Mansfield Park (2007 Version) DVD Review

This is the 200^th anniversary of the publication of Mansfield Park, and I’m celebrating it by reading or watching (and reviewing) as many spin-offs, re-tellings, and dramatizations as I can find this year. This DVD, the 2007 Masterpiece Theater version starring Billie Piper and Black Ritson, is the third DVD I’ve watched. I’m afraid I have to say that it comes in third to the other two (reviews here and here.)

I think my major problem with this version of Mansfield Park is that it’s very difficult to follow the plot if you haven’t read the book, and you are constantly confused by the changes they’ve made if you have. Two examples:

In one scene, Fanny is playing some kind of game (hide and seek?) with a much younger girl who never appears anywhere else. Susan? What is she doing at Mansfield Park? But she is left a mystery.

Instead of sending Fanny to her family in Portsmouth, Sir Thomas leaves her at Mansfield Park while he takes Lady Bertram and Aunt Norris to visit their mother. Never mentioned is the fact that this mother must also be Fanny’s grandmother. In fact, all of the scenes are set at Mansfield Park. This may have made filming easier, but it is very unlike the original, where Henry Crawford appears much different against the background of Portsmouth.

While the DVD had its moments, I found it a little disappointing overall. Certainly it does not come up to the older BBC version.

North Pole Weather 6/9/14

Raised beds as of June 7

The sun rose at 3:11 this morning, and will set at 12:31 tomorrow evening. Yes, we have a full 24 hours of daylight and bright twilight combined. Good thing I am not bothered by sleeping in a light room.

The thunderstorm season is here, and I hope we’ll get a little more rain. We’ve had some—about a quarter inch, which is normal for this time of June. But I’m still having to water quite a lot.

Most of the garden is now planted, at least the raised beds: one with zuchinni, one with mints, one with other herbs, and one with strawberries. The wild roses are in full bloom, as are the dwarf columbines and the hardy strawberries. The begonia boxes on the north side have been planted, and I hope to get the hanging geraniums trimmed and up soon. Thank goodness radiation therapy is over and I hope I’ll feel more energetic soon.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Rescue Operation

Sunday is time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above for links to other authors) and Sunday Snippets (click on the logo below.) Both offer a wide variety of genres and states of wiring, from rough drafts to published works.

I am starting at the beginning of a work I hope is almost ready for publication, Rescue Operation. We start in the antagonist’s point of view:

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Zhaim scowled at his agent’s report. Horizon was preparing to vote itself out of the Confederation? They couldn’t, of course. The fate of Rakal had put an end to that nonsense, and for once his half-brother had done the right thing. But the vote, once its results reached the Inner Council, was bound to bring questions about his competence as planetary Guardian.

Unless he could get them to adopt his own plan first. Did he control enough votes to do that? Wif, who could be counted on to vote with Roi, was away on a medical emergency.

I should say that some of my characters (the R’il’noids) do not age and are carried forward from Homecoming and Tourist Trap, which are set roughly 250 years earlier. Others will be remote descendants of the characters in the earlier books, and some will be entirely new. Rescue Operation is projected to be the first volume of a trilogy.

Science Fiction Romance Brigade: Both Sides Now

After I had this scheduled. I learned that the SFR Brigade Presents is taking a vacation during the month of June.  I’ll leave this one up, but Saturdays for the rest of June will be something else. Maybe more garden photos, if I get more good ones.  I’m posting from Both Sides Now, a work in progress. Doc Alsyn has been setting a little girl’s arm after Roi has hypnotized her. This is from Roi’s POV.

When [Doc] was done he looked at Roi, who by then was wondering how much longer he could stay upright.

Roi was staggering when Doc led him away. Could he make it back to the place where he had awakened? But Doc took him only a turn or two before pushing him down on a hay bale. “Stay there until I get back,” he ordered, and Roi was too tired to argue. He leaned back against the stacked bales of the wall, and tried to examine his own weakness. Mostly hunger, he decided. SleepSinging didn’t produce the energy drain of true Healing, but it took a tremendous amount of concentration. And he’d last eaten—when? The last food he could remember was the rabbit stew Terry had fed him.

Doctor Alsyn must have come to the same conclusion, because he was carrying a steaming mug as well as a rag-wrapped parcel when he returned. “Get this inside you,” he ordered as he sat on the floor and began examining Roi’s feet. After a moment he grunted, nodded in apparent satisfaction and unwrapped the rags, removing a capped bottle. “Hold still; this’ll sting a little,” he said as he swabbed Roi’s feet.

Jarn’s Journal Year 10 Day 34

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I think I may have underestimated Torch Flower.

When she approached me, I really thought she was trying again to seduce me, but her first question was, “Don’t you keep things cold to preserve them?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Meat especially, but even plant foods keep better if they’re cold.”

“Couldn’t part of the ice and snow you brought us be used to keep things fresh for the feast?

I blinked in surprise. “I think it would come better from the shamans. They’re meeting already, aren’t they?”

Rain Cloud, Lion, Crane, and several other shamans were talking together when Torch Flower and I arrived. “Torch Flower has an idea,” I said, “and I think it’s a good one.” I looked at her.

She gulped and stammered, “Couldn’t part of the ice be reserved for keeping food cold? Especially the food for the feast? Jarn says it’ll keep longer that way.”

Rain Cloud looked thoughtful. “We could dig a pit for food,” he said doubtfully, “but how would we keep wild animals out?”

“Dig the pit in the harder ice under the snow,” one of the younger shamans suggested. “Pile snow and rocks over the foodstuffs,” said another. I could almost see them considering this new idea of storing food, even for a short period.

Crane got to her feet. “Let’s go and find where the children aren’t.”

