What I watched: We stopped watching last week’s show, Eureka, at the end of season 3, when it veered into an alternate reality timeline that was just silly and became annoying to watch. After blipping around and finding only stuff in foreign languages with subtitles that held any interest, we landed on the Good Karma Hospital. (I am not opposed to subtitles, but I was looking for a TV series that I could listen to and occasionally glance up to view without losing the plot.)
This is a current ITV show available on Prime/Acorn with 3 seasons and a possible fourth. It is one of those over-arching premise shows with weekly sub plots and one larger plotline running throughout the season. Set in India, (but filmed in beautiful Unawatuna in southern Sri Lanka), the people and locations are beautiful. It is a medical drama about a UK doctor who escapes to India after her love life and work life tank, and ends up working at The Good Karma Hospital, an under-resourced and overworked cottage hospital. The best part is that the hospital is run by the actress Amanda Redman who plays the eccentric English expat Dr. Lydia Fonseca. You may remember Amanda Redman, she played Sandra Pullman for 10 years in New Tricks, another show we really enjoyed.
Should you watch this show? Absolutely, if only for the excellent visuals, everything from the colorful busses to the enchanting crowd actors to the charming buildings. I really liked it.
What I read: I’m back into RJ Blain’s fantasy books, and just read the latest in her Magical Romantic Comedy (with a body count) series. These are full of snark, sarcasm, and folks who changed when magic had a resurgence in the world.
More specifically, and on theme, I read her two-book series Balancing the Scales, Karma and License to Kill. These are fun romps about wolf and fox shifters who work for the FBI, as vigilantes, and get the occasional romance or bit of mass murder thrown in.
Should you read anything by RJ Blain? Yes you should!
What I listened to this week: I’ve been in the “W’s”, with Westerman, Wild Beasts, William Onyeabor, and Wilson Pickett:
Westerman, Harvard
Wild Beasts, Alpha Female
William Onyebor, Body and Soul
Wilson Pickett, 634-5789
So, dearest DeadSplinterites, what’s going on? Are you doing okay? What have you watched, read, or listened to? Please check in and tell us what is up with you!
Mrs. Butcher and I unplugged for almost the entire day yesterday, with only a brief period of having the Saints-Vikings game on so that Mrs. Butcher could take her patented Football Nap. Didn’t even know about the Nashville explosion until this morning. Anyway…
Watched: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The original, animated version. Always a good stumble down Nostalgia Lane.
Read: Well, reading as we speak: If it Bleeds by Stephen King. King gets a lot of shit about his work but I’ve always found his writing completely engaging and his sense of humor is similar to mine which makes his books fun to read. This one is another of his four-short-story volumes, like the book that came out with Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption and The Body, which both became films that most people don’t associate with him. Anyway, if you’ve shied away from King’s work because he’s a “horror” writer, I suggest taking a swing because as he’s gotten older he’s gotten away from the stuff that made him so famous and is mostly focused on telling a good story over just trying to give people nightmares. Personally, I would recommend the Dark Tower series (the movie was total bullshit).
Listened: Been on an old Stevie Wonder kick lately:
I’ve liked Stephen King since I was a kid. My dad had all his hardcover books so it’s pretty much what I started reading when I could read big books 😛 I think his stuff got a little weird after that van accident, but a lot of it is still good. His short stories have always been my favorite.
@PumpkinSpies I had to Google the van accident you referred to, having only a vague recollection of it. The who event was sad and traumatic, and added inspiration to his writing.
Whole event, not who. Sigh.
It was a long time ago! I don’t blame having a near death experience for rattling one’s cage, either.
King always has one super annoying element in every book that I have to get past. I read him less and less. “The Stand” had the stupidest ending in the history of fiction. Ten years later I still can’t believe I read 1100 pages for that. It was like following the rainbow over hill and dale only to find a pot of Mary Janes.
…not for nothing but I might have a suspicion that endings are not the bit he does best
…I remember needful things being a good read but the ending seeking like it was just sort of phoned in?
