Downton Abbey

Bates the Pit Bull

(And if I've blogged it before, I'm blogging it again.  Get over it.)

I resisted it for a long time.  It was one of those things where too many people were talking about it, and I thought it wouldn't be something I'd enjoy.  Last summer sometime, I saw it on Amazon Prime and decided to give it a try.  Oh my God, how I love this show.  Whenever I am sick or sad, I want to watch Downton.  I realize that this is becoming a cliche of a certain type of woman, probably, but I really don't care.

Thomas the Siamese Cat

One of the things I bought for myself for my birthday was the third season on DVD.  I'm watching the season finale right now, and I have to say that this just keeps getting better and better.  I love the lushness of the sets.  I love the changing nature of the characters.  I love the fact that I am frequently surprised by what happens.

It's graceful and elegant.  It's lighthearted and funny.  It's heartbreaking and tragic.  Not every moment in the lives of the characters is happy.  There is real pain, real loss, and also real joy. New characters enter and are every bit as interesting as the ones who have been there from the start.  When it's compared to the tripe that masquerades as storylines in most other shows, or God forbid, reality TV, there is very little else that compares.

Matthew the Australian Shepherd

I don't have a wine party or sit down with a box of Godiva when I watch it.  I don't aspire to Edwardian fashion (except maybe the HATS).  I have to say, though, it's a very pleasant way to spend a hour or two.

All of these Downton characters as animals come from the delightful Etsy shop Toadbriar.  You can get them and see more by clicking here.

Once Upon a Time

I don't know how I missed this show, but somehow I did.  Well, okay, I do know how I missed it.  I don't get network TV, so there are all kinds of shows I miss.  Since the vast majority of them are total crap, I am fine with that.  This, though, I sort of hate I didn't know about.  On the other hand, though, now I can watch an entire season without any commercials or waiting for the next episode. Once again, the Roku gives instant gratification.

The actors are a surprising mixture of people I know and people I have never heard of.  My favorite is Robert Carlyle.  He's always so good in everything that he does.  He makes a truly fabulous bad guy.  The scenes where he is Rumpelstiltskin are wonderful.

One of the producers of LOST is involved, and you can totally feel that.  The flashback nature of it, the hidden crap EVERYWHERE that you don't catch until they shove it back in your face, the "this world is not what everybody thinks it is" aspect.  I love that.  LOST stands as one of my all-time favorites for all those reasons, but most of all because it stood as one show that I could not figure out the ending for after seeing the first episode.  I can't tell you how rare that is.

This show has the potential to go that way.  There have already been interesting twists and turns along the way.  They killed a character off.  I didn't see that coming.  They are tying the fairy tales together in original ways.  It becomes a situation where even though I know the story, I still am not quite sure where they are taking it.

Too, fairy tales have long been a great love of mine.  Ever since my Nana gave me a copy of Grimm's for my birthday as a child, these stories have been a part of my life, something I return to when I need comfort.  To have them now in this new form is to add another new layer of enjoyment to them.

I am only part of the way through the first season so far.  I hope the quality of the storyline holds.  I don't know how long they can continue to spin this, but I will go along as long as the ride lasts.

Andy Griffith

Yesterday, my CNN news alert service sent one of its little emails to my inbox.  Frequently, these are just sports scores or a political updates about which I care very little.  When I glanced at the screen and saw the synopsis, though, I clicked on through to read again the brief message.  Andy Griffith had died.

The sadness that I felt was profound.  I have never met him; he is not of my family. We are decidedly of different generations. The only experience with him that I have ever had is, in some cases, over forty years old and in black and white.  Despite these facts, the news that he was gone was an oddly personal thing.

I grew up, like everybody else, probably, watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  I didn't always like it.  It was "just on" at my grandparents' houses when I visited, and I didn't pay much attention then.  Some of it was funny, and I didn't dislike it; I was merely indifferent.

