Monday, July 19, 2021

Monday Monday

I watched THE NUTTY PROFESSOR Friday night and I'm sad to admit, I find little to like in this film. My daughter is a Jerry Lewis fan and I'm sorry not to share her enthusiasm. It is possible I was poisoned by my mother who really disliked him and said so many times throughout my childhood. She thought he was making fun of mentally challenged people in almost every film and I have to say it comes off like that to me too. What about you?

Enjoying The Unforgotten a lot. Trying not to speed through it too fast and yet not to drag it out either. I have friends that are going to movies but most are not. I would like to see the Anthony Bourdain one but I know he is not to everyone's taste. I always found him interesting and smart although probably not a guy I would like if I knew him.

Reading You, Again although I haven't gotten far. It's got a great premise. I won't spoil it.

Lots of rain here. Friday was horrible. I thought for sure it would surge inside my house. Not having a basement makes it less likely but not having a basement means it would immediately ruin upstairs furniture rather than basement furniture. I certainly wouldn't keep anything in a basement anymore. Attics will be mandatory on houses soon.


So what's up in your neighborhood?


17 comments:

Steve A Oerkfitz said...

Same weather as you since I only live 1 mile away.
I liked Jerry Lewis as a kid but can't stand him now. The Adam Sandler of his day.
Finished Winter Counts by David Weiden and Dead Man Dancing by John Galligan. Liked both. Winter Counts the better of the two. Now halfway through Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby. Enjoying it a lot. His Blactop Wasteland was one of my favorites of last year. Just had a slew of library books come in. They always seem to come in all at once.
I don't mind going to the movies. Their just hasn't been a lot I want to see. The Anthony Bourdain bio is probably the best thing out there right now.
Watched a few movies, A few tv shows-The Unforgotten, American Horror Story, a few more episodes of Handmaid's Tale. A lot of Detroit Tiger games.
Just had a great grandchild born this week. My second. And next Saturday have a granddaughter getting married. Thankfully its outside and casual.

Margot Kinberg said...

Oh, I've heard You Again is good, Patti. I'm glad you're enjoying it. And as for The Nutty Professor, I have to confess, I've never been much of a Jerry Lewis fan...

Teri Lyn said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jeff Meyerson said...

No, I'm with you, not Megan. Never could stand Jerry Lewis. Putting in fake teeth to "do" Japanese, etc. Plus, he was a raging egomaniac, even by show business standards. But his worst crime to me: painfully unfunny. I like Steve's Adam Sandler comparison.

Weather was crappy here too. A LOT of rain - instead of the normal two inches to this point in July, we're at more like NINE inches. A lot of flooding in areas around the city. The heat is typical for July - two days over 90 last week. Very, very humid, though.

I couldn't hold Jackie back any longer from making plans. Two days at a hotel in Midtown in October for our belated 50th Anniversary celebration (one year late). We have tickets to see The Mavericks in Staten Island on Saturday and she got tickets for the Sunday matinee of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD on Sunday (our first time back in the theater). She also got tickets for my birthday (the day before Thanksgiving) for the revival of COMPANY (Katrina Link from THE BAND'S VISIT in the redone "Bobby" role, Patti Lupone in Elaine Stritch's). We've seen every Broadway version. And then there is a trip to New Orleans in early December.

Television. Finished SWEET TOOTH (up and down, but worth a viewing), the latest LINE OF DUTY (I could not STAND Anna Maxwell Martin's condescending smirkiness), and the second series (ending part one) of the Spanish MONEY HEIST, which was a lot of fun. Enjoying UNFORGOTTEN (no "THE") as usual. Watched the first episode of the New Zealand HALIFAX: RETRIBUTION. Boy, Rebecca Gibney is really flavor of the month there. We liked her a lot in the Aussie WANTED. Seems she starred in HALIFAX f.p. as forensic psychiatrist Jane Halifax from 1994 to 2002. Now they've brought her back in this series about a sniper terrorizing Melbourne. (THe lead cop is a very chunky Anthony LaPaglia.) Meanwhile, some PBS stations are running the first series of Gibney's other his show, PACKED TO THE RAFTERS (2008-2012). We tried this but hated it. Yet it was a huge hit there and they are also brining her back in BACK TO THE RAFTERS. Just briefly: the Rafters are celebrating becoming empty nesters when their youngest son moves out, but he only moves next door and has loud parties every night, plus his brother and his wife ask to move back in so they can save money to buy a house (!). But meanwhile Dad is ready to celebrate his freedom from kids with a Viagra, but why not make sure and take two, or better yet three? "Hilarity" (NOT!) and the Emergency Room ensues

