Livre d'Or

So jack and I actually managed to watch two whole TV series all the way through. Couldn't be more different from each other; one is the fairly obscure Korean legal drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and the second is the mega-hit horror show Wednesday.

( Extraordinary Attorney Woo )

Wednesday, sigh, Wednesday. It's a great show, well acted and well written. But it isn't at all what I wanted it to be, which is a continuation of the tradition of the Addams Family. Also, it's actual horror whereas what I wanted was shlock. I was so excited when I saw they'd cast Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia and Luis Guzman as Gomez, but it turns out they're pretty much in one episode only, because as I should have guessed from the title, it's not a show about the family, it's a show about Wednesday. Specifically Wednesday-goes-to-monster-school, and I'm just not that interested in yet another high school drama.

( Wednesday (no spoilers in main post, can't promise for the comments) )

I'm starting to formulate an idea of what I look for in media (TV, films, shows) is, essentially the opposite of superhero franchises. Basically I want media that's unambiguously targeted at adults, with well-realized characters, that covers complex themes including dark and serious stuff, but that isn't primarily about showing lots of sex, violence and especially sexy violence as the main visual theme.

( noodling )

So far I have found two shows that actually fit these not-superhero desiderata. They are both on annoying streaming services where we had to subscribe for just the one thing, but at least they exist. One is Ted Lasso S2; I was not at all interested in the premise, and I was worried it might be cringey, but it's actually a really good, definitely adult, definitely complex and interesting character piece. Like a lot of viewers I thought it went downhill from 2.9, because suddenly it's about various kinds of trauma rather than about characters repairing their lives after background trauma. In my opinion the show is just not on a solid enough foundation to deal directly with parental abuse, suicide, adultery and various kinds of violence. And it just doesn't pull off the sudden swerve from comedy with a dark edge to full-on drama.

And right now we're watching Station Eleven. It's an unlikely sort of show altogether, a mini-series about a book set in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic, that was itself made during the real-world pandemic. We have watched up to episode 6 'Survival is insufficient'; we're not exactly bingeing it because it's really dark and also requires a lot of concentration because it's all told non-linearly and full of unreliable viewpoints. What has really impressed me about it is that most of the cast look like real people. Nobody looks like a film star, most people even if they're young and fit are not particularly pretty, and there's a whole range of body types, and it actually feels credible that these people have lived through 20 years since the collapse of civilization. Definitely a show for adults, it has more than earned its 18 rating, but while it contains violence, it's not about lingering shots of people brutally attacking each other, it's about the people who live in a world which, like this one, sometimes contains extreme violence, but contains other elements of human experience too.

When I got together with OSOs 7 years ago, I didn't really anticipate that it would be a long-term relationship with seventh anniversaries. And I particularly didn't anticipate that there would be a pandemic and having our anniversary in November would be so inconvenient, since most indoor activities are high-risk. Anyway, we managed to scrape together some kind of celebration.

( coupley )

Good things: jack and I went to see the Troy exhibition at the British Museum. With a bit of time and energy left after that, we also visited the Aztec room. And then we went out for pancakes at my favourite spot. And it was generally lovely.

Then we had a go at some tabletop roleplaying, with OSOs and their younger two. jack had put together a cut-down system, roughly D&D based but a lot lot lot less complex and fiddly. And a delightful little one-shot story about saving a baby giant turtle from a suspicious sea captain, set in an archipelago of islands on the back of giant turtles. jack really encouraged us to develop fun characters, and we're all excited to play more in this setting.

I have plans for an exciting date with ghoti_mhic_uait next week, and I think after that no more travel for fun. Honestly I'm not sure about this week either. Maybe it isn't morally or safety-wise sensible to visit a huge tourist spot in the capital. I'm expecting several months of somewhere between boring and terrifying, and I'm not really impatient for that to start.

( more notes on the museum visit )

Thanks to my parents for two cultural experiences for me and jack: first they pointed out that the triennial Cambridge Greek play was happening this year, and we managed to catch it. Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, which doesn't get performed that often. And then they booked tickets for a cinecast of the RSC Timon of Athens on a date they actually couldn't make, so they passed the tix on to us.

( Sophocles )

( Timon of Athens )

I could probably say something clever about comparing the two plays, with great but cursed men dying in miserable obscurity and cursing Athens. But mostly it's just coincidence that I happened to see both in the same month.

So people are talking about which Shakespeare plays they've seen. I am nostalgic for the 2000s when someone would've put up a quiz on Quizilla so you could just tick the boxes and generate a graphic to post in your journal. But since we can't have nice things, I have gone through the list manually. I got the list of titles from hilarita but it's pretty much all over.

