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Dec. 11th, 2022 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Finished watching Wednesday - which was uneven, some episodes were good, some weren't. The ones that focused too much on Morticia and Gomez were kind of silly and not as edgy. One of the best episodes featured "Fester". And the last three episodes worked quite well, as did for the most part the first three episodes.
The mystery I figured out before Wednesday did, and pretty much everyone else. Also, Wednesday had an annoying habit of confronting killers with what she knew about them, without producing any physical proof. Television writers suck at mystery plotting. I'm not quite sure why this is - but they do. I've yet to see a good television mystery. They also tend to suck at romantic writing. Those are not genres that television tends to excel at for the most part.
That said, Wednesday handled the romantic bits well for the most part - with the emphasis on the friendships, particularly between women over romantic heterosexual relationships. I do wish they didn't just explore heterosexual relationships. Wednesday in some respects had more chemistry with Bianca, the female siren, who was her frenenemy, than the two male characters. And if I were the writers - I'd go in that direction in future episodes. (I'm straight, but I can see where the chemistry is headed in television series. For example? In Angel and Buffy, I thought Angel had more chemistry with Spike than he did with any of the women he was put with - with the possible exception of Darla.)
The romances were used to further the mystery plot, and it was just a bit cliche or been there done that - vibe. Actually, it was how I figured out the mystery so early on. If they'd not played up the romance in that regard, I wouldn't have figured it out.
When it comes to mystery plotting - Nancy Drew did a better job.
But these are all relatively minor quibbles. Wednesday has great one liners, a stellar cast, relatable characters, and is compelling. Also it's production value is exemplary.
Christina Ricci needs to stop playing the same types of characters in everything she's in - she's kind of getting typecast.
2. Slept horribly last night - due to too much caffeine. Was wiser about that today. Also, played havoc on my blood sugar levels yesterday - I went down to 68 for the first time, after going up close to 200. Not great. The 68 was due to a long walk to the grocery store, three to four hours after eating carbs and no lunch. Note to self - can't skip meals and do exercise.
3. Am reviewing a friends query letter and considering being a beta reader for her historical novel. One problem - I'm already reading far too much on my computer - so I may have to pass for the sake of my eye-sight. A little envious - she's planning on working "full-time" on her novel in the fall, and has researched it out - it will be a series of historical novels about women in India. (I don't want to write about women in India - I envy the time. I have to sneak time to write mine - which is why it takes so long.) Also hers are short for historicals, 95,000+ words. (I consider that short, I am revising a novel that is currently 307,478 words. 95,000 is a novella in my opinion. What is that 100-200 pages?) She does have a few things going for her - 1) the subject matter is popular right now, 2) she's POC (African American or Black American). But, she's not Indian (India descent) nor to my knowledge has she ever been to India. Which doesn't necessary matter - white women scholars have written historical fiction about India, but at the moment, people are weirdly sensitive. She could get away with it though that is without too much push back from liberal social media, since she's not white.
I think she's already published a non-fiction book on financial planning. So has some knowledge on the process at least.
Note - writing the thing isn't the tough part, nor is researching it (what with the internet), but getting it published is just painful. Unless you have contacts and are famous, that is.
4. Finished Mathew Perry's memoir on audible - Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing this morning. I didn't buy it, I used a credit to grab it for free on audible. I have an audible subscription, where I listen to books for free, well for the most part.
Was it any good?
Eh, it's for the most part well-written, and he performs it well. (Being an actor - he'd kind of have to. Note - audible books read by actors or voice actors are by far the best.) But it is poorly edited and organized. Possibly among the worst edited books I've listened to. The editor should hang their head in shame - thank god, he doesn't go nuts thanking them. I felt like we were having a conversation. He jumps tracks, jumps back and forth in time, and repeats himself. He also puts his foot in his mouth a lot. A good line editor would have fixed that. But the publishing industry has gone to pot. You'd better off self-publishing at this point, all it appears to be good at is paying advances to rich people, and marketing/promoting stuff.
But, because it's on audible - the conversation bit worked well. I just wouldn't recommend reading it.
