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That time again, folks—chime in here or at your own journal. I have no fun pictures or links—but there is TV for once.

What I’m Reading

The Far Side of the World, Patrick O’Brian (Aubrey #10) (audiobook). Almost finished with it, too. Some truly crazy shit happens in this one, almost none of which made it into the movie (for obvious reasons, mostly). There are a surprising number of comic episodes (surprising--see what I did there, in a Jack-like way ;)), which appear to be just POB flexing his writing chops, which are considerable. I’m not complaining; the whole thing is a delight. This is the one where, like Keats, they all declaim upon the delights of first reading Chapman's Homer. There is also a sailor named Macbeth.

When I started listening to these things, I couldn’t believe there were 21. Now, I can’t believe there are only 21. They seem to be dominating my year.

I haven’t cracked the spine of a print book since I finished the Kate Atkinson below. Busy and unpleasant week so far, sadly.

What I Just Finished

Treason’s Harbour, Patrick O’Brian (Aubreyad #9) (audiobook). Nothing to say about that I didn’t say last week. I liked this one, and was sorry to see Jack and Stephen leave the Mediterranean, even if they weren’t.

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. I liked this (witness the fact that I made it through all 500+ pages, unlike 80% of the books I start)—and I absolutely recommend it, especially as a beach or plane novel, or for a book club.

( cut for length, not spoilers )

What I’m Reading Next

Dunno. Life After Life made me want to read more about the Blitz, so I have Sarah Waters’s Night Watch on hold at the library—but I’ve tried to read it before and found it hard going. I’ve read good reviews of The Woman Upstairs, so want to give that a try, too.

TV!

Now that you can stream Top of the Lake on Netflix, I feel I should make a proper rec for it. Watch it, if you can face the sexual violence—it’s very, very good. In the end, it’s harsh, but not dark, if that makes sense, with much more faith in human resilience and agency than lots of things I’ve watched lately. The acting is superb, and it’s an interesting meditation on the problem of justice outside the law. And, like I said a few weeks ago, for a show that is so centrally about rape, it’s very sex positive, with a broader representation of the shapes and practices of desire than, again, you’re likely to see elsewhere.

I also saw all of Broadchurch, which I also recommend, if you have a chance. The plot was so similar to Top of the Lake it was almost confusing. Of the two, however, Broadchurch was by far the more conservative and the more depressing. I’ve already ranted to thirdbird about the finale, so I’ll spare you, but up until the penultimate episode, it was damn fine TV.

I’m not sure I’m even going to say anything about the season/series finale of Southland (tragic? Inevitable?), but I’d love to hear what you thought of it, if you watched it.

What should I watch now? I seem to be out of miniseries.

There is too much to watch on TV! Some things have already been regulated to the status of “okay, I’ll watch it with the boys if they feel like it after dinner” (sadly, this seems to mean that H50 and Elementary and Arrow are duking it out with Dr. Who, Alphas and Psych).

Here’s what’s rising above that at the moment (idiosyncratic, I admit):

Last Resort:

( Read more... )

Merlin: Yeah, who would’ve thought that Merlin would have such staying power? But I continue to really enjoy it on both the cheesy (shirtless knights, anyone?) and emotional fronts (stories of good leaders are my number one bullet proof kink).

( Read more... )

I blame tumblr for this

( SPN )

Homeland: I’m not sure what’s going to happen now that the “is he or isn’t he?” question has been answered. But I don’t care, because I’m still mesmerized by Carrie, Saul and Brody (only halfway through 2x02 on this one)

I have also, thanks to garryowen’s persuasive abilities, been watching Wallander. I watched the third, most recent, series first, because it was streaming on PBS (yes, this is one of the simple pleasures of sad souls like me that Mitt Romney would take away). I usually associate Kenneth Branagh with bombast, but he’s lovely and restrained and vastly appealing in this—middle-aged and poignant and tough and smart (and a hot mess). Also: Sweden is beautiful. I’m making my way through S1 now, which is grimmer and shot with a lot of surprise!close-ups and surprise!blurriness which bug me, but still well worth watching, if you like your procedurals with a lot of angst.

And that's more than enough!

Monday afternoon, when we were still exhausted from travel, the boys and I saw The Bourne Legacy, which we enjoyed very much, though I may have to go back and see it without small squirmy persons who I have to take to the bathroom during crucial character bits.

( more, w/ very minor spoilers )

Son #2 and I watched Grimm 2x01 and enjoyed it, though there was so much new story arc dumpage I think I might have to go back and take notes. Monroe, as usual, was the best part, with his running commentary on Nick’s maternal reunion.

I finally finished Generation Kill, both series and audiobook (with the addition of reading Wright’s 2008 afterward in the print book).

( my usual grumpiness about such things )

I finished both seasons of The Killing and have only about 15 minutes to go in Blackout. I may have exhausted all TV dramas about corrupt mayors in extremely rainy cities. If you have any suggestions, though, please let me know!

hope everyone has a great weekend!

So, I have watched the first four episodes of season two of Game of Thrones and I have learned two things:

1. HBO likes boobs

2. Richard Madden somehow upped his hotness quotient greatly since season one. Or maybe everyone just looks hotter with a giant CGI wolf following them around.

