Category Archives: TV

2026, books, Movies, TV

Tired….

22 Comments

I’m that proverbial early bird.  Not sure it’s ever gotten me any early worms.  It’s pretty rare that I can stay asleep longer than 5 or 5:30, although occasionally in the winter when it’s dark later in the morning, I can manage a little bit longer.  In the summer, once the sun starts heading into the sky, I’m done for.

This is not a problem unless I have too many late nights.  Usually I’m not a night owl  but….

I’m binging Brokenwood these days, so one night in the last week, I was  up until midnight watching the last of the DVDs that I had from the library.  Another night this week, I stayed up too late watching some Peter Davison Dr Who episodes (the DVD was due the next day).   A third night I was getting close to the end of Inside a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz.  It wasn’t really a page-turner (4 stars) but I really wanted to see if the author was going to wrap it up with anything more surprising than she had already presented (spoiler alert – she didn’t). 

No regrets about any of these nights but since sleeping in doesn’t happen so I am dragging a little bit the last couple of days.  Nothing too serious and after a few more regular nights, I’ll be back to my bright-eyed, bushy-tailed morning gal.  Unless I find something else compelling that keeps me up……

What’s worth it to you to lose some sleep?  Last thing that kept you up past your usual bedtime?

2026, Fantasy, Mysteries, Technology, TV

Keeping Track

18 Comments

I didn’t have a big to-do list yesterday.  Normally when this occurs, I fill in with other little tasks around the house or I plant myself in my studio but for some reason sitting on the sofa and watching tv.  Three episodes of Perry Mason and then a handful of Columbo.

I’ve seen them all repeatedly.  I know who the murderer is in every Perry Mason and, of course, you know who the murderer is on Columbo from the get-go.  Since I don’t have to spend any mental energy on figuring out the mystery, I can while away the time looking at small details and wondering at how the world has changed.

Yesterday what stood out the most was that no matter where Perry or Columbo happen to be, somebody can always get ahold of them.  Perry is interviewing a suspect; the phone rings and it’s for him.  Columbo is at his dog’s obedience academy; the phone rings and it’s for him.  It happened all the time.

Now Perry had Della to call him however the calls weren’t always from her and quite a bit of the time she was with him.  Was there a whiteboard with all of Perry’s stops left in his outer office?  For many years, there was Gertie who took calls.  Maybe she was letting folks know where Perry was?

But Columbo?  He was always portrayed as such a loose cannon – if there was some administrative assistant somewhere back at headquarters, it was a highly kept secret.  Did he really leave the phone number of the dog obedience academy with someone somewhere?

It made me think about the scene in Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam in which Diane Keaton and Tony Roberts are leaving Woody’s apartment:

Dick:
I’ll be at 362-9296 for a while; then I’ll be at 648-0024 for about fifteen minutes; then I’ll be at 752-0420; and then I’ll be home, at 621-4598. Yeah, right George, bye-bye.

Linda:
There’s a phone booth on the corner. You want me to run downstairs and get the number? You’ll be passing it.

Obviously these days detectives and lawyers are never without their cell phones, so the whiteboards with everyone’s every move and destination are not longer necessary.  Of course, now that I think about it – they probably hadn’t been invented yet?

Do you have a whiteboard?  Whiteboard equivalent?  What do you use it for?

2026, books, Business, Fantasy, Mysteries, TV

The Doctor

34 Comments

When I was in the bookstore, I was offered a “new” position in Store #1 (Southdale).  My title was Associate Manager, a title that didn’t exist anywhere else in the bookstore world at that point.  This fancy title meant that I had more responsibility, more work but no more power than any average employee.  And certainly not a lot more money.  But the one thing that I was promised was the doing this job would mean that when it came time for me to become a store manager, I would be able to skip the traditional small “starter” store, but would jump right away to a medium store. 

If you live in the Twin Cities, if you ever visited the store over in Sun Ray Mall (not there any longer), you’ll know that they lied to me.  There were only a few stores smaller than Sun Ray at the time.  However, the Associate Manager job was such a pain in the patoot that I didn’t argue when they offered me the teeny store – off I went.

