Game over

It is over.

I am so incredibly tired, and I need breakfast. Again. I'd say "Expect updates soon" and you should, but first I need to eat and sleep and then it may take a while for my brain to get back to room temperature.

Yes, I missed you too.

Away

My friends, tomorrow I am off to the annual brouhaha. I am adequately stocked with books, music, granola bars, embarrassment and schedules. The schedules so I don’t forget to do any of my heap of duties; the food because getting meals can be a challenge, books because a girl needs distraction (other than alcohol; there will be alcohol also); music because singing and shaking along work great as stress relief; and embarrassment because I am bringing both Twilight and Fall Out Boy’s Dance Dance and I am not, in fact, thirteen, or to be accurate, thirteen and well behind the times. On the other hand, screw the embarrassment. I’m an adult. I can be thirteen whenever I like. And boo to you.

The spy who came in from the holy cow this man is obnoxious

I just finished Kim Philby’s My Silent War, and the displeasure I felt in reading it seemed to merit special attention.

Introductory glossary for those not familiar with Philby.

Kim Philby: Philby, somehow named Kim in spite of having three first names, none of which even faintly resemble Kim, was the most successful of a group of British Soviet spies known as the Cambridge Four/Five/Spies*. He rose fast in the British secret service during WW II and the Cold War, heading up several departments, including counter-intelligence, before finally defecting to the USSR in ‘62, where he lived out his life as a Soviet hero of a peculiar kind.

Cambridge Five: spy ring, named thusly because all of the said spies were Cambridge graduates who became communists during their stay there. Amazingly, the last of them was not formally identified until 1990. Which accounts for some of the tone of My Silent War.

On to the book then – it is Philby’s 1968 biography, written in response to British press reports. Philby was a good writer, with all the benefits of the education he dismissed so readily. This only makes matters worse though – he combines the worst of British smugness with the worst of callous Soviet dogmatism. The understated irony of the little book is offensive, given the context of the book; a context which is almost entirely unintelligible from his narrative alone. It is, then, also a very heavily censored book, a historical fill in the blanks. The two (Cambridge) agents whose discovery precipitated his own are never mentioned as spies until he tells the story of their discovery; Philby’s own foul play is almost entirely unstated. The implications are heavy, and very soon Philby’s smugness becomes unbearable, and his self-satisfied tone leaves a bitter aftertaste if you know how many people he got killed. It reads as like bowlderised version of a smutty novel.

Philby would have made a good Graham Greene. Greene knew Philby and liked him; he apparently tried repeatedly to convince him to re-defect to the UK. It does no good; Philby chose not to go that path, and while he makes a good character for a Graham Greene novel, he is a repulsive author in spite of his skills and a pretty creepy human being to boot.

*In case any of my readers suspect a real interest in Cold War politics on my part, or for that matter any real seriousness, I will say that my interest in the Cambridge group can be attributed exclusively to the BBC miniseries Cambridge Spies and the presence therein of Sam West (as Anthony Blunt) and Tom Hollander (as Guy Burgess). Historical fiction is a lovely thing, and there is plenty of interest in the fact alone.

It ain't over till it's over

Somewhere in between the lovely fundraiser Friday (how can you fault anything with good people? And crab thingies) the madness yesterday and the churching and baseball today, and the end of Sulu and Kutner go to White Castle, it's been interesting. And that movie is surprisingly funny.

Revisited

Alright, so I admit to being at least somewhat swept up in Twilight. I’m ok with that. The thing that caught me off guard about it was not the whole sexy vampire thing, which was entirely as one might expect, but the humour, and specifically, my inability to determine whether it was intentional or not. The Spouse and I spent the entirety of the first half hour howling with laughter. After that it was a little less funny and more involving, but still pretty funny. It’s the little things, as much as the larger “I am so tragic that I must radiate seductive emo everywhere I go” theme. For example, Edward, sexy vampire of note, drives a teeny, shiny Volvo. Small Volvos – good for fast getaways, protecting one’s mere mortal girlfriends, warming up one’s lovely ice-cold bottom, and killing the occasional moose for a snack? Safe as houses, that is. Or that there is a random fan (in cold, wet Washington) to sexily Bella’s hair around here face when she encounters the vampire.

So, Miss J., I will argue that it is not quite Dirty Dancing. Rather, it is Ghost, with that same lovely young Swayze, who has at this point internalised the comic relief of Whoopi Goldberg to a flaw. In short, it’s a great way to spend an evening. I may have to watch it again now.

By the way, watching Twilight was also a splendid occasion to have this recurring conversation with the Spouse (actual conversation has been quite wildly paraphrased):

Spouse: I don’t get it. Why would a woman find it attractive when a guy admits that he has been sorely tempted to, er, drink her blood? That’s flattering?
TDEC: He is what every woman wants.
Spouse: I have obviously wasted my time not being emo and violent for the last twenty years. Think of the women who would have thrown themselves at me.
TDEC: Well... seriously, what do you know about women? What are the accepted clichés?
S: Er, that they’re incomprehensible?
TDEC: I guess. What else?
S: They like rebels?
TDEC: Exactly. What else?
S: ?
TDEC: Women, according to popular belief, like nothing so much as a DIY project.
S: Building shelves?
TDEC: Reforming men. Making rebels into protective, caring, yet slightly dangerous marriage material.
S: What’s wrong with nice men?
TDEC: No dramatic tension.

Final final reflection:
Dude, I just realized that Robert Whatsisface is Cedric from Goblet of Fire. I can’t believe I instantly recognized the black vampire (the actor played Big Love on House) but failed to recognize Cedric from a movie which I have seen at least three times. He had such lovely red cheeks in that, but I ignored it because it made me feel like a pervert.

Visited

TDEC has seen Twilight. She approves of it. It is very (unintentionally?) funny, and yet also strangely compelling. So camp. Oh yes, we likes it. More later, perhaps.

Things which require no comment