What I watched: The Frankie Drake Mysteries, Canada’s answer to Australia’s Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I loved Kerry Greenwood’s books about Miss Phryne Fisher (there is new book due this year, after a seven-year hiatus) and liked the television show, so I am predisposed to like Frankie Drake, who owns a detective agency. Each show involves the solving of a mystery and a murder, nicely resolved within an hour (if only real-life problems had such tidy resolution). Set in jazz-age Toronto, the stories push the boundaries set for women and give a nod to the times including: the aftermath of World War I; the newness of airplanes, motorcycles, and cars; and the changing societal status of women and minorities. Rounded out with prohibition, speakeasies, jazz singers, beautiful roaring 20’s costuming, the morality police, and the clever insertion of historical figures (Ernest Hemingway, Marcus Garvey, and Mack Sennett), it is an easy show to watch. There are three seasons, thirty-one episodes, and a fourth season due to air this month.
Should you watch this show? Yes!
What I read: I found a deal on the Lawrence Sanders four-book Deadly Sin series and finished The First Deadly Sin last night. A police procedural featuring Edward X. Delany written and set in 1973, it is often harsh in the “just the way things are” reflections of reality, New York City, policing, and people. The matter of fact, disturbing takes on any sexuality other than heterosexuality, minorities, women, business, and more just left me feeling rather unclean, and deeply grateful for the societal changes of the past 50 years. Coming in at 644 pages, it is not a quick read – and were I the editor I would have chopped about 100 pages of somewhat self-pitying angst and mid-life reflection. If the book is an accurate reflection of masculine power brokers, it helps to position the outlooks of many of our aging white male politicians, which were surely formed by the views of those in power in the 1970’s. Also, the constant on-the-job drinking was a bit shocking to me. I need all my brain cells to get through a day of work and can’t really fathom how these policemen functioned at the rate they drank, beginning at lunchtime.
Should you read this? Maybe? It has moved from shocking to gritty noir, and any remaining shock value comes from the ugliness of the era rather than from any prurience about the crimes.
What I listened to this week: I’ve been stuck on Bombay Bicycle Club, Chet Faker (Australian Nick Murphy), and the new-to-me New Love Crowd:
So, darling DeadSplinterites, are you maintaining your equilibrium, keeping on with things? Are you feeling great, or are you a little bit fragile? I’ve had a fragile, irritable week – as Chet Faker says in Talk Is Cheap, “I hold up my ways, these thoughts are pervasive, it’s not a statement, but peace can be evasive.” Ah well, the not so great weeks help us to appreciate the good ones… So, what have you watched, read, or listened to? Please do stop by and tell us what is up with you!
Watched: The US Ladies Figureskating Championship. It was odd, with no crowd, except for the piped applause that was only getting picked up through the commentators’ microphones, which made it really odd. Plus, I was really shocked at how bad a lot of the skaters were–even the veterans. Way too many falls, missteps and otherwise poor performances which one would not expect at this level. But, listening to Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski never gets old so that part was fun.
Read: This very interesting piece on a coup that came surprisingly close to success . A bunch of rich assholes (shocked face) wanted to overthrow FDR because he threatened their money (another shocked face). Unfortunately for them, they picked a guy who strung them along until he had enough intel to blow the whistle. Unfortunately for the rest of us today, FDR made a fucking deal with these shitbags not to prosecute them as long as they’d support his policies. I think that if he’d done the right thing, there would have been repercussions that would have made a significant difference today, both in terms of how this country regulates banks and billionaires and in how we address threats to the government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/13/fdr-roosevelt-coup-business-plot/?itid=hp_politics
Listened: I’ve only started listening to Bill Coday within the past year, but I’m astonished that he wasn’t a bigger star. I guess he was too much like a cross between Wilson Picket and James Brown and the labels probably didn’t know what to do with him.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker, I too adore the affection, knowledge, and just plain fun brought by Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski. They are some sprots commentators that I can support. When I read on to “a coup that came surprisingly close to success . A bunch of rich assholes (shocked face) wanted to overthrow…”, I though that surely you were going to reference a current events article.
