Tag: television

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Detours Media Consumption Writing Life

Is it a staycation if you’re only staying home because someone is ill?

This is Night 2 of “Spending the weekend as a couch potato because Spouseman has the stomach flu.” I’d planned to get some work done, but I am not great at splitting my concentration between creativity & caregiving.

So instead of writing fiction, we’re both hanging out in the living room with Scooter McNursecat, listening to the epic rainstorms outside, and watching TV. Spouseman has Vitamin Waters and saltines. I have plenty of Unhealthy Snax I picked up while getting his meds and Vitamin Waters. Life is pretty good, when it comes right down to it.

Yesterday I watched most of the series Into the Badlands. Spouseman was there, but he was feeling so ill I doubt it made much of an impression on him.  We wrapped up season 2 today. I have feelings about it,  mixed and murky ones that are very much tied up in my twtichy dislike of messy post-apocalyptic futures.  I don’t mean the gritty aspect of violence. I mean the part where the creators give no thought to systems needed to support the societies they design.  And this show, like SO MANY others, just doesn’t add up. And the dialogue was often so clunky it made me wince.

ANYway. End rantlet.

Brain-free TV for tonight and tomorrow: Lost in Space 2018. 40 minutes into episode 1, I’d already seen more character development & better science (not perfect, but TRYING) than in the whole 1990’s movie. It’s more serious than the original but still very family-friendly. And the family tensions feel authentic, not the Typical Space Show batch of walking tropes at all.

Fab worldbuilding & reveals, fine acting, plus relationships and dialogue that all ring true. My favorites so far: teen girls who talk like teens, and the chicken.

There. Is. A. Chicken.

This show is a keeper.

It was an eventful week, so I’m not going to beat myself up over a couple of extra rest days. Nope. Going to enjoy TV.

What events? I’m so glad you asked.

First, it was National Library Week, and since I’m on the NLW planning committee at work (at a library, for those just now joining the show) I spent most of one shift being a perky greeter and letting kids & adults spin the library wheel for prizes (like fines-forgiveness, mini-slinkies, and ice cream coupons. Also pencils and other loot) and another shift helping pass out popcorn at the trivia contest night.

The contest was the culmination of many meetings’ worth of discussion over questions, potential problems, presentation, snacks, prizes and coordination with other committees.

It was over in an hour. Worth all the planning. Everyone had a grand time.

I ate too much popcorn and have a page of notes to make next year’s event even better.  It was fun but still exhausting. Wednesday I made progress on various work things and also got to take a walk in short sleeves & sandals & lie in the sun.

That recharged me enough to face The Big Adventure Day. Thursday I went downtown by train and El, and thereby learned a whole new section of Chicago By Transit. I can navigate to & from Lincoln Park now, adding that to the short list of Loop, Museum campus & McCormick Place.

The point of the exercise was getting to the Galway Arms to meet Tina Jens for dinner and later attending my first Gumbo Fiction Salon. It’s a monthy reading series I hope to make a regular part of my schedule because it’s a great group and tremendous fun.

How fun? OMG OMG OMG fun. Yet also phenomenally scary. (I talked to a whole lot of strangers in a conversational setting AND SURVIVED)  DInner with Tina was fantastic because I love getting to know friends better. Later I read from Rough Passages and people laughed in the right places and clapped at the end. I listened to a lot of great fiction, some genre, some poetry, some memoir, and I even made it out in time to catch the 11:30 Metra straight home instead of needing a pickup at the Rosemont Blue line.

I am energized to really dig into some writing projects. Friday was to be a chores & shopping day, then  write on into the weekend.

Yeah. Well. Best laid plans.

Hanging out is good, tho. Snax all day & chili for supper (I made a huge batch. It freezes well, and it’s a good hot meal when the weather is cold & yucky like today)  cuddles with cat and snuggles with sleepy, sleepy healing Spouseman.  Words are patient. I will get to them. Maybe even tomorrow.

Why the cat picture? Because “cozy kitty” is how I feel night now. Ta!

