Sunday!

48 thoughts on “Sunday!”

1. I made the mistake(?) of loading the player in the car with Jesus Christ Superstar this week. Now I’ve got odd bits and pieces of that stuck in my head…Report

   1. A short-term problem, because eventually it’ll turn into “The Best of Queen”.Report

      1. I can see where that might happen to an analog medium like tape. How about digital content loaded on an old iPod nano?Report

         1. Evan easier, just some thorium atoms going off at the right time.Report

   2. Oddly enough, even though I am in no way religious, that is the one musical I will listen to by choice.Report

2. And more than that, he was a legitimately kind person. Sure, he had a manner that practically demanded parody but, underneath that, it seems that that was what he was actually like

   Well, at least later in life:

   Ross enlisted in the United States Air Force at age 18 and went on to serve as a medical records technician.[3]:15 He eventually rose to the rank of master sergeant and served as the first sergeant of the U.S. Air Force Clinic at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.[5][6] In Alaska, Ross first saw the snow and mountains that later became recurring themes in his artwork. He developed his quick-painting technique to create art for sale in brief daily work breaks.[7] Having held military positions that required him to be, in his own words, “mean” and “tough”, “the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work”, Ross decided that if he ever moved on from the military, he would never scream again.

   Also, Ross came up at the AVClub not too long ago, and there was a commenter who was legit mad at Bob Ross, because they felt Ross was insufficiently open or grateful about his debt to William Alexander. It was bizarre.Report

   1. Dude, just check out the first minute of this one:

      https://youtu.be/3QlAy6Rhn6

      I’m just confused.Report

      1. Linky no worky.

         Anyway, the commenter really took this situation personally, despite the fact that from what I can tell, Ross vocally appreciated all that Alexander had done for him and it’s not really Ross’ fault that he became the better-known of the two. It was just such a strange hobby-horse, not really for the situation (we’ve all been there, bemoaning the fact that [predecessor] doesn’t get the recognition of [follower]), but for the fact that it was in re:….PBS’ Bob Ross.Report

         1. Dude, I watched it right before posting it!

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfBCPGRyv74

            Try that one.Report

3. I have been reading William Styron’s Tidewater Mornings, simply fantastic. It is so nice not to read a bloated fiction and the work of a master in such breavity.

   Also, as @glyph introduced me to a quite good series on Kubrick films, I shall soon be engaging in a marathon of his works.Report

   1. As an unabashed Kubrickphile, I’m tempted to join you.Report

      1. Well, I went to the library and checked out 2001 and Stranglove, so…Report

         1. I own both of those, along with A Clockwork Orange, Paths of Glory, and Spartacus. Son and I are doing 2001 tonight.Report

            1. Well, I am busy tomorrow, but I will try to squeeze in 2001. This is what I have been reading. I don’t agree with him about Clockwork, but I think that it is one movie that escapes contemperary critism. He is spot on with FMJ, which is what leads me to that thought.Report

               1. Clockwork has a degree of difficulty so high that I have no problem existing its flaws. Plus, it’s absurdly quotable, and 17 year old me was so blown away by it that I will never not love it.Report

                  1. Dude, I love Clockwork Orange. I even thought the film was better than the book, which was also great.Report

            2. No love for Barry Lyndon?Report

               1. That is the one film of his (outside ephemera) that I haven’t seen, it is now on interlibrary request.Report

                  1. Its pretty darkly funny.Report

                  2. It was also filmed entirely with natural light!Report

               2. I like it, just haven’t bought it.Report

               3. I don’t care for the story, but I’ll sit and watch the cinematography and listen to the soundtrack music all day.Report

                  1. The story isn’t to everybody’s taste. I personally like the first part of the movie better than the second part dealing with Lyndon’s fall. The cinematography and music are gorgeous along with the great detail placed in the customs. They get the feel of the 18th century Europe right.Report

               4. Way too sympathetic to Goldwater.Report

   2. I’m much more inclined to watch The Killing over CWO. CWO feels to me to much of its time and aged badly although it does have masterful parts. But Sterling Hayden is magnetic and human despite his flaws in The Killing. The rest of teh cast is fleshed out with developed characters. CWO has a lot of shock value mostly and some good shots.Report

      1. CWO is on my list to rewatch fairly soon, as I think it is on Hulu or one of the others. My general thoughts, from reading that series of article that @glyph lead us to, is the writer accepted too much of Foucault’s critism* and that CWO doesn’t work under that paradigm. But we shall see.