As I have grown older, though, I have come to recognize something in it that is absent in so many other shows, a genuine sense of love and respect for people that is at its foundation.  The situations Barney and the others get themselves into are the same sort of real-life absurdities that we all encounter or participate in, for the most part.  Pride gets in the way.  A mistake is made and the consequences emerge.  A misunderstanding arises because of a lack of patience or forethought. What is striking is the incredible gentleness everyone on the show has for everyone else.  Instead of telling Aunt Bea that her pickles are "kerosene," something that would crush her, Barney and Andy dump them and get her to try again.  Instead of assuming his son is lying despite a story he can't understand, Andy chooses to support Opie and check things out before issuing a punishment that he believes to be the right action at the time.  Even with Otis, a repeat offender and the town drunk, kindness and love are used.  He's treated like what he is, somebody who can't really help himself, instead of like a "criminal."

Too often, TV goes for the laugh at the cost of the character.  Even in the later shows Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz did together, most specifically We Love Lucy, the comedy is laced with cruelty. All the characters in that show have devolved from what they were in the original I Love Lucy and become adversaries who spend all their time coming up with a clever insult or acidic ridicule for their wives, their husbands, their friends.  It might be humorous for a couple of episodes, but for my tastes, the more Chaucer-esque method of showing people for what they are, with affection but also with absolute truth, and recognizing that we are all ridiculous at certain moments is more entertaining than the constant put-downs and sniping that is more commonly found. After all, don't we all want this, this most basic recognition of our human dignity? 

Maybe this is why the loss of Andy Griffith yesterday was something that was so personal.  While I have no way to know how much of his public persona was actually based on his real life, from what I understand, the philosophies reflected in the show were his own.  Even if they weren't, he made a show that valued hope instead of hatefulness, and he should be honored for that.  Would that there were more who were willing to follow that legacy on and off the TV.

City of Death

I'm on a Classic Doctor Who kick, and when I saw this series on Amazon Prime streaming, I almost giggled.  I have been wanting to rewatch it forever.  I haven't seen it in years and years, and it is one of the best of the classic DWs.

There are so very many things that make this one good.  I hardly know where to begin.  There's the fact that this was the first series to be filmed outside the UK.  Therefore, the locations aren't cheesy backlots.  They make much of that.  You get to see lots of Paris, and it really makes a difference somehow.

The setting, though, isn't nearly as great as the dialogue in this one.  Tom Baker's DW years always had good witty repartee between the main characters.  I think that if it wasn't there, he was sort of ad libbing it as he went.  This series was mostly written by Douglas Adams (and if you don't know who he is, turn in your Geek Card now) and it just sparkles like a gem in bright light.  Everybody is clever.  The baddies are clever.  The secondary characters get good lines.  And the Doctor and Romana, well, the Doctor and Romana absolutely scintillate.

There is so much to love in this.  You get science fiction and time travel but bound up with the most human of things, quite literally, in some cases.  There's great art and artists, too.  In fact, the Mona Lisa becomes a key touchstone of the whole thing, something that probably endears this episode to me even more since I have such a fascination with that piece of art.  (I know.  Me and half the world.  But still.)  There is even a brief John Cleese cameo I had totally forgotten.

It is, then, in every possible way, perfect.  If you've never seen Doctor Who before or only watched the new series, this is a good place to start.  There are other episodes I like better to be sure.  The Pyramids of Mars  and Sutekh's absolute Egyptian camp cannot be defeated for first place in my heart of hearts, but this one with its charm and its wit are probably running a close second.

A Scandal in Belgravia (Sherlock 2)

I was going to wait until the new season was available as one entire package, but I don't have the patience.  Tonight, I got episode 1 from amazon streaming, and it was worth every dime.  I love, love, love this show.  Sherlock season 1 was fantastic, but if this first episode of the new season is any indication, this new season is going to leave last time around completely in the dust.

It shouldn't surprise me.  It is, after all, a Moffat affair.  The writing is just so good.  There were a million lines I wanted to tweet and quote, sarcastic and witty, fast and funny.  The chemistry between all the players is balanced perfectly.  Benedict Cumberbatch could not be more perfect if he tried, and Martin Freeman balances him without being silly, stuffy, or weak.  The only bad thing about this show is that there aren't enough episodes to satisfy my craving for it.

