Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

How stupid are these people?

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Petty moves from a petty man.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

You are here: Home / Medium Cool / Medium Cool – The Road Ahead

Medium Cool – The Road Ahead

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Big congratulations to BGinCHI, who has been elected chair of his department at the university!

It’s quite an honor to be elected chair of your department by your colleagues, because anyone who has worked in a university setting knows that a good department chair is worth their weight in gold, and a bad department head is your worst nightmare.  So this is quite the honor.

So BG is now husband and father and dog owner and home owner and home remodeler and university professor and department chair and the regular host of Medium Cool on Sunday night.  I think the responsibility is aging him already!

Medium Cool – The Road Ahead

And so of course something has to give.

BG will still be posting culture threads on Balloon Juice, but they will be on a more ad hoc basis, when the spirit moves him or when a fun idea comes to him in the shower, as opposed to every week.  We’ll still have a weekly culture-related thread at 7 pm on Sunday nights, and we’ll still talk about books, film, TV, music, games, whatever, but of course it will be different on the weeks we don’t have BG.

One thing we’ll be doing on Medium Cool in the year ahead, starting sometime toward the end of January, is talking about mystery fiction.  Subaru Diane is prepping a 6-8 week class that she will offer through the lifelong-learning entity at Emory.  How social change in the 20th century England shaped the mystery fiction of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

So SD will give us a starting point for conversation on those nights – maybe one Medium Cool a month as she continues to put the class together.

Can we use this post to share any ideas you guys have for culture-related conversation on Sunday nights going forward?

BG will be here with a post on Christmas movies next week, when Dec 25 falls on a Sunday.

Reader Interactions

165Comments

  1. 1.

    Brachiator

    Big congratulations to BGinCHI who has been elected chair of his department at the university!

    Congratulations to BGinCHI! I hope he gets the rest of the furniture soon.

  3. 3.

    JoyceH

    “How social change in the 20th century England shaped the mystery fiction of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.” Dang, that sounds like fun!

  4. 4.

    BGinCHI

    Thanks to WaterGirl for the kind words on my upcoming (not for several months) benefliction.

    Gonna do my best to get here as often as I can.

  6. 6.

    jeffreyw

    We just finished the 3d season of Fauda, an Israeli drama series.  We liked it, no idea if it is anywhere near faithful in the depiction of either side of the conflict.  The tech is a little gee whiz with an echo of Person of Interest but it wasn’t over the top.  Netflix

  10. 10.

    Barbara

    @BGinCHI: ​I read Greenlanders by Smiley and found it so wrenching that I have not had the heart to read anything else she has written but I am open to taking another plunge if reviews are favorable.

    ETA: Congrats on your appointment though I think sometimes it’s more of a burden than an honor!

  12. 12.

    Mathguy

    “Good Luck! It’s a great job—a stipend and all the shit you can eat!”

    –Department chair stepping down after 15 years (and I can’t believe it’s been that long)

  13. 13.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I enjoyed it. In a twisted kind of way.

    When I was teaching at General Motors Institute, my dept went through 5 chairs in 8 years. We were a quarrelsome dept. It’s a tough job.

  14. 14.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I think you could extend BG’s practice of having threads about art that center political/cultural stuff that we all care about like the recent post about Labor/Union films but for all the other issues: 1.) Economic Inequality, 2.) Systemic Racism/Sexism/LGBTQphobia, 3.) Healthcare Access, 4.) Abortion etc.

    It would be great to have posts dedicated to art from various marginalized groups: Black, Women, LGBTQ etc. and centered on their stories that we learned something from.

    Also maybe posts where we all share links to our favorite visual artwork (paintings, drawings, sculpture etc.) and explain what we like about them.  Would also work for music, videos, etc.  What song or video do we never get tired of and why?  Or what reminds us of childhood, gives us hope.  Etc.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @BGinCHI: No, but I read her book Moo, about a land grant University.  Which we thought was about us at the University of Illinois, but others thought it was about them at their University.  (Maybe Iowa?)

  18. 18.

    Miss Bianca

    @Barbara: She’s a great, great writer. My favorite of hers is Horse Heaven, which deals with the sport of kings (horse racing), and all the richly varied characters, horse and human, that the sport attracts.
    She also owns racehorses herself (or perhaps only one); she wrote a neat memoir about her experiences.