Perry is an example of an individual who was gifted with a great deal of talent and opportunity - and basically squandered all of it due to his addiction or disease. He says at one point that he'd have traded all of that - if he didn't have this disease. The disease almost killed him multiple times. He now has the bowls of a 90 year old man, at the age of fifty-three. He has had more surgeries than he can count, and multiple scars.
At the end of the book - it appears he turned a corner, and is in a better place. He's grateful for everything he has - including a huge house in Mailbu overlooking the ocean, and friends who have stood by him. He just would like a 5'2 brunette who is ten years younger than he is - to fall madly in love with him. He doesn't think that's asking for much. (Sigh.)
I told all of this to mother, who retorted that talent was wasted on certain people. I think we are all dealt a hand of cards in life - some are good, some aren't, and it's up to us how we handle them. We have no choice regarding the cards, just a bit on how to play them. Perry states in his book that he had all his dreams come true, just dreamed the wrong dreams.
It's an illuminating book about the toxicity of fame, and how being wealthy may make you comfortable and provide excellent health care, but not happiness. But I couldn't help thinking during it - that this man was paid a hell of a lot of money for doing next to nothing. He was sitcom television star. They work a nine-to-five job. Read their lines in front of a live audience - that is told to laugh and applaud for them. Often paid to do so. And that's it. It's not hard work. Yet they are paid a million an episode? Why? The Buffy actors who worked 12-20 hour days, 7 days a week, weren't paid 1 Million and episode. They were paid about 1,000 to 100,000 if that.
We waste so much money on people whose job is to entertain us for maybe twenty minutes once a week for ten years. It's ludicrous. Yet, refuse to pay people much to clean our houses, our trains, stations or streets. Let alone drive trucks, build roads, protect us, put out fires, run our hospitals, and take care of our children. Why, does a man who does little more than deliver a few lines on sitcom get a million per episode he films or $50 Million, while a teacher or an editor who works far longer hours get maybe $45,000 to 80,000 a year? If that?
What does that say about us as a society? What does it say about the things we enjoy?
Anyhow - don't read it to get insight on how things are filmed or put together or back stage gossip on Friends (there isn't any) but do read it on how addiction can destroy someone. How pointless and addictive and toxic fame truly is. And how hollow those who manage to achieve often become, if they take themselves too seriously. The book is illumination on addiction, the toxicity of fame, and how fame and the television/movie business feeds addiction. It works in some respects as a cautionary tale. As Perry picks himself out of his hole of addiction, and brightly views the future ahead as full of possibilities, mainly as he is the first to admit - he's lucky, because he has friends who stand by him (friends he doesn't quite deserve or so he states) and money to spare.
Now listening to the audio book Born a Crime, a memoir by Trevor Noah - whom I like a lot better than Perry, and is not only a better writer but a better performer. His problems are a bit more - well ...I don't want to say real, just less self-inflicting. Also he has a great sense of humor, and being a professional comedian - is far more humorous.
Perry's humor often fell flat - I don't really share it, and much like Craig Bierko's and others of his group - it's a touch on the mean side. There's nothing mean about Noah and he is genuinely adorable in every respect. He is by far my favorite stand-up comic.
5. I've watched yet another episode of The Crown S5 - which goes into what happened with the Romaovs and the tension between Phillip and Queen Elizabeth - which is always present to some degree.
I'm struck by how trapped Elizabeth truly is - within the institution of the Crown. In this episode she informs Prince Phillip's latest companion (non-sexual, they are just friends - but she's a lovely young woman and the wife of his godson), that the Crown requires one to do things to keep up appearances, and to maintain the greater peace - by being silent and doing seemingly nothing.
The series from the start has shown a rather unbecoming light on royalty and in particular the institution of royalty. Showing how toxic it truly is, and in part, unnecessary. And again, as I asked above, I wonder what it says about us as a society - that we continue to feel the need to maintain it, worship it, and romanticize it?
The mystery I figured out before Wednesday did, and pretty much everyone else. Also, Wednesday had an annoying habit of confronting killers with what she knew about them, without producing any physical proof. Television writers suck at mystery plotting. I'm not quite sure why this is - but they do. I've yet to see a good television mystery. They also tend to suck at romantic writing. Those are not genres that television tends to excel at for the most part.
