Becoming Harriet Vane

Bluestocking, feminist, itinerant scholar. She/her. Fueled by tea. Always open for questions and discussions. This adultbooklr-ish blog also includes history, fictional detectives, architecture, and Fantasy Canon Law™. Curator of @teaformrholmes.

[oldshrewsburyian]

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett: 9781984820716 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

HUGO AWARD WINNER • WORLD FANTASY AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Holmes and Watson–style detective duo take the stage in this fantas

A fellow choir member recommended this to me as "fantasy mystery with a female Sherlock Holmes." I told him that he had me at "fantasy mystery."

[hagenlastkiss]

Katharine Hepburn pruning a tree in Connecticut around 1980 (aged 73), being transported on a motorcycle by Nick Nolte in the movie 'Grace Quigley' in 1984 (aged 77), shoveling snow from the roof of her NYC townhouse, 1988 (aged 80),

[didanagy]

AGATHA CHRISTIE'S POIROT: MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA (2002) dir. tom clegg

[oldshrewsburyian]

The granite courtyard of the temple dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy was busy with flocks of purple-gray pigeons, incense sellers, flower stalls, and devotees praying for good fortune. A heavy curtain of incense smoke from the hundreds of burning joss sticks made the temple appear like a fading memory, one moment clear as the wind brought remembrance, and the next forgotten as the smoke reasserted itself.

The Gift of Rain, Tan Twan Eng

[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

You've been kidnapped but the main character of the last TV show you watched is coming to rescue you.

Who’s rescuing you?

[theroyalgardens]

Houghton, Cambridgeshire, England

[trek-tracks]

When a student copies an essay online instead of writing it and then painstakingly changes every word to a synonym until the text no longer makes any sense...

call that the Ship of Thesaurus

[trek-tracks]

Any educator who doesn't feel this on a visceral level has never had to experience the psychic pain of reading the phrase "Unused York City."

[trek-tracks]

This is the fifth anniversary of me receiving the paper that contained "Unused York City." With ChatGPT slop invading my classes like original thought-choking kudzu, I now look back on the copy-paste + Spinbot days with a surprising amount of rosy nostalgia.

I was once in the office and another professor called me over. She was teaching a course on global citizenship.

"I can't figure out what this student is writing about," she said. "She keeps using the phrase 'perspiration stores.' Perspiration stores this, perspiration stores that."

I glanced at the paper and read a paragraph.

"Friend," I said. "She's writing about sweatshops."

[incorrect-musketeers]

Grimaud: Do you know how many bones the human body has? It’s 206. We start out with 369 when we’re babies but then they fuse. Wouldn’t you want to go back? Have as many bones as a baby? What if I could help you

Athos: What the actual literal GENUINE fuck does that mean

[incorrect-musketeers]

​#THIS IS WHY GRIMAUD ISN’T PERMITTED TO SPEAK!!

@loopzoop20times

Holy shit I originally meant this as Show Grimaud but it being Book Grimaud elevates it to a whole new level and I want to thank you for enriching my life in this way

[starwarsepisodeiv]

[incorrect-musketeers]

“Grimaud isn’t allowed to speak because he only speaks in heinous whisperings”

@loopzoop20times

This is genuinely the funniest concept I have ever seen

And also now canon to me

Book Athos had to train his lackey to silence because it was either that or kill him before he drove the world to madness with his dark utterances

[pizza-hats-of-the-world-1882]

This post lives rent free in my mind

[macrolit]

from The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers

[oldshrewsburyian]

I know it’s a little past detective casting hours, so please feel free to ignore, but my brain suddenly went “alfred hitchcock directs busman’s honeymoon,” and knowing you’re also a leslie howard!lord peter enjoyer, i had to ask if you had any further casting ideas for an early-1940s british production of a sayers work!

— @no-where-new-hero

Ooh, I perceive your vision! The great thing about having Hitchcock to helm Busman's Honeymoon is that it resists the cozy-washing (term I made up) of Golden Age mysteries. Busman's Honeymoon should be sexy, and about revisiting the past, and about envisioning the future, and about a charming but potentially claustrophobic little village where almost any of the charming people we meet could be guilty of Horrid Murder. Also about the inherent horror of agitated port bottles. Never forget Hitchcock's comic touch.

