Y2/D222

Another gloomy day...with bits of sun, mainly in the morning. I think the Universe is trying to tell me something?

More watching of stuff, although I did finish reading the historical romance. It's the first book that I've actually completed "reading" since February 2020. Everything else has been "Audio" books and "Graphic Novels".

The experience of reading is different, in that different portions of the brain are involved, and there are days in which I've no difficulty at all, and other days in which I feel as if I've read the same paragraph fifteen times and can't remember what I've read or make heads or tails out of it.

Audio can be like that too, but has been less so of late. Pictures too.
The brain is a weird thing.

Last night, mother called around 10 PM, while I was reading in bed. I was tired. It was odd, since she's usually in bed by 9. But she'd talked to a friend of hers and my fathers. He'd been my father's best man at their wedding fifty-six years ago. The poor man's first wife, whom they'd also been friends with - had died of cancer ages ago. He felt lonely. His second wife, it turns out, had up and left him without warning after a brief disagreement. They'd argued. She got up. Packed her bags and left the house. Then took all their money out of their bank account, and sued him for their house. He still loved her, but she refused to see him, talk to him, take his calls, or read his letters. Apparently she'd gotten Parkinsons' and one of the side-effects for some sufferers of the disease is they have a psychotic break, and a major change in personality. In her case, she just stopped loving or caring about her husband.

He's also estranged from his fifty-seven year old son, who had to sell the business he'd inherited from his mother. And fool that he was, he just gave away the domain name without realizing he could have made even more money off of it. Word to the wise? If you register a domain name? Don't just give it away. If its distinctive? You can make a lot of money off of it. My brother made over $100,000 off of his company's domain name.

Her story broke my heart. I think there are more lonely and heartbroken souls out there than we all realize. My heart goes out to them. Life isn't easy for anyone.

I rather liked the message of the historical romance that I just finished. It was a bit different than the run of the mile romance. The characters were older for one thing. And married. The story was about them getting to know each other, and learning about each other through various family crises that they had to navigate together. Also, neither was landed gentry or aristocracy. Not really. One was the illegitimate son of an Early, disinherited and disowned, when the Earl's bigamy was uncovered. The other, the daughter of a Lord, who died without a male heir. They have a relatively small estate and his an industrialist. The focus however is overcoming grief and finding a way to love again and move on. And grief, alas is something I've been grappling with myself of late.

Flirted with some flims on Amazon Prime - one blew my mind. "My Mother's New Boyfriend" - it stars Meg Ryan as a middle-aged overweight mother, who manages to slim down considerably, and hooks up with a hot, somewhat dangerous spy played by Antonio Banderas. Ryan's son in the film is..."Colin Hanks". That blew my mind. It's as if the character in the film is taken from one of the many 1980s/90s rom-coms Ryan starred in with Colin's Dad, Tom Hanks, and Colin has been thrust in there as his son, while Tom himself is long gone, and replace by the dangerous and sexy Banderas.

I'm tempted to watch - just for that inside joke (which will be lost on anyone who is not familiar with "Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Joe vs. the Volcano". Not that you are missing anything.) But god, the film looks atrocious and offensive. I hate female fat shaming in movies.

**

Still wear a mask when I go to the pharmacy, and walk outside the apartment, although I do take it off "outdoors" and when I'm by myself, which is more often than you would think. People don't tend to patrol the halls of my apartment complex - thankfully. It's actually very quiet most of the time.

**

Niece is planning to take off for Brighton this weekend. Apparently she's connected with another old friend of my brothers. Also she has made friends with a bunch of students from Singapore, and has been staying at their flat, which is closer to the library than her dorm room. (My niece looks like she's from Singapore, she has almond shaped eyes, olive toned skin and dyes her hair black.)

**

Decided not to go to church today, watched it on FB instead and proceeded to fall asleep during it. Did catch the tail end..about crossing the lines or the divide, and pushing back at tribalism. I liked that message. It came at the tail end of an odd story about a Christian man who believed in "the Rapture" and made plans for his dog, Millie to be taken care of by a neighboring Rabbi, if he got sucked up into the Rapture. She said he made a plan, and crossed the divide. And I thought okay...that I'm glad I missed, but I agree we need to talk to folks we don't necessarily agree with, and cross those lines of division more frequently. I don't like tribalism at all, or all the isms that fall beneath it (nationalism, racism, sexism, chauvinism, etc.)

I've been tired lately and sluggish. Today, I was told by the headspace app to do something I enjoyed. So I read. I enjoy reading. Not everyone does, but I always have - to escape fully into someone else's head or story...is a wonderful thing.

Tomorrow is working remotely. I've three weeks left of doing that. I wish it was longer. But it's yet another thing about my workplace and the world in which I reside that I've no control over.

Random Picture of the Night...

(no subject)

1. Claudia Black on Film Set Safety - So, I started following Claudia Black on Twitter recently. Anyhow, she's been posting these amazing threads about how to handle life on a film set.

The link above is to the latest thread.

