Review: Well written, gripping novel that
takes place over 25 years. Set in London and the south of France, the story of family
whose lives are taken over by a cult like figure and eventually imprisoned in their
own house. The story nicely pulls together the narrative of the teen children
who escaped the horrors and the baby left behind. Not as depressing as it
sounds, short chapter and a very quick, quality read. Started pretty slow, and I
almost gave up, but eventually gathered a very nice rhythm.
Notable People: JK
Simmons, Olivia Williams, Harry Lloyd, Nazanin Boniadi, Created by: Justin
Marks
Title: Counterpart
Review: Very strange series, recommended by my
TV highbrow connoisseur, Feel. Simmons is brilliant playing two roles of the same
person in parallel worlds…I mean subtly brilliant. Always liked him, but this a
new level. Many of the cast play double rolls, with aplomb. The story is bit convoluted,
and at times, hard to track back and forth between the parallel worlds….but
less sci-fi than you might think, and quite the storyline. Did not think I would
like this, but really did. I doubt any more seasons are probable after the ending
of season two.
Notable People: Tcheky
Karyo, James Nesbitt, Frances O’Connor, Created by: Jack and Harry Williams
Title: The Missing
Review: This is the precursor to
Baptiste, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, and is the origin of the Baptiste
charter, astoundingly portrayed by Tcheky Karyo. He’s a strange cross between
Foyle (of Foyles’ War) and Colombo. The story of a missing child and his parents
eight-year journey to find him in the remote French countryside is so compelling
it’s hard to not binge watch it. Very complex drama about loss, giving and relationships,
built around the extraordinary presence of Baptiste…. a man who never (I mean never ) gives up. Subtle, profound,
riveting. There is a second season which we are just starting- but a completely
separate storyline for the aging Batiste to obsess over. A gem!
“But every so often something shatters like ice
and we are in the river of our existence. We are aware.” ………………………………………………….
Louise Erdrich
“It’s all a passing show…. Just watch it.” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Anagarika
Munindra- Ji
“Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground.
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down” ………………………………………………………Neil Young
Wienie, Wienie Quarantinie,
Up the mountain, green-green scenery,
Big brown bear, at front door preening,
Inn’s a mess, we can’t stop cleaning,
Pandemic blues, the streets are teeming,
Houses, houses…fate careening,
Wienie, Wienie, Quarantinie.
Last two weeks a blur….too much even to Blog
last Sunday………whirlwind of leaving the heartland…..Last supper with kids an
Bebe filled with tears….saying goodbye to our lifeline after months of time together….and
then ….The House (the old one)…trying to get it ready to sell without being
there…..final burst of cleaning, fixing, removing all evince of rodents…..end
of months of updating and purifying……and keep our fingers crossed……naturally,
as soon as we left, got two offers as we were driving away…..so now IN Contractus…….with
any luck will be down to two houses by end of July….and then, really time to say
our goodbyes, which we have studiously avoided through constant work back at the
farm, regular hot tubbing and doing laundry….but the soul must have its rest…and
the end is not in sight….
Leaving the new abode tuned out more emotional
than expected….maybe it is just that it has been the Corona safety zone for months…our
own castle and moat from the storm…..but it is also a lot easier to get ready
to leave a 40 year old house than a 175 year old house….bet on that…….In our curbside
pickups last week at grocery and Walmart, kept count of people wearing masks
inside the stores and it hit a bit less than 30%…which is frightening….too
much too soon…..greed Trumps safety….think there’s gonna be hell to pay…..
We had last bursts of social discourse before we
left…more than in months….had Zoom cocktails with Phil et Maux (a first for
us), socially distanced drinks on the deck with our realtor and fiancé, hands
off cookout with The Nave and Suba an a garage side visit from our King of lawn
mowing neighbor, Roger, across the street…who left us with reams of wipes, sanitizers
and gloves for our journey (medical supply business)…plus he turned to be the
community Yenta, regaling us with tidbits of choice gossip for folks from each
house in the neighborhood………………..
The leaving and the drive east were uneventful, which is a first……very, very hot drive days, but newly fixed AC worked and Lucy slept for nine straight hours…no doubt in preparation for her patrolling duties on the Mount. We bit the bullet and stayed at our usual Marriott in Binghamton, which astoundingly is following a policy of five days between guests in each room…. with contact-less check in and outside entry to our condo like unit…seemed pretty safe…. ardent readers will remember this as the place of the fiery explosion last year when Stu tried to boil water on the stovetop where Jenn had placed the fridge shelf she had taken out. Though the room has gotten over the smell …. hey still had not replaced the missing shelf whish we surreptitiously took with us to avoid hellfire and brimstone…
Had the good fortune to run into local radio station
somewhere in the middle- of – nowhere NY….and learned that the next day was the
start of “speed week” in New York…..which fortunately I understood did not mean
you could speed without penalty….the next day the patrol was out in abundance,
trying to match their 24,000 tickets issued during last years “Speed Week”….but
we were ready for them and arrived without citation for the first time in many
years…also had a chance to hear Governor Cuomo’s daily Corona briefing…..WOW……it’s
like a sermon from the mount….can we just all decide to have him be our fearless
leader?….
