Saturday, January 03, 2015

Sundries for Saturday and Sundray

Proverbs to Live By, a little book unearthed by husband, during an unusual tidying attack, threw up three proverbs (from Italy, Japan and Germany respectively) which immediately brought to my mind a news story popular during the festive season just gone (think films - think "The Interview")
A book whose sale's forbidden all men rush to see, and prohibition turns one reader into three.

One dog yelping at nothing will set ten thousand straining at their collars.


A man shows his character by what he laughs at.




What will 2015 have to offer TV and film fans? To my own taste, not a lot, if lists now available are anything to go by. There'll be sequels to three Young Adults in Dystopia series: The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, I'll probably make the effort to see those. A science fiction film, The Martian , based on a novel by Andy Weir has possibilites.

Well away from dystopia and science fiction, a BBC/PBS mini-series Wolf Hall, based on the novel by Hilary Mantel will be a must-see for me, due to inclusion of Damien Lewis in the cast - he's playing Henry VIII - a far cry from his roles in Homeland and Band of Brothers.

Wolf Hall
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the King dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impass steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
- Written by mccutcj2
We'll certainly make an effort to see what will be the final seasons of couple of TV series we've followed, on TV or via DVD : Mad Men and Justified. David Letterman is due to retire from The Late Show in May, his last week or so should be worth a look-in, and it'll be interesting to see how Stephen Colbert changes the flavour of the show - or not.






 "Kindly take us to your president!"

 "I remember when the wheel was just in science fiction stories"















Poem by Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.

Man in Space

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.

7 comments:

anyjazz said...

Love the cartoons!

Twilight said...

anyjazz ~ Good! :-)

mike said...

Good proverbs...there are many and I always enjoy a good one. Many are over-used and there are still a few, like the ones you have here, that I've not heard before, or a variation.

I'm not sure about viewing "Wolf Hall", it doesn't quite sound like my kind of series, but the BBC does excellent production. I might watch the first episode, then declare myself hooked...LOL. I don't see a PBS schedule, only BBC, which you should be able to access with Roku.

I'm on air-wave TV reception, so my choices are very limited. I haven't found the winter programming to be anything to offer me. I don't receive CBS over the air without difficulty, so David Letterman will have to say goodbye without me. I'm sure there will be loads of snippets all over the internet, with teary goodbyes.

"Man in Space" has a very feminist slant...have you gone feminist on us?! I've seen both sexes bull-rush the other, whether in a work environment or marriage. I think most individuals fit into either the subservient or dominant role interchangeably, regardless of sex, depending on the association.

Well, finally back to normalcy here with the internet. I've endured way too many hours on this problem. AT&T visited this morning and found my modem to be rogue. Usually the modem works or doesn't...mine flirted between the two worlds, lately favoring the doesn't work, and performing a slow spiral toward nonfunctional. Of course, I had to purchase a new modem...this one with WiFi capability should I ever go wireless. Accessing the internet is NOT a cheap proposition between the provider fees, modem, computer, and whatever else. The internet is not designed for the no-income or low-income set. BUT, I'm relaxed again, not in a tither about lack of internet access...back in business...LOL. I pay all of my bills online and I was just realizing the bills were due soon and I'd have to do it the old way (gasp)...and all the emails I'd miss-out. Internet addiction is pitiful.

Twilight said...

mike ~ Wolf Hall might prove too English-ish for the husband, maybe even for me, but I'll give it a go when it becomes available. I have to see Damien Lewis as Henry VIII!

Feminist? Moi? No! (Apart from equal pay for equal work, votes for women, and that sort of stuff) :-)
Capital "F" feminism ain't my thang at all. I chose Billy Collins' (male poet) poem due to the mention of space rather than the rest of it; but have to admit that it is nice to see a guy standing up for any gals who need standing up for. ;-)

Twilight said...

mike - Forgot to say - glad to hear your computer probs are solved, albeit at some expense. We had a similar experience with our modem some time ago. I think we opted, then, to rent the ISP's modem instead of buying our own, as we had initially done. They are expensive, to get a good one, but renting isn't particularly wise either. We keep saying we'll buy another but never get around to it.

mike (again) said...

Tonight's full Moon, 10:54PM CST, 14*31' Cancer, is action packed. This could be interesting for both you and Sonny...I think you've said your ascendant is mid Cancer...Sonny's Moon is right around 15*. Moon op Sun, Sun conj Pluto, Moon T-sq Sun-Uranus-Pluto, Sun-Moon sq Nodes...Moon trine Chiron. A lot of energy there and the potential to clear a lot of dead wood!

Twilight said...

mike (again) ~ Hmmm - I'll bear that in mind, thanks! My natal ascendant is somewhere mid-Cancer, but probably a bit later than 15 degrees - that was where the astrologer who rectified my chart put it, with a birthtime of 2.27PM (which really is too early according to the memories of parents). Astrologer emphasised that he was uncertain of the degree.
I suspect it was nearer to 3 PM, putting ascending degree around 20 to 22. But I can't be sure, so will watch for any "event" or situation around this full Moon.