I’ve mentioned the teeniest because despite it’s small size, it had the largest Dr. Who section in the Twin Cities – seven full shelves in the corner so basically its own section.  A couple of times a week, someone would come in the front door and ask “Dr. Who?”.  We sold A LOT of the little mass market editions.  Some of them were books based on episodes and many were other Dr. Who fiction.  Written by many different authors.

That was over 30 years ago, only half way through what is now a 60-year legacy and still going strong.  Even though we had cornered the Dr. Who market at the time, it didn’t interest me much.  As time has passed, I’ve watched just a few episodes and a couple of years ago I did read the very first book. 

A couple of weeks ago I read something on FB that commented that Dr. #5 (Peter Davison) is the father-in-law of Dr. #10 (David Tennant).  Not sure why but that seems like a funny happenstance.  So I decided I might learn a bit more about the whole Dr. Who universe.  I’ve started with a series that was made about 10 years ago.  There is one DVD per doctor with a 30-minute overview and interviews covering the doctor, the companions and what made them special and different.  Then there is one episode, sometimes the first of that particular doctor, sometimes one of the most iconic.    

There have been 14 different Dr. Who actors, although some folks count 15 because David Tennant came back.  However clocking in with a whooping 892 episodes filmed so far, this is not a rabbit hole I’m going to jump down.  I’ll watch the rest of the series.  Maybe in the future I’ll watch a few more here and there – particularly David Tennant and Peter Davison, both of whom I already liked from other roles.  I don’t think I’ll need a spreadsheet!

Is there any science fiction you like?  A Dr. Who fan?  Star Wars?  Star Trek?  Firefly?  Avengers?

2025, Art, Media, Movies, Theatre, TV

Diane Ladd 1935-2025

18 Comments

I saw the sad news that Diane Ladd passed away yesterday – she was 89.  

She began acting at the age of 18 and just retired 3 years ago; her last roles were in Gigi & Nate and Isle of Hope.  When she first came to my attention was the year I graduated high school, when she appeared in Chinatown and then Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.  Both great performances and she was nominated for a Golden Globe, Academy Award and a BAFTA – winning the BAFTA. 

One of my favorite of her performances was as Etta, the sister-in-law of Theresa Turner in Black Widow.  It wasn’t a huge part but she really made her cool but nasty character sizzle on the screen.  The header photo is the best one I can find of her in that role.

I also really liked Rambling Rose in which she plays a southern woman who battles to keep a younger teenager from going under the knife unnecessarily.  Here’s a good clip from that:

I also remember a really nice part she played in a Columbo episode.  She’s a wheelchair bound woman whose husband kills her mother.  She wears pretty, diaphanous dresses and appears fragile, but turns out to be a strong and kind woman.  It’s one of my favorite Columbo episodes. 

Her part in Alice didn’t do much for me.  Of course, the I didn’t care the the show BEFORE she stepped in, but trying to shoehorn her into the role that Flo had vacated didn’t seem to work all that well.  But she was popular and did win a Golden Globe for her work.

Most of the news stories today have “mother of Laura Dern” in their titles.  It’s a shame because I don’t think that’s her big claim to fame.  She had a long, diverse and entertaining career; that’s what the headlines should be!

Have you seen Diane Ladd in anything?  Do you have a favorite?

2025, books, Fantasy, Media, Movies, TV

All For One….

31 Comments

When we talked about esoteric knowledge the other day, I would not have said that The Three Musketeers was a particular interest of mine.  Then I stumbled upon a tv series from 2014-2016, a British production.  Binge-watching is a perfect occupation when you’re nursing a knee. 

This particular series is a little darker than I like, but I realize that I’ve seen quite a few of the musketeer movies over the years, so it’s intriguing to see this one.  The production values are quite good – costumes and dialog seem more realistic than a lot of historical dramas.  Of course, there seems to be at least one nubile young woman each episode who manages to fall for one of the musketeers in just a day or so.  Then there’s the fact that all of the musketeers except D’Artagnan (the only character played by an actor who I recognize – Santiago Cabrera) have old, unhealed loved tragedies in their past.  Athos in particular can’t seem to get over his.

