We gave BG a whole month off (without pay!) and he gets a bonus day off today since tomorrow is a holiday. But Medium Cool will be back next week at the usual time – Sunday evenings at 7pm.
For today, this is a build-your-own culture post. Maybe not quite as fun as a build your own sundae bar, or maybe it’s better!
So this is a post for all things culture, and if there’s anything you have ever wished for as a topic for Medium Cool, throw your penny in the fountain and tell us your idea.
I’m looking forward to BG’s return next week!
Baud
Was I supposed to use the hiatus to get cultured?
WaterGirl
@Baud: You were
edit: We didn’t call it a hiatus because to me, hiatus means “oh my god, this may be getting cancelled!”
*cancelled in the old-fashioned real sense of the word, not the latest CANCELLED bullshit.
Dangerman
I only shower on Medium Cool days. Hurry back, BG!
ETA: 106 and about 100% humidity. Maybe I’ll make an exception today.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Oops.
Kristine
I posted this in an earlier Open Thread, and Zhena Gogolia suggested I post here, so I hope this is okay. If not, please delete.
Plus, I figure writing=books=culture, so.
Every summer, the small press Zombies Need Brains runs a Kickstarter for next year’s anthologies. Joshua is trying to fund four anthos this time around instead of the usual three, and there’s a lull in the pledging. If you like SF & Fantasy short works, themed anthologies, or just like to support small presses, please consider pledging. Many cool pledge premiums available at all levels.
I’ve written stories for a couple of the anthologies, and am one of the anchor authors for Solar Flare, the theme of which boils down to optimistic tales of the future. Since my preferred style is “le Carré in Space,” that will be a challenge for me, but I would like the chance to meet it.
Thank you for your time. We now return you to your regular Open Thread discussions.
WaterGirl
@Dangerman: I think the California peeps would appreciate some medium cool temperatures.
I do think it speaks well of the rest of us that we are not telling the CA peeps – who normally get to brag about their 75 degree temps all the time – to suck it up.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: I thought we might see this here when I made this the wide-open culture post.
Yutsano
I’m going to take this as a hint and finally crack open the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson my therapist has been bugging me to read.
After nap. Yes, nap first.
Kristine
@WaterGirl: Yeah–I saw the broad topic and I jumped.
They really are good anthologies. Several of the stories have been nominated for awards.
Another Scott
This may have been a previous MC topic, I can’t keep track of stuff as well as I used to…
NewYorker – Anatomy of an Earworm (from 2014):
Dunno if it fits the pattern, but many of the songs that get stuck in my head have lyrics that speak to me. I don’t even have to hear it for years for it to come back, unprompted.
The latest for me is Howard Jones – No one is to blame (4:25)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ixnay
Culture, here we go. One of my favorite cover tunes. Better than the original to my ears. Eve of Destruction by the Screaming Jets.
https://youtu.be/_JcRh9cAIc0
trollhattan
@Dangerman: 106/100% sounds like a recipe for death, or at least steamed rice.
We’re a measly 104 [checks]105/11%. Beef jerky weather.
dmsilev
Wasn’t sourdough more of a 2020 thing?
trollhattan
@Another Scott: When I read the article and list, I had to reflect on how few of the listed songs have any effect on me, so have to give the entire effort a hearty “pshaw!”
Some of them, yeah, but I suspect they don’t have the secret sauce recipe yet.
WaterGirl
@Ixnay: Thanks for getting me to listen the original – which is way better than your cover. :-)
Van Buren
My wife has worked in family court for 30+ years and today she told that for years she has thought that they should play We Can Work It Out in the courtrooms while they are waiting for the judge to enter and I can’t stop laughing.
