Saw See How They Run, which was pretty bad. Eight of us went and our opinions ranged from okay for a Saturday morning to never okay. What a waste of a good cast.
Spent one day exploring Wyandotte, MI, which is along the Detroit River and quite a hip town. A friend of Phil and mine from our Lambertville, NJ days in the late sixties had an art gallery there. He is now dead but we met his widow Patt Slack who now runs it.
Still plowing along on the same book as last week. But I did finish Clark and Division, which Naomi Hirahara will discuss with my book group on Tuesday night. What a nice job she did with exploring the Japanese-Americans sent to Chicago from Manzinaar but also creating characters to care about.
What about you?
21 comments:
Also enjoyed Clark and Division. I read Fairy Tale by Stephen King. And it is pretty much what the title says it is. I found it to be his best book in years. Am still reading Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. Halfway through the second book. It's my kindle read. Halfway through Heat 2 by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner. Liking it a lot better than I thought I would. Next up from the library The Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates. This seems to rely a lot on the Oakland County Child Killer(s) from the 70's. Oates taught here about the same time. Also the new collection from T. C. Boyle.
See Hoy They Run didn't look very good from it's trailer. Glad I missed it. Wanted to see Moonage Daydream, the Bowie doc, but bit's only playing at one theater here and not nearby. Caught Vengeance on Peacock which got decent reviews but I found it meh. Not finding House of Dragons very interesting either. North Water looks promising. A Canadian production starring Colin Farrell.
Only a couple of warm days left here and then I'm stuck inside for 8 months. I hate fall and winter.
I never started Handmaid's Tale. Subjugation of women is not my cup of tea. Maybe someday.
Minor surgery of Friday to place markers on my postrate for the upcoming radiation. Went smoothly but made me very tired. Slept most of Saturday.
Yesterday afternoon, Christina's dog, Acorn, died. She had had a stroke shortly after Kitty died and had recovered fairly well but not completely. Sweet and goofy, she was 88-pounds of love. Christina sat with her, stroking her head for five hours while she passed. She was 9 and a half years old -- a regular life span for a Chesapake Bay retriever. Christina and Jack are devastated; she and Walt take pet ownership very seriously and treat all their animals as part of the family. Acorn died four years to the day when they lost their other Chessie, Pirate.
On brighter news, it looks like Mark will be graduating in December. A couple of his "iffy" courses are doing well. Also, Christina and Walt should be picking up their new car today. It was supposed to delivered on Saturday, but it missed the truck.
No television at all this week, which may change because Jessie and Amy came over and worked their technological magic and got me back onto the streaming services that had kicked me off. Jessie also retrieved my access to Word and to Kindle on my delapitated computer. It's not easy being a technological Luddite.
Read Stephen King's Best American Short Stories 2007, a book that had been hanging around for over a decade. King's selections were spot-on; every one a gem. Also read Mickey Spillane's Something's Down There, featuring a retired government spook goinf against whatever has been chewing large holes in the hulls of fishing boats off a small island in the Caribbean. Peter Haining's retitled anthology Time Travellers (originally Timescapes) was chockful with two dozen stories from many of the big-name SF authors. Waiting for me at the library today is a rare Edgar Rice Burroughs collection, Eric Frank Russell's book of strange phenomena, Great World Mysteries, and the only Murray Leinster science fiction novel I had not read.
The weather here is lovely and warm, a perfect day to enjoy the world. I hope it is the same up there. Have a great week, Patti.
I heard that Dopesick was very good, Patti. I'm glad you thought it was well made, if not exactly uplifting..
My DIL gets her new car this week-one she has wanted since high school-a jeep. I hope it is not the kind that is all open. I don't buy many new books but I ordered the new Elizabeth Strout one for my kindle. Although I am not a Luddite I find everything to do with technology challenging. I especially dread having to deal with the foreign reps of neerly every US business.
