Happy V-Day, etc.

[bironic]

Words are read,
LiveJournal is blue,
It's Valentine's Day,
So let's write some letters.


Valentine's letters


Dear SRW3.de,

Even though we were only introduced yesterday,
I feel that we have known each other for years.
The sound of your DJs and Europop over streaming RealPlayer
Flows through my headphones and caresses my ears.
Your insistence on playing nothing but horrendous love songs today,
However, does not endear. If this parade
Of Annie Lennox and Marc Antony continues much longer
Our relationship may have to end, I fear.

Yours with ever-diminishing love,
Ein listener in Amerika



Dear Hugo Weaving,

I love you dearly. You have been brilliant in a variety of roles and I'm sure you will be equally brilliant as V in the upcoming "V for Vendetta" with Natalie Portman. You come from Australia and got your start in indie films so you probably have a good head on your shoulders despite all the recent media attention. Also it is Valentine's Day. Therefore I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt when a news article quotes you as having said that it was difficult to act behind a mask in "Vendetta" because "It was hot and I felt there was a barrier between myself and other actors."

Hugs and kisses,
me



Dear Boss,

Thank you for giving every woman in the office a slightly wilted rose this morning. I wonder what you would think if you knew that as I looked at it resting atop my flatscreens, I contemplated picking off the petals and munching on the tip of the stem like Viggo Mortensen did in "The Prophecy." In his own words while squeezing the juice out of Christopher Walken's heart, "aaaaaaaieeeeecchh."

Wistfully,
Your employee



Dear English language,

Our love-hate relationship has been both the bane and joy of my existence. I wish us both a wonderfully painful life together.

XOXO
me



Dear subconscious,

Just when I think you couldn't possibly improve upon your previous gifts to me, you out-do yourself. What more could a girl want than a night spent in DublEdinburgh, caught in the rain in a park, looking in a mirror to find a face deformed from a mugging with powdery eyelid and cratered nose and a cheek looking like raw tuna, about to carry on a lesbian love affair with someone who looked like the lead in "Pretty Boy," and then phoning my father from a hotel room with a male college friend telling him we'll be giving him grandchildren? I am truly blessed.

See you in my dreams.
-me

P.S. Thank you for teaching me not to peruse pathology books before bed.



Dear Mom,

When I asked you not to send me your e-mail forwards with "jokes" and "cautions" and "beautiful photographs," I did not mean you could sneak in a few by cleverly removing the "FWD:" in the subject line. Happy Valentine's Day anyway.

Your daughter



Dear Cary Tennis,

Love. Just, love. Your articles in Salon single-handedly justify the existence of advice columns.

-A faithful reader



Dear NBC Olympics anchor,

Stop calling Turin "Torino." We live in an English-speaking country. Our maps don't say Torino; our textbooks don't refer to the Shroud of Torino or the Torino Papyrus. We don't call Rome "Roma" or pronounce Paris "par-EE." In an ideal world we would adopt native geographical spellings and pronunciation. But right now you have no idea what you're talking about and you sound stupid. I will never marry you.

No love,
me



Dear "House" screenwriters,

If Wilson in any way refers to himself, House and anything related to Valentine's Day in the same sentence, I will enslave myself to you.

Hopefully,
A fan

P.S. It's all right if a third party insinuates something about the pair of them, but it doesn't count if House makes the joke.



Dear "Boston Legal" screenwriters,

See above letter to writers of "House." Replace "Wilson" with "Alan Shore," "House" with "Denny Crane," and "refers to" with "performs some sort of action like buying flowers or showing up in a huge red heart-shaped costume," which you must admit isn't out of the question after last Halloween's flamingo getup. Bonus points if there is sincere emotion involved in the scene.

