Friday was a busy day. I got to see Kevin play tennis, his last match of the year. Then we went to dinner and finally a play called THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 16th. A play by Ayn Rand as you might imagine, championing the idea of these "special" titans of industry that will make America great. This work has been much produced and there is even a movie of it. And although the cast did a great job with their parts and it was a credible production given our limitations, the work itself feels like something that should have died in the thirties. It is a courtroom drama and uses 12 members of the audience as a jury although that really felt like a gimmick. But it was great spending a whole day with my family. Everyone was masked at the theater and not allowed to use the lobby but it still was awfully close seating. They did have a special air circulation system but these small theaters probably shouldn't be open yet.
Saturday, I went to Cranbrook, which is where the picture is from. Cranbrook is a pretty special place: a school, a center for all sorts of art and artists, gorgeous gardens, a science center, and lots of places to walk. Such a beautiful weekend weather wise too. The photo above is of the annual garden but there are many interesting perennial gardens, herb gardens, shrubbery, and lovely paths. Plus a terrific Arts and Crafts house to tour.
Watching THE CHESTNUT MAN on Netflix, which was a scary book and is now a scary series. And the dubbed version is pretty good. Netflix has apparently spent some money getting much better dubbed versions of their foreign series. The only one that didn't work well for me dubbed was LUPIN, because they gave all of those Frenchmen American accents. Think I have said that before.
Reading Hilma Wolitzer's collection of stories. I have been reading her my whole life, I think. And now Meg Wolitzer is perhaps even more well known.
Isn't Sarah Weinman doing a great job with the Crime page of the Sunday NYT? She finds unusual books to review and writes so beautifully. Marilyn Stasio always seemed to review books that everyone knew about anyway. Appreciate Sarah looking further afield for great picks and bringing new writers to our attention.
What about you?
26 comments:
Yes Cranbrook is a beautiful place, but my experience there was not a pleasant one. My aunt who was a teacher got me enrolled at 15 on some sort of scholarship. I hated it and only lasted 2 months. If you were not a rich kid you were constantly tormented by the other students. Terrible experience. The type of snobbish place where they play Lacrosse.
Saturday was a birthday party for my great granddaughter Rowan who turned 2. Met my great grandson Grayson for the first time. He's only 2 months. And found out my Son is going to be a grandfather.
Watched The Many Saints of Newark on Netflix. I enjoyed it but I'm a big Sopranos fan. Hated the last episode of Only Murders in the Building. Told from the perspective of a deaf person and the show was given a sort of humming sound with played havoc with my tinnitus. Watched the last episode of Animal Kingdom.
Reading Angel's Inferno by William Hjorstberg. It's a sequel to Falling Angel (movie version was called Angel Heart).Reread The Scar by China Mieville. Probably my favorite book by him.
You make an interesting point about the Ayn Rand play, Patti. Some things stand the test of time, and some don't...
Luckily people tend to outgrow Ayn Rand by the time they are sophomores in college. Those who don't seem to enter Republican politics. She was such a bleak person. **sigh**
Unlike Steve, I have no skin in the game so Cranbrook sounds lovely. We need all the beauty on the world we can get, even if it's artificially created. Still, nothing can hold a candle to the raw beauty and wonder of nature.
The saga of Jerry continues. They removed a bone chip that was working its way through my gums, easing some pain. Gums are still sore and the dentures abrade in several areas. Still cannot talk coherently or chew -- I'm having dreams of pastrami sandwiches and corn on the cob. **(once again) sigh** The dentist said this stage could last for another five months. **gulp!** We've resolved the car issue and now possess a new Kia Soul, which seems to work well for both of us. The results of my MRI came in and shows that a "clinically significant cancer is likely to be present." They are scheduling a targeted biopsy (date to be determined) and Kitty is all atwitter. It's very early days and the chances are very good that it can easily be taken care of.
On the brighter side of things, Trump is losing significant support. This is (alas) offset by DeSantis's political star rising...and Manchin and Sinema continue to play dngerous games. **how much sighing can one do in a single post?" As Pogo Possum might have said, "We have met the jamooks and they are them."
