television | dual personalities

Last week I went to a lecture about music in Hollywood war movies and the development of end credits. It was actually very interesting. I could certainly relate more to it than to the usual biochemistry and molecular biophysics talks I am forced to sit through. Long story short, it prompted me to watch the old HBO series Band of Brothers from 2001.

I watched three episodes and that was enough for me. It was good, but I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was suffering from PTSD.

Maybe I will go back to it and try again, but I need a break from the intensity. Now I am trying to watch Ken Burns’ Vietnam.

I learned a lot in the first episode. And I was glad to see Karl Marlantes interviewed. We’ll see how far I get. (I am DVR-ing it.)

Meanwhile, this is supposed to arrive today.

Just what I need.

P.S. The OM took Longmire #1 (The Cold Dish) along with him when he went to a conference last week. He is currently reading #3. I believe he is hooked.

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March 23, 2017

Set phasers to stun

by chuckofish

Yesterday William Shatner turned 86, but according to the NYTimes, James Tiberius Kirk won’t be born for another 216 years. Fun fact: there is an actual plaque in the town in Iowa where, according to Star Trek trivia experts, he will be born.

Well, well.

The OM and I were recently watching some old Star Trek episodes from the first season of the original show. I was struck by several things.

1.William Shatner was really quelle handsome and very appealing. He was, indeed, dreamy…and smart! Basically he is the whole show.

2. Everything else is terrible–from the cardboard sets to the sexist costumes to the ridiculous hairdos. Everyone else’s acting is terrible and the writing is (mostly) preposterous.

3. However, the show is engaging and fun to watch.

This is not logical. I have to conclude that the success of the show is entirely due to William Shatner.

So here’s to giving credit where credit is due. Hats off and happy (belated) birthday to William Shatner! May you live long and prosper.

3 Comments

January 26, 2017

You’ve got spunk

by chuckofish

Well, sadly, TV “icon” Mary Tyler Moore has died at the age of 80.

Mary was a person I could relate to. I was in the ninth grade when The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted on television, and I can tell you, growing up in flyover-land where practically everyone in my school was a blue-eyed blonde, it was really nice to have a beautiful brown-eyed, brown-haired actress in the spotlight.

She was always meticulously groomed and chic (at least in my 9th grade opinion )–I remember looking forward to seeing what she would wear each week.

But even though she always looked great, everything did not work out perfectly for Mary. No, she frequently was embarrassed and unsure of herself and sometimes people made fun of her–just like the rest of us.

Plus, Mary Richards was a person who was getting by on her own, as a working gal–an “associate producer” no less. She had ventured out of her comfort zone and often had to push herself to do something. But she got by with a little help from her friends–Rhoda, Lou, Murray et al–as we all do.

Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards taught me (and a lot of other girls) to have confidence. That is no small thing.

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MTM did a lot of other things besides play Mary Richards, and she did them well, but it is for this role that I remember her most fondly. I watched four episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show last night and toasted Mary. More toasting and MTM on the agenda for tonight. (CBS has scheduled a tribute to Mary Tyler Moore tonight at 8 p.m. central time.)

Into paradise may the angels lead thee, Mary, and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. (BCP, Burial of the Dead, Rite I)

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January 20, 2017

Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses*

by chuckofish

I’ve been watching a lot of television lately. In these winter months when I frequently come home after it’s already dark out, I all too often curl up on the couch in the den and stay there. So whether I’m watching a movie or binge-watching Fuller House, season two, on Netflix, which by the way is sensational,

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I try to do something else at the same time so I won’t feel too bad about myself.

Here are some ideas for those of you who think you also spend too much time as winter couch potatoes:

Count all the change that has been piling up in bowls all over the house.

Finish one of those needlepoint projects you’ve started. If needlepoint is not your thing, any craft will do.

Indulge in beauty treatments. I mean, we all need remarkably radiant skin, right?

Any more ideas?

When I’ve had enough of watching the old boob tube, I go back to a book. Right now I’m re-reading The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett, which is excellent.

Unfortunately, reading in the evening usually sends me straight to dreamland and then, before I know it, the alarm is going off and it is time to get up and go to work!