When I was in Boot Camp, we used to have to chant the names and achievements of a handful of notable previous Marines. Smedly Butler was one of them, and as much as we read about his medals and achievements and such, it wasn’t until I had been out for several years before I heard about The Business Plot. I just randomly ran across his War is a Racket while working in a library. Knowing so little aside from what I learned from those Boot Camp chants, I was rather surprised to see the darling of the Marine Corps taking a very anti-war stance.
Thanks for dredging up that name from the memory bank! I did JrRotc in high school. Ooh ruh 😛
The take-home message here is: “never trust a guy named Smedley.”
FDR faced a serious fascist threat in the US. The Nazi fan Father Coughlin had a wildly popular radio show where he used to condemn the New Deal and call FDR “Franklin Delano Rosenfeld.” When WW2 started FDR finally had enough and twisted arms at the Vatican and they thretened to throw Coughlin out of the priesthood if he didn’t leave the radio.
The Nazi-backed Bund had huge rallies in the US, including over 10,000 in Madison Square Garden, and the Klan was an open political force. And it wasn’t just in the South — Fred Trump, the loser’s dad, was arrested for assaulting police at an NYC rally a few years before FDR’s election, but they were openly strong in the north through the Depression.
Jamelle Bouie has pointed out that the old Klan’s demographics were eerily similar to this latest batch. It was primarily a middle and upper middle class membership, filled with store owners, landholders, cops, accountants, ministers and elected officials, with a higher representation in the South but a lot of Northerners too.
I love the Miss Fisher tv series! Going to check out Frankie Drake this week 🙂
Have you watched Marvel’s Agent Carter? I was disappointed when they canceled it.
Agent Carter was great. Gotta love a strong female lead with a perfect red lip!
I like Frankie Drake as well. I think I’m behind a bit I didn’t realize there were so many episodes.
I have not watched Agent Carter – but sounds like my cup of tea!
…agent carter was great & it continues to confuse me why they cancelled it
@HammerZeitgeist, Miss Fisher rules! In the books (if you’ve not read them) her love interest is a Chinese gentleman; she becomes his concubine, befriends his wife, and is randomly saved by triad members he assigns to protect her. I mention this only because the TV series goes for the policeman as her love interest – I was not best pleased by that. But the clothing, the decor, the cars, oh my! Frankie Drake is pretty good, but the show/cinematography is not quite as “pretty” as Miss Fisher’s show. There is also a Miss Fisher spin-off called Ms Fisher’s MODern Murder Mysteries, set in the 1960’s, about Peregrine Fisher, Phryne’s niece, who inherits when Phryne is lost in New Guinea.
I watched the first two episodes of WandaVision last night…
Excited to see more of all the characters, but you gotta love Katherine Hahn. Case in point:
@MegMegMcGee, Wanda Vision is going on the list, we have Disney for a tiny bit longer. As for the waxing scene? I’ve not seen that movie, and I vacillated between being appalled, amused, and wondering why the fellow wasn’t in tears when she ripped the wax strips off of his private areas.
I’m pretty sure it’s a scene from Bad Moms Christmas (can’t check videos with kiddos climbing all over me). He’s a male stripper and his unflinching disposition is one of the two reasons she falls in love with him….the other being his hot bod and or eggplant.
…I’m not sure how useful a tip it is or whether it’s a show I’ve mentioned before (I think I probably have) but I’m reliably informed that if you have access to bbc iplayer the full 8 seasons of spiral is available (french cop show called engranages when it’s at home) & it’s pretty great if you like that sort of euopean imperfect-protagonist police procedural kind of stuff…mostly not quite as noir as the scandi stuff but has some great characters
season 8 is apparently the end of the line…so I’m going to dust off my recollection of where I got to & find a way of watching the remainder once the opportunity presents itself?
