More Theatre

I went to see Penelope at Stage West. It's like a play/musical, where Penelope tells the audience about her life waiting for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War, but often she breaks into song, while the band plays and acts as a Greek chorus. The website describes it as a "solo cabaret" and the audience seating was arranged to feel like you were at a bar or nightclub. I saw a show with the understudy Rowan Gilvie, and they were wonderful.

Meanwhile I look forward to the next production, the 2nd Sherlock Holmes play in David MacGregor's trilogy. I hope it will be as funny as last season's Elusive Ear production. If you can't see any of these plays near you, apparently you can buy the trilogy in book form too.

There seems to be a comedy Moriarty play in Allen, currently, but I don't think I want to drive that far to see it. The description of an international mystery with spies also turns me off. But good luck to them.

The End of the World As We Know It

This R.E.M. song was featured in the new Looney Tunes movie The Day the Earth Blew Up, so it's been stuck in my head. It's appropriate for the times too. I would have avoided the movie because I hate Warner Brothers lately, but articles say that WB didn't want to release the movie. Instead they allowed an independent distributor to buy it, so watching the movie can be an act of protest against WB, even if it's not the same as getting the Batgirl movie or the Coyote Vs Acme movies that they shelved. The movie itself is a zany comedy and I liked what they did with Petunia Pig and Farmer Jim. But still, fuck Zaslav.

Anyway, the Ides of March came and went without the government shutdown after all. Schumer claimed that keeping the government open was important for the court cases to continue, but does that matter if Trump's just going to defy court orders? Any power we have to stop the lawlessness needs to be exercised. At least the Tesla protests are working.

But speaking of movies, after the Amazon boycott ended, I went on Prime to watch the Murder She Wrote TV movies, which I haven't seen before. I've only had time for 3 out of 4 so far, so I'll finish tonight. I enjoyed seeing these additional mysteries with Jessica. The first film on the train reminded me a little of Murder on the Orient Express, but had interesting twists too. I did guess that the Macguffin would be in the Gameboy, though. The second film is set at a high-end speaker's conference, with an ex-KGB head getting killed; I never really liked espionage plots on the TV show, but this one at least had some good clues. Some characters even suggested that Jessica solved murders as publicity stunts for her books. The third film The Last Free Man tells a cold case story set during slavery in the South. Angela Lansbury plays Jessica's ancestor Sarah McCullough in the 1860 scenes as Sarah investigates when her slave Samuel Pinckney is framed for a murder. I was surprised to recognize Taraji P. Henson in a minor role, before she got famous. I liked that Sarah knew that solving the murder should be set aside for Sam's more urgent need to escape the lynchmob. I hope the new rumored Murder She Wrote reboot movie will be good, with whichever actress they cast to play Jessica. I miss my JB Fletcher.

Whitewashing

I'm sad that The Wild Robot didn't win at the Oscars. I haven't seen the winner Flow, so maybe it was deserving too. Oh well. Award shows usually disappoint in multiple ways. Zoe Saldana won for a problematic movie, but that's been a thing since Hattie Mcdaniel won for playing a maid in Gone With the Wind. You do your best in the parts you're given. One can imagine it's a reward for a different role in Zoe's filmography instead.

On Paramount+ I can also access documentaries from the Smithsonian channel, and they had some interesting ones for Black History, such as Black cowboys in the Wild West. I found one doc called "Birthing a Nation: the Resistance of Mary Gaffney" which is very short, only about 20 minutes. Weird title but it talks about an important topic, the slave owners who would "breed" more slaves so they could get more free "property" without buying at auction. Besides raping the women themselves, some enslavers used to forceably pair off slaves to make them have children, treating people like animals/livestock, calling them wenches and bucks. This disgusting practice was part of keeping up the "domestic slave trade" after international slave trade was made illegal. However, Mary Gaffney apparently knew a secret contraceptive in cotton roots to prevent getting pregnant while she was enslaved, though after emancipation she had children with her husband. I like that she managed some agency, though there's resignation too in her just staying with the guy she previously said she hated. Also the documentary mentions the thousands of "slave narratives" from the Works Progress Administration interviewing the survivors of slavery who were still alive at the time. What important history could have been lost, if nobody thought to do this work during the Depression.

I fear the Trump administration will try to delete all this history, like they're deleting "DEI" photos from military history too. Do we have enough online archives that can save this history? Where can they download from?