Suzanne
In recent years, I have been appreciating period detail in movies. Hidden Figures and The Post were both these great middle- budget, character-driven things and they both looked great. The furniture, the clocks, the clothes. Even small things like lampshades. Mr. Suzanne and I are now watching Only Murders in the Building, which is set in the present day, in this gorgeous prewar apartment building with obvious echoes of the Dakota. The decor is definitely a throwback. I’ve been enjoying their crown mouldings.
trollhattan
Watching “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” and wow, it’s a ride. Actresses who play Woo, adult and young, seem exceptional at managing the quirks of autism. Have not watched many Korean films of shows and find the language utterly incomprehensible–somewhat akin to Japanese but with nary a word I can understand (usually pick up a few listening to Japanese). Culturally, there are similarities, even with all the historical baggage.
Each episode is framed as a legal case procedural but it’s not like any lawyer show I’ve seen. Curious whether anybody else has watched.
glc
Still timely I suppose:
Mikhail Gorbachev & Andrey Makarevitch ”Tyomnaya Noch”
At the moment I’m reading “Babel” by the young and talented R. F. Kuang, whose first works made up a very dark trilogy “The Poppy War” that reimagines some brutal Chinese history in a fantastic setting. This new work is something quite different, though I’m not far enough in to see clearly where it will go.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: OMITB for me hit a comfortable stride in season 2, because the characters gel in ways season 1 didn’t quite accomplish. Super show, in all and yes, the building is a character for sure.
dexwood
@Baud: What!? Are you yogurt? Can’t stay, helping my long suffering wife with the care of her 94 year old parents. Looking forward to The Slacker’s return.
(Kidding BG)
citizen dave
Culture, eh? Coinciding with the local central Indiana good fortune and good old fashioned sports ball corporate welfare, our Colts owner has amassed himself quite a mess of Americana, Beatles stuff, etc. Behold below. Guitar nuts check out his collection. Yes, I plan to attend the event to see what my extra half cent percent of all my meals out has amounted to. (Though I did see the On The Road scroll years ago at our art museum. )
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-jim-irsay-collection-feat-buddy-guy-and-ann-wilson-indianapolis-tickets-383073742877
dmsilev
@Suzanne: The building my office is in, which dates from the 1920s, has been used for filming period pieces, most recently for something set in WWII. The set decoration crew spent a week changing out modern light fixtures with appropriate period reproductions, putting up all sorts of posters and flyers on the wall (‘save scrap metal for the war effort’, that sort of thing), lots of detail that were never going to be the focus of any particular scene, but would be there in the background. The amount of effort involved was impressive.
Tony Jay
I’ll just start by saying that I have been looking forward to Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for quite the while. Billion dollar budget. Plans for a multi-season story arc. The whole Second Age of Middle-Earth to play around with. Immortal Elves as permanent characters around which you can anchor the rise and fall of both Numenor and Sauron’s first crack at doing a Morgoth. Take my money, I want that.
Also, have I ever mentioned that Faux Fanboi Fucktards with their glass-shattering whining about “It’s not just like it was in the book!” piss me off no end? Of course it’s not, genius. Different mediums. Different audiences. You take what works and wrap it around the core of the story you love and you do it justice. Jackson did a pretty good job with his LOTR trilogy, less so with the Hobbit trilogy. Lesson being that if you’re going to change things, only change what you absolutely have to, and don’t skimp on the grandeur. I love a bit of grandeur.
So, it’s with great sadness that I admit to turning the show off after about fifteen minutes. It looks great. They certainly put that massive budget to excellent use, and I’m confident they’ll win all kinds of awards for their technical wizardry. But, and this is from the heart, if I wanted to see virtually the entire backstory of LOTR being hacked to the bone, leaving a truncated and just plain incorrect version of Tolkien’s history flopping around on a very expensive CGI stage, I’d just dig out something derivative from the 80s (probably with a young Marc Singer in a loincloth) and make do with that.
Just fifteen minutes. That’s all it took to make me swap over to Only Murders In The Building.
They couldn’t even get the fucking map right.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay:
Is that for real? I hadn’t heard anything about that
edit: And now I see that it was for real and a total disappointment to you. Bummer.