 

 

 

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3. Other Things Book reviews Media Consumption Writing Life

The Usual Report: Post-equinox edition

The cute puppy has nothing to do with this post. I added him because I haven’t done an update in a while & thought readers deserved a bit of bonus cute.

BOOKS:

Chuck Wendig’s Damn Fine Story. Anyone who reads this blog more than a few times knows I consider most writing advice a stinking pile of bullshit, and I’m happy to dispute most standard guidelines for plotting, character development etc. Yet here I am recommending this book. It’s that useful. If you want to write stories, you’llfind something good in it. Nuff said.

The Broken Kingdoms N. K. Jemison. Book 2 in an epic epic fantasy series. (bonus: the series is done!)  I keep meaning to recommend this to my dad, lifelong fan of phenomenal world-builders & lyrical prosemakers. The problem is, I always get distracted by other things when we’re on the phone. (HI, DAD! READ N. K. JEMISON. START WITH THE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS)

Fluffy romances. All of the historical variety. Some Cathy Maxwell, some Sarah Maclean, some Victoria Alexander. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read a lot of them. Most have problematic elements and some make me wince. But they’re easy on the brain, and sometimes I just want some snappy dialogue and a short, simple theme park ride of a plot.

I also got a sneak peek at Rights of Use, which is an “aliens are real” science-fiction novel you won’t want to miss by an author named Shannon Eichorn. It’s in the publishing process now.I’ll let you know when it hits the shelves. It’s a rollicking fun read.

Next up on my list (along with more fluffy romances) are the books I bought at CapriCon & Concoction. Tune in next month for updates.

TV:

Jessica Jones season 2. This show took everything I appreciated in the character and ground it to pieces under the grimy old boots of “Angry Wimmens Be Evil.”  OMFG. I AM SO DISAPPOINT. I don’t even want to talk about it. Moving on.

Wait no, that’s it on TV. My DVR caught a glitch while most shows were on holiday break, but I only recently realized none of my regular shows were recording. I’ll catch up on Madame Secretary and Supernatural later. The rest? I didn’t miss them, so I won’t bother continuing with them.

MOVIES at home:

Thor Ragnarok. Twice. And I watched all the extra features too. Hey, it was a bad day, full of joint aches and dizziness and general physical misery. Superhero action+CGI battles+ a big dose of Chris Hemsworth totally helped.

Geostorm. A plot made of stupid & frosted with obvious committee decision-making, bereft of anything resembling scientific accuracy or authentic human interaction. Not recommended. Why did I watch it? HOLY CATS SO MUCH GLORIOUS ABSURD WEATHER CGI. Sometimes I am a shallow person.

Blade Runner 2049. It deserved the visual awards and really should’ve gotten the sound ones too. Gloomy, dark, and gritty, it plowed & twisted its way into plot territory where movies rarely tread. It not only stayed true to the (misogynist, misanthropic) feel of the original but built on the foundation in unexpected, fascinating ways. I’m astonished it got made.  Glad I saw it. Don’t ever need to see it again.

THEATER MOVIES:

Black Panther. Everything I want in a movie and more. Drama, humor, fine acting, brilliant costuming & moviecraft, and ACTION.  I could quibble about the iffy subtext of the antagonist’s motivations and tragic flaw, but NO I WON’T. First off, it would require spoilers and I don’t do real movie reviews. Second of all, I’m not the reviewer to tackle that. My take starts and ends with WAKANDA FOREVER, over and done.

Tomb Raider: Some Subtitle I’ve Already Forgotten. I planned to skip this one until it hit Netflix. I was only a spectator to the original video game, and I wasn’t impressed by the Angelina Jolie versions (sexy outfits, lousy writing) Meh, I thought. MEH.

Then this review from the Philly Voice hit my Twitter feed:

“She never comes across as having an ounce of sex appeal and, at times, looks like she could be sixteen. Toss in the lack of curves and Warner Brothers could have decided to gender bend and make a film titled Luke Croft and it would have come across much the same way.”

Female protagonist in a non-sexually charged slam-bang action plot? SIGN ME UP.  It was no Black Panther, but it was well-designed, decently-acted action flock that stayed true to its videogame plotting roots. I enjoyed it.

