What I Watched: The newest season of Shetland, with Agatha Raisin Ashley Jensen playing a lead character. Of note, Jensen is married to Kenny Doughty of Vera fame. I was prepared to dislike this show without Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), but it was still worth watching. The character of Tosh, played by Alison O’Donnell, has a much larger role – and it works. My only issue with it is the need for closed captioning, as a few of the Scottish accents are unintelligible to my American ears.
What I Read: Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death by Maria Vale. I should have loved this book, but I just didn’t. I was not engaged and had to force myself to finish it. Also, the overuse of the word celadon was annoying. Here’s the blurb:
Death needs a do-over. Azrael—angel of death, grim reaper, destroyer of worlds–has messed up. Instead of taking Molly Molloy’s soul, he patted her on the back and saved her from choking on a chicken wing. Now this extraordinarily ordinary New York City waitress can see him. Talk to him. Touch him. Say ‘no’ to him. And make him question every assumption he has about what it means to live. The Powers that Be are impatient with him to fix his mistake but before he can, Death makes one more. He falls in love.
What I Listened To: The South Hill Experiment – Alright OK; Wishy – Spinning; and Matt Maeson – Get Happy.
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, dearhearts? Darling DeadSplinterites, what’s going on? Please do share with us!
Fargo continues to roll along, getting better and better.
Jon Hamm is great as the villain, and for a complete change of pace I watched this episode of Toast of London where Matt Berry’s character Stephen Toast becomes hopelessly infatuated with Hamm. Or he calls him, Hah-um-mmm-uh. It’s called, of course, Hamm on Toast.
I’m enjoying Fargo too. It’s a bit of a shift from the seasons I watched before — in those, the protagonist was usually a bad person who ends up causing lots of trouble and getting theirs in the end. This time the protagonist is a victim, which is a different dynamic.
I haven’t seen Season 4. Honestly it just slipped past me. I’ll eventually get to it.
Fargo is on the watch list; so many DeadSplinterites recommend it.
If you’ve never seen the series, each season stands alone and you can skip to this season if you want.
I saw Asteroid City.
I’m not the biggest fan of Wes Anderson’s over the top quirky style being not so over the top quirky and linear in my thinking.
I enjoyed it more for the backgrounds than anything.
The cast was a bit more diverse (Jeffery Wright and Steven Park among others) than normal for a Wes Anderson film.
…wes anderson’s stuff is a bit “marmite”? …which is to say most people feel strongly for or against it & not many are ambivalent…for various reasons I guess I tend to like them more than not…they’re…cute would be one word for it…but like a puppy can be cute that might grow up to be…I dunno…a jim jarmusch flick or something
…but even for me that one kind of rode the line…I don’t honestly know if I liked it or if I bore with it to see where it went…which was mostly satisfying but the very end was a bit overwrought for me, I think?
The only Wes Anderson movie I like is The Life Aquatic and I think that’s just based on how much I like cool shit in the oceans and riffing on that idea. Also Willem Dafoe as Klaus.
I saw the Royal Tenenbaums a million years ago, but not much since.
…don’t think I’ve seen all his stuff…but rushmore & moonrise kingdom weren’t bad as I recall?
I saw Jeffrey Wright a hundred years ago when he was in the Broadway production of “Angels in America.” We were among the first to see it. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was so long that there were two intermissions. By the time it was over I couldn’t speak, so blown away was I. If you’ve never seen it, and it might have been adapted and smoothed out for a 21st-century audience, there’s a lot of gay humor and Yiddish humor. Despite its grim premise. So at certain points the older Jewish patrons would chuckle knowingly and at other points the gay men in the audience would do the same. I, though not Jewish, can understand a lot of Yiddish (it’s at least 80% a dialect of German, with some Russian and Hebrew thrown in) so I was catching all the jokes and nuances and explaining the Yiddish to Better Half, sotto voce.
Anyway, of all the many, many Broadway and off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows I’ve seen that’s probably the most memorable, and that was over 30 years ago.
Watched: Animals Up Close with the terminally happy Bertie Gregory. He’s an engaging host and the shots and scenery are just incredible. If you like nature shows with a side order of adrenaline this is the one to watch.
Listened: HCTM put out a new album this year called House Party.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker those are some great tunes, I’ll need to check out that whole album. I mentioned this before but not sure if you read it but most of the members of that band are in Pigeons Playing Ping Pong but have to be in the mummy costumes because of recording contract conflicts. This song they blow their cover a little using the horn section from HCTM…
An old friend of mine turned me on to HCTM a few years ago. He makes custom mouthpieces and Mummy Ra was one of his clients so I’d heard about the multiple contracts thing. Didn’t know about PPPP so I’ll be checking out more of this. Thank you.