Baud
@Tony Jay:
At least you don’t hate it because some of the non-orc characters are black. That’s apparently a big controversy right now.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Yes. Two episodes are up on prime.
raven
Art Rosenbaum died today. Grammy award winner for his work with traditional folk music, painting professor at UGA and a prince of a guy.
trollhattan
@Tony Jay: Started ep1, followed through a few swordfights and celebrations, found myself waking up while it was still running, having slept through (best guess) an hour’s worth.
Maybe I’ll give it another go. Maybe.
zhena gogolia
@Ixnay: great!
Suzanne
@dmsilev: That’s so cool. I love the architectural and interior (and jewelry, and fashion, and graphic, etc.) styles from that era.
There is a gigantic and very expensive antique store here in PGH that I love to gawk at. Some of the pieces have signs on them indicating which movies they were in. It is just such a joy.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Seriously? It’s Bezos’ second biggest thing after building a giant space penis.
Though, oddly, the giant space penis is probably more accurate in relation to the source than the garbage I just watched.
dmsilev
@Tony Jay: ‘Let’s spend the better part of a billion dollars filming not the main story of LOTR, not the epic myths of the Silmarilion, but instead the barely fleshed out appendices to the books’. Yes, I know that that was what they could license, but, well, the GoT show went to crap when they got beyond where the books were…
First two episodes were visually stunning (especially Moria in the second episode, where it’s shown in full glory compared to the ruins seen in the films), but plot is a bit of a mess, even given the constraints of the licensing. I’ll still watch for a bit; I want to see Numenor if nothing else, but it’ll mainly be for the visuals at this point.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
I am having such a hard time with the secret passages. They’re gigantic. They would block windows. And on the inside, it looks like they’re made of plaster on lath, but the apartments are clearly drywall and so those little cracks and holes in the plaster that they’re always peering through wouldn’t exist. I am trying to get over it, but it’s hard.
zhena gogolia
@glc: I love that song
zhena gogolia
I’m reading Jane Eyre for the thousandth time. It’s not the plot, it’s her command of the English language. I’ve read some passages to my husband and he was amazed
prostratedragon
Down in Brazil the apparent last of his culture recently died. That reminded me of a sort of warning years ago from Milton Nascimento: Txai (most of the album), which is on indigenous themes. My go-to for Portuguese translations is DeepL.
oatler
@Tony Jay: I saw the Fanboi Fucktards open for etc etc..
dm
Rereading Gideon the Ninth (finished) and Harrow the Ninth (halfway through) in preparation for the imminent release of Nona the Ninth. Harrow is the same confusing churn of unreliable narrator (she can’t even trust herself!) it was the first time through. A propos this site, Nona is reported to have a dog. Except I think it has six legs.
Before that, Becky Chambers’ A prayer for the crown-shy, hope-punk sequel in the “Monk and Robot” series that started with A psalm for the wild-built. To borrow from anime fan categories, these are real iyashikei (healing) books.
Speaking of hope-punk, I’ve been raving to all my friends about Ruthanna Emrys’ The half-built garden. At the risk of damning with over-praise and raised expectations, fans of Ursula K Leguin should check out this first-contact story.
Kristine
@dmsilev:@Tony Jay:
The only Tolkien I’ve read is The Hobbit. I watched all the movies. I’m watching the first episode of TRoP now, and will take it for whatever it is. I tend to struggle with epic fantasy, period. It’s not my favorite genre.
Josie
@Tony Jay:
Enjoyed the visuals and the music. Also, the non-white elf was fairly attractive.;-) It jumped from one story line to another rather quickly, but maybe things will smooth out in later episodes. It doesn’t really follow Tolkien all that well, but it’s mildly decent escapist stuff. I enjoyed it.
Starfish
Do you think Lauren Boebert’s Lesbian Dance Theory class is more popular than Ted Cruz’s Queer Pet Literature class?
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Oh, those people can fuck right the fuck off, they’re just doing that “How to say you’re eager to megaphone your racism without actually saying you’re eager to megaphone your racism” thing racist wankers are prone to.