  23. 23.

    kalakal

    “How social change in the 20th century England shaped the mystery fiction of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.”

    Now that’s my kind of thing, you’ve  got a great topic there

    I’m giving a lecture on Agatha in February as part of my rolling history programs for the Library

  24. 24.

    CaseyL

    Congratulations to BGinCHI!  And a very Happy Birthday to Mrs. BGinCHI!  All this, plus the holidays and end-of-year; bit of a busy, tizzy time.

    My hand is up waving, in enthusiastic support for a Medium Cool focus on mysteries.

    Mystery is one of my main fiction genres, and one of the things I love about the genre is its infinite capacity for hybridization with other genres.  Way beyond the “hard boiled” v. “cozy,” mysteries can be historical (including alt.historical), romantical, and science fictional.  About my only requirement is that, whatever logic the universe in that mystery operates on, it be consistent.

    I’m a particular sucker for historical mysteries.  They’re everywhere and everywhen: Medieval Europe, Tudor/Elizabethan England, Ancient Egypt… I think there are even some set in pre-Columbian America. I love Lindsey Davis’ books set in Imperial Rome.  She does an excellent job of milieu-building, so that you can get a feel for what everyday life was like.  I’ve hopped around some of the other historicals, and enjoyed them, but none have made the impression Davis has.

    Then there are the mysteries set in other countries and cultures, so the reader gets to learn something about those other countries and cultures.  Donne Leon lived in Venice for over 30 years, and reading her mysteries has a poignance beyond the books themselves, as she unwittingly chronicled how Venice became unliveable (slowly, then quickly) for residents who weren’t ultra wealthy, with her main characters noting, and lamenting, the social, environmental, and economic changes as they happened.

    TL;DR: you can do anything within the structure of a mystery.  It’ll be fun to talk about!

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @CaseyL:

    I’m a particular sucker for historical mysteries. They’re everywhere and everywhen: Medieval Europe, Tudor/Elizabethan England, Ancient Egypt…

    Have you read Agatha Christie’s Death Comes as the End, set in ancient Egypt?
    And are you familiar with the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters, about a Victorian/Edwardian-era archaeologist/Egyptologist?

  33. 33.

    Ken

    @JoyceH: As I recall, Christie’s characters deplored social change, and Sayer’s characters regretted it. Though I’m sure that’s overly-simple, and I may be mixing in Jill Paton Walsh’s novels.

    Then there’s Rex Stout’s approach, which was to ignore change — at least, within the confines of Wolfe’s brownstone. There may be the seeds of a science-fiction premise there, though I think Simak already covered it in Way Station.

    Oh, right, congratulations to BGinCHI!

  34. 34.

    kalakal

    @WaterGirl: I’d be delighted, I’m not really sure how it would work though.

    My favourite bit of Christie is the reaction I get when I show pictures of her surfing in Hawaii.

  35. 35.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @kalakal:

    I’ll ask WG to set something up offline. Your library series sounds very interesting. What other topics have been featured?

  37. 37.

    Anyway

    Never been able to get into Agatha Christie (books and the Tv adaptations I tried during the early Covid days)) — maybe the discussion will show what I missed.

  38. 38.

    Auntie Anne

    @SiubhanDuinne – that topic sounds fascinating!  I am looking forward to it.

    @CaseyL and @kalakal – I really enjoyed Susanna Gregory’s Thomas Chaloner series.  They are set in post-restoration England.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @kalakal:

    People don’t realise how well-travelled and adventurous she was even as a fairly young woman and even for those days. And once she shed Archie Christie and hooked up with Max Mallowan, then the adventures really began!

  41. 41.

    Anne Laurie

    @Barbara: I read Greenlanders by Smiley and found it so wrenching that I have not had the heart to read anything else she has written but I am open to taking another plunge if reviews are favorable.

    I really like Jane Smiley’s books, but I still haven’t been able to finish Greenlanders, either.