I love how this Holmes is written.  He's brilliant and beyond and so rough with it.  Frequently people say things about him like, "You're about to meet Sherlock Holmes.  As far as possible, try not to punch him."  He describes himself as a high-functioning sociopath.  At times, he's totally childish.  The whole scene with the sheet and Buckingham Palace was a riot.

Tonight's had Irene Adler in it, too.  I loved what they did with her.  Add her to the mix of characters they took from the old, modernized, and made wonderful.  She was a balance to Holmes.  She's not good, either, but damn, she's fantastic at being bad.  I loved watching her pull his strings and vice versa.  I loved watching him wake up to the idea that there might be a woman somewhere who was worth his time.  I knew he was a goner when he knew her safe's combination.  I hope she continues to pop up from time to time.

From Moriarty (whose ringtone in the first five minutes was "Staying Alive," LOVE IT) to the line about "I always hear punch you in the face when you're speaking, but usually it's just subtext" to the beautifully sinister side of Sherlock they showed when someone dared to disturb Mrs. Hudson, it's all perfect.  The deerstalker even made an appearance, a completely logical one at that.

If you haven't seen the show yet, I can't recommend it highly enough.  Start from the beginning and catch up.  It really is one of the best things going.

Distracting Myself

You know this thing I have about blue eyes?
So...Yeah....

Tomorrow is the dreaded day.  I can't think of anything else when I stop to think, so I'm not thinking.  I am distracting myself. To that end, I have immersed myself in more TV.  I found The Vampire Diaries on Roku, and it's seriously fun fluffage.  It's what Twilight could have been and missed.  None of the vampires sparkle, some of them are really dangerous, people actually die, the heroine has a spine, one of the male leads (Ian Somerhalder) is gorgeous enough to burn all your houses right down to the ground and sassy to boot, and the storyline holds together beautifully. I can't believe that this thing is actually written this well.  It's not as neatly put-together as something by Whedon or Moffatt, but it's not what I thought it was going to be, vapid teenertainment.  There's solidity to it.  (Plus...have you seen his eyes?  I mean...O_o)  I'm in the middle of season 2 right now.  I think maybe there are three seasons out so far, so I have a lot more to enjoy.

I'm not exactly sleeping right now, didn't go to bed until 4:30 am Friday night, was up until 2:30 last night, so I am glad to have something to fill my hours.  After tomorrow, maybe I can get my brain out of this chasing-its-own-tail cycle of uselessness and do something other than mark time.  Because even as nicely as I'm being distracted (oh, and btw, I know what I want for Christmas now people...), this stasis is not what I want to be about right now.

Things of Nothing

I've done an astonishing amount of nothing today.  Vast quantities of it.  Heaping piles of it.  It has been a happy blend of dogs, couches, crocheted afghans, and televised costume melodrama.

Crazy, brilliant, blue-eyed, deeply-tormented, and carrying a sword.  Yeah.  You know that sounds like something I'd like..  O_o

Mostly, I've been immersed in the Roku.  I watched most of a series called Borgia and now I'm getting into Camelot.  What can I tell you?  I'm a sucker for a period drama.  Blame it on the pretty people.   No, really, though.  The guy playing Cesare in the Borgias was sort of...hypnotically gorgeous.  You can see him over to the right (or wherever the photo actually appears for you) as he finishes up a season-long bout of soul torturing and sort of says forget it, kills a bunch of people, and has a bit of what I call an "I AM BEOWULF" moment in the middle of the papal audience chamber.  He's quite mad and quite lovely.  I have to say that like Henry Cavill as Charles Brandon in The Tudors, a great deal of the reason I kept watching was for the pretty smart man with the blue eyes....  Tragically, I am almost always drawn to the monsters and the psychos.  Sigh. (Well, Brandon wasn't one.  Don't look so grumpy pretty Charles.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.)

Pretty man is puzzled by his own prettiness....

