Monday, September 07, 2020

Still Here




The Memory Police was outstanding but I will say more about it on Friday. Hugely depressing but worth it for the originality of the concept and the amazing follow through. Also enjoying the oral history of The Office, which to my mind is the best 30 minute series of the 2000s. Reading about how they worked out what Michael Scott should be like, how Jim and Pam's romance would work, what Dwight Shrute was actually about is a lot of fun. The Office, like most workplace comedies, turns out to be about family. Wasn't the gang on Taxi really a family even though it took place in a taxi garage? Same with all of the better ones, I think. Still reading The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane for my book group. Pretty Ambivalent about it. Is is basically a romance and why does it trouble me if it is? Have I ever read an out and out romance. Maybe Forever Amber as a ten.

Watched Modern Romance with Albert Brooks this week. Lots of laughs. Also watched the ESPN two-parter on Lance Armstrong. What a jerk. Nice that he has done much to help raise money for cancer but other than that....

Started Borgen and am rewatching Life on Mars. 

Lots of dental stuff. Ugh. As long as I remember I have had dental issues. Scots-Irish teeth, I think. I should have gotten dentures and saved myself a fortune. Also still trying to solve the problem of my dizziness. I have it most autumn but this one is worse than most. Maybe stress is adding to it.

A quiet week here.  What about you?
 

19 comments:

Steve Oerkfitz said...

Almost done with The Memory Palace. Also reading The Shadows by Alex North. I have had eye issues this week and had a couple of no read days. I go back to eye doctor next Monday. As my left eye gets injections my right eye is giving me trouble. At least no dental problems.
Watched Young Wallender on Netflix. Watchable but I get little feel for Malmo. Also the time line bothered me. It takes place in the present. They should have just given the character a different name and placed it in England somewhere. Also watching the Tigers play. They have a very young team right now and are fun to watch compared to last season.
I love The Office but find Curb Your Enthusiasm to be a bit funnier.
Weather taking a big drop. Hate going from 90 and sunny to 70 and cloudy. Thunderstorms going on right now. Fear being cooped up is in my future. Rumor was the governor was going to open movie theaters but no such luck. She did open up gyms and bowling alleys. Neither of which I am known to frequent.

Todd Mason said...

Hope you like BORGEN. What put you onto THE MEMORY POLICE? (As opposed to THE MEMORY PALACE.)

I certainly should be more attentive to my teeth. My father had dentures from his teens, and it didn't look like an admirable way to live, aside from being able to use Polident to clean them.

We don't quite get to be fired out of families, not quite, but certainly enough families can approach that one way or another. Nor would we (nor should we) tolerate in a workplace some of what goes on in families. For that matter, we shouldn't tolerate what goes on in bad families...any group of people will have some group dynamics, but if your family has workplace turnover, something very odd is happening. But you refer to work in sitcoms rather than in life...I know I don't want to be in most sitcom work or "actual" families...

Good luck with the dizziness...hope it's somehow solvable or at least diminishable.

A lot of book listing this past week.

Margot Kinberg said...

Sometimes it's really interesting to find out more about the background of a show - how it was put together and planned, etc.. It gives me respect for the planners and writers of a good show, because it's not easy to put a well-made show together.

Jerry House said...

It's quiet here. The beach was crowded yesterday and today will be worse with people making their Labor Day last hurrah of the summer. It was difficult to socially distance yesterday so we left early without seeing any dolphins. Maybe the crowd scared them away.

Every weekday afternoon we pick up Jack after school. On our way we pass the Santa Rosa Zoo and the giraffe habitat borders the road. So every day we get to see the giraffes hanging about. They are such magnificent, graceful, beautiful creatures I have to smile every time we pass them. Giraffes --like dolphins, llamas, dogs, cats, horses, and many other animals -- really add to the beauty of the world.

Still watching a lot of VERA and have begun rewatching SHETLAND. We also binged on a rewatch of OCTOBER FACTION. I blame the pandemic (certainly not old age) on not remembering many of the shows we watched a year ago.

Walt has been getting up early to take walks with his camera. He takes about 200 shots to get one good one, but the good ones are absolutely beautiful nature shots. We look forward to when he posts them on Facebook.

Still reading mainly short stories (basically older science fiction -- my comfort food) and I hope to get to Joe Lansdale's latest novel this week. There afre two more Lansdales waiting for me at the library.

Everyone is doing well. Jessamyn is doing yard work early in the morning before work. Amy and Ceili are juggling work and online classes; Ceili was just interviewed for a library job -- a dream job for her. Fingers crossed. Jack is adjusting well to third grade. Erin is also juggling work and online classes at FSU. Mark will probably change his major from marine biology to maritime studies -- less of the killer advanced chem and physics classes. Christina is headed back to high school and her deaf student. Kitty is as beautiful and wonderful as ever. And the damncat keeps throwing up. All is normal on the Panhandle.