Anyway! Having applauded your idea, on to the casting! Mr. Goodacre could be Felix Aylmer, or a less august character actor. Miss Twitterton -- and I know I'm still luxury-casting here -- could be Elsa Lanchester. She is extremely funny, and can twitter with the best of them, but we also need to believe in Miss Twitterton's uneasy, uneasily suppressed sensuality. Let Elsa Lanchester loose! Roddy Hughes as the magnificent Mr. Puffett. Dennis Price as Frank Crutchley (he might have been a little young for the role at the time, but we can fudge.)

Et ceterum censeo Merle Oberon as Harriet.

[german-enthusiast]

i love the phrase "wieder was gelernt" it's just so huh. yeah. alright. knowledge unlocked. moving on!

and its brother "man lernt nie aus" - so true. you really never stop learning new things. such a grounded way of recognizing that. go off i guess

[mariacallous]

Bamia: Jewish Libyan Okra with Tomatoes Recipe | The Nosher

Okra with tomatoes is a Libyan dish filled with the taste of tomatoes, garlic and lemon.

Americans don’t truly appreciate okra. It barely registers north of the Mason-Dixon line, and it’s eyed with suspicion even in the South, where it is regularly pickled, or deep-fried. But who can blame those who are wary of this green, pinky-shaped vegetable? It’s infamous for the slick ooze that comes seeping out of it when cooked. Advocates point out that okra slime actually helps thicken stews and clings to a cornmeal crust, but detractors have a hard time getting past the “yuck” factor. Believed to have originated in Africa (okra is a member of the mallow family–a cousin of cotton), okra is full of dietary fiber, protein, iron, calcium and a slew of B vitamins.

Outside of America, okra reigns as a staple vegetable in much of the world’s hot-weather cuisine, from North Africa to the Middle East and India; it also turns up in Italy, Spain, and parts of Central and South America. According to Gregory McNamee, author of “Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food“, “[In these parts of the world], okra tends not to have the gummy, slimy, mucilaginous quality that makes it such an object of disdain among eaters tender of sensibility…a quality that results mostly from overcooking, the bane of asparagus, broccoli, and other such vegetables.”

Okra even turns up in Jewish cuisine, according to “Jewish Food: The World at Table” by Matthew Goodman: “In Libya…okra [or “bamia” in Arabic] was considered a food of mourning, and was traditionally eaten, with onions and tomato sauce, before Tisha B’Av.” In addition to its symbolic resonance, this food choice also makes sense ecologically, as Tisha B’Av falls during the summer months when tomatoes and okra plants — both sun- and heat-craving vegetables — thrive.

The recipe below is an adaptation of Goodman’s Bamia recipe. If you live in the American South or near enough to it to score fresh heirloom okra from the farmers market, consider yourself among the lucky. Otherwise, head to the nearest Whole Foods or Middle Eastern market and stock up.

[jameshathaways]

[parmandil]

I’m gonna be over it I just need to blast opera about it first

[oldshrewsburyian]

find the word tag game

The rule: find the words you were given in your wip/s.

I was kindly tagged by @gaslightgallows to find song, faint, blue, burden

Song (Each Day I Play the Role)

He knew the song was a lie, and the hair on his arms still stood up. Infuriating and stubborn she might be, but standing in the darkness, watching her, he could admit that she was also extraordinary.

Faint (The Duchess of Denver's Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Christmas Party)

“Well, Max spent the whole evening looking as though he was going to faint or be sick, and this creature spent it dancing with other men. Newlyweds!” Charles coughed rather suddenly, and bent over his cue. “There was an inquest, wasn’t there?” asked Paton, almost vaguely. Lord Peter looked up. “Was there?”

Blue (Wild Barter, a.k.a. Ivanhoe Noir)

“Look,” said Rowena, wiping jam resolutely from her fingers, “if it’ll make you feel better, get Wilfred to get you in.” “What?” “He could swing it. He’s the blue-eyed boy of the boys in blue just now.”

Burden (Each Day I Play the Role)

Brienne sighed, and rolled her shoulders back. “Don’t we all spend our childhoods trying to pretend that we’re not a burden?” He removed his helmet before answering, ran his fingers through his hair. “Perhaps,” he said, and she still felt as though he was wearing a mask.

I tag, with no sense of obligation, @heartofstanding, @greenapricot, @sanguinarysanguinity, @aloveforjaneausten, @cinemaocd to find blemish, ache, wait, clouds

[tradlads]

Summer nights in Oxford

[oldshrewsburyian]

I finally saw The Odyssey, and one of my takeaways is that Robert Pattinson was tragically born too late to be a queer-coded antagonist in 1930s swashbucklers. That man is clearly meant to strike campy poses and get into his rival's personal space and be in slutty swordfights.