Category Archives: Television

Food for Thought, News, Television

I’m Back. Sort of.

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What a difference a presidential election makes. Before November, I was full of enthusiasm for my blog, especially for my Thankful Thursday posts, where I wrote about the good things in my life.

Now, I have little enthusiasm and energy for my blog. I am just so sad, and the hose of sewerage coming from the first two weeks—has it only been two weeks?— of Trump’s presidency doesn’t help. In the face of such malevolence, writing about life on the edge of the woods seems trivial, my thankful posts naive.

And yet I have missed the blogging community. I’ve intermittently kept track of blogging friends’ posts, but it’s not the same as reading and posting regularly. So here I am. This piece is a tentative first step in returning to something approaching a normal blogging schedule.

Despite my heavy heart, I have still been reading novels, listening to podcasts, and watching television series and movies.

For reasons that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, I have become obsessed with World War II. (No, I am not comparing Trump with Hitler. Bad as Trump as, he doesn’t reach the horrible evil of Hitler.)

A French television series I have become particularly engrossed with is Un Village Français (A French Village.) Covering the years from 1940 to 1945 (and beyond), the series centers on Villeneuve, a fictional French village, and how the various inhabitants cope with the German occupation of France. Some villagers just try and live their lives, no easy thing to do when the Germans are occupying your community. Others collaborate. Some join the resistance, an uneasy coalition of Communists, Socialists, and Gaullists, among others.

There is a huge cast in A French Village, with the focus on a group of main characters, all of whom are vivid. Because this a French production, there are affairs aplenty, but they never sink the show or get in the way of the central issue: who resists and who collaborates? Warning: main characters do get killed. Don’t get too attached.

As I watched the show I asked myself, what would I do? Would I resist, or would I keep my head down? I think of Marie, one of the main characters in the show and a hero of the Resistance. In one scene, she is biking madly down the road on some important Resistance business. Her expression is resolute, and the camera focuses briefly on her shapely legs. (Back then women biked in skirts.) I hope I would be like Marie, but in all honesty, I can’t say for sure that I would.

The series is not without its flaws. There are plot contrivances and jumps that don’t always make sense. Nevertheless, A French Village is a monumental achievement and very much worth seeing.

How to watch it? Here’s the rub. Some of the seasons—but not all—can be viewed on Amazon. The missing seasons are important, and I don’t recommend watching it this way. For those who get Kanopy, a library streaming service, all seven seasons are available. Our library system also has the seven seasons available on DVD. Yours might, too. Finally, the series can be watched via the streaming service MHz Choice, which costs 7.99 a month.

And for those who like podcasts, The Bulwark offers an excellent French Village series with Sarah Longwell and Benjamin Wittes.

Vive la France! They made it through hard times. I’m hoping that we can, too.

 

 

Fall, Home, Television

Scenes from Mid-October and a Review of the Television Series From

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In Maine in mid-October there is a certain chill in the air, letting us know that we are edging into a time of colder weather and long nights. In mid-October, we can no longer be sure that it will be warm enough to eat outside even when the sun is shining. In mid-October, we start bringing in some of the patio furniture. (The big table stays outside under cover.) In mid-October, the leaves are falling, falling, falling. Hence, the use of fall as another word for autumn.

For those who live in a warmer climate, October in northern New England might sound like a time for alarm—this is just the beginning of the cold and the dark? But we Mainers mostly take it in stride. We have known snow and cold weather from the time we were born, and to us it seems like the natural order of things.

However, I do want to add that when cold weather comes, a fair number of folks hightail it to warmer states. Snowbirds, they are called, and I will never be one of them. To me, winter means snow.

But before the snow comes October.

Here are some photos of what it looks like in our yard at the edge of the woods.

This weekend, Clif and Dee took down the screen house and tucked it down cellar until next spring. The round table and umbrella were also stored down cellar. After which, Clif moved our fire pit onto the patio, which stops the backyard from looking so lonely. But still. I miss the screen house.

