Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, I went to a bookstore (what I do on my days off my BOOK’s store). There I was so happy to run into a friend, KG, whom I hadn’t seen in years— and with her partner, Mike, we went out for beers. I’d only met Mike once, a dozen years ago. I’d liked him—a reader and a complex thinker—but he’d come across as bitter and judgmental—even though I agreed with his judgments, I wasn’t sure how it’d be hanging out with him.
It was great! I don’t know if he’d mellowed over time, or if I’d met him on a bad day in a bad year? He was just as judgmental (me too!), but the bitterness was gone.
“Misanthropy is my default,” he said, “but I try to resist it. It’s too easy…, and it’s what ‘they’ want you to feel—it divides, and they conquer.”
I feel the same—misanthropy is a honey trap. I told him [what I’d recently blogged about] how people at my workplace distrust one another and don’t bond to pull together against the machine, and the machine picks people off one by one.
II. Muriel, the Book Angel
Where I’m house/dog sitting has Amazon prime, and I was excited to watch season 2 of Good Omens, having loved season 1.
What a disappointment. I slogged through all six episodes, and it felt like the actors did too (though David Tennant has said it was a delight to play the demon Crowley again—I hope it was— it felt stale to me).
Then, all of a sudden, the show gets really good—in around the last fifteen minutes! I recommend starting with episode 6, the last one. The plot finally congeals, and the most delightful character comes into their own—the naive angel Muriel (Quelin Sepilulveda), on their first visit to Earth, discovers reading books.
BELOW: Muriel posing as “a human police officer”, trying to figure out what to do with their first-ever cup of tea, in Aziraphale’s book shop.
Below—Muriel holding a copy of The Crow Road by Iain Banks, a book which Crowley has tossed at them, saying “you’ll like this”. I guess Neil Gaiman does. (He’d had to write GO2 on his own, coauthor of Good Omens (book and season 1), Terry Pratchett, you know, sadly having died.) The Crow Road is referenced in other places in this season. (screenrant.com/good-omens-season-2-the-crow-road-book-meaning)
