Tuesday, August 9, 2016

random chat

I'm heading out in a little bit to accompany bink to the airport--taking the bus/light rail, which is a breeze. 
She's off to visit friends in Europe for almost 3 weeks. I'll miss her but I'm glad to see her go---she's been in a bit of a slump since her dad died in January (though doing very well on Angry Birds, I gather). 
Traveling can push your re-set button.
Then, when she comes back, she & Maura can start looking for a new dog on the wire-haired fox terrier rescue site.

Here's some stuff from my desktop.

1. Ooh! We are going to see William Shatner for the second time together this coming Sunday! He's in town for a mini-convention marking the 50th anniversary of Star Trek.

2. I don't have a scanner anymore, but I took a few old photos to the library and scanned them there. I have many more to go!

This--far right-- is my mother's father, Lytton Somer Davis (1900-1976), 
on his family's Kentucky farm, 1912.  
L to R, his parents, Martha & James, and two sisters Pearl and Bertha (Maude had already left).

3. And, oh golly, this is why I got looking at old photos---someone on FB asked to see my seed-portrait of Picasso's "Gertrude Stein". 
I'd made it for the 1992 State Fair. That pink ribbon is third prize in Beginners Crop Art.  (I think there were only three entries.)
So, here I am, thirty-one years old (!), with bink & my dog Bop:

8 comments:

Zhoen said...

Video games are real treatment for stress and trauma.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/health-care/2015/07/16/tetris-video-games-could-be-key-to-preventing-ptsd/30191539/

Ever get into female fandoms? Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maud, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, Flying Nun?

Fresca said...

Female fandom: Gertrude Stein!

Women on TV, not so much.

I have a lot to say about it [women in mass media] too!
A few thoughts:

PART 1

I did watch those TV shows you list when I was young, but I wasn't a "fan", per se.
I liked them the way I liked M*A*S*H---mildly.

True confession though:
I tag along on some of Marz's fandoms, but I'm not a TV fan.
[Star Trek is an exception--Kirk & Spock aside, it's sci-fi, and so there are a lot of interesting ideas in it. Also it has historical interest. But mostly it came along when I needed it: first after my mother left the family when I was 13, and then again after she'd killed herself. like video games for stress & trauma!]

And there aren't that many good women characters on TV anyway, and even rarer are women in partnerships, which is my favorite relationship in TV shows:
--not sexual partnerships, but people working intimately together, like Kirk & Spock, or Starsky & Hutch, or Abbott & Costello--even the two guys on Detectorists (UK)--pairs of male buddies (& "bromance") in mass media are super common: cowboys, cops, soldiers, road movies, slapstick teams,
--but female partnerships are rare.

There's Cagney & Lacy--(though the producers took the first, best Cagney (Meg Foster) off after 6 episodes for reading too dyke-y! I guess because she didn't make cute all the time?)
Geez.
Xena & Gabrielle--I've actually never watched that show.

Good male/female partnerships are rare too.
Scully & Mulder are good, but I don't like the X-Files!

I lost track because I haven't owned a TV since 1990, and so I missed a lot. Now I watch TV mostly on DVDs from Netflix.
Still,
I'm more of a fan of fandom itself (the creativity of fans) than of TV.
Until recent years, TV has been (mostly) pretty lightweight entertainment--not really my thing.

It's hard to write good characters and plots when you have to crank out ...how many?
22 episodes/season?
But recently TV's changed--going to fewer episodes/season.*

-I'm just rewatching The Wire---wow--still among the best TV I've seen!
Some of Orange Is the New Black (women who are like real women!) was great---first season of Orphan Black too!
But after the first season, I lost interest.
I also love the opening episodes of Battlestar Galactica---the best thing I've seen in mass media on 9/11---and lots of good women characters too (Starbuck! Roslin!). I think it wobbled off the edge of the table pretty quickly but the pilot stands alone.

Fresca said...

PART 2
Mostly, I'm a fan of movies and writing.
(You've seen my favorite actresses posts, I think?:
http://gugeo.blogspot.com/search/label/favorite%20actresses)

There've been some great new female characters in movies:
Rey in Star Wars
Furiosa in Mad Max
the new Wonder Woman looks hopeful...
I like Amy Adams's Lois Lane too
Again, mostly stand-alones, not working partnerships with other women.

Melissa McCarthy gets to be partnered with other women---like with Sandra Bullock in The Heat.

Mass media has a loooong way to go in creating good women characters.
Do you follow Geena Davis Intstitute on Gender in media?
http://seejane.org

OK--all for now. Maybe I'll blog about this more! Thanks for asking.

* RE shorter TV seasons:
"While fans may sometimes lament the paucity of episodes these days, TV insiders believe in most cases the shorter runs are good for quality control. “You don’t have what you had in the '80s and '90s, and still at some networks today, which is, ‘Get me 24, because I need to fill up my schedule,’” says one cable vet.

“Great storytelling got watered down because you didn’t want too much stuff in one episode, or you didn’t want to give up too much character too soon. If you have no clock, you don’t need to slow down or speed up. You just need to tell the right story. There’s something very liberating about not having to fit in one box.”"
--http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/10-episodes-is-the-new-13-was-the-new-22.html

Fresca said...

P.S. Oh yeah---the new Ghostbusters!
I liked it exactly as much as I liked the original Ghostbusters:
not every much.
I was bored.
BUT, halfway through, I was still excited nevertheless to be seeing FOUR (four!!!!) women working together on a cool superhero-ish project (not like "9 to 5") and not once mentioning domestic concerns!
(Well, there's soup...)

Anonymous said...

From British tv try Scott and Bailey, Last Tango in Halifax, Inspector Lindley. Enjoy.

Fresca said...

Thanks, nanacathy!
folks keep recommending Scott & Bailey to me (also last tango)---when I'm done re-watching the Wire, it's up next!

What I love about the Wire is it's one looooong interconnected story, like Middlemarch.
TV is too limited if it tries to tell one story/solve one mystery in an hour.
I think comedy works better---
jokes ARE short, in real life too.

I love a lot of British comedies---like Vicar of Dibely, To the Manor Born.
It probably helps being an American--I miss the cultural triggers.
I've heard Europeans say this, the other way round---
US stuff that bugs me, they don't even notice.

Frex said...

ZHOEN:
your comment came in as I was replying to nanacathy's.
Yeah, I love Dawn French & Jennifer Saunders too, and Simon Pegg & Jessica Hynes's Spaced is one of my all-time favorite TV shows---great m/f partnership!

If you see the new Star Trek:Beyond, you'll recognize a funny tag line from that show---Simon Pegg co-wrote it!
(Otherwise, I thought ST:B was kind of boring.)

Fresca said...

P.S. CATHY: another friend recommended "Rosemary and Thyme" too.
Why don't Americans make more shows like these British shows?