Pacific Rim: Uprising. Wow. Three great movies in a row. This movie world has an utterly absurd premise (giant robots driven by telepathically-linked human pairs fight extra-dimensional giant monsters with super-charged hand weapons? Uh.)  BUT. If you accept “that’s how things work in this world” then you get to revel in a fantastic sports movie without the boring sports part. Plus tons of kickass giant robot action.

Side note: John Boyega (the lead) is a phenomenal actor. Action leads can get away with playing basically the same role in a lot of different movies (Ahem. Clint Eastwoood, Mel Gibson)  but Boyega was effortlessly NOT “Finn in Star Wars only in a different setting.”

KITCHEN THINGS:

I have been playing with my egg bake recipe and making scones of various types pretty regularly. Working through the last of the summer’s applesauce, blueberry & cherry stashes. As if I needed an excuse to eat fruits & drink cider.

I was going to make some whipped cream to go with apple stuff and remembered AGAIN that my stick blender is missing. I have no idea if I loaned it to someone or left it somewhere or have lost it in the kitchen, but it’s gone. First noticed its absence before Christmas, forgot, noticed around New Year’s, forgot…at this point I need to consider buying a new one.

Look for the final decision in the next report.

 

 

Categories
3. Other Things Media Consumption

I’ve been watching things.

I’m in the middle of some Epic Fantasy, (NK Jemison, wooooooo!) but I’m not finished, I’m writing & revising but that’s boring to report on, and my baking adventures are getting their own posts.

SO. This episode of Sometimes I Do Other Things is all about the viewings of the last few weeks.

Exodus: Gods & Kings. A movie just as long as the Charlton Heston epic, minus two major subplots and without the golden calf sequence, with Yahweh inexplicably appearing as a small child throughout and also a lot of dramatic scenes of people glancing significantly at each other. OOF. I recommend AGAINST this one.

Atomic Blonde. Brilliantly-directed classic spy thriller, gritty and grounded in its time with a stunning use of period music. Wowza.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle. I have nothing good to say about this beyond, “Yes, I laughed at the funny bits and enjoyed it.” I also appreciated the moviecraft that went into the action sequences and the set design & cinematography were brilliant. Otherwise, from concept through character design to plot it’s a terrible, horrible, no-good,  scrub-out-your-brain-afterwards mess of septic tropes and poisonous cliches. Also the writers got simple bourbon-making facts wrong. SHAME. In short, a typical grand mess of a Hollywood blockbuster sequel.

Dunkirk. In many ways it reminded me of The Thin Red Line.  That is not a compliment. It’s all about insisting that the full scope of human experience can only be appreciated against a backdrop of  The Horrors Of War ™ Both movies looked at the same topic from different side. Instead of humanizing the grim bleakness of victory the way tTRL did, Dunkirk dramatizes the uplifting side of defeat. Or something like that.  Sorry to grump all over a movie that was super popular and beloved of critics. I’m glad I saw it. I just…I dunno.  I don’t need a lens of bloodshed and grit to celebrate humanity’s better angels.

Despicable Me 3.  An emotional palate cleanser after Dunkirk. Animated fun with all the elevated humor of a rowdy class of second-graders. Pretty sure that’s the target market, but like all the best cartoons, there’s plenty of higher-level fun for grownups to enjoy. Plus Agnes, Edith, and Margo are always fabulous.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard. I was hoping to add a movie to my growing “Hitman Comedies” list with Grosse Pointe Blank and Red, but nope.  It isn’t bad. I enjoyed it. I Won’t ever need to see it again, though.  Ryan Reynolds & Samuel L Jackson were both good, & Salma Hayek was excellent, but the plot intensity wobbled between The Whole Nine Yards and In Bruges and never settled anywhere.

Flatliners. Not sure why this got bumped onto Hollywood’s remake list. This is a solid take on a movie that wasn’t brilliant the first time. Far too much stalker camerawork, and even more too-muchness in the long lingering reaction stares and pointless telegraphed jump scare categories, but it stayed true to the original premise and only got a little muddy on plot.  Kieffer Sutherland’s cameo was the highlight for me.

