For many years, our summer vacation was in Wellfleet, MA on Cape Cod. Last night I watched a documentary about a shark attack that took place there and the great growth in the shark population. This growth quickly followed the growth in the seal population which
happened when hunting seals was banned. This is a complicated problem to solve. Does the beach belong to the humans paying taxes and summer rental fees? Does the beach belong to the passive seals sunning themselves on the rocks? Does it belong to the sharks coming only where the food source is? And global warming is bringing more and more marine life there.
Now as someone who has watched the seal population grow in La Jolla, I am not a seal fan. A huge number of smelly birds follow them around. They need to be dispersed if not slaughtered and other communities have done it. If they can neuter peacocks in Florida, they can deal with this.
Anyway, I liked MISSION IMPOSSIBLE Lots of humor to go with the action. Beautifully filmed. And no matter how you feel about TC, he is a dedicated actor and film maker.
Finally got through the first season of SLOW HORSES. If I put my phone in another room, I do much better at paying attention. Also watched RESERVATION DOGS.
Reading TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett. Such a great writer.
Wonderful if horrific article in THE ATLANTIC by Jennifer Senior about the discovery that she had an aunt institutionalized her entire life. Up until quite recently, children with mental differences were advised to be put away. Rosemary Kennedy was not the only one. Apparently Geraldo Rivera made a doc about it. He used to be rather a good guy, wasn't he?
Going to Stratford Tuesday. RENT, RICHARD II, KING LEAR.
What are you up to?
19 comments:
Saw both Mission Impossible #7 and Oppenheimer. I thought both were very good although very different type movies. On TV I have been watching Loudermilk, Full Circle, Reservation Dogs.
Just started Justified Detroit. And yes the daughter is annoying.
Finished Reading Ascension by Nicolas Binge. Just starting The Devil's Playground by Craig Russell.
We got a Nu Trac machine for our exercise room. I've been walking about 2,500 steps a day. Only a couple of people use our exercise room and I'm usually alone there.
My youngest has spent a couple of days in the hospital. Her sugar got extremely high, It turned out her Insulin pump got a kink in the line and no insulin was getting through.
I hope you enjoy Stratford.
We've been getting a number of shark sightings near here. I think climate changeis the culprit. I can't blame the charks and earning to live with this may be our new normal.
Neutered peacocks would be a great name for a rock band.
Christina, Erin, and Trey finally made it to Scotland. They got caught up in the weather-related fubar that affected airplane travel last Sunday, compounded by a glitch nin Delta's computer system and some very unhelpful clerks insisting that a flight was cancelled when it wasn't. They finally had to drive four hours to Atlanta at 4 a.m. Monday, only to meet several more cancellations and delays. After 31 hours, the group finally made it to an airplane, although they had to shave a day and a half from their itinerary. Once there, though, they had a blast in Scotland and are now enjoying several days in Ireland before heading home.
Jack started sixth grade on Thursday and there have no major incidences or panicked phone calls from the principal, so there's that.
A baby orangatang was born at the zoo the last week and a baby gazelle came along Saturday. Several more new-born gazelles are expected today. Mark had pictures. The orangatang is amazingly cute and the gazelle is a bit wet and wrinkly. Mark really enjoys working there. Evidently he recently go to handfeed and alligator.
Sad news on the animal front. Kimchi, Amy's python, died this weekend and Amy was in tears. Don't know what happened. On other news, Amy has applied to be an animnal control officer. Barring anything unforeseen, she will probably get the job.
Continuing my binge of VERA from the beginning. I'm up to Season 7.
O completed my current Bill Crider reading marathon, having read the collections THE BLACKLIN COUNTY FILES and EIGHT ADEVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, as well as his three Rancho Diablo books under the name "Colby Jackson," DEAD MAN'S REVENGE, GABBY DARBINS AND THE ROCK-SLIDE BOLTER, and SONGBIRD. Read the John Dickson carr collection of juvenalia (or, "apprentice work," as editor Dan Napolitano put it) -- nine stories writenn from the age of fifteen to twenty-two; the final story, "Grand Guignol," was my short story Wednesday post this week. My FFB was Basil Copper's quiet horror novel INTO THE SILENCE. I also read the Will F. Jenkins ("Murray Leinster") collection TEN UNIQUE STORIES BY WILL F. JENKINS and Gabino Inglesias's THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME, the poweful recent Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award winner.
Enjoy your time at Stratford, Patti. KING LEAR is my favorite Shakespeare play, although RICHARD II is up there; never cared much for RENT. Stay safe.
That's an interesting dilemma about the sea animals and beaches, Patti. And I hope you have a good time at the Stratford!
Diane is reading TOM LAKE and loving it! I gave her TOM LAKE for her birthday because Diane loves Ann Patchett.
Diane and I loved MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, too. But waiting until June 2024 to find out how it ends is annoying.
PT is helping relieve my back pain. I'm down to a 1 from an agonizing 8.
