Toady, I'll begin work on a piece for Sirenia Digest #126, a vignette. Hopefully, I can tough out the swelter. If not, I'll grab the iBook and try to get some work done at the Hay, which is open until 10 p.m.
A few days ago I discovered an Icelandic band I probably ought to have already known about, Of Monsters and Men. Some really amazing, beautiful music, excepting occasional forays into poppier stuff. And even though Ragnar Þórhallsson's voice annoys me whenever he eclipses Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir.
Star Trek Beyond (the thirteenth Star Trek feature film since 1979, by the way) is really much, much better than it had any right to be, given the director is Justin Fast and Furious Lin.* I think Simon Pegg's work on the screenplay may have been a major saving grace. Visually, it's truly stunning. Starbase Yorktown, the attack on the Enterprise, and the resurrection of the Franklin are sequences that stand among the most amazing sights Star Trek has ever shown us. And the film does a nice job of paralleling the events of The Search for Spock (1984). I adore Jaylah** (played by Sofia Boutella). Unfortunately, the film subscribes to the recent "Everything in the Foreground/Big Head" School of Cinematography, a trend that threatens to drive me once and for all from theaters. But yeah, I enjoyed it a great deal, regardless.
Last night, I watched The Maltese Falcon (1941), and I was going to follow it with The Big Sleep (1946), but I got sleepy and crawled off the bed to sleep a few miserable hours. Oh, and Kathryn and I are reading Gregory Maguire's Out of Oz (2011).
There was a marvelous electrical storm night before last, that I'd meant to mention yesterday.
TTFN,
Aunt Beast
* To be fair, he did do some good work on Season Two of True Detective.
** Pegg has revealed that the name, and some part of the character, was inspired by Jennifer Lawrence, particularly her performance in Winter's Bone. "J. Law", "Jaylah." Get it?