No, it’s the unnecessary and actually limiting (in a storytelling sense) mutilation of the LOTR backstory that pisses me off. They paid an absolute fortune for the rights to the LOTR, decided to base a huge mega-series around the Appendices in the back of the book, then took a flaying knife to whole chunks of it for no reason I can fathom.
You don’t have the rights to The Silmarillion? Fine, just don’t mention it. Gloss over it. But don’t radically alter it where you don’t have to, and very much don’t alter it just to set up some bullshit Call To Vengeance character beat for a character who very much didn’t need it.
Silly people.
raven
Manhunt underway for 2 suspects in connection with a mass stabbing that left at least 10 dead in Saskatchewan, Canada
Kristine
@dm: I really liked Gideon the Ninth because I liked Gideon. I started Harrow, but quit a quarter of the way through. Like you said, confusing. Wondering if I should give it another shot.
Baud
@raven:
Damn. That’s a lot from a knife attack.
Tony Jay
@trollhattan:
@dmsilev:
@Kristine:
@Josie:
Oh, I’m sure it’ll be great fantasy-wantasy escapist fare. It looks gorgeous and they’ll probably make their money back.
But FFS. If you’re going to have an opening montage of the backstory of the Silmarillion, then maybe you don’t substitute it with the glubberings of a fifteen year old who just came off a bong-filled viewing of Hawk the Slayer, Legend and Bright, eh?
WaterGirl
If you squint, this can be considered culture, right? I am ridiculously excited about this news.
Tony Jay
Deleted for repetition
Geminid
@Baud: There were two murderers working together. The authorities have announced their names.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I didn’t know you liked waffles so much. What’s your favorite?
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
72 and sunny here!
glc
@dm:
That’s all stuff I feel a strong need (think: compulsion) to read. Particularly Emrys, one of my favorites. I had lost track of that one and didn’t even realize it was out.
I have too many favorites at this point. And new ones keep coming along.
Right now what I’m actually doing is Chicon, virtually.
prostratedragon
@raven: Must have been going from room to room, surely. One would think/hope that in a single crowd a few people would have managed to stop them before that point.
ETA: Guardian has them going among 13 scenes across Saskatchewan, so they never confronted the kind of numbers that should have overwhelmed them.
lowtechcyclist
@Tony Jay:
Thanks for the warning. I was apprehensive just on general principles, since unlike you I was extremely disappointed by Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy. (I won’t go into why tonight; I don’t have the energy for that discussion.)
But also because prequels are awkward just in general: their narrative arc ends up in the crappy place that the characters in the original work get to find their way out of and triumph over. A prequel is a story where things are gonna end up in the shit.
HumboldtBlue
@Suzanne:
Check out Kleo, on Netflix. It’s set in the late 80s as the re-unification of Germany approaches. Kleo is an assassin for the Stasi and the lead actor is brilliant, she captures every scene she is in.
lowtechcyclist
@Tony Jay:
A bigger thing than his trapped mega-yacht, even?
Anotherlurker
@Suzanne: one of the best shows for stunning Art Deco art direction is David Suche’s “Poirot”.
jnfr
@Kristine:
Thanks for the pointer! I hadn’t heard of it before.
I don’t have much culture myself, but I am enjoying Rings of Power. I’m a sucker for Tolkien stories, and visually it’s a delight. I like this Galadriel too, maybe better than Cate Blanchett.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Pecan!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Good choice.
dm
@Kristine: I think Harrow is worth it (even more than once, it seems). It’s confusing because Harrow has deliberately messed with her own mind and memories (not a spoiler, she receives a letter from herself explaining this early in the book). She spends 80% of the novel confused.
It’s kind of like a combination of both Memento and Tenet in novel form.
But Harrow is not the compelling character that Gideon was, at least not for most of the book
@glc: Even before this book Emrys had become a writer whose books I’ll buy as soon as I hear about them, this book further cements that conviction.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: How awful. How excited does a creepy murder-y person get when they meet someone else who wants to kill people? Stabbing is so up-close and personal, even if two murderers find each other, what are the odds of finding someone who also wants to stab people?
