Sunday afternoon musings
Thing one: some of you eat paleo, yes? Here's my thing. I was a gluten-free vegetarian, but I've been having so many more GI-related problems in the past few months, and I've now cut dairy and legumes, which seems to be helping. Except that there go my two primary sources of protein. So I've been sucking it up and making myself eat small quantities of (organic, sustainably-raised) meat and eggs. That's the preface to say I'll never really go paleo. I'm doing well to choke down one chicken breast over the course of a week, and you'll have to pry the rice from my cold, dead hands.
But a lot of my go-to meals, especially 1) things that make easy leftovers to take to work for lunch, and 2) things that can be tossed together quickly for an after-work dinner, are now off the table. Week one off dairy and gluten involved a lot of salad, scrambled eggs, and baked sweet potatoes. All fine, but I need more in the repertoire, and I particularly need easy lunch options/leftovers in a world without beans.
So I thought some of the paleo crowd might, in particular, have some suggestions. Veggie-heavy, please. I eat meat in little bits mixed with other stuff. I will never eat a big piece of meat and have that be the main event. But are there cassaroles, stews, dishes that create good leftovers, etc. that you like? Other dishes that are go-to, prep-lite after work dinner options? Rice, corn, quinoa all allowed--so not actually paleo, but I thought that might be the best place to look for recipes without gluten, dairy, or legumes.
**
Thing two: oh, Rizzoli and Isles, how do I love you so much when you're really so terrible?! Mostly I just have incoherent thoughts about friendships and romance. The reason I keep loving the hell out of it, despite the fact that it's lousy TV, objectively speaking, is its persistent foregrounding of Jane and Maura's friendship as the most important relationship in their lives. The show constantly uses partnership and marriage tropes for the two of them. The men who come and go in their lives serve only to reinforce their bond with each other. In a society that constantly puts friendship on a lower rung than romance, and especially romantic partnerships (see the phrase "just friends," for instance), it's completely refreshing.
Yet the show also tends to hold back from actually making that statement explicitly. This whole strung-out plot where Jane might go and marry Casey is frustrating not just because the point of the show is that she should be with Maura, but also because it's lazy. I have no idea why Jane is even considering marrying Casey because he's only an empty idea of a man. What does he like and dislike? What does she see in him? What does he see in her? Etc. Who knows? Presumably he's good in bed, because that's basically the only interaction they seem to have. And is the show doing this lazy characterization on purpose, in order to demonstrate how much richer Jane and Maura's relationship really is? Or is it falling back on the assumption that "of course" Jane would be swept off her feet by Casey, because [stereotypes about heterosexual romance], regardless of his characterization?
Meanwhile, I was poking at fic because I do that from time to time for this show, and 99% of it is firmly in the camp that Jane and Maura are in love with each other, and if Jane chooses Maura over Casey, the next scene finds Jane and Maura in bed together. And I can certainly enjoy and appreciate some Rizzles femslash, but that storyline also falls back on the assumption that if this is the most important relationship of their lives, they must also be romantically in love, sleeping together, etc.--which still seems like a really narrow way of seeing the possibilities of relationships.
And I'm not completely sure what my point is, except that Casey needs to go away because obviously it's all about Jane and Maura, but I don't really care if they have sex or not. And a show of this level of mediocrity should not inspire me to try to have coherent thoughts about it.
**
Thing three: The Americans!!! This is what I've actually been meaning to write about. Now that I've caught up with the show and had a little time to digest, I wanted to think about why it's pushing my buttons so hard. (Besides the Alias crossover possibilities. Those are still a thing, absolutely, but I'm also falling for the show and these characters in their own right, and not just because they remind me of Irina and Jack in various ways.)
The good: So Elizabeth Jennings basically hits all my buttons: morally ambiguous middle-aged(-ish) woman with a side of ambivalent motherhood. And like so many of the other characters like her that I have loved (see also: Sarah Connor, Laura Roslin, Irina Derevko), she is a true believer in her ideological mission. She is a patriot, and her twenty years living a double life in the US, raising American children, hasn't muddied her loyalties--at least not as far as she is concerned. Elizabeth compartmentalizes--effectively and massively unhealthily--and one of the themes threading through the show thus far are the consequences of this way of living. Can she have a real marriage, or does that blurring of the lines between cover story and real life compromise her ability to do her job (which is also her ability to keep herself and her family alive)? I think, especially give the season 2 premiere, that we could possibly be headed for a moment where Elizabeth is forced to choose between her country and her family, and that will be interesting indeed, because I suspect that's precisely what terrifies her so much she couldn't even put it into words.
Philip proves an effective foil for her because he does a much better job inhabiting the ambiguity. He is more at ease in the US. He understands the Americans, understands the attractions of capitalism even as he fights against it, understands what makes his children tick in a way that Elizabeth can't. This makes his violence all the more jarring--to us, and perhaps, when he lets himself think about it, to himself. It also means it's difficult to predict his actions and motivations.
