Blue Screen of Death )

( Tear Jerker )

I also wrote something about the major event of Day One for the page titled “It Just Bugs Me”, which is about moments of Fridge Logic, but I think it deserves a separate LJ entry because it may generate some discussion.

Title: Let Simmer
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Length: 50 words
Notes/Warnings: A fix-it for that WTF moment in Day Three. No way would Jack Harkness and Ianto “Stun Gun” Jones let a pot of bloody beans get in their way.

( To his credit, Jack was thinking, *Wait, beans?* when Ianto abruptly stood. )

*

X-posted all over the damn place.

For the record: listening to the first three tracks of Hyacinths and Thistles by the 6ths right now? Not one of my better ideas.

( Lyrics for the curious, under a cut to avoid spoilage )

This information appears as a postscript to my previous entry, but I think it bears repeating:

In a comment to my post on torch_wood, eandh99 pointed out a striking similarity between Torchwood: Children of Earth and the 1979 Quartermass serial.

I don’t know what to make of this. Coincidence? Clever hommage to another Verity Lambert production? Rip-off?

I had a painful thought after yesterday’s marathon viewing of Torchwood: Children of Earth.

( Spoilers for CoE and the Doctor Who story, ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ )

Note: x-posted to torch_wood.

ETA: In a comment to my post on torch_wood, eandh99 pointed out a striking similarity between CoE and the 1979 Quartermass serial. Coincidence? Hommage to another Verity Lambert production? Rip-off?

Yesterday I watched all of Torchwood: Children of Earth in one go, and by the time I got home I needed some cheering up, so I made my weekly phonecall to my father. He told me this story:

So I’m at AA, and another guy in the room says, “I can’t remember where I heard this, it was some Hollywood actor in a movie, but anyway, someone once said, ‘If you see someone without a smile, give him one.’”

Now, you can’t blurt out a response to someone in an AA meeting. They call that “crosstalk,” and it’s a no-no. So I just sat there laughing quietly to myself, because what I thought right after he said that was, “Oh yeah, that...wait. That was Jack Nicholson. As the Joker.”

I can’t decide what’s funnier: if Dad has attributed that line correctly, or if he hasn’t.

A confession: I have not seen any of Torchwood: Children of Earth. Not because I don’t want to, but because I am neither (a) in the UK nor (b) wise to the ways of torrents or streams or however my fellow American fans are watching. (Probably not via Megaupload, since oh my god, it literally took me three days to download the first episode. If someone were to give me a clue in an e-mail, I would be hugely grateful.) Despite my failure to keep abreast of canon, I am aware of recent developments — just the bare facts, not the exact circumstances — and dammit, I want a hug.

I also want to write a long post comparing this to certain events in the Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek canons, but I’m at work and I have to be logged off and shut down by 1 p.m. because we’re being moved to new offices over the weekend, so that will have to wait.

In the meantime, remember: You Know Who would not approve of pointless violence, so no burning down RTD’s office or home, tempting as that idea may be right now.

File under “happy coincidence”: this morning on the train I finished re-reading one of my favorite historical romances, Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini. Tonight, on TCM? The 1952 Hollywood movie based on same, which is not an entirely satisfactory adaptation but does have an epic 10-minute swordfight in a crowded theater between Stewart Granger as Our Hero and Mel Ferrer as his nemesis, the Marquis.

Let the swashbuckling commence!

ETA: Wow, I’d forgotten just how faithful an adaptation this isn’t. Fifteen minutes in, and our peripatetic protagonist, André-Louis Moreau, has dropped the “Louis”; his nemesis, Gervaise, le Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr, is Noel, le Marquis de Maynes (and an ex-lover of Marie Antoinette, who isn’t in the book); Aline de Kercadiou, the beloved of both the Marquis and André-Louis, is Aline de Gavrillac de Bourbon; the actress, Climène, is Lenore, and her performances with André-Louis have been reduced from commedia dell’ arte to an especially crude Punch and Judy show.

*Sigh* This book deserves so much better. André-Louis is one of my favorite characters — how can you not love someone of whom it is written, “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad”? And then, on the next page:

Out of his zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopaedists, from Seneca to Rousseau, he had confirmed into an unassailable conviction his earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of his own species. Nor can I discover that anything in his eventful life ever afterwards caused him to waver in that opinion.

On the other hand, Aline comes across surprisingly well: “I am neither a child nor a chattel. I am woman, and want to be loved for my own sake or not at all.” Not bad for Hollywood in the ’fifties.

ETA II — The Revenge: Okay, someone explain to me why the screenwriters decided André needed to spend most of the film believing that Aline was his half-sister? Sabatini was able to get major dramatic mileage out of the issue of his hero’s parentage (that’s another thing — the book reveals the identity of André’s father and mother, whereas according to MGM only Daddy matters, naturally) without playing the LOL INCEST card.