The mind boggles. I can’t imagine how the victims can even take in the fact that there are two people stabbing people. Just thinking about this makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach.
edit: I was picturing a crowd, and now I see that it was a bunch of serial stabbings in different places. So sick.
Suzanne
@Anotherlurker: All the different versions of the Poirot books have been beautiful. I was an exceedingly weird child (shocker) and the original film version of Murder on the Orient Express was my favorite movie during my middle school years.
OGLiberal
My wife wants to leave the country. There are no clear target locations. She just doesn’t see this getting better and it’s really hard to argue against that. My kids are now teens and share that sentiment. I just saw some mass stabbing even in Canada and wonder “where the fuck do I go?” I don’t want to be a pussy and leave my country because of Trumpers – this is my home and fuck them – but isn’t it selfish of me to let my wife and two kids live with that decision? Leaving would likely be a huge economic risk. Is staying even worse? And is going to the UK or Canada or France much better? And for a person who has rarely left the country, how difficult would actually moving somewhere else be? Looking for serious advice on this front.
Tony Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
I had thought that their decision to set the story in the Second Age was a conscious decision to avoid prequelitis. They’re three to six thousand years away from LOTR, they’ve got the whole of Numenorean history, immortal Elves, Sauron just finding his feet after the Valar brought the hammer down on Morgoth, etc. there’s tons of story potential there before they even have to get remotely near the set-up for LOTR.
But no, apparently the whole Second Age is going to be about 20 years long. Unless we’re going the Witcher route of parallel timelines.
That might be interesting.
Tony Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
He’s got one of those too?
Damn, these oligarchs must get issued to-do lists.
WaterGirl
@OGLiberal: You aren’t finding any of the recent events encouraging? It doesn’t look hopeless to me.
Miki
@Van Buren: My silent theme song as a family law atty was Another One Bites the Dust
(I finally accepted I was in the wrong job when a client accused me of caring more about his kids than him. Yeah, no shit, asshat.)
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay:
Item 1: be a narcisist
Item 2: have sociopathic tendencies
Item 3: be an arrogant prick
SiubhanDuinne
@Starfish:
The right-wingers have been going after education for almost as long as I can remember. In the 1950s, their made-up bugaboo imaginary college class for lazy liberals was “Underwater Basket-Weaving.” They seemed to find that extraordinarily clever and amusing, because they repeated it at every possible opportunity.
Har-de-har-har.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Several separate, coordinated knife attacks from what I understand.
OGLiberal
@WaterGirl: Me…a bit. But there are three other folks in my family, two are no longer “kids” – one (my wife) never was – and they have learned to not trust my optimism. But these are also kids who can’t just say “fuck it, I’m leaving on my own”. They’re older, they know what’s going on, they know shit is nuts, but they can’t just follow their own path – they are my responsibility.
OGLiberal
@WaterGirl: I told them there was no way Trump could win back in 2016 so my word and opinion is worth shit…as it should be.
Anotherlurker
@Suzanne: To me, Art Deco is wonderful. The Chrysler Building is one of the best examples . The Queen Mary is also a gem.
Suzanne
@OGLiberal: I’m with your wife here. Mr. Suzanne and I are in the middle of these discussions. We have a couple of friends who just went to Edmonton. I don’t see it getting better, either.
Starfish
@OGLiberal: These folks were knocking on people’s doors and stabbing them. They targeted what sounds like a small Native American community.
If you really want to start thinking this through, you start some place like this and get clear on what you want from your new home.
Ken
I’m not sure if this qualifies for a Medium Cool, and it’s quite possible we’ll run the topic into the ground here in the comments, but: Redshirts. Not the John Scalzi novel, though it could be included, but the trope more generally in fiction, and especially television science-fiction.
This was triggered because I’m watching “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” on Saturday nights, and their crewman body count each week is as high or higher than original-series Trek — and the Seaview has a smaller crew. (The captain and admiral are also usually much less broken up by the deaths than Kirk ever was.) I’m trying to remember other series with this trope.
