https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThY-n1IxOww
Every June the Detroit area hosts the Great Lake Chamber Music Festival where for two-three weeks, concert halls, churches, synagogues the DIA and other venues have gorgeous music. We saw the Emerson Quartet perform pieces by Brahms and Mendelsohn and the final piece above. This is their final tour after 40 years of performing. They played at Kirk of the Hills the night we saw them.
Another friend and I saw ASTEROID CITY by Wes Anderson, which we both pretty much hated. Such warm colors for such a cold story-if you can even call it a story. It's more a concept than a plot. I have seen every Anderson movie and liked none of them. Yet I always expect to.
Reading this and that. About to dig into DAUGHTER OF TIME for my book group. It was my suggestion. I hope they like it.
Watching JOE PICKETT (Boy, I like his family and their story is the better part of it), THE BEAR, looks to be great again, ENDEAVOR, love the characters and tolerate the plots. Tried SEX AND THE CITY, but boy, just a large group of people running around in their underwear. Wasn't it better than this thirty years ago.
Why am I paying $15 a month for Netflix and finding nothing to watch on it.
Waiting for Megan to arrive for a one-day visit on Wednesday to do a book talk in the Detroit area and then in Petoskey.
How about you guys?
27 comments:
The Chamber Music Festival sounds amazing. Pensacola has much to offer -- opera, symphony, theater, concerts, etc. -- but parking and mobility are the major issues that cause me to drop out. **sigh**
The Gulf Breeze movie complex offers free movies for kids on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. (They make their nut on the concessions: popcorn, candy, and miniscule cups of soda.) For my sins, I've accompanied Jack over the past two weeks. We saw PAWS OF POWER (twice, dammit!) and BOSS BABY: BACK IN BUSINESS. This grandparent things has its drawbacks. Luckily, a doctor's appointment on Thursday and one upcoming tomorrow helps me skip a couple of showings.
The Thursday appointment was the six-month follow-up to my radiation treatments. I am remarkably healthy although somewhat roly-poly, having gained about four pounds. The cancer is gone (for now at least; cancer can be a sneaky little bastard). The next appointment is at the end of December, then after that, yearly follow-ups.
It's been a week of heavy storms here, but our little slice of heaven has had only violent light shows; elsewhere, flooding, lightning strikes, and high winds have taken their toll. The animals at Mark's zoo do not appreciate the storms and he has been coming home soaking wet every day.
Duncan got his semi-regular trim this week, so instead of a little black puff of fur, he looks like a naked mole rat. To soothe his feeelings, Erin has dressed him in doggy sweaters and pajamas, as well as his typical bandana. She also gifted Jolly with her own bandana. Yesterday's score: the half a sub and the open bag of caramel creams someone left on the kitchen counter - 0; Jolly and Happy - 2.
Christina, Jessie and Amy went clothes shopping at the outlet mall in Foley, Alabama. They each came back with smooth, glowing skin because they had been ex-Foley-ated (he-he-he) Christina and Erin have booked their flights to Scotland for later this summer. (The trip was meant as a high school graduation present for Erin but, you know...Covid.) Flights and hotel rooms for Kitty's memorial service in Massachusetts in July have also been booked.
Finally watched WAKANDA FOREVER (meh) and the first episode of SECRET INVASION (the jury is still out). Jessie and her girls gifted me with a year's subscription to Britbox, so there should be more television watching in the future for me.
Read mainly short stories this week, including three anthologies: Marvin Kaye's horror sampling DON'T OPEN THIS BOOK!, Anne Perry's A CENTURY OF BRITISH MYSTERY AND SUPENSE, and the 1970 Mystery Writers of America anthology CRIME WITHOUT MURDER, edited by Dorothy Salisbury Davis. The doorstop graphic novel MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS, BOOK 1 by Emil ferris is a glorious mystery encompassing murder, poverty, racism, sexual identity, monster movies, hidden secrets, childhood fears, the horrors of World War II Germany, friendship, family, and a whole lot more, mainly viewed through the eyes of a ten-year-old female misfit. I read just two novels this week: Gore Vidal's THIEVES FALL OUT (originally a Gold Medal paperback as by "Cameron Kay") and Loren D. Estleman's latest Amos Walker novel, CITY WALLS. I also read fifteen of the seventeen stories about Dr. Bird by S. P. Maak (the remaining two stories are not available on the internet). Bird is an early science fictional detective whose saga began in the first issue of ASTOUNDING STORIES in 1930; he's sort of a forerunner to John Creasey's Dr. Palfrey. Currently reading T. H. White's THE SWORD IN THE STONE.
Have a great week, Patti. Stay safe.
Ooh, chamber music can be so excellent, Patti. I'm glad you got to hear some. I haven't seen Joe Pickett yet, but I've always thought that series would work really well on TV.
