[FILM] The Time Traveller's Wife

The Time Traveller's Wife (IMDB)

My distinction between 'film based on the book' and 'film of the book' stands: this is the former.

I liked it much more than I'd expected: it's not nearly as dark as the book, and by necessity it skims most of the novel's plot in favour of focussing on the marriage / pregnancy aspects. Just as IMDB says, it's a romantic drama with SF elements. And it made me reread the book (I'd forgotten a lot, including the poetry of Niffenegger's writing) to work out how much had been omitted: a lot.

( slightly more detailed and vaguely spoilery notes )

I liked it as a film, I'd see it again, but it does not have an exact relation to the book.

*(Thought: are there films that rely on a knowledge of their text? I'm thinking Sin City, maybe the first Harry Potter film, probably the various Shakespeare-based productions. Buy me beer and get me talking about how Alternate Universes only work in fanfiction Transformative Works -- then drop in the version of The Revengers' Tragedy with Eddie Izzard ...)

2009/63: Doors Open -- Ian Rankin

Doors Open -- Ian Rankin

"You're telling me you think Chib Calloway is a man to be trusted?"
"He's got more to lose than any of us. With a record like his, the law would come down on him like Carl Andre's bricks." (p. 103)

( slightly spoilery review )

2009/64: White is for Witching -- Helen Oyeyemi

White is for Witching -- Helen Oyeyemi

I am here, reading with you. I am reading this over your shoulder. I make your home home, I'm the Braille on your wallpaper that only your fingers can read -- I tell you where you are. Don't turn to look at me. I am only tangible when you don't look. (p.68)

( non-spoilery review )

[art] Playing the Building

Playing the Building
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

Went to the Roundhouse last week with major_clanger to see experience the David Byrne installation, Playing the Building.

It was weird.

Basically, each key of an old-fashioned pump organ is attached to a tube, a hammer or a motor: pressing the key makes Noise, somewhere in the space around one.

But the noises were pretty much random -- a key always produced the same note, but there was none of this low-to-high left-to-right pitch, no octaves, no scales. Deconstructing the Western musical tradition! It was ... disconcerting.

Given a lot longer I'd probably have experimented a lot more, but even on a Wednesday there was a queue (though not a long one) and quite a few children, who I think enjoyed the experience more than the adults -- perhaps because of having fewer expectations of what happens when you hit keys on a keyboard.

Great for people-watching, but not precisely musical except in the most random and ephemeral sense.

major_clanger's write-up is more detailed.

Where are we going ...

Where are we going ...
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

.. and why is ladymoonray in a handbasket? South Bank, last week.

Haven't yet got the hang of photo-blogging direct from New Phone: I've just uploaded the best of the last month's pictures.

Sunflower in search of sun

Gloomy Sunday
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

a field of sunflowers near Duxford.

2009/65: The Time-Traveller's Wife -- Audrey Niffenegger

The Time-Traveller's Wife -- Audrey Niffenegger

Reread after seeing the film (link goes to my review) which I liked: suspect I am in a minority again.

( spoilery thoughts -- not a proper review )

Friday night is party night

1. live online bookbuying
2. i live with him, i see his face, i go no more away -- online short story by Helen Oyeyemi, whose White is for Witching I recently reviewed here.
3. BBC News piece on Bolivian baroque music and how it's thrived since the Jesuits were expelled (may be of interest to readers of ianmcdonald's Brasyl, amongst others ...