What I watched: The Body Farm, a one-season, six-episode British police procedural crime drama series from 2011. Apparently, it was a spin-off from the cold case police procedural drama Waking the Dead. Why did I watch it? Ummm, maybe masochistic tendencies, coupled with a need to see even more tragedy, gross bugs/bodies/blood stuff, and unhappy endings than were provide in real life in 2020?
Should you watch this show? Nope.
What I read: Author and ex-private investigator J. R. Rain, (of Samantha Moon Vampire for Hire fame), has teamed up with H. P. Mallory (Dulcie O’Neil series) to start a few new paranormal series, loosely linked by location in a supernatural-friendly small town.
Gypsy Magic: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel (Poppy’s Potions Book 1) was a quick read at 362 pages, while Cashmere Curses: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel (Wanda’s Witchery Book 1) was more of a short story at 184 pages. I liked the first book better, because potions and magic are fun, especially when inserted into real-world plausibility. I had trouble liking the elitist heroine of the second book, mostly because I find little amusing about the “I used to be rich but now I’m poor” trope.
Should you read these books? Well, I suggest starting with the J. R. Rain Samantha Moon series (FBI agent turned into vampire). But H. P. Mallory has a ton of complete series for $2.99 comprised of five to ten books each, so if you looking for filler, that may be the way to go?
What I listened to this week: I’ve been in the “F’s”, with Firewater, FOALS, Fontaines D.C., and Fractures:
Firewater, This Is My Life
FOALS, Mountain at My Gates
Fontaines D.C., A Hero’s Death
Fractures, Everything I Wanted
So, my dear, brilliant, DeadSplintertarians, Are you doing okay? Are you all ready for 2021? Do you have weekend plans? What have you watched, read, or listened to? Please do stop by and tell us what is up with you!
Watched/Watching: The Crown Season 2. I know that there are a lot of people (the best people) who wring their hands over viewers taking this show as immutable history, but considering how closely held the royal family is, it’s quite easy to remember that this genre is actually “historical fiction.” But, it certainly doesn’t seem to be suffering from the 2nd Season Slump.
Read/Reading: Still on If it Bleeds. When I was a kid and had nothing to do I could plow through a book in a day. Not anymore. It will probably take me until the end of this month to get through it. I honestly don’t know how adults that work for a living can burn through a book in a week or less. Do you just absorb it through your skin while you sleep?
Listened: Thanks to Lemmy, I’ve been listening to a lot of Black Sabbath this week.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker You tend to read actual literature, so it takes some time and attention. The fluffy stuff I read can be inhaled in one sitting.
…since I stopped sleeping properly some years ago I have developed a special affection for a little-known classification of books (possibly unknown…I may be the only one that thinks of them like this) which require less of my brain to be working than chooses to fire up when I just lay there trying to not use it
…perhaps unsurprisingly a lot of of mediocre genre fiction (mainly sci fi & fantasy in my case) turns out to be good for this…the framework is familiar & most of the narrative rides well-known rails to familiar destinations so there’s a lot of essentially freewheeling mentally-speaking
…for those not disposed towards sci fi/fantasy fiction…anyone who’s read any of lee child’s jack reacher books probably knows what I mean?
@SplinterRIP. that is what I read, with some paranormal and romance thrown in. Some of them are surprisingly good, a nice treat amongst the brain filler.
This is the reason why I used to read trashy romance novels every night, before I fell asleep😉
Took my mind OFF of whatever was in the news I watched/read most, and the formulaic nature (PLUS all the detailed descriptions of the costumes!😁) meant that my brain could just sort of go on “autopilot” for a while.
It was enough “distraction” for my brain to STAY occupied, but also didn’t require much actual effort, either😉
Specifically, “Regency Era” trash.
Far enough removed from the modern day, that VERY little overlaps with our lives–so it’s pretty much escapist TRASH😉😁🤗
There are obscure & nowadays “silly” rules to their society, but it’s a bit easier to follow & to be able to “author hop”, than in some of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genres, where one author may have “X” rules for the societies in their series, while the next author may follow “Y” as their set of rules….
Since the the Regency-trash HAS to be set within a certain number of years, ALL the authors automatically have a certain set of parameters they have to start from…. which makes it easier (for me!) to escape into their novels…
Because, no matter which author you’re reading, you already know what “the rules” will be😉
Tbh, it’s the same reason I can watch marathons of shows like Forensic Files, SVU, and Criminal Minds for HOURS at a time…. they work as “background noise” so that my ears & have *something* to pay attention to, when I need to work on a project/ do homework & not get distracted by a bajillion other noises….
