happiness is...
...beer. though I am a remarkably cheap date, beer feels like the perfect drink. Drinkable bread. I didn't like the flavor at all until I got pregnant, when I wasn't allowed more than a sip or two now and then. It was a sore trial. I'm sipping the last of the case of Shipyard products my sister and her family brought us at Thanksgiving. Only halfway and even now, my eyes are a little glazed and I'm warm. Sigh. Burp.
...audiobooks. Last year I was given a subscription to Audible.com, which is a website where you download audiobooks, journals, etc for a fee. It's far cheaper than buying the audiobooks at the store (sometimes 50-75 bucks a pop), though I did wait a long while to download my full batch of credits. In the last week, I downloaded all of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books, read by a superb Lisette Lecat, whose thoughtful South African accent perfectly matches the calm, philosophical tone of the books. Mma Ramotswe's wry comments and apt descriptions come to life in each one.
...James Herriot's audiobooks. I started listening to library copies of random stories from the "All Creatures Great and Small" series when A was born, as a way to pass the interminable hours of feeding, burping, and rocking the poor bugger. The books are gentle, amusing, full of local Yorkshire color, and only sometimes a bit sad. I needed no dramatic cliff-hangers or tragic events to think about at that time, and besides, all the talk about milking, mastitis, and the innumerable ways livestock are born into the world were very apropos. The books are read by Christopher Timothy, who played James Herriot in the BBC series. (Sigfried Farnon was played by one of my favorite actors, Robert Hardy, aka Cornelius Fudge in HP and Sir John Middleton in Sense and Sensibility.) I downloaded the audiobooks last week as well, and have thoroughly enjoyed the broad Yorkshire dialects, the mortifying situations the vet gets himself into, and the little triumphs and "Aha!" moments when he finally diagnoses the problem in a difficult case. I like the books a bit better than the show, as Herriot looks more like a stick-in-the-mud and a consummate ass in the show than he seems in the books--though there are many moments in the books when he does make a prat of himself. The most wonderful thing about the show was the theme song, an energetic, thoroughly English TV beauty with a bit of syncopated drumming at the end--too bad it doesn't play in the clip I linked to. D and I watched the series shortly after I got into the books, every episode lovingly recorded on VHS by his grandfather when they aired in 1979. He was what they call an "early adopter" of technology. If they made it in Japan, he wanted one now. Even if it had too many buttons to remember how to use, he bought it. D spent hours teaching Grandfather the order in which buttons were pushed, writing them down with helpful diagrams, but it was like ramming your head into the double-thick cinderblock walls of their house. I had to leave the room when any of these tutoring sessions was going on, so I wouldn't scream in frustration. As Grandfather's eyesight failed, the TV got bigger and bigger each year until it hovered over their bed like the menacing black wall from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Each new set required a new set of directions, completely bewildering Grandfather all over again.
Anyhow, I eagerly waited for the end of each "All Creatures" tape, because at times Grandfather would forget and leave it recording. Two things stand out from the mess of commercial jingles, public television snippets and static: a full newscast from Channel 13 during the oil crisis, and the most horrifically suggestive modern dance performance I have ever seen. The newscast featured Jerry Turner, who was a staple of TV news in Baltimore for years, and the sparse set showed only the pathetic little screen showing the headline being discussed. The leaders of OPEC had just met, the hostages were still in Iran, inflation went up another percent in a month, and gas stations rigged up a system of flags to notify the public of whether they had certain kinds of fuel or if they were out, so people wouldn't waste precious fuel waiting in line for gas they couldn't get. It was unbelievable. Where today our country is seen as the bellowing bully, back then we were led by a bunch of milktoast weenies. Neither image does us much good, but I'd rather be on the bully end of the spectrum, honestly.
The second forgotten recording session from the tapes featured a group of about 5 men (maybe less, but it seemed like an orgy to me) in very tight, very far-out leotards, with swirly designs all over the set, their tights, and across the surface of the TV screen as they writhed and wove tapestries of psychedelic human flesh to very loopy music. It must be the closest I have ever come to a pornographic acid trip, only I was stone sober and disgusted, yet completely transfixed. The thing that really got me thinking was why Grandfather decided to watch the show himself, if it was still recording. Maybe he was transfixed with horror as well. Here's hoping.
