Gormenghast Weekend

I’ve either got what Bram had, or some­thing from a cowork­er. Christ­mas shop­ping is fin­ished, though I almost got into a fight at the liquor store buy­ing some­thing as a part of my secret san­ta gift exchange at work. All that I have left to do is fur­ther bak­ing. Appar­ent­ly, choco­late-dipped pret­zel sticks are a hit with a teething 18-month old and his moth­er. The first batch I made has dis­ap­peared.

We fin­ished up watch­ing the Gor­meng­hast minis­eries last night. It’s based on a fan­tas­tic cou­ple of books by Mervyn Peake (the third book, not so much), and the BBC did an admirable job trans­lat­ing the thick, dusty and some­times delib­er­ate­ly turgid sto­ry into 4 hours on screen. Jonathan Rhys Davies is an impres­sive (if far too pret­ty-look­ing) Steer­pike, and while Gor­meng­hast cas­tle is the main char­ac­ter in the books, some­thing that is near­ly impos­si­ble to trans­late on screen, who­ev­er did the set design had a keen and inno­v­a­tive eye for com­mu­ni­cat­ing the age, immen­si­ty and decay of the cas­tle. It appears that all of the actors in the minis­eries had a blast por­tray­ing Peake’s car­i­ca­ture char­ac­ters, who are sil­ly goth­ic grotesques, one and all.

The bus routes changed over the week­end, so I have to leave the house 20 min­utes ear­li­er than usu­al. Hope­ful­ly my tim­ing won’t be too far off, or else I’ll have to wait a half hour for the next bus.