dual personalities

Category: television

October 8, 2015

Home, home on the range

by chuckofish

The OM and I have been watching Longmire, season 4 on Netflix for several days in a row.

longmire-season-4

We have enjoyed it a lot, but then it ended precipitously after only 10 episodes. Now we will have to wait until they come up with season 5 to see what happens. That is the trouble with binge-watching one show.

Modern problems.

Anyway, all of this Longmire viewing with its myriad plots and sub-plots involving Native Americans leads me to my next subject.

Did you know that Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a holiday celebrated in various places in the U.S.? It was begun as a counter-celebration to Columbus Day, which, as you know, is coming up next week. The purpose of the day is to promote “Native American culture” and to commemorate the history of Native American peoples. At least four states do not celebrate Columbus Day (Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and South Dakota) with South Dakota officially celebrating Native American Day instead. Various tribal governments in Oklahoma designate the day “Native American Day” or name the day after their own tribe. 

Well. I would just as soon celebrate Native American Day as Columbus Day, but I would no doubt do it by watching John Wayne movies or something equally offensive to Indians. (Not that it should be.)

annex_-_wayne_john_fort_apache_03

Another way to celebrate would be to head out to Kansas City to see the ten decorative panels which were installed on the new Red Bridge in Kansas City in 2011.   Each panel represents an individual who has ties to the area as part of the Three Trails Crossing during the westward expansion of the 1800s.  (The area around Red Bridge is historically significant as the crossing at the Blue River was the only location where the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trail intersected.  From approximately 1821 to 1880 it is estimated that thousands of travelers crossed the Blue River near the current bridge.) It is a very ethnically-diverse group and the Native American represented is my great-great-uncle, John Prowers’s, wife, Amache Ochinee Prowers! Pretty cool, right?

Red-Bridge-Column-Panels

Amache is usually recognized as someone who bridged the two cultures–Indian and white–successfully. As I have noted previously, she and John had nine children together who, it would appear, were whole-heartedly welcomed into the mainstream of Colorado society. You can’t believe everything you see in the movies.

Someday I will head out to K.C., but not this weekend. I don’t even get Columbus Day off, so what am I talking about?

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September 10, 2015

It’s time to get things started

by chuckofish

I honestly cannot wait for this new show.

Hats off to ABC for bringing the Muppets back! My father was always a fan of them back in the 1970s. I think he related to Statler and Waldorf:

StatlerandWaldorf

So mark your calendar for September 22 at 7:00 p.m. (Central). In the meantime, I will be in NYC and offline for a few days, so take it easy!

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May 20, 2015

“A man of God–such a shame”

by chuckofish

Are you watching Grantchester on PBS?

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Now that Wolf Hall is finished, I am watching Grantchester, a miniseries based on James Runcie’s novel Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, about a young vicar and WWII veteran who teams up with a local detective to solve murders. The author based “Sidney after his late father, Lord Runcie, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1980s. Like Sidney, the elder Runcie was a war hero before he entered the ministry, and he was a compassionate and amiable parish priest. Unfortunately, he never took up crime-solving. Grantchester corrects that oversight.” (PBS.com)

Sounds perfect to me.

Robson Green (Geordie Keating, the detective) and James Norton (Sidney Chambers, the vicar) are quite engaging and say things like:

“Do you think we have a problem with alcohol?”

“Absolutely. We don’t have any.”

I have set my DVR.

Side note: I met Lord Runcie when he was the Holy Week preacher at the Episcopal church I attended in the 1990s. He was a tank commander in WWII and, if I recall correctly, the only one to capture a submarine! It goes without saying (but I will) that they don’t make archbishops like him anymore.

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September 17, 2014

“Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”*

by chuckofish

So did everyone watch Dancing With the Stars on Monday  night? As you know, I am not a fan of reality television, but I do sometimes get caught up in watch DWTS.

Since I was already depressed by daughter #1’s exit to the big city, I figured I would be a couch potato and check out DWTS. And I admit–I enjoyed it! Yes,  it is pretty low-brow, but one can’t read the Psalms by candlelight every night. Also, I had the 4-way texting thing going with my children, which definitely raises the enjoyment level ten-fold. Even daughter #1, who was at work, had it on, because it is, after all, an ABC show! (The boy was watching some game, but he threw in a comment or two about Lolo Jones.)

Okay, so my faves are:

of course, Sadie Robertson, Duck Dynasty heiress. She is another untrained natural, like Kellie Pickler, who is great to watch. (And I love her parents in the audience.)

sadie-robertson-duck-dynasty-dancing-with-the-stars-season-19

Sadie and her dad

Jonathan Bennett, the cutie from Mean Girls whom my daughters derided, but it is probably a case of methinks-the-lady-doth-protest-too-much;

and Alfonso Ribeiro was quite the dancer–and props for not doing the Carleton!

But I am very disappointed that Lolo Jones didn’t make it to the second week. She is so beautiful and talented! And that is what is so stupid about this show–she is off and Betsy Johnson, Tommy Chong and Michael Waltrip are still on!

For now, I am on Team Sadie. How about you?

*Anne Lamott

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