…the latest (possibly delayed/mistimed/otherwise screwed with in production hell) marvel effort is echo, which dropped it’s full (fairly short) run on disney+…it’s…all right?
…there’s some good bits…a bunch of decent performances & such…& it’s probably unfair to expect more from it than I got…but…I guess I’m enough of a sad geek to be sad that they didn’t think the comic character was enough & had to bring a different kind of “powers” into the thing
…there’s another character (think the film version was gender flipped iirc) called taskmaster who’s whole deal is being able to do anything they’ve seen someone else do, only maybe better, in a “wondered where you’d learned it”, “you know very well, it’s yours too” way (if you’re a wu tang fan) & maybe they felt like it wasn’t enough but apparently being a preternatural physical mimic in a mileu in which defying physics is a commonplace…isn’t enough?
Thank you for keeping us updated in this genre!
Last night was a “Hawaii 5-0” double-header here at the Casa Encantada.
In the first episode, to condense and omit several fascinating nuances, a criminal mastermind has been blackmailing three people and he sends them on an assignment to kill a Chicago mob boss who’s coming to Oahu to intrude on his territory. So the femme fatale flies to LA (United Airlines, of course) and then flies back with the mob boss and plops down beside him. They get talking and he invites her to join him in his hotel suite (the Sheraton Waikiki; spon-con is not a recent thing) and they’re enjoying a drink when a TV repairman shows up and says, “I think it’s the horizontal but I just want to warm up the tubes.”
Oh no, flashbacks to my misbegotten youth.
And then, a guy shows up claiming to be from the Honolulu Business Council or something like that. Those are the three blackmailed henchmen and they all pull their guns on the Chicago mob boss and take a shot.
Now, what’s interesting though, is that they go to the residence of the wealthy guy pretending to be from the Honolulu Business Council and there are black-and-white glamor shots on the wall. Someone admires the photos of the women and Steve says, “those are men. [X, whatever the guy’s name is] is a homosexual transvestite.”
We happened to be eating dinner at the time (baked salmon with potatoes and broccoli) and I almost choked, so shocked was I.
In the second episode the 5-0 gets word that a big drug shipment is coming into Oahu and it’s probably aboard some kind of warship that is making its way across the Pacific from Subic Bay. That’s in the Philippines, but they don’t bother mentioning that. My boyfriend Danno is dispatched and takes on the role of a medical assistant. So hot in his naval uniform and little white naval hat. I’ll spare you further details, but point out that the midshipman/drug smuggler is none other than a very young David Birney, who went on to do “Bridget Loves Bernie,” with his wife, Meredith Baxter Birney, who years later decided to embrace her Lesbianism and divorced him.
I really either need to get a life or find a job doing recaps of vintage TV shows.
Hey Matty, the word for trans people in Hawaii at that time was Mahu.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81h%C5%AB
It was often used as a derogatory term but we were WAY ahead of accepting trans people in the islands and all over Polynesia. You will probably see more references in your Hawaii 5-0 journey. Much of old downtown & Waikiki have gay and trans bars. The most famous of the time were Hulas & Hamburger Marys but downtown had many strip bars where they would also work trying to get horny customers to buy them drinks. It didn’t always end well with the unsuspecting tourists that didn’t realize the “girls” feeling them up were Mahus. Anyway, are you sure they didn’t fly Mahalo Airlines in your episode?
We often find ourselves at the Honolulu Airport, I think it is, and whenever you see a plane it says “United,” but sometimes you don’t really see the…what would you call it? Branding?
In the opening credits, when they play the theme song, there’s a clip where it’s like you’re lying on the tarmac and a jet is landing on top of you. I mean, even now, 50 years later, it’s thrilling. We’re watching this on CBS/Paramount+.
Caught up on Reacher & then binged the Bad Ass movie series. The first one is pretty good but it gets silly at times. The 2nd & 3rd adding Danny Glover makes it even sillier but I prefer him being a silly old man that kicks ass over hanging out with a racist asshole in Lethal Weapon. Also, a short old Danny Trejo kicking ass makes me happy enough to overlook all the unbelievable plot points and fight scenes.
and of course anytime I watch anything with Danny Trejo I have to listen to Plastilina Mosh.
and even better, one of my favorite Ska bands put out a banging new song!
And thank you for keeping us updated on the Ska genre!
I watched the follow-up to all the stuff with the Natalia Grace true crime shit from a while back.
It was like a case study in people being horrible. Also if you do watch it, stick it out to the end because I did not see the twist coming.