Arrival back at The Inn was as expected…only worse……………. after being gone for two extra months….had phone troubles, usual infestations, grass two feet high in places, no hot water, broken dishwasher and multiple leaks…..oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam….something tidy and small, with a housekeeping staff and just one of them, please….needless to say, we have been at it for days, and starting to feel a smidgen on top of the chaos…..Friday brought an onslaught of our local peeps…who we had to hold at bay with stun guns…..Jewish Pig Farmer an Ms. JPF showed Friday night to bring us dinner and stayed ten feet way…but it went downhill from there….the Masseuse in the Trailer burst into the house with arms wide open foe hugging , before I made her, at gunpoint, go get her mask and stay at the threshold……then an endless stream…… we tried shouting about our two week Quarantinie requirement (which may be lifted this week be Herr Guvnor) with only moderate success…….Our local grocery, Hannaford, offers on line ordering and pickup, but no curbside (Boo!)…so yours truly entered a store for the first time in over 3 moths, with my Hazmat suit on….vey impressed with over 90% of shoppers wearing masks…….clearly very low incidence in these parts and getting better quickly, but also getting ready to re-open in earnest…and we know what happens when that happens……
Very uncertain about the whole thing about Race is
like in the mountains, since everyone is white…and we have no TV, so cutoff from
the 24-hour mind bend of protests and police rioting, which is a relief and somewhat
unsettling both…….
Woke Saturday morning to the wafting through the
window sounds of Bob Marley, which signaled the return of the Jamaicans down
the hill……Lucy immediately joined them for the day……and we had to tie her down when
the aromas of roasted goat began to drift up the in the evening….while The Queen
hauled endless wheelbarrows of grass clippings in circles around the yard, I rolled
down the mount to Wallingford and picked up dinner at Sal’s’…which we ate on
the porch in barely 50 degree weather……an adjustment to be back to 70 degree
(if lucky and not this weekend) days and 40 degree nights….
The Yard is a mess, the house is overwhelming, The
Queen is running round (unkempt/ uncut hair flying in the wind…we have neither had
a cut in three mints, and reverting to late 70s-early 80s dos) in circles with
a jug of vinegar in one hand and her phone in the other to listening to a
podcast on why vaccines are bad, ….But…The
Pond…..can you say PRISTINE?
Gotta get tromping through the weeds and ticks
and try to get the old machines up and running and stop water from flowing in various
house orifices……………. River deep…Mountain High…
Review: The follow up book to Morris’s
award winning concentration camp story, “The Taoists of Auschwitz. This book is
hard to put down. Cilka was introduced in the first book and is based on a real
person and real events that took a 16-year-old girl from the horrors of Auschwitz
to the equally atrocious Russian Siberian Gulag work camps. A young woman who was
painted a traitor after the war, who in actuality saved more lives than can be
counted. A touching, horrific, and inspiring story of brutality, perseverance
and rising above. A book not to be missed.
Notable People: Tcheky
Karyo, Tom Hollander, Anastasia Hile, Alec Seceraneau, Barbara Sarafien, Created
by: Jack and Harry Williams
Title:
Baptiste
Review: Nice little show about a semiretired
French policeman, famous for finding missing people, living in Amsterdam. Quite
convoluted plot about a ring of mysterious Russian teen girl importers, but the
cast is good, the show is wonderfully filmed on location, and it’s hard not to
love the aging Baptiste- played lovingly by the ethnically confusing Karyo. This
was an offshoot form an earlier PBS Masterpiece popular show called The Missing.
You cannot go wrong, ever, with Masterpiece.
Notable People: David Cornsweet,
Jake Picking, Jeremy Pope, Patti Lupone, Dylan McDermott, Jim Parsons, Joe
Mantello, Created by: Ian Brennan and Ryan
Murphy
Title:
Hollywood
Review: Need a little break from all the
intensity? Surprisingly complex show, despite the formulaic story lines, about
a group of people trying to make it Hollywood during the repressive 50s. Racism,
Sexism, and general inequality are addressed throughout. The scenes are shot in
very stylized manner, but the overall effect is quite good. Lupone is magnificent
and Rob Reiner has wonderful auxiliary role. The cast is really quite good. Even
has a Hollywood ending. One season will be it. Thee thumbs up.