There’s an article in the New York Times about a field trip to the Creation Museum by 70 attendees of the North American Paleontological Convention. The visiting scientists were much more polite than I would have been.

My favorite moment:

Dr. Sato* likened the museum to an amusement park. “I enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Disneyland,” she said.

Did she enjoy Disneyland?

“Not very much,” she said.

* Sorry, Torchwood fans, her given name’s Tamaki, not Toshiko.

PS: Goofy new icon! I wish I could remember when the original picture came from...

The ticket-taker gave me my stub and asked, “What’s wrong with your foot?”

“Oh, my foot’s fine. My shoe, however—”

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

*

Nine hours earlier...

...the waves rose high, great clouds gathered...Ah, they were in for a terrible storm...

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade is held on the Saturday nearest the solstice to celebrate the beginning of summer. Before I got dressed that morning (a bikini under a mermaid T-shirt, denim mini, flip flops, a cocktail ring and bracelet of big fake pearls, and strands of small fake pearls tucked into a false-braid headband) I optimistically slathered myself in sunscreen, but I really needn’t have bothered. When I arrived around a quarter to three, the costumed marchers were strutting for the judges and waving to spectators under a steady drizzle. The procession and the watching crowd were smaller than past years’ — in particular, there were fewer push pull floats and group puppets — but the folks willing to brave the weather made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. Standouts this year included the Splashdancers (a troupe of Jennifer Beale imitators in neon spandex), a Star Wars stormtooper in a lime green Borat swimsuit, Zoltar (complete with booth), a parachute-panted M.C. Hammerhead, a guy inexplicably costumed as Bumblebee from Transformers, the bike-riding Warriors (“Come out to play-iii-aaay!”) and the Mermanator (half mermaid, half Terminator). Fortunately, the rain tapered off by the time “King Neptune,” Harvey Keitel, and his queen (and real-life spouse), Daphna, were wheeled down Surf Avenue in an antique rolling chair, and the rest of the parade only had to contend with the clammy sea breeze.

Most of the audience dispersed when they spotted the police cars at the end of the parade, but I stuck around to hear the various “Best of” awards and a speech by Coney Island’s unelected mayor-for-life, Dick Zigun, since I knew that eventually King Neptune would lead a procession down the beach for the ceremonial opening of the Atlantic Ocean for business. Unsurprisingly for an event organized by artists and freaks, things did not run like clockwork — among other problems, it turned out that Mr. Keitel had sneaked away from the judges’ stand and into a Portosan, then found himself trapped by a circle of admirers — but they finally managed to corral all the necessary cast and props and set off towards the ocean. I shimmied through a gap in the crowd barriers and joined the mob.

She saw the fruits in the garden ripen till they were gathered, the snow on the tops of the mountains melt away...

Led by a flying wedge of red-shirted volunteer security guards and a Vodou practitioner blowing a conch shell, we trooped up to the boardwalk and then down into the sand, stumbling and treading on each other’s feet as we tried to find a consistent pace. Stretched between us and the waves were four ribbons, symbolizing autumn, winter, spring, and summer, which had to be cut with giant scissors. Once we reached the shore proper, the man with the conch shell called on the loa and sprayed alcohol onto the surf, and Mr. Zigun waded in with a big prop thermometer to signify that the water was now warm enough for swimming. Finally, the crowd threw two baskets’ worth of sliced watermelon, pineapples, and cantaloupe into the ocean, shrieking whenever an especially big wave crashed into us.

If there were any loa in attendance, all we did was piss them off, because as I was scarfing down some fried clams from the Gyro and Clam Bar the rain returned with a vengeance. I’d scored a chair at one of the Clam Bar’s umbrella-shaded tables, but I had to open my own brolly to fend off a drip down the back of my neck. When the shower showed no sign of letting up, I decided I’d be better off someplace with a roof, so I scurried off to the sideshow and claimed a spot on the front bench.

“Come nearer, that I may speak with thee, for I have seen marvellous things.”

The acts at the ten-in-one have changed a bit since last year — Donny Vomit the Human Blockhead performs his straitjacket escape hanging upside-down from a cable hoist, and has added bullwhip tricks to his repertoire (which includes juggling, pushing nails and drillbits in his nose, and sticking his tongue into a mousetrap), while the Black Scorpion has dropped his hands-free shoelace trick in favor of displaying his lobster-claw feet by walking on broken glass. Heather Holliday’s fire-eating and sword-swallowing routines were as I remembered them, and I got a much closer look at the latter when I answered her call for a volunteer. I thought she just wanted me to verify that the kris was not a trick sword, having forgotten that she actually needed someone to remove it from her gullet after she made a deep bow to the audience and then, still bent over, turned so they saw her in profile. (“Just pull it straight out. No waggling, no twisting.”) I managed to withdraw the blade in one motion, her spittle pattering to the stage like the rain outside, and took my bow.

