Hope you guys have more to say than I do today. I am floundering with starting and stopping both books and TV shows. I did watch OPERATION MINCEMEAT which was fine but spy dramas have never been my favorite. I tried TEHRAN, (HULU) which seems good but my focus is frayed. Not sure why. Maybe it is the world we live in that is sucking everything out of all of us. I do like HACKS very much and am sticking with THE STAIRCASE although having watch the doc a few years ago and the podcast, it feels like a rerun. Off to visit my brother and friends in DC on Thursday But I will post it here for you guys next Monday and catch you up when I return.
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| Operation Mincemeat |
18 comments:
Have a good trip! Haven't been to DC since my parents were relocated to California. That's been a while...no, actually, one time since, when I removed the remaining items from my storage unit in Fairfax Station. Drove by my parents' former house, and noted some changes...George Mason University, down Sideburn Rd, was as unrecognizable as it had been to this 1987 graduate and 1989 grad-school matriculant in all recent-years passes through. (It used to have actual lawns on the quad.) Hole in the Wall Books is gone, a lot of things are gone.
The third episode of THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE kept up a winning streak. For whatever reason, Ninja the Cat watched about 45 minutes of it with me, easily the longest she's had eyes focused on a tv screen (usually she likes animals skittering on the likes of NATURE and was fascinated by and tried to catch a transit of Saturn on a NOVA episode once). So, two votes in the house. (Niki the Cat somewhat more stereotypically was longest-focused on a paly of the 1980s CAT PEOPLE, I assume mostly because of the occasional leopards...she watched it with me for a good twenty to thirty minutes, some years ago, perched in her cat tree, overhead.)
Dull week here. Finished Ace Atkin's The Heathens. Still reading Trust by Chris Hammer. Readings been going slow because of poor vision in my right eye. Getting cataract surgery for it at the end of June.
Still watching Barry, Under the Banner of Heaven, Better Call Saul.
Not doing anything special this holiday weekend.
Hope your trip to D.C. goes well.
I know what you mean about starting and stopping, Patti. There's just so much going on right now that it's hard to focus. I think we need to be kind to ourselves and others as we get through it.
I'm working on the dozen Library books that somehow stacked up. There's a American Association of University Woman's massive Book Sale (proceeds go to the Scholarship Fund). It's been "postponed" the last two years because of the Pandemic. Over 100,000 volumes! I've found wonderful books there in previous years.
Enjoyed TOP GUN: MAVERICK. I have little interest in the ELVIS movie that opens this week.
Have a nice trip to DC!
Yeah, the previews don't look promising.
Hope that resolves the reading issues, Steve. Right now my eyes aren't great due to allergies.
MY brother got his law degree from George Mason but I have never seen it. Now he is leaving the state so I probably won't .
I started THE GIRL FROM PLAINESVILLE, which my son liked. Not sure I can take it though.
Hello, Patti! Wishing you a good holiday to DC. We have watched so many films and TV shows on Netflix, Prime and Disney+ Hotstar that we have lost count. A few good ones I can remember — Call My Agent! (French), Shetland, Line of Duty and Jack Reacher.
Hi Prashant. Long time. I have watched and enjoyed all of those too. Hope you and your family have been well.
We watched the PBS Great Performances special on the revival of Sondheim's COMPANY last night. It was quite interesting seeing bits of the original cast recording session from the original production, which we saw when it first came out. Several of the people from the original are still alive and were interviewed for this - Sondheim (who died at 91 shortly after the revival opened), Barbara Barrie (who is 91), Pamela Myers and Donna McKechnie. They also showed some of the previous revivals. Very interesting.
Yes, we're enjoying HACKS too. We started re-watching BORGEN last night since series 4 is finally coming next week. We'll see if we watch all 38 episodes again. A lot of Danish actors in this have been in other series since. For instance, the sleazy wannabe Prime Minister, Michael Laugesen, was played by the guy who stars in THE SOMMERDAHL MURDERS. Both "spin doctor" Kasper Juul and news editor Torben Friis were played by actors who appeared in THE INVESTIGATION, based on the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall.
Jackie's "bad" eye surgery went well (she says colors look so much clearer and sharper now), and she is having the second cataract surgery next week. So far, so good.
Don't agree with Todd and the cat - I found episode 3 of TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE to be more annoying that entertaining. I'm not sure where they're going with it, as little progress is being made, he keeps returning to the same time and place over and over again (which I don't remember from the book), and I wish something new would happen. Betty Ford remains the most interesting character on THE FIRST LADY. Not sure about NIGHT SKY, though we like Simmons & Spacek and will keep watching. BOSCH: LEGACY is also good, if not great.
Like George, I have a bunch of library books. Three came in this week, then two e-books popped up in the last two days. I've been reading more non fiction this month. After reading Amy Bloom's memoir, I went back and got her first book of short stories, published 30 years ago. I bet when she was writing about death she never could have guessed where her life would end up.
Have a great trip to DC. We may get there in September, depending on how things go.
A piece of advice. While in D.C. don't storm the Capital. It's a very bad idea.
D.C. is a fabulous city with a lot to do and a lot to see. Enjoy your trip.
Todd, the guy from Hole in the Wall Books (well, I don't know if he was THE guy)moved a lot of its stock and opened a bookstore in Manassas. It was in a very out of the way spot, hidden at the very rear of an industrial-type park with little traffic and soon closed. **sigh**
Very little going on here. Kitty starts her cardiac rehab tomorrow. She has been occasionally gloomy, wondering if her present condition is her new normal. Her legs have gotten very weak, so the rehab should help with that.
It's new glasses time for both of us. We both got updated prescriptions. Kitty wants Jessie and her girls to help pick out the new glasses for us. THAT should be interesting.