Mints, Part 2

The mints I showed before, in Part 1, aren’t the only ones in the raised bed. I didn’t buy a couple that didn’t really appeal to me last year (Banana Mint and Grapefruit Mint) but here are the others I did get. I just like having them around to smell. In addition, I planted  in a perennial bed one plant of a hardy mint which I am calling Alaska Mint. (It is probably Mentha avensis or Mentha canadensis.) It is trying to crowd out the perennials, though right now of course it is not as large as the transplants.

One of my favorite uses for mint is to chop the leaves fine and add them to unflavored Greek yogurt along with honey, walnuts and a bit of lemon juice.

This time I’m using a slide show; click on any small image to get to the show.

Peppermint (Mentha piperata)

Ginger Mint (Mentha x gracilis)

Spearmint (Mentha spicata)

Mojito Mint (Mentha x villosa)

Apple Mint (Mentha rotundifolia)

Lime Mint

Kentucky Colonel (Mentha spicata)

Chocolate Mint (Mentha piperata)

Alaska Hardy Mint

And the first rose of summer, photographed June 3. This is a wild rose, of the kind that makes up the undergrowth of our birch-aspen forests. I’ve never succeeded in transplanting one, but they sucker like mad and do their best to spread from the birch forest to the lawn.

Alaska Wild Rose

Quotes from Lewis Carroll

These are the contexts of the quotes tweeted from @sueannbowling between May 29 and June 4, 2014. Note that the Lewis Carroll quotes (the first six) come from two different books. These books have been so mixed up in movies that it’s a challenge to tie the quote to the right book. How did you do?

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice, just after she grows for the first time and is uncertain of her own identity.

“There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought!” Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice, expanding in the White Rabbit’s house.

“Beware the Jabberwok, my son!” Through the Looking-Glass. Part of the poem, Jabberwocky written in Mirror-writing in the room Alice first finds (the mirror image of the room in her home.)

“In most gardens they make the beds too soft—so the flowers are always asleep.” Through the Looking-Glass. The Tiger-lily’s explanation of why the flowers in this bed are awake and talking.

“The sea was wet as wet could be.” Through the Looking-Glass. Part of The Walrus and the Carpenter, recited to Alice by Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

“If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.” Through the Looking-Glass. Alice has just been introduced to the Unicorn, who considers human children fabulous monsters. When Alice replies that she has always thought that unicorns were fabulous monsters, the Unicorn suggests that they should both believe in each other.

“They weren’t really good at abstract ideas.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Cinda is describing the human ancestors of 125,000 years ago.

Mints, Part 1

Most perennial mints aren’t perennial in Alaska. There is an Alaskan variety which is perennial (and it is, typically for the genus, wildly invasive) and the ginger mints (Mentha x gracilis, a hybrid of arvensis and spicata) occasionally survive our winters. Both of these flower in the axils, rather than at the terminus.The rest are annuals in our climate, though they can be transplanted to the garden far earlier than most plants, and continue growing until buried in snow.

I generally buy plants of named varieties and plant them in a raised bed where they have only each other to compete with. Here are a few of my favorites:

Corsican Mint (Mentha requinii.) It looks like baby’s tears, but has a very strong mint odor.

Strawberry Mint. I suspect this is a hybrid, and relatively new. It really has a strawberry overtone to its scent.

Variegated Ginger Mint (Mentha x gracilis.)

 

Variegated Pineapple Mint (Mentha suaveolens.) It really does have a pineapple scent.

Orange Mint (Mentha citrata.) More flowery than orange, to my mind.

North Pole Weather 6/2/14

The sun will rise this morning at 3:32, and set tomorrow morning at 12:11. Yes, we’ve crossed the line where the sun doesn’t set until after midnight. It’s now over 47° above the horizon at noon, but we’re only gaining about 6 minutes a day. Temperatures are now fairly reliably above freezing here, though mixed snow and rain is being forecast for the higher elevations.

It’s a little cooler in the daytime (upper 50’s) but that’s because it’s somewhat cloudy. We’ve even had a little rain, but the fire danger is still high. We might have some scattered to isolated showers, but I don’t expect much rain. I watered some this weekend, and will have to water more next week. I do hope to get the rest of the transplants in the ground Tuesday.

Most of the perennials are up, and a few are even blooming. The white violets and the strawberries have been blooming for some time, and I think the dwarf columbines will be fully open by midweek.  I think a couple of the annual strawberries have even ripened, but the birds got them. I put floating row cover over them today, in hopes I could get some. Definitely spring, and I just wish I felt more energetic. Thank goodness the radiation therapy will be over in about a week!

Weekend Writing Warriors: Tourist Trap

 It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click the logo above for links to other participants) and Snippet Sunday (click the logo below to links to other snippets. This will be the last snippet from the hang gliding scene in Tourist Trap.

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The group had been together all morning, and the only thing Roi could find that seemed even remotely suspicious was what seemed a brief hiatus in memory while Timi had been seasoning the thick soup he had made from the first night’s leftovers. There was nothing unusual in that; people did wander off mentally while their bodies continued to work. But they had all slept very soundly last night. Could something or someone have drugged them, working though Timi’s body?

The one thing he was sure of, Roi decided as he withdrew from Timi’s mind, was that while Timi’s body might have been used, Timi himself had no part in the murder attempt. If he reported that he thought the glider had been sabotaged, his father would certainly order a detailed reading of the equipment. Any competent esper would pick up what he had, that Timi had handled the glider. And Timi would be in a very large amount of undeserved trouble.

And this, friends, is the really important decision Roi must make: risk Timi by telling his father, or risk himself by staying quiet. No, I’m not giving the answer, but most of the rest of Tourist Trap depends on his choice.

Next week I’ll start something new, perhaps the opening pages of the book I’m trying to find a publisher for.