Curious. If you always hate Wes Anderson's movies, why do you keep seeing them, and even more importantly, why do you expect to like them? To me, he's one of those "critic's darlings" that gets rave reviews for everything, no matter how good or bad. The one I hated the most, by far, was THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. The one I sort of liked was MOONRISE KINGDOM. Jackie hates his movies.
The music festival sounds very good. No Paramount + so no Joe Pickett. From what I remember, people thought the family stuff was the best part of the books too.
We've started the final season of SPIRAL, which some consider the French version of THE WIRE. I can see the resemblance somewhat, but it is so different in tone, etc. It is cops, lawyers, and judges (the investigating magistrate is very different from our system). It is leaving MHz Choice at the end of the month so we have to finish it.
Watched the second short series (4 parts, 45 minutes each, on Britbox) of THE TOWER. Much like the Canadian series THE WALL, the title was relevant to the first series, not the second, though several of the cops are in both series. This moved quickly and was an easy watch. There are basically two cases and for once they do not tie together. One is an abusive relationship resulting in a murder. The other is a 25 year old cold case, where a teenage girl went missing and has never been found.
I thought THIRD GIRL was the worst Poirot novel and the David Suchet adaptation was pretty bad, especially with the changes they made, but APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH was way worse. First, it was a much better book than THIRD GIRL. Second, the adaptation simply butchered it, adding and subtracting characters seemingly at will. The former (evil) prison warden you know will be murdered (Cheryl Campbell) - and deservedly so - is now married to a Lord who wasn't even in the book and is no longer a prison warden, which was the reason she was murdered in the first place. Key guest stars are Tim Curry as the husband, a wannabe Howard Carter looking for John the Baptist's tomb in Syria, who seems to really care about her and not only because she is financing his expeditions. This is basically inexplicable, as she is a hideous shrew who abuses his children (and hers) and has no redeeming features; John Hannah, and Elizabeth McGovern. We are working our way through the Poirots and have now finished 11 of the 13 series.
FOYLE'S WAR is so much better. If you have Acorn I urge you to watch it. It is probably Anthony Horowitz's best work.
We're not watching a lot on Netflix either these days, more on Amazon/Acorn/Britbox/MHz. Jackie has been watching EVERWOOD since Treat Williams died, as she'd never watched it.
The weather is not that hot but it is very humid of late, uncomfortably so.
I'm reading several short story collections - Helen Ellis, Lauren Groff, John Lutz (just finished it), R. A. Lafferty, Edward P. Jones. Also Jane Smiley's book on the novel and T. J. Newman's second airplane thriller, DROWNING.
Diane and I will be driving in the rain back to Western NY today. We attended a wedding in rural Ohio on Saturday. About 150 mostly young people danced the night away. Diane and I, surprisingly!, won the Longest Married Dance Contest. It was down to us and another couple, but when the DJ said, "Who's been married for less than 42 years?" they were eliminated. We won with our 44 years of married bliss!
I'm watching BLACK MIRROR, Season 6 that just started on Netflix. If you like THE TWILIGHT ZONE, you might enjoy this. Like Jerry, I'm still not sure if I like SILENT INVASION, a MARVEL TV series on Disney+. Shapeshifting aliens want to take over the Earth.
Summer is the time (for me at least) to read Big Fat Books--500 pages+--and I'm about to tackle one that's a 1000 pages! Diane is hosting her Book Club again. HELLO BEAUTIFUL and HANG THE MOON were the two most recent books they read and enjoyed.
Love live chamber music!
There is so little adult fare and Anderson's movies get so much attention, I am sucked in. I saw all of FOYLE''s WAR when PBS ran it and then again when we had ACORN. One of the best for sure.
I always envy Jerry's life so full of kids and animals. Plus he fits in plenty of reading.
Started SILO on Apple. Apple is probably the best streaming service for me. HIJACK with Elba looks good too. Lots of podcasts, both political and cultural. A VERY GOOD YEAR is a new favorite with people picking their favorite movies of a specific year.
No Paramount or Apple or Disney here, or Hulu or Peacock for that matter. We can't even keep up with what we have. Almost everything we watch now, we use subtitles, and not just the foreign language stuff. We had to use it when the air conditioner or fan is on, and now we're used to it. Currently most of the shows we're watching are French, but we've watching German, Welsh, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Luxembourgish, Dutch, Belgian/Flemish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Austrian, Israeli/Palestinian, plus probably others I'm forgetting. Not to mention, you need subtitles to understand Australian and New Zealand and Scottish accents!
Oh. And on their trip to the outlet mall, Amy got another snake! She's naming it Kimchi. Somehow I don't think it came from the Vera Bradley outlet store.
And I have to use them at night because of the race track outside.
Also, Jeff, I can see most films weekday pms for $6 so the cost is not much of a factor for me here in the Midwest.
