I am wondering if this will be the last halfway decent week politically for a long, long time. There are, of course, people who are voting correctly for their life style and bank account and such when they vote Republican. But I can't help but think the vast majority are voting for one or two issues they think the Republicans will solve. But if they do solve them it will be at the expense of the poor and middle class. If these people would just turn on the "real" news or pick up a real newspaper instead of getting their news from dubious sources, they might realize this.
Anyway..
Saw LA TRAVIATA, streamed from the Metropolitan Opera in NY. So lovely. Although I think the music would be superior at the Met, the closeups are just outstanding seeing it this way.
Enjoyed KAREN PIRIE on Brtibox . Too soon to tell about WHITE LOTUS. ATLANTA is almost finished. I have learned more about Black life from this show than anything else. And the podcast that discusses it helps even more.
Today I am off to see a play.
Reading the excellent THE LONELY CITY by Olivia Laing. Also THE BLUEST EYE.
VOTE: PERMANENT DST, PERMANENT EST or continue switching. If Detroit stays on DST, it's sunrise would be at 9:01 am in winter. That doesn't seem right.
What about you this week?
16 comments:
Saw and loved The Banshees of Inisherin. On cable still watching Handmaid's Tale, The Peripheral, John Oliver, Bill Maher and White Lotus (which I am behind on). Missed the last game of the World's series due to my cable going out due to high winds.
Read The Shadow Muders by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Also Cinema Speculations by Quentin Tarantino. Now reading A Heart Full of Tombstones by Ian Rankin. And just got new novels by Cornmac McCarthy, Michael Connelly and John Connelly.
Got to see the Van Gohn exhibit in Detroit.
Not looking forward to the elections this week. Our state leaders seem fairly safe. Helps that the GOP put out a lousy group of candidates. We have one woman running on the platform that the Democrats are possessed by demons.
I putting my comments up early because Glen has a minor dental emergency, a crown fell off on Friday night, and he will be trying to see the dentist tomorrow, so I don't know what the morning will be like. Even when we stay home on Monday mornings, my morning starts about 12:00 where you are.
I pay a lot more attention to the news ever since the start of the pandemic, but I still try to ignore politics as much as possible because it is too upsetting. We have voted already, delivering to a ballot box.
This weekend we watched BEETLE JUICE and STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK for my birthday. We are still watching STAR TREK DISCOVERY and STAR TREK STRANGE NEW WORLDS, plus BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES and MIDSOMER MURDERS, plus other miscellaneous things.
I want to give KAREN PIRIE a try soon. I read the first book in the series and want to read more.
Reading: THE BULLET THAT MISSED by Osman, DEAR LIFE by Alice Munro, and DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY by Douglas Adams. Finished reading recently: NINE PERFECT STRANGERS by Liane Moriarty.
So glad you enjoyed La Traviata, Patti. And it's good to hear you're taking the time to see a play, too. Those sorts of things keep the soul nourished, I think.
Just spent half an hour responding to your post and my laptop just ate it. Bah! In brief, things are fine with me, democracy is in danger, I need to stay in closer contact with the far-flung members of my family, books are keeping me sane, and I fell back with great alomb to Standard Time yesterday.
I was hoping to put off buying a new computer until the New Year, but my current sumbich of a laptop is going completely wacko, erractically moving me to all sorts of strange screens without warning. On top of that, it just doesn't like to print cetain letter -- O, S, A, and X. I have to go back after typing each word and forcibly pound the keyboard to get the letters to appear, which eventually works but often I get the letter four or five times and have to go back and start deleting. **sigh** First world problems, I know.
Maybe next week the computer won't eat much of what I type.
Stay safe.
Western NY just broke two records by hitting high temperatures of 77 and 79--not normal November weather here. That's about 30 degrees above Normal. However, snow is in the forecast next week.
Covid-19 and flu rates continue to climb here. Diane and I never leave our house without our N95 masks...and usually we're the only people wearing masks wherever we go!