-ibid.


~~~~~~


Come on, you know you want to share.

Comments

[musicisbelievng.livejournal.com]

dear bird flu,

thanks for sharing.

no love,
me

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Dear sister,

Keep your lethal germs on your side of the room when we watch "House" and wait for Wilson to pop the question.

Sincerely,
me


Oh, and here's one I missed:


Dear entire male population of the country,

Stop assuming that just because I am female I adore this holiday and demand gifts of all men of my acquaintance. This goes especially for you, company VP.

Wishing it were tomorrow,
me

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Dear fellow Danes,

Thanks a lot for not (yet) buying into a trick cooked up by florists who wanted to sell more.

Sincerely,
Kabal



Dear University of Copenhagen,

Thank you for ruining my fun by assigning me early morning classes all week this semester - and nothing else. If I fail I will credit you.

Sincerely,
A very frustrated and sleep-deprived student



Dear Muslims of the world,

I'd like to send you all a virtual box of halal sweets and a big apology on behalf of my country. Let's spread the love instead, 'kay?

Best wishes,
Me



Dear LJ and fandom,

You frustrate me at times and I don't understand you. (LJ, why do you keep putting someone else's icon where mine should be?)
I still love you and would be royally bored without you.

Much love,
Kabal

P.S. Special thoughts to the Moonlight people!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Dear Kabal,

Life on LJ wouldn't be half as sweet without you, even if you are frustrated and sleep-deprived and busy wrapping a package for the Middle East.

-me

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

Dear Bironic,

Ditto.

-me

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

*skitters in* I'm late! I'm late! Damned plane!

Dear Germany,

While it could never work out between us over the long term, I am utterly besotted with you, with your uber-environmentally-conscious GelbeSack, your trippy and utterly wrong religious-themed sculptures, your humourous consonants and your cakes with cream in. I will always treasure our brief time together, and also the gummi penis named "Lars" you so kindly bestowed on me. Eis wurdur mit dem Heisslickmakenderschtock geschlaggen. (Spelled phoenetically, which is another word for "wrong".)

Yours, with regretful and constant affection,
C.


Dear Simon and Florien,

Either come talk to me and behave like proper characters, or retire to the recesses of my brain so I can work on something else. You don't get to hide from me for three weeks, only to resurface having sex in the middle of a Picasso exhibit when I have other things to do with my time. Bad, bad boys.

Yours, resignedly,
C.


Dear handmade German chocolate,

I love you. I worship you. I cannot hide it any longer. Bind me, whip me, make me your slave.

Kissing the feet you don't actually have,
C.


Dear British politics,

Do you remember the first fervant days
Of our torrid affair, that feverish haze?
Nothing mattered: not the difference in ages,
Nor the scandals splashed in the Guardian's pages,
Nor the war, nor the hospitals, school fees, or wages!
I read every word on the Chancellor's taxes,
and delighted to talk about the Brown-Blair axis;
I followed debates and read soppy biography
I even brushed up my electoral geography!
It's grown tepid since then, and I think you know why,
Tony's charm has worn thin, Gordon just makes me sigh,
Peter's in Belgium and Alastair's fired,
Cameron fucks with my brain, and the Lib Dems are mired,
I still read with affection, I don't think I'll leave,
But it's duty, not passion; come on, make me believe!
Through the grove of Eros with you once more I'll amble,
if you raise up a hero from this centre-right shambles.
But you'll have to do better than Sir Menzies Campbell.

Rhymefully, C.


Dear Brain,

I toil through reams of political analysis and perfectly respectable novels, and you cause me to dream of an icthysaur with legs, Evil Dumbledore, Harry Potter perched on a satellite dish, and insects. In the days since I unexpectedly presented you with the sight of a taxidermied deformed donkey head, you have been unusually sedate. Let it never be said that after the many long years of our relationship, you have ceased to surprise me, although I occasionally wish you would.

With long-suffering affection,
C.


Dear David Thewlis,

Stop. Just stop. Please.

Sincerely, C.


Dear Bironic,

You are a marvellous writer and a delight to know.

Also you have the coolest Valentine's icon ever.

- C.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Dear C.,

Wilkommen zurük aus Deutschland with all its gummi anatomy and seductive chocolate.

Thank you for letting the entire department know I was not doing work due to the choking and snuffling noises emanating from my desk as I read your letters & poem. Your genius floors me.

Here's to the day you & I & M. & synn all marry one another in a questionably legal but quite open relationship allowing for everyone's multiple indiscretions with political figures, fictional characters and other unreachables.

Yours ever,
B.

P.S. The icon was mostly for you. Well, mostly for me, but secondarily mostly for you.

P.P.S. Dare I ask what your sexy German phrase means or what not-Lupin!Thewlis has done now?

Correspondence

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

Dear B.,

The German phrase is actually "Es wurde mit dem hesslingemochendestock geschlaggen," though it's missing a few crucial umlauts and those cool German letters that look like elongated Bs but which are pronounced as double s's. A rough translation is, "it was whomped wit da ugly stick," and is a very useful phrase when touring kitschy German aquariums and traumatising small children.

I would be willing to sign up for your lesbian foursome open marriage scheme, not least because it would get the two of you into this country. And because I've just written a letter to my uncle explaining that no, I'm not actually married to catiilinarian, and so it would be a lot of fun to spring THIS on him.

love,
Fiancee #3


Dear C.,

I was going to write some letters of my own, but you have utterly shamed me. I will instead totter off, a-goggle at your genius, and attempt to write some actual serious fiction.

So if my boys end up having sex in the next hour or so, it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.

love,
The Flatmate Who Tortures You By Coming In Late And Being Loud And Eating Your Food


Dear Wells Cathedral,

