Sunday!
Well, the Fifth Season of Fringe arrived and I threw it on my television-watchin’ chair. And there it sits. Sigh. Maybe tonight.
We also had a wonderful discussion of the Harry Dresden books at the wake with a young adult who loves, loves to read and loves, loves fantasy novels and who has never heard of Jim Butcher. So we’re probably going to pick up the first couple of paperbacks and accidentally leave them where she will find them.
She seemed nonchalant about the series until we told her “there are a dozen books in it”. She reads at a pace that will get her right about to Cold Days when Skin Game shows up.
So… what are you reading and/or watching?
I rewatched Goldfinger and Thunderball. I think the best thing about the Sean Connery James Bond movies is their absolute refusal to take the Cold War seriously. There is a jauntiness to Sean Connery as Bond that is lacking in the other versions. Also I was somewhat amused by seeing the henchmen in Thunderball fight in Sperry Top-Siders. However, the movies are still somewhat corny to my 21st century eyes. Though Tinker Tailor Solider Spy took the Cold War seriously and is good.
I also just started Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time by Ira KatznelsonReport
60s fashions seem funny. Some of the dresses women were in the Bond film look like they should be sofa slipcovers.Report
And I feel a bit odd that Sean Connery was my age when he first played James Bond. He seems more adult than I feel at times.Report
Goldfinger, in most ways, was the first bond flick that had all of the tropes that became mandatory for all later bond movies. Most of those tropes became boring, formulaic and made many later bond movies almost unwatchable. Okay for some people those dead boring tropes are what they because they want to see a paint by numbers film but, hey, i’m not making any judgments here. Thunderball is a good movie but the Shirley Bassey theme song really makes it a solid win.Report
I agree that a lot of the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton Bond movies are unwatchable but I think that is because they tried to combine seriousness with the tropes. I don’t think the Connery Bond movies took themselves very seriously. Connery’s Bond just strolls through what should be a lot of high stakes and nerve wracking situations. Thunderball is a great example of this, the pacing for the most part is just like a Bahamas holiday even though they only have four days to find two nuclear bombs.
This is also the reason why the old Errol Flynn Robin Hood is the best Robin Hood. The movie is jaunty fun! Fun is exactly what Robin Hood should be like.
Most filmmakers seem to have forgotten how to make an adventure story jaunty. We want these dark and brooding superheroes. This might work for Batman but it does not work for Superman. Christopher Reeve made Superman work by being charming.Report
+1. Superman as dark and brooding seems… like people are missing the point.Report
Netflix took my fringe, so I have absolutely nothing to watch! OK, I’ve watched a few episodes of Alphas (eh) and Wallander (I want to move to Sweden). But I have nothing else to watch.
I just finished There Eyes Were Watching God, which I read in high school and had forgotten about. It is beautiful. I mean really, really beautiful. I don’t think I thought that in high school. I think I thought, “How is anybody supposed to read a book in which the people talk like that?!” Now reading Americanah (going to read Half of a Yellow Sun next if this goes well), and just about ready for Blindsight (where’s Glyph at?).Report
Yipes, I better start Blindsight tonight, because you are undoubtedly going to read it faster than me.Report
Yay! Peter Watts!!
(Also, yay! Zora Neale Hurston, although I have not read any of her novels yet, just half of her letters. stoopit school getting in the way of my reading life.)Report
Well, I can read it at any pace, so no worries (I can just read it on the bus!). I know you have other things on your plate at the moment, like the new After Dark compilation, the new Superchunk, and something else… I can’t remember… something big… what is it? I’m smelling poopy diapers. Shoot me an email sometime.Report
Also, Maribou, feel free to read it with us, though of course if you’re going to read it we will both have to start reading it two weeks ago to keep up.Report
Maribou, have you read any other Peter Watts (Blindsight is the only one I have read, have not yet tacked the Rifters trilogy)?
Chris: you may find this an entertaining teaser (there’s also an illustrated PDF transcript if you prefer to read rather than watch it). It’s a faux-conference presentation.
It is…a little more light-hearted than the book (and is only related to one portion of the story, which is actually a first contact story):
http://www.rifters.com/real/progress.htmReport
That was pretty… creepy. I’m looking forward to it.Report
Yes, I have pretty much read ALL of Peter Watts, at least all the non-video-game-tie-in novels, his short story collection, and a few random uncollected short stories too. One of my favorite writers. I won’t be rereading Blindsight right now, though I appreciate the offer :).Report
I’m going to have to delve into some of his other stuff. I am liking this book even more the second time through I think. His website is also worth a visit.Report
I’m finishing up Book of Fate, by Brad Meltzer. After that, I am going to re-dive into What To Expect When No One’s Expecting, since I have forgotten too much of it to write my post on it. (No religion. No politics.)Report
What To Expect When No One’s Expecting
Well, I’d tell you, but it wouldn’t help – nobody ever expects it.