    Smiley has a broad range, though.  Perestroika in Paris — about a Parisian racehorse by that name — is a bittersweet little talking-animal tale that reminded me of The Little Prince.  As others have said, Moo is a fun read, especially for anyone with memories of Midwestern agricultural colleges.

    And I’m looking forward to her newest book, A Dangerous Place!

  42. 42.

    bbleh

    @BGinCHI: @Dorothy A. Winsor: Congratulations per above, and best wishes for the thankless coping with the absurd BS that unfortunately often comes with such jobs.

    At best, you will burnish what doubtless is already a sterling reputation. And at worst, you’ll work off a hella lot of bad karma :)

  44. 44.

    cope

    I have a foible about movies that may or may not be common enough to warrant a general discussion. There are a couple of undeniably great movies that I have watched once but don’t really want to ever see again. On the other hand, there are so many middling ones that I will watch over and over again. Maybe a group discussion about this would shed some light on this idiosyncrasy of mine. If not, I’ll gladly consider referrals to appropriate psychological or behavioral resources for self analysis.

  46. 46.

    Kristine

    Congratulations BGinCHI!

    A recent mystery series I’m enjoying is the Nora Kelly/Corrie Swanson series by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Kelly is an archeologist; Swanson is an FBI agent. Just a few books so far, but they contain a lot of background about legends and history of the areas where the mysteries take place. The first one, Old Bones, involves a search for the lost camp of the Donner Party.

  47. 47.

    schrodingers_cat

    @cope: I have some movies like that, I can’t bear to watch some movies more than once. 1947 Earth about India’s partition is one of them. Downfall about Hitler’s last days in the bunker is another one.

  50. 50.

    kalakal

    @SiubhanDuinne: They’re nearly all biographical, I started years ago at a senior resource and activity center run by the city to help my wife out who was in charge of the programming. The library finally relented and let me restart them about a year ago. It’s very varied, Newton, Machiavelli, Mary Seacole, Hannibal, Christie, Amundsen, Gagarin, Mary Queen of Scots, Turing are among the 30 odd I’ve done. They’re aimed at adults, we have I think the highest % of retirees in the country. They’re usually an hour or so and are meant to be entertaining as well as accurate  and  hopefully informative. There’s been some nice spin offs,eg I ended up doing a couple of talks for the local chapter of Zonta, after 2 of their members came to my talk on Amelia Earhart and I got invited over to Palm Beach to my guaranteed crowd pleaser – The Golden Age of Piracy 1650-1730 

    It’s odd really because if anything my period is German unification 1848-1870

  54. 54.

    RSA

    @BGinCHI: Congratulations on your new position!

    As far as academic comic novels go…

    Richard Russo’s Straight Man is stellar, one of my favorites.

    James Hynes has more than one novel that crosses comedy and horror in academia.  Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror is my favorite, with its M.R. James pastiche, but Kings of Infinite Space is probably a better work.

    Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim is a cute period piece but not much more.

    Ditto Tom Sharpe’s Wilt novels and standalones, which have such a slapdash feel to them.

    For whatever reason, I didn’t much like Moo, though that’s a matter of taste.  I thought Neal Stephenson’s The Big U was embarrassingly bad.

  56. 56.

    Joseph Patrick Lurker

    Keep an eye out for this book, it sounds interesting:

    Central Park West comes out next spring. According to the book’s publisher, Mysterious Press, the story follows federal prosecutor Nora Carelton, whose case against a powerful mobster finally comes together as a critical witness takes the stand. But a secret note creates an unexpected turn that thrusts Nora into a high-stakes investigation at the upper levels of government, all while balancing her obligations as a single mother and discovering the woman she really is.

    h/t ew.com/books/james-comey-debut-novel-cover-reveal/

  57. 57.

    eclare

    @cope:   You are not alone in that perspective!  I saw Billy Eichner on a talk show when he was doing PR for Bros.  He said he has seen Brokeback Mountain, a powerful movie, once.  He has seen You’ve Got Mail fifty times.

    I’m the same way with certain movies.

  61. 61.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Nelle:

     

    It will!

    Unfortunately, it costs to register for OLLI courses (a reasonable, even nominal, amount, but it’s still $ to keep the program going. I should add, I and all the other OLLI instructors are volunteers).