I like the show best when it's foregrounding what a good working team Philip and Elizabeth are. Their job is primary, and how they feel about each other fits in around the edges. Probably my two favorite scenes thus far demonstrate this. The first, when, after a horrendous day of torture and betrayal, they sit in the car, not saying a word to each other, and drive into the tree to maintain their cover. And the second, Elizabeth serving as witness to Philip's marriage to Martha, which manages to be delightfully fucked up as only their lives can be, and also oddly sweet.
The bad: If my favorite way of looking at Philip and Elizabeth's relationship is through the lens of and around the edges of their working partnership, the flip side is that I got a little impatient with the degree to which the show foregrounds their relationship as such. The romance roller coaster was a bit excessive. First he's the one who demonstrably cares more for her, while she pushes him away. Then she starts to fall for him and ends things with Gregory. Then he pulls away as he meets Irina again. Then they split up. Then they're back together. All in the space of a few months, despite the fact that apparently they just went along with some kind of agreed-upon and stable dynamic for all the twenty years before this? I could have bought these shifts more slowly, over a longer time frame, but as it was, it just verged on soap opera-ness at times. I'm glad that season 2 looks to be framed more around the whole family and the complications that Paige and Henry bring into the mix, especially as they get older. Because that, to me, is so much more interesting than Philip and Elizabeth's marriage.
The ugly: Killing both major recurring characters of color in back to back episodes. Really, show????? There is enough else that I really love about the show that this wasn't a dealbreaker, but I certainly considered letting it be.
Etc.: Beyond Phillip and Elizabeth, I also love most of the other characters and plot threads. Nina is fantastic, as is Claudia. I love the idea of the two of them, plus Elizabeth, representing three generations of female spies. I'd love to see (or maybe write, though I can't figure out how to frame it yet) fic exploring this.
I also lovelovelove Paige and Henry and the possibilities for their futures. One fic I definitely want to write is "Five Things that Never Happened to Paige Jennings."
And speaking of fic, I also really want to write the AU crossover in which Gregory does go to Moscow and runs into another Soviet spy who returned to Moscow in 1981 after years undercover in the US: Irina Derevko. Possibly I am the sole audience for such a fic. As obvious as the crossover seems to be to me, I haven't run across other people in the fledgeling fandom who are doing this. I guess people are not also Alias fans?
Overall, I'm finding the show tremendously compelling, not only for the stories it is telling and how it's telling them, but also for the possibilities left unexplored. There's something about the way it's poised, rather in medias res, where both backstories and 30 years of future stories are just begging to be explored. That, perhaps, is the X factor for me when I think about why I'm feeling fannish about this and not about so many of the other shows I've enjoyed in recent years. Those other shows have given me everything I wanted onscreen. I loved them, but I didn't need to do anything more after stepping away from the screen. Whereas with The Americans, what's on the screen just feels like the starting point.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
But a lot of my go-to meals, especially 1) things that make easy leftovers to take to work for lunch, and 2) things that can be tossed together quickly for an after-work dinner, are now off the table. Week one off dairy and gluten involved a lot of salad, scrambled eggs, and baked sweet potatoes. All fine, but I need more in the repertoire, and I particularly need easy lunch options/leftovers in a world without beans.
So I thought some of the paleo crowd might, in particular, have some suggestions. Veggie-heavy, please. I eat meat in little bits mixed with other stuff. I will never eat a big piece of meat and have that be the main event. But are there cassaroles, stews, dishes that create good leftovers, etc. that you like? Other dishes that are go-to, prep-lite after work dinner options? Rice, corn, quinoa all allowed--so not actually paleo, but I thought that might be the best place to look for recipes without gluten, dairy, or legumes.
**
Thing two: oh, Rizzoli and Isles, how do I love you so much when you're really so terrible?! Mostly I just have incoherent thoughts about friendships and romance. The reason I keep loving the hell out of it, despite the fact that it's lousy TV, objectively speaking, is its persistent foregrounding of Jane and Maura's friendship as the most important relationship in their lives. The show constantly uses partnership and marriage tropes for the two of them. The men who come and go in their lives serve only to reinforce their bond with each other. In a society that constantly puts friendship on a lower rung than romance, and especially romantic partnerships (see the phrase "just friends," for instance), it's completely refreshing.
Yet the show also tends to hold back from actually making that statement explicitly. This whole strung-out plot where Jane might go and marry Casey is frustrating not just because the point of the show is that she should be with Maura, but also because it's lazy. I have no idea why Jane is even considering marrying Casey because he's only an empty idea of a man. What does he like and dislike? What does she see in him? What does he see in her? Etc. Who knows? Presumably he's good in bed, because that's basically the only interaction they seem to have. And is the show doing this lazy characterization on purpose, in order to demonstrate how much richer Jane and Maura's relationship really is? Or is it falling back on the assumption that "of course" Jane would be swept off her feet by Casey, because [stereotypes about heterosexual romance], regardless of his characterization?