😉
…used to be that my answer involved a lot of not sleeping…but the other part was a lot of sitting on public transport that I haven’t been doing for…a year or so…& it turns out that put a bigger dent in my offline reading time that I expected
…plus I seem to have been churning steadily through a lot of re-reading of things like terry pratchett/douglas adams/iain m banks the way some people talk about “comfort foods”…so not much to report on the new reads front, I’m afraid?
Season 2 of “The Crown” had its highs and lows. Seasons 3 and 4 get even more speculative, NO SPOILERS. There are more one-on-one scenes that no one involved would have made public.
This is weird because as we approach the present (Season 4 ends around 1990, I hope that’s not a spoiler) so much more is known, despite Britain’s famously draconian libel laws, especially when related to the Royal Family. The RF and the Palace Press Office, at least, are well aware of the “Streisand Effect,” so they’re not saying anything. Harry and Meghan might be tempted to pipe up, but given their Netflix deal Harry’s not in an ideal position to comment one way or the other on the depiction of his parents’ marriage. His brother William, as heir to the throne, certainly wouldn’t.
@matthewcrawley I hear good things about The Crown…
From what I can gather it’s pretty popular in the Commonwealth and in America. In Britain itself opinion is divided. Republicans (not in our sense of the term, returning America back to the pre-Civil War 1850s, but those who want a Republic and abolish the monarchy) have come to like it because it starts showing the RF in a more unfavorable light. The Establishment isn’t saying much but as the governments and Prime Ministers come and go…again, no spoilers, but sometimes you’re sympathetic and sometimes you’re not. The “Little Englander” Brexiteers are frothing at the mouth. They tend to be arch-monarchists.
I never really kept track or counted, but I think I used to average around 2-3 books a month previously. But I also did most of my reading on public transit (~2 hours/day) and in bars, neither of which really happen to me any more twixt covid and my new job.
@lochaber, fewer books is a small price to pay for the loss of a daily 2-hour commute?
@Elliecoo
still am spending about 2 hours commuting, but about half of it is by bicycle, which is getting me some very much needed physical activity.
I watched the first episode of Headspace on Netflix. One of my goals for 2021 is to get back into a daily meditation practice. This was a nice start. If you’re interested in meditating but never knew how to start this is a good introduction. It explains the science behind the benefits of meditation as well as providing guided how-tos.
I just started reading Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle.This is going to take awhile. there’s a lot to digest here.
I’m playing Animal Crossing, my daughter bought me a Switch for Christmas. It’s very relaxing.
I’m listening to Bill Callahan Gold Record It came out over the summer but I’m just getting around to it now. I think someone may have mentioned here on SMBD or posted something on DUAN. Y’all know I love my singer songwriters, I’m enjoying it.
The Mackenzies
@Hannibal, as someone whose brain rarely stops moving long enough to meditate, I am probably a prime candidate for it, eh?
@Elliecoo, I was very resistant to the idea for a long time. I had a hard time getting into it when I started then one day it just sort of clicked and I became a believer. Covid disrupted my routine and I fell out of the habit. Check out the show and see what you think.
I’ve been watching way too many NBA games & Daredevil on Netflix. It is a decent Marvel series but kind of silly. I’m still mostly in chill music vibe mostly…
I really need to get to the library, no good reads currently, just old Photoshop book & reading/watching how to fix a water leak in my upstairs slider that is dripping into the downstairs bathroom.
…the netflix daredevil stuff was pretty good for the most part…as was jessica jones (though that is not especially fun a lot of the time) & I mostly enjoyed the luke cage stuff despite tending to think the front half of the season was generally stronger than the back…& although not to everyone’s taste their run of the punisher was actually pretty decent
…but boy, howdy did they ever make a mess with that iron fist show…so maybe skip that?
[source: …well…so…I’m pretty much one of those “but in the comics they lifted that from…” people trying quite hard not to end up with a comment myo will tell me ought to have been a post?]
I ran across some speculation/fan theory thing trying to explain why Danny Rand was such an ass, and it was something along the lines of immediately after the tragedy that killed his whole family, he went into intense combat training, so he never really emotionally matured at all.
Not perfect, but I feel like it makes a little bit of sense.
Also, one of the things I really liked about The Defenders is that everyone punched Danny Rand. 🙂
I am sad that Disney’s acquisition of Marvel led to all those series being cancelled. I really liked Jessica Jones, and Colleen Wing was pretty cool too.