    But there’s no problem with my testing it out here at BJ and getting ideas to make it better. I’m getting excited about this!

  62. 62.

    Anne Laurie

    General suggestions, for vintage mystery appreciators:

    Stephen Spotswood’s new-ish Parker & Pentecost series is, IMO, a very good re-imagining of Rex Stout’s beloved novels.  Will (Willowjean) Parker is a young ex-carney lesbian runaway in 1930s Manhattan who finds herself entangled / employed by Lillian Pentecost, a brilliant, unconventional sleuth physically restricted by multiple sclerosis.  Spotswood’s got a good grip on the Stout style, but his main characters are distinct enough that they’re not just imitations.  He also expands on the time & the culture sufficiently that readers who didn’t grow up steeped in their history should find them enjoyable.

    And for Christie fans… I’ve just finished the first Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen YA novel, The Body Under the Piano.  Aggie is a bright, home-schooled, frustrated 12-year-old living in Torquay in 1902, who meets a 12-year-old Belgian refugee named Hector Perot when the local semi-gentry hold a benefit concert to ‘Befriend the Foreigners’.   Author Marthe Jocelyn does a great job of imitating the Christie style, including various snippets of Christie-ania, while explaining the historical milieu well enough for young readers who might otherwise find certain plot points thoroughly inexplicable (not to mention sexist / racist / generally awful).  I’ve already ordered the next two books in the series!

  68. 68.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RSA:

    Richard Russo’s Straight Man is stellar, one of my favorites.

    They’re adapting it for the pictures television. Some people there who have done good work. I hope it holds up

    A television series adaptation of the novel is developing at AMC and Tristar Television, with Aaron Zelman and Paul Lieberstein will serve as showrunners and Bob Odenkirk will serve as executive producer in addition to starring.[2] In April 2022, the project had given a series order. It is scheduled for a 2023 premiere, with an 8-episode first season.[3] In August 2022, it was reported that Mireille Enos joined the cast.[4] In September 2022, Diedrich Bader, Sara Amini, Cedric Yarbrough and Suzanne Cryer joined the cast.[5]

    though I have to say: 8 episodes? first season? been years since I read it, but that sounds like it may be a flexible adaptation.

  74. 74.

    kalakal

    @schrodingers_cat: I’ve loved her books for years too. When I came to America about 10 years ago I was in a library and for a few minutes was in heaven as there were all these Agatha Christie books I’d never read. Then I realized a lot of her books had different titles in the US from the UK :(

  75. 75.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    @BGinCHI: Congratulations and best of luck!

    @RSA:

    As academic comic novels go…

    Here are some more to consider:

    Giles Goat-Boy by John Barth

    Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury

    The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury

    Changing Places by David Lodge

    Small World by David Lodge

    Nice Work by David Lodge

  76. 76.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I would love to know more about her popularity or reputation in India and elsewhere in the former Empire. This whole topic is rather tricky to navigate, and I’d welcome your own insights.

  79. 79.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @kalakal:

    I ended up doing a couple of talks for the local chapter of Zonta

    My mother was a very active member of her local chapter of Zonta in the 1950s-‘60s. I always get a kick out of seeing a Zonta reference. Glad to know the organisation is still around.

  81. 81.

    M31

    I enjoyed Moo, and for academic novels there’s The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is great but also pretty intense.

    I was chair of my dept for a while and have been eternally grateful to have moved on from it.

    Re-read most Sayers every couple of years, she is great. Does Gaudy Night count as an academic novel?

     

    [edited to add, not comic novels here though, I misread]

  83. 83.

    kalakal

    James Anderson wrote a short series of books – The Inspector Wilkins Mysteries – that are wonderful recreations of classic English 1930s mysteries. They’re very funny, very well potted and read as though they were written by Agatha Christie meets P. G. Wodehouse with a sprinkling of John Buchan.

    The titles give an idea.

    The Affair of the Bloodstained Tea Cosy 

    The Affair of the Mutilated Mink 

    The Affair of the 39 Cufflinks

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @eclare:

    I am too. I think a thread devoted to that would be hella informative and interesting.

    I suspect a lot has to do with personal environmental factors: how old were we the first time we saw a [favourite, if not critically-acclaimed] film? Who else was there — family, a boyfriend/girlfriend, a crowd?