“Bag of Bones” was a wonderful book, except for that one evil woman who had been such an expert softball player that she could terrorize and almost drown the main character by throwing rocks at him while he was swimming. Are you fucking kidding me with that nonsense?
And since Butcher mentioned the Dark Tower, riddle me this: How the fuck are you going to continue to be a “Gunslinger” for six more books when you get your fucking fingers chopped off four pages into the second book? Hint: You’re not. False fucking advertising.
Ah but that’s how he gets the impetus to train the three people he brings with him. He’s only got one shooting hand now so it makes sense for him to train these people.
…I remember liking a short story of his that I think is called “the long walk” & also “the running man”…although arguably there was a certain amount of overlap in their potentially-fatal-reality tv premise(s)
…but those both came out originally under the pseudonym as books by richard bachman…I don’t know if that made a difference to anything but it seems like an odd coincidence?
I think you’re perhaps right,on him not quite knowing how to end the tales, sometimes.
King IS an excellent storyteller, though! His anthologies & Novellas are some of my favorites, and I’ve loved them,since Silver Bullet started getting passed around our classroom, back when I was a fifth grader😉
In a way, his full-length stuff reminds me of how the movies were, until he started to ease up his control over them….
The Langoliers in particular (a SHORT story–NOT a long book!) was made into a *two part* miniseries, that iirc, tok longer to watch, than it did to read😖😬😱😱😱
But by the time Shawshank came around, King seemed to understand that he was working with folks who COULD do the stories justice, and he eased up–and the works were good!
I suspect that it might be similar to the way he was working with playwrights–although it is pure speculation on my part!
I’ve shared the story before, but when I worked (years ago!) at the Bryant Lake Bowl here in town, there was a young theater group** who wrote to King, asking for permission to do… either Misery or Shawshank as a stage play.
King granted permission, with MANY caveats–first they had to send him a synopsis, then he’d give approval for them to write a script. Then he wanted ro READ it himself, and he’d approve or say no.
If he gave them a no, it was over. If he said YES, then he wanted a ticket for sometime during the run of the play (he would get himself to the theater & and HE paid for the ticket–i know, because *I* sold it to him on opening night😉), and AGAIN, he’d have the power to approve, OR to possibly shut things down again, if it was terrible.
They did such a good job with that play, that after the show, when he met with the cast, he told them, “You can do a theater play of ANY of my stories. I’ll let my people know you have my blessings, and just let me know–and reach out to them, whenever you want to write another.”
That was how they ended up doing *both* Misery AND Shawshank as plays at the tiny little 98-seat theater at the bar/bowling alley/theater.
BOTH were hits for the theater, and sold out multiple shows, because they WERE good, but also because word spread in the local book community AND theater community, that the plays had been personally seen and approved of, BY King😉
By all accounts, I’ve ever heard (in my summer-stock days, out in Utah, one of my actors was in one of his sons’ classes–Greg had some STORIES!😉) and having met/interacted with him that time, he IS a solid & good dude💖
(full disclosure; i worked on OTHER plays–at a local community college–with the mother-in-law & brother-in-law of the main writer who acted in that BLB group!)
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker
Shawshank Redemption is a wonderful movie. Glad you got your Grinch on! We just did the grocery list and I added the ingredients for your clam sauce; hopefully I’ll be able to get the garlic just right, all golden, zero brown.
Let me know how it comes out.
im still on tokyo ghoul…season 3 now….kinda hit the wall now tho
its still good…but i have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to series and want something new now…soo…hopefully it finishes by the end of season 3…coz i probably wont start a season 4
reading…well im not at the moment
and listening toooooooo….. portishead
wonderful band
@Farscythe hope you have a relaxing week (you are still off work, yes?) Slso hope that any riots avoid you.
still of work yep…as relaxing as it gets round here nowadays
and cheers 🙂
tho…part of me is up for a riot
all good fun!… but tbh i really dont feel like doing jail time again…so ill just stay home
feh….probably shouldnt have left the again there
younger me was a genius that got into a bar brawl whilst carrying half an ounce of weed
I love Portishead!