…it’s definitely a shame their castings got shut out when the netflix stuff got shuttered…colleen wing & misty knight together have a spin-off potential as “the daughters of the dragon”, which would have been cool
…but I always felt like they missed an easy way to have made danny rand “work”…he’s been raised in a mystical land where all the kung fu genre tropes accurately describe how things work…so he could have been constantly amazed/confused by everyday stuff & then when things got weird with ninjas & super-villain types been all “yeah, of course – doesn’t everyone know how this stuff works?”
…but for sure the way they went was not a great call
Home improvements…sigh…I am late to reply to the commenters today, because we just finished cleaning out 1/3 of the basement. Spiders and their webs, oh my!
and Firewater rules! I have most all of their stuff and love it.
Watched WW84 and it was terrible. In comparison, sticking with the DC Universe blockbusters which have been a perpetual letdown since the Dark Knight, Batman vs Superman was a million times better. Even the cringe inducing “my mom is named Martha too” exchange was better than any part of WW84.
Read Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I would only recommend if you like teenage angst and need a quick hit. It is not the deep heart wrenching missed opportunities and misunderstandings of awkward teenage love but more like a hollowed out facsimile of that… kind of like Twilight was. SPOILERS It’s a reimagining of Harry Potter which begins when Harry is in his last year of magic school and eventually realises that he is in love with Draco Malfoy. It had a lot of potential for adventure and magic fun (after the two characters finally join forces) but the world building and politics are left too vague to grasp or care about. Almost like it relies on its readers’ common knowledge of the actual Harry Potter world to prop itself up. I give it bonus points for writing about LGBTQIA and POC characters with some sprinkling of feminist values.
…the wonder woman movie was kind of a mess in a bunch of ways, I’d agree…& with such a promising cast it seemed several kinds of a shame?
…trying to avoid the whole “spoilers” thing…but otherwise I think I’d have a fairly extensive list of examples?
YES!!!
It had so much potential and then it just…happened how it happened.
that’s too bad, I rather liked the first Wonder Woman movie, and like the character in general…
Watched: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954) & “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (1959). James Mason is so brilliant as Captain Nemo.
Read: Finished “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul” by Douglas Adams (an easy comfortable reread) – the last book I read for 2020. And continued with “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman. I’m mostly sure I’ve read it before, but I’m only 1/3 way through it.
…sounds like your reading list might be reading a lot like mine at the minute…& since I happen to have a copy of the princess bride, too…it may continue to now you’ve reminded me
I got the idea to reread along Dark Tea Time on here, I think 🙂. I had read the first Dirk Gently earlier this year, so it was cool to follow it up with the next one.
I’ll get to “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” in a minute or two, with a diversion.
I grew up in a postwar sub-division. The whole thing had been a farm. The town bought some of the land to build the elementary school I eventually attended. Across the narrow street was the original farmhouse, much improved over the years. Down the hill was something called “The Log Cabin.” That, too, was an original structure and I a little “modernized,” but I think it was the local attempt at low income housing. Behind us, down another small hill, was another structure, which might have been a barn, that didn’t have a legal address. They rarely got any mail but when they did it was delivered to us and we children were dispatched to carry it forward. Of course I became best friends with the girl in The Log Cabin and the boy in The Barn.
We all had TVs and one summer weekend circa 19xx we all watched “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” Up the street was a crumbling Victorian inhabited by an elderly widow who had an organ. We immediately decided that she was Captain Nemo and when you heard the organ play she would descend to the depths to her ocean lair.
Oh, to have the imagination of a grade schooler.
This is a great story!
…before I finally shut up for a bit…I managed to get to the end of the mandalorian’s second season finally & am mostly cheered by the way that seems to be developing
…& I started the new season of the expanse…which is still pretty good if you like sci fi that isn’t either star trek or star wars
…but on a recommendation from a friend I also watched (not all last week but I finished it a day or two ago) something called “raised by wolves”…not sure about that one…bit grim & sort of confused/unclear about quite a lot…like how does anyone figure you could seed an off-world colony with a dozen people…pretty sure viable populations require a bit more than that?
…anyway…I mention it mostly because I found it amusing that when they first said they’d been watching raised by wolves I thought they meant raised by wolves…so that was kind of a bizarre conversation for a while
I second The Expanse with great fervor! And I hear that the book series, The Leviathan Wakes, is even better. Not that I have time to read anything but simple YA novels that don’t require much short term memory space.
