A photo I took, edited in GIMP. :)
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Monday, 27 September 2010
And here's another (half-humourous) quote from my Moby-Dick quotes collection:
"One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it."
Thursday, 23 September 2010
It's been quite some time since I've written a sizeable post! But school started yesterday, and I also have orchestra rehearsal once a week, so my blogging time has been shortened considerably. Further work on my sewing projects, alas, will mostly have to wait until Christmas break.
I will avoid talking about school, for now. ;) Orchestra is pretty cool, though. We're playing some great music, including Beethoven's 7th, which (to me) is the hardest.
Yesterday was Hobbit Day! I was going to do some kind of blog post for it, but never got around to it. Oh well--happy birthday Frodo and Bilbo! :)
I will avoid talking about school, for now. ;) Orchestra is pretty cool, though. We're playing some great music, including Beethoven's 7th, which (to me) is the hardest.
Yesterday was Hobbit Day! I was going to do some kind of blog post for it, but never got around to it. Oh well--happy birthday Frodo and Bilbo! :)
"Who is Sherlock Holmes?"
Interestingly, we're not the only ones who think we know Holmes before we've met him. In the very first chapter of A Study in Scarlet, Dr John H. Watson is a wounded soldier just returned to England; and, by chance, he hears of Sherlock Holmes through an old acquaintance, Stamford. Contrary to what you'd expect, Watson does not ask "Who is Sherlock Holmes?" Instead, he assumes he already knows what kind of person Holmes is ("'A medical student, I suppose?'"), and he would probably have stuck to these assumptions, were it not for Stamford's apprehensions ("'You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet'"). When later he finally meets Sherlock Holmes himself, Watson learns that Holmes is far from being the quiet medical student he expected him to be.
* * *
The entrance of any great character is usually a turning-point in the story, and often a representation of who the character is or what they do. On the surface, there is something surprisingly un-Sherlockian about Watson's meeting Holmes; and yet, simultaneously, there are elements in this introduction which are definitive of Holmes's character, as well as of Watson's role as friend and biographer. One of these elements is the subject of Holmes's "first lines", as it were.
"'You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.'"
This sentence is often thought of as Holmes's first line in the series; however, it is really his third. His first line happens to be "'I've found it! I've found it'". These words are significant in many ways, but most especially interesting is the parallel (intentional or unintentional, I don't know) between Holmes and Archimedes--the mathematician who is famous for supposedly having cried "Eureka!" after finding "a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape" (Wikipedia). Eureka translates to "I have found it" (Wikipedia). This is the first of at least three comparisons between Holmes and geniuses of Ancient Greece. Later on, in Chapter 2, Holmes is compared to Euclid, and again in Chapter 1 of The Sign of Four. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that these parallels are made in the first two books of a very long series, before Holmes is shown to be a genius at solving numerous cases. And yet he lives up to it. He is a character who enters the story with perfect self-confidence, independent of Watson or the readers' approval.
Holmes's second line is very simple, and one which does not instantly seem important: "'How are you?' he said cordially". Its importance is, however, underlined by the fact that Holmes almost instantly resumes his previous exclamations regarding his chemistry experiment and discovery. In a way, one wonders why eccentric Holmes bothered with this formality at all, when he was in the middle of a momentous experiment and the deduction about Watson having been an army doctor. But was it just a formality? After all, judging from other stories, "How are you?" is not a typical greeting from Holmes. I can't help but wonder if, maybe, he really meant it, knowing as he did (via his deductions) that Watson was in poor health. If so, this would be the first of countless instances in which we see Holmes's philanthropic side, that part of his personality and principles which proves that we can't think of him as just being a cold, scientific "machine". Nor is he constantly depressed or stoic, either:
"'Ha! ha!' he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a child with a new toy. 'What do you think of that?'"
[The Holmes book quotes are from A Study in Scarlet]
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
"'I will have no man in my boat,' said Starbuck, 'who is not afraid of a whale.' By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
"'Aye, aye,' said Stubb, the second mate, 'Starbuck, there, is as careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery.' But we shall ere long see what that word "careful" precisely means when used by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.
Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew."
"'Aye, aye,' said Stubb, the second mate, 'Starbuck, there, is as careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery.' But we shall ere long see what that word "careful" precisely means when used by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.
Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew."
Monday, 20 September 2010
My Sherlock Holmes blog is back: Just a Trifle. I'm currently re-reading A Study in Scarlet, so I will be posting about that and other Sherlockian stuff, from time to time....
Someone at our church lent us a collection of TV episodes starring Ronald Howard as Sherlock Holmes. I had heard of this series before and had never heard anything negative about it, so I was quite looking forward to watching it. :)
The series is from the '50s; each episode is in B&W and about 25 or 30 minutes long. The plots and settings vary significantly; some of them are partly based on the original stories, and some are not. Personally, I'm not a purist when it comes to the Sherlock Holmes plots/settings; plus, in this series it all takes place in Victorian London, so that was cool. I loved the humour and suspense, as well as the fact that many aspects of the originals (Holmes's chemistry experiments, violin-playing, disguises, etc) were still there. I was sad to see that Mrs Hudson wasn't in any of them. On the other hand, Lestrade and Watson are in all of them. I really liked this Watson; granted, he gets upset a lot and doesn't try to figure things out for himself very much, but (overall) that's better than making him look really dumb, like in other versions.
Howard is an excellent Holmes. As opposed to Rathbone, Brett, and Cumberbatch, Howard's portrayal is very cheerful, charming, eccentric, and benevolent. Though he still solves cases with his talents of observation and deduction, you never see him in a bad mood or "pocketing a fee". It certainly brings out a different side of Holmes, but every portrayal does; and while it may not be quite as true to the books as it could be, it's still a worthy portrayal. The only thing that really bothers me is when, in this series, Holmes (in disguise, sort of) is pretending to be romantic. He's so convincing that it's kind of creepy. :P
Like most B&W films, this was pretty family-friendly; we all looked forward to watching it every evening, and we all loved the theme music. :) By the way, I recommend starting with the episode called "The Cunningham Heritage", because that's the one in which Watson first meets Holmes.
Recommended for fans of Sherlock Holmes and/or B&W movies. Even if you don't know much about Holmes, I would still recommend it!
Sunday, 19 September 2010
Monday, 13 September 2010
Saturday, 11 September 2010
"It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I seen a bird with clipped wing, making affrighted broken circle in the air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied." - Moby-Dick
My book review has been a long time in coming, because I've been trying to edit and abridge it, without detracting from it. However, I do hope to post the review soon. In the meanwhile, I will occasionally post some of what I thought were the best, most interesting, or most important quotes from the book.
Soon I will also post a book review for Nutcracker and Mouse King by E. T. A. Hoffmann, as well as The Tale of the Nutcracker by Alexandre Dumas. :)
And hopefully, I'll be posting some less bookish posts pretty soon, and another entry(s) for Darby's Paper Doll Event. The deadline is still a few days away, so it's not too late to enter! :)
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
This piece--the adagio from Haydn's 44th Symphony--has been haunting me for a whole week. Last Wednesday I found myself randomly (and I mean RANDOMLY) humming the main theme...I knew I wasn't making it up, but I couldn't figure out who wrote it or what it was from! It bothered me the rest of the day, especially when I wasn't sure if I was singing it right. Then, the next day, I had forgotten the theme, and decided to just forget about it all together. And then, later, I was trying to come up with a counter-melody for Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, when I suddenly remembered this theme (which fits in quite well with part of the Moonlight Sonata)! I couldn't decide if the composer was Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, or even Grieg..... But today I finally remembered. :) By chance, I've heard this exact movement twice (on different days) on our classical radio station; though I really liked it, I didn't think it had made that big of an impression on me.
Anyway, this post is probably interesting to no one but myself, but I'm sure glad that mystery is cleared up. ;)
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