March Forward

Apparently the Oscars are tonight, so there are a ton of movies in theaters this weekend, but I don't think I'll bother. I don't recognize a lot of these titles, and some descriptions like Emilia Perez are frankly offputting. As for the awards, I don't really care about anything other than The Wild Robot. I've heard good things about The Substance, but I don't like horror films in general. Good luck to Demi, though.

On Tuesday Trump is going to do the State of the Union address. There are protests scheduled for Tuesday, along with ongoing protests at Tesla and more rolling boycotts against Walmart, Amazon, etc. I hope the Democrats will have a strong message rebuking Trump, especially for his awful meeting with Zelensky on Friday. Also I think the government funding will end on March 14th, so we could actually have a government shutdown on the Ides of March. Given how Elon Musk is slashing government jobs and is freezing funds that were already earmarked and approved, I don't see why Democrats would trust any deal negotiations this year.

I'm sad to hear that Joann's will close their stores. I'll miss them. I'm still hoarse from my sore throat and wishing I had some Vietnamese chao (also known as congee rice porridge) like my mom used to make. The closest thing I got is a chicken and rice soup from the local Asian buffet.

Sick again

I got another yucky cold. Most of the symptoms went away except the sore throat and a hacking cough that goes quiet for a while until erupting into a violent fit of several coughs. I'm taking cough drops and a truly disgusting cough syrup, and it still doesn't get better. I hate this.

Yesterday was an economic boycott and I managed not to buy anything. I will have to go to the store today and try to find a more palatable cough remedy, or at least buy more soup. I've been having to resort to yogurt and ice cream to soothe my throat.

Looking though my Sherlock Holmes media, I found my box set of 1950s radio shows starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson as Holmes and Watson. These are actually on audio cassette, and yes, I still have a boombox capable of playing cassettes and CDs. I've only got 12 out of 16 shows, but I guess I can find the rest online. (My set is sadly completely out of order from either the radio series or the publication dates of the stories.) I never knew before that Gielgud did these shows while recovering from scandal in Britain. He'd been outed as gay with an arrest not unlike that of George Michael decades later. Gielgud had feared his career was over, but thankfully was wrong and eventually his prolific acting career revived.

Similarly in America, Raymond Burr had to remain in the closet and lie frequently about his personal life for the sake of his Hollywood career, but I'm happy to hear that he did find love and happiness with a partner. I've been watching Perry Mason episodes lately and while some of the shows are dated, I like the diversity of the cases.

Hurdles

I've been having computer problems again. Hard to log in and open my browser. Even opening the Private Browser clean of cookies was an ordeal. I thought I had a roof leak, but it appears to be a false alarm. However I do have an expensive car repair now. So much trouble lately.

Also I recently decided to upload my Private Life of Sherlock Holmes fic to AO3, so that it's all in one place. I'm gonna try and add more chapters. I was glad to see that other people have been writing fic for that movie too.

There's an upcoming scifi movie called Mickey 17, and the premise sounds eerily similar to the 2009 film Moon starring Sam Rockwell. The only difference seems to be that Mickey knowingly signed up to become an expendable series of clones, whereas Sam didn't discover he was a clone until later on. There may also be other differences in tone or plot, but we won't know until it opens in theaters. Moon felt very solitary and lonely, whereas Mickey 17 seems to be a comedy, with a larger group of characters in the space colony.

Blues

Stupid chilly weather keeps coming back despite one or two days of warmth. I'm so tired of it. Meanwhile deadly storms in other states make me wonder if FEMA's able to do anything now due to Musk's DOGE idiots gutting everything they can get their hands on.

Greg Abbott is in Washington lobbying for money for the border 'cause he wasted billions on Operation Lonestar. Now he wants to sell border land to the feds. Fuck him and all the GOP. Also, I saw that PBS closed their DEI office, and I was like Noooo!!!

As usual, Jasmine Crockett is our saving grace, showing that not all of Texas are GOP idiots. There's another national protest today at noon. Good luck to everbody who goes.

Also, I just read the story about Frances Thompson, a Black transwoman who bravely testified about her assault in a Memphis race massacre in 1866. This is the kind of American history that MAGA wants to suppress and erase with their anti-DEI crusade.

Getting By

Well it was hard, but I stopped shopping at Target due to them caving on DEI. I don't buy enough food to make a Costco membership worth it, but I went to the employee-owned Winco supermarket, and their prices aren't too bad. Every grocery store has the "egg shortage" notices though. I guess I can go to a different store for the clothing and home decor stuff that I used to get at Target too.

