Miscellany while waiting...
… for Person of Interest to commence operations, and by operations I mean open-heart surgery that takes three weeks to complete. (Or more, in my case. I'm hoping to get to watch the third part sooner than five days after it airs, but no guarantees.)
a) I take back what I said about Sleepy Hollow. Well, no, I don't, but all is forgiven for the delightful sequence in which Ichabod decides to leave Abbie a voice mail and, because he has barely managed to grasp that his words can be recorded and listened to, and has not yet proceeded to phone etiquette, basically writes a letter out loud, beginning Dear Miss Mills and ending Your Faithful Servant (or something similar; I can't remember). I can be very picky about more aspects of this show than the aforementioned historical inaccuracies, including the ways in which Ichabod adjusts and does not to the 21st century (I have written several novel-chapters in which an 18th-century man adjusts to the 20th century, and I had to think about it constantly to get it right, and he didn't run into any black female police lieutenants), but bits like the above make it all worthwhile. And I think I see where they were heading with the Sally Hemings conversation, even if the circumstances made a full and frank discussion rather impractical. So, all in all, I'm going to keep on watching.
Also, Orlando Jones.
b) Currently reading (after having finished Broken Homes thanks to
pendrecarc, bless you and I will mail it back soon, and oh Lesley what are you doing?): Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, though all in the wrong order because of library availability. So far have read #s 7, 9, 6, 1, and 3, the last two bought over the weekend at Houston's Murder by the Book (my son literally lives around the corner from this delightful place, where Julia Spencer-Fleming was reading and signing her new book today, a day after I left alas. I declined to buy the hardcover. Maybe the Kindle edition). Anyway, I really like Penny's writing: interesting descriptions, gentle sense of humor, intriguing characters, long development arc which I am getting all chopped up and mixed, but whatever. The setting is mostly divided between Montreal and a fictional Quebec village, which reminds me rather of Martha Grimes's Inspector Jury books, but these have a deeper sense of place, less repetitive characterization, and more grit. (The comparison seems to have occurred to the Murder by the Book staff too, since they have Penny shelved under "British," meaning, I gathered when I mildly complained, "cosy." Which I wouldn't say she is at all (nor by any means could one define all British mystery novels that way). But they don't have a Canadian section, just British, American, and Foreign. The placement just strikes me as really weird considering how fundamental the francophone-anglophone conflict is to the plots.) There is a lot about art and a lot about bone-aching resentment, and they should be very sad and aren't, and I am enjoying them greatly.
c) Oh shit it's cold. I am not ready for Suddenly Twenty-Three Degrees Fahrenheit. At least it didn't snow today.
Damn, still not ten o'clock.
This entry was originally posted at http://hedda62.dreamwidth.org/67443.html. There are currently
comments there. Comment here or there.
a) I take back what I said about Sleepy Hollow. Well, no, I don't, but all is forgiven for the delightful sequence in which Ichabod decides to leave Abbie a voice mail and, because he has barely managed to grasp that his words can be recorded and listened to, and has not yet proceeded to phone etiquette, basically writes a letter out loud, beginning Dear Miss Mills and ending Your Faithful Servant (or something similar; I can't remember). I can be very picky about more aspects of this show than the aforementioned historical inaccuracies, including the ways in which Ichabod adjusts and does not to the 21st century (I have written several novel-chapters in which an 18th-century man adjusts to the 20th century, and I had to think about it constantly to get it right, and he didn't run into any black female police lieutenants), but bits like the above make it all worthwhile. And I think I see where they were heading with the Sally Hemings conversation, even if the circumstances made a full and frank discussion rather impractical. So, all in all, I'm going to keep on watching.
Also, Orlando Jones.
b) Currently reading (after having finished Broken Homes thanks to
pendrecarc, bless you and I will mail it back soon, and oh Lesley what are you doing?): Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, though all in the wrong order because of library availability. So far have read #s 7, 9, 6, 1, and 3, the last two bought over the weekend at Houston's Murder by the Book (my son literally lives around the corner from this delightful place, where Julia Spencer-Fleming was reading and signing her new book today, a day after I left alas. I declined to buy the hardcover. Maybe the Kindle edition). Anyway, I really like Penny's writing: interesting descriptions, gentle sense of humor, intriguing characters, long development arc which I am getting all chopped up and mixed, but whatever. The setting is mostly divided between Montreal and a fictional Quebec village, which reminds me rather of Martha Grimes's Inspector Jury books, but these have a deeper sense of place, less repetitive characterization, and more grit. (The comparison seems to have occurred to the Murder by the Book staff too, since they have Penny shelved under "British," meaning, I gathered when I mildly complained, "cosy." Which I wouldn't say she is at all (nor by any means could one define all British mystery novels that way). But they don't have a Canadian section, just British, American, and Foreign. The placement just strikes me as really weird considering how fundamental the francophone-anglophone conflict is to the plots.) There is a lot about art and a lot about bone-aching resentment, and they should be very sad and aren't, and I am enjoying them greatly.
c) Oh shit it's cold. I am not ready for Suddenly Twenty-Three Degrees Fahrenheit. At least it didn't snow today.
Damn, still not ten o'clock.
This entry was originally posted at http://hedda62.dreamwidth.org/67443.html. There are currently
comments there. Comment here or there.