Watching:
Dickensian on Amazon. Kind of confusing because all the characters look the same and are morose but I guess that’s the point.
Listening to this amazing play list and basically swanning around the house in a bathrobe drinking champagne. Happy New Year!
https://twitter.com/openculture/status/1344312539866406917?s=21
@MegMegMcGee – I aspire to that – “swanning around the house in a bathrobe drinking champagne”.
I read the Johnny’s Selected Seed catalog and now I want to grow all. the. things.
Watched a bit of the second twilight movie before remembering how truly awful it is. The first one is an amusing take on teenage angst and the wrong side of the tracks trope, then it all gets too silly.
Listened to The Grateful Dead, Rockin’ the Rheine, I dunno, whenever I feel celebratory I listen to the Dead.
I got a Christmas present today (1/2) from an acquaintance. A cookbook. I don’t know why, I didn’t send them so much as a Christmas card or even a Christmas email. I think they worked on it and got many promo copies. I won’t pass the details along.
I was on the couch leafing through it and got exasperated. “No, you wouldn’t do X, you’d do Y. Did anyone taste test this crap?” The Mysterious Other joined me. “It says the author is a life coach and fitness instructor based in [wherever] but look at this. What’s that?” “It’s fennel. I don’t–” “I’ll buy some and we can try it!” “Not out of this we won’t but I’ll find a recipe online.”
Stay tuned for an update.
I will be interested in your successful use of fennel, staying tuned…
I rather like fennel.
but it’s kinda pricey, despite growing like a weed out here…
I love the Samantha Moon series! I’ll have to look for these books.
I’ve been staying at my friend’s house since the 27th, so we haven’t really watched anything. We let the kids take over her TV downstairs and we hang out upstairs, reading, playing cards, baking, working on craft projects, etc. We’re going to start Bridgerton today, though… I watched the first episode and knew she’d love it, so I saved it to watch with her!
Reading – I finished a book of werewolf short stories, most of which were in the ok-to-good range. There were a couple stinkers, but overall, not bad. I also read Andre Norton’s Mark of the Cat, which, once I got into her writing style, was really good. I haven’t read her before, but now, I’m going to have to see what else I can find.
Currently reading The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman, book 4 of the Invisible Library series. One of the best books in the series, so far. There’s a new one coming out, so I want to get through the series before I get that one! Also reading book 11 of the Ice Planet Barbarians series by Ruby Dixon… talk about fluff, but, damn, I love this series. The whole series is on Kindle Unlimited, and I think you can “buy” the first one for free. Nothing like sexy, giant, blue aliens to liven up your day 😁 Seriously though, I read the first book like, “what is this nonsense?”, and it turned out to be really interesting and well written, and before I know it, I’m on book 11!
@honeysmacks – Are the Invisible Library books like the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde?
I don’t really know! I’ve heard of those, but haven’t read any of them.
I love the Thursday Next books!
@HoneySmacks, I am on book 3 of the Invisible Library – so good.
I read some Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey fantasy books years ago. Really interesting time period for writing. You could tell female authors were trying to carve a niche into the sci-fi/fantasy universes and fighting against female character stereotypes, but still impacted by genre expectations of the those character stereotypes.
currently still reading world war z…at mo i can only read a couple chapters before my eyesight goes wonky…and then stays wonky till i sleep it off…not entirely sure whats causing that one as i can read from a screen all day long and be fine… maybe i need a bigger reading light
finally got around to watching get out
creepy movie..i was a little disapointed by the ending tho…not entirely sure why..it just sorta stopped being creepy before it finished
also watching z nation
its kinda like the walking dead…but entertaining (course im only on the first season and there seems to 6…so plenty time for it to wear out its welcome)
oh…almost forgot…ive also been watching helluva boss
its uhhh..well its a thing
my brother recommended it…i should have known it was going to be slightly unhinged…lol
anyways the whole series is on youtube
Didn’t you have an eye injury a few months ago? maybe it’s connected to that.
potentially…that eye still wont behave as it should…still no tears for some reason..but eyedrops seem to do the trick for now
Watching Narcos after watching WW84(didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it). Guess I needed a better Pedro Pascal fix.
Mostly been watching Preacher, with some Letterkenny and Broad City here and there.
Currently reading Agency by William Gibson. Interesting so far, but some cynical part of me feels he chose to make a sequel to The Peripheral, just so that he wouldn’t have to address the past four years… Can’t really blame him, though…