I think that might be it for me, though. I don't entirely blame HBO. This is just the point--the rise of the Theon Greyjoy plot arc--at which I lost interest in the books. The gratuitous sour grimness perhaps? The increasing ratio of torture scenes? YMMV, obviously.

I am also up to date with Grimm, though I haven't posted on it for a while. I clicked on the Grimm tag on tumblr the other day, and was dismayed to find if not shipping wars, at least shipping skirmishes. I think you all know how I feel about that.

( but let me just say (spoilers) )

And I think I've mentioned how much I've been enjoying Awake? It's like someone turned Freud's essay on "Mourning and Melancholia" into a TV series.

( mild spoilers )

Usually, when I have a free Sunday morning, I try to get up reasonably early (~7:30) and go to Mysore. But this weekend I practiced the yoga pose of sleep. I was out latish Sat. night at a work-related dinner, and then up even later finishing my purimgifts fic, and so didn’t go to sleep until 1:30. I woke up at 7:30 or so, and thought screw this. And I didn’t wake up again until 10:30. Can’t remember the last time I did that. It might have been in high school.

Anyway, 28 hours of freedom is not so much when you spend 9 sleeping and 4 at a work dinner, so I hardly caught up at all on TV. I did watch, out of curiosity, the House episode in which Jeremy Renner plays a dissolute rock singer. And enjoyed it very much—I forgot how much I like S4 House and I don’t think I’d seen that one before.

Nor did I realize that this image, that you see all the time on the interwebz, if from House of all things!




Also Grimm
( spoilers )

Have two book recs, though (both about doctors, as it turns out).

My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese.

( cut for length )

State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
( cut for length )

Even though I'm going to be out of town from basically March 23rd to April 1, I signed up for remix again. Possibly stupidly.

Actually, probably more like blonde Mack trucks.

I was supposed to be in New York City this morning for some interesting work-related stuff, but I had to cancel due to ongoing family circumstances. So, yeah, feeling a little sorry for myself, but, hey, at least TV has been consoling.

I know that this journal has been inhabited mostly by pocket commandos of late, but hey, let’s hear it for the big blond guys:

Southland 4x04



I don’t think it’s a spoiler for the episode to say that I have never loved John Cooper more.

( slightly more spoilery )

Whitechapel 3x03

How about a guy who looks like this from behind.



And this from the front:



( spoilers )

Feel free to post pics of either big blonde dudes or pocket commandos in comments *g*

Did anything happen in H50 2x06 except Steve getting in the ring? 'Cause I saw him put that mouth guard in, and start hopping up and down like a bunny, and then I started thinking about this:



And wondering if Steve would get anybody in an unbreakable thigh lock and force them to tap out like Joel Edgerton does repeatedly in the movie. And then I started wondering what would happen if Steve had to fight either Tommy or Brendan. And. Yeah....I kinda lost track.

I guess other things happened? The boys were pleased to see Kono with a rifle.

( Homeland 1x04 spoilers )

( H50 2x05 )

Homeland 1x03

Someone else is watching this, right? right? If not, maybe you should try it; it is pretty fucking good. If someone is, can they please talk to me about the whole "Semper Fidelis" moment and how awesome Damian Lewis is? And about one of the most disturbing, not-sexy sex scenes I've ever seen on TV?

(these are not spoilers: Damian Lewis is consistently awesome and the psycho-sexual stuff is consistently disturbing, though not gratuitous or unrealistic, I don't think)

Long post is long—sorry!

So, I listened to all 24 hours of Wolf Hall and I loved every minute of it. Mostly I listened in the car (I drive a lot—mostly 10-15 minute trips from pillar to post) but some while I was running.

(and so, strangely, the novel was good for my fitness level, between my new Vibram five fingers, which look like this:



And kind of make me resemble this:



But make running less painful for me than it ever has been before (though, sadly, no faster)—anyway, between the shoes and the narrative, I actually wanted to run!)

It’s a kind of strange experience to listen to narrative as you run, though. The novel has some very sad parts, and I happened to listen to those as I was running during the last heat of the summer. So there I was slogging along in my blue shoes, pouring sweat and crying. I’ve been listening to Regeneration for the past few days, and I’m sure my face is fixed in a permanent sympathetic grimace.

I’m an aural person at the best of times, and I think in some ways it’s easier for me to process and remember books I hear than books I read. Also, of course, listening is slower. So I found that I had a greater awareness of the novel’s technical achievements than I think I would have done if I’d read (all 600 pp. of) it.

Which of course my book group had not interest in talking about , so I’m just going to go on about it for a minute now, feel free to scroll by.

( rambling about Wolf Hall )

So then I wrote a little Downton Abbey snippet last week about WWI war wounds. And that made me want to re-read Pat Barker’s Regeneration. But, things being as they are, that means re-listening. Anyway, the novel completely holds up (it came out in 1991), though I expect it wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice for what to listen to in the car. It may, however, have spoiled my enjoyment of Downton Abbey. Because really, talk about two different perspectives about what was going on in the north of England in 1916! In Regeneration, women in service are telling off their employers right and left and going to work in the munitions factories—just for example.

( spoilers for Downton Abbey 2x03 )