Saturday Morning Brain Drain [4/3/23]

4/3/23 Elliecoo 30
Image via Daily Motion

What I Watched: Season three of Vienna Blood. It has mystery, medicine, class strife, and an undercurrent of incipient Austrian nationalism combined with beautiful period costumes and settings (1906-1908). I like this show and its understated wit. The Guardian, whose reviews I usually trust, found it to be mediocre in 2019, “Vienna Blood review – so much like Sherlock it seems like a spoof”.

2019 review

“Set in Vienna in 1906, where gruff detective Oskar Rheinhardt (Juergen Maurer) is told that a young doctor – Liebermann (Matthew Beard), a fan of Freud – will be shadowing him to learn about “the psychopathy of the criminal mind”. “Catchy,” deadpans Rheinhardt.”

Here’s a 3-minute synopsis of season 3.

What I Read: It was a good book week, with both new items and series continuations.

The Palace Job (Rogues of the Republic Book 1) by Patrick Weekes, book one of a three-book series, on sale for $1.99 for Kindle. An ongoing highlight throughout the book is the “news”. It is provided, daily, to the citizenry by puppet shows featuring manticores, griffins, and dragons spouting and shouting opposing party lines. Each show ends with “Remember, it’s your Republic“, with the crowd replying, “stay informed“. I envision Peter Doocy’s face on one of the puppets.

“The Palace Job is a funny, action-packed, high-fantasy heist caper in the tradition of Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series. Loch is seeking revenge. It would help if she wasn’t in jail. The plan: to steal a priceless elven manuscript that once belonged to her family, but now is in the hands of the most powerful man in the Republic. To do so Loch—former soldier, former prisoner, current fugitive—must assemble a crack team of magical misfits that includes a cynical illusionist, a shapeshifting unicorn, a repentant death priestess, a talking magical warhammer, and a lad with seemingly no skills to help her break into the floating fortress of Heaven’s Spire and the vault that holds her family’s treasure—all while eluding the unrelenting pursuit of Justicar Pyvic, whose only mission is to see the law upheld. What could possibly go wrong?”

Bound For Perdition: a Great War fantasy historical romance (Mysterious Arts Book 1) by Celia Lake. I’ve raved about Ms. Lake’s prolific writing and related series before in Brain Drain. Props to her as she is a full-time librarian in her day job. How she fits in life, work, and writing fueled by meticulous period research is a mystery to me.

“Bound For Perdition is the first book in the Mysterious Arts series. A historical fantasy romance set in 1917 in the magical city of Albion, Britain’s magical community, it is a great entry to Celia Lake’s Albion books. Bound for Perdition is full of bookbinding, coming to grips with injury, navigating class differences, and making a new future in a rapidly changing world.”

The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde. I’ve had this book since January of last year, upon recommendation of @splinterrip, and finally got around to it. OMG, so good (I’ve book two of the seven-book series queued.) The section describing an audience participation Richard III à la Rocky Horror and the odd pop-ins of hero Thursday’s time-traveling father are delightful.

“Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde’s Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë’s novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde’s ingenious fantasy—enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel—unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix. “

What I Listened To: Matt Costa – Jaimie 48 Montage; Gina Birch – I Play My Bass Loud; The Tallest Man On Earth – Every Little Heart; and Minhini, Zands Duggan, Anna Louise Duggan – Bala Rocky.

Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, darling DeadSplinterites? Dearest ones, what is up with you? Do tell!

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About Elliecoo 566 Articles
Four dogs, one partner. The dogs win.

30 Comments

  1. I watched the Murdaugh Murders docuseries on Netflix. This is some real-life Southern Gothic shit. Every person in the immediate family is responsible, allegedly, for another person’s death. Oldest son killed an acquaintance, mom killed the housekeeper, youngest son caused the death of a young woman in a boating accident, dad kills wife and youngest son. Other than that I mostly played Switch games. Now I’m goin g to get my chores done so I can do that all day too. 🙂

  2. I watched Operation Mincemeat, about a British scheme to trick the Germans into diverting their forces to Greece to defend against a faked invasion.