So what's there to say about Trump's insane ramblings about owning Gaza? And Netanyahu just lets him do it, not even trying to assert he wants that property too. These fucking racist dictators.

I tried to distract myself by seeing Love Hurts, but the movie wasn't as fun and camp as I thought it would be. Not as funny as One of Them Days, for instance, and they didn't use Marshawn Lynch for as much bonkers absurdity as I wanted. I liked the knife assassin who writes poetry, but the movie lingered a little too long on his awkward romance with Ashley from the realtor's office. And they had a silly cameo from one of the Property Brothers as a rival realtor. I mean, it was nice to see Sean Astin in this as Marvin's close friend and mentor, but I guess the action/fighting put a damper on some of the comedy. I read rumors that there's a Goonies sequel movie in the works, but I don't know if it will pan out at all.

Meanwhile, I found my boxset of the BBC Radio dramas of Sherlock Holmes, so I started listening to them again. They're much better than the annoying Sherlock & Co podcast in which Watson stammers and rambles so much, wasting valuable airtime on pointless filler scenes. I mean Watson is supposed to be an average guy, normal to contrast to Holmes, but why does this podcast think that means Watson is perpetually awkward and embarrassing himself? Stop making him the comic relief! If something happens that's only tangentially related to the case, then cut the damn scene and just narrate a summary of what's important. You are the narrator, John. Do your damn job!

Happy Black History Month

I thought someone had said that the White House wasn't going to celebrate Black History Month this year? But apparently there's an official proclamation on the whitehouse.gov website. Well, they're still choosing to "celebrate" by blaming DEI for the helicopter/plane crash, and making civil servants snitch on each other about DEI. Such racist assholes. I heard that there's some big protest planned on February 5th, but I'm not sure why they picked a Wednesday? I guess to avoid Superbowl weekend or something? I don't follow sports.

I didn't watch the Grammys, but congrats to Beyoncé for album of the year and country album of the year too.

Personally I have had a bad few days and really need my next paycheck for my bills. Replacing a broken crown blew out my budget this month. I haven't had a chance to do my tax return either, but I gotta get that refund too. I'm too exhausted to keep doomscrolling the news. 

I'm gonna try to see Love Hurts this weekend for some relief. There's just too many horror movies at the theaters year-round and you can't even avoid the trailers. I don't even see any romcoms out for Valentine's Day; apparently those all went to streaming. I might as well see the new Paddington movie that weekend I guess. I did finally see the first one on Peacock. I initially avoided that because the stupid trailer had the yucky bathroom scene, making me think it was going to be stupid and gross, not cutely English and twee. It's also a bit Wes Andersony with the dollhouse scenes. The beginning with the Darkest Peru documentary reminded me of the explorer in Up, though this guy is genuinely nice and doesn't care about collecting specimens.

Happy MLK weekend

Well, this is the last weekend of the Biden adminstration. *sigh* I will be working MLK day, so I can ignore the news that day. Enjoy your holiday weekend however you can. Maybe there will be good MLK parades where you are.

Lunar New Year doesn't technically start until January 29th this year, but my local Asian mall celebrates early starting this weekend. (They're trying to spread out the crowds over 2 different weekends and maximize shoppers probably.) I'm sure it'll be swamped at that mall, so I won't try to go. I'll be celebrating Lunar New Year with my family next week.

It's so sad about the continued California wildfires, though, which are so much worse than previous years. The shitty right-wingers are spreading lies to blame it on wokeness. Fuck them.

I was hesitant to react to the ceasefire deal for Gaza, because it sounded like so many promises of "agreement on principles" before. Plus Netanyahu said something about it not being a done deal yet, but then the Parliament passed it, so I guess it's real now. I'm glad the hostages will be freed and that the war will end, but I'm still skeptical that Israel will abide by the deal, or if they'll try to scuttle it during the "second phase". I hope the Palestinians can rebuild and survive to a better administration, not so corrupted by racists, rapists, and oligarchs. I always hope that someday that there will actual be a two-state solution, like how the Irish Troubles finally ended after decades. Someday, maybe, the Palestinians can be free and the US can stop enabling Israel's apartheid. I don't know that it'll be within my lifetime, though.