Your scissor arch creeps me out because it has those two Gothic-style decorations on the side that look like eyes so the whole thing ends up looking like a ravenous mouth set at the transept by some incredibly sadistic 14th-century architect. I want it to be March soon so I can turn my calendar over and get a pretty picture of York Minster instead.

Thank you very much,
An Anglican Who Doesn't Enjoy Being Eaten By Her Ecclesiastical Architecture

Re: Correspondence

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Dearest M.,

Please don't let our staggering genius (see me include myself in the list) stop you from sharing your own. More letters, I say! More! Please also do not fall victim to the scissor arch of doom before you escape to a glossy photo of the lovely York Minster. Ah, to be in England again.

Thank you also for your colorful translation. I got "hit with" and might've fathomed "stick" but certainly it fell short of the real thing. A toast to the day when the peons around me will understand the beauty of Germanic languages.

Sincerely,
Your wife-to-be.

Re: Correspondence

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I think I've got the spelling down, at least so it runs through Google translator with the right answer: "Es wurde mit dem Häßlichmachendestock geschlagen."

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

Here's to the day you & I & M. & synn all marry one another in a questionably legal but quite open relationship allowing for everyone's multiple indiscretions with political figures, fictional characters and other unreachables.

Hey, I'm game. :) As long as the liasons with fictional/historical/contemporary political characters are respected, that could be quite fun. Plus I get to scrounge off everybody else's food. Fic and food. Has ever woman married for a higher purpose, oh ye gods?

The icon was mostly for you. Well, mostly for me, but secondarily mostly for you.

Awwwwwww... :) Hurrah!

Dare I ask what your sexy German phrase means or what not-Lupin!Thewlis has done now?

Well, Margaret has translated the phrase, erm, admirably :), but I'd just like to add what a clever word "Heissligemockenderstock" is. It's not a stick that is ugly (a Heissligestock, I believe), but rather, a stick that MAKES things ugly. German is a remarkably flexible language.

As for Thewlis, it was more that he came up in conversation recently, and the conversation turned into a long catalogue of "that movie where he was smarmy... and that other movie where he was smarmy... and that movie he was smarmy in a few years ago, with the dragon..." Yeesh.

M. suggested Paul McGann as a better Remus, what thinkst thou?

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

Even after being corrected, my German spelling still sucks.

Love, Number One Fiancee

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to add what a clever word "Heissligemockenderstock" is. ... German is a remarkably flexible language.

'Tis! Whenever this subject comes up I always want to mention a comment in Middlesex where Jeffrey Eugenides says much the same thing, saying if there isn't already then there ought to be a single word in German to encapsulate such complex emotional states as "the mortality that one feels when watching one's parents age" -- only I could never find it again before I had to return the book to its rightful owner.

M. suggested Paul McGann as a better Remus, what thinkst thou?

Eh, I'd have to disagree. Love the McGannster, but he doesn't exude Remusness. But if we're talking Thewlis vs. McGann, I think we all know who comes out on top. Pun intended.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

And here, look, a bit from a Salon interview (http://salon.com/ent/movies/review/2006/02/16/btm/) with Marc Rothemund, who directed "Sophie Scholl: The Last Days" (am so looking forward to that when it hits our indie theatre next week) -- text is Rothemund, brackets are the interviewer:

The murderers, the resistance fighters, the followers [he actually said "follow-men," which is a terrific word] -- they all will die in the next few years.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

"The Final Days," sorry.

The McGannster

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

Grow his hair long and give him glasses and a lot of tweedy old clothes. He's got the unreadable gaze, the little smile that means "a lot is going on behind here, and no you don't get to see," the soft yet angular face, the hint of passion behind the smooth exterior, and the haunted way of looking at something for just a moment too long. I think he'd be brilliant.

Who would you cast?

Re: The McGannster

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I see where you're coming from, and I do think he'd be better than D.T., but he's still not my Remus. Trouble is I can't think of who *is* my Remus. If it occurs to me I'll certainly share.

Re: The McGannster

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

That's the thing about film adaptations for me - no one is ever going to be MY Remus, or my Vetinari, or my Catilina, or whoever. The more invested in a character I am, the harder it is to watch anyone playing them, however good the actor is.

Re: The McGannster

[bironic.livejournal.com]

True. Yet some actors can carry off a character quite well without exactly satisfying your imagination. For example I think Alan Rickman does a good job with Snape, as would Jeremy Irons (and did, in the Red Nose Day spoof), yet neither is "Snape." Paul McGann would do a good job as Lupin but would be neither "Lupin" nor the best choice of nearly-Lupin, though he'd come closer than David Thewlis. Does that make sense?

Re: The McGannster

[(Anonymous)]

That makes sense. Have you ever seen an actor play a character you love in a way that completely contradicts your image of that character, but so well that you start to rethink your own views of the character?

I can't think of an example, I have to admit, but I'm curious.

Re: The McGannster

[bironic.livejournal.com]

The first examples that come to mind are the film adaptations of the Vampire Chronicles. There it was mostly casting choices that contradicted my images of the characters -- Antonio Banderas as Armand (God, that still makes me cringe) in "Interview," Stuart Townsend as Lestat in "Queen of the Damned," and so forth. Stuart Townsend didn't play Lestat entirely contrary to how I'd imagined him, but he drew attention to some aspects of the character I hadn't paid much attention to before. And he inhabited the role well enough that the lack of physical resemblance didn't matter.