Memphis, warmup
15/2/10 10:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bronze_ribbons[The second half of this is a cross-post from chrysanthemum.]
In Memphis to watch some tennis (volunteering for the tournament = free pass to the matches I'm not working). I don't expect to do much this week outside tennis and work (I just realized I actually brought along more paperwork and reference materials than clothes); fortunately, the hotel room is clean and spacious as well as cheap.
It also presents a huge distraction in the form of the TV -- at home, I don't have cable, NBC isn't coming through either (so no Olympics), and videos give my netbook seizures, so I have to go out of my way to watch anything. Last night, though, I caught part of a special on the SI swimsuit issue (= soft porn not only for those appreciative of fine, firm flesh, but also for production and marketing geeks -- I love "behind the scenes" shows), and also the tail end of Granada's interpretation of "The Adventure of the Dancing Men," which was rebroadcast last night - an episode I saw when it first aired back in 1984, when the late Jeremy Brett was in his prime as Sherlock Holmes. I caught the last third of it and then, thanks to YouTube, looked up the scene that's stuck with me all these years: when Holmes and Watson decipher an especially critical message.
...It's even better than I remembered. At the time, what caught my fancy was Holmes and Watson locking eyes for a second as they both realized what the message said, and then both bolting out the room. For some reason (probably conflation with another episode), the scene ending with Holmes vaulting over a sofa and shouting for a servant or hansom -- that's not here, but what is -- what I didn't have time or wit to notice 26 (!) years ago -- is how beautifully the scene is constructed and acted. Replaying it several times, watching the incremental changes in Burke and Brett's expressions as the meaning of the message dawns on them -- and then the camera's similarly paced, section-by-section reveal of the message to the viewer -- oh, such craft!
Lucille Clifton died this past weekend. I laughed out loud when I first read Wishes for Sons. And I love the closing lines of cutting greens:
In Memphis to watch some tennis (volunteering for the tournament = free pass to the matches I'm not working). I don't expect to do much this week outside tennis and work (I just realized I actually brought along more paperwork and reference materials than clothes); fortunately, the hotel room is clean and spacious as well as cheap.
It also presents a huge distraction in the form of the TV -- at home, I don't have cable, NBC isn't coming through either (so no Olympics), and videos give my netbook seizures, so I have to go out of my way to watch anything. Last night, though, I caught part of a special on the SI swimsuit issue (= soft porn not only for those appreciative of fine, firm flesh, but also for production and marketing geeks -- I love "behind the scenes" shows), and also the tail end of
...It's even better than I remembered. At the time, what caught my fancy was Holmes and Watson locking eyes for a second as they both realized what the message said, and then both bolting out the room. For some reason (probably conflation with another episode), the scene ending with Holmes vaulting over a sofa and shouting for a servant or hansom -- that's not here, but what is -- what I didn't have time or wit to notice 26 (!) years ago -- is how beautifully the scene is constructed and acted. Replaying it several times, watching the incremental changes in Burke and Brett's expressions as the meaning of the message dawns on them -- and then the camera's similarly paced, section-by-section reveal of the message to the viewer -- oh, such craft!
Lucille Clifton died this past weekend. I laughed out loud when I first read Wishes for Sons. And I love the closing lines of cutting greens:
i taste in my natural appetite
the bond of live things everywhere.