Enjoyed the Martin Scorsese narrated documentary MADE IN ENGLAND. Their films are a bit too fantastical for me but I admire such vision and elegance.
Reading REAL AMERICANS by Rachel Khong and the new Jackson Brody book by Kate Atkinson. Lots of fun. (DEATH AT THE SIGN OF THE ROOK).
On TV, watching PACHINKO, SLOW HORSES, HOMICIDE, THE ENGLISH TEACHER.
We are in a drought here. The first one in a long time.
The Lions are not looking Superbowl worthy so far.
What about you?
.JPEG)
16 comments:
A week of ups and downs. mostly ups.
I deliberately avoided the debate, knowing Harris would do well and that Donald would be Donald. i got all the information I needed from the late night shows. I am still amazed at how many people swallow the guff Trump and his ilk spew. I know I shouldn't be because I live in an area where over 60% of the people are fervent Trump supporters and another 30% are just willing to go along with the crowd. ^^sigh^^ One major fallout from the debate seems to be the large amount of threats to the Haitian community and the city in general; this has snowballed throughout the country to generalized hoax threats to schools and community buildings, usually by stupid kids who think it's cool. Our area has proven no to be immune to his type of stupidity and some parents are reacting strongly, pulling their kids from school. **double sigh**
There are no Haitian pet eaters in our neighborhood, which is a good thing because Newcat pushed open a wing on my room air conditioner last week and escaped into the night while I slept. He was not to be found anywhere the next morning. There are a lot of wild animals in our area and anything could have happened to him, including Haitian pet eaters. Erin was devastated and I felt sick with guilt. Even after 34 hours, Erin did not give up and she and Trey walked through the entire development hoping to find him. They did find him, on a dead-end street on the other side of our development, cowering under a car. Newcat was happy to be found and happy to return home and may never go exploring again. all's well that ends well.
Mark appears to be settling in nicely at his new job at the Alberquerque. At the moment he's in charge of the penguins. They have three species there. One particular penguin is always happy to see Mark and comes rushing up to him whenever he approaches. This may be because Mark often approaches to feed them, but Mark's new penguin friend is a very fussy eater and will let Mark know if he feeds them a type of fish she doesn't like. We get a lot of photos of Mark at the zoo, holding a two-month old flamingo or chucking Big Boy, a giant Aldabra tortoise three times Mark's size, under the chin, among them. Mark has a super cool job.
Meanwhile, Mark's old bedroom is being completely remodeled. When it's finished I'll be moving in there for a month while my room in turn will be remodeled. The work is raising an unbelievable amount of unpleasant dust and allergens that seem to target in on my nose -- the only downside to the project.
Christina and Jack answered a subpoena from the State's Attorney about the pedophile that tried to target Jack. Justice moves slowly and the case will probably not go to court for six months to two years from now. in the meantime, the man is safely locked up on other charges. We are hoping that Jack will not have to testify once the case reaches the trial stage.
More to come...
We're needing rain too, Patti. I hope we get some soon.
Actually, I just read a library book I thought you'd like - MURDER IN THE FAMILY by Cara Hunter. The premise is, 20 years earlier, the director's stepfather was murdered and the case was never solved. Now they are doing a true crime series about the case, trying to actually solve the killing, with two retired cops (one from the Met, the other from the NYPD), a journalist, a psychologist, etc. There are 8 "episodes" and it is presented in screenplay-like form, and I raced through the 450+ pages in a couple of days. I've enjoyed her police procedural series, but can see why this was a hit.
We actually watched a movie last night, and it was from this year - CIVIL WAR, with Kristen Dunst. Pretty relevant to the Trump era.
Tomorrow is Jackie's birthday, and by coincidence, we got tickets to see Jeff Lynne's ELO in concert in Madison Square Garden - we saw them there previously, in 2018. We'll stay over at a Marriott and have barbecue for dinner.