    It was OK, with Colin Firth doing his steadfast bit in one of the leads. But it all seemed kind of rote procedural storytelling. Everything seems a little too respectful.

  3. What I watched:  I think I’ve mentioned before that Mrs. Butcher and I have been going back and watching old sit-coms.  We recently finished watching the entire Mary Tyler Moore Show.  For the most part, the show still holds up.  The writing was very good (so far, based on all of the older shows I’ve watched, the quality of the writing is what really makes the older shows stand out from the newer ones.  The writing for newer shows is pretty much hot garbage.)  However, what I find most interesting about the show is that it really is something of a time capsule for social norms.  The first season’s opening sequence/theme featured a little friendly sexual harassment.  “Mary” was supposed to be a liberated, professional woman, but she was little more than a glorified secretary for the first several seasons, and she was a fucking doormat for all but the last 3 seasons.  But, they did move things along in those later seasons to the point where “Mary” actually did resemble the kind of character that she was always supposed to be.  The show is still funny, and I’ll probably watch it again in a few years.

    What I listened to:  This week’s stop on the tour of the best engineered albums of all time brings us to Mingus Ah Um, by the legendary jazz bassist, Charles Mingus.  Released in 1959 and engineered by Ray Moore, this is one of the seminal jazz albums of all time.  Most of the songs on the album were written by Mingus in reference to other people–mostly tributes to other musicians–or to his early influences.  The opening track, “Better Git It In Your Soul” is inspired by Mingus’ church roots.  “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is a tribute to saxophonist Lester Young, who died just before this album was recorded.  “Open Letter to Duke” is a tribute to the great Duke Ellington.  “Jelly Roll” is a tribute to early jazz pioneer, Jelly Roll Morton.  Contrary to popular belief, “Bird Calls” is not a tribute to Charlie Parker.  Mingus himself said, “It wasn’t supposed to sound like Charlie Parker. It was supposed to sound like birds – the first part.”  The song “Fables of Faubus” is a direct reference to Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, who refused to integrate the schools in his state in 1957, which forced President Eisenhower to send in the National Guard.

    Much of the album was edited down so it would fit on an LP.  Later CD reissues used the unedited recordings, however I wasn’t able to find those on YouTube, so these are the edited versions.

    This album is a testament to the axiom that the best way to get a great sound on tape is to start with a great performance.

     

  4. i didnt read anything of note… just re reading the enemy series till leviathan falls arrives

    watched : the gentlemen… the trailer doesnt really spoil things….but if you havent seent it yet…and guy ritchie generally works for you….i’d recommend going in blind

    i did…its on netflix…and i didnt know it was guy ritchie till the opening credits rolled….its very much his style of movie…and it is fantastic

    and listing tooooooo

    choochoochoochoo!

  6. …very happy to hear you’re enjoying thursday next

    …not sure which ones make up the seven but the nursery rhyme ones are also pretty great

    …the big over easy is humpty dumpty

    …& the analysis of the scene of the goldilocks crime in “the fourth bear” is a thing of beauty & a joy to contemplate?

  7. I’m watching Beyond Paradise, which is a Death in Paradise spinoff that follows Humphrey and Martha as they move back to the UK. It’s alright but if you’re telling me we could have had Jack Mooney and Anna instead of these two I’d take it.

  9. I spent over three hours today in mobile phone purgatory; thank goodness for the smart young man working at the store. I needed a phone and a monthly plan, and the content and my current number transferred over. I’m on an S23 now, from an S8. It was getting glitchy and wouldn’t hold a charge. Then the dog grooming lady came to do nails for all four dogs…and there went the day. Happy weekend!

  10. Been busy, so mostly just reading news stories.

    But this one was linked over on one of the Mpks reddit pages, and ngl, I’d love to see it updated!😉😆😂💖

     

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