So a while ago I mentioned that we were watching Lodge 49, the short-lived comedy-drama set in, of all places, a Masonic*-type lodge up in Long Beach. The show only ran for two seasons**, so even at our snail’s-pace approach to bingeing TV shows, we already finished it. Towards the end, most of the regulars plus a few guest stars piled into a vehicle for a road trip to Mexico in search of a stolen set of ancient scrolls that putatively contained long-sought alchemical secrets. But while the characters were focused on obtaining the scrolls, my wife was focused on something else.
Continue reading “Carpet That Bad Boy”Author: James Viscosi
Teaser Tuesday: Surely You “Infinite Jest”
So this week—and last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and for several weeks yet to come—I am reading one of those novels for which the term “doorstopper” was invented: Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.
The Subtitle Rebellion
So I’ve mentioned a few times that during the last year or two of Dennis’s life, when he got in the habit of complaining loudly in the evenings that he thought it was time for everyone to go to bed*, we humans got in the habit of watching television with the subtitles on, so as not to have to keep pausing and going back to catch missed dialog. Running with the subtitles on also has the occasional side effect of injecting a little bit of extra amusement value, such as describing characters’ speech as “French-like gibberish” or saying things that seem prima facie ridiculous such as “goo snarling“. But then, sometimes, you get cases where the characters say one thing but the subtitles say something completely different and you say to yourself, that can’t possibly be a mistake. To wit:
Continue reading “The Subtitle Rebellion”Trailer Tuesday: “The Outsiders”
So the other day we were scrolling through available movies on streaming, and I spotted The Outsiders* on the list. Readers of a certain age** are likely to remember The Outsiders, the novel, which we all read in high school back in the day. Or at least, most of us did.
Continue reading “Trailer Tuesday: “The Outsiders””Me: “Hey, look! The Outsiders!”
Wife: “What’s The Outsiders?”
Teaser Tuesday: “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union”
So not long ago I was reading The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon.
Teaser Tuesday: “The Rock Child”
So a little while back I read a book called The Rock Child, by Win Blevins:
Apparently this book was later republished under the title Of Love and Demons. The original title refers to a rock formation in the mountains; the revised title refers to … uh … well, I’m not sure, exactly. There’s not really anything supernatural here, but possibly the “demon” would be the book’s main villain, Porter Rockwell, an actual person sometimes referred to as “The Destroying Angel of Mormondom”, who spends most of the novel in pursuit of Our Heroes, consisting of the Mormon-raised half-Indian Asie, abducted Tibetan nun Sun Moon, and … Sir Richard Burton*?!
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: “The Rock Child””You Say That Now …
… but this is 2020. Just you wait.
September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month
No, really, it is! Or at least, it was last year — Congress passed a bill designating September 2019 as such! It seems even these days, it’s possible for the parties to agree that Brain Aneurysms Are Bad. Of course, in September of 2019, I was still a couple of months away from being forced to pay attention to such things … 🤷♂️
In 2020 I guess it has only been designated as such in a few states, but you can read more about National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month here.
Continue reading “September is National Brain Aneurysm Awareness Month”Odds & Ends from This & That
So this week I have a bit of a smorgasbord from our viewing over the last few months: Things that are not long enough to become their own “Not a Review” but that I found amusing at the time. Because, really, this blog is mostly a series of posts about things that amuse me. Mostly.
Continue reading “Odds & Ends from This & That”Teaser Tuesday: “Hope and Red”
So a while back (like, in June; I told you I had stuff stacked up), I was reading Hope and Red, by Jon Skovron, a novel which is sort of half pirate adventure and half urban fantasy, with a generous helping of ninja-style shenanigans.