It's like it Florida. We can see movies on Tuesdays for $5.
Programming note: the final episode of HAPPY VALLEY is on Acorn today.
I saw Asteroid City also. I found it interesting at times but not satisfying as a complete film. My favorite Anderson film would be Moonrise kingdom. Also saw Evil Dead Rise which despite a glowing review from Stephen King was terrible. Hard to follow, shot so dark as to be near impossible to figure out what was happening. Only series program I've been watching is From.
Just picked up the new S. A. Cosby novel and a new Matthew Hughes.
Spent Saturday at a graduation open house for a grandson. Got to see my sister for the first time in two years, which was nice.
I plan to be at the book signing Wednesday.
This morning we had to go out to do some banking business, and breakfast out and bought too many groceries, which I had to find a spot for in the fridge.
We are wondering the same thing about Netflix. We definitely want to watch THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 and MANK before we get rid of it, and maybe also Fubar and Murder Mystery / Murder Mystery 2 and Enola Holmes / Enola Holmes 2. But we keep putting them off.
We have been watching DEATH IN PARADISE a lot, just switched from the third inspector to the current inspector. The plots are beginning to seem repetitive but I enjoy the characters and they often have good guest stars. Last night was Samantha Bond. Also STAR TREK: VOYAGER. Also continuing old PERRY MASON series and the original CSI series. We have tried BASED ON A TRUE STORY but not sure if we will continue.
The only book I finished this week was THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER. Very good, took me a while to get through it. Glen recently finished SCAM by Parnell Hall, and is now reading IN MEMORY OF ENGLAND (A Novelist's View of History) by Peter Vansittart.
Today's entry on the Canadian Invasion Journal is "Smells like smoke with air quality warnings." The weather service warns of a possible VERY UNHEALTHY rating in the Eastern part of WI.
Boy #2 played in the Wisconsin State High School Honors Orchestra on Saturday. I drove him up on Tuesday evening, spent the night, and then delivered him to UW-Green Bay for the 3.5 day music camp. He seemed to have a nice time and their public rehearsal concert on Saturday was very nice. Students are supposed to practice on their own until the official public performance in late October.
On Sunday I sat in the Boy Scout dunk tank for the city's annual Town and Country Days weekend. Good thing Sundays are slow because the dunk tank water was gross. I'm not sure the pool pump even had a filter.
I listened to the third Chris Offutt novel featuring Army-guy-goes-home series with Mick Hardin. Also listened to a Robert Ludlum TREADSTONE spin-off by Joshua Hood. The novel was ok. A standard thriller with a lot of suspension of disbelief and plenty of name dropping about guns and electronics.
I am now trying out HOUSEKEEPING by Marilynne Robinson. Never read her work before.
Having another breakthrough the last couple of days with New Cat, Whiskers...now she goes to the vet tonight (if we can find her, and if the thunderstorms hold off till their current announced arrival in late night) to see if what can be done about her extreme nervousness (and to get her claws clipped by pros). And, if possible, to stem her ridiculous hostility to Old Cat, Ninja.
The events in Russia over the last few days have been reminding me of Ms. M. J. Engh's novel ARSLAN (in the UK, THE WIND FROM BOKAHARA), but in putting together the FFB list finally today, I might just defer to Jo Walton's review. (The dictator of Turkistan, through a bit of Too easy but not quite unbelievable means of exploiting various idiots in charge of larger nations, has become the dictator of much of the world, including a midwestern US town that he is currently setting up as his home base.) I haven't reread it since reading it in the '80s. Stuff keeps happening of various sorts which keeps me from finishing my various would-be FFB volumes.
After post-first-wave of thunderstorms grocery shopping this morning, I relaxed a bit with a LAW AND ORDER repeat from 2007, which involves a closeted gay evangelist being threatened with exposure by a soon-murdered tryst-partner named Jeff Cantwell, which is the name of the TV GUIDE staffer who was taking care of NBC (and ABC and, I think, WB) scheduling at that point. Cantwell's character (2007 spoiler, oh my) was actually murdered by the character played by Julie Benz; Jeff had been romantically involved, back when they were officially just past being kids, with Liza Weil, she of a similar swath of key roles in youthward productions as Benz. You had to be there, most likely.
Jeff, BBC AMERICA has also been cablecasting HAPPY VALLEY's third season in pattern with Acorn (and, I gather, the BBC I-Player), so I'll be catching that tonight here, as well, barring the thunderstorm killing the cable.
I've been enjoying TCM's documentaries about film a fair amount, while watching out for the current Warner Discovery penny-pinchers sinking their claws in there, too. Meanwhile, I have to wonder why TCM is running such horrible films as THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS and X, Y and ZEE (under its retitle as ZEE & COMPANY, not really in any way an improvement of title, except perhaps in attempting to fool the unwary into watching it again).