That said, Wednesday handled the romantic bits well for the most part - with the emphasis on the friendships, particularly between women over romantic heterosexual relationships. I do wish they didn't just explore heterosexual relationships. Wednesday in some respects had more chemistry with Bianca, the female siren, who was her frenenemy, than the two male characters. And if I were the writers - I'd go in that direction in future episodes. (I'm straight, but I can see where the chemistry is headed in television series. For example? In Angel and Buffy, I thought Angel had more chemistry with Spike than he did with any of the women he was put with - with the possible exception of Darla.)
The romances were used to further the mystery plot, and it was just a bit cliche or been there done that - vibe. Actually, it was how I figured out the mystery so early on. If they'd not played up the romance in that regard, I wouldn't have figured it out.
When it comes to mystery plotting - Nancy Drew did a better job.
But these are all relatively minor quibbles. Wednesday has great one liners, a stellar cast, relatable characters, and is compelling. Also it's production value is exemplary.
Christina Ricci needs to stop playing the same types of characters in everything she's in - she's kind of getting typecast.
2. Slept horribly last night - due to too much caffeine. Was wiser about that today. Also, played havoc on my blood sugar levels yesterday - I went down to 68 for the first time, after going up close to 200. Not great. The 68 was due to a long walk to the grocery store, three to four hours after eating carbs and no lunch. Note to self - can't skip meals and do exercise.
3. Am reviewing a friends query letter and considering being a beta reader for her historical novel. One problem - I'm already reading far too much on my computer - so I may have to pass for the sake of my eye-sight. A little envious - she's planning on working "full-time" on her novel in the fall, and has researched it out - it will be a series of historical novels about women in India. (I don't want to write about women in India - I envy the time. I have to sneak time to write mine - which is why it takes so long.) Also hers are short for historicals, 95,000+ words. (I consider that short, I am revising a novel that is currently 307,478 words. 95,000 is a novella in my opinion. What is that 100-200 pages?) She does have a few things going for her - 1) the subject matter is popular right now, 2) she's POC (African American or Black American). But, she's not Indian (India descent) nor to my knowledge has she ever been to India. Which doesn't necessary matter - white women scholars have written historical fiction about India, but at the moment, people are weirdly sensitive. She could get away with it though that is without too much push back from liberal social media, since she's not white.
I think she's already published a non-fiction book on financial planning. So has some knowledge on the process at least.
Note - writing the thing isn't the tough part, nor is researching it (what with the internet), but getting it published is just painful. Unless you have contacts and are famous, that is.
4. Finished Mathew Perry's memoir on audible - Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing this morning. I didn't buy it, I used a credit to grab it for free on audible. I have an audible subscription, where I listen to books for free, well for the most part.
Was it any good?
Eh, it's for the most part well-written, and he performs it well. (Being an actor - he'd kind of have to. Note - audible books read by actors or voice actors are by far the best.) But it is poorly edited and organized. Possibly among the worst edited books I've listened to. The editor should hang their head in shame - thank god, he doesn't go nuts thanking them. I felt like we were having a conversation. He jumps tracks, jumps back and forth in time, and repeats himself. He also puts his foot in his mouth a lot. A good line editor would have fixed that. But the publishing industry has gone to pot. You'd better off self-publishing at this point, all it appears to be good at is paying advances to rich people, and marketing/promoting stuff.
But, because it's on audible - the conversation bit worked well. I just wouldn't recommend reading it.
Perry is an example of an individual who was gifted with a great deal of talent and opportunity - and basically squandered all of it due to his addiction or disease. He says at one point that he'd have traded all of that - if he didn't have this disease. The disease almost killed him multiple times. He now has the bowls of a 90 year old man, at the age of fifty-three. He has had more surgeries than he can count, and multiple scars.
At the end of the book - it appears he turned a corner, and is in a better place. He's grateful for everything he has - including a huge house in Mailbu overlooking the ocean, and friends who have stood by him. He just would like a 5'2 brunette who is ten years younger than he is - to fall madly in love with him. He doesn't think that's asking for much. (Sigh.)