I do indeed like that sort of imperfect protagonist. (Crosses fingers that Spiral/Engranages isn’t subtitled). Lupin is on my watch list, a current-day reset of Maurice Leblanc’s classic stories of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin.
…have been meaning to check out lupin myself…I’m afraid spiral is (in my experience) a subtitles kind of thing but it’s possible that a dubbed version may be available?
Frankie Drake sounds like a fun watch. Have you seen HBO’s No. 1 ladies Detective Agency starring Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose? I enjoyed the books but feel conflicted about a white man writing in Black women’s voices. I’m a Jill Scott fan though so I had to watch, and it was very good. There is only 1 season though.
I didn’t read anything new but I watched the first episode of the All Creatures Great and Small adaptation on PBS. The books were a childhood favorite of mine, and like them the show is sweet.
trump may have his Pillow Guy but we’ve got the Pillow Queens
@Hannibal, I’ve read the No. 1 ladies Detective Agency books, but have not watched the show. I adored the PBS All Creatures Great and Small , but finally stopped watching when it moved to “after the war”. I am cocooning myself away from small tragedies as much as possible, and I’d reached my limit of seeing the dog die. It got to the point where the episode would begin, we’d be introduced to a lovely dog, and I knew it would be dead by the close of the show.
Oh, I won’t like all the dog deaths. This is a new adaptation so I hope they don’t linger on that sort of thing.
Dammit, I just realized I missed the first episode of All Creatures Great and Small. Hopefully they air it again before Sunday–although Sunday is also playoffs (playoffs?!) so I might miss the debut of episode 2 as well.
You can probably watch it on your PC
See, this is how you can tell that I’m older than 30.
i thought your avatar gave it away
we has colours nowadays 🙂
If you have a Smart TV, Roku or Fire Stick you can add the PBS channel and watch it there.
Um…
PC it is, lol.
Watched ‘Happy go Lucky’, a supposed comedy about a 30-yr old woman who mugs her way through life. Wasn’t funny and I was really in the mood for something lighthearted.
Read more of Charterhouse of Parma, our hero wanders about falling into shit and coming up roses, where have I heard that before.
Listened to The New York Dolls in tribute to Sylvain Sylvain who just passed. What a fun band. David Johansen is the only surviving member now.
@Sedevilc, does Charterhouse of Parma require total attention while reading? Are you reading a translation of the 1839 version?
I’d say it would be better to pay more attention, I pick it up right before bed. I am not finding it compelling reading, I recently read Dickens Barnaby Rudge and I carried it everywhere, it is so good. I’m reading a translation by Margaret Shaw.
Oh, I have also been watching The Three Musketeers on PBS, I think I might give that a read next.
@Sedevilc, I just did a fast Wikipedia look-see of Barnaby Rudge, no wonder it held your attention!
Watched the latest season of Cobra Kai. It was really good but went by way too fast! Very good distraction.
Went back in the vault & listened to Olu Dara
@LoveShaq, I had zero clue that Cobra Kai was the “where are they now” version of the Karate Kid. I am always looking for a pleasant distraction.
still havent really watched or read much of anything (still wanting to strangle office personel)
coming tuesday i gets to have a face to face with the bigly boss to explain why the bigly awesome upgrades arent working out as expected (uhhh…they are working out as expected? we fucking told you what would happen…. suspect ill be on the shitlist for a while again)
i did find a nice mellow local to listen too tho
@farscythe “they are working out as expected” – my goodness but that is a phrase that can be applied to so much of life. Ha!
ooo also…in unrelated news…these things are delicious
i assume you get them in the states…possibly under a different brand name
anyways…its a veggi tomato and mozzarella stuffed shnitzel….and its delicious….definitely one of those huh if you hadnt told me it wasnt meat i wouldnt have known ones
@Farscythe schnitzel always sounds like a fun to me.