And it’s VERY violent.  I find myself listening more than watching every now and then.  I’m not surprised that there were only three seasons.  I’m about half way through the second season and I’m starting to wonder if Paris is going to run out of population, so many people get murdered each episode.  Last night I actually muted it for about five minutes while Captain Treville was getting operated on.  (Thank goodness I live in an age with anesthetic.)  It’s another show that I can’t watch up until bedtime or I have dreams that are much too intense.

As I’ve been watching the show, it occurs to me that I can’t remember if I ever READ The Three Musketeers.  All the comparisons that I’m making in my mind may be from other movies/series I’ve seen.  And there is still the one big question of why Dumas titled his tome The Three Musketeers when there are clearly four of them?  Maybe the book explains this?  So I put it on hold at the library.  I’ll let you know!

Did you have a play sword as a kid?  Ever taken fencing or shooting lessons?

2025, books, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

Turn the Lights On!

36 Comments

Dreams mean different things to different people.  For me, my dreams (the ones that I remember) tend to be my subconscious sorting through all my conscious flotsam and jetsam.  Over the years I’ve come to recognize that intense dark stuff – television shows, movies, books — can give me some whoopers to sort out.

This week there has been a perfect storm of dark stuff.  I’m reading Emperor of Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee.  The author calls it a “biography of cancer”.  It is EXCELLENT, however it is a bit gruesome in places and, of course, not very uplifting.  I’m also watching a series on Netflix named Dark Winds, loosely based (very loosely) on the work of Tony Hillerman. It’s much darker than the Leaphorn/Chee Skinwalkers tv show of twenty years ago.  Yesterday I fast forwarded through a bunch of the third episode because it was giving me the creeps.

As usual (I think I’ve talked about this before), I’ve been careful to only watch a couple of episodes a day and not after 7 p.m.  But the combination of the book, the tv show and my underlying low level of anxiety about our current political hellhole was a doozy.  I don’t even remember my dreams last night but I remember waking up three times pretty tense and anxious. 

Guess I might have to cut back to one Dark Winds episode a day and come up with some kind of soothing ritual before I go to bed. 

Any suggestions?  Thoughts?

2025, Business, Fantasy, Food, TV

Avocado Tumble

23 Comments

Sitcoms have never been my favorite form of entertainment.  A few exceptions over the years, but for the most part they seem silly and overblown to me.  Truly, what person on the planet would actually do this:

Then every now and then…

I was meeting a friend at Whole Foods for lunch (they have a great salad bar and hot bar along with tables and chairs, so it’s a great place for two folks with food restrictions to have a fun meal together).  My friend texted me that she was running about five minutes late so I decided to hang out in the produce section near the front door while I waited. 

And then it happened.  A woman took a corner a little too tightly with her cart and rammed into the lovingly stacked display of avocados. They didn’t all come tumbling down (like they would have on tv) but it was still a waterfall of green as them fell.  She was mortified and sank to her knees, trying to corral the wayward fruits.  Three Whole Foods employees appeared out of nowhere and they had the avocados re-stacked in less than a minute.  It was very impressive.  The photo above is after everything was back in order. 

Although I never video tape anything, I did have a small wish that I could have gotten the fall and the re-assembly on film. 

Maybe I should give sit-coms more leeway!

If we were casting for sitcom roles today, who would you like to be cast as?