"If you’re an aspiring actor, and as my advice was good enough for a young Mcavoy I pray you’ll listen now.

When we were filming Pitch Black a producer came to give me a choice. They had a problem and needed to do a reshoot with me and a stuntie. The shoot thus far had been rough he crew was exhausted. 6 day weeks are unsustainable. Mistakes happen when crews are tired and often on the 6th day. The crew couldn’t say “no” to another Saturday but I could. I asked when they needed a decision & went to speak with some crew. I made sure that they themselves were choosing —rest vs an overtime paycheck— I would not presume to know their needs and priorities. They chose safety and rest. “Safety First,” is after all, an oft heard refrain on any decent set with its priorities in check. I returned to the producer and told him I was too tired and didn’t want to work the Saturday. He looked at me for a few seconds. I was a good actor and a bad liar. He went to say something, nodded instead and rescheduled. We do a lot of things on sets that would otherwise be illegal. It can be thrilling. It’s a privilege."

This was in response to the tragic shooting of a film photographer on a film set by Alec Baldwin. The shooting is being investigated, but so far appears to have been accidental and unintentional. AP NEWS COVERAGE of ON-Set misfiring of a gun that killed director of photography on the set of Rust

BTW there is a lot on this on Twitter - enough to demonstrate to me at least that Baldwin and his fellow producers cut some corners, and did not follow safety protocols on set, nor did they take measures to ensure their film crew was safe and well rested. There's one thread where a crew member is complaining about how crew members couldn't find a place to sleep that was close by, and that the producers refused to find one or pay for rooms, outside of a motel that was doubling as a homeless shelter. (This thread horrified Claudia Black.) Another thread made it clear that the Assistant Director wasn't attending safety meetings and pooh-poohing them as a waste of time. And wasn't taking the fire arm safety seriously. And another thread makes it clear how odd this was, and out of the norm - meaning normally strict safety protocols are followed and there's no way this would have happened if those safety protocols had been followed.

I'm in an industry where we have to take a four-hour safety training course each year in order to be near or on the tracks. And I'm inundated with safety protocols. We have Safety Meetings once a month. So I can well imagine what a film set that utilizes stunts and fire arms would require or should. Also recently the union representing television, theater, and film crews went on strike in part due to the lack of appropriate safety measures on film and television sets.

Days before the actor fatally shot Halyna Hutchins, a cinematographer on the set of “Rust,” a gun used in the production inadvertently went off at least two times, ex-crew members said. The incidents prompted a complaint to a supervisor about the safety practices on the set, which was outside Santa Fe. The crew members were among several workers who quit just hours before the fatal shooting over complaints about working conditions and unpaid work.

According to an affidavit, Baldwin was told that the gun was safe before he fired it, and an assistant director “did not know live rounds were in the prop-gun” when he gave it to him.

According to Twitter feeds, the assistant director didn't know because he didn't attend the safety course. The Fire Arm specialist, put the guns on the prop table. The AD picked up one and handed it to the actor, who then fired it, killing Hutchins and wounding the director.

Per the Times:

( here's what they know and don't know about the fatal shooting - and it kind of syncs with the twitter feeds )

[Right now various folks in the entertainment industry are petitioning that firearms be banned from film and television sets in the future, and they rely on special effects. I can't blame them. And why not? Also, it does make me wonder about the violence in our films and television series - and how easy it is for stuff to go wrong.}

2. There's two intriguing new comic series coming from BOOM! - involving the Angel and Buffy verses.

* Angel Goes Hollywood with New Comic
( New Angel Comics - Angel is in a television series by day and fights monsters by night )

Shame they can't reboot that as a television series. Honestly that's the one version of the old vampire as detective they haven't done. I'd watch it. They don't have to make it Angel. Or they could and recast with a hotter actor?

* Buffy The Last Slayer - has a 50 something Buffy fighting vampires in a dystopian future, with Spike, and a sword wielding gray-haired Xander.
( 50 year old Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

I wish they'd do that as a television series too - on Netflix. They could hire Claudia Black to play a 50 something Buffy, with Marsters as Spike, and recast Ben Browder as Xander.

BOOM! Studios - snatched the rights to Buffy, Angel, and Firefly from Dark Horse and IDW. And have rebooted the stories in new directions. I stopped with the reboots. But the above two takes look intriguing. And I may go back and sample some of the reboots.

[Note - Whedon may have been an asshole to work with, but I still like what he created with various other writers and actors. It's a universe I still enjoy. Also Stephen DeKnight, Marti Noxon and Jane Espenson along with Tim Minear - were all good writers. As were the actors involved, and crew.]

3. ( RIP Semi-Famous Folks who died of Cancer this week )

4. I wasn't going to talk about COVID, but alas...got email from my union. (I'm in an international union.) Anyhow - it is supporting the mandate for vaccines at least.
( union's stance and we've lost 48 members to the virus )

( From the Times Briefing )

[I don't tend to supply links to the articles, because most of them are under paywalls.]