Anyway, I needed the rest and pure facetiousness of today.  It's been a real backside-kicker of a week, and I just wanted some distraction.  So far, so good, I guess.  In the absence of any sort of actual international travel, it's as much escapism as I'm going to get.

A Thought on What Love Might Be

You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Real love isn't brains, children. It's blood. It's blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.  ~ Spike, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Sherlock

Oh, I do so love this show.  The new Sherlock Holmes is totally obnoxious and completely brilliant. Specific little quirks and oddities Moffat has built in that I adore are the way Holmes will tell people to shut up because they're thinking too loudly, the way he harasses people through text messages, and the relationship Holmes has with his brother Mycroft.  They're hilarious.  If I knew him, I would probably be torn between absolute wonder and slapping him around.  It's lovely.

 It is a perfect reinvention of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character.  It's all there.  The moods, the mind, the darkness.  Too often, people who try to do Holmes turn him into a caricature, play up the deer stalker and the pipe and play down the very real demons that were written into the man.  Moffat has not shied away from the obsessions, the addictions, or the compulsions that accompany the brilliance.  There's a fabulous scene in one episode where he gets bored, paints a smiley face on the wall of his living room in yellow spray paint, and then shoots at it with Watson's Browning.  Characterization perfected.

Watson, too, is right on.  He's a man of action and intelligence who needs what Holmes has, the fire and the bright sheer insanity, to pull him out of the pain of his own past.  He's also a normal man trying to keep up with a genius. You can see the strain of what that is like well-played.  It is not always easy to be the friend and the point of stability for someone like Holmes.  I like that this Watson isn't written as a hero-worshiper who is blind to all of the negative qualities.  He admires, but not without awareness.  He does serve as the steady foundation that Holmes needs to ground himself, though, something he can rely on to be there so he can dance on and over the edge and know that there is something to pull him in even though he would probably never admit to that concept or that need.  And then, of course, there is Holmes' need for an appreciative audience...

And then there is Moriarty....  Well.  If Holmes describes himself as a "high-functioning sociopath" and really is, imagine what this new Moriarty has been made.  I think it's going to be a grand series.  It seems Moffat cannot miss.

An Embarrassment of Riches

The summer season for TV has begun, and all my smart, wonderful, imaginary men are back.  Doctor Who is back, and while I'm still a bit ambiguous about Matt Smith in the role, the show just keeps blowing my mind.  We're only one episode in so far (ep. 2 is tonight), but I'm already befuddled.  It's grand.

In Plain Sight is about to gear up as well.  I've so missed Marshall.  He's a delight, so off-beat, so smart, so strong.  I hope he's a bigger part of the show this year.  I hope they find a way to mop up the atrocious mess they made at the end of last season, too.  The finale made me ill.

The best news, though, was totally unexpected:  Goren and Eames are coming back to Law and Order: CI.  I had stopped watching it altogether.  Goren has long been on my list of favorite fictional men.  He just got better and better with every season, and then, poof, he was gone.  That decision never made any sense.  With IPS off for the season and CI running random other folk, I had stopped watching USA altogether.  I flipped through the other day and caught a commercial for the new season of CI and was delighted to see that they're bringing Goren and Eames back.

I guess with these three shows, my DVR might actually get some use.  It will be nice to see these gentlemen do their thing once a week.  Of course, once summer is over, I guess the shows will be, too, but at least I can be entertained for awhile....

Too Much TopGear, Perhaps

Yesterday, I was teaching Hamlet's To Be or Not to Be Soliloquy, and I compared this parody by Prince Charles

Well, frankly, the problem as I see it at this moment in time is whether I should just lie down under all this hassle and let them walk all over me, or whether I should just say OK, I get the message, and do myself in. I mean, let's face it, I'm in a no-win situation, and quite honestly, I'm so stuffed up to here with the whole stupid mess that I can tell you I've just got a good mind to take the easy way out. That's the bottom line. The only problem is, what happens if I find, when I've bumped myself off, there's some kind of... ah, you know, all that mystical stuff about when you die, you might find you're still - know what I mean?

to the original

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered. 