Last week I called Rite-Aid for a refill on my Trulicity. I got a call back from my pharmacist telling me there is a national shortage of Truicity (like the shortages of Amoxicillin and baby formula). It could be weeks before Rite-Aid gets more Trulicity! I called my internist and he told me he had a "sample" of Trulicity he would give me in hopes it lasts until Rite-Aid gets restocked! I hate all these supply-chain problems!
My sister just returned from a European River Cruise. And, she just tested positive for Covid-19! And people wonder why I avoid crowds! Stay safe!
Being on a boat trip would be my last choice. No one had a mask on at LA TRAVIATA in our audience and only a few at the Met. It's been warm here too but it ends this week. Temps in forties by the weekend.
I am hoping this will be my last computer because I have really never learned how to do much of anything on it. I am not even sure the best way to turn it off.
Wasn't thrilled with KAREN PIRIE - I am a big fan of the series and I didn't like some of the changes - but the third part was the best. I'm betting they do another. Loved the last series of DERRY GIRLS. We'll probably rewatch it over time. Currently rewatching TREME on HBO (On Demand). Great music. Jackie is a big Steve Zahn fan but man, is he annoying in this, And John Goodman was gigantic then. He looks so much healthier now. We finished the last series of THE SINNER. Disappointing. The penultimate episode was the best.
We're watching the third series of the Finnish DEADWIND on Netflix - another nominee for The Worst Mother on Television. Good so far. Her stepdaughter is out of prison and her son is staying with his grandfather. Didn't watch the latest episode of MAGPIE MURDERS last night, which I guess shows how lukewarm we are about it. INSIDE NO. 9 is quite variable in content and tone but definitely worth a look.
Another new one is the Polish GREEN GLOVE GANG on Netflix. Three older women are successful thieves, but when one of them has her tattoo spotted on a surveillance camera, they going into hiding at a nursing home, where shady things are going on. These run about 30-35 minutes each, and emphasize the comic elements in part.
We watched ENOLA HOLMES 2 on Netflix. I wasn't that taken with the first one - Sherlock was always trying to pack his little sister off to a boarding school and was a general pain - so I liked this one a lot more. David Thewlis plays a typical (for him) awful person.
Imagine you're 19 years old, adopted, starting college, when you discover you have a previously unknown to you identical twin brother. And then it turns out there is another one - triplets! Yes, this really happened and the documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS tells their amazing (and sad) story. I think this was on Netflix at one time, but it isn't now, so I borrowed the DVD from the library. The very well respected Louise Wise adoption agency (since closed, thankfully) was deliberately taking identical twins (and the triplets) who were up for adoption and separating them in some sort of unconscionable "nature vs. nurture" experiment that, to me, reeks of the Nazis. None of the parents knew there was another twin, and to this day at least four of the children do not know they were a part of this. The boys became huge celebrities and opened Triplets Roumanian Steakhouse in New York, but things did not end well. Definitely worth seeing,
The other thing we watched this week was THE AUTOMAT, another documentary, When we were kids, we begged our mother to take us to the Automat (Horn & Hardart's in Philadelphia), and she sometimes did. I remember the excitement of putting the coins in and getting your food out when the little door opened. I loved the chicken pot pie.
Incredible stretch of warm weather this week (ending today), 15-20 degrees above normal, but that will crash down next week.
I liked Hayley Scrivenor's DIRT CREEK for the most part, and Chris Offutt's second memoir (the third I've read), NO HEROES. I'm now reading his COUNTRY DARK. Terrific writer.
Loved THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS, which I saw near the beginning of Covid. So many evil people in the world. Going to the Automat was my tenth birthday wish. So we did. I could never get enough of putting the coins in and opening the doors. I liked the cast of Karen Pirie more than the story. MAGPIE is pretty awful. I never read the book so I was unprepared for it. PBS certainly doesn't seem to get the best of British fare any more.
All sympathies, Jerry...my Mac Air needs to Warm Up to type too many of the characters without pounding (and, often, cutting and pasting). Decaying First World problems.