         *He mentions a specific line from F in one of the articles that I think strongly works against his critism of Clockwork. But again, we shall see.Report

4. My wife and I just got through about a week and a half’s worth of binge watching season three of Arrow on Netflix. I’m going to have some thoughts about that experience to share in the near future.Report

   1. My son and I have been watching this as well, albeit at a much slower pace. He’s almost given up on it a couple times, but somehow we’re still watching it.Report

   2. I’m glad to hear that you’ll be sharing more information soon, Burt. Arrow has been on my Netflix list for awhile now. Be careful, what you say may change a person’s life forever… Or I’ll watch it anyway. 😉Report

5. I’m reading the Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson DaviesReport

   1. That is one of the books I love most in the world and also one of the ones I find most frustrating.Report

   2. My favorite Davies book is The Cunning Man, followed by World of Wonders.Report

      1. @aaron-david I think both of those are probably better than Lyre of Orpheus, with my Book Evaluating hat on…

         But I read Lyre of Orpheus about 6 months after I first started attending a prestigious college in a Canadian city…. so it will always be my sentimental favorite.Report

6. Jaybird and I have FINALLY caught up to the right spot in Babylon 5, ie one episode ahead of the most recent Babylonia! I started the Almighty Johnsons (Norse gods in NZ) yesterday and I loved it so far (as well as being grateful to be watching a show that doesn’t over-explain everything and just assumes you will get most allusions on your own or catch up eventually). Staying caught up on iZombie, Jane the Virgin, and The Librarians, as usual.

   I’ve been reading a ton. The most delightful thing I’ve read recently is a tie between:
   – a huge bilingual anthology of photos and very short (most less than a page) literary pieces called Reading Writers Reading (U of Alberta Press), more than a decade old, but still chockablock of the fresh and new
   – a fairly recent middle-grade kids’ book called Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible by the ever-wonderful Ursula Vernon. That one is definitely going to be making into the gift guide (and under the tree of my oldest niece) so I will spare you the gushing until then.

   Still listening to Proven Guilty, and have decided if I am ever going to finish the 2 stockings I am cross-stitching for my friend and her nephewson for Winter Holiday in time to mail them, I need to listen to more audiobooks and podcasts and do less of other things. So in the hopper I have a collection of modern Sherlock Holmes pastiche (edited by my favorite such pasticher, Laurie R. King), and also Maggie Stiefvater’s the Raven Boys. And then the six dozen or so episodes of my favorite podcasts I need to catch up on. (I’ve been behind ever since the one-two August punch of going to Canada and then starting the school year the moment I got back. Plus Pop Culture Happy Hour puts out a LOT of episodes y’all.) Plus the entire archives (almost) of the Coode Street Podcast from before I started listening to it. And all Mahvesh Murad’s old radio shows. And then a list a mile long of more podcasts to explore that I made when I realized ALL of my current favorites except one are pretty much made by white people (and all of THOSE except three only have dude hosts). And then I bookmarked two different sources of french language audio books of public domain classics because eeeeeeee, I am going to Paris in March, and while I used to be near-perfectly fluent, my ear and voice have gotten a lot rustier than my eyes and brain have…

   *deep breath*

   Yeah, I know, the real reason I haven’t made more progress on the stockings is obviously not the lack of stuff to listen to. But it helps me to pretend.Report

   1. I’m excited for your trip to Paris, Maribou. I’m really glad you are talking about things to listen to. I’ve been trying to find Podcasts that I like for work, but I haven’t been very successful. I did listen to two full episodes of Comedy Bang Bang and that wasn’t bad. I think I’ll try Pop Culture Happy Hour.Report

7. Just started Stranger Than We Can Imagine – An Alternative History of the 20th Century, by John Higgs.Report

   1. Apparently Higgs can imagine it.Report

   2. The linked Amazon page calls it Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century, even though it displays the book cover with the correct title. I can’t imagine how that happened.Report

      1. It just doesn’t make sense.Report

         1. No it doesn’t, but what’s the alternative?Report

            1. Higgs claims there is an alternative, but that’s his story.Report

8. Just finished Season 2 of Penny Dreadful. Not quite as good overall as Season 1, but the highpoints were really good. Really interesting the way they are weaving in Victorian horror and some new takes on it.

   As for Bob Ross, he inspired me to actually paint. I had comical arguments with my high school art teacher about technique. He HATED Ross’ quick style of painting and thought it was lazy. My position was that the end result was solid and who cares how you get there. I totally agree that the most important takeaway is that he got people to try painting.Report

   1. Season 2 of Penny Dreadful

      I was debating blowing some Amazon credit on this – is it worth $30? I enjoyed S1, but if S2 is a step down, $30 seems steep.Report

      1. So picky you are. The only real step down of PD S2 for me was that it was no longer new. Correcting for that, it was arguably of at least equivalent quality vs S1. It was continually a show I looked forward to, maybe the one I looked forward to most when it was appearing, as the Good Lord intended television serials and serials in general to be experienced, in periodic installments, and the finale was, I thought, overall pretty darn terrific. I feel like spoiling it for you right here just to punish your show of uncertain faith in Eva Green, but to tell you a single thing about how it ended up, and for that matter about how it started out and where it went, would be to steal whichever discovery from you.Report

         1. Mainly, I’m just a cheapskate.Report

            1. Agree it’s dreadful that you can’t get it for a penny (though I bet you could get screeners for free, in advance, if you made a mission out of it).Report

9. My wife and I have been watching Hanzawa Naoki, but in Japanese. I hear there’s an English subtitle version out there somewhere. It’s worth getting into if anyone can find it. The show itself concerns a sort-of Game of Thrones-esque power struggle among employees at a Japanese bank, with lots of plot twists and whatnot, but it’s actually quite light and exciting.Report

10. Does it count if it is an audio book? I’m “reading” Sonia Sotomayor’s My Beloved World during the slow times at work.

    I watched the entire season of Master of None on Netflix.Report

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