I also went to the Flag Day concert at the local park. I am not much of a fan of patriotic music played by amateur musicians but hey, it's free and I will do almost anything to get out of my apartment. Some of my friends find this puzzling. But they are people with a husband or wife, who have lived in the same house for 50 years, and have a yard to get out to. What is there to do in a apartment for 18 hours a day? You have to love to clean or watch TV or read. I can do any of those activities for two hours a piece a day but that leaves me with 12 hours.
The Indy 500 that runs beneath my window grows more and more onerous as many cars now have both noise and lighting effects that strobe my walls and shake my glassware. Thousands of my neighbors take lawn chairs and coolers down below on Woodward Avenue to watch these cars drive back and forth from 7pm-11pm on weekend nights. And I count TH through SUN as the weekend. It is still two months to the official Dream Cruise. Will I survive?
Reading the delightful book of essays by Helen Ellis KISS ME IN THE CORAL LOUNGE. Will talk about it more on Wednesday.
Watching Joe Pickett, which I like mostly although I don't find his case riveting. It is he and his family that steal the show. And I am very worried about his daughters. PLATONIC on Apple -which is so-so at best. Started Endeavour on PBS.
Hope you all had Happy Father's Days.
How about you? Is your 'hood driving you crazy?
24 comments:
My 'hood does not drive me crazy. It's quiet and residential and -- luckily -- still here after the recent storms. 17 inches of rain, high winds, flooded streets, and distant tornadoes. Across the Bay in Pensacola, Jessie woke up to a mattress in her driveway and wandering trashcans. A tornado landed two streets away, knocking a tree into a house and killing one person. Someone else living nearby was struck by lightning. A rescue worker was sucked into a storm drain. The nearest tornado to us hit Fort Picken; engineerrs from Jessie's department were sent to assess the damage. Things could have been much worse
I like Gershwin in an inverse ratio to how much I dislike rah-rah speeches about donors.
Father's Day also happened to be Walt's birthday -- someday he'll start looking as old as he really is. Jessie and Amy stopped by with Nugget -- Amy's neurotic dog -- for a play date with Jolly. They brought pie.
Watched a couple of Marvel mnovies on TV: WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and the latest ANT-MAN AND THE CGI. Jack got a DVD of the last Spider-Man movie from the library, so we watched it four times. The things I do for grandkids.
I shaved, a once-daily task I now do every two or three weeks. Because I'm lazy.
I read a pile of short stories: detective tales from the pulps of the 30s and SF stories from the 30s and 40s. The detecive stories were all hard-boiled and enjoyable; the SF was basically minor fluff, although I really got into the John Hanson stories by S. P. Wright from the early 30s ASTOUNDING. Books read included Erle Stanley Gardner's THE D.A. CALLS A TURN (completing my read of his Doug Selby novels), Martin Edwards' THE COFFIN TRAIL (his first Lakes District mystery), TERROR BY NIGHT by "Paul Valdez" (Alan Yates, a.k.a. "Cater Brown;" an Australian pulp novel and my FFB), F. Paul Wilson's horror thriller WARDENCLYFFE (Nicola Tesla meets Lovecraftian monsters); FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED by "John Wyndham" (John Benyon Harris; an early mystery originally published as by "John Benyon," and finally reprinted after nearly ninety years),TWELVE FOR TOMORROW by E. C. Tubb (a science fiction collection, expanded from the earlier TEN FROM TOMORROW), Tom Gauld's magnificent cartoon collection REVENGE OF THE LIBRARIANS, and graphic novels THE SANDMAN UNIVERSE: NIGHTMARE COUNTRY by James Tynion IV and WINDHAVEN by Lisa Tuittle (based on the novel co-written with George R. R. Martin). Coming up is Owen King's THE CARETAKER.
I hope you have a fantastic week, Patti. Perhaps ear plugs and a sleep mask to be worn in the early evening might help with the Indy 500 situation. Stay safe.
I think I am a very slow reader because even at two hours a day, I couldn't read more than a book or two a week. Maybe I drift off. Florida seems like a frightening place now with these awful storms.
Patti, the storms we can wether. The politics...that's another story.
I'm glad you've had the chance to enjoy some concerts, Patti. Summer is a good time for concerts-in-the-park and other events like that.
The nabe is on rare occasion annoying--we live across the street from an elementary school, and the most uncharming aspect of that is that smoking parents, awaiting their kids coming out of the school day, will stamp out their butts on our sidewalk, because Why Not? Some of them think it Should Be Fine to park half into the driveway opening of our house, and abandon their cars (perhaps or perhaps not to go smoke). Etc.
Sorry...I have firsthand knowledge of just how load stock car races are, and can only suspect the Indy cars are at best a tiny bit quieter.
Newest series for me is RAIN DOGS, imported by HBO from Britain, about which I haven't made up my mind...more picaresque than noirish, but a bit of the latter, and I'm not sure I want to sit through it too often.
