What I Watched: Season 11 of Death in Paradise. Same formula as ever, sweet, fun, comfortable, like a murder mystery cozy sweater.
What I Read: Lots of stuff, including:
Book 10, An Ominous Explosion,  in Lynn Messina’s lovely Beatrice Hyde-Clare Mysteries series:
To be clear: Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, does not think every dead person in London is the victim of a sinister plot. The city is large, after all, and some of its inhabitants had to have died from innocent causes. Like Peter Huzza, who was killed in a horrifying steam engine accident. It is shocking, yes, the way his body was torn apart by the explosion of his very own machine, but not entirely surprising. High-pressure steam is notoriously dangerous to harness. There is no reason to suspect foul play. Nope, none at all…
From Bad to Cursed (The Witches of Thistle Grove Book 2) by Lana Popović Harper:
Wild child Isidora Avramov is a thrill chaser, adept demon summoner, and—despite the whole sexy-evil-sorceress vibe—also a cuddly animal lover. But when someone starts sabotaging the celebrations leading up to this year’s Beltane festival with dark, dangerous magic, a member of the rival Thorn family gets badly hurt—throwing immediate suspicion on the Avramovs. To clear the Avramov name and step up for her family when they need her the most, Issa agrees to serve as a co-investigator, helping none other than Rowan Thorn get to the bottom of things. Rowan is the very definition of lawful good, so tragically noble and by-the-book he makes Issa’s teeth hurt.
Really good stuff. I also raved about book one, Payback’s a Witch, here on DS.
What I Listened To: Triptides – Fate; Dekker – Are We Left to Help Ourselves; Early James – What a Strange Time to Be Alive; and Nick Mulvey – Mecca.
Thank you for playing Brain Drain! What’s going on in your world, dearest DeadSplinterites?
I’ve been slacking off on
“Matlock”“Murdoch Mysteries” but caught an episode a couple of nights ago. Once again Canadian PM Wilfrid Laurier makes an appearance. We’ve met him before, and this episode (from Season 13, according to the online episode guide) has some flashback clips. It’s amazing how young the cast looks in flashback, especially Brackenreid.I thought, “This series really doesn’t move in time at all, does it? Or was Laurier some kind of Rooseveltian figure who hung on for years?” The answer, I learned, is both. Laurier was in office from 1896 to 1911. Quite a run. Because I was prompted to look up Laurier by that episode I don’t consider it an hour wasted. Plus I really like the show, AARP member that I am.
You and me both. For me, half the fun is researching the real characters from history and giggling over his (and Crabtree’s) “inventions”.
Not just the inventions but the names, that come soooooo close to what they actually came to be called. That is actually quite clever.
Some other Murdoch trivia that I only recently learned. “Murdoch Mysteries” has an actor whose real last name is Murdoch: Detective Higgins is played by Lachlan Murdoch, who is not to be confused with the other Lachlan Murdoch, who is Rupert’s son and the CEO of the Fox Corporation.
The latest season of Workin’ Moms is on Netflix. I’m sad that Frankie left the show but glad that she did it to pursue writing an producing opportunities.
The wardrobe looks fun! I like the variety of size and style shown in the clip.
I’ve been watching the first season of The Great British Pottery Throwdown, by the creators of the Great British Bakeoff.
They have very similar setups, but they did a good job adapting to the differences between ceramics and baking. So far at least things feel a bit less frantic with pottery and you get to see one of the judges showing techniques more than the baking judges, which is fun.
Ooh news to me. I had several clay courses in college, I will give it a whirl.
It has the same nice, supportive vibe as the Bake Off and there is some good work to show at the end.
I think it’s like the Bake Off in that it benefits from spacing out what you watch or it becomes a bit too repetitive.
I watched Meltdown: Three Mile Island on Netflix. I had no idea how close we came to a Chornobyl level catastrophe. And the cover-up? Infuriating!
I read the second of the Murderbot Diaries – Artificial Condition and am completely charmed by this series.
I also read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel. Mandel writes about the weirdness of having a pandemic apocalypse novel filmed during a pandemic, criticism of and her own self doubts about the book, and why we love dystopian fiction. There is a time traveling investigator, sinister government agencies, and recurring characters from The Glass Hotel. Meta, but not in the least bit gimmicky. I highly recommend it.
Listening to The Murphs. I met Cody, the guy singing while visiting my sister. He and his GF were staying at the same complex. They have a beautiful Black and Tan Coonhound named Etta that they found abandoned on a mountain in North Carolina. Which totally endeared them to me. We bonded over our love of dogs and Pokey LaFarge.
Moody Monday
@Hannibal My family lived on the west shore of Harrisburg at the time. We left for relatives in the far north, after my grandfather received a call from an associate who was a previously elected official who was still “read in”.
Damn, that must have been very scary.
Also, IÂ thought that you especially might like Early James.
I just listened to your tunes now while I was typing Monday’s Coffee Break. I liked them all but that one really stood out. He’ll be going on the playlist, thanks!