I also have the attention span of a goldfish when it comes to TV shows… by the 2nd or 3rd season I almost inevitably wander off and find something new.
yaaaay! not just meeee!
lol
🙂
I am reading something I think you’d enjoy: The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton: The First Domestic Goddess.
The Amazon listing gives a lot more detail, but basically Mrs. Beeton was mid-19th-century Britain’s Martha Stewart. The book is fascinating if you’re into social histories. It’s a biography of her, but it delves into a whole world of Victorian Britain, what was expected of middle-class women, what everyone ate, how they lived, class relations, servants, industrialization, urbanization, the publishing business, almost everything. She wrote one (very Victorian) huge compendium, The Book of Household Management, shamelessly ripped off from a number of different sources. I believe it’s still in print, so she’s become like Betty Crocker or Fannie Farmer, an almost mythical figure with this book that keeps getting revised and updated periodically. The author is a very funny writer, almost Sarah Vowell-esque, who provides all sorts of fascinating asides, so the biography part is only a piece of a much greater whole.
Mrs. Beeton’s magnum opus is divided in half, one for recipes and one for everything else related to Running a Household. It’s amazing. One hundred+ years from now Martha Stewart might be studied in the same way. Why did people do this? And what does Martha Stewart tell us about the aspirational middle class from the 1980s to, well, now, although I think Martha is winding down a little bit.
Well that was really strange, I meant to link to the Amazon listing with the details, reviews, and comments, but it just brought in this huge cover image. Sorry about that.
Yesterday I ended up making the Beef Wellington, speaking of the Victorians. I tried to weasel out of it. “Oh, darn, I think we’re out of kitchen twine.” The Forager/Stocker/Shelver-in-Chief responded brightly, “Yeah, I didn’t know if we still had any, so I picked up some more.” It came out really well and I have no regrets, and made the roasted Brussels sprouts and some garlic mashed potatoes. We finished it off with a “cheese course.” This was not an Instagrammable “cheese board” but rather the detritus of the cheese drawer in our fridge and the contents of three less-than-half-full cracker boxes.
In lieu of opening presents (we take care of that earlier in the month) I grabbed all the Christmas cards and we opened those. We weren’t entirely sober. We got so many this year, probably pandemic-related. “Oh look, this one has a Christmas letter. Do you want me to read it to you or do you want to read it to me?” “You read it to me, because you don’t like [the sender] but you do an uncanny impersonation.”
This gave me an idea. I had all the cards, and a couple seemed especially thick. “I think these two have letters in them too. I’ll read them and leave out some details and you try to guess who they’re from.” This is a really fun game, actually.
Happy 2021 everyone!
…amazon links do a funny preview/embed thing on wordpress so it’s not you
…& as it happens I know at least one person who still has a copy of mrs beeton’s time on their shelves…they might even still do a few kitchen-type things the way they’re laid out in those pages, too
…but I think most of the folks I know in the UK have at least moved on to delia smith…if not beyond?
@matthewcrawley I adore receiving Christmas letters. I am totally interested in the details of the lives of others. And especially if they make them sound like the entire year was a winner (because you know that wasn’t the case). But It is nice to see through rose colored glasses. I ordered the Book of Household Management.
I read that one a couple of years ago, and thought it was really good. I actually didn’t pick it out… I was sick and cranky and I asked Other-Husband to go to the library and find me something new and interesting to read (not like I had a hundred books at home I hadn’t read or anything) and that was what he came back with. It was truly amazing how she stole stuff from EVERYONE who had published in the genre and was suddenly lauded as being this home-managing genius!
…pretty sure I’ve only got one more episode until I’m all caught up on the mandalorian’s second season
…& I watched the latest pixar movie because I’m a sucker for animated stuff…it’s called “soul”…& it continues their tendency to package potentially quite troubling content in a way that makes it wierdly palatable for kids…they did “inside out”…& “coco”…& you know, the whole beginning of “up” which has been known to bring a dear to more than one grown up eye…& this is maybe similar…wouldn’t want to get into spoiler territory but there’s some traffic between this world & the next involved…so…life/death…the concept of incarnation… kid’s stuff…child’s play…ummm…obviously?