Well, thank goodness it is Friday again. Have a great weekend!

*Toby Keith (I’d forgotten how great he is)

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October 13, 2016

This and that

by chuckofish

Paddington Bear first appeared on October 13, 1958 and has been featured in more than twenty books written by Michael Bond.

Our pater, who was fond of bears and anything English, was a fan of Paddington.

Today is also the birthday of Leon Leonwood Bean (October 13, 1872 – February 5, 1967) the American inventor, author, outdoor enthusiast, and founder of the company L.L. Bean. I vividly remember visiting the L.L. Bean store in Freeport, Maine in 1964. I got a new pair of Blucher Moccassins, which I absolutely loved and wore all summer.

When I wore them to school, however, the original Mean Girl said, “Nice brown tie-up shoes, Katie,” and that was the last time I wore those shoes. As usual, I was ahead of my time, but in the third grade I couldn’t handle being so en avance sur la mode.

I got another pair in high school, when they were all the rage.

I went to college carrying one of these

and equipped with my first pair of L.L. Bean “duck boots,” which I wore happily through my four years in New England and on and on. (I still have them.) This was before the ‘preppie” look became all the rage. Again, en avance sur la mode. I do still think that nothing beats those boots or the “duck shoes” as rainwear for feet. (Maybe these.)

Well, my family was ahead of its time in regards to catalog shopping as well. My mother embraced this form of shopping in the 1960s, starting with the L.L. Bean catalog

and moving on to Carroll Reed and the Tog Shop. We loved looking at the catalogs together. We hardly ever bought anything, but when we did, it was pretty exciting.

Now I do all my shopping online, but that’s another story.

And just a reminder that Supernatural (Season 12) starts tonight.

Not that I am that huge a fan or anything, but I do love Dean Winchester, who says things like, “We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous.” I can relate.

6 Comments

May 25, 2016

“Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best.”*

by chuckofish

Today we celebrate the birthday of the oft-quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803–April 27, 1882).

It would be a good day to take down one of his books, blow off the dust and read it. It would also be a good day to take a walk–an activity he was fond of.

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

I will also remind you that tomorrow (May 26) is the birthday of John Wayne, so you might want to charge up your DVR in anticipation of said day. TCM is, of course, running his movies all day, although it is not a very inspired line-up if you ask me.

I will no doubt dig into my cache of John Wayne favorites and choose something else.

Speaking of JW, last week CBS ran a couple of classic (colorized) episodes of “I Love Lucy” from season 5 of the series–I’m not sure why. Originally broadcast in October of 1955, they centered on Lucy and Ethel trying to steal John Wayne’s footprints from in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the hilarity that ensues. I was never a huge fan of this show and its slapstick comedy, but I admit I laughed out loud watching these two episodes.

Of course, John Wayne was the guest star and at one point Lucy says to him, “Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best,”* and I couldn’t agree more.

The same goes for old Ralph Waldo Emerson. Have a great day and “write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year…”

3 Comments

April 18, 2016

With hearts aflame*

by chuckofish

It was a lovely flyover weekend with temperatures here near 80 degrees on Sunday.

I worked hard outside on Saturday spreading mulch and my back hurt on Sunday so I slowed down some. I planted geraniums in pots.

The boy came over on Saturday night because he was “batching it”–we watched our all-time favorite episodes of Miami Vice:

“Out Where the Buses Don’t Run” (season 2, episode 3)

with Bruce McGill as Hank Weldon

and “El Viejo” (season 3, episode 7)

with Willie Nelson as Jake Pierson

They never disappoint. We are huge nerds, I know, but we amuse ourselves.

In church we sang one of my favorite hymns which always makes me cry.

And it did.

I leave you with the third verse:

The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days;

oh, may thy house be mine abode and all my work be praise.

There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come;

no more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.

(Isaac Watts)

Have a good week.

*Hymn #478, Jesus, our mighty Lord, our strength in sadness

8 Comments

March 31, 2016

Good night, everyone*

by chuckofish

I’m sure you’ve heard that Patty Duke has died. She was 69 and had lived one of those up-and-down Hollywood lives that have become stereotypical. She won an Academy Award as a teenager and three Emmys later in her career. And she starred in a sitcom.