CIVIL WAR was tense, but really not more so than the British series TRIGGER POINT (Britbox), now in its second series. It's about a bomb disposal team in the London police, led by Lana Washington (Vicky McClure of LINE OF DUTY), recently back from doing the same job in Afghanistan. Every time a bomb goes off and sends her flying, I keep thinking about concussion protocol. My guess is, she is going to have severe problems in life.
We're still watching our various streaming shows. We did an an MHz/Topic show, the fascinating ISKANDER, set in French Guiana, where even the capital, Cayenne, seems about to be taken over by the surrounding jungle. The protagonist is a reckless young woman who was sent there for some unnamed infraction in France. A couple of do-gooders are brutally murdered on their boast, and their young son is taken, one of a series of children who have been abducted over the years. It is only 4 hour long episodes.
Happy birthday to Jackie!
Happy Birthday to Jackie!
I'm enjoying SLOW HORSES, Season 4 on Apple TV+. It follows SPOOK STREET closely.
Diane's sister arrives tomorrow. After a family reunion on Thursday, Diane and Carol will fly to New York City for a sisters' weekend with Patrick and Katie. Broadway shows, wonderful dinners, and enjoying the Big Apple are on the agenda. I'll be home sorting books. Stay safe!
Mike Hale, the NYT TV critic, had some negative things to say about SLOW HORSES's new season today, but I don't see a deterioration at all. Happy Birthday to Jackie. September is a good birthday month. Not on top of any other holidays.
Good news about the cat, Jerry. Their diligence paid off. I was worried a gator was going to get him. New York is always fun if you get decent weather and have some jingle in your pocket.
My father's birthday as September too. He would have been 100 this year.
I don't watch those true crime shows (Durst, etc.) or listen to the podcasts, but I know you have, and Hunter makes clever use of the interest in her book. Each episode ends with a shocking revelation/cliffhanger. I'm not sure I really buy the final reveal, but otherwise, good book.
Glad to see Jerry is back and Mr. Anonymous is gone. And the cat is safe.
Jackie says thanks to everyone for her birthday wishes.
It's been dry here for ten days but looks like a fair amount of rain this week.
We got tickets for one more concert - every year (this is the tenth) Steve Earle does a concert/fundraiser for his severely autistic son's school, at Town Hall, usually in early December. He always has special guests with him. In the 6 we've gone to, we've seen Graham Nash & Shawn Colvin; Emmylou Harris & Lucinda Williams; Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi; Josh Ritter, Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires; David Byrne; and John Mellencamp. This year's main guest is Jackson Browne, with Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams. It's also in early November, which is better.
Further birthday congratulations to Jackie, whom I've only "met" in a kind of secondhand way! And further congratulations to Jerry for getting his account straightened out...and condolences for the remodeling dust. Very glad you were able to rediscover your cat. My mother tried to deliver our Siamese Naomi to her friend's house, on the other side of Kailua from ours, but Mom had not carried her in a carrier, at least not for the whole trip, and Naomi bolted as soon as my mother opened the car door outside her friend's house (my father was coming back to Kailua to square away all the necessary matters for selling the house, from their new digs in an apartment in Alexandria, VA, while looking for their new house, eventually in Fairfax, and his new job in the DC central offices of the FAA...I was in my third full semester at U Hawaii, and living in the dorms for the first (and last) time, with my HS friend Eric...who accompanied back to my folks' empty house to get away from the dorm, and get a better meal, while I meant to do some cleaning up. As we were putzing around the kitchen, I heard a familiar mew from the kitchen/carport door, and opened the door to allow in Naomi, who was clutching a newly-dead mouse in her jaws. She'd made her way back home sometime in the indeterminate previous week or so, and had been feeding herself (she had been a rescue who had been living in the apparently hollow walls[!] of my mother's Honolulu office building with a couple of other cats when we had adopted her several years earlier). Naomi greeted me, and dropped the mouse on the kitchen floor, then ate it in three bites, one each for head, torso and tail, mildly freaking Eric out. She had made her way back some 15 miles or so from home. I drove back and forth from UH to the Kailua house for a few weeks to hang out with her and feed/litterbox-clean for her, till my father got back, and he was able to take her to Virginia with him when he was done at the house. She apparently liked the apartment's balcony pretty well, and settle into the Fairfax house pretty well...until, a decade+ later, some jackass went out or their way to hit her with their car on my parents' remarkably wide suburban Sideburn Rd. (Naomi was almost the last indoor/outdoor cat they kept, after another also disappeared.)