…not perhaps my top pick of the pixar movies but I enjoyed it & if you like their stuff it’s worth a watch
…as, so I’m told, is the latest wonder woman movie but I haven’t got that far yet, myself?
@SplinterRIP, you probably know this already, but at the end of the last Mandalorian episode, all the way at the end of the credits, there is a short Easter egg video. Also, do you have your television set up?
…I do indeed have my tv set up…although somewhat irritatingly it updated itself into not doing some of things it used to do quite happily so I need to tinker with it a bit so it goes back to doing what I’d like
…but until I get around to having a pointed conversation with my ISP about why their router appears to be causing problems of another sort I’m not sure I’ll get it to fully cooperate
…so for now to get that mandalorian episode to stream on the tv I have to go start the stream on a laptop in a different room where a wifi extender offers the network connection & then carry that through & stream it to the tv
…miracles of modern technology in full effect…or something?
May the tech gods smile upon you. That sounds like a nightmare.
…the tech god’s generally prefer to amuse themselves at my expense, I find
…in fact the way I ended up getting paid from time to time to make other people’s tech play nice stems more or less entirely from a history of figuring out why mine likes to misbehave in ways that generally don’t seem to happen to other people
…that said, in this instance I think it’s just a regular kind of annoyance where on the one hand the tv (which is an android thing) worked fine until some update or other “improved” it in some way that doesn’t suit me…& the ISP/router thing is because they want customers to upgrade to a package they make better money off in order to get a router that doesn’t cause the issue
…so if I have to I can probably reset the tv & get that to do most of what it used to…but if I can pin the ISP tech support down & make them acknowledge they’re causing the problem I might be able to correct it (or just replace their router with a better one) & that might be enough to restore some of the functions the tv currently has trouble with…like running the disney+ app
…for now, though…it’s one of those illogical things that I’m more used to than I should be
Watching Bridgerton for the “plot”… The Plot:
Though TBH the entire plot could have been solved by comprehensive sex education for the ladies.
@MegMegMcGee, I know nothing about this show. Apparently one watches it for the (ahem) scenery?
Pretty people in (and out of) pretty costumes. I’m enjoying it.
Currently reading Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch. pretty amusing, easy read so far, but there are a couple details that minorly annoy me. It may not be a thing, so I’m going to try and suspend judgement until I get another couple books into the series.
Watching has been some Preacher and Broad City on Hulu, with a few lefty youtubers here and there. A bit slower than usual, since I’ve been pretty tired lately, and then I got some new computer games I’ve been messing about with…
Nothing new listening-wise, I just typically have my library on shuffle. I am overdue to buy some CDs though, since I usually pick them up at shows (for newer/less famous artists), or at CD stores, neither of which has been an option for like 9 months now…
@Lochaber, Ben Aaronovitch’s River series is my total cup of tea. His shrewd and subtlety sarcastic descriptions of the most mundane of things (traffic circles, buildings, etc.) are a joy to read. Plus, magic!
@Elliecoo
I just kinda like the whole urban-fantasy genre in general. I think at least part of it is that I still like dragons and elves and werewolves and vampires and such, but repeatedly trying to learn completely new settings, with their geographies, politics, history, etc., can get a bit tiring. I know the Rivers of London is one of the more popular series, and I don’t imagine it’s without reason.
Ooooh!! Just a thought, on your “buying new music” thing, that I wouldn’t know, except that at my previous “job with the kiddos” one of my co-workers was in a popular local band who goes (went!) out on tour every so often… and because I’m on the Rhymesayers’ mailing list
Don’t forget that you CAN buy albums from most band’s websites😉
Whether it’s CD’s, digital downloads, or actual Vinyl, almost EVERY band–especially the smaller, indie folks(!!!) could REALLY be helped by folks who buy directly from them (just like we used to at those little venues where they could be seen live😉😁🤗💖
@emmerdoesnotrepresentme
-that’s a good point, next time I feel like buying something, but don’t have any pressing need, I’ll go through my music folder and start checking to find various artist’s websites, and get some of the CDs I don’t have. Might be able to get some tshirts that way too…
I’ve got Midnight Riot and the second book in the series on hold at the library… eagerly awaiting them to come in!