I volunteer as tribute and can do a FYCE post about schnitzel but we’ve already seen this. Pound some pork cutlets into an even depth of about 1/4″, do the dredge (bowl of flour, shake off excess, dip in the second bowl which has eggs, dip in third bowl with breadcrumbs), and sauté. I’ve done at least one recipe where you do this with chicken. That’s it. You can make a white sauce to pour over it. You can also do it with chicken and use a white sauce instead of a red sauce.
It’d be interesting know how to do a tomato and mozzarella version. I can’t see how it would hold together during the dredging process. And I suppose you’d top that with a red sauce.
me finks the trick is using frozen mozzarella and tomato mix
get the whole thing wrapped up and halfway baked before it remembers its mostly liquid
fwiw… thats just how i figure… ive not bothered to look it up…its just tasty
Looks like they could be using mozzarella slices and smushing it around the tomato mix, and then dredging and flouring the cheese packet and deep-frying it.
I watched about 7 hours of “River Monsters” last night. Watched “Retribution,” a 4-part murder mystery on Netflix. It’s pretty good, a little far-fetched, but one of those deals where everybody has a secret and there’s lots of misdirection. Worth it it you’re bored. I continued with “Hinterland,” a mystery series set in Wales. I didn’t realize when I started that all the episodes are 90 minutes, but they are well done.
Reading “The Insanity Offense,” another indictment of our so-called “mental health” system. Good background on legislative and policy history. Gets repetitive after awhile, and reads more like a rough draft with a lot of bullet points and spotty organization. Started Steven King’s short story collection “Bazaar of Bad Dreams.” First story is okay, typical slightly-hokey King. A bad car swallows a series of people at an abandoned highway rest stop. A young kid stops it with a magnifying glass. Okay…….
Listened to: New Years Day, “Malevolence”
…have you read any of the horror-esque stuff by joe r lansdale?
…I think I prefer the hap & leonard books (& the other not-so-surreal stuff like “sunset & sawdust” but they’re pretty good &/or fun…at least one features an alien invasion taking place while the protagonists are at a drive-in cinema & the “abandoned highway rest stop” thing reminded me for some reason
I love Joe R Lansdale, the Popcorn King is still one of the creepiest characters I’ve ever come across.
@LemmyKilmister, whoa…those are some scary fish, the heavy metal of fish?
It’s a pretty cool show. The guy hears about various aquatic attacks and mysteries around the world, tries to determine which fish is responsible, and then attempts to catch one to “prove” his theory. He even did one episode where he posited, quite plausibly, that there may actually have been a “Loch Ness Monster” and it was quite possibly a Greenland Shark.
I saw The Mandalorian and I liked it mostly. Pedro Pascal in the lead role is great, and someone less good at line deliveries would have ruined it.
They seem to have made a deliberate decision to slow things down from the movies and mostly lower the stakes, which was smart, and it lets character relationships breathe a lot more. But it also gets repetitive, and there are far too many scenes of masses of bad guys getting shot (blasted?) down in quick succession. Why are they in such a rush to die? The one on one fight scenes are a lot more interesting action.
It looks great — they seem to have gotten a much better design team together compared to the prequels, and even most of the sequels.
@blue dogcollar Mandalorian holds up well even for the non-fan of the genre, I think. And I agree about the design and scenery.
…I read the latest of michael mcclung’s amra thetys books…the first is “the thief who pulled on trouble’s braids” & the most recent would be book #5
…the protagonist is female but in some ways they remind me of the “gentlemen bastards” series by scott lynch that starts with “the lies of locke lamora”…which I also enjoyed a fair bit
…still haven’t found the time for brandon sanderson’s stormlight archives series, though
@SplinterRIP, adding these to my reading list. Your recommendations do well for me, and I like book series. I need more than one lone book to satisfy my curiosity about events and characters.
Just started Barry Lopez’s “Horizon”, his last book. He died this past Christmas Day. I’ve enjoyed his other stuff, and this one’s no different. Very well thought out nature writing, for those who are not familiar with him. Highly recommended.