TBC...

Tomorrow is the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (which I’ve mentioned previously). Apparently Flansburgh misspoke — he and his fellow Might-Be-Giant, Linnell, will not be filling King Neptune’s throne; instead, that honor goes to Harvey Keitel(!) and Daphna(?). Fingers crossed that the rain holds off for one day.

Meanwhile, this weekend’s midnight movie at the Sunshine Cinema is Splash, possibly the last good film Ron Howard ever directed,* with Daryl Hannah as the mermaid, Tom Hanks as a lovelorn produce wholesaler, John Candy as his feckless brother, and Eugene Levy as an obsessed cryptozoologist. As a kid I spent many, many hours in pools trying to mimic Hannah’s dolphin-style swimming technique, so I’m definitely going to take the opportunity to see this one again on a big screen, though I suspect some of the jokes will have aged badly.**

* Okay, I’ll give you Parenthood and Apollo 13.
** Holy smoke, according to IMDB it’s a quarter-century old!

Rare footage from the zombie invasion of June 7, 2009.

I saw the newest Pixar film today, and as the credits rolled I turned to my friend Lily and said, “That was beautiful.” It was also heartbreaking, thrilling, screamingly funny, and had a gorgeous soundtrack (by Michael Giacchino, who is rapidly gaining on Danny Elfman as my favorite living film composer). You should see Up. Everyone should.

ETA: Oh, and one of the trailers? Toy Story 3: June 2010. Haters who called Pixar uncommercial can suck it.

I am so, so, so glad I made it to tonight’s show by They Might Be Giants at Le Poisson Rouge, even if it did mean missing Wit’s End yet again, because:

1. They played a new song! Written by Danny Weinkauf &hearts! Called (I think) “I’m a Paleontologist”!

2. Flansburgh announced that they’re going to be the kings of this year’s Mermaid Parade! (I wonder if there’s any chance Linnell will borrow the mirrorball jumpsuit David Byrne wore for his stint as Neptune?)

Next Saturday Sunday (arrgh, calendar FAIL), June 7, aspiring zombies are invited to report to the Governors Island ferry terminal by 11:45 a.m. to take part in a film called Isle of the Dead, which is being made by the Bruce High Quality Foundation. RSVP by June 1, here.

I thought I was in trouble when I saw this Jezebel article, "Techno Textiles For Your Enterprise-Dwelling Days, Rave-Going Nights", because how cheestastic are halter tops that glow in the dark? Oh, but then someone posted a link to...

GlowFur.

Please, somebody stop me before I end up with a boa and leggings made from a tauntaun that had been stabled next to the reactor...

Your results:
You are Uhura

Uhura 80% Chekov 65% Will Riker 65% Jean-Luc Picard 60% James T. Kirk (Captain) 55% Geordi LaForge 55% Mr. Scott 50% Beverly Crusher 45% Spock 40% Deanna Troi 40% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 40% Worf 35% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 30% Mr. Sulu 30% Data 29%

You are a good communicator with a pleasant soft-spoken voice. Also a talented singer.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

...please to be joking.

Buffy Relaunching Without Whedon, Gellar...Regard for Fans?

...What with vampires and franchise relaunches suddenly all the rage, plans for a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie have inevitably come to pass, with the rights holders of the franchise announcing plans for a new Sunnydale-set film.

But there is a catch.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the film, which will neither be a sequel nor prequel but a relaunch, is moving ahead with absolutely no involvement from film and series mastermind Joss Whedon. It will also fail to feature TV's Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and will in fact have no connection to the long-running series—meaning Angel, Willow, Xander and Spike will also be MIA.

...

The idea behind the new reboot is to maintain the show's mythology while introducing a new slayer and Hellmouth-threatened group of pals, building on the idea that each generation has its own vampire slayer.

So basically, we can look forward to Bunny the Killer of Vampyres on screens in 2012?

Oh, oh! SciFi Channel is showing Shark Attack 3: Megalodon right now. I love this movie; it’s horrendous. I mean, everything is awful: the title font, the dubbing, the dialogue, John Barrowman’s performance (I’m sorry John, I love you dearly, but you are genuinely terribly in this), everyone else’s performance, and last but not least, the CGI shark. We are talking epic badness. Somewhere up in Heaven, Ed Wood is shedding one perfect tear.