In the woods, there is a flash of red, a blaze of glory, red against green.

In our new driveway, leaves aren’t the only things that fall.

And sometimes the leaves fall in a very fetching way.

All those falling leaves mean that the great leaf clean-up will soon begin. In the meantime, we will enjoy nature’s art.

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Watching: Television

From
Seasons 1 through 3
Available on MGM+

First, a disclaimer. Even though I come from the land of Stephen King (his Maine home is about an hour and half from where I live), I am not a fan of horror. The answer for this is simple: I get too scared. I have what might be called an overactive imagination, and horror taps right into it.

However, from the jump, I was hooked on From, which is billed as a horror/mystery show. Yes, there are strong elements of horror in From as well as some gore. However, the emphasis is on the characters and how they react to the terrible situation they are in.

And what is that situation? There is a town in the middle of the woods somewhere—it could even be Maine—that traps folks. While the exact method is a mystery, it involves a back road with a fallen tree and circling crows. That fallen tree spells trouble. When the series opens, a vacationing family encounters this tree and quite naturally tries to find another route. After Dad (Elon Bailey) turns the vehicle around, the family arrives in a shabby town with a smattering of inhabitants. Dad drives through the town but somehow finds himself circling around to that very same town. Again and again. The family is trapped.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the family is stuck in a town where monsters emerge at night and devour people if they are out and about. Steps have been taken to protect the houses, but I can tell you right now that accidents, bloody ones, still happen. Regularly.

Presiding over the town is Sheriff Boyd Stevens (played by the excellent Harold Perrineau). His job is to protect the town, to provide hope, and to figure out how they all might escape. Let’s just say that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

There is a wonderful cast of supporting characters, all flawed but all very human in their frailties. Bit by bit, the episodes provide clues as to what this mysterious place is and how folks might escape.

In season 3, the cherry on the sundae is a reference to Camden, Maine. Clif, Dee, and I have found that in most of the horror or supernatural series we watch, there is some reference to Maine. It always takes us by surprise although by now we should be used to it.

No doubt in honor of Stephen King, that master of horror.

Even if you think you don’t like horror, From is a show to watch.

Celebrate, Television, Winter

The Return of Snow-Gauge Clif

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Well, it happened. The weather gods decided to play one of their little tricks on us, and on Saturday a storm blow into the state. Where we live in central Maine, we got mostly snow, about ten inches, and we kept our power the whole time. The coast was not as lucky. From New Hampshire to mid-coast Maine, they got freezing rain, enough of it to knock down trees and power lines.  At its worst, after the storm, 184,000 Central Maine Power (CMP) customers were without power, and today, Monday, 80,000 still don’t have it. (CMP has 675,000 customers.)

However, as the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and so it is in Winthrop. Ten inches of snow means the return of Snow-Gauge Clif.

How long will it take for this snow to melt? I’m guessing it won’t be long. Rain is in the forecast as are temps in the 50s. Will Snow-Gauge Clif return next week? Stay tuned!

During the storm, from the bathroom window, I snapped a picture of this pretty fellow, a cardinal. The cardinal is not as clear as I would like him to be, but nonetheless I thought the red against the snow was pretty.

Last Tuesday, March 19, was our forty-seventh wedding anniversary. Holy cats, Clif and I have been together for a long time. Because Tuesday was a work day for Clif (he does book design), Me (I write books), and our daughter Dee (she does web work),in the evening we had a simple celebration of nuts and drinks as well as veggie sausages and dairy-free ice cream. The goblets were given to us by a good friend on our first wedding anniversary, and we bring them out every year for a celebratory drink.

On Friday, before the storm, we took the afternoon off and had a fried day. Both Clif and I love fried food, and we are lucky enough to have a digestive system that easily handles this kind of food. (I know from previous comments that not all my blogging friends can eat