( list of plays with some comments )

Unlike some of the people commenting at rachelmanija's, I've never seen a wacky outrageous production. I've mostly watched conventional things, CSF and Stratford and respectable films. I think the weirdest was the child-friendly version of Taming of the Shrew mentioned under the cut. I've also never seen a really traditional production at the Globe – it's on my bucket list.

Compared to lots of my friends I feel a bit uncultured, tbh! If anyone has plans to see any interesting Shakespeare within commuting distance of Cambridge, or would like to make some, I'd be up for that. I'm not hugely excited to see any more Merchant of Venice or Taming of the Shrew, but even with those I could be persuaded.

If you have a negative reaction to Hamilton hype, you might want to skip this one.

( squeeeeeeeee! )

So happy I got to see that, and in such perfect circumstances too! A million million thanks to rmc28.

So most excellent Hamilfan rmc28 drew our attention to a local production, by a theatre school, of a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, Bring it on. ( review )

Then last weekend I ran a Saturday morning service. Several of our regulars were ill, so we had just nine people, meaning we had to leave out big chunks of the service, including the formal public Torah reading. But it went really well anyway; I read the Torah portion from the Chumash, the printed book, and a really great, involved, thoughtful discussion just spontaneously happened. Which is all the more impressive considering the parshe in question was Tazria-Metzorah, the long section from Leviticus about purification from various forms of contamination / contagion. And when I said we didn't need a sermon since we'd already had such a great spontaneous shiur, people insisted I preach anyway, which is certainly flattering! I talked a bit about what happens when you have to do something which is awful for an individual for the greater good, whether it's a public health thing as implied in Leviticus or something like a child protection issue. The safeguards and transparency that need to be in place to prevent corruption, and the way that Leviticus sets out a moral system through what may seem like endless ritual detail.

Because it was a bank holiday, I managed to get home as well, and had a really lovely relaxing weekend playing the second half of our D&D game. I'm really enjoying playing Bela, a character I based off Bel from a proposed but not yet actually implemented Vorkosigan game. They (I decided I couldn't be dealing with it pronouns as in Bujold's original) are ridiculously charming (statted on charisma and strength, and really playing that up), flirt with everybody in sight, and also seem to have picked up the role of curtailing some of the endless discussions that can arise with an inexperienced D&D group. Plus the ship's cat, Sabre, turned out to be a PC played by 8yo Judith, and having a PC familiar is just glorious.

And then on Monday I had a little time with ghoti_mhic_uait, which consisted of a not entirely successful shopping trip when our attempts to find out where was open on BH Monday fell flat, but we acquired shiny purple wool for my next knitting project, and had exciting burgers in Ed's Diner, and got a chance to talk.

I came back from the Bank Holiday weekend and straight into the last three weeks of term, when I'm in charge of the first year teaching. So work is intense, but good. And I'm still struggling to keep up with DW whenever I'm busy, which I'm really enjoying, and I hope the fast flowing conversation keeps up.

rmc28's review inspired jack to ask me if I wanted to see In The Heights, the "other" Lin Manuel Miranda piece that's playing in the King's Cross Theatre currently. I said, in principle, sure, but when are we ever going to find time to go to the theatre? And then I remembered that we actually had a free evening this Saturday, so we were able to be much more spontaneous than we usually ever are, and booked tickets and turned up.

( show )

We had a pretty quiet day most of yesterday, until OSOs joined us for tea and then a lovely group of our friends came over for a Halloween party. Andreas had lots of fun putting up Halloween decorations but ducked out of the actual socializing with lots of not very familiar adults part. And Judith persuaded several of us into a long game of Zendo, which she is getting very good at. It wasn't a huge party but it was a great mix of poly friends and geek friends, very congenial and with some really great Halloween costumes. I dressed up as Candela, the Pokémon Go Team Valor leader, to match the children's Pikachu and Dawn-from-the-animé costumes. And Jack was Aang from Avatar: the last Airbender, and Ghoti was, aaargh, Nanowrimo is about to start! Really good to be able to have a fairly low-key party on a Sunday evening.

ghoti found a production of a stage play of Tipping the velvet, so of course we had to go to that. I was somewhat expecting a play-of-the-book (which I haven't read), but in fact what really impressed me about the production was that it was very much its own thing, it was musical theatre, full of elements specific to that medium. The story is partly set in the the theatre, and the show made references to period popular theatre including the music hall tradition, but didn't try to slavishly recreate historical stuff, it was very much a modern production.

( detailed review )

So yes, basically that was awesome, many thanks to ghoti for suggesting the show and for being excellent company for watching it!