Labor Day is the big September US holiday. Unless one celebrates the equinox.
TV has included the debut of the CNN US version of the British HAVE WE GOT NEWS FOR YOU topical comedy discussion show, hosted by Roy Wood, Jr., with regulars Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black, and the pilot was pretty solid, with guests Robin Thede and Matt Welch https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/14/entertainment/have-i-got-news-for-you-stars/index.html --hope they hang onto this one. (Way the hell better than Maher repeats.) THE EMPEROR OF OCEAN PARK (MGM+) wrapped up pretty well...I can recommend it, as well.
That is a lucky cat. And dedicated owners to search everywhere.
French Guiana looks like a great place to visit. I was reading about the territory a few months ago. So much of the land is a massive national park and they use the Euro for currency. I mean, the Euro makes sense, but they're still in South America. The park also has GIANT otters - almost 6 feet long.
I spent the weekend scraping off paint and disassembling the squeaking clothes dryer. I take forever to get paint removed. I've tried chemical paint strippers, hand sanding, electrical sanding, scraping, razor blade scrapers, metal brushes, and heat guns. My current effort is scraping the flaking layers and then using the heat gun to bubble up the rest. The molded parts have thick, gooped up layers of paint and I end up scratching the wood more than I want to.
Meanwhile, my wife and are I constantly asked how it is with both children out to college. I tell them it's going just dandy. Lots more elbow room and less mess. A drawback is that I now have more time and space to do housework I've put off and the list feels endless.
I finished Laurie R King's A MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN and G.J. Meyer's A WORLD UNDONE. King's novel ends with a quite creepy marriage between pushing-60 Sherlock Holmes and 21-year-old Mary Russell.
But Labor Day is not a gift holiday so no one minds buying presents in September.
That is close to pedophilia, Gerard. You should host a home repair podcast.
Glen and I both still have Covid symptoms although his are less because he got it first. One of the symptoms that bothers me the most still is digestive problems, and nothing tastes good anyway. Neither one of us had it as bad as George and Diane did. I can read OK if not a lot, but thinking, and reading or writing on the computer screen is not so good, so I have not been blogging.
I am reading THE MAYORS OF NEW YORK and loving it. MY ANTONIA by Willa Cather is a wonderful book, as everyone said it would be. Glen is reading the same books (INSIDE THE VICTORIAN HOME and THE WORST WE CAN FIND by Dale Sherman, about MST3K, RIFFTRAX and such), and read some more of the book on the Mosquito aircraft.
We watched BLOW OUT with John Travolta one afternoon. And the same old comforting TV shows. We did start watching STAR TREK DISCOVERY final season, and went back to watching DOCTOR WHO, season 11.
I often have digestive issues so I know what that's like. When I had COVID, I couldn't smell or taste.
A LOST LADY is my favorite Cather although all of them are great. I liked BLOWOUT at the time. Should rewatch.
I thought the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes love affair angle come out of left field. They smooch at the end of the story - after several internal monologues by Russell that she could only love someone of the same intellect and Holmes is the only person around within league of her - and I cringed. Especially since Holmes says "I've wanted to do that since I met you," and he first met her when she was 14.
The whole scene was played as comedic relief of tension. I don't know if I can read any more of the series. I'm not sure I can get around the creepiness.
Yeah, have never liked that series although I have several friends who do.
I agree. I read the first one and it creeped me out.
Post a Comment