A Brit a Day [#489]

I'm taking the week off to sneak [e.g. Rupert Grint above] up to LA for Anime Expo. I don't anticipate any obstacles like weird doors that could trip people [see Dan above], but I am challenging myself to get from Silver Lake to the Convention Center without getting lost. It'll be the first time. I'll see you after the 4th.

A Brit a Day [#488]

James Blunt kindly stands down today to make way for another JB--the one who stole my heart 25 years ago--Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes.

A Brit a Day [#487]

Severus Snape [Alan Rickman] with wand ready and loaded for bear...or something. Have I mentioned that I've bought my ticket for the 12:01 am showing of HP7.2 on opening day?

A Brit a Day [#486]

I gather that there is a time limit on the Doctors, something like our presidential term limit of 2 terms. If it were otherwise, David Tennant is so loved, he would have clearly been the FDR of Doctors.

A Brit a Day [#485]

There is a new interview with Eddie Argos posted in Skyscraper Magazine in which Eddie lists and elaborates on his 10 favorite things. I love this guy, and he is hilarious, and he says some of the most revealing things about himself in it. You can read it here:

http://www.skyscrapermagazine.com/columns/favorite-things-art-brut

And if you click on the picture at the article instead of above, it gets super-huge and you can check on how everyone's pores are doing.

A Brit a Day [#484]

Henry Ian Cusick in the movie 'Hitman.' He played a Russian gangster, and he was on screen for all of five minutes, but it was a highly memorable five minutes.

A Brit a Day [#483]

Alex Turner, photographed amongst Arctic Monkeys. The new album is very good, better than the last one in my opinion. But it has yet to undergo definitive testing: playback in my car.

A Brit a Day [#482]

An artfully rendered shot--the gulf between the two parties speaks volumes--of the main characters of Harry Potter. Dan has a nice back, huh?

A Brit a Day [#481]

Oh dear, that is a small picture...but I really like it. Something about his posture, maybe the jacket, you can almost see the soldier that James Blunt once was.

A Brit a Day [#480]

Clearly Alan Rickman is the star of this little hybrid triptych, and so I couldn't resist making it today's Rickman-centric post.

A Brit a Day [#479]

Today's brit is pop-star-turned-physicist Brian Cox, host of the BBC's Wonders of the Solar System, and more recently, Wonders of the Universe. The Guardian's art blogger Jonathan Jones says,

...you can hardly get more life-affirming than Cox and his visionary presentation of astrophysics.

Prof. Cox's Wikipedia entry is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_(physicist)

A Brit a Day [#478]

Eddie Argos with early Art Brut.

A Brit a Day [#477]

Henry Ian Cusick at a 'Lost' press conference a few years back. His most charmingly candid photograph ever, in my opinion.

A Brit a Day [#476]

It's official: My son's hair is bigger than Alex Turner's is in this photo of Alex's gorgeous locks, even though Robert's 9-year-old body is much, much smaller. And he is such an attention-getter--we can be in a restaurant with a party of lovely, interesting people, but invariably the waitress's first comment is to Robert: "I love your hair!"

A Brit a Day [#475]

Dan Radcliffe, the gang, all that, AND it's in.....Chinese? What more do you need in a post for the first day of summer vacation?

A Brit a Day [#474]

James Blunt totally rocks the loose, open button-down over T-shirt look in one of my favorite, albeit small, photos of him.

A Brit a Day [#473]

There are enough Dr. Who fans in my household to justify making Snape [Alan Rickman] share the limelight today with Barty Crouch Jr. [David Tennant, aka the Tenth Doctor]. Besides, we never turn away a Scot from this blog's front door. Hard to say who steals this scene from HP4--to get the full affect of the triptych above, click on the link for a brilliant GIF:

http://bartyjoonyah.tumblr.com/post/6426438025/snape-get-your-damn-wand-out-of-my-face

A Brit a Day [#472]

My childhood teddy bear was an adorable pathetic looking thing who had a love-smashed muzzle and dodgy fur from the beginning of time I could remember. I don't have a picture of him, but if you take the bear pictured above, give him absolutely no neck, replace his button eyes with sleepy-eyelid-shaped half moons of yellow felt, make his body and legs so straight and firmly stuffed that he resembles a crucifix, then you have the idea. His name was Eddie the Teddy, not because of the euphony of the rhyme but because he made me think of Ed Sullivan, the early television impresario.