...audiobooks. Last year I was given a subscription to Audible.com, which is a website where you download audiobooks, journals, etc for a fee. It's far cheaper than buying the audiobooks at the store (sometimes 50-75 bucks a pop), though I did wait a long while to download my full batch of credits. In the last week, I downloaded all of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books, read by a superb Lisette Lecat, whose thoughtful South African accent perfectly matches the calm, philosophical tone of the books. Mma Ramotswe's wry comments and apt descriptions come to life in each one.
...James Herriot's audiobooks. I started listening to library copies of random stories from the "All Creatures Great and Small" series when A was born, as a way to pass the interminable hours of feeding, burping, and rocking the poor bugger. The books are gentle, amusing, full of local Yorkshire color, and only sometimes a bit sad. I needed no dramatic cliff-hangers or tragic events to think about at that time, and besides, all the talk about milking, mastitis, and the innumerable ways livestock are born into the world were very apropos. The books are read by Christopher Timothy, who played James Herriot in the BBC series. (Sigfried Farnon was played by one of my favorite actors, Robert Hardy, aka Cornelius Fudge in HP and Sir John Middleton in Sense and Sensibility.) I downloaded the audiobooks last week as well, and have thoroughly enjoyed the broad Yorkshire dialects, the mortifying situations the vet gets himself into, and the little triumphs and "Aha!" moments when he finally diagnoses the problem in a difficult case. I like the books a bit better than the show, as Herriot looks more like a stick-in-the-mud and a consummate ass in the show than he seems in the books--though there are many moments in the books when he does make a prat of himself. The most wonderful thing about the show was the theme song, an energetic, thoroughly English TV beauty with a bit of syncopated drumming at the end--too bad it doesn't play in the clip I linked to. D and I watched the series shortly after I got into the books, every episode lovingly recorded on VHS by his grandfather when they aired in 1979. He was what they call an "early adopter" of technology. If they made it in Japan, he wanted one now. Even if it had too many buttons to remember how to use, he bought it. D spent hours teaching Grandfather the order in which buttons were pushed, writing them down with helpful diagrams, but it was like ramming your head into the double-thick cinderblock walls of their house. I had to leave the room when any of these tutoring sessions was going on, so I wouldn't scream in frustration. As Grandfather's eyesight failed, the TV got bigger and bigger each year until it hovered over their bed like the menacing black wall from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Each new set required a new set of directions, completely bewildering Grandfather all over again.
Anyhow, I eagerly waited for the end of each "All Creatures" tape, because at times Grandfather would forget and leave it recording. Two things stand out from the mess of commercial jingles, public television snippets and static: a full newscast from Channel 13 during the oil crisis, and the most horrifically suggestive modern dance performance I have ever seen. The newscast featured Jerry Turner, who was a staple of TV news in Baltimore for years, and the sparse set showed only the pathetic little screen showing the headline being discussed. The leaders of OPEC had just met, the hostages were still in Iran, inflation went up another percent in a month, and gas stations rigged up a system of flags to notify the public of whether they had certain kinds of fuel or if they were out, so people wouldn't waste precious fuel waiting in line for gas they couldn't get. It was unbelievable. Where today our country is seen as the bellowing bully, back then we were led by a bunch of milktoast weenies. Neither image does us much good, but I'd rather be on the bully end of the spectrum, honestly.
The second forgotten recording session from the tapes featured a group of about 5 men (maybe less, but it seemed like an orgy to me) in very tight, very far-out leotards, with swirly designs all over the set, their tights, and across the surface of the TV screen as they writhed and wove tapestries of psychedelic human flesh to very loopy music. It must be the closest I have ever come to a pornographic acid trip, only I was stone sober and disgusted, yet completely transfixed. The thing that really got me thinking was why Grandfather decided to watch the show himself, if it was still recording. Maybe he was transfixed with horror as well. Here's hoping.
posted by mk at 7:54 PM
2 Comments:
That's too funny about Siegfried! I had the huge-est crush on him when I came across those shows on PBS as a tween. (Mee-maw had gotten me started on the books and I'd devour one a day for awhile, lol! So I was excited when the show came on :)
Everytime I came across that actor in those movies I'd become ecstatic - "it's Siegfried!" lol! I even named one of my stuffed animal frogs after him way back when that Jax now loves playing with ;)
Hi MaryKate!
My comment has nothing to do with the subject of your post. Rather, I've been trying to figure out how to contact you about crochet. I'm referring readers of my blog to an article you wrote on Crochetme.com. My blog is at www.ayarnifiedlife.blogspot.com. How may I contact you otherwise?
David Benjamin
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