Fish, stars, dysfunction, sci fi, fic, film and to-do's - a weekend roundup

[bironic]

Whew, what a weekend.

Things I did do:

- Had a nice Restaurant Week seafood dinner Friday night with 11 (!) of the LJ fangirl brunch crew. With that many people, especially in a place as noisy as the restaurant we went to, it's impossible to talk to anyone more than two people down the table, but it was quite lovely down at my end with scribblinlenore, pun and scrunchy, with visits from linaerys and moonlash_cc between courses. Er, let me drop a few more names there. Point is, much fun conversation was had and much fish was consumed.

- Went to the first of this year's weekly astronomy lectures waaaay out east at the Custer Institute; so far that, even though the lectures are only an hour and a half and the observations afterward last less than 30 minutes because it's usually so cold, the whole outing takes about six hours. Anyway. This one was on the fundamental questions of cosmology, namely, determining the curvature of space-time to ascertain whether the universe will continue expanding indefinitely, collapse in on itself, or reach a point of equilibrium, all of which involves calculating the rate of expansion based on energy density, a combination of mass and energy, which in turn involved accurately calculating the Hubble constant, which took a century, which was only possible to measure if the two tenets of the cosmological principle were held to be true, and so on and so forth. The lecturer, a bespectacled professor wearing classic black-on-black-on-black and who reminded me a little bit of Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, did a fairly good job of it, despite having an unfortunate verbal tic of tacking "right" onto the end of most sentences. I hadn't known most of the math behind the theories, so it was cool to see the equations written out and explained; and I hadn't realized cosmologists had actually reached a conclusion from among those three outcomes: Our universe, the three-dimensional equivalent of a plane (rather than of a sphere or hyperbolic curve like a saddle), will expand infinitely—and the rate of expansion is itself increasing, due to the influence of the almost entirely mysterious dark energy (even more mysterious than dark matter). Neat, huh?

- Saw Harold Pinter's The Homecoming today with a few friends, preceded by a delicious brunch and followed by some much-needed recovery at a pub. The acting was top-notch, with Ian McShane as a suitably horrible if too-vigorous Max, Raul Esparza doing a wonderfully dry Lenny and Eve Best playing Ruth with just the right amount of inscrutability. I'm glad I read the play last night so I knew what to expect and could concentrate on the way the lines were being delivered instead of on what they were saying. Really the only bad part was when some woman's cell phone rang in the left mezzanine, and kept ringing, and then she answered it, to resounding shhes. Moron. But the company made up for it. You have to love going places with people who hug you goodbye on the street and say, "I'll send you that porn!" as you part ways for the subway.

- Watched SGA. Fun episode. Reminded me of "Irresistable."

- Claimed a prompt for wilson_fest that provides an excuse to write young!Wilson sex. Ohhhh, yes.

- Signed up for a pass to a foreign/indie film thing at a sort-of-nearby college; six Fridays from February to April with a double feature each night, including Lust, Caution (Se, Jie), The Kite Runner, No Country for Old Men, some stuff from Turkey and Italy, and one from Israel called Jellyfish (d'you know it, roga?). I haven't rented foreign films -- or any films -- in a while, and I'm really looking forward to getting back into it, not to mention going to movie theaters again.

- Got about 150 pages further in Black Powder War on the train. Still like the first book best, but rumor has it the fourth is great, except for the cliffhanger.


Things I did not do:

- Write Dee a birthday fic
- Write more House vampire fic
- Write the next gate_house post
- Finish my DVD commentary
- Memoryfest catch-up

Oh, well. Those will come soon. Meantime, tomorrow I've got to get some work done and train up the new guy who's coming in to replace my co-worker who was fired Friday (at laaaaast). And Tuesday is the new House, yay!

Comments

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

I saw Lust, Caution in theatres and really liked it. Most of the reviews I read whined about how there wasn't enough sex, which I found really annoying. It's rated NC-17, but that doesn't mean it can't also be slow and subtle.