I'm rather afraid that after that, in discussion, when we were talking about the purpose of the Crown Prince using the cliche, euphemism, and so forth, I then proceeded to compare the first to a Volkswagen and the second to a Mercedes S-class.   I could feel the hot blood filling my cheeks.  The image of a little Beetle creeping along behind a string of prowling super cars had just filled my head.

Somewhere, Jeremy Clarkson is smiling.....

 

Reflections on the Tudors

And doesn't this sound like something you want to read?  No, really....

I've been watching The Tudors on BBCAmerica for the past two days.  They're running the series now (much sanitized, I'm sure, since it originally aired on Showtime), and it was inevitable that I would be snared by anything to do with Henry VIII and his messed-up life.  I know this is a soap-opera, so they've taken what was already "soapy" enough and amped it, but I find some of their slants and character portrayals interesting.

Anne Boleyn always comes off as a scheming temptress.  I'm not sure she wasn't, but I find her in this series sort of particularly horrible.  Selfish, grasping, deliberately cruel....I think the viewer is supposed to think this so when her inevitable fall comes, we'll be happy about it.

She got me thinking about how bad relationships with manipulative partners can mangle the people they're involved with.  Henry never sees Anne for what she is.  All his friends, people he's known and trusted for years and years, people he grew up with, prized for telling him the truth disapprove, and he refuses to listen.  I've seen that happen again and again with people I know personally right before the entire thing goes up in flames or violence. 

I know the great cliche is that love is blind, but why do lovers always assume that all their friends are wrong?  If everyone you love and trust tells you that your current amor is stepping out on you, playing games with your mind, being abusive to you, making you into some other person than you used to be (and not in a good way which you, let's face it, probably needed), then isn't there the slightest possibility they might be right?

I guess what Earl Derr Biggers says is true, "Every man must wear out at least one pair of fools shoes."  It would just be encouraging to me if people didn't keep going back to that same shop for this season's latest style of that same old fad.

You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me....

Top Gear US?  Pardon my casual language, but WTF?  How can you have Top Gear without Jeremy Clarkson?  Without James May?  Without Richard Hammond?  And don't even tell me they've got an American Stig.  Somehow, just the thought of that makes me...twitch. 

Not everything translates.  Some of the joy of that show is in the wonderfully sarcastic and dry British humor of the show.  Much of it is in the interplay of personalities of the hosts.  I don't believe that you can just transplant that to a different network in a different country and get the same results just because you're going to be testing impossible cars. 

Sure, lots of US viewers probably won't know the difference. It's happened before.  There was the US version of Touching Evil.  The Office started in the UK, too.  Most US viewers might know Monty Python, and, if they're really on it, Are You Being Served, Absolutely Fabulous, or Fawlty Towers.  It's a shame more British shows aren't known here.  There are Keeping Up Appearances, Vicar of Dibley, Wire in the Blood, Hex, Being Human, and my personal and perennial favorite, Dr. Who.

I wish people would watch these in their "native form" rather than feel as though they have to alter them.  I don't know why we do that.  Other countries pretty much have to watch whatever we send them; why don't we try to expand our horizons some, too?  It's not like they're going to be speaking another language or something (although, really, even if they were...would a subtitle kill you?  I mean...really?), and as everybody knows, a remake is almost never even as good as the original, much less surpassing it. 

I will probably check out the new US version just to give it a chance, but I'm not expecting anything.  I don't see how they can have episodes as epic as the guys' camping trip last week with the homemade travel trailers or the convertible people carriers or the tractor races.  I'll keep mine with the Union Jack flying behind it if it's all the same to you.  Maybe I'm just a sucker for that accent.

Vincent and the Doctor

The Doctor: The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

While he's still far, far away from occupying the favored spots held by Four or Ten, I'm growing more and more fond of Eleven.  The writing is good, and the storylines are excellent.  Tonight's episode, "Vincent and the Doctor," took Amy and Eleven to meet Vincent van Gogh, and it was one of the best I've seen in a very long time.  Maybe it was so good because it was so much a character study of van Gogh, of his pain and his art, of his joy at the beauty that surrounded him. 

