Whatever

Bitterly cold today, apparently. I can tell because my apartment is currently at 69 degrees. It would be in the 70's if it were warmer. My landlord's had a baby this past year, so they are keeping the heat a bit more regulated than in previous years. The baby is a little boy, named, Mighty. I kid you not. I wonder sometimes when people name their kids if they've forgotten what it was like in school. OR maybe they figure they'll get all the teasing out of the way early on - sort of like that old Johnny Cash song - entitled a Boy Named Sue? Toughen the kid up?

Because it was cold, I decided it would be a good idea to make blueberry/raspberry muffins this morning, but I forgot the egg. No idea why I spaced putting the egg in, but I did. Oddly enough, the muffins are fine. A little on the gooey side, but otherwise quite tasty. I used 1/3 cup of locally bought organic honey instead of sugar. I'm thinking the egg would have made them more cakey and less spongey. At any rate salvageable, and an interesting alternative in case I have to make them for folks who can't have eggs.

I gave up on Cookie Cutter - after only reading approximately 200 pages of it. Handed it to Wales last night - we'll see how far she gets. She may get further than I did. Somewhere along the way, not quite sure when, I got picky about my reading material. The days in which I will read anything that crosses my path are apparently long-gone. This may be due to the huge amount of dry and technical material I read at work, as well as write. When I read on my own time - the words have to have a sort of resonance. They have to sing. Not like poetry exactly, not overly fond of poetry any more to be honest, sort of like prose poetry.

Anywho, for whatever the reason, I've started the book I picked up on a whim from Barnes and Noble two weeks back. Wales jots the names of books that look interesting in book stores into her cell phone, then goes to the library to look them up, order them, and check them out. Me? I impulse buy them at the book store. What can I say, I don't like library books - I'm allergic to the mold and dust inside them. So instead I buy the things - so they can gather mold and dust in my own apartment. Apparently I don't mind my own mold and dust, it's others dust and mold that makes me cranky. Am currently reading The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff. We'll see how far I get. I've only started and dropped about five books in the last three months. I'm told this is a phase. I'm hoping it's a short phase. I miss falling into a good story and forgetting the passage of time.

Speaking of reading material - The Twilight craze continues. Overheard a woman talking about her love of the Twilight books on the train ride home one evening. She was a student, getting a degree in elementary education. (To be fair to the woman, she stated that she adored reading and had always loved to read. That is not something I take lightly, I love to read too - it's why I love New York City, most of the people in it are bookaphiles, like myself.)

I think there may be a woman in my building who is obsessed with Twilight - since the only two issues of Entertainment Weekly that I have not received - featured Twilight. I eventually got the issue with sparkly Edward on the cover. But never received the one dedicated to the film, with interviews and photos. That never came. Which leads me to suspect that Twilight lead someone in my vicinty to magazine theft. [It was either the landlord's wife, an actress studying to be a Protestant Minister who just had a baby (???) or the girlfriend of the guy who lives below me (I'm guessing the girlfriend - because he just doesn't seem the type - big hulking ex-solider from Iraq, who went to Harvard Business School??). Or maybe they swiped for their neice or a friend's teenage daughter? Or it was the old Italian neighbor's who live next door??? Got to say this about NY - every time I attempt to generalize about things, I look incredibly stupid - when some exception comes along and blows the generalization out of the water.] Don't mind the theft that much, the only bit of the magazine I missed was a Quantum of Solace review and a bit on Grey's Anatomy - which I read in a store.

Very hard not to be critical/judgmental of fans of the Twilight novels. Or make fun of them. Or make broad generalizations.

I shouldn't be. I know that. It's sort of hypocritical, for one thing. I went through my Nancy Drew/Harlequin/Barbara Cartlandt/Ann Rice/Ann McCaffrey stage after all. Not to mention my Spike craze (even if I like to think that was more complicated). Granted those books and characters were better written and more complex, if only slightly.

As far as I can tell the film Twilight, unlike Harry Potter, Buffy, or even Titantic and Dark Knight -is appealing mainly to one specific demographic or nitch audience -10-25 year old women who religiously read Harlequin romance novels, with a few minor exceptions. Men aren't into them at all, at least not seriously - the one who liked the film, a reviewer in AM, did purely as a campy entertainment. It made him laugh.