Adventures with Agatha

I found a new TV show on PBS called Alan Carr's Adventures with Agatha Christie. He's apparently a British comedian and a big Christie fan, so he presents a 3-part series exploring places in Agatha's life and discussing her two great detectives, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. It's different than Lucy Worsley's series from last year, because it's more of a fun romp, and they go to touristy places like the fabulous Art Deco hotel on Burgh Island, the inspiration for the setting of And Then There Were None. I love the trips to the Cosprop store in London too. It's weird that my PBS station was airing the show in the middle of the night, though. I guess they didn't think enough Americans would know Alan Carr or enjoy his cheeky humour. He also uses British slang like "shell suit" which apparently means a nylon tracksuit, which was popular fashion in the 1980s.

Speaking of Lucy Worsley, I realize that I didn't comment on the third episode of Holmes vs Doyle yet. This one covered the Edwardian Age, WWI, and the later Sherlock Holmes stories. Worsley didn't mention the Cottingley fairies at all, mainly concentrating on Doyle's spiritualism and his friendship with Harry Houdini. I agree with Worsley's opinion that Doyle cosplaying as a soldier in WWI is a bit sad and desperate; he so wanted to be a war hero since the Boer War, but war is not a game or grand adventure to enjoy. He should have learned this, but I guess he still had imperialist tendencies plus masculinity issues from Sandow's fitness regimen. He wanted to be an action man.

Freezy and Breezy

Damn, winter came back with a vengeance. It'll be freezing for several nights, and there may be snow later in the week. Glad I took care of my errands this weekend.

Anyway, I saw the new French Count of Monte Cristo and it was good. The plot is not quite the same as the novel because they have cut some subplots and characters to simplify the story. Also they combine and alter some characters. For example, in the book, the prosecutor Villefort had a Bonapartist father, but this scandalous relative instead becomes his sister Angele in the film, and she also rescues the illegitimate child that Villefort attempts to kill. This will be the boy that Dantes will adopt and make part of his revenge schemes.

The lead actor Pierre Niney is amazing, able to act well even while in disguise. Edmond Dantes not only adopts his Count of Monte Cristo persona, but also pretends to be an Abbe Busoni as well as a crass Lord Halifax from England. In the story he's supposed to be wearing some kind of fabricated mask but I'm sure in practice it probably needs to be prosthetics and makeup that allow his face to still move naturally. There's a great scene where the Count has the purchased the house where the illegitimate child was buried, and he invites his victims to dinner there. He pretends the house is haunted by the ghost and that the spirit led him to a chest buried in the garden. The Count presents it as a spooky ghost story, and the women are frightened but one of the men is obliviously enjoying the tale as pure entertainment. The diners dismiss the whole thing as a magical parlor trick, but of course two of the guests know about the real baby.

I liked the film overall, though it is almost 3 hours long and I had to miss a scene to run to the bathroom.

Eek

What sad news about the tragic attack in New Orleans. So much for a Happy New Year. Already in mourning for Jimmy Carter's passing. 

I missed other various news happening over the holidays. The government shutdown was avoided, but there was some anti-trans poison pill in the NDAA. Something happened about a transgender athlete policy that I don't understand; there was speculation that Trump could use it somehow for bad? It's like Biden cancelling more judges because he knew Trump would pack the courts with bad judges. 

Some Russian ship cut an undersea cable in Finland, and is being detained for the sabotage. I don't know if that's how Russia's conducting its war now? Musk continues to be insane. Some athiests went on transphobic rants and then resigned from a Freedom from Religion foundation. Fucking asshats. I stopped respecting those athiests when I found out they were racist and anti-Muslim too. Way to ruin your reputations just like J.K. Rowling. That's why I describe myself as agnostic. Everybody can believe what they want to, as long as they don't try to attack other people or impose their morals as laws on everyone else. Just look at Jimmy Carter to see what a devout person can do if they spread love instead of intolerance.

In lighter news, apparently there will be a Bluey movie in 2027; I would celebrate, except the movie will be CGI. Do we have to do that? Why can't it be flat 2-D animation like the TV show? I love the cartoon dogs the way they are. Movies overall are meh lately. I want to see the new Count of Monte Cristo movie, but it's in theaters 25 miles away so I'll have to make a special trip to catch it before it disapears. At least there's Love Hurts in February starring Ke Huy Quan. It even has Marshawn Lynch, a football player I only know from Will Arnett's Murderville show, but he's fun.