It was odd that he managed to mix in so well to the world of Doctor Who, but then again, that has always been one of the great draws of the show for me, that anybody anywhere at any time does fit into it.  It doesn't have to be all technology and space mystery to have a place in the storyline.  Real, imaginary, past, present, and future all are fair game.  It gives a richness to the world of the show that doesn't exist in most other places.

As for van Gogh, the actor playing him and the storyline broke my heart. His smile was as lovely and fragile as bone china, and when he was in madness or despair, he made you want to protect him and help him.  I don't know nearly enough about van Gogh.  Artists have not, as a rule, been a major source of inquiry for me.  Instead, I tend to focus on writers.  You can be that after tonight, however, he will now be my new research project. 

Of course his paintings are beautiful.  Everybody knows some of them.  I think every college dorm room poster sale is required by law to have at least three sizes of Starry Night.  There are a few pieces by him that I personally love, including the church that was so much a focus of tonight's show, the same one I've put on this post now.  I also love his painting of irises, among others.  I will have to find a good biography of him and hope for a chance to go somewhere with a concentrated collection of his works.  The museums I've been to have had maybe one or so, but I've never had a chance to see anything like a gallery full.  Maybe someday I'll get a chance to go and experience the real thing for myself.

A New Doctor

"Beans are evil.  Bad, bad beans."  The Eleventh Doctor

I am watching the Dr. Who premiere again on its replay.  Matt Smith is the Eleven, and I'm getting used to him.  Some of this episode is hilarious.  The scene at the beginning where he's trying to find the food he craves is classic.  By the time he hurled that saucer of bread and butter out the door, I was laughing so hard I had teared up. 

I also think I like Amelia Pond.  I didn't expect to since they made her look about six in all the previews.  She's feisty, but she doesn't appear to be another Rose Tyler, who, I know it's heresy to some to say, I actually got very tired of very fast.  I love the scene where the child Amy packs all her stuff in a box and then goes to sit in the garden.  I also love the fact that she's running away with her "imaginary friend."  The set-up this time is good, much better thought-out to me than usual, it seems.

I won't know for sure how Eleven is going to stack up for a few more episodes yet.  If they all live up to or build on this first one, I think he's going to be a worthy successor to the tradition. 

Julia's Gone

Designing Women was on during much of my junior high and high school years.  It passed into syndication, and I watched re-runs for years afterwards until it disappeared into those late night, hard-to-find slots on Nick at Nite, Lifetime, and WE.  The whole original cast worked well together and was necessary for the show to be a success as is so often the case with ensembles, but the character I admired the most was Julia Sugarbaker. 

I think we all found something of an inspiration in Julia.  She had it all together.  She was what real Southern girls with brains want to grow up to be.  Even when everything was falling down around her, she maintained dignity and poise, kept her kindness, and above all, dealt with situations with her formidable intellect.

And that intellect was a mighty weapon.  She was erudite, a master of the art of linguistic skewer.  I loved her for that most of all.  She, like my own mother, was a woman who never needed to resort to profanities to reduce someone to a tiny little pile of ashes.  The famous "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" speech remains one of my favorite examples of Julia in her rhetorical prime.

She also had a strong sense of what she would and would not allow, what was and was not going to happen in her life, in her world, and to herself.  Her moral code was unbending.  She knew what she believed, and she stood up for it fiercely, with the same grace and determination of the heroines of the movies I love from the 30s and 40s. 

She was never so rigid, though, that she couldn't laugh at herself and the absurdities of the world in which she found herself.  Humor, so much a part of the show, was also a part of her own personality.  Julia taught us not to take everything, including ourselves, quite so seriously. 