Starfish
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s interesting because they are making up new classes, and all of them are filled with their own gay panic now.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Interesting idea!
brendancalling
Went to Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival this weekend. It was my first time seeing Tuba Skinny, a great brass band from NOLA. Danny Paisley, who recently had throat cancer, was in fine voice. Del McCoury was great. I skipped Ricky Skaggs, because he’s a right wing, covid-denying, Trump-loving anti-Semite and fuck that guy.
It was a rough festival. Friday night, the strap slipped off my very-expensive Martin, and now there’s a crack up the side. Supposedly it’s an easy fix, but we’ll see.
That was nothing compared to Saturday morning, when a woman up and died a few campsites from ours. My buddy and I were drinking our morning coffee when all of a sudden people are shouting “who knows CPR?” My pal ended up being the mouth to mouth side, while a nurse was doing the compressions, but it was too late. She died. My buddy was uttterly gutted, saying he’d gotten her to draw two breaths, but he lost her. Dude is one of the most stoic guys I know, and he was melting down. I wound up hugging him like my kid while he cried it out.
Suzanne
@brendancalling: Wow. That is brutal. I’m so sorry.
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: How awful.
Another Scott
@Ken: Well, you did ask…
Danger – Time Sink Alert! – TVTropes.org – Redshirt:
I’d watch a billion dollar series about TVTropes.
Maybe.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jager
@WaterGirl:
We’re sucking it up, 11 miles from the Pacific and we hit 103 today.
WaterGirl
@Jager: The heat sucks. It’s not fit for living things. I truly am sorry that you guys are getting this heat wave.
Ben Cisco🎖️🖥️♦️👌🏽
Seen on the internets regarding bottled water and its appeal, or lack thereof:
Mama Cisco and I have been laughing our asses off at this for over an hour.
Jager
@WaterGirl:
Up the grade in Thousand Oaks, it was 112.
brantl
@Tony Jay: What Hobbit trilogy?
WaterGirl
@Jager: I can’t even imagine that without air conditioning.
SFBayAreaGal
@jnfr: I like the Rings of Power also.
BlueGuitarist
@Suzanne:
apparently the building for only murders is based on the Belnord:
https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/a37512728/the-arconia-hulu-only-murders-in-the-building-nyc-manhattan-apartment-building-the-belnord/
Arconia could also reference the Ansonia.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/07/only-murders-in-the-building-ansonia-arconia-apartments
MobiusKlein
@WaterGirl: Suck it up? In S.F. it is shorts weather for the first time in a year. 75 at 6 pm is just nice
SFBayAreaGal
107° here in Elk Grove, CA. Tomorrow and Tuesday, it will reach 113°
I’m so glad I don’t live here. Just visiting. Thankful for air conditioning.
trollhattan
@MobiusKlein:
We had a cross-country meet in Golden Gate Park yesterday and I noticeably sweated in my sweatshirt, so had to take it off and then managed to get a dandy sunburn. Figuring out who to sue.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
As I recall, the costumes and production design of If Beale Street Could Talk are quite impressive.
Jager
@WaterGirl:
Our AC is exhausted….it seldom, if ever, hits 90 here.
Fair Economist
@dmsilev: If I were going to do a Middle Earth series, I’d pick the Second Age too. The First Age is too mythic, and too depressing as well. Maybe early Third Age but that lacks a villain.
I’d also follow the source material loosely. It’s not gospel, and getting a good series is more important. There’s more drama when you don’t know the exact outcome and there are mysteries.
I haven’t seen it yet, tho I plan to, so I can’t say if they succeeded. But I think the strategy is correct.
Mustang Bobby
I guess this counts as culture: Next Stage Press has published four of my plays since October 2021. Dark Twist, Can’t Live Without You, All Together Now, and The Sugar Ridge Rag. A fifth, A House by the Side of the Road, will be included in the anthology Extra Innings: Ten Plays About Baseball on October 1. Now all I need is to get them produced again.
mali muso
@OGLiberal: We are seriously investigating Portugal as an option. The further I get into the research, the more I see that we are not alone. There is an entire subgroup of American families trying to relocate to protect their kids futures.