Well, I was one of those kids who loved her TV show in the mid-1960s.

Don’t you love that font?

Her family on the show seemed very normal to me and like people I knew. Remember her annoying brother Ross (with the glasses)? She wore headbands.

Well, it just seems sad to bid her adieu, you know?

Earl Hamner, Jr. also died recently. He was the writer who created The Waltons back in 1971.

This was a show which I was too cool to watch as a teenager when it was first on, but which I enjoyed later in syndication, especially the first two seasons. It was a well done show.

This television show was based on a movie written by Hamner, Spencer’s Mountain (1963) which starred Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara as the parents of the same red-headed brood. I saw this movie as a child and was deeply effected by it, especially the part where a huge tree falls on the grandfather, breaking every bone in his body. That was a terrible scene for my small self. The movie, like the TV show, emphasized the importance of a good education and the lengths to which some people have gone to get one. This seems to be a plot that is no longer popular.

Anyway, I suppose this has reminded me once again that I am no longer a kid. Thankfully these guys are still around.

And ageless.

*John-Boy on The Waltons

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February 25, 2016

Throwback Thursday–snow day edition

by chuckofish

Here is a snapshot of the dual personalities fifty years ago–circa 1965–in Forest Park. There’s not a lot of snow in evidence, but by today’s standards, it’s a snowpocalypse.

We had a snow day yesterday, in fact–all the schools were closed.

A heavy, wet snow fell–we had about 4 inches in the morning–but it turned to slush very fast.

I went out to shovel our front walk and it was like shoveling a slushie. But a lot of people lost their power when tree limbs fell on power lines and transformers blew. It was kind of a mess.

Since I am still recovering from my bad cold/cough/flu/whatever, I was glad to stay home and, except for my brief foray into the yard, take it easy.

Sometimes there is nothing better than a Jim Rockford marathon.

Nothing makes the present look better than a trip down memory lane into the 1970s when detectives talked on pay phones, everyone smoked,

used styrofoam without guilt and drove cars that guzzled gas like nobody’s business.

No offense, Jim. You were the greatest. Even though nothing ever worked out for you, even when you solved the crime and nabbed the bad guy.

I mean, did you ever get paid? By anyone?

Have a good Thursday!

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November 10, 2015

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” *

by chuckofish

These are the days to take long walks and savor all that blue sky and colorful autumn flora and crisp fall temperatures. Until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes…at 5:00 p.m.!

For those of us who work from 9 to 5, it means we come home in the near-dark and our evenings seem so much shorter! No walks. It seems like we eat dinner, watch something, read, and go to bed.

Well, c’est comme ça. Lately I have been watching Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014)–the show about a motorcycle club that operates both illegal and legal businesses in the small town of Charming, CA. It has a good cast headed up by the very appealing Charlie Hunnam

(an English actor), Katey Sagal and Ron Perlman.

So far in season one, they are developing interesting and three-dimensional characters–the guys in the MC are pretty great–so we’ll see if I can hang in there despite a good amount of (you can imagine) violence.

I do love watching shows on Netflix without commercials. (I had to laugh when Castiel, the angel on Supernatural, in response to someone asking what he was doing while recovering from nearly dying, said, “I’ve been binge-watching the first season of The Wire.”)

On the book front, I am reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015.

Set in occupied France during WWII, the novel moves back and forth in time, centering on a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths eventually cross. It is excellent. Sometimes “highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning” authors actually deserve the accolades.

Carpe diem!

*Anthony Doerr

4 Comments

dual personalities

Category: television

September 19, 2017

Be that as it may

by chuckofish

March 23, 2017

Set phasers to stun

by chuckofish

January 26, 2017

You’ve got spunk

by chuckofish

January 20, 2017

Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses*

by chuckofish

October 13, 2016

This and that

by chuckofish

May 25, 2016

“Lots of people are wonderful, but you’re just the best.”*

by chuckofish

April 18, 2016

With hearts aflame*

by chuckofish

March 31, 2016

Good night, everyone*

by chuckofish

February 25, 2016

Throwback Thursday–snow day edition

by chuckofish

November 10, 2015

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” *

by chuckofish