The woman speaking on the train couldn't have been much older than 22. I remember being similarily crazed over Kyle McLachlan doing Dune, when I was 14 or 15. Also was a bit nutty at one stage over Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (that was also at age 15 or 16). And of course, my passions for all things Star Wars and BattleStar Galatica (12-16)- hey, what can I say, I adored Space Operas. There was also, my very brief, Ike Eiseman stage - associated with the novels and films Escape to Witch Mountain and Return to Witch Mountain - both of which I drug my poor dear parents to - at the ripe old age of 10. Heck, I fell in love with cartoons as a wee child, such as Kimba, Robin Hood (the fox in the Diseny Film - was a bit obsessed with that film at age 6 or 7), and Battle of the Planets (I adored Mark from Battle of the Planets and Princess (a female fighter pilot).) That said? I still don't think I'd have been into Twilight as a kid. Too damsely-in-distress for my taste. Was never much of a fan of the Princess fairy-tale motif. Like I said, my favorite Disney film was Robin Hood not Cinderella or Snow White. The film as my mother put it, looks like a bore.
It does. I considered renting it, but now not so much. The films that I am looking forward to seeing over Thanksgiving Holidays are: "Australia", Quantum of Solace, and the family Thanksgiving film with John Leguizamo and Debra Messing which I can't remember the name of. After months of crappy films, some interesting fair is finally coming out.

Sigh. Too long again. And need to make lunch. No clue what I'm doing today. Planned on going shopping at L&T, but it's bitterly cold and I don't want to spend the money and my body has been off all week. Considered Yoga at 1:30, but not overly fond of yoga for a whole host of reasons that I will be tactful of the yoga enthusiasts on my flist and not go into. Maybe I'll just relax, read, watch tv, bake, work on my novel...it's been a really hard work week and I haven't felt that great during most of it...so a wee bit of relaxation is okay.

Also need to clean refrigerator and sort through my closet...so might do that as well.
Don't know. The day appears to be planning itself...which has been the case oddly enough most of this week for good or ill.

TV Slut Strikes Again

I should make dinner, but not hungry - possibly due to the chai tea and gluten-free almond sugar cookies I'd made earlier, while watching ER and The Starter Wife.

Ah Television. Yes, I am a bit of TV slut. I admit it. Always have been. Also have incredibly ecletic taste, which veers towards the off-kilter, cult half of the time. Plus, a huge weakness for serials - that requires committment, as opposed to episodic or anthology stories that don't.

Told Wales at Dinner last night, eating a nice steamed talipia with shrimp, artichocks and snow peas, with broccoli rabe, while she consumed her gnocchi, that Grey's Anatomy had without question "jumped the shark".

"Jumped the shark?" Wales asked. "What does that mean?"

"You're obviously not a tv geek," I replied to her bewilderment. "Jump the Shark as cjlasky once explained to me ages ago, is a term that is used to describe a show that has sort of jumped out of the range of logic into the neverland of mindboggling stupidity. The term was derived when Fonzi of the hit TV show Happy Days, donned a pair of skis and literally "jumped" a "real live shark" as a stunt to get ratings. Evil Knieval was a hit back then and they were copying his stunts - except to my knowledge even Evil didn't try to jump a real live (or animatomic shark). "

Grey's has done this. It came close to doing it last year with the Izzy/George/Callie storyline, but redeemed itself at the last minute. This year, alas, after a decent start, it did it. The writing now makes little to no sense. And you feel the actors and characters looking up at the writing gods and asking the time old question - "what's going on? Are you really stoned? Because this is ridiculous."
( Grey's has jumped the shark - cut for spoilers )

Ugly Betty on the other hand, got better. ( cut for spoilers )

ER has also been relatively good this season. Less over-the-top and more like it was in the early years, when I loved it. I gave up on it for a while - when they kept going to Africa and kept doing weird shoot-outs. (What is this ER or 24?) The focus on Neela, Dr. Banfield,
Gates/Sam, and Morris - with the old series regulars, Dr. Green, Romano, Weaver, and Luca/Abby popping in, has worked. It's writing matchs House's as far as medical dramas go.
It was always more realistic than the other ones out there. I'm loving Neela's storyline this year. Sort of identify with her, in an odd way.