Jerry's right...essentially everywhere gets the bad storms these years. Entirely too many places get the atrocious politics as well...I only recently fully realized that the native right-wingers of Florida, Cuban transplants and others, have been increasingly augmented by more or less solely rightwing retirees, as the less reactionary tend to go elsewhere, also these years. (New Mexico?)
Sorry you had to sit through the concert-promoters' self-congratulation, Patti. Wrangling cats and saving up for the new dishwasher (and how many plates apes and cats use that need to be washed) can eat up some of one's daily hours.
A happy Juneteenth to everyone.
The attempt to now make birth control difficult to come by is heinous. So much of right wing politics is punitive.
Thanks, Margot. I do enjoy the concerts in the park once we get by Flag Day.
Boy, I haven't seen anyone smoking in ages. I'd forgotten it existed.
After a cool and rainy week (we really reeded the rain!) we are headed into 80 degree heat laced with more Canadian Wild Fire smoke.
The conditions in our "hood" are mostly benign (partly because we have three cops living on our street) but as the Fourth of July approaches the annoying fireworks ruin the peaceful summer nights. Why people would waste their money on noise-makers when inflation is still a problem is beyond me.
Diane and I plan to see ASTEROID CITY but will probably wait until next week. Ou schedule this week is full of lunches and dinners with friends.
I read and enjoyed Megan's BEWARE THE WOMAN. Very intense! Stay safe!
Thanks, George. Great to have meals with friends. Especially if you don't have much family around. I really am lucky in that way. I am looking forward to seeing the Emerson Strings this week on their last tour.
Patti, sorry your neighborhood is driving you nuts. Maybe you need an apartment in the back of the building. Our neighborhood is the opposite, very quiet and peaceful. Even at its worst it's quiet. We do get occasional morons racing around corners on a Friday night for a few minutes, but otherwise, we have almost tomb-like quiet other than the occasional road crew digging up the street.
Jerry, as long as it wasn't her mattress in the driveway, and she wasn't on it! No, really, that is way too much rain. I'm curious about that John Wyndham mystery.
Didn't Wandering Trashcans open for Zappa?
We saw our last show (for the moment) this week, a Wednesday matinee of FUNNY GIRL. Jackie hated the long climb up to the mezzanine (there is a long staircase just to get to the orchestra, so I don't know how people who can't walk stairs do it, though there must be an elevator somewhere, right?), but we liked the show, which we never saw before. Lea Michele was very good, and unlike Beanie Feldstein, she can really sing. The trip into the city by express bus (Jackie will NOT ride the subway) is a tedious one, especially on a weekday. Saturdays are usually better.
We finished SPIRAL series 6 and have started series 7. We'll finish it this week (two hours a night) and do the final series next week before it leaves MHz Choice. I always considered Agatha Christie's THIRD GIRL to be the absolute worst Poirot mystery, and the TV adaptation was changed but not better. FOYLE's WAR, on the other hand, was a wonderful series and is definitely worth watching if you have Acorn. We have the final two episodes of the third series of HAPPY VALLEY left to watch - I think the first is on today. Catherine is two days from retirement, and the evil Tommy Lee Royce just escaped.
We've seen 6 of the 8 episodes of A SMALL LIGHT, and it looks like the Frank family is about to be discovered. We're still watching the Aussie DEADLOCH despite (definitely not because of) the awful "Detective" brought in from Darwin to supposedly solve the murders in the small Tasmanian town. We watched the first two episodes (on TNT) of THE LAZARUS PROJECT, a British time shifting show, I guess you'd call it. It is definitely my kind of show, though it is no MINISTRY OF TIME. More like TIMELESS, I'd say. Still watching Bridget Everett's SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE (HBO), On Demand.
I'm reading too many books - probably 5 or 6 at the moment - including S. A> Cosby's harrowing ALL THE SINNERS BLEED. It's the kind of book I would normally race through in a couple of days, but it is just too intense. I keep having to put it down and read a short story or a chapter in Jane Smiley's 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE NOVEL.
My neighborhood is mostly tranquil. We are in a homeowner's group that share undeveloped lakeside property. A particularly unpleasant neighbor has sued the group demanding part of our land saying that he has been using it for 20+ years and it should be his. I was speaking to someone last week who said the guy is one of the most difficult people he has ever dealt with. The case goes to mediation in a month.
I took Boy #1 back to Minneapolis last week. While I was up there I kept thinking we must be close to a BBQ place because I kept smelling smoke. I did not realize the Canadian wildfire smoke haze brought the smell of smoke.
Boy #2 attends the state honors orchestra multi-day camp this week. I take him up to Green Bay in a day or two. That will be a quick drive compared to the 11 hours it took to go to Minneapolis and back.
Speaking of politics, a neighboring County has had several instances of book challenges at both school and public libraries. No trouble like that here but I keep apprising people so we can be prepared.
Jeff, the Wyndham was just released this month by Modern Library. It was first puiblished in 1935. It's a fast read, part light-hearted and part sinister -- Wyndham juggles the two adroitly. Because of the date, I was suspecting some Nazis in the woodwork, but no, SPOILER! it's corporate baddies. The book reads as though it could have been a great British movie thriller at the time. I really enjoyed it.