    The first datewithaboy I ever had was going to the movies and seeing a double feature of “Designing Woman” (Lauren Bacall) and “The Spirit of St. Louis” (Jimmy Stewart), and to this day I have an inordinate affection for both films.

  88. 88.

    Miss Bianca

    @kalakal: oh, concurred. One of of my theater’s board members, who’s also one of our principal actors, wants us to do The Mousetrap in the spring. I at first pooh-poohed the idea, but I am warming to it – particularly if I could sit in on some of SD’s classes! Or if she would share her insights here. Hell, I might even warm up.to the idea of directing it

    ETA: And you too, of course, good heavens! Would you be willing to do a Zoom on Agatha?

  90. 90.

    kalakal

    @WaterGirl: I know, the swine!

    A historical example

    Murder on the Orient Express was published in the US as Murder in the Calais Coach*  to avoid a copyright clash with Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train which had been published in the US as Orient Express

    *which is a weird title as nothing in the book gets within 700 miles of Calais

  94. 94.

    Layer8Problem

    @RSA: “I thought Neal Stephenson’s The Big U was embarrassingly bad.”

    I recall enjoying it, although I have to say at the time I read it I happened to be a sophomoric college student, on a campus with a certain resemblance to Stephenson’s setting.  It did introduce me to Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, which was used in the book to destroy the campus; that resonated with me.

  96. 96.

    RSA

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  Cool. Nobody’s Fool translated pretty well to the screen, I thought. Fingers crossed that this works, too.

    @Wyatt Salamanca:  Thanks for the suggestions!  I’m a big fan of David Lodge, and I love that trilogy (if that’s what it is).  I bogged down with Giles Goat-Boy, unfortunately; I think I can only do Barth at short story length. I haven’t come across the Bradburys!  I’ll give them a try.

  97. 97.

    Sheila in nc

    I went through pretty much all of Christie when I was in high school. Adored them. Went back to a couple some years ago — and was surprised and put off by the casual racism. Totally didn’t see it in 1970. Too young and too steeped in whiteness plus Anglophilia. Same reaction to Sayers, Narnia books, etc. I still love DLS, and I would say she is describing her milieu rather than affirming it, but it’s still a little shocking.

  100. 100.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RSA:

    Nobody’s Fool translated pretty well to the screen, I thought.

    I did, too. I also liked what HBO did with Empire Falls. I just picked up Russo’s latest collection of short stories

  103. 103.

    RSA

    @Layer8Problem: Maybe I’m too critical. It’s also possible that the timing was bad—there may have been world events around when I read the novel that put its plot turns in a bad light.

  105. 105.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @eclare: Some movies are absolutely superb but so damn rough/intense/sad that it’s hard to ever watch them again.  I’ve heard people say that about Moonlight.

  108. 108.

    Sure Lurkalot

    While I like podcasts, I don’t like audiobooks…weird, huh? But I have been listening to Stephen Fry’s Mythos series, self described as the Greek myths reimagined. First book is about creation and the gods, 2nd about heroes, third, Troy. It is very entertaining.

    Since Greek myths have themes that echo through western civ…reflected in art, literature, poetry, language, philosophy, history, etc., there are many avenues of departure for discussion.

    I have a master’s in Classics and have been reading articles about the death of the humanities in education. Some think it’s unconscionable to encourage graduate studies with job prospects next to non-existent especially considering the cost of the degree. I bailed out of my PhD program in 1981…when my prospects were much brighter than they are now. Yes, my skills were translatable into a successful business career.

    So, I’d love to revive interest in classical myths, memes and themes. 

  109. 109.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Anne Laurie:

    And for Christie fans… I’ve just finished the first Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen YA novel, The Body Under the Piano. Aggie is a bright, home-schooled, frustrated 12-year-old living in Torquay in 1902, who meets a 12-year-old Belgian refugee named Hector Perot when the local semi-gentry hold a benefit concert to ‘Befriend the Foreigners’.

    Okay, that sounds like more damn fun. Agatha herself was indeed home-schooled for years. Her mother was much given to educational fads and fancies, and for some reason decided that Agatha shouldn’t learn to read until she was eight years old.