I told all of this to mother, who retorted that talent was wasted on certain people. I think we are all dealt a hand of cards in life - some are good, some aren't, and it's up to us how we handle them. We have no choice regarding the cards, just a bit on how to play them. Perry states in his book that he had all his dreams come true, just dreamed the wrong dreams.
It's an illuminating book about the toxicity of fame, and how being wealthy may make you comfortable and provide excellent health care, but not happiness. But I couldn't help thinking during it - that this man was paid a hell of a lot of money for doing next to nothing. He was sitcom television star. They work a nine-to-five job. Read their lines in front of a live audience - that is told to laugh and applaud for them. Often paid to do so. And that's it. It's not hard work. Yet they are paid a million an episode? Why? The Buffy actors who worked 12-20 hour days, 7 days a week, weren't paid 1 Million and episode. They were paid about 1,000 to 100,000 if that.
We waste so much money on people whose job is to entertain us for maybe twenty minutes once a week for ten years. It's ludicrous. Yet, refuse to pay people much to clean our houses, our trains, stations or streets. Let alone drive trucks, build roads, protect us, put out fires, run our hospitals, and take care of our children. Why, does a man who does little more than deliver a few lines on sitcom get a million per episode he films or $50 Million, while a teacher or an editor who works far longer hours get maybe $45,000 to 80,000 a year? If that?
What does that say about us as a society? What does it say about the things we enjoy?
Anyhow - don't read it to get insight on how things are filmed or put together or back stage gossip on Friends (there isn't any) but do read it on how addiction can destroy someone. How pointless and addictive and toxic fame truly is. And how hollow those who manage to achieve often become, if they take themselves too seriously. The book is illumination on addiction, the toxicity of fame, and how fame and the television/movie business feeds addiction. It works in some respects as a cautionary tale. As Perry picks himself out of his hole of addiction, and brightly views the future ahead as full of possibilities, mainly as he is the first to admit - he's lucky, because he has friends who stand by him (friends he doesn't quite deserve or so he states) and money to spare.
Now listening to the audio book Born a Crime, a memoir by Trevor Noah - whom I like a lot better than Perry, and is not only a better writer but a better performer. His problems are a bit more - well ...I don't want to say real, just less self-inflicting. Also he has a great sense of humor, and being a professional comedian - is far more humorous.
Perry's humor often fell flat - I don't really share it, and much like Craig Bierko's and others of his group - it's a touch on the mean side. There's nothing mean about Noah and he is genuinely adorable in every respect. He is by far my favorite stand-up comic.
5. I've watched yet another episode of The Crown S5 - which goes into what happened with the Romaovs and the tension between Phillip and Queen Elizabeth - which is always present to some degree.
I'm struck by how trapped Elizabeth truly is - within the institution of the Crown. In this episode she informs Prince Phillip's latest companion (non-sexual, they are just friends - but she's a lovely young woman and the wife of his godson), that the Crown requires one to do things to keep up appearances, and to maintain the greater peace - by being silent and doing seemingly nothing.
The series from the start has shown a rather unbecoming light on royalty and in particular the institution of royalty. Showing how toxic it truly is, and in part, unnecessary. And again, as I asked above, I wonder what it says about us as a society - that we continue to feel the need to maintain it, worship it, and romanticize it?
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Date: 2022-12-12 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 09:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-13 09:36 am (UTC)See this by Sabine Hossenfelder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpU_e3jh_FY
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Date: 2022-12-12 03:56 pm (UTC)The series from the start has shown a rather unbecoming light on royalty and in particular the institution of royalty. Showing how toxic it truly is, and in part, unnecessary. And again, as I asked above, I wonder what it says about us as a society - that we continue to feel the need to maintain it, worship it, and romanticize it?
I do wonder if we'll continue to do so in the next century. It seems to me an ancient holdover symbolizing wealth and power and the highest social strata. I think at this point more royals are leaving their titles and duties behind. It doesn't seem like much a tradeoff unless you're the king or queen yourself, in which case you still have some influence, but not much.
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Date: 2022-12-12 10:31 pm (UTC)Regarding your point on The Crown? I agree. I've already seen signs of breakage with the titular Royal Family and the aristocracy. Harry and Meghan's documentary and The Crown. I think you are right - give it five or ten more years, and think the whole thing will be disbanded entirely.