Patti, just by chance I'm going to listen to Jean Yves Thibaudet's THE CHOPIN I LOVE CD. He's a marvelous pianist! Diane and I saw him in Buffalo about five or six years ago when he give a piano recital. Plenty of applause!
Thibaudet was brilliant. My friend had a perfect view of his hands and said he was by far the greater pianist. Of course, Feinstein sings and has a pretty good voice still. FUNNY GIRL is coming here in the fall but probably not with Lea.
The daytime is fine here. It's just summer nights. My friend'd daugher and her husband's car got totalled on Saturday on this street. It's the Wild West. If they lowered the speed limit to 35, it would stop.
Cosby is way too intense for me. Great writer but not my sort of book.
Hoping this library stuff dies off. Illinois has banned book banning.
Patti, so sorry to hear about your noise and light problems as the cars drive by. I can imagine how irritating and distracting that must be. Our neighborhood is quiet. We are not in walking distance of anything, like you are, though. We are in a largish condominium group; mostly it is very quiet and the only occasional problem is kids using the driveway as a playground... and I worry about them getting run over by a car. But of course being in a condominium means that there are rules and regulations about what you can do. It has been a good tradeoff for us.
This weekend we watched NOISES OFF!, with Michael Caine and Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeves, and more; and THE STING with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Also several episodes of DEATH IN PARADISE; we are in Season 8. Tonight I hope to watch the last episode of Season 2 of SLOW HORSES. Also start the new season of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS.
My reading, which was frustratingly slow at the beginning of the month, has picked up a bit. I read OUR MAN IN CAMELOT by Anthony Price (only 223 pages) and loved it. Price's espionage books are slow and thoughtful and this one was VERY talky, but it was still great. Going into it, I had no idea that the King Arthur legend was central to this story, although obviously the title should have been a clue. But surprisingly, the next book I started reading also focuses on the King Arthur legend. It is A DYING FALL by Elly Griffiths, the fifth book in the Ruth Galloway series. The main character is a forensic archeologist in the UK, so the topic makes sense, but still. Two books in a row. I spent a good bit of yesterday reading that book, but not done yet.
I can't remember if I saw that NOISES OFF or not. I have seen the show at least once and strangely it's playing at a theater here right now. And was at another theater a few months ago. So it is still a staple of Midwest theater companies.
They lowered the speed limit in NYC to 25. Don't know if it helps when morons run lights or stop signs but overall, it is probably better.
Tracy, we saw NOISES OFF in London and it was great. Loved every minute. This was 1982.
Also, I loved Anthony Price's David Audley books, though I am not sure I read the whole series. But I definitely read 8-10 of the 19 total.
Forgot to mention I actually was reading a print book, AND THERE HE KEPT HER by Joshua Moehling. Mystery set in rural MN. I ran across a mention when seeing an article on rural crime novels.
I still don't consider my area as rural even though many others would. Heck, my county is listed as rural by the state of WI.
I have only been to Madison in WI and I am sure that's an anomaly being the capital and the seat of the university. But I really enjoyed my time there as there were cows everywhere. Remember that trend. Here it was fish (Great Lakes).
Patti and Jeff, I would love to see NOISES OFF in the theater.
I hope to read all the David Audley books, I have three more books in the series on my shelves but they are all toward the end of the series, I want to find the ones in the middle. I will check the book sale, then I will begin looking online for copies.
My apartment is rather noisy. I am near a fire station so KI hear sirens all the time. Also a train passes by regularly. And I am right by a busy intersection.
Just finished Blood Moon by Jo Nesbo. A bit long but I enjoyed it, now I'm reading Semiosis by Sue Burke.
Not watching a lot of television or seen any movies at the theater Got a graduation coming up this weekend.
Love the warm weather.
An article in the NYT today outlined how bad this noise is for us. I am a block from the Birmingham Fire Station as well as the Woodward Issues. There are fires every day.
Congrats to the graduate!
And here I was, taking you too literally, since they did stage an Indy Car race in Detroit the other week...yes, people who remove their mufflers are having their nightly fun just about everywhere in the US, I suspect...the more thinned out they are in your area, the luckier you are.
Well, I sat through, taking it in parts, the TCM cablecast of THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS (1968), based on a probably terrible play and the film that Leonard Maltin, as I noted on Steve Lewis's blog, seemed to loathe with the most vehemence in at least the early volumes of his TV MOVIES guides. With reason. A financial success, according to its WIKI article, but also the last cinematic film project Lola Albright and Ozzie Nelson ever took a part in. (Both continued to do tv work.) Sadly, hadn't noted when I set the DVR to catch this trainwreck that I was recording it from the HD feed of TCM, and accidentally wiped out some episodes of series from the last months of MHz Worldview three years back. If you wanted a leading contender to back up your suggestion that the '60s were a bad time for US studio-backed films, this THREE'S COMPANY-level tripe can take on all comers.
I hadn't heard the Emerson String Q was on its farewell tour...final bowing in October. I hope they consider a reunion from time to time, if they feel up to it. https://www.emersonquartet.com/news
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