Long entry is long.
Mar. 30th, 2012 03:25 pmAdrienne Rich died on Wednesday. She was such a big influence on Boland that she naturally colored my thesis quite a bit. It's weird to think she's gone.
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In my continuing quest to watch every TV show Canada has ever made, I watched the first eight episodes of Robson Arms, which is a half-hour quasi-anthology series about the quirky tenants of a ramshackle Vancouver apartment building that aired from 2005-2008. It does have reoccurring characters, but each episode focuses on different ones, or the same ones in different combinations. Some of the situations can be a bit stock, but they do a really good job of putting an emotionally weighty, original spin on them. So far my favorite is the episode where the younger half of a May-December gay couple feels resentful about eventually having to take care of his older partner, only to discover that at age 30, he has cancer, which upends everything about the relationship. I also enjoyed the one where a teenager bonds with his kickass burlesque dancer grandmother.
Apparently half the Canadian television community acted in this series, because I am constantly going, "Hey, It's That Person!" Examples:
Apparently Dave Foley and Peter DeLuise are going to show up at some point as well.
Anyway, it's good, and it's on Netflix. You should watch it!
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In my continuing quest to read everything ever written about Amelia Earhart, fiction reading ensued: Jane Mendelsohn's I Was Amelia Earhart, which is a beautiful little novella that follows Earhart and Fred Noonan on the round the world trip and then postulates that they crashed on a deserted tropical island and survived there for a year before they reach a point where "there is no difference between being rescued and being captured," and so when they spy a plane that might be American, might be Japanese, and has definitely seen them, they take the Electra up again and presumably crash into the ocean and journey to an afterlife that is another version of their island.
The dreamy style is a bit self-conscious, but that actually works in its favor because Earhart seems to have been quite self-conscious herself. My only quibble is that the switching from first- to third-person POV with seemingly no rhyme or reason didn't entirely work for me. I would've stuck with first-person all the way through, although the third did give the reader some nice views into Noonan's head, such as, ...he measures the passage of time less in terms of his own experience than in the changing expression of her form. // When she is old, gray-haired, he will love her for all of the seasons she contains.
(There is, perhaps predictably but no less nicely-done, a lot of bickering and fighting in the first part and then a love story. Or I suppose really the whole thing is a love story in its way, including the fighting, but you know what I mean.)
Two more excerpts I was particularly taken with:
( Under here )
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Finally, pictures from a recent outing to Centennial Park:
( Flowers, birds, trees, concrete ships, girls in hats. You know, the usual. )
*
In my continuing quest to watch every TV show Canada has ever made, I watched the first eight episodes of Robson Arms, which is a half-hour quasi-anthology series about the quirky tenants of a ramshackle Vancouver apartment building that aired from 2005-2008. It does have reoccurring characters, but each episode focuses on different ones, or the same ones in different combinations. Some of the situations can be a bit stock, but they do a really good job of putting an emotionally weighty, original spin on them. So far my favorite is the episode where the younger half of a May-December gay couple feels resentful about eventually having to take care of his older partner, only to discover that at age 30, he has cancer, which upends everything about the relationship. I also enjoyed the one where a teenager bonds with his kickass burlesque dancer grandmother.
Apparently half the Canadian television community acted in this series, because I am constantly going, "Hey, It's That Person!" Examples:
- Gabrielle Miller and Fred Ewaniuk (Lacey and Hank Corner Gas)
- Mark McKinney (Richard, Slings & Arrows)
- William B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man, X-Files)
- Gabrielle Rose (the Redverse psychologist in "Olivia" on Fringe; other guest roles in Vancouver-filmed shows)
- Alisen Down (Barolay, BSG)
- Kevin McNulty (assorted guest roles)
Apparently Dave Foley and Peter DeLuise are going to show up at some point as well.
Anyway, it's good, and it's on Netflix. You should watch it!
*
In my continuing quest to read everything ever written about Amelia Earhart, fiction reading ensued: Jane Mendelsohn's I Was Amelia Earhart, which is a beautiful little novella that follows Earhart and Fred Noonan on the round the world trip and then postulates that they crashed on a deserted tropical island and survived there for a year before they reach a point where "there is no difference between being rescued and being captured," and so when they spy a plane that might be American, might be Japanese, and has definitely seen them, they take the Electra up again and presumably crash into the ocean and journey to an afterlife that is another version of their island.
The dreamy style is a bit self-conscious, but that actually works in its favor because Earhart seems to have been quite self-conscious herself. My only quibble is that the switching from first- to third-person POV with seemingly no rhyme or reason didn't entirely work for me. I would've stuck with first-person all the way through, although the third did give the reader some nice views into Noonan's head, such as, ...he measures the passage of time less in terms of his own experience than in the changing expression of her form. // When she is old, gray-haired, he will love her for all of the seasons she contains.
(There is, perhaps predictably but no less nicely-done, a lot of bickering and fighting in the first part and then a love story. Or I suppose really the whole thing is a love story in its way, including the fighting, but you know what I mean.)
Two more excerpts I was particularly taken with:
( Under here )
*
Finally, pictures from a recent outing to Centennial Park:
( Flowers, birds, trees, concrete ships, girls in hats. You know, the usual. )
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