I watched something last evening that was entirely comprised of cruel people. Not my thing, but it will feature in a future BrainDrain
other than reacher i havent watched much of anything…save from some random animes i already forgot….and reading wise…well…im still on the last book of the expanse…its slow going…my eyes are not being helpful
think ive got a wierd eye infection again…as my sleepy sand is more like sleepy grit…and i remember this from last time i needed a tube of paste for scratched cornea….i think it must be something at work causing it….as it seems to go away when im not at work for a few days
anyways listening to royal republic
oh also…im going to be pretty eratic on when and where i post for a while
re adjustment period courtesy of dry january…tho im having a hiccup today…
but yeah..serious effort underway to curb my drinking…. dunno where ill end up….but till i do expect me to….uhh…well be pretty eratic and miss posts or whatever
tho i have now learnt that i only have a beer problem
seriously….ive got a house full of booze i can ignore cheerfully….but put a beer near me and i fall off the wagon….lol
As always I am on Team @Farscythe. Please do get the eye goop; and maybe would your work buy you some eye protection? As for dry January, if you throttle back to moderate beer consumption that can be considered a win?
tbh…i think its something in the air at work….messes with my breathing too and gives me dry mouth
or i could be completely wrong about it being work related…..least…its not something safety glasses will help with
moderate consumption is a goal…. but for now im more focused on breaking the habbit of daily drinking
im the type that can drink or not drink…moderate is difficult
sooo….getting it down to only on friday and saturday is a goal…only on occasions is the aspiration…..and going dry for at least a month just to prove i fucking can is a step
tho…admittedly….not having fuzzy vision would make it easier as atmo i cant play vidya games or read books with smallish print to distract myself and i dont want to go to bed at 7 pm just coz im bored….lol
Maybe an audio book?
Do you play drums…you strike me as someone who plays drums. That can be done with your eyes closed.
lol…..i do play drums…
but my kit is stored at my mums for the time being
i can hear my neighbours going to the toilet here……trust me when i say drum practice wouldnt win me any friends
…it has recently been brought to my attention that a) electronic drum kits have come a long way & are apparently quite satisfying to play even with decent headphones
…& b) that although the most fun is only available via the spendy end of the MPC…other bits of kit combined with a laptop allow for a thing called “finger-drumming” that I didn’t know had a name beyond “have machine, make tunes”…aside from all the sample-banks & the dials I’d need someone to explain the main event is a set of pads you can tap/thump away at with fingers (or possibly drum-sticks if your aim is good?) to produce all manner of entertainment
…I hear good things about akai but I think pioneer & some others make ’em
…dunno if it would appeal…but it’s a thought?
lol i just wandered of to the shops thinking hey…when i get back i need to @hammerzeitgeist to say i should invest in an electronic drum kit i can plug me cans in to so i can quietly practice to shake the rust off
after all….i found this demon on youtube i’d like to match one day….even if it takes me both hands to do it
I read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’m waiting impatiently for the rest of the books to become available from the library.
Ohhh I will check it out; @HammerZeitgeist your reading tastes seem to compliment mine, and often from entirely different authors!
It is a classic from 1968! It’s a quick read and I enjoyed her contextualizing the book in the Afterword. She is the founding mother of the fantasy genre. I read her Catwings series as a young kid. For all my love of fantasy, I regret not having read more by her and am looking forward to reading her work now.
It’s great, and she’s a treasure.
My library has a big bunch of her books available digitally — in case you’re OK reading that way, you might want to check that option with yours. Although I know sometimes those get maxed out when a school assignment hits.
Yup, I’m waitlisted for a bunch of her books at the library. Hopefully they don’t all pop at the same time.
…the OG…love those books…been a while since I last read them, though
…le guin is amazing
Read
Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit by Robert Macfarlane. My second Macfarlane book, with both of those books being part of an informal trilogy. I’ll read the third one eventually. The author explores changes in European perception of mountainscapes, and I found his writing on this pretty fascinating. Recommended.
Watched
One more episode of Reacher to go. We’re ready for a resolution on this.
Listened
Found a nice little greatest hits album for Jr. Walker for cheap on vinyl. No regrets there.
@elliecoo , have you read the Darkest London series by Kristen Callihan? If not, I definitely recommend it! I’m on book 4, and it’s great. Historical fantasy romance.
Also been reading the Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden. Based on Russian fairytales, it’s the story of a girl named Vasya who can see and speak to the Russian house spirits. The first book was great, and I’m almost done with the second.
Other than lots of reading, I started watching No Reservations on Max, which I watched years ago. I’m enjoying Anthony Bourdain’s snarky commentary, but Parts Unknown is my favourite of his shows. Such a shame he’s gone.
@HoneySmacks, I have not, and am scurrying off too add it to my lists!