Here, have a seat in this comfy chair.Report
I think it is a little late for you to get advice from that book 🙂Report
This is something that should be read ever September 1st:
September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.Report
Nice.Report
I am pretty much up to date on Breaking Bad after a two weeks of binging. It’s really quite an outstanding achievement; I’m sorry I waited so long to watch it.
Tonight I believe I will watch Seven Psychopaths with the boys over porterhouses.
I am knee deep in two great reads. The summer-reading book is Wild Thing by Josh Bazell, which is a follow up to his mob doctor crime noir Beat the Reaper. On a less brain-candy-y note, I’m also wrapping up The United States of Paranoia, by Reason’s Jesse Walker. It is outstanding – a truly fascinating read – and is one of those books that will probably forever after color my view of political storytelling.Report
I’ve been a weekly BB viewer from the start, but it seems like it would be a great show to (wait for it) mainline like that.Report
I watched Seasons 1-4 last year over about 3 weeks. I know what Tod experienced. It was pretty awesome.Report
Mostly I have been reading school things. But also, Laura Anne Gilman’s PUPI series (think CSI for magic users), Divergent by Veronica Roth, and an odd but often very interesting memoir/lit crit/extended essay called Awkward: A Detour.Report
FIRST WORLD PROBLEM BLUES
duh-NUH-nuh-nuh-nuh
I had a 1.5 TB hard drive die (boo!)
duh-NUH-nuh-nuh-nuh
But, I have a RAID-for-dummies (Drobo) so I was A-OK data-wise (yay!)
duh-NUH-nuh-nuh-nuh
But, for some reason iTunes lost like 80% of my artwork (boo!)
duh-NUH-nuh-nuh-nuh
So, I am upgrading to the most recent iTunes version to see if that corrects the problem (tentative yay!)
duh-NUH-nuh-nuh-nuh
If history is any guide, I’ll be spending the rest of the day checking iTunes and screwing around to see if my other Apple-ecosystem devices that are linked into my iTunes still work they way they did before the upgrade (boo!)Report
Dammit, that didn’t fix the artwork problem.Report
Isn’t there a command in iTunes to make it go fetch artwork for any that it doesn’t have?Report
yeah, it doesn’t get everything and it sometimes gets the wrong art (it used to get a Leonard Cohen tribute album so hilariously wrong that I refused to fix it – let me see if I can find the pic), plus I have an enormous amount of music.
But it looks like that will be my starting point (it has begun, and I am up to the “B”‘s now), unless I want to buy TuneUp (anybody ever use it?)Report
YES! It still does it.
For some reason this is the picture it pulls in for the Cohen tribute album “I’m Your Fan”:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51x04tf-o9L._SL500_AA280_.jpgReport
Well, we had the Better Half’s brother, his girlfriend and their parents over for supper last night. Made lobster, then lobster stock.
And today I’ve been trying to get the lobster pot to stop smelling like lobster, despite the fact that we only ever use it for making lobster.
Did I have a point with all this? *pauses to consider* No. No, I did not have a point with all of this.Report
Great. Now I’m going to have this, only with “lobster pot”, in my head all day.Report
Can you send me some lobster?Report
Lemon-juice and hot-water soak for the lobster pot.
And @nob-akimoto are you state-side?Report
I am indeed.Report
Then you should know about this:
http://www.hancockgourmetlobster.com/
A fine, small Maine business with excellent-quality products. Not for regular consumption; but good for a special occasion. They really nailed down the delivery process for perishable lobster products.Report
Reading some random RPG sourcebooks to get a better sense of how I want to approach my next project.Report
Is your next project an RPG?Report
Still reading War and Peace, though I made some good headway on my flights from Tampa to Houston and back. I think I will make an effort next weekend to do nothing but read.
Over the weekend, I watched Platoon. That was a difficult movie to get through. When they were clearing out the village, after finding the guy with his throat slit, I gave serious consideration to turning it off and watching something else.
I started watching Freaks and Geeks, though I only got around to watching the pilot. I will probably watch some more this week.
My son and I also watched the first two seasons of Red vs Blue, a halo machinima. I had seen it before, and I figured he would enjoy it. He is finally old enough that I am finally willing to let him.Report
Freaks & Geeks rocks.Report