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Quarterly Update - Third Quarter 2023
Let’s see what the past three months brought.
Books:
Eleven books this quarter.
Movies:
No, I never managed to make it to either Oppenheimer or Barbie. But I did see 5 movies.
Goals:
On a related note, I checked off a life list item by having a beer at the South Pole Inn in Anascaul, Ireland.
Books:
Eleven books this quarter.
- Donald E. Westlake and Brian Garfield, Gangway!. This is a caper novel about a New York gangster who is sent to San Francisco after upsetting his boss. He meets various colorful characters and devises a plan to rob the mint. It’s mildly diverting, but not nearly as funny, as I think it was meant to be.
- Dick Francis, Dead Cert. This was the first novel Dick Francis wrote, or at least, the first published and was included in a three-in-one volume. Even back in 1962 he was writing exciting (but violent) novels. In this case, the death of a steeplechase jockey leads another jockey to investigate - and get caught in a similar “accident,” as well as a beating. There’s a romantic subplot, but the gist is about a corrupt taxi company manipulating races for money. If you like books with lots of plot, you really can’t go wrong with Dick Francis.
- Dick Francis, Nerve. This book starts off with a bang - literally, in the form of a very public suicide by a jockey. This leads another jockey to try to find out what happened to him and to other jockeys who lost their jobs or saw troubling rumors spread about them. Of course, his questions prompt the same treatment to be tried on him. If you can handle a sinister and frightening story, with a mixture of violence ad psychology, I highly recommend this novel.
- Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I read this for my Crones and Tomes book club. This is a memoir of Angelou’s early years, split between rural Mississippi, Saint Louis, and California. The most memorable incident involves her rape, at the age of eight. The bigger takeaway is that none of the adults in her life seem to know what to do with her and her brother. There really isn’t much in the story that suggests that she’ll grow up to be the famous poet and writer that she became. Presumably, that is covered in her other memoirs, but I wasn’t really left with a desire to read them.
- Paul Harding, Tinkers. I read this for my longstanding book club (which is called READ for Read, Enjoy, and Discuss.) George Washington Crosby is dying and he reflects on his life, his father, and watch making. The father, Howard, is the most interesting part of this. He’s an epileptic who runs away from his family to avoid them putting him in a mental hospital. There’s an interesting episode involving his repeated encounters with a hermit who may have known Nathaniel Hawthorne. But, for the most part, nothing much happens and I found this a slog. (I also ended up missing the book club meeting, because I was in England and couldn’t handle the time zone difference.)
- Carolyn Hart, From the Queen. The Mysterious Bookshop in New York publishes a series of novellas by various well-known authors. This one features Annie Darling and the Death on Demand bookshop. A thrift store owner has inherited a first edition of an Agatha Christie novel inscribed to the queen. When it’s stolen, Annie investigates. One of the hallmarks of the Death on Demand series is name dropping of mystery authors, which I find annoying, and it’s just as annoying in this shorter form. In addition, I didn’t find the solution particularly satisfying. Disappointing.
- Dick Francis, Odds Against. Remember what I said about Dick Francis as a palate refresher? It was a relief to read a book with lots of action. This is actually a slightly unusual novel for him, in that the hero gets shot and doesn’t recover nearly instantaneously. And there’s a satisfying subplot involving a woman who was badly deformed by a fireworks accident in her youth. Of course, there are horses, too, as the plot involves the efforts to put a racetrack out of business in order to acquire its land for a housing development. As always, a good read.
- Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation. This was another Crones and Tomes selection. I’d expected an analysis of the popularity of antidepressants, but what I got instead was a whiny memoir about her life with depression and how nobody could do anything to help her. Along the way, she self-medicates with cocaine, ends up in the emergency room, and screws guys who are just as fucked up as she is. Astonishingly, she still has friends and manages to get through Harvard. There are some moments of humor, but I can’t really recommend this to anyone over, say, 21. As for the prozac connection, it is what finally helps her, but then she rails against how many other people use it.
- Shauna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman, The Thread Collectors. And this was a selection for the RnEAD book club. The story involves a Jewish soldier from New York and a runaway slave from New Orleans, both fighting for the Union Army during the Civil War. They’re both talented musicians and bond over both music and being outsiders. The thread reference involves the women in their lives. The black man's common law wife embroiders maps to help other slaves escape. When the Jewish soldier doesn’t write to his wife for a long time, she sets out to find him. I thought this was a pretty interesting book, but it does require a lot of suspension of disbelief.
- C. J. Conner, Board to Death. A mystery set in a board game store? Sounds right up my alley. A friend bought this, read it quickly, and, while he liked the characters, thought it worked better as a (gay) love story than as a mystery. He passed it on to me and I pretty much agree with his opinion. The plotting was somewhat weak. And there was one paragraph that could have been an entry in the Buller-Lytton contest. A character in a book should never reflect on what they would do if they were a character in a book.