House has also been good, I usually watch it live or the very next day. The dynamic between Wilson/Cuddy/and House continues to evolve and enhance the series. Helps that the three actors are so good and complement on another so well. Also enjoying the interaction between supporting characters - Thirteen/Forbes(Omar Epps character), Cameron/Shane. It's a medical drama that does a good job of using each case as a means of describing a problem with the main character or exploring one. Consistently and tightly written. Unlike Grey's.

The best written show that I'm currently watching or rather the one I'm enjoying the most at the moment and am reluctant to delete from the old DVR is surprisingly enough Supernatural.

I adore this show. It's pure horror noir. Tightly written. Consistent in its thematic structure and mythology, not to mention the rules of its verse (unlike Grey's). Yet at the same time unpredictable and rather imaginative. Tough to do, four years in. Most shows start to crumble around this point. This one just continues to improve. There was only one episode this season that I thought was less than stellar. Also the characters continue to change and evolve. Sam has lost his innocence. Dean has lost his self-righteousness, he's filled with guilt and remorse. He no longer sees the world in black and white and he no longer believes the rules make sense. The show like most good noir is questioning the morality of the universe in which it inhabits, a relatively skewed version of our own self-righteously angry and religious mythos. It questions what it means to be human, what it means to be good or evil. And whether the line is as neat as one might think. Who are the good guys? Are we doomed? Or does our salvation lie in our ability to forgive and love and hope and help one another? Including ourselves? It's not politically correct - true noir isn't by the way, it tends to be pretty sexist and racist, which is why a lot of people abhor it and it rarely hits mainstream. Too dark and controversial. If you look deeper at the art form, you will notice that it is critical of its own racism and sexism, but doing so requires looking deeper at our own societial structure and our own world and realising that noir is at times just a dark mirror of it, emphasizing the bits and pieces we don't want to see, that lie in wait, for us in the shadows.

Film Review - Get Smart

Still wide awake, because I waited too long to eat - ate after 8:30, which is bad. As any good gastrointestonologist will tell you, one should never eat after 8pm, actually they say 6pm, but let's be realistic.

Just watched the flick Get Smart - which surprised me by how incredibly funny it was. I was expecting it to be mildly humorous in places but not laugh out loud and until you're coughing and wheezing...funny. I'd liked the original television series in which it was based. Yes, I'm old enough to remember the 1970s and young enough to remember them fondly.
Only small children enjoyed that decade, we were too young to notice the bad fashion, inflation, high gas prices, and cheesy hair styles. Get Smart was on either in reruns or in the evenings, not sure which, when I was a small child. It was our baby-sitter's favorite series - so we watched it, along with Happy Days. (Really hope no one tries to make a film version of Happy Days. That would just be sad.) The film is oddly close to the original - same deadpan humor, ironic wit, and sly pratfalls - this is subtle physical comedy, before John Ritter found a way to exaggerate it in Three's Company. Although will give Ritter credit - he's the only guy I know who can make a fall down the steps hilarious.

Steve Carroll - is charming. And sort of grows on you. Before you know it, you find yourself enamored. It's a gift. Not everyone can do that. I also found Ann Hathway likeable in the film and rather close match to the original actress who played the part. Well worth a rental, particularly if you need a good laugh.

As for plot - it's an origin tale. Maxwell Smart is an analyst with Control - a covert intelligence agency. He dreams of becoming an agent. Has worked hard to become one. A traitor is in the midst of Control and blows the place up, including everyone's covers. As a result, Maxwell Smart is upgraded to agent status and is assigned to the reluctant Agent 99, who would rather not work with Smart (because of his lack of field experience). They embark on a mission - which subtly pokes fun at spy movies. It's not broad parody like Austin Powers, Get Smart is more satirical, and dryer. Maxwell Smart is actually quite intelligent, but lacks a certain level of common sense and is a bit of a clutz. He is however somewhat self-aware of this fact and doesn't let it get to him. Example - they are swinging from one building to the next, intending on going through the window, instead they hit the wall. Smart to 99: "Missed it by thismuch."