Glad the menagerie is all speed ahead, Jerry! And, Patti, now I'm genuinely confused...do you mean there's an actual racetrack far too audible where you now life, or is it just pests who've removed their mufflers?
Gerard, the other day we had the delightful bouquet of both Canadian and central New Jersey forest fires wafting our way...the thunderstorm, along with killing some more local trees, did manage to wash most of the smoke out of the air.
Have read all the books in the Joe Pickett series, but felt the last two didn't live up to the earlier ones. While I am enjoying the TV series, I just don't see the actor playing Joe as the Joe I imagined. Have been watching The Tower and catching up on the older Line of Duty. Watched both Ridley and Endeavour last night on PBS and partway through Endeavour I realized I had seen it earlier on British TV. Just finished one of the Bob Skinner books in Quintin Jardine's lengthy series. Rad the second book in Din Winslow's trilogy set in Hollywood titled City of Lights and was disappointed.
Travelled for the first time since COVID when I flew to Victoria BC three weeks ago. The purpose of the trip was primarily to see a high school friend from northern Manitoba who is dealing with dementia. Another high school friend lives there and another from Fort Lauderdale was visiting her sister who lives a little North on Vancouver Island. My nephew and his family and one of my closest Winnipeg friends also live in Victoria so it was great visit.
Spent one day in Sidney near Victoria that has three excellent bookstores. Could have hauled back several of interest, but settled for one book on the early history of hockey in BC. Went t our cottage on Lake Winnipeg on the weekend and of course had to check out Tergesen's, a general store in Gimli with an excellent book section that includes probably the largest selection of Icelandic books outside of Iceland, Belive it or not, I didn't buy a book. The Rotary Club in Gimli is holding its annual sale in July where I always find books of interest/
Tracy, I definitely recommend THE TRAIL OF THE CHICAGO 7 and ENOLA HOLMES 2.
Thanks for the recommendations, Jeff. Especially re ENOLA HOLMES 2 which I was unsure about.
Tracy--the most (bad) distracting thing about DIP for me is that the UK transplants never give up on their suitcoats...and the turnover of their second-in-commands sure seems to occur PDQ. I generally enjoy the series, as well...
And, FWIW, Engh's novel was A WIND FROM BUKHARA in the UK.
I agree, Todd, I keep wondering why various staff keeps changing. It makes sense in such a job, but generally in very successful shows the actors stay with the show longer. I find the show to be so much fun that I ignore all my quibbles with it.
The Chicago 7 was very good. I think Enola got past me.
Having never read the Pickett series, he works for me although I still associate him with FOR ALL MANKIND, a very different role indeed.
These cats seem difficult, Todd. I always pictured them as docile.
Loved HOUSEKEEPING. A very different novel.
Have only seen the first season of DIP.
Have never been to Winnipeg or Victoria. Only Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, London. Almost lived in Calgary in 1969.
Cats can get jealous of each other's interaction with the house apes, and territorial about their houses...Whiskers's big problem, I suspect, is anxiety induced by living with a nearly feral cat, and losing her probably second family recently, when the mother of the teen who was taking the most care of her died. He's pretty close to college and/or work age, and didn't think the chaos of his life would be conducive to keeping her and her unfriendly companion. With luck, we can get Whiskers to calm down enough to be at least collegial with Ninja, who is by nature a sweet and friendly cat...as our tomcat discovered rather early on. She's just back from a vet appintment, and may not forgive us soon...we'll see.
Cats seem complicated. Maybe one at a time saves some of this jockeying for primacy.
There are a number of cats most happy with being the only cat in the house. As with many of our feline New Arrivals, Whiskers needed a place to live, Right Now. For that matter, so did Ninja, as my parents' last cat (and Niki was in a PetCo pound, Domino's keeper wanted to give him up since she was about to have her first child, and Emma was a street-rescue). Dogs, too, have their hierarchy "games" and can grow tiresome thus...and rabbits...my friend Laura used to keep small snails, not sure how much they got into each other's faces...or ate each other face-first...
Speaking of dogs, first season RESERVATION DOGS is now running on FX cable, so I'm finally seeing it. Starts well, and I hadn't put it together that the title was in honor (or mockery) of RESEVOIR DOGS till seeing the young aspiring escapee petty criminals wearing black and white suit/shirt attire for a group costume.
HAPPY VALLEY certainly ended well enough.
Boy #1 described our new cat as a "fuzzy toddler". My wife bought a couple wands with a cat toy at the end of a atta hed filament. The cat will walk around the house with the toy in his mouth, dragging the Wand stick, and jump on furniture for people to swing the Wand around.
I wish our New Cat was confident enough to do such a thing. 3yo, and lived with a Very irritable cat, which has made her not the most trusting, nor agreeable with/to our Older Cat (10yo Ninja).
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