- Dick Francis, Enquiry. Yes, I needed a palate refresher. Dick Francis always excelled at bringing readers into his world, with plenty of action. In this case, a jockey and trainer are warned off, i.e. forbidden from being anywhere near race tracks after being accused of cheating. The jockey is not taking this lying down. His investigation uncovers sexual scandal, business revenge, and mental illness. Recommended.
Movies:
No, I never managed to make it to either Oppenheimer or Barbie. But I did see 5 movies.
- Cocaine Bear: This is exactly the right sort of movie to watch on an airplane. It doesn’t take much (if any) thinking but there was enough happening to keep me awake. Admittedly, it’s pretty gory, but it’s just outlandish enough for that not to bother me. I was actually disappointed to learn that the real cocaine bear died of an overdose, rather than still being out there roaming the forest.
- Searching for Sugar Man: Sixto Rodriguez died just a few days before my flight home from London, so I couldn’t resist watching this documentary about two South African men who set out to discover what had become of him. They found a story worth telling, both for the music and the man. There’s a reason this movie won a lot of awards, including a Best Documentary Oscar. Highly recommended.
- The Whale: I watched this largely because it was so controversial. The basic plot is that an obese and depressed gay man tries to reconnect with his daughter, who is, frankly, an evil psychopath. Yes, Brendan Fraser did his best with what he was given, but self-loathing doesn’t make for an interesting movie. I’m reminded of Tom Lehrer’s line that people who can’t relate should just shut up. In case you can’t tell, I hated this movie.
- Golda: I went to see this because a friend wanted to take advantage of $4 movie day. The movie is somewhat mistitled, as it is really limited to the Yom Kippur war, while I expected somewhat more background about Golda Meir’s life. In particular, I thought her relationship with her assistant, Lou Kaddar, came across as strange. Still, Helen Mirren is a great actress and I found the movie interesting, though hard to watch.
- El Método Tangalanga: American Airlines had a selection of movies in Spanish for Hispanic Heritage Month. My Spanish is not yet up to watching them on their own, but subtitles let me enjoy this Argentinian film. The basic plot involves a painfully shy man who is transformed by hypnosis, turning him into a different personality when he gets on the telephone. He makes a series of prank phone calls that cheer up his dying friend - and gets famous for them under the name “Doctor Tangalanga.” The outcome is somewhat predictable, but I still found this entertaining. What I didn’t know is that Doctor Tangalanga was a real Argentinian comedian (real name Julio Victorio De Rissio), who released over 40 albums of prank calls starting in the late 1980’s. This isn’t exactly a great movie, but it was diverting enough for a couple of hours.
Goals:
- Believe it or not, I actually started going through my parents photos. I tossed a lot of my mother’s travel photos, because I really don’t need pictures of places (most of which I’ve been to and have my own pictures of) or of people I don’t know eating dinner on cruise ships and the like.
- I’m going to count the IAJGS (Jewish genealogy) conference as my formal educational activity for both July and August. And the Get Organized conference counts for September. I’ve also continued studying Spanish with Duolingo and am now at a 336 day streak.
- I’ve taken 3 international trips. In June, I went to Svalbard. In July, I had a trip to Montreal, Canada. Then in July and August, I was in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, and England. I have plans for a major trip in December.
- I’ve finished one crafts project. I am not sure whether or not I will finish the afghan I’m working on. I need to find something small that I can do in a couple of days.
- I’ve only read 36 books so far this year. So reaching 75 is likely to be challenging.
- I did go to 3 new ballparks this year. I went to Leidos Field at Ripken Stadium (Aberdeen Ironbirds, High-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles) in May. This quarter, I added Virginia Credit Union Stadium (Fredericksburg Nationals, Single-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals), and Globe Life Field (Texas Rangers, MLB).
- As for museum exhibitions, I went to the museums in Longyearben and Ny Alesund on my Svalbard cruise in June. In July, I went to the see the Book of Kells and went to the Chester Beatty in Dublin, the Titanic Museum in Belfast, and the Manx Museum in Douglas, Isle of Man. In August, I went to the Tate Modern, the British Library, and the V&A in London and the Small is Beautiful exhibit in New York. In September, I went to the Eastern State Penitentiary, the Mutter Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art on my trip to Philadelphia.
- I didn’t add any national parks this quarter, so I still stand at one for the year.
- As for spending half an hour a day on housecleaning, ha ha ha!
On a related note, I checked off a life list item by having a beer at the South Pole Inn in Anascaul, Ireland.
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As for spending half an hour a day on housecleaning, ha ha ha!
Every time I think this is possible and surely other people somehow do it, ha! Haha! As if.
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