The traffic on the International Bridges here is horrible. Our TV traffic reporters show the long lines--over an hour wait times to get over. The problem is that although there are 12 inspection booths, only three of them have inspectors. The other inspectors have been sent to the Southern Border.
Have fun in Strafford!
Enjoy your trip! Stratford is fun.
Yes, Geraldo Rivera got famous covering Willowbrook on Staten Island 50 years ago. It was a real hellhole.
What are we doing? Pretty much nothing. And frankly, I'm OK with it. We had our week in Maine, which was a lot of fun. We have several concerts and shows - next week, Jackson Browne, and the revival of SWEENEY TODD after Labor Day. Otherwise, reading, going for walks, eating out and streaming shows is all good.
When we were dating and first married, we spent a lot of summer weekends at my in-laws' bungalow in the Catskills. Starting in 1972, we went to England (and a few times to the rest of Western Europe) almost every summer. It did vary from 10 days up to two months, depending on the year. My parents moved to California in 1974, and we visited them a few times in the summer, but mostly around Christmas. Florida, we always went January or February. My cousin's wife spent last week in Florida and she said it was like a Twilight Zone episode with two suns, just unbearably hot.
I believe we've been watching pretty much the same streaming shows as last week. Finished RIDLEY. Jackie is watching OUTLANDER and will start BILLIONS today. We tried the Swedish THE TRUTH WILL OUT (Acorn, I think) last night, and not sure how I feel about it. The star is this guy who is apparently a "beloved" comedian playing against type as a depressed cop who had a nervous breakdown after his brother killed himself. He insists it was a murder. Now he is assigned to start a new Cold Case squad. I found the first episode a little hard to follow.
TOM LAKE is amazing. I don't know why it strikes me as different from books written today. It reminds me a bit of A THOUSAND ACRES by Jane Smiley.
Yeah, why a second part. Do they think it helps sell tkts.
The last Reservation Dogs was so sad.
I wonder why rock groups favor names like that.
Patti, Diane's Book Club read BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett over a dozen years ago and loved it. They've read a couple more Patchett novels over the years. Diane and I listened to Tom Hanks read THE DUTCH HOUSE (http://georgekelley.org/the-dutch-house-by-ann-patchett-narrated-by-tom-hanks/) and enjoyed that. We also listened to Ann Patchett read her essays in THESE PRECIOUS DAYS (http://georgekelley.org/these-precious-days-by-ann-patchett/) and found that very moving.
Diane shares your opinion of TC and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. The guy knows how to make wonderful movies!
Patchett's essays - the one mentioned by George and THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE - are very good.
Loved both books of essays and every one of her novels. I listened to Hanks read it too and he was a terrific reader. I was so disappointed the film version of Bel Canto was panned. She would be on my top five authors for sure. Would love to go to her bookstore in Nashville. I am waiting for WHALEFALL (Krauss) to come in. It got such a great review.
We are not doing much at all lately. We had dental appointments that fortunately went well for both of us. We had some rain on Thursday last week, very unusual, and that kept us out of yardwork for a few days. This morning it is overcast and I think we will have a few more cooler days.
I liked SLOW HORSES, season 1, a lot. Season 2 was not as appealing, it was like they mashed up several stories into one. But will still give Season 3 a try, assuming there is one. I agree with you on Tom Cruise. We have not seen the new Mission Impossible, and will not until it comes out on disc.
This weekend we watched some older movies: WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY with Gene Wilder and MEN IN BLACK with Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. Also still watching the mostly the same shows. We will finish STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS, season 2 tonight. Enjoying THE AFTERPARTY, season 2. Watching some MURDER SHE WROTE and a couple of episodes of HUSTLE, season 4, when Marc Warren was the main guy instead of Adrian Lester. I especially like Robert Glenister and Robert Vaughan in that series.
Last week I read SLEEP AND HIS BROTHER by Peter Dickenson. I loved the story. It is very short, around 200 pages, but very dense and it took me a while to read it. I did not realize that I had not read book 3 in the series, this is book 4, and Jimmy Pibble is no longer a policeman in this one. I cannot decide if I will go back and find a copy of #3 or move on to #5, which I think I read years ago and did not care for. I might like it more now. I started THE LAST COLONY by John Scalzi last night, the third books in his Old Man's War series. And I am still reading OPERATION MINCEMEAT by Ben MacIntyre between fiction books.
Glen recently finished reading CAFÉ EUROPA: LIFE AFTER COMMUNISM by Slavenka Drakulić, published in 1996. He has bought a copy of CAFÉ EUROPA REVISITED by the same author, published in 2021. Currently he is reading A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY by J.L. Carr.
I remember reading SLEEP AND HIS BROTHER but not a thing about it. I am also unfamiliar with HUSTLE. Will look it up. I have just watched the first episode of Season 2 SLOW HORSES. They are fairly short books so I guess to make a series takes more than one but you always feel it's off when they do. A lot of people are suddenly mentioning watching MURDER SHE WROTE. I don't think I have ever seen an episode. Will have to try one.