Meanwhile, I was poking at fic because I do that from time to time for this show, and 99% of it is firmly in the camp that Jane and Maura are in love with each other, and if Jane chooses Maura over Casey, the next scene finds Jane and Maura in bed together. And I can certainly enjoy and appreciate some Rizzles femslash, but that storyline also falls back on the assumption that if this is the most important relationship of their lives, they must also be romantically in love, sleeping together, etc.--which still seems like a really narrow way of seeing the possibilities of relationships.
And I'm not completely sure what my point is, except that Casey needs to go away because obviously it's all about Jane and Maura, but I don't really care if they have sex or not. And a show of this level of mediocrity should not inspire me to try to have coherent thoughts about it.
**
Thing three: The Americans!!! This is what I've actually been meaning to write about. Now that I've caught up with the show and had a little time to digest, I wanted to think about why it's pushing my buttons so hard. (Besides the Alias crossover possibilities. Those are still a thing, absolutely, but I'm also falling for the show and these characters in their own right, and not just because they remind me of Irina and Jack in various ways.)
The good: So Elizabeth Jennings basically hits all my buttons: morally ambiguous middle-aged(-ish) woman with a side of ambivalent motherhood. And like so many of the other characters like her that I have loved (see also: Sarah Connor, Laura Roslin, Irina Derevko), she is a true believer in her ideological mission. She is a patriot, and her twenty years living a double life in the US, raising American children, hasn't muddied her loyalties--at least not as far as she is concerned. Elizabeth compartmentalizes--effectively and massively unhealthily--and one of the themes threading through the show thus far are the consequences of this way of living. Can she have a real marriage, or does that blurring of the lines between cover story and real life compromise her ability to do her job (which is also her ability to keep herself and her family alive)? I think, especially give the season 2 premiere, that we could possibly be headed for a moment where Elizabeth is forced to choose between her country and her family, and that will be interesting indeed, because I suspect that's precisely what terrifies her so much she couldn't even put it into words.
Philip proves an effective foil for her because he does a much better job inhabiting the ambiguity. He is more at ease in the US. He understands the Americans, understands the attractions of capitalism even as he fights against it, understands what makes his children tick in a way that Elizabeth can't. This makes his violence all the more jarring--to us, and perhaps, when he lets himself think about it, to himself. It also means it's difficult to predict his actions and motivations.
I like the show best when it's foregrounding what a good working team Philip and Elizabeth are. Their job is primary, and how they feel about each other fits in around the edges. Probably my two favorite scenes thus far demonstrate this. The first, when, after a horrendous day of torture and betrayal, they sit in the car, not saying a word to each other, and drive into the tree to maintain their cover. And the second, Elizabeth serving as witness to Philip's marriage to Martha, which manages to be delightfully fucked up as only their lives can be, and also oddly sweet.
The bad: If my favorite way of looking at Philip and Elizabeth's relationship is through the lens of and around the edges of their working partnership, the flip side is that I got a little impatient with the degree to which the show foregrounds their relationship as such. The romance roller coaster was a bit excessive. First he's the one who demonstrably cares more for her, while she pushes him away. Then she starts to fall for him and ends things with Gregory. Then he pulls away as he meets Irina again. Then they split up. Then they're back together. All in the space of a few months, despite the fact that apparently they just went along with some kind of agreed-upon and stable dynamic for all the twenty years before this? I could have bought these shifts more slowly, over a longer time frame, but as it was, it just verged on soap opera-ness at times. I'm glad that season 2 looks to be framed more around the whole family and the complications that Paige and Henry bring into the mix, especially as they get older. Because that, to me, is so much more interesting than Philip and Elizabeth's marriage.
The ugly: Killing both major recurring characters of color in back to back episodes. Really, show????? There is enough else that I really love about the show that this wasn't a dealbreaker, but I certainly considered letting it be.
Etc.: Beyond Phillip and Elizabeth, I also love most of the other characters and plot threads. Nina is fantastic, as is Claudia. I love the idea of the two of them, plus Elizabeth, representing three generations of female spies. I'd love to see (or maybe write, though I can't figure out how to frame it yet) fic exploring this.
I also lovelovelove Paige and Henry and the possibilities for their futures. One fic I definitely want to write is "Five Things that Never Happened to Paige Jennings."
And speaking of fic, I also really want to write the AU crossover in which Gregory does go to Moscow and runs into another Soviet spy who returned to Moscow in 1981 after years undercover in the US: Irina Derevko. Possibly I am the sole audience for such a fic. As obvious as the crossover seems to be to me, I haven't run across other people in the fledgeling fandom who are doing this. I guess people are not also Alias fans?
Overall, I'm finding the show tremendously compelling, not only for the stories it is telling and how it's telling them, but also for the possibilities left unexplored. There's something about the way it's poised, rather in medias res, where both backstories and 30 years of future stories are just begging to be explored. That, perhaps, is the X factor for me when I think about why I'm feeling fannish about this and not about so many of the other shows I've enjoyed in recent years. Those other shows have given me everything I wanted onscreen. I loved them, but I didn't need to do anything more after stepping away from the screen. Whereas with The Americans, what's on the screen just feels like the starting point.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.