Pirates of the Caribbean: something something something. What is this? #4? #5? Anyway. I’m sure many people adored it. Best I say nothing beyond SERIOUSLY WTF WHY WHY WHY…ahem. Sorry. You may safely infer I was not impressed. What a waste of so many things. Not my time, though. I folded laundry, came and went, played with my new iPad pencil and enjoyed the CGI. The graphics were marvelous.

Cloverfield Paradox. It was a space horror movie. Can’t recommend, can’t understand the hate it gets either. Compared to most of that sub-genre, it was

Altered Carbon. (Netflix original series) Holy fucking hell. Boom. This lets me wrap up on a high note. There’s an admantium Bladerunner skeleton under this show’s slick, modern, glamorous techno-skin, and the writing is full-on phenomenal. Some big gaps in plot, but I’m all about forgiving those when the premise is plausible and the internal consistency is there, and this show nails it.  Extra happy points for going equal-opportunity on the nudity (within the limits allowed by the annoying TV ratings system.)

It gets all my recommendations–with the caveat that it depicts a violent & bloody world where savage things happen…and gets moderately graphic about it.

Upcoming? OLYMPICS. Full television schedule bookmarked: check. Empty DVR: check. Food & beverage & power cord for the laptop: checkcheckcheck.

I record and time-shift the shit out of NBC’s commercial-soaked, propaganda-diluted fluff-piece-infested coverage. Comparing the number of jingoistic interludes & nationalistic melodramas to the number of actual events shown keeps me entertained.  And the internet gives me BBC & CBC clips. Huzzah for balance. And yay, sportsing!

 

 

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1. Storysculpting 3. Other Things Book reviews Media Consumption

Last doing-things post of the year (mostly movies)

Hard to believe, but I’ve kept up this semi-regular documentation of media consumption for over a year now. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, but in this case, I’m happy to be small. Any day I get to say, “I have done the thing,” is a good day.

So what have I been doodly-doing? Mostly socializing, baking, and eating holiday food. But also the usual reading & watching. This is a long post since it’s been a LONG time since the last one.

Books: Lots of fantasy fluff–errrm, that is to say historical romance fluff. Many reprints, which meant plenty of squirmy “wow, that’s not a good behavior to promote,” moments. Elizabeth Boyle (good stories, but a lot of recurring phrase tics and sketchy themes) Sarah Maclean (great dialogue, fun alterations to history, good job with consent) Julianne Maclean ( similar to Sarah Maclean ) I plan to read/re-read all of N. K. Jemison’s ouvre in January as my hibernation treat.

Television: I’m watching less and less TV. NCIS will definitely be off the schedule after this season. Ditto Lucifer. They’re both okay, but okay isn’t enough to justify my time these days. Supernatural is ending, and that’s cool. Mostly I’m watching Netflix originals & DVD sets from the ‘brar

Punisher: A punishing experience, pun intended. (Bwahahahahahaha…ahem…sorry.) I’m not a fan of gore, and this spilled over my tolerance threshold, but it avoided the origin story trap, and it didn’t stretch for a redemption arc. I have Major Issues with people giving heroes a pass on murder just because they’re killing bad guys, but this mostly dodged that trap too.

Defenders: Origin story could have been forgivable if they hadn’t taken so MANY episodes setting up the team. Also I could do with a LOT less Iron Fist. And even less “throw every supporting character from every series into this because why not?” plotting. It wasn’t bad. It should’ve been better.

Movies:  This has been a bad year for catching movies in the theater. So I’m grabbing them from the library as they hit DVD. (Have I mentioned lately how much of a library fan I am? PUBLIC LIBRARIES RULE!)  Ahem. Anyway. I watch a lot of movies in midwinter. So, grab a cuppa. This gets long.

The Great Wall. I almost liked it. Loved that a white guy was the Exotic Dispenser of Magical MacGuffins (contrary to many viewers, I didn’t see Damon as White Savior nearly so much as “barbarian dude barely tolerated the whole time.” The smart dude who engineered the victory was Chinese, as was the heroine who delivered the final blow. Never was Damon’s arc the focus of the plot.) I say “almost liked it” because OMG it was stupid. Fantasy siege battles are all fun and games except the engineering is JUST AWFUL AND COMPLICATED FOR NO REASON and war doesn’t work that way. I felt like Sigourney Weaver in GalaxyQuest for over half the movie.