Review: Brilliantly written book about the experiences of a (too) young German soldier and a blind French girl during the second world war. Each very small chapter, alternating their unique story from the stat to the end of the war- and the to the present, ultimately centering around the tiny seaside city of St. Malo on the Brittany coast. Extraordinary look inside the minds and hearts of two young people caught up in something that makes no sense and which they have no control over. Tragic, illuminating, heartfelt, uplifting- all at the same time. I savored this book for many weeks.
“Wheel’s on fire
Rollin down the road
Let’s notify my next of kin
This wheel shall explode” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Bob Dylan and
Richard Manual
“In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must
confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”………………………………………Winston
Churchill
“His rise to power was mostly based on his excellent
oration and manipulation skills.
He understood very well the politics of his time and based
his propaganda on hatred towards other countries, blaming them for any
instability of his own country” ……………………Description of Adolph Hitler
I was born and raised in the mean streets-shtetl of The
Bronx
With many people of many places and many colors
My schools were the halls of diversity
Amongst the first” bussing” schools in our nation
I had the fortune of experiencing a giant shift in culture
when I left at a tender age
To find a new life in the heartland, far from the skyscrapers
and teeming streets of the metropolis
I have made many, many mistakes
And I can’t change them, I acknowledge them, I live with
them
I have traveled the world over
Yet here, amongst the amber waves of grain, is where I love-
and live
Living in to beautiful places
A blessing-and a curse
I have three children, who I love and admire beyond words
I have three granddaughters, who are teaching me a new meaning
for love
I have three houses and three cars…which are a burden
I have a partner who is both the challenge and the love of
my life
I have suffered great loss…and strive to be better for (or despite)
it
With occasional success
I have brothers and sisters who I make music with
That sustains me and keeps me alive
I have the privilege to do work (still)
That gives me a platform to speak out for children and families
I have lifelong friends from childhood, from college, from travels
That I continue to draw strength from
Sometimes life is a real ball buster
But I would not trade it for anything
To live here, to live now
In the country of my dreams.
What MY America can
be:
The most beautiful place on earth
A place that people love and care for one another—where
the “We” is as (if not more) important than the “Me”
A free and just place to live and love
A place that allows for differences in thought,
action and preferences
A place that encourages the freedom to think
outside the box
A place in which the fortunate concern themselves
with the less fortunate
An inspirational land
A democracy in which we all have voice and in which
we have leaders of integrity and vision who represent us honorably
The freedom to choose anything that does not
hurt someone else
Profoundly and wonderfully diverse
What
MY America Cannot be:
Narrow-minded and hateful
Fearful of difference
Indifferent to fairness and justice
A place that makes life great for a privileged few and insufferable for too many
Leaderless…helmed by despots who seek only personal gain and power
Cruel and unusually punishing
A place unable to reconcile and learn from its past and move towards a kind, fair and equitable future
Greed, Power and Wealth over caring and compassion
Isolated, authoritative and demeaning
An environment of distrust, fear and loathing
C’mon
people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try and love one another
RIGHT NOW……………………
Hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend…the official start to the Bizarro summer…. drove over to babysit Bebe yesterday and every restaurant parking lots were full, traffic was huge, and the parks we overflowing with cars and people…. guess we’re officially back to normal now…. are we nuts or what………we are preparing to flee to the mountain remoteness in the next few weeks…before The Apocalypse…and it is or constitutional right to not give a shit about anyone else….do you feel me?
So- really, what is there to say…. we eat, we
drink, we sleep, we work on both houses, we pay the bills, make a few calls to
stay in touch, binge watch serial TV, mow one yard, then mow the other yard, paint,
prime, stain, fix things…. then start over…breaks to be Nana and Papi a few times
a week…and that’s all she wrote…………………
Esoteric fact of the week…the passing of Ken
Osmond…. the infamous Eddie “you look lovely today, Mrs. Beaver” Haskell……you
have to be of an age for this one…
Feelin fine, the world’s all mine,
Early mornin’ chills, I still can get my thrills.
That woman’s Baa-aa-aad…. The Best I ever had.
I’m gonna get me to the graveyard on time…now,
I write poems, but none of them rhyme …. now.
No more side roads, I’ll go on the main line…now,
Can’t you tell that I’m feelin’ just fine…wow,
wow, wow, wow…………………………………………………………….” Ten to One” ……………………….1976, Columbus,
Ohio
Match The Quotes Time-
“I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging
themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix….”
“The truth is more important than the facts
“I think most people would understand what I would think about the current
American President’s handling of the Pandemic, but it’s probably better
sometimes not to say it.”
“One day…it is like a miracle…it will just disappear”
“Book ‘em…Dan-O”
“Here and now, boys…. here and now”
Pipe
dreams and fantasy schemes, it never turns out quite the way it seems…The
faster you run, it’s just that much longer to go”