Gonna go check out the wilson_fest prompts now.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Sadly, most of the prompts suck. As you may be discovering as I type this.

I'm looking forward to Lust, Caution, although I don't know much about it other than what you've just said, what moonlash_cc told me today about there being a translated article from China in the latest Harper's containing a caution not to perform the acrobatic sex in the movie or risk the head of your dick snapping off or something, and that Tony Leung is in it, and I like him (although I always confuse him with Leslie Cheung for some reason, who is quite dead).

Across the Universe is also on the list, actually; I thought of you and that threesome fic you did.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

It's definitely long, and the pace is fairly languid, so if you're in it for the ZOMG NC-17 factor, you'll probably feel cheated. If you like really atmospheric films that gradually submerge you in the world they portray, whether it happens to have acrobatic sex or not, you'll probably find it way more interesting. I just think it's sad that Americans apparently think that if something's rated NC-17, it has to have tons of hot porn.

AtU is gorgeous, if a little cheesy, but anything that lets Julie Taymor play in her own little sandbox that awesomely is fine by me. *grins*

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I just think it's sad that Americans apparently think that if something's rated NC-17, it has to have tons of hot porn.

Heh. I'm looking at it like I look at fics with that rating -- it could be a porn fest, or it could be a long and involved story that happens to have an explicit sex scene in it. I like long and atmospheric movies, if they're the right kind of atmospheric, which of course is hard to define or determine until you try.

[zulu.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great weekend! I love saying, "Oh yeah, and I'll send you the porn!" to my friends: often we'll talk slash or sex or whathaveyou at elevated volumes in restaurants and waiting for movies. It's a good life.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Isn't it just? Until I met this group, it used to be just one or two friends at a time. Now it's like, four, six, twelve, let's traumatize the waitstaff and patrons! Heh.

[roga.livejournal.com]

I do know it! Haven't seen it yet, though, but I want to. It won an award in Cannes last year - it's written by actress & playwrite Shira Geffen, daughter of- and sister of- two of the best contemporary musicians/writes/poets (who've written some of my favorite songs), and directed by her and her husband, whose one of Israel's most popular (if not the most) short story author. Anyway, I need to see it :-) And I'm sying to see The Kite Runner! I loved the book, and am curious about the movie.

Also, fangirl brunching sounds like fun! Lucky you :-)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I do count myself very lucky to have found that group last year, especially after my two local "RL" friends moved to 12+ hours' drives away. They are fun and smart and fannish, and they know good restaurants. :)

The only Geffen I know is movie mogul David. I'd ask if there's any relation, both being in the film industry, but possibly it's a common last name. The movie looks cool, in any case; I'm excited to see it. Too bad it is on the last night of the series, all the way in mid-April. The Kite Runner is the first week of March, I think.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Lust, Caution has been all over the news here and sounds interesting - it's more that I'm a bit daunted by the running time! And concerned that 'leisurely' is merely critic-speak for 'dull'. Although I did see American Gangster recently, which clocked at >150 minutes and thoroughly enjoyed it. That had lots of guns and blood and the occasional glimpse of Ted Levine though XD

[bironic.livejournal.com]

And concerned that 'leisurely' is merely critic-speak for 'dull'.

Heh. Very true. And sad, if the reviewers are coding their own boredom out of some kind of insecurity. But I figure if I made it through the three(-and-a-half?)-hour director's cut of Das Boot without getting restless, I'll be fine with this. But we shall see.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

LOL, it's probably more my, um, personal reinterpretation given my threshold of boredom than the critics' problem. Probably. Would love to hear your thoughts when you've seen it!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

*g* I see.

I'd like to try to get up a brief reaction to each of the movies I end up making it to; I feel better producing something afterwards instead of just sitting for four hours passively watching, which is more my natural state. And possibly writing up summaries of the astronomy lectures too, although I don't know if anyone is interested in those.