On the topic of the thread, we are currently watching the new LOTR show and finding it entertaining so far.
Brachiator
Ugh. The thing I hate the most about this Southern California heat wave is that the afternoon peak heat becomes a general early evening roasting mugginess if, like me, you don’t have great air conditioning.
And we have more days to go.
Jager
@Brachiator:
We have a friend who lives in West Hollywood, in a tiny old house, with no air. Good thing she is as tough as nails.
jnfr
@WaterGirl:
I don’t think it’s hopeless either, though I do know the feeling. But I’m feeling stubborn, to tell the truth.
Fair Economist
@lowtechcyclist: Because there is such a gap in time from the end of the Second Age to LotR, the end doesn’t leave us just in the mess setting up for the main show. The climax is a battle the good guys win, even, although there is a LOT of bad stuff on the way. It’s rather like a disaster movie in that. The sequel hook is just the Ring falling into a river.
brendancalling
@WaterGirl:
@Suzanne:
It was terrifying and sad.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
I saw one video essay that wanted to be sympathetic that noted that the production design was often eye-popping gorgeous, but the story was not good, and the casting inconsistent.
Unfortunate. I haven’t watched it yet, but may take a look.
Gin & Tonic
@OGLiberal: Moving to another country on a permanent basis is complicated if you don’t have some pre-existing ties to that country. You really need to research visa/residence requirements, figure out how you will generate income, etc. Then you have to decide if you wish to pursue citizenship there, which is another whole set of complications. If you maintain US citizenship while living permanently abroad, your tax situation gets quite complex, and you may also have difficulty opening local bank accounts. If you renounce your US citizenship, you’re probably never getting it back, and you may well need a visa to visit the US. I know quite a number of US expats, some who kept their US citizenship and some who renounced it – they all have their own reasons, but I don’t think anyone will say it’s simple.
Jim Appleton
So, one of many things thrown around here locally (Wasco County and Hood River County, OR) is that TFG is right about immigrants responsible for huge increase in crime.
No time frame, but let’s roll with it.
If you check the rap sheets, encompassing five counties in two states, even assuming (wrongly) just and only Hispanic names indicate immigration status (excluding Cervantes, who is known third gen), the percentage is 8.33% POTENTIAL undocumented offenders, and that assumes a lot.
My MAGA neighbors are proud, ignorant racists.
jnfr
@SFBayAreaGal:
Certainly enough to give it time to develop.
BlueGuitarist
@brendancalling:
“Life is sad, life is a bust
all you can do / is do what you must
you do what you must do / and you do it well”
Bob Dylan, Buckets of Rain
good for you and your pal for doing what you did
geg6
I highly recommend McEnroe on Showtime. Excellent doc.
Ken
Coming to Netflix: The One Ring: The Lost Years. The first episode is a highly-compressed time-lapse of the 2400+ years where the Ring lay on the bed of the Anduin. The next shows how Sméagol and Déagol found it, and how Sméagol killed Déagol and seized the Ring. The remaining episodes are vignettes from the roughly 500 years Sméagol/Gollum held the Ring, and feature a lot of raw fish, dead orcs, and deranged muttering.
Suzanne
My Luna is really having a hard time today. I was planning to go to the parade tomorrow, but I’m worried about her.
eclare
@Suzanne: Oh no! What is going on?
Ixnay
@Ken: The classic Mad Magazine satire was called “Voyage to see what’s on the bottom.” We thought it was hysterical as 12 year olds. Likely still is.
kalakal
@Anotherlurker: House I used to live in in Leeds was part of a basically untouched 3 streets ( a 3 sided hollow square) of 1920s Art Deco houses. There was a lot of filming for TV as it was one of the few places they could film entire streets of such houses. One of the neighbours basically rented out his house to film crews for about 1/3rd of the year and lived in a hotel – made a tidy profit
kalakal
@Ken: In a kind of opposite to redshirts in the Gerry Anderson puppet SF series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons the more obscure the characters colour the greater their chances of dying. The goodies worked for an agency called Spectrum which had a Colonel, a Lieutenant, and a zillion Captains*. Captains Blue, Yellow, Red etc were safe but Captains Burnt Umber, Sienna, Taupe etc were toast. I loved Gerry Anderson’s stuff as a kid, Thunderbirds, Stingray etc
In a rather forward thinking move the fighter pilots were all women.
