Galvanizing

1. On the Branagh/Thompson Much Ado about Nothing:

Spouse: This music is just completely wrong for this opening sequence. It's too bombastic.

Castiron: Imagine what it'd do to the tone if they'd used the Benny Hill theme instead.

(We have been watching that DVD a lot in the past few days; I was looking for something for adults that could still be watched with a preschooler in the room and settled on this, and preschooler is fascinated by the idea that all these people are voluntarily taking baths in the beginning. He also appreciates Branagh's pratfall with the chair, and I usually stop the movie soon after that because naked people bathing are one thing; Claudio throwing Hero around is another.)

2. Castiron: With all the remakes Hollywood does, why has no one ever remade any of the Marx Brothers movies?

Spouse: Because it'd be impossible. The plots are nearly non-existent, and no one'd sit through it.

Castiron: True, especially if they kept the musical segments.

Spouse (thinks): Now, if they were remade by Bollywood....

(An Indian remake of Duck Soup or Night at the Opera is now the movie I second most want to see come out of Bollywood. Number one is still a Mansfield Park retelling.)

3. I checked out Iron Man from the library and watched it for the first time. There's a scene in the early part of the movie, where a bunch of bad guys are waiting outside a cave and Tony Stark's about to emerge, nice and dramatic....and I paused the DVD because I noticed one of the guys was wearing a really interesting hat, and I wanted to figure out the technique -- knit? crocheted? something else? And then another pause, because another guy was wearing a hat with filet crochet flowers! Cool!

Yes, I paused at a dramatic moment to look at the needlework. Yes, I'm a knitter/crocheter. Besides, the upcoming minute of film is predictable; the regional headgear is pretty flipping cool.

morning, after older son's fifteenth repetition of a four-note phrase

Spouse: Who has more to answer for? The CEO of J.P. Morgan for causing global financial crisis, or the creators of the new Muppet movie for bringing the song "We Built This City" into the consciousness of children everywhere?

Castiron: Hey, I like that song!

[older son begins sixteenth repetition; spouse just Looks]

***

evening, after watching some episodes on Youtube

Spouse: James May's Man Lab is like the best parts of Top Gear crossed with The Red Green Show.

(Yes, that's meant to be a positive statement. Yep, I know what someone's getting for Father's Day.)

Overheard in the Castiron household:

"If you play Sesame Street backwards, do you forget everything you know?"

1. Why do the housing lists for folk dance camp keep disappearing in my house? (Besides the obvious reason that the house is exceedingly cluttered and I'm clearly not choosing a consistent place to put them.)

2. Things to be thankful for: I can afford to get a replacement computer while I'm figuring out what's wrong with the old one and whether it's fixable.

3. Watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with spouse and spuds. Spouse connected the climactic battle sequence with both Robin Hood: Men in Tights and the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (but not all three together, which would have been truly bizarre). He passes for normal, but I'm really not the weirdest person in this household.

4. Got my Yuletide assignment; there are actually *two* requests in it that I'd be comfortable writing. I doubt I have time to do both (especially with the Sherlock Holmes Fic of Doom still unfinished), but we'll see.

5. (The SHFoD: ACD/BBC crossover with a side of a mystery fandom. Hoping to have it ready for beta & Brit-picking soon, though knowing my writing variability, "soon" could mean either "next week" or "July 2012". At least it's AU enough that BBC season 2 shouldn't joss it.)

6. What I love about the iPod isn't just having my own personal soundtrack whenever I want one; it's being able to hear the insides of pieces. There are all these nifty harmonies and countermelodies and background rhythms that I simply don't hear when I'm listening to music on speakers, but with earbuds? I hear them. It gives me one of the things I loved about being in band/orchestra/choir -- hearing more of the parts instead of just the whole.

7. Drat, I hope I didn't leave those housing lists at work, because I don't feel like recreating them.

"Yeah, Shakespeare in the original Klingon may be good, but it's nothing compared to Edward Albee in the original Romulan."

(while PBS's The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about That plays in the background)

Spouse: Have you ever noticed that the Cat in the Hat is a lot like the Doctor?

Castiron: Now that you mention it....

S: They're both exuberant.

C: They both have vehicles that are bigger on the inside.

S: They both run around with people who are much younger than they are.

Television show ideas we tossed around in my household last night:

Thomas the Tank Engine Goes to the Scrapyard (Guess which DVD the toddler's been watching too often?)

Thomas the Dalek ("They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight/Ready to exterminate")

Zorro Baggins. (He fights the evil alcalde, with the help of a magic ring....) (We also concluded that Zorro the Gay Blade is a Mel Brooks movie even though Brooks had nothing to do with it.)

[after the results of the Olympic men's speed skating relay finals]

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[on mishearing a Pete Seeger song]

Spouse: "Where have all the young men gone, all turned into unicorns"? Huh??

Castiron: If you turn a non-virgin into a unicorn, do they explode?