Much like the current political state, or states, worldwide and definitely hereabouts. We'll have exactly two races on our ballot, one for US House (incumbent, brother to Dem Boss in South Jersey currently under investigation and/or indictment, will nonetheless win; PAC put out an ad mocking his GOP opponent for her unbroken string of losses in every general election race she has been in, and to add to her fun two apostate Republicans, both African-American, which might well not be coincidental, are running against her and Rep. Norcross, so Donny feels pretty comfortable. His first term, he voted with the GOP about half the time, but someone convinced him to knock that off by his second.), one for three school board members...the best of the four candidates the only one likely to lose, but perhaps we'll be surprised (the other three, for three open slots, are running on a slate).
But we get to watch, close up, the Pennsylvania races and racism and such, where Mehmet Oz's ads of late are attempting to sell him as a sensible centrist, who eschews the extremity of the only reason he's running in his own party, and the pretty centrist populist Lt. Gov. he's running against. Oprah Winfrey, perhaps belatedly guilty for inflicting on the larger world her goofball quack pals Phil McGraw, Oz and THE DOCTORS, has been quoted in a late ad noting she would vote for Fetterman.
Curious as to which play...review, however brief, likely? Glad, also, you liked LA TRAVIATA.
Happy natal, Tracy! Sorry about your husband's mishap...crowns really don't seem to be reliable things, too often.
Good luck on the med front, George. With, I guess, colds, Alice and went to get tested for the trendier viral things...CVS tested me for Covid and flu, Walgreen's Alice for Covid, and all negative. Small favors. I'm not the only person in a mask at my relatively few stores, but we are in a vanishing minority. Alice and I might've picked up a bug in the first cinema outing we had together, a retrospective run of HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE, wherein four young women came in just before the film started and plunked down maskless next to me, with Alice on the other side...I figured either exposure to them or to the shared air with a dozen or so others in the auditorium was the source for our ?rhinoviruses...
AUTOMAT is popping up on the linear feeds of either Showtime or HBO soonly; I am just old enough to remember going to one as a child, in NY or PA.
Yours for the least damaging results, whenever we get them...sure would be nice to have a lot of good people to vote for everywhere, with the hope of them being elected, but go fix the world. Y'know, as we were all meant to do. And keep away from those demon-possessed candidates...they just might get some on you.
First cinema outing we've had together in three years or so, anyway. She had caught a couple of films solo or with other friends over the previous several weeks.
Just grocery shopping and the vast majority were wearing masks. Odd that no one would wear one in a crowded theater and many wear one at a spacious grocery store.
Checking in again to see all the comments ...
Glen will not get in to see the dentist regarding his crown until Thursday. I thought that was a long time to wait, but he was OK with it. He has no pain and he is being careful with eating, chewing, etc. so we will see how it goes.
We skipped our walk today anyway, but it has rained all morning so just as well. The rain is surprising although it was forecast for several days, but usually it doesn't happen. 100% chance for rain tomorrow so we will put off a walk until Wednesday. It isn't heavy rain, but enough to make my plants happy for a while.
We mainly wear masks when going to the grocery store. It is the most populated place we go to, and I figure the grocery store employees get more exposure than most people. Many but not all of them wear masks. Mask wearing seems to have gone up a bit here lately, but still most people don't. And of course all medical places require masks, even the veterinarian. We take masks everywhere we go, but mostly we are in outdoor areas and don't need them.
Too many of the older people who are wearing masks are wearing paper ones that are below their noses and often below their mouths, so worthless. I call them Chin Masks.
I lost a crown on a trip once and the dentist said to cover the area with sugarless gum until I got it. I think most pharmacies have wax strips you can use too. Can't remember if it worked or not.
Standard Time is ST for an almost good reason. In the spirit of voting for Bill Crider, since he can't but clearly would, I'd say goodbye forever to DST.
I also very much enjoyed KAREN PIRIE. Had no read the books so that fact may have played a roll.
Am disgusted with how my fellow Texans voted last night. Guess that many have learned nothing.
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