NotMax
Suggested quite a while back that it might be amusing to dwell on those insidious and ubiquitous crumbs of kultcha, namely ads.
Favorites (if any), memorable, annoying, and so on.
apieceofpeace
@OGLiberal: Here’s another map and app if you’d consider staying and moving within the US.
https://www.movemap.io/explore/us?utm_campaign=Recomendo&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter
Set yourself up via early and thorough planning so you have choices well ahead of time and move sooner rather than later. Financials, legalities and knowing where you can go for your time frame are a must to have straightened out. Make a list of questions about doing this such as what you need to know, then research countries of interest and find out their requirements, etc. This will all take time. Make a spreadsheet?
One son and girlfriend are visiting 3 countries this fall to decide their moving preferences and the probabilities of making a move work. She has stay at home-type employment, he will change jobs.
Best of fortune to you!
JoyceH
For those who are thinking of moving to a different country because of what’s happening here, here’s my take. Authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide. If it’s going to be turned back, it will be turned back here. And if we don’t do it here, no place is safe.
eclare
@JoyceH: Very good point. I lived in London for a while about 25 years ago. I look at the UK now, with its issues and “leaders” and think about how much it has changed and all the Russian money there.
James E Powell
@JoyceH:
Joyce H Johnson is right!
This is, after all, our country.
JoyceH
@James E Powell:
LOL!
In other news, I got the rowing machine assembled and it works correctly, so I feel very proud of myself. Gotta get in Fighting Trim to battle the barbarian hordes…
thalarctosMaritimus
@WaterGirl: The authorities released information on the suspects–they have the same last name, and are a year apart in age. I’m guessing brothers or cousins.
Princess
@OGLiberal: I say what follows as a Canada who moved to the US in 95 and who is moving back to Canada next year. My sister moved to Europe as an adult: this is a huge decision and do a ton of research before you go. Many liberal Americans think Canada is just a bluer blue state. It’s not. It’s a foreign country with a different politics, different problems, and a different culture. If you go in expecting it to be a better version of home, you will feel alienated and unhappy. Europe even more so. If your kids are teens, you’re all probably too old to ever feel like the place you move to is 100% home. You will feel your children are always split between two homes and are never fully members of either the country of their birth or their new country. Some people don’t mind this, some thrive on it, most people hate it.
Wanderer
@OGLiberal: It is a hard choice to make. I had always imagined living in another country and never did due to family concerns/needs here. That being said I just returned from a 6 week stay in Canada. We have been going there for 20 + years now. One thing you may find helpful is deciding where you would be comfortable: mountains, ocean, city, rural. Read local newspapers and in the case of Canada listen to the CBC all the time for a week or so. Despite the terrible news from Canada this evening it is generally a much less violent country then the US. Their national health system is short staffed, exhausted and possibly burnt out because of the pandemic. Every country has had effects from this. Anyway by reading and listening you will get a solid idea of who the Canadians are and who they aspire to be. I have always felt very safe, very welcome and very happy there. These tips, of course could be applied to any country you are considering.
Wanderer
Addendum to #125: CBC radio one. It is the news, public affairs, culture channel. National but also local content. search CBC Radio 1 and whichever local, large, town/city you desire.
frosty
@apieceofpeace: “Zero counties match your criteria. Please remove some filters.” LOL!! I could see that coming as I clicked on them.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: Late to the party, but just wanted to say, I’m with you on this one. And I say that as someone who has fantasized about fleeing the US for almost my whole life.