2024, books, History, Movies, TV

Tudor Anniversary

19 Comments

When I was a freshman in high school, PBS aired The Six Wives of Henry VIII – a one-hour segment for each wife over the course of six weeks.  I do not remember why I watched the first one – it could have been because one of my folks turned it on, although neither of them were big history buffs.  It could also have just been a happy accident – by the end of the first episode, I was completely hooked.  That was the day that my interest in the Tudors was born.  About a year later, Masterpiece Theatre showed Elizabeth I, another six-part series.  Glenda Jackson was fabulous in this. It was also about this time that I saw Anne of a Thousand Days. Any time I think of Anne Boleyn, I also see Genevieve Bujold in my minds’ eye. Even when I hear this:

I would not call myself an expert in Elizabeth or any of her Tudor relatives, but I’m pretty sure I know more than your average Joe.  I remember being amazed when one of my Metro State professors, who I’ve always thought was just the smartest guy ever, didn’t know the order of the six queens.  Didn’t everybody know that.  Guess not.

Six, a musical that is currently playing on Broadway hasn’t piqued my interest yet – I still have to get around the weirdness of having a lot of singing and dancing based on what are almost all pretty tragic stories.  Truly, Anne of Cleves (#4) was the only one of the six who managed to come out ahead of the game.  I know a few people who have seen the musical and they say it definitely is good but I’m not ready yet.  Maybe one of these days. 

Yesterday, in 1558, Queen Mary passed away and Elizabeth came to the throne.  I thought I’d mark the occasion by reading Elizabeth I CEO: Strategic Lessons from the Leader Who Built an Empire.  It isn’t a new book but I’ve avoided it because “CEO” and “strategic lessons” aren’t on my favorite words list.  For some reason this week I’m thinking I might enjoy this – maybe give me some insights that I haven’t considered before.  We’ll see.

When was the last time you pushed yourself to read a book you weren’t sure about? And how did that turn out?

2024, Health, home, Media, TV, Uncategorized

Scary Bears!

40 Comments

Husband and I have rarely watched much TV the 40 years we have been married. Our TV has always been in the basement. We rarely hang out in the basement. The TV is currently completely disconnected from the cable because we had a basement remodel in the spring. The only news we hear is NPR and the local papers we get. I avoid any news that comes up on my phone regarding the election.

I am in Dallas right now at a conference. Husband is back at home. I have turned on the TV in the hotel room, and I am so glad we don’t watch much at home. I was struck by Jacque’s comment about a self imposed news desert during the election weeks right now. I am stressed enough by the election news, and if I was regularly watching TV I would be a complete mess. Self care is important. When our children were little, we would often say “Scary Bears! ” when something frightening happened. Self care actions like Jacque’s can reduce the Scary Bears in our lives.

How are you coping with the current election stresses? What do you do for self care? What will you and won’t you watch on TV?

2024, Art, Movies, Poems, Theatre, TV, Uncategorized

RIP James Earl Jones

24 Comments

I read the news yesterday that James Earl Jones passed away on Monday at the age of 93.

It turns out that I’ve seen a fair number of the films that he’s been in.  Not a majority by any means – he did after all either appear or lend his voice to over 100 films/tv shows and had a rich background in theatre as well. 

I saw his first two forays into film by luck of the draw.  His first was in 1964 in Dr. Strangelove as Lt. Lothar Zogg, one of the pilots of the last bomber. 

The second film was The Comedians in 1967, although it wasn’t very funny and I didn’t remember that he was the rebel doctor who got his throat slit 2/3 of the way through the movie.  In fact, until The Great White Hope in 1970, I hadn’t even know his name and wouldn’t have been able to tell you he had been in the earlier movies.  Now, like most everyone else, I hear his voice and know immediately who it is.

It’s interesting to me that JEJ stuttered as a child.  I heard him say in an interview once “one of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.”  I don’t remember if this was having to do with his stutter (apparently he didn’t speak for about 8 years as a kid) or more having to do with feeling the need to keep quiet in a contentious world. 

He got over his stutter with the help of a teacher who encouraged him to read poetry.  And read poetry he did.  One of his biggest stage hits was as Othello.  Here is a bit that he did for a White House Poetry event:

He seemed to be able to play just about any kind of role – Moor King, evil Jedi, doctor, teacher, not too bright police office, lion, wise legendary author – you name it.  

I’ve made a list of films that he appeared in.  Guess I have another rabbit hole for the next couple of weeks!

Do you have a favorite JEJ film?