When my husband left for Germany last month, I told him that I would be grateful if he brought home anything with a gold button in its ear. I got the quizzical look, and I told him about the signature tagging of the Steiff stuffed animals. I was thinking maybe a hedgehog. Well I did get my little hedgehog upon his return, a tiny stuffed guy with a keychain delicately attached to the top of his head. But I also got an exquisite 1912 Classic black mohair Teddy Bear. Here is his picture in the Steiff catalog:

My new bear needed a name worthy of his lineage. I couldn't get over his marvelous fur, so the only thing I could think of was Herr Mohair Bear. Not much of a name. Maybe Mo for short. Herr Mohair Bear led to Herr Morris Chair for no particular reason, which led me to the Wikipedia to learn more about William Morris, the Victorian designer and artist whose firm adapted and popularized the Morris chair. William Morris had the vision to want posterity to remember the Victorian Age for something other than Industry and its byproduct Soot. He designed textiles and wallpapers like the ones pictured below:

Ummmmmm, yummy. A lovely digression, but back to naming the bear. Herr Morris Bair? Herr William Morris Bair?? One artifact would provided the key--a picture of the man himself:

I think the resemblance is uncanny, especially around the eyes. William Morris Bair, then, it is--and today's Brit is his namesake, William Morris.

A Brit a Day [#471]

Look at this boy's happy face...he is the personification of the word 'dimpled.'

Here is Eddie Argos performing with The English Travelling Wilburys, giving a concert for British radio a few years ago. Listening to the broadcast, I heard "Glam Casual" for the very first time. I will try to embed it here now for your enjoyment.

Find more The English Travelling Wilburys songs at Myspace Music

A Brit a Day [#470]

Not being a religious person, I still have a philosophical and historical interest in the many published versions of the life of Christ. And a human interest. I recently watched Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," and for me, that movie raises an issue I've encountered before. How many of the gospels [and beyond] does the narrative of this film combine to tell its story? Isn't the whole point of having 4 books by 4 different witnesses at the beginning of the New Testament that these 4 points of view are not to be combined? Different authors' interpretations of events are often mutually exclusive, so portraying all disparate accounts of those events as one historical flow is a distortion. What makes the film "The Gospel of John" a standout--besides Ian Cusick's knockout performance--is the use of only one interpretation, word for word the book of John, as its script.

A Brit a Day [#469]

Arctic Monkeys at Soma, San Diego, September 2009. Okay, I've got to get some more recent pictures. The top one is pretty, though, isn't it?

A Brit a Day [#468]

Dan Radcliffe and Ralph Fiennes, obviously.

I am so excited for this movie. At the same time, I never want it to end.

My nine-year-old and I had a conversation, looking at this image, about the technicalities behind Voldemort's lack-of-nose. I said that I read that it was CG'd out of all his scenes. My son said they could have just used a mask.

A Brit a Day [#467]

The man who puts the Mr. in Mr. & Mrs. Me is coming home from Germany tomorrow. It's gonna seem like Christmas in June. James Blunt + band, can you sing Stille Nacht?

A Brit a Day [#466]

This post is for Sunday.

I have to have this toy. I want to make a tiny Beethoven-like bust of Snape. But first I have to find someone who wants to cast a bust of Voldemort, because I will not have it in my house!

A Brit a Day [#465]

And here's Billy Connolly at last month's Tartan Day event, 'Dressed to Kilt' [NYC??] But the image from that evening I will NOT be able to get out of my mind is Chris Noth bending over and flipping his kilt to prove he understood the proper way to clothe [not] the troops within. You're going to have to find that link on your own.

A Brit a Day [#464]

I had lunch today at a restaurant that is legendary in San Diego, the 94th Aero Squadron. It was my first experience. It was amazing. I really did feel like I could join the French Resistance...

A Brit a Day [#463]

Here is an all-time favorite photo of HIC. I'm not absolutely sure I've ever used it in the 'Brit' blog, though. I GOTTA be sure I've used it, so.....

A Brit a Day [#462]

Alex Turner is stepping aside just for today.

I finished reading Seamus Heaney's translation of 'Beowulf' last night, and while I do NOT intend to see the 2007 movie, for all kinds of reasons, I was interested to learn that Brendan Gleeson played Wiglaf. Wiglaf, in the poem, ends up in the morally superior position of being the only one of Beowulf's men who does not run away in fear from the dragon. Brendan Gleeson will always be, first in my mind, Mad-Eye Moody.