Sunday Salon

 

I've left this til late, so being quick...

On the Blog

Two book posts on the blog last week (as advertised):

H. C. Bailey's Call Mr. Fortune

and

The Alexiad of Anna Comnena

Also a poem post: 'My Papa's Waltz' by Theodore Roethke.

I also finished Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery, one of the earliest locked-room mysteries (from 1892). This will get its own post pretty soon because it fits my Vintage Mystery Challenge.

Movies

That was somewhat less reading than I might have done otherwise because it was the Film Festival this past week in Toronto. The best movie we saw was the first one, They Shot The Piano Player, which I mentioned last Sunday. But there were a couple of other movies this week: 

The Widow Clicquot, about how Barbe-Nicole Clicquot (née Ponsardin) took over the Champagne house after her husband died in 1805. The movie was full of great French countryside shots, but a little romanticizing. Still now I want to read the book, by Tilar J. Mazzeo, which The Other Reader listened to when it came out fifteen years ago. Fortunately my library hasn't gotten rid of all of its copies.

Then a second heroic farmer movie, The Promised Land. (This theme wasn't actually planned.) Captain Ludwig Kahlen is going to farm the heath of central Jutland in Denmark, famously infertile soil. His secret? Potatoes! (They'll grow anywhere? I guess.) Mads Mikkelsen plays Kahlen, looking very grizzled and Danish. Not only does he have to fight the soil and the weather, but also a half-mad, sadistic local aristocrat. More beautiful (but desolate) scenery.

Lastly Close Your Eyes, from Spain. Miguel Garay was making a movie thirty years ago, when his lead actor disappeared. Murder, suicide, accident? It's also a tribute to the movie-making of yesteryear.

Cabin

There was a call for cabin interior shots, 😉which were surprisingly few in number. Still, one corner of the interior of the cabin:

The ladder leads up to the sleeping loft.

While I was looking through old photos, though...

The neighbours:

The view:

And what the heck! Think of it as our very own unicorn spa with misty forests and magical light. (From some volume of Phoebe and her Unicorn.)

The other thing that happened this week was cheesecake with blueberry sauce:

(We did stop at the farmstand on the way back from the cabin, where they just happened to have blueberries...)

Hope you had a great week!