Transformers Last Knight. Watching this made me wonder if the writers and producers  got lost in a props department and came up with lame excuses to use everything they ran across. Possibly they were also intoxicated at the time? King Arthur. Aliens. Transformers in all shapes and varieties. Add in massive amounts of voice-over and awkward failed attempts at “snappy” dialogue, stir with a huge cast of cardboard cutout characters and pretensions everywhere. It’s a painful, boring, overblown, disjointed mess. Not as bad as Battleship, but close. It made fine background viewing for three batches of cookie dough, but I would have been royally ticked off if I’d spent money on it.

Thor: Ragnarok.  Did I mention this one already? No, my November posts were all about food. So here’s my Thor report.  I prepped for the new movie by watching the first two back-to-back on Thor Eve, and was once again annoyed by all the oportunities missed in both films.  Thor 1 was not an origin story.  That’s the best I can say about it. Well, that and a shirtless Hemsworth. Ragnarok was worth the theater prices and made up for all the prior missed opportunities.

I adored seeing Thor as an earnest straight man constantly stumbling into comic situations. I always liked him better in the graphic novels when he was played for comic relief.  I am evidently in the minority when it comes to not missing the formal forsoothian Asgardian language and grammar.  The “main” villain didn’t impress me, as well-acted as she was, and the plot felt like they trid hard to cram two movie’s worth of plot into one, but hey. Loki & Thor banter. Dr. Strange banter. Hulk banter. ALL THE BANTER AND GIGGLES.  I like it. Another!

Star Wars Episode 8. For this one, too, I made the effort to hit a theater, and I’m glad I did.

Kong: Skull Island. Hooyah, I’m glad I didn’t spend popcorn money on this putrid mess. Not even Hiddleston & some other great actors could save it from its “Heart of Darkness meets Jules Verne plus Jurassic Park with a 70’s retro feel” premise. Too many flavors went into the smoothie blender. The result was horrible: gritty, lumpy and with a bad aftertaste. The only redeeming quality: seamless integration of the CGI. Never once did Kong or the other critters remind me they were merely imaginary.

Alien:Covenant. Um. The crew were not as fundamentally, hatefully stupid as the crew of the Prometheus, and the dual dose of Skaarsgard was scenery-chewing, over the top fabulous, but…it was still a problematic mess of people behaving so ridiculously I was rooting for them all to die much faster than they did. And the demonstrably incompetent captain’s faith being played as a beneficial trait misunderstood as a flaw by the foolish secularists bugged the shit out of me almost as much as the “superior intelligence equals emotionless also equals evil” theme.

Get Out. This one would have been too intense for me in the theater. Right at the painful edge of scary. So good. So creepy.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Does adding a subtitle subtract quality from a movie? Just asking. This might have been a decent, albeit anachronistic fantasy movie a la Knight’s Tale, (which I hated on first viewing because I was told it was historical, hah, lols NO) but the producers just had to slap King Arthur’s name on this, and it so very much is not true to the King Arthur legend, not even tangentially or as a “re-imagining of the themes.” Also WTF with putting in magical war mommoths. EPIC EYE ROLLS.

Baby Driver. I can see why it’s so well-reviewed. Fantastic cast of fine actors giving it their all, razor-sharp direction, solid writing. More happened in 20 min of this movie than in the first hour of King Arthur. I didn’t like it, I generally don’t seek out the “I’m only bad to protect other people” not-really-a-redemption-arc tropes. It just didn’t wow me. But I can see why other people adore it. (shrugs) It’s quite a brilliant film.

The Last Jedi. I enjoyed it from opening credits to final fade to black. There is much I loved. Don’t get me started on the flaws. Just don’t. My objections are all storycraft fails and/or internal consistency issues, nothing to do with changes to the mythology, vioating tropes or departures from canon. I’m on board with all those things. Also, to my surprise, porgs.  I love most the way the story is treating its own history like a spiral that keeps coming around to the same touchpoints but with changes & development each time.

