Madness Chapter 11

I finished another chapter of my asexual Holmes fic. Watson and Holmes dine at the Eiffel Tower, then encounter Holmes's colleague le Villard. Seeing someone else advocate for homosexual love makes Watson feel secure enough to not pressure Holmes about sex as much.

Surprise Hits

I've seen two movies in the theaters lately, The Help and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I enjoyed them, and both movies deserve the great reviews and surprisingly good ticket sales.

Around the World three times

Well, I finished reading Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, and enjoyed it. Near the end I was surprised to read about Fogg buying Captain Speedy's ship and having the crew dismantle and burn any wooden parts for fuel. That's very similar to a passage in Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, where Holmes and company dismantle a train for fuel so they can catch up to the villain's getaway train. I had thought that was Meyer's original idea, but it appears he was borrowing from a different Victorian classic. Oh well.

Anyway, in Verne's book I was amused when, on the train in Utah, a Mormon preacher gives a lecture to the passengers about the history of his religion. Passepartout sits through the whole lecture while other passengers walk out, and Verne never says a disparaging word about it. He just reports the preacher telling the entire Joseph Smith history, and how the Mormons have been driven out of various towns until they settled in Utah, and how poor Brigham Young is in jail now and the United States have made Utah outlaw polygamy. The Mormon preacher ends by asking if Passepartout will convert and join them, but Passepartout simply says, "No!" and leaves. It's an amusing digression from the journey, but it's never been featured in a film version.

Madness - Chapter 10

Yay, I got Chapter 10 done! I was hoping to get them off the train and into Paris, but I guess that'll be the next chapter.

http://www.hwslash.net/sketches/madness10.html