Once again I find myself reading four books - two short story collections, a mystery and a memoir. I'm greatly enjoying Cynthia Harrod-Eagles's BODY LINE, but I have to think if you don't know as much about Britain and British culture as we do, you would miss many of the references that made me smile - Margo Ledbetter, Fanny & Johnny Cradock, etc. Also greatly enjoying Jenny Lawson's first (three so far) memoir, LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, though it helps if you have an off-kilter sense of humor.

Jeff Meyerson said...

You have a spammer.

Jerry House said...

Congrats to Steve on the great grandchild. There's something magical and hopeful abnout babies. And best wishes to his granddaughter on the upcoming wedding. May she and her intended enjoy a lifetime together.

Jerry Lewis? When I was in the sixth grade I thought he ws one of the funniest persons ever, right up there with Pinky Lee. I am no longer in the sixth grade. The French love him and thought he was a genius, but the French eat snails, smoke cigarettrs, and let their dogs poop on the sidewalk.

I threw my back out earlier this week. I've had a bad back since I was fifteen. Over the years too many falls, a fractured spine, arthritis, stenosis, and adhesions have all contributed to my often walking like a crab with a broken shell. This time I may have ruptured a disk -- don't know how. X-rays are inconclusive so they're sending me me in for an MRI soon. The drugs they have given me are nice, not "Oh, wow! Look at all the colors" nice, but allowing me to sleep nice.

Celebrated a slew of birthdays last week. It's good to celebrate the poeple you love as often as possible.

Happy at all the Donald Trump books recently released. His tour of America with Bill Reilly is falling far short of his expectations. His legal problems are circling the wagons. Junior made a foll of himself doing tandup at CPAC. Trump's statements are getting more and more unhinged. And I am reveling in schadenfreude. Yet a lot of jamooks are still standing by him. Can't understand that.

Finished watching ENDEAVOR amd are now binging on TITANS, based on the DC comic characters. I haven't gone to a real theater in years -- too many rude people in the audience fo a cranky-pants like me.

Still reading a lot of short stories, basically from the old pulps and dated collections on the internet. I'm going through one of my John Creasey kicks; I've read five of his Dr. Palfrey books this week. Palfrey is the head of Z5, an internatinal group that deals with threats that affect the world. The threat is usually a mad scientist/deadly invention-type that could destroy much of humanity: targeted tidal waves, a new type of atomic weapon, a chemical that instantly kills when touched, global arson, something that sterilizes the population and eliminates birth, and so on. Each a melodramic, over-the-top fantasy with a death toll well over the thousands. Mndless, but fun. Creasey published thirty-four books in the series.

A toss-up between bright sunshine and pourng rain this week. Two of Kitty's tomatoes ripened this week; before, it looked as is she was growing fat, green olives. Dolphins are coming closer to shore now; they are just fascinating to watch. Evidently manatees are migrating to this area but we haven't seen any yet.

Looking forward to Megan's new book, despite the fact that she's a Jerry Lewis fan. Have a great week, Patti!

Jerry House said...

Wait. Dr. Adoda's love temple is spam? Whoda thunk it? I was going to email him to tell him about my new revolutionary bat guano hair restorer formula but now, thanks to Jeff, I won't.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Oh, one more: after all these years we are finally watching Game of Thrones from the beginning.

George said...

I'm with Margot and Jerry: I'm not a Jerry Lewis fan. However, he's considered a comic genius in France.

Diane and I just watched TED LASSO on APPLE TV. Brilliant and funny! The Second Season starts this Friday and a Third Season has already been approved.

Rain, rain, and more rain. I wish we could just ship all this rain to the West Coast where they really need it!

The Stock Market is down 500 points today on Delta Variant fears. Stay safe!

Rick Robinson said...

Never could stand Jerry Lewis. Watched a lot of TV in the past weeks, several hours per day of the Tour de France, plus the usual news and stuff, a couple episodes of Morse, an episode of Vera, one of Midsommer Murders. With the pandemic re-surging and numbers climbing, we're continuing to stay masked, close to home, and distancing like smart people should.

Several library books all coming from the library at once, same as with Steve. I have three in hand and three more waiting for me to pick them up. I also have the first season of THE CROWN waiting. Speaking of watching things, we're not sure how or how much of the Olympics we'll tune into. With Covid spreading there, it's starting to seem a mistake to even try to pull them off.

@ Jeff: sounds like Jackie has cabin fever. Enjoy your outings, but BE SAFE! The pandemic isn't over by a long shot.

It remains hot and dry here, with wildfires burning all across the state. After last years' scare, we're pretty nervous. We sure could use some of the rain those in the East are getting.

Gerard Saylor said...

Weather extremes will become weather norms. I don't know what kind of storms we'll get in Southern Wisconsin. Our old basement might flood if the ground is saturated. Fortunately we are at a higher elevation and would fair better than others in the area if rain got that bad. Maybe tornadoes and thunderstorms are coming for us. The concrete of brutalist construction starts sounding nice.

One month or so until Boy #1 leaves for U of MN. He never got a summer job so he's been doing some work around the house. He finished installing a railing on our back steps and was cleaning out the garage building attic.

I've not seen a Jerry Lewis movie in a looong time. I always enjoyed his pictures and don't know how much I would enjoy them now. I started reading a Mo Hayder novel last night. So, I'm promised some unpleasant people doing awful things.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Sorry I was gone all day with various appointments. It looks like we're having a dryer week here. But hot. It must be nice to have an eighteen year old that can put a railing up. No one in my family has ever been handy. In a store today saw more masks than a week ago. People are starting to be afraid again. Loved Ted Lasso and the reviews look good for this season too. Tried Smigadoon but could not get into it.
I have six books waiting at the library I will have trouble carrying them home.

TracyK said...

Our weather is mild, not too hot at all. No rain of course, but that is normal here. I never cared for Jerry Lewis films, and my husband really dislikes them.

I finished reading H.M.S. SURPRISE by Patrick O'Brian last night. It was very good and I will start looking for a copy of the next one. Next I will start either THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD by Zora Neale Hurston (for my classics list) or ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE by Ian Fleming.

Funny that Jeff mentioned Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' BODY LINE; I have read all the books in the series up to that point, and I have a copy of that book. I used to love the series, although I liked the first 5 or 6 books most. I should pull that book out and read it later in the year.

Other than that, mostly focusing on gardening and never catching up with all I need to do.

Todd Mason said...

Finally saw the willfully eccentric but mostly amiable GIGANTIC (2008), which is clever enough and has a remarkable cast. One can see it with ads on IMDb.com, likewise on Crackle, or rent it for 2 bucks at Amazon. I had dubbed it from CineMoi US, which (as with most of its programming, most of the time, for no obvious reason) is in the wrong aspect ratio, stretched out along the horizontal axis, meaning that if their goal was was to fill the screen, they could've simply not letterboxed it. I am usually at least pleased enough by anything John Wells produces, or in this case co-produced.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Picking up six library books today and I will probably read either Laura Lippman's or Sean Cosby's first. I can't remember what the res were. Hope I can carry them home.
Not familiar with Harrod-Eages or GIGANTIC. Will look them up.

Jeff Meyerson said...

Tracy, I finished the book yesterday. Nasty plot but good book. Patti, he is a cop with a good team around him. Personal stuff also plays a part in the books. Lots of sly British humor might appeal to you too, and as I said yesterday, for someone familiar with Britishisms and their pop culture references there is an added bonus.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I will put it on my list, Jeff, thanks!