Both teeth and dizziness can be frustrating. I hope the coming week will ease up on both those problems for you. I also wish you a very happy Labor Day and a wonderful week ahead.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Just read my test results (why do they make someone with no training read a two-page brain scan result) and it looks like I need an MRI to confirm it but my brain developed in such a way that I may need some corrective work done. They never would have seen this if I hadn't gone to the hospital with dizziness. And it may not be connected to that anyway.
Trying not to get upset about this and trying to understand why patients are forced to read their own charts before a doctor gets to it. It is not cancer or an embolism but it probably needs fixing.
No need to send sympathy. I know you all feel badly for me and I take solace from that.

Jeff Meyerson said...

I inherited some good things (brainwise?) from my parents, but also rotten teeth (and high blood pressure). I had them fixed several years ago (finally) and have been much better since (though I had a wisdom tooth extracted last year).

I know you and George like watching theater on television, but we've preferred concerts and music documentaries, several of which Jackie has bought. (We did watch the Broadway revival of THE KING AND I last week, but found it flat and draggy. Kelli O'Hara won a Tony for it, but it must have been a weak year. Ken Watanabe was no Yul Brynner. We did see the latter on stage doing it in 1977, and he has as much charisma as ever.

This weekend we watched THE T.A.M.I. Show (1964), a black & white concert film that had a pretty impressive lineup of acts (other than the Beatles, of course): three British Invasion groups (Rolling Stones, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas), three Motown acts (Miracles, Marvin Gaye backed by The Blossoms - Darlene Love - and The Supremes), The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean from Southern California, Lesley Gore, Chuck Berry, and the highlight, James Brown & the Famous Flames. The audience at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium seemed to be 90% screaming girls, but even though I didn't spot them, seventh graders John Landis and David Cassidy were supposedly there. I can understand why Keith Richards said the worst mistake the band ever made was agreeing to follow James Brown, who was amazing.

Last night was Richard Nader's documentary LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL, a "reunion" show of doo wop performers and originators from the 1950s - Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, The Five Satins, Bill Haley & the Comets (one of two white acts), The Shirelles (there is always one token female act at these things), The Coasters, Danny & the Juniors, and Chubby Checker (who looked pretty svelte then). There was also a fair amount of old footage from the '50s. I also enjoyed seeing Rob Reiner (uncredited) introducing The Coasters.

Tonight on TCM:

Festival (Newport Folk Festival (Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Odetta, Johnny Cash)
Monterep Pop (Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Mamas & the Papas)
Woodstock (the Director's Cut, with 40 minutes additional footage)

We also watched Jack Rosenthal's BAR MITZVAH BOY (1976), which we'd seen in England 40 or so years ago. This (and the previous THE EVACUEES) was on BBC's Play for Today. Maria Charles (still going at 90) was a hoot as his mother (overbearing Jewish mothers were a speciality of hers), and the sister's boyfriend was Jonathan Lynn, who went on to greater success as a writer (co-creator of YES, MINISTER) and director (MY COUSIN VINNY).

Otherwise, same old, same old - shopping, eating, reading, Netflix and Amazon/Acorn. We did dine out for the first time since March 19, in the back garden of our local Indian restaurant.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Patti, sorry to hear that, but let's hope it isn't too invasive and can clear the problem up.

Todd Mason said...

I recorded TAMI (which was apparently a Very early cable/electronically transmitted to theaters item when live) and LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL back to back, and thanks for the heads up on FESTIVAL, particularly (I've seen MP and W before, even the enhanced versions). Very nice to see how much the audience was (non-shriekingly) digging the talent on GOOD TIMES (another first viewing for me...the notion that the crowd was just as happy with the Pacemakers cover of Chuck Berry as Berry himself still Doesn't Compute for me, after several runs through over the decades).

I hope someone here has more recordings (mostly from Kino, I think) of the NTA Film Network's THE PLAY OF THE WEEK than I've managed to gather (Kino also good at mixing them in with other networks' projects).

Patti, the weekly podcast about production of THE OFFICE: OFFICE LADIES, hosted by Angela Kinsey (Angela) and Jenna Fischer (Pam): https://www.earwolf.com/show/office-ladies/

Todd Mason said...

I rather enjoyed the US version of LIFE ON MARS. Particularly the way they chose to end it upon learning of cancellation.

pattinase (abbott) said...