The Christmas movie tally: both the Christmas Die Hards, Meet John Doe, (instead of It’s A Wonderful Life) Bell, Book & Candle, Lethal Weapon, and A Christmas Carol.

…and that’s a wrap.

Upcoming plans include getting my hair buzzed off because it’s past time, and buckling down on the new book (which I have shamefully neglected in favor of Doing All The Other Things this month) plus beginning revisions on Heartwood.  I’m try to aim at weekly or bi-weekly updates here. Shorter reports are happier reports.

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3. Other Things Authoring Media Consumption

Where does the time go…

I’m going through one of those phases when the amount of time passing feels vast in comparison to the activities spent filling it. (I call these phases “days of the week with names ending in y.”)  And so I list what I have done as a way to pin down the belief that I did SOMETHING.

Books read: 

Gates of Tagmeth (Kencyrath Book 8) P. C. Hodgell.  I treated myself to the latest in this series as a reward for finishing a Particularly Difficult Scene.  Am now working my way backwards through the series (as one does. What, doesn’t everyone do it that way?) Anyway.  I’ve now also re-read Sea of Time (7) and Honor’s Paradox (6)  and I’m halfway through Bound in Blood (5)

Some hours disappeared down the rabbit hole of ebook formatting research. ‘Porting all the ebooks legally-purchased over a decade into my currently-preferred reading device… was a bit of a challenge. Blame various technology changes. The internet came through once again.

Television viewed:

I caved in & started watching Marvel’s Defenders. I want to punch Iron Fist in the face every single time he’s on screen.  Otherwise, I’m not hating it.

Sportsball Sunday Afternoons is an autumn event here in Chez Herkes. Because it’s soothing and silly. Who’s playing? Not really important. Two teams. A bunch of sports announcers. Unintentionally entertaining events are guaranteed.

Movies:

Beauty & The Beast The live-action Disney remake. Watching it reminded me of listening to a virtuoso musician perform etudes. It was amazing from a technical perspective, gorgeously executed and brilliantly made, but in the end it felt like an exercise.  I did learn that live-action musical numbers with studio sound affect me the same way as uncanny-valley facial animation. They both bug the shit out of me.

Kung-fu Panda 3. BECAUSE PANDAS, THAT’S WHY.  I don’t know enough about the mythology or culture it hypothetically shows to speak on possible problematic elements. I do confess I loved the sneaky choral rendition of “Kung-Fu Fighting” playing in the background of fight scenes. I wondered if I was hearing things, but no. The whole song with words played during the credits.

Oceans Rising. It looked bad sci-fi, so of course I was tempted into viewing it. What a wreck. A total monstrosity of cinema from start to finish. I enjoyed every minute. The movie equivalent of gorging on generic chips & dip. World-spanning disaster movie filmed almost entirely inside rooms with no windows.  I also learned a bit about inertial navigation systems . From Google, not from the movie, which (unsuprisingly) got it wrong.

Things Written:

I’m not sharing numbers. Measuring progress by word counts gives me hives. (Not judging. It works for folk! It’s fab! Count & post away. I won’t see it. I avoid looking the way I steer clear of scented dryer sheets, and for the same reason.) But I digress. Suffice to say I am pleased as punch with my progress. Especially since I did it despite doodling away half a day and more on pretty autumn pictures and other detours into visuals.

The hardest set-up scenes in Heartwood are done, I’ve laid in all the remaining chapter titles, (it’s a new weird thing with this book. I can’t write scenes until I have titles for them) and I did hours of unnecessary research finding the perfect name to re-name a character. The rush-to-conclusion plot avalanche is in full flow. On track to finish before my self-imposed arbitrary deadline. I know that’s asking the universe to derail me. Don’t care. I’m flaunting my happy progress dance.

Away I go to keep up the momentum.

Not tired of my words yet? My published works are available on Amazon and all the other usual online retailers. 

Science-fiction thrillers, science-fiction romance, and science fantasy, full length novels and shorter works. So many choices!