Jarvis Park - on Hilton Head Island

On Thursday, we went to Jarvis Park - which is a 53-acre park and includes a large pond, fishing pier, open fields, picnic shelters, playground, restroom facilities, an one-mile walking trail and workout stations.

Pathways extend all over the park and around the lake creating a one-mile loop. The lakeside paths extend out into wooded areas. The paved trail is equipped with wooden bridges over marshy areas, so no one has to get their feet too dirty.



It's a sanctuary for water fowl and alligators.

( alligators and water fowl, mostly egrets, although there is a great blue heron in there somewhere )

And yes, the sky was that clear and that blue the whole time I was there. We got a little rain on Friday afternoon - for about twenty minutes, per down pour. But that was mainly it, also a little on Saturday when I arrived.



And the yellow daisies were in full bloom...fall on the island is rather pretty.

( pretty flowers )

And finally...the egret standing sentry on the posts of the dock. There were actually two of them on both posts - but I couldn't take a good picture of it - the posts were too far apart. The egrets were so still they looked like statues, and when they took off - I was somewhat startled by the sudden movement.

Movies and Book Reviews..

I saw several flicks with mother via streaming and television during my visit. I also completed The Devil Takes You Home and started Starling House.

Movie Reviews

1. Air - direct by Ben Affleck, staring Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, and Ben Affleck.
( mild spoilers )

Currently Streaming on Amazon Prime. (It's worth a view.)

2. The Phantom Thread [ETA : I accidentally called it the Phantom Menace previously - it is a lot better than that film by the way.] - starring Daniel Day Lewis, Lesly Mansville..directed by Paul Wesley Anderson. It's Day Lewis's last film.
( Read more... )

3. The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar - directed and adapted by Wes Anderson, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes. It's adapted from a Ronald Dahl short story - they've been adapting his short stories on Netflix, where it is currently streaming.

Eh, it is Wes Anderson - which means it is slow and kind of boring, and told in Anderson's surrealistic style. People don't talk to each other, they talk to the camera, and narrate their portions of the story - as opposed to telling it or having dialogue. There is some interaction but not a lot. It's really made for filmophile's or film fanatics.

I find Anderson arty for art sake. But it does kind of work here - in a 30 minute format. Anything longer - not so much. That said, our attention wandered during it.

The story is about a gambler, who learns how to see with his eyes closed in order to win at cards.

4. The Little Mermaid - Live Action Version - Disney +

Better than I expected. Held both of our attention for the most part. Neither of us remembered the animated film that we'd seen in theaters in the 1990s. They updated it a bit. And shortened it.

The casting worked very well, and I was rather impressed with the young actors playing Ariel and Eric. Also it featured all the key songs.
The changes - such as they were - were minor and worked. Better than expected.

Little Mermaid was during the Disney Princess era. Before Frozen kind of changed all of that.

***

We also watched bits of old movies on TCM, which is my mother's go-to station, that and CNN, and PBS for news, also ABC National News. Mother is a news, old movie, and sports junkie.

I've seen more national news this past week than I've seen in the last year. One of the many reasons I can't live with mother.

***

Book reviews

1. The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias - this is a noir horror novel, which is kind of gory in places. It won the Stoker and Shirley Jackson awards. And was rec'd to me by a social media friend.

I've mixed feelings about it. ( cut for mild spoilers )

Overall, an interesting book. I recommend, but with a few caveats, if you are an impatient reader who doesn't link linguistical hurdles, or has issues with gore - you may want to skip? Does it end happily? Well it is a horror noir and not subversive in that context, actually I'd say outside of one or two things - it's pretty much straight up horror noir - so...

2. Started reading Starling House by Alix E. Harrow - which is a gothic haunted house novel, about a Latino or POC woman and her brother, and a house in an old Kentucky coal mining town, that calls to her.
It's written in a post-modern style - with wikipedia pages created and put into the novel, and references to her brother's videos. Also has illustrations. And heavily references a horror children's book or nightmare book, entitled The Underland - which was written by the first owner of the house, a recluse, who died in it.

My favorite horror genre is haunted houses.

3. And on audible... Slayers : a Buffyverse Story by Amber Bensen and Christopher Golden - it stars James Marsters, Emma Caulfield, Amber Bensen, Juliet Landau, Anthony Stewart Head, James Cleary, and Daniel Strong.

It's actually surprisingly good. I was surprised by it. I don't usually like play style novels on audible - because I can't tell folks apart, but the voices in this are distinctive. They are all excellent voice actors - voice acting is hard.

Emma Caulfield does multiple voices - Anya, Anyanka, and Anyanka as a dog.

The set-up? Spike is undercover - when a new slayer pops up and blows it.
With Clem in tow, Spike is trying to find a watcher for the new slayer, Indira, when Cordelia Chase whizzes in from an alternate reality courtesy of that reality's Anya. In the alternate reality, Cordelia is the one and only slayer, Buffy and Willow never existed, and Dru is the Big Bad. As is Tara McLay, who got tricked into touching a grimoire or dark magic, and has become possessed by it - and as a result is now the paramour of Dru. Tara got seduced by dark magic. Apparently Cordelia killed off that verse's Spike. She's coming into this one to get Spike to pose as her reality's Spike because he always had a calming effect on Dru and may be able to pry her from Tara and help them save Tara and the world.

Of course things go wonky.

It's a lot of fun - particularly if you were more of a Spike, Tara, Giles, Anya, Cordelia and Clem fan than well, a Xander, Willow, Buffy, and Angel fan. (I was - I got bored of the other four eventually.) It also reclaims all the characters who were killed off in S6, S7, (Buffy) and S4 (Angel).

I'm enjoying it more than the other two. It works in the verse. (Let's face it everything written post Angel S5 is probably fanfic at this point. And this is really good fanfic or it's fanfic created by the actors on the series.)

(no subject)

Half watching "Surreal Estate" - which I mainly watch for the characters, except Luke Roman was more interesting with the sight. It's kind of cheesy, similar to Wyonna Earp and other Syfy series. Also the wave in my television set is noticeable again - mainly because I had a week without the wave. I'll probably get myself a new one for Xmas. We'll see.

I feel for people, saw this article... I Live in My Car -

( excerpt )

But for the grace of God, go I. There's little I can do of course. But my heart goes out to them.

**

One of the annoyances I've always had with online fandoms and fan discussions...is the idiots who like to berate people for loving fictional characters they find despicable. First off, it is a fictional character. Not real.
( musing on fictional character debates/fights along with political ones )