Diane ordered the new Elizabeth Strout novel, too. I'm busy getting caught up on snail mail, email, and books that arrived while I was at BOUCHERCON. You go away for a few days and everything piles up.
I'm going to see CONFESS, FLETCH this afternoon. Only one movie theater is showing it in Western NY! I'm going to have a long drive to get to it.
It's drizzling right now, but the rain should be gone for the Titans vs. Bills MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL game tonight.
Diane and I hope to get our Omicron Booster shots this week. Stay safe!
Got mine. Strange that CONFESS, FLETCH is not getting a wider release.
We got our Omicron boosters at Costco on Thursday. No wait, even though they said they are doing all appointments. We'll get our flu shots in a couple of weeks.
Got our refund for FUNNY GIRL since we canceled the tickets when Lea Michele went down with COVID. Since it was Jackie's birthday show, we watched the 1968 Streisand movie instead. It was sos to me. She was brilliant, of course, but it really bothers me when Hollywood takes a real story about real people and just makes up a bunch of crap instead. Of course, producer Ray Stark was married to Fanny Brice's daughter, and the odious Nick Arnstein was still alive when they did the show so they had to whitewash him to some extent. Also, parts were quite slow - the movie was 2 1/2 hours long.
They said this is too long so I will divide it in half.
Part 3 -
Netflix has been almost without interest lately. Other than rewatching BORGEN before we start the new series, we have been watching the non fiction CHEF'S TABLE: PIZZA. Each episode covers one chef and gives their life story and how they got where they are today. We've watched two so far (in Phoenix and Rome) and found them kind of angst-y, but fascinating in their own way. We've never watched any of the earlier series.
THE GLOAMING (Starz - On Demand). An Aussie series I'm not sure I love. A woman is found murdered on Tasmania. It is tied to a previous killing 20 years earlier, and the cop brought in from Melbourne to help was involved with the previous case, as a teenager it appears. He and the woman cop have a history as well.
A PRIVATE AFFAIR (Prime Original). Started this last night. A socialite woman in 1948 Galicia, whose brother has just been appointed as Police Commissioner (a position held by their late father), realizes she cannot be a cop herself, but thinks she can solve a serial killer case she stumbled upon. The lead is played by Aura Garrida, who starred in a favorite show of ours, THE MINISTRY OF TIME (EL MINISTERIO DEL TIEMO), with Jean Reno of all people as her butler/assistant. I can see why her brother and other and other cops find her exasperating, but it is enjoyable to watch, witht he period cars and clothes.
THE WALL (can't remember what channel it is on). French Canadian show set in a real place, Fermont, on the border of Quebec and Labrador. If you look it up you will see about The Wall, a massive structure the mining company built there where half the town lives. Needless to say, there is a murder in the first episode. In French with subtitles.
Just checked. THE WALL is on PBS Masterpiece.
Been wondering about the Pizza show and thinking is there that much to say about pizza but I guess it's more about the chef than the pie.
Why don't we know more about Canada than we do. I don't ever remember studying it in school at all. In fact, we learned more about Mexico. (But maybe that was in Spanish class).
In New England, where one might think teaching much of anything about Canada might be salient, it didn't happen (they mostly didn't teach much about the U.S., either, of course; I picked up more on the fly from SCTV about Canada than I ever would in school, in NE states or Hawaii).
King's record at non-horror fantasy is a bit better than his batting average at horror, perhaps in part because he needs to be moved to write one of the former to some greater extent. At this point, he's published considerably more cf than fantasy that isn't horror, and not too more of that last than he has autobiography.
Imagine, Patti, trying to instruct bored and frustrated Indian temp-workers, who probably didn't expect to have their current assignment more than a month, in how to create schedules after gathering the information from the more obscure public-broadcasting entities in the US, over the phone. Hell, I had enough difficulty instructing my ex-boss how to log PBS, for his several months to a year before he, too, was laid off after my lay-off in 2015 (as I was one of the last dozen or so schedule reporters left in the office, before my old boss and about three others would be all who were left in he company, aside from those who were temps in Bombay), and coasting for a year on my exit package, while my parents sunk further into dementia and my sister and her wife had most of the responsibilities of seeing it happen up close, beyond those cared for by the relatively decent care-center the folks resided in in California (Anna and Paula living in Silicon Valley, then, as now).