    WTF? So Agatha taught herself to read at age five.

  110. 110.

    Layer8Problem

    @RSA:  I don’t think you’re too critical.  Stephenson was always embarrassed by it.  My partner’s brother almost convinced me he was buying up remaindered copies.

  111. 111.

    UncleEbeneezer

    A thread to discuss period films, both as the genre/setting (Antebellum, Victorian, Post-WW2) and also when the movies were released (70’s, 80’s etc.) would also be fun.

  112. 112.

    eclare

    It’s not a book, and I have no idea how accurate its portrayal of academia/writing is, but the movie Wonder Boys is very good.

  116. 116.

    FelonyGovt

    Congrats to BG! I don’t have any specific suggestions, but I’m glad we’re going to continue to talk about culture. I love exchanges of book recommendations, in particular.

  117. 117.

    Anne Laurie

    @WaterGirl: Aggie and Hector Perot. Too funny!

    At least mildly entertaining, in a very British tongue-in-check fashion.

    I’m hoping they’ll be ‘entry level drugs’ for a new generation of readers.  I’m a big Christie fan, but I haven’t been able to convert the Spousal Unit, because he always gets ‘taken out of the moment’ by the of-their-period biases.

    (On the other hand, he’s re-reading his way through Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series, which I find too arch to enjoy.)

  120. 120.

    Steeplejack

    @kalakal:

    There was a long tradition of British crime novels being retitled for the American market, I guess because of different idioms or for “sales” reasons, but sometimes inexplicably. I don’t know if it went the other way.

    I hope the practice has died out. The last ones I remember—and was frustrated by—were Nicolas Freeling’s excellent Inspector Van der Valk novels in the ’60s. Gun Before Butter became Question of Loyalty. Okay, maybe the untutored Americans wouldn’t get the link with smuggling in the Common Market. Over the High Side became The Lovely Ladies. Okay, sex it up a bit. A Long Silence became Auprès de ma Blonde. WTF.

    Gun Before Butter is a great novel, regardless of genre. I need to read that again.

  122. 122.

    kalakal

    @Steeplejack: Happened to quite a few SF writers going the other way, espescially in the 70s when they weren’t at all mainstream in the UK. Harry Harrison’s books for some reason were terrible for this, not only did they have different titles, they had multiple different titles. I think I bought some of his books 3 times. Ditto for Poul Anderson

  125. 125.

    Zelma

    @BGinCHI:

    “Congratulations” becoming chair.  I had that pleasure for six years and when my colleagues threatened to re-eclect me, I retired.

  126. 126.

    Brachiator

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    Some movies are absolutely superb but so damn rough/intense/sad that it’s hard to ever watch them again.  I’ve heard people say that about Moonlight.

    I found Moonlight to be intense, but immensely satisfying, even hopeful.

    But I know quite a few people who demand that any TV show or movie they watch give them someone to root for and a happy ending.

    I remember a woman angrily walking out after watching about a third of Mike Leigh’s 1993 film, Naked. I can totally understand her reaction, but the film is a complex and angry near masterpiece.

  127. 127.

    Steeplejack

    @kalakal:

    Wait until you run into Joseph Conrad’s The N—r of the ‘Narcissus’. The Wikipedia article has a discussion of how publishers have grappled with it through the years. Interesting note: it was originally issued in the United States as The Children of the Sea. They could have left it at that.

  129. 129.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    I forgot about that. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone became Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Dumbed down a bit.

  130. 130.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    They did that with the Harry Potter books, too.

    And who can forget that the film originally titled The Madness of George III had to be changed to The Madness of King George, because U.S. focus groups indicated some confusion about what had happened to Parts I and II of the “King George” franchise.

  132. 132.

    RSA

    @Steeplejack: Coincidentally, I was just reading the history of the song Fairytale of New York, by The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl, voted a favourite :-) of the UK public among Christmas songs. It’s also been subjected to censorship for some words in the lyrics. Understandable popularity, understandable controversy.

  134. 134.

    Steeplejack

    @James E Powell:

    Yeah, Boys Don’t Cry is a great movie, but I don’t need to see it again. Once was enough, but I saw it twice because a friend wanted to see it and needed someone to go with.