My son likes THE OFFICE LADIES but they are so chirpy, it is hard to get past that.
I don't get TCM -only available as part of a sports' package here. That is why I got Criterion but they really rely on foreign films more than old Hollywood ones.

Rick Robinson said...

Not much of a week for watching things, as usual for me. I've been reading short stories, and some poetry, getting out in the garden early before it gets hot, and hot it's been. Supposed to be over 90 again today. Ugh. We had electricians in to replace our 20+ year-old ceiling vent fans, five of them: 4 in our three bathrooms, 1 in the laundry room. The new ones are MUCH quieter and exhaust more air volume. The old ones were getting clatterey and ineffective. We also replaced some flouesent fixtures with LED panels. Much better.

The fires in California and here in Oregon are terrible, and we have smoke in the air. Air quality is getting poor. We're staying closed up and are glad we got the air scrubber feature on our new last Spring HVAC. I'll really be glad when Summer is over and things cool off!

So sorry to hear of your medical problems! We hope they can be cleared up soon. Fingers crossed here.

David Cranmer said...

I'd agree with you on the 'family' aspect with Taxi and a majority of comedies I enjoy. And, geez, hope that dizziness goes away, Patti. I can imagine stress would do it.

TracyK said...

We watched three movies this weekend. The Mummy (with Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz); Murder on the Orient Express (Branagh); and Mystery Men.

I have been reading a Gladys Mitchell mystery, LAURELS ARE POISON, and the Ross Macdonald biography by Tom Nolan (very interesting, especially because a lot of it takes place in Santa Barbara) and THE LAST EMPEROX by John Scalzi.

And gardening until it got too hot. I am hoping tomorrow will be cool. I have been dizzy today and took an antihistamine in hopes it might help.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Do you think it is global warming that is making us all dizzy?
I liked that bio very much.

George said...

The weather in Western NY has turned Fallish. Much cooler and less humid. I feel sorry for the people in California dealing with fires and extreme heat.

Diane has her yearly physical this week. We both have our annual dermatology appointments on Friday. We're trying to get as many doctor's appointments and procedures done before the Second Wave hits. Diane and I both got our flu shots so if the flu season starts early, we're ready.

Less than 60 days to Election Day. We're waiting for our Absentee ballots. I fear people who decide to "vote in person" are going to find long lines and extended wait times because of the shortage of poll workers.

Western NY schools are supposed to open tomorrow, but one large school district isn't opening their Middle Schools or High Schools because they're short 80 teachers! Many of their faculty took Early Retirement and others simply quit. Disasterous!

Mathew Paust said...

Running late this morning, so I'll make this quick. First, dizziness. I think it's related to aging (I'll be 79 by year's end--if the virus doesn't get me first), I keeo a vial of Meclizine handy to fend off occasional episodes of a sensation I'm the sole victim of an earthquake no one else can feel.

Teeth, No dental insurance, so I haven't been to a dentist since my divorce, six years ago. But the teeth I have left are functional. I brush every night with baking soda and peroxide, and take a little Xylitol with my tea every morning. Google it. A sweetener made from some in birch trees. Fights the enzymes or germs or whatever the hell it is that causes plague. Miracle stuff.

Incontinence. My biggest nightmare at the moment. Did I say I canceled all of my medical appts indefinitely since COVID? No way do I wish to intentionally put myself in a place where the odds of everyone else being sick with something are incalculable. So now I depend on Depends...and the less we know about that, the better.

Reading Michael Gorra's The Saddest Words, a look at Faulkner's work in the context of slavery. Fascinating. Also, thanks to Dana King's piece here on your blog, Patti, I've read the five Penns River series. Loved the stories, the characters, the writing. Thanks, Patti, for the introduction. Read Sam Rasnake's newest collection of poems, each based on a different work of art. Interesting concept, brilliant execution. Sam's a friend on Fictionaut.com. Another 'Naut friend, Erika Byrne-Ludwig, an Aussie writer, has just published a book of stories, A Cloud in My Hand. She's a sensitive, melancholy writer with a poet's ear and craftsman's skill with words. I'll be reviewing it when I'm finished savoring these marvelous stories.

Oops, time for my walk. It's 6:30 a.m. here in Gloucester, Va. 71, high humidity, but doable. My usual walk is about 4 miles. Toodle-oo, youse guys. Stay safe, healthy and sane! -- Matt

pattinase (abbott) said...

Matt, I hope you let Dana know about your reading. I am sure he would be thrilled to know.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Matt, you're wrong. Go to the doctor.

Mathew Paust said...

I posted my omnibus review of the series on each one of the Penns River novels on Amazon, Patti. He might not check those frequently, but eventually I suspect he'll stumble across them.

Jeff, I appreciate your concern.