Sorry for the close scrapes and pet losses in the past week, folks. Glad things haven't been worse...I suspect we might well see a single term for the current Governor of Hawaii, though not bothering to turn on the "state of the art" alarm system put in place for tsunamis, mostly, seems like it should perhaps fall on the Maui authorities. "But this wasn't a tsunami! Surely those alarms dependent on uninterrupted electricity flow, as the wires help gin up the fires as they catch, and on cell phones, as the towers burn, are a Better Idea!" Or, no. Also, reassurances that the fires were All Done when they weren't was more typical of Hawaii politics than it ever should've been, but nonetheless tends to continue to be. (Not to suggest that this kind of thing isn't dependent in part on similar Let's Lie To Ourselves happytalk worldwide, but Hawaii is particularly insistent on that kind of thing on a constant basis. "Hawaii is a Special Place"...nothing special about corruption, incompetence, criminal neglect and smugness, unchecked poverty, et al. Special inflation of cost of living and lack of wages keeping up with that, not even special Enough, there.)
HUSTLE was one of the several "confidence tricksters working for good purposes" series that have emerged over the last couple of decades, and one of the better ones (in a sense, M:I is a similar premise with improbable funding and resources). And I always found MURDER, SHE WROTE relatively easy to watch, but never made much effort to catch it regularly. Lansbury isn't quite the whole show, but close.
DARK SKIES is probably my favorite of the new episodes I'm catching of various series, though I remain fond of BREEDERS, THINGS WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (this past week's episode was particularly good), and among the Canadian imports on the CW, MOONSHINE and CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING are the ones I've enjoyed most so far...SON OF A CRITCH lags slightly, but shares some creative talent with SCHITT'S CREEK...as the titles might suggest. WINNING TIME continues well, and requires essentially no basketball fandom.
Still moving things around and doping up New Cat in hopes of eventually keeping her from attacking Old Cat.
Enjoy your adventures (or intended lack of same), folks! And, indeed, Patti, the hope and proven tendency is that breaking films into two parts does gin up ticket sales, when they already have a pre-sold audience.
Binge watched the latest five episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer on the weekend and started watching Justified: Detroit. Not too impressed as Raylon belongs in the south, not the Motor City. Started reading Death in Fine Condition by Andrew Cartmel about the hunt for some collectible crime paperbacks in London. I enjoyed one of his earlier mysteries about vinyl records. Went to the large annual Rotary Club book sale in Gimli on Lake Winnipeg a couple of weeks ago. Very disappointing and I only spent $19.00.
We visited my wife's family all of last week in central Kansas. Glad to say we did not drive all over to see zoos and museums and what-all. The in-laws have bought a condo and we assisted in some downsizing and took quite a few things home with us. We had a lot of furniture moving and then, last night, I found out the clothes washer is leaking. Repair guy is booked for Thursday so I hope to disassemble the washer before then to see if I can locate the leak and get it fixed earlier.
Recently listened to THE SECRET LIFE OF GROCERIES by Benjamin Lorr. A neat nonfic of the industry and the history of supermarkets. Now listening to Max Allan Collins's nonfic about Eliot Ness in Cleveland, ELIOT NESS AND THE MAD BUTCHER, he wrote with A. Brad Schwartz.
Schwartz wrote a Capone book with Collins and might be the guy who Collins first met when Schwartz was a young teenaged fan from MI who got his parents to drive to a con (or similar) in Chicago to meet Collins.
I started watching LAST OF US on HBO and have enjoyed it so far. I'm on the third episode.
I read THE SECRET LIFE OF GROCERIES a few years ago. I thought my book group might like it but it didn't seem quite right. THE LAST OF US was good. I hope it comes back.
Yes, Raylon does seem wrong in Detroit. He seems extraneous to the plot even.
I liked BREEDERS and hope it returns. Those darn cats!
I'll admit that I had confused grocery books. I had been intending to read GROCERY: THE BUYING AND SELLING OF FOOD IN AMERICA since it came out in 2017. Oh well.
BREEDERS is already back, running out its final season on AMC on cable (and presumably on whatever streaming deal Jeff has that isn't AMC plus). Wonder if the CBC picked it up (it's originated on Sky TV in the UK). And, of course, Givens is kind of shoe-horned into CITY PRIMEVAL...I still find it watchable and mildly engaging, but the shoehorning is almost as awkward as why no one, in or beyond the drama, hasn't already killed the villain, given all the provocation he demonstrates at all times and his fairly consistent cocky gormlessness.
Well, Whiskers always starts the fights. Last night, she snuck in and did so, and Ninja scratched her near her eye. Whiskers seems morose today, and well she might. "But she's not supposed to fight back!" The same error our first female in NJ, Niki, made, till after the second time Ninja scratched Niki's nose rather savagely after cornering Ninja. Niki finally got the message.
I should look into food industry studies. I do the cooking and the food shopping,as Alice hates the latter and gets frustrated when she attempts the former, despite learning in her one cooking class, two decades ago, how to make a decent marinara, which she professed profound disappointment with.
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