a... coda? since the debate seems to have died down mostly.

After being late to work a couple of times early this week I resolved not to get on the computer before I left anymore, and thus Thursday and Friday passed without me checking my email. Then I logged in to lj from Brother Windows's house (alternative to Watching Dudes Play Video Games, one of my least favourite activities) and saw a bunch of comments from people arguing with a troll in the comments of my second-to-last post.

Although I probably wouldn't have known quite what to say to the troll if I'd seen the comments sooner anyway, because I'm always baffled by people putting forward baldly ridiculous claims that don't seem to be answering the things they're purportedly in answer to. So thank you very much to the people who said it far better than I would have anyway, notably folklorefanatic and zillah975, who engaged at length. Though I've been reading voraciously and commenting regularly in the current debate, I certainly didn't expect much response to my brief and uncomplicated single-point post. It's not like I had called out a profic BNF or anything (from the level of crazy discovered in folklorefanatic's superficial investigations, it's possible that the troll didn't grasp that I wasn't attacking EB, though).

Re-Inventing ACD's Holmes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/movies/25lyal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

The new Holmes is rougher, more emotionally multilayered, more inclined to run with his clothing askew, covered in bruises and smudges of dirt and blood. This Holmes falls into modern-style funks between cases, lying on the sofa, suffused with anomie, unshaven and unkempt, surrounded by a pile of debris. He keeps his bills pinned to the wall with a bowie knife.

Wow! You know, this almost reminds me of some ground-breaking character from literature! You might have heard of him, Guy Ritchie and Lionel Wigram! He's by Arthur Conan Doyle! They act like they invented a characterisation which not only is straight from the text (the text goes completely unmentioned in the article), but which is hardly unrepresented onscreen (in an episode of the Brett Holmes - not coincidentally widely considered the definitive one! - Holmes sets the newspaper on fire with a chemical experiment).

Meanwhile you have such baffling claims as

Lionel Wigram, who conceived the story and is also a producer of the film, said that reinventing Holmes as an action hero made perfect sense. “I never agreed with the idea of the fairly stuffy Edwardian-type gentleman,” Mr. Wigram said. “It wasn’t my idea of Sherlock Holmes.”

Oh yes, how strange that an Edwardian would be Edwardian!

Susan Downey, a producer on the film and Mr. Downey’s wife, said Holmes is “a bit of a ladies’ man, a bit of a brawler,” adding: “He has a gambling problem. If you’re a Sherlock Holmes fan who is in love with the original stories, then you’ll appreciate him.”

Especially if you didn't notice how he hates women in them and you think that "gambling" and "cocaine" are the same thing.

rustic swedish dining

I've been told the main difference between Swedish and Finnish farm cottage style is the colours. Swedish cottage style is bright-coloured and the default wood and wall colour is white; for Finns, it's natural wood and dark brown, and in the case of Wax's mom's cottage at Ängisbacka for example, if they don't have natural dark wood, sometimes they'll just paint perfectly good surfaces glossy dark brown. (Seriously, it's so gross.) Most of the rustic decor seen in this magazine and others like it is more colourful than this - one of the feature houses in the Jan issue, and with some of the nicest pictures!, belongs to a woman who's nutty about white decorating. There are several more pages of her all-white craziness, but the diningroom here, I think, is especially beautiful.

Does it mean I'm middle aged (for the record, I'm just 26) that I prefer interior design magazines to fashion magazines? Although actually, it's more that the internet is a more forward-thinking venue for fashion news perhaps. Anyway: Lantliv is my favourite magazine (although in some senses I prefer the urban modernist bright coloured Finnish aesthetic of Deko, Lantliv has a lot more pictures and uh, I can actually read the articles).

Leadership of a Major World Religion FAIL

Pope Benedict's rehabilitation of four traditionalist bishops may heal one festering Catholic wound at the expense of opening a wider one with Jews because one of the prelates is a Holocaust denier.

I've never been that impressed with the Pope, but honestly, are you fucking kidding me?