Also check out his blue pill blues (I think that is the name).
Oh! I started that series but I haven’t finished it yet. It’s been really really good so far.
i love death in paradise
i also love the specials
coincidence?
i think not
Hi @Farscythe!
hiya @elliecoo
sorry i have nothing to add today…
cept that the stoner was my favourite chief
Watched: Long airplane rides are about the only time I catch up on movies. I watched Spider-man: No Way Home, The Eternals, and Die in a Gunfight. All I can say about all of them is they killed time and made the flight go quicker, none were all that good.
Reading: A Modern Man The Best of George Carlin. I’m not too far in but have learned a bunch about him I didn’t know. I bought it before I knew about the new HBO show about him that I am very excited to start watching!
Listening: Went to my favorite record store Hungry Ear and found a CD I’ve always wanted so been listening to Barefoot Natives with Uncle Willie K
Also, going to watch this documentary…
@Loveshaq here’s wishing you a glorious time on your islands!
Thank you. It was a whirlwind and much less relaxing than most trips since I had to drop 5 days of the trip and only got to spend a few hours with my mom. I did get to see everyone I needed to see and my daughter got to snorkel with a turtle which was on her “to do” list.
oo that reminds me..ive got this in town next week
i should go…i mean its only a fiver
Wife is overseas, my teaching is done for the week and I’m sitting down to Outer Range. I’ve stocked up on groceries and dog treats and apples for the horsesand carrots for the sheep and donkeys and I’m about to commence chilling.
Hooray for chilling! Our Lillian Sweetheart just had her summer cut and looks like a little lamb.
She looks adorable
Watched: All the Old Knives on Prime. It was…fine. The writing was OK, the acting was certainly quite good with the cast they had. The ending was predictable–although I will say that the motivation behind the whodunit was not what I expected.
Read:Â Still slogging through that book, and it will probably take me at least another month at the rate I’m going.
Listened: Our latest stop on the best engineered albums of all time brings us to Toto IV. Engineered by a whole slew of people, including the incomparable Al Schmitt, this album was recorded using three 24-track tape machines synced together (ah the days when you couldn’t just add tracks willy nilly on ProTools). One track for each machine was reserved for the time code, leaving 23 tracks available for music. But, that doesn’t mean they recorded with 69 tracks, because a lot of these were actually mixdowns and dubs from previous sessions to prevent wear and tear on the tapes, which in turn kept the sonic quality as good as it is. Plus, Toto brought in a shitload of other musicians to play on the album which gives it such a full sound. It was, I think, their best selling album.
Did/do you like Toto? They remind of a point in time, for sure.
Not across the board. With my background and training I tend to have lots of songs that I like either due to the great sonics or the production value, but not so much for the artists/bands as a whole. Toto is one of those. Mrs. Butcher, on the other hand, is a big fan.
I’ve been crocheting my little fingertips off making a teddybear for Grandbaby’s 1st birthday (finished it at 2 this morning!), so I haven’t been reading as much as usual. I have been listening to audiobooks while I do that, though. Junkyard Cats by Faith Hunter, which is a slightly ridiculous, futuristic, urban fantasy type deal, and Wild Swan by Patti Callahan, which is a historical fiction novella about Florence Nightingale.
Recently got my hands on the newest Rivers of London book, Amongst Our Weapons, and devoured it.
In the Weeds: Around the World and Behind the Scenes with Anthony Bourdain by Tom Vitale. Written by Bourdain’s directer/producer, there’s a lot of detail on the insanity of shooting a show like Parts Unknown or No Reservations. Part memoir, part biography, it was very interesting.
And, recommending to @elliecoo (and anyone else who likes slightly dark and wacky fantasy) A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. I laughed out loud multiple times while reading this one!
We started watching Young and Hungry on Netflix. Pretty good! Not too heavy on the slapstick, which is nice. I do not understand how the main character gets anything done in those 5 inch stilettos, though, let alone any serious cooking!
@HoneySmacks I too inhaled the Rivers of London. And am now off to acquire your book recommendation, I am all about defensive baking (pauses to envision Bundt pan armour).
Has it been almost a year? It doesn’t seem possible.
I know! It’s wild. He’s a year old in 3 weeks.
The Lost City is on Epix on demand if you get that channel, and I very much enjoyed that romcom in theater so it was a nice one to watch again last night.
I’ve been slowly working through Our Father which is a documentary on Netflix about that obgyn in Indianapolis who in the 70s and 80s used his own sperm for all the fertility treatments. I’m a little over halfway and fuck I need more answers so I hope they get them, but given what a douchebag he is, I don’t think they will. At 40+ kids identified so far. He was super religious and there’s some thoughts he might have been in the Quiverfull movement, so it tracks that he’d want to spread his aryan genes as much as possible. Or he might just be a sexual predator who got off on violating women and patients. Or both. Probably both.