On a whim, Mark applied for an open slot (one of ten) to spend a month working on a reptile farm in South Africa and he got accepted. The problem is that he has pretty much locked in an internship at a place in Tampa where his time there will be credited toward his Florida Venomous Reptile license. The South Africa thing would be super-cool but his time there could not be applied to the license. He's hoping he will be accepted next year if he applies again.
Jack had his first sleepover at a friend's house last night. The house was not destroyed so that's a good thing.
Binged on Part 1 of the new STRANGER THINGS season. I really enjoyed it; Kitty thought there was a bit too much violence in the Russia scenes. The kids are now in their teens and are high school freshmen. They look so mature compared with previous season. When did they grow up?
It was hard to concentrate on reading this week: a John Creasey Inspector West novel (my FFB) and a strange story involving Edgar Allan Poe (my SSW this week). I am currently slogging my way through the science fiction classic THEE BLIND SPOT -- more enjoyable than I thought it would be but slower going this week. Also reading Charles Birkin's first collection of stories, DEVIL'S SPAWN (1936), an extremely hard book to get until Valancourt Books reprinted it recently.
Christina and Jessie went to the beach yesterday. Enjoyable but with a holiday crowd. The holiday crowds tend to bring out some obnoxious people.
Sick, sick, sick of all the gun violence and the do-nothing politicians, Straighten them out when you get there this week, will you?
Have a great week, Patti. Stay safe.
Jeff, I'm so glad the first round of Jackie's eye surgery went well. Best wishes for Round 2.
Did you ask if they could make a few adjustments and/or improvements? Like X-ray vision or laser beams that can shoot at rude people on the subway?
Thank you, Patti. My family and I are doing well, though the Covid-19 bug did get us all last year.
Great idea, Jerry! That would work.
I noticed a huge difference with the first eye done but very little with the second.
I always enjoy DC even on my 40th trip.
Hoping Kitty can regain some strength through PT. I may need to do some for my arm, which seems adversely affected by the removal of lympph nodes.
Any cutting, such as those lymph nodes, can indeed affect the muscles nearby worse than one might think. You know, I've never stepped foot on the Scalia School of Law campus, as the GMU Law School was renamed...while toying with law school or library school while still in Virginia, I knew I would've preferred to go to Antioch, which then became the University of DC law school, as the latter was as avowedly leftist and public-service oriented as the GMU school was devoted to Chicago School Law and Economics, but you can guess which one foundered and which has prospered, not least from the Koch brothers. Glad your brother got a degree there, and hope he'll be able to do good things with it.
Jerry, I didn't know about that ill-fated continuation of Hole in the Wall of sorts...sad. Falls Church would tend to be more trafficked than nearly any site in Manassas, anyway...I assume it wasn't the Nallys who did that, maybe the guy who was treating clerking at Hole as a retirement job took a flier at it. May Kitty's PT be as effective as we can hope! And good luck with the glasses, for both of you...at least the kids probably won't opt for Elton John as Pinball Wizard specs. Or...and good luck to Mark for next year.
Jeff, while the focus of the first three episodes has been largely on the same time periods in TT WIFE, the emphasis and approach of the three episodes has been rather different...first one which laid the pipe, second one which laid out mostly what was going on for the Traveler and how he finds himself caught (following, as mentioned last week, the fairly logical guidelines Fritz Leiber's early story "Try and Change the Past" laid out) and this third episode focusing more on what it's all meant for the young woman in her childhood and adolescence. Good luck with the eyes, there, too.
That our fascists and fascist fankids feel a bit shaken by having to defend their support of millions of hackable machine-guns out in the expensive market, having to defend their lack of support for most women and girls' reasonable desire to control their bodies, and wondering why Trample's wand doesn't magically place his chosen candidates on their ballots...is probably for the good. Not to not let them have their way in the end. Likewise everyone else's fs and ffs, including the ones Prashant has to treat with (welcome back here!)
There can be some things good to be said about a dull weekend, Steve...
This morning we went to a chalk painting event at the Santa Barbara Mission. It is always on Memorial Day weekend, and this is the first time that they have had it there since 2019, due to Covid. We also went on Saturday morning because we usually like to see the artists starting their work, but this time we got there so early not much was going on. We did not stay long today because of the sun, but still got lots of photos and there were some lovely paintings.
I am still reading the books in the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. After I finished JUSTINE mid-month, I purchased BALTHAZAR, and started reading it immediately, and then the same for MOUNTOLIVE, the third in the series. I have 50 more pages to read in that book, and I don't know if I will get the fourth book right away or not. Each book adds to the story of the relationships of Justine and Nessim and Melissa and Darley. Except as far as I can remember the narrator of the first two books (Darley) was not named. Sometimes the books were confusing for me but I am riveted by the overall story. Rick recommended JUSTINE and I am so glad he did.
That is almost all the reading I have done this month. One mystery novel by Robert Barnard at the beginning of the month was the only other reading I have done this month, except for short stories.
Watching: STAR TREK TNG. DOCTOR WHO. PERRY MASON, season 4; KOLSCHACK: NIGHTSTALKER, and BROOKLYN 99, season 8. We started SHAKESPEARE & HATHAWAY, and liked it.
I read the Justine books years ago and have not a single memory other than I liked them I think I was too young to really appreciate them. Would love to see the chalk painting. They had some in Coronado one year. Oh, the original PM then. My mother adored him.
I liked the WE OWN THIS CITY series, which wrapped tonight. Indeed, too compressed. Apparently the Writers Guild of America West hasn't adapted to the short runs of many cable and streaming, and even broadcast, series as yet, nor adjusted membership requirements accordingly. The insurance helps.
Travel safe, Patti.
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