Ah, well. Thanks for the warning on SEE HOW THEY RUN, which I'm unaware of, and the heads up on CLARK AND DIVISION, which sounded good already.
Sorry about the dog, Jerry...our cats have of late been lasting a decade before something gets them (Emma seemingly a bit less, but she had the hardest pre-rescue life), but so far, Ninja seems to be surviving her recent dental adventure with no lasting trauma...though her health insurance company, which has of all things been bought out by the video-producers The Dodo, is fighting us on paying their share. I guess it's harder to monetize our pets' bodyparts than it is YouTube vids.
Just posted again and it disappeared again.
Part 2 of your previous comments, Jeff?
Among video stuff, AMERICAN GIGOLO after the second episode (Showtime/Paramount+) is not superb, but is certainly better than watchable...of course, there are few bad reasons for me to take in a series featuring Gretchen Mol and Sandrine Holt, among others in the cast. Not a light touch, in dealing with corruption of the villains, but we have such obviously corrupt villains roaming about in reality of late.
Any bells rung?
A librarian asks: I'm looking for a book that was written around 2005 for a patron. It has "tree" in the title and it is mainly about two friends who decide not to marry and start a bookclub. Each chapter lists the names of the people who have joined the book club. It takes place in a small town and follows their friendship from 17 to about 70. Eventually, the friends marry. One of the friends marries someone of German descent and its hard for people to accept him. Maybe it was around WWII era?
I enjoy learning more about Canada and that is why I try to read more books by Canadian authors and set in Canada. They don't all give me much new information but I generally learn something. I especially like reading historical fiction and learning more about the history.
Since last week, I have not finished reading anything. Still working on ANNA KARENINA, very slowly. I am also reading a historical mystery set in British Columbia right after World War II. Title is THE KILLER IN KING'S COVE, by Iona Whislaw. The heroine has just come to Canada from the UK, following World War II, and lives in a small town of mostly older people who have been there forever. I am liking it more than I expected.
We are still watching STAR TREK DISCOVERY, which we really like. And DIRK GENTLY and ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING. All of a sudden the season of original PERRY MASON episodes that we were watching are not available on Freevee, so we go back to buying the episodes on DVD. And that way we won't have commercials to deal with.
We went to the Planned Parenthood Book Sale last Friday and Saturday. I bought way more books than I should have but I think maybe less than last year. We will be going back next weekend.
A great Canadian writer--if you haven't read him--is Alistair MacLeod-who wrote NO GREAT MISCHIEF and ISLANDS among others. I also love Mordecai Richler and Brian Moore (originally Irish). Of course you know Munro, Atwood, Laurence and Davies.
Not ringing a bell, Todd.
Sorry for the issues, Jeff. I wonder why that happens so much. I always have more issues when I use a cell phone rather than a computer.
I have not read anything by Alistair MacLeod, although I was aware of him and especially his short stories. I will follow up on his novels and stories. Also have not read anything by Mordecai Richler or Munro.
I have read two books by Brian Moore and intend to find more of his books. I am also interested in reading more by Davies and Laurence.
Well part of it that all the free blogging software is clunky. Google hasn't helped that, with Blogger/Blogspot.
Another Canadian-USian I can recommend is Melissa Hardy. And another all-Canadian is Barbara Roden. Expect eventual FFBs, finally, about them and maybe Andrew Weiner.
Not familiar with either Hardy or Roden. Why do we know so little about Canadian fiction?
Moore also wrote mysteries under Bernard Mara.
And Melissa Hardy is US-born, Canadian/US dual citizen these years. Why do we know so little about anything, unless we educate ourselves?
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