  137. 137.

    Brachiator

    @Steeplejack:

    I forgot about that. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone became Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Dumbed down a bit.

    There was reasonable concern that American readers, especially kids, might not connect “Philosopher’s Stone” with magic.

    Tangentially, many people were angry and confused when they went to see William Friedkin’s 1977 crime drama, Sorcerer. They wrongly assumed that it was a follow-up to The Exorcist.

  138. 138.

    kalakal

    @WaterGirl: Hah! just saw this.

     I first read that as autobiographical and soon realized my mistake! :-)

    Yes, I have led an extraordinarily long and varied life, rich in both character and incident :-)

  140. 140.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RSA: maybe that’s why I’m feeling like it’s not the joyous holiday season, I haven’t listened to Fairytale of New York in a while…

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack

    @Brachiator:

    There was reasonable concern that American readers, especially kids, might not connect “Philosopher’s Stone” with magic.

    Like I said, dumbed down a bit. I question whether British kids would have automatically had more of a clue about the original title. But Rowling either suggested or approved the title change, so whatevs.

  144. 144.

    Scout211

    O/T but if you are still on Twitter, you can vote Elon out of a job tonight. Twitter poll

    Elon Musk
    @elonmusk
    Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

  145. 145.

    kalakal

    @Brachiator: One of the oddest I’ve heard of was Bladerunner. The title comes from an SF novel  by Alan E Nourse that the studio had bought the rights for, had a treatment written by William Burroughs and then shelved. When they were making the film of  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? they wanted a snappier title so they used Nourse’s title for Philip K Dicks book

  146. 146.

    kalakal

    @Scout211: I’m tempted to say that would be letting the little shit off too easy. Let him stay squirming in the trap of his own making. OTOH…

  147. 147.

    Layer8Problem

    @Steeplejack:  A favorite of mine is Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios, which was originally The Mask of Dimitrios in the UK.  Absolutely no idea why they changed the title except to perhaps to give it more of a punch.

  151. 151.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Scout211: somebody needs to speed up this slow-motion one-man car crash

    nova@faygatsirl
    For your consideration. The world’s wealthiest man has made the largest purchase of his life at 44 billion dollars. The product? A machine that shows him the thoughts of millions of people who all have one thing in common, they hate him. Tonight…On the Twilight Zone.

  153. 153.

    zhena gogolia

    @SiubhanDuinne: I recently read Gaudy Night out loud to my husband. At the end I nearly threw the book across the room. The key line of dialogue is in Latin? And some kind of Oxford in-joke to boot?

    I much prefer Agatha!

  156. 156.

    NotMax

    Shall once more suggest ads as a topic. Best, worst, funniest, most memorable, most puzzling, etc. Same could be done for jingles and/or taglines.

  157. 157.

    columbusqueen

    @zhena gogolia: Not me. I’ve been a devoted Sayers fan since I encountered the initial TV series when I was 14 or 15. I still have my battered, beloved paperback of Gaudy Night that I took to Oxford the summer of 1989, where I stayed at Sayers’ own college, Somerville.

  158. 158.

    billcinsd

    A book series that is at least sort of academic and definitely funny are the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor. A time-travelling historian associated with a University and the British government travels the world and time to solve a bunch of mysteries. I remember the main character going to Troy, and one of the dinosaur ages and somewhere in English history

     

    amazon.com/dp/B09CT3DQLK?binding=paperback&qid=1671420717&sr=8-6&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc…

  159. 159.

    billcinsd

    I should add congrats to BC — I was elected Chair of my Faculty Senate twice over the last 3 years and that was much easier than being a Department Head or Chair. Mostly because my schools administration is pretty good at being for the faculty so there wasn’t a huge problem like at many unis

  160. 160.

    Tehanu

    I’ve been a fan of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael books for many, many years, but up until recently I’d never found any other “medieval” mysteries that were any good (and some that were awful!) But Margaret Frazer’s Dame Frevisse mysteries are every bit as good as Peters’. I’m still in the midst of catching up with the whole set, having read the first 2 or 3 and the last 2 or 3, and they’ve all been terrific.

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