Dixie Carter, the classy lady who gave life to Julia Sugarbaker, passed away today.  I think that much of the charm and richness of Julia came straight from the graciousness of Dixie.  I wanted to take just this one little moment to honor the character who, with her velvet glove and iron fist attitude, served as an inspiration for so many of us.  I said earlier that we all wanted to be Julia when we grew up; I guess we all still do.

The "Real" Housewives

Bravo has a lot of reality TV these days.  They have a whole string of shows that are variations on a theme, the Real Housewives series.  I know you've probably seen the commercials if you're here in the States.  They go to Orange County, New York, and Atlanta and follow a group of ultra-rich women around as they basically ham it up and fight with one another.  What the hell kind of entertainment is this? 

Granted, okay, I've never seen more than about five minutes of any of these, and that was only because I was in the kitchen or the middle of something I couldn't turn loose of to get to the remote after a show I do watch ended.  What little of them I have seen has consisted of catfights, romantic melodrama, excessive spending, and dubious parenting.  Again, I ask, why is this entertainment?

It pains me to watch someone wreck their lives or the lives of others when its fictional.  How much worse is it when it's real?  These shows have been on for several years now, so we've been privy to all sorts of moments and momentous decisions that probably are absolutely none of our business at all.  Why?

To me, these shows are a part of a larger trend in culture to make the private public.  I don't believe that every single thing in a person's life is the public property of the whole world.  There seems to be a growing Brave New World mentality that "everybody belongs to everyone else."  I don't care for that very much.  Maybe it's because I've read that book so often and I know how it turns out.  Maybe it's because I am, at heart, such an intensely private person myself. 

"But you write a blog," you say.  "You're putting your life out there for others to view."  Yeah.  You're right.  I do.  And some of the stuff I share here is very personal indeed.  However, that being said, I do not have a camera following me around every day (at least not with my knowledge...otherwise, greetings Big Brother, and that's the end of my dystopian novel allusions, I swear....) watching me fall on my face and screw up for the amusement of the whole world.  What you see here is what I want you to see.  Think of me as a magician on the stage, the juggling fool and not the trainwreck on the news.  To me there is a difference.

Maybe that's the way the Housewives think of their shows, too.  Maybe once those cameras stop rolling, they take off their cat claws, put away their damp hankies, kick off their heels, and just are.  Maybe, after all of it, there is not much reality to it at all. I guess I'll never know.  I wish we could find a way to be more fascinated by things other than the spectacle presented.   

Kayak Kissing Commercial

I guess this would make a meeting a lot more interesting.  Unfortunately, I always wind up as the guy to the right....

Extreme Home Makeover

I know this show has been on awhile, but I am watching my first episode of it right now.  I'm tearing up the whole time.  It's beautiful.  What a lovely, lovely thing.  Whoever came up with the concept for this show ought to get some kind of award.

The family they're honoring today has a prison warden father, a mother who keeps children for others and five kids in the house.  They're changing lives and not asking for anything for themselves, just going through the process of doing the right things like so many people try to do with nothing.  It's inspiring and literally restoring to my heart to see people like this get some great good things given to them.  I know that doing good is its own reward, but sometimes when the world sees and acknowledges those sacrifices and honors them, even for a minute, it is beautiful.

I love that it the homes are built by local volunteers.  I love that the products and housewares are donated by national corporations.  I love that they send the family off on a vacation instead of forcing them to build even though you know these families would gladly grab a hammer or a shovel. 

Being the hosts of this show must be just the best job in the world.  I hope it runs for a long, long time.  It is worthy.

Kokeshi doll Vulcan inspired custom by temple7e on Etsy

Okay, so I'm still on my Spock kick. What can I say? He's tall, he's wicked smart, and he can both mind-meld with you and knock you out with those lovely hands. Sigh....

Um, anyway, here is another interesting interpretation of one of my favorite imaginary men. In fact, if you are a fan of kokeshi, this maker has several interesting variations. Kokeshi were one thing I never started collecting while I was in Japan, I guess because I'm not much on dolls to start with, but I do appreciate the variations and the history. Enjoy!

Kokeshi doll Vulcan inspired custom by temple7e on Etsy