Another person who still buys physical media 🙌💿
Good Karma Hospital sounds like something I’d like, I will check it out.
I read A Wish For Wings That Work by Berke Breathed, another Christmas tradition.
We hate-watched Die Hard, somehow my daughter had never seen it.
I listened to Hotel Cafe Presents Winter Songs suggested by@brightersideoflife. I won’t link to anything because I’m sure everyone is sick of Christmas music. It was, as she said, spotty but had some good stuff on it.
@Hannibal, let me know if you like it! And Die Hard is always good for a non-Christmas Christmas movie.
Ha, we made the youngest sibling(a millennial) watch Die Hard with us – told her it was a great Christmas movie – she didn’t care for the movie and wasn’t convinced it was a Christmas one until she posted it on instagram that we were making her watch it and all of her friends said it was indeed a Christmas movie.
Read: Walter Mosley, “And Sometimes I Wonder About You.” A Leonid McGill mystery, not the best, you have to suspend disbelief here and there. I preferred “All I Did Was Shoot My Man,” but at least he has learned to slow down and tell the story. The first couple of McGill novels tended to have several complex story lines which he tried to resolve in the last 20 pages. Kinda confusing sometimes.
Watched: “Bad Moms Christmas.” The bad moms’ bad moms show up for Christmas, and hilarity ensues. Not as good as the first movie, but worth a watch. Susan Sarandon is pretty good.
“Drunk Parents.” Amusing. Salma Hayek has some great comedic moments and a cameo from Will Farrell and Colin Quinn as two bums named Will and Colin.
Listened to: Didn’t spend much time in the car this week, which is where I do most of my listening, so here’s a random song from my playlist:
Bad Moms Christmas shows up for the watching on our steaming services, will look into it. I’ve not read any Walter Mosley, but I think that you have suggested him before…I will need to add him to my wish list.
I was moved in an odd way by “Debbie Doesn’t do it Anymore.” It’s one of his standalones.
Two two-fers:
Music: Been listening to a wide range, but these two albums stuck with me this week for multiple listens:
Glen Phillips – Swallowed by the New.
Jane’s Addiction – The Great Escape Artist.
Books: I’ve finished two this week, amazingly.
“Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder: A Memoir” by Julia Zarankin
Another birding book. The author finds birding in a fairly non-linear way, with lots of ups and downs. Zarakin is a good writer. I liked the book despite the fact that I probably would not choose to hang out much with the author — she would probably push a few of my buttons. But a very good write-up of what it’s like to start out, especially in the company of others who are so very good at birding. Would recommend.
“Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education” by Michael Pollan
A gardening book. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Pollan gets very introspective at times, but he always pulls back out for big-picture stuff, and some humor as well. Pretty disarming, especially as he recounts his failures as much as, if not more than, his successes. Was first published in 1991, which is before widespread internet, so his sections devoted to seed catalogs is a bit dated, but not entirely: all the catalogs have corresponding websites now, and the divisions that he writes about still largely exist. Would highly recommend.
I’m a little late to the party, but I’ll throw my $0.02 in anyway 🙂
Reading – still working through She Come By It Natural by Sarah Smarsh. Also reading Dangerous Embrace by Nora Roberts, which I thought was a new one but turned out to be a 2-in-1 reprint of a couple of her old Silhouette romance novels from 1986. Not that bad, but I can’t say they’ve aged terribly well.
Watching – Disjointed on Netflix, which is hilarious but I can only take a couple of episodes at a time. Also watched about 87 episodes of Guy’s Grocery Games while I was crocheting my fingerprints off this week trying to get Christmas presents finished. Other-Husband and I are watching Stargate SG1 together from the beginning, because he’s never really watched it. Watched Down Periscope last night, because that movie is insanely funny and never gets old.
Listening to – nothing in particular, myself, though O-H is obsessed with Doja Cat at the moment and keeps playing her latest album.