Still reading only short stories, again mainly science fiction from Donald A. Wollhelm's or Terry Carr's various Year's Best anthologies. They produced a lot of good stuff from the mid-60s through the 80s. Haven't had the time to concentrate on any novels. Also haven't had the time to blog. Hoping both situations will clear up soonest.
John Oliver AND SNL are back, putting a smile on my face. Binge watched MIDNIGHT MASS, a rather nihilistic small-town vampire show. A lot of good ideas played out in a heavy-handed fashion. The show just did not know what it wanted to be, lowering it to an above-meh rating IMHO.
We have Jack for this weekend (Christina and Walt are headed off to celebrate their anniversary) and for the following weekend (the girls are going camping) -- looking forward to some very interesting and very exhausting times.
Hope your coming week is interesting and rewarding, Patti! Take care.
Sounds like you had a good week. I have that Wolitzer collection on hold. Agree on Sarah Weinman, especially compared with Stasio, who was mostly boring and obvious. I also enjoy Michael Dirda's Thursday book columns in the Washington Post.
Another mostly quiet week here, the highlight of which was getting our Pfizer booster shots. We did eat out four times: first was the local Greek diner/coffee shop, where they do carefully check everyone's vaccination proof, for brunch. After the boosters we had Japanese bento boxes, and they not only checked the vaccination proof but asked for ID to check we were who we were supposed to be. Third was pizza, and there they were pretty casual about it, though we had shown proof there previously (and the waitress is also a nurse!), but we were the only ones in the restaurant that day. Lastly, yesterday we went to our favorite local Italian restaurant, which was the most crowded it has been since they reopened. Again, they were casual about checking (but we've checked in with them in the past), but here we have a back corner table we like to sit at, which is well away from other eaters. They do have outdoor dining and we considered it, but yesterday was just too warm and humid not to eat inside. Interestingly, one room of the restaurant is still closed due to a shortage of staff, which is clearly still a problem in many places.
What else> I read another five books this week - three collections of stories, a memoir of sorts, and THE STOLEN HOURS, the latest terrific mystery by the underappreciated but excellent Allen Eskens. Really, any of his books are well worth reading.
Television. We watched what was clearly meant to be the final KAVANAGH Q.C. episode (from April 1999) with John Thaw, which pretty much wrapped things up, but then they did one last episode two years later, which we will watch next Saturday. We've started the final (so far) series #8 - 1941) of the Danish SEASIDE HOTEL, real comfort viewing for us. I hope the new series, which will take them to the post-war summer of 1945, is out soon. We're on season three of GAME OF THRONES, in the second hesit of MONEY HEIST. We've started watching the 173 episodes of SEINFELD on a daily basis now that Netflix has them. Adn we've watched the first episode of several other shows: the South Korean smash hit SQUID GAME on Netflix, MAID (also Netflix), THE END on Showtime (Harriet Walter tries to kill herself but fails, and her daughter, who is a palliative care doctor who does not believe in euthanasia, has her flown to Australia. Walter as always, is terrific), BACK TO LIFE (series 2, on Showtime - Daisy Haggard, who also created the show, is Miri, released after serving 18 years in prison for killing her best friend).
Have a safe week out there.
Two biopsies for me, too, Jerry. So I won't be around next Monday.
Yeah, Cranbrook is a school for rich guys. Kevin goes to the International Academy, which is a public school for kids willing to work harder. Really nice kids there. In his economics class he is trying to live on a welder's salary and can't afford to buy a car and must use public transit, a real problem in MI. Great list of stuff, Jeff. Have to read Eskens who is always being recommended to me by another friend.
I think I saw some Kavannagh the year we lived in England.
It's nost just that the play didn't hold up; it was preaching Rand's crazy philosophy. Don't know why they still perform it.
Eskens does have some characters from book to book, but not really a series. A couple of people in two books, a couple in a different two, etc. But the current one, for instance, tells you enough that you don't need to read the earlier ones.
One more thing we're watching. AMERICAN RUST. All I can say is, it's no MARE OF EASTTOWN. If it wasn't for Jeff Daniels and Maura Tierney, I doubt I'd watch it. Final episode of LAETITIA tonight, at last.
Since October arrived, it's just been rain, rain, rain. It's raining as I write this. Despite the driving rain, the Buffalo Bills beat the Houston Texans, 40-0.
Western NY weather this week will be in the 70s...a return to late August!
Katie is in Chicago for a wedding, Patrick is in NYC looking at apartments. GOOGLE wants their workers to come to an Office once in awhile. Patrick loves working remotely, but he likes to go the Office to see his friends at work.
Diane has decided to join me to see the new BOND movie later this week. I saw VENOM 2 last week: disappointing.
Had to bail on Laetitia. A real horror story.
Patrick is seeing the country working for Google.
George, what happened to the apartment in Williamsburg? I thought Patrick took that one.
As usual, nothing watched except an episode of Father Brown on PBS. Not reading much, either, a couple of short stories and about 10 pages of a book. I just don't have reading energy. We got some light rain last week, but need lots more to make a dent in the drought. We could sure use that rain George is getting.
The Ducks lost, but they deserved to with the way they played. Seattle Seahawks won, though we didn't see it, we were outside doing some early Fall trimming. Then Wingspan, a nap, blog reading, dinner...the days just flow by.
If I didn't watch TV or read or walk, my days would be awfully long. Maybe you are out in the garden a lot more without the rain. Or possibly you spend more time preparing meals than me. Interesting how differently we may live these days.
Yes, it isn't just that Rand is old-fashioned or past her currency--she never could write fiction or drama worth a damn, since her characters are sticks declaiming at each other. So, my question is--did you go just because it was the play the local house was putting on for some reason (the audience participation?)? Also her women are all fatally flawed by being women, who no matter how jut-jawed, just have to submit to their jut-jawed man, or destroy him, out of envy of not being unflawed like men.
Punahou, my second high school had a bit of that sense of being among the very rich, but they didn't quite run rampant (Punahou, like some other institutions accustomed to being kowtowed to, realized their dependence on the very rich but also were excessively proud of themselves). If anything, my first, public high school, in suburban New Hampshire, was far more full of inbred hostility.
I hope everyone's tumors or suspect growths are easily treated. Jerry, you might need better dental professionals than you have, though how to procure them might be the trick...hope that finally gets straightened out. Carr's anthologies were usually good, though his fantasy annuals were notable for finding the worst possible Stephen King stories to reprint, while Gerald Page's and Karl Wagner's YEAR'S BEST HORROR (published by Wollheim's DAW Books) might actually pick up good to excellent King stories. It was in the first volume of Carr's YEAR'S FINEST FANTASY I first read T. C. Boyle, with his underwhelming "Descent of Man"...
ANIMAL KINGDOM has wrapped its penultimate season, not the series. It's back next year. Last night's caper was one of those wherein it's hard to believe all the expenses and technical skills necessary to pull it off are sufficiently rewarded by the proceeds of the theft. But it will leave a small hole in my run of Sunday night viewing (for the last few weeks it's been whatever I choose to see of 60 MINUTES--Tony Bennett coping with encroaching senility was a bit of a heartbreaker--perhaps a SIMPSONS, what I can take of THE CIRCUS on Showtime, ANIMAL KINGDOM on TNT, AMERICAN RUST on Showtime--I like it more than Jeff does, but it is leisurely, where MARE was a bit frantic, and LAST WEEK TONIGHT on HBO...I'll mix in a bit of Epix's documentary FIASCO or HBO's NUCLEAR FAMILY on occasion.
KAVANAGH QC was the series I saw the most of, among Thaw's work, back when it was first being imported.
Better weeks for everyone.
I've heard of Hilma Wolitzer (my spell-checker isn't too sure of Wolitzer but is quite firm about Hilma being Hilda), but haven't read her yet, while I have daughter Meg. Shall seek to rectify.
FWIW dept: Facebook and its subsidiaries have Gone Down. Which is both annoying to, and possibly resulting in less time wasted today by, me. Twitter chuckles.
Thanks for clarifying that. I thought it was my computer or Internet. Rereading Wolitzer Sr. it isn't dated in terms of writing but maybe in terms of subject.
I see whatever plays or movies people will take me too. Even fascists like Rand beat sitting at home.
Last week I finished reading CATCH A FALLING SPY by Len Deighton (also titled TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE SPY). It was very, very good, my favorite so far except for the Bernard Samson series (9 books).
Then I read SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Bradbury. I expected to like that book more than I did. I liked the second half more than the first half, so it is good that I stuck with it. It gets rolling and moves faster after the midpoint.
We continued watching LEVERAGE: REDEMPTION, only have one more episode of that available. Also still rewatching BROOKLYN 99. This weekend was my husband's birthday, and we watched ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT with Humphrey Bogart and SNATCH with Brad Pitt and Jason Statham and a lot of other actors I enjoy watching, Dennis Farina for one.
My husband has his cataract surgery tomorrow. Should go fine but I am still nervous. The project to replace our asphalt driveway with pavers in front of our row of 16 condominiums is stalled once again, in a sense. I think they will make little progress on our driveway in the next week, based on the recent info we received, which leaves us with difficulty getting the trash out to a pickup spot and navigating a way to the street where we now have to park. A minor thing, but not coming at a good time with Glen's surgery.
Better luck with the surgery and picking your way to the front door, Tracy. Glad you can manage Pitt in SNATCH without captions!
Bradbury in later years tended toward self-indulgence, not that even some relatively early stories weren't drowning in it, such as "Time in thy Flight" from 1953, wherein children from the future come back to hide in the Depression-era US midwest with its Fun Hallowe'ens...and, presumably, its Fun Orphanages.
We are filled with angst this week, aren't we?
Sadly, I'm having a better week than most of mine of late so far as nothing terrible is happening to my closest and/or null-blogging friends nor me (THE FATES NEED NOT SEE THIS AS HUBRISTIC CHALLENGE), but there's certainly enough body horror or discomfort here to go along with the hit parade of terrible things being run down in the news reports.
Man.... hope the various biopsies turn out to be nothing.
I have a visit with the cardiologist tomorrow (Thursday afternoon) and hoping he does not want many tests and lets me leave in peace.
The grief swell has been very deep and powerful for about a week now. And, I am in one of my fall cycles and have been falling a lot. Not fun. So, Johnny Wesner is going to come get me tomorrow and take me to the cardiologist for the annual visit.
Take care of yourselves.
Another two days late entry:
All my best to those of you awaiting biopsies.
I finally got a replacement bathroom fan installed in the upstairs bathroom of our house. Not as difficult a project as I convinced myself of, as usual. The unit has a bluetooth speaker built it in. This is neat but my phone will automatically connect to the speaker whenever the speaker is on. Someone else will use the restroom and my phone will takeover and play whatever audiobook, music, or video I have playing. Up next is purchasing and installing a new water softener.
I tried but gave up on reading a couple novels. One of the novels, COYOTES OF CARTHAGE, was quote well done and interesting but I could not keep with it. Thank goodness for digital audiobooks. I just finished a couple James Sallis novels and Lou Berney's NOVEMBER ROAD. I also chose a John Creasey spy novel after his mention here.
I did bring home TINY: STREETWISE REVISITED by photographer Mary Mark. I read a review of a documentary about the subject, Erin "Tiny" Blackwell, who was a focus of Mark's photojournalistic work of runaway teens in Seattle that featured in LIFE in 1984 (or so). That photo essay had a big impact on me because I remember the original photos quite well and I was completely unable to relate to the situation those kids lived. https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/4430-streetwise-tiny-the-life-of-erin-blackwell
Oops, I forgot.
On Monday and Tuesday I attended training to be a StoryCorps facilitator and I have a final training tomorrow. Two trainers flew out from New York and during the training they pointed out the web archive at https://archive.storycorps.org/. I spent a decent amount of time during the training searching the archive reading transcripts in the searchable archive.
The audio interviews are transcribed with software, which means there are a fair amount of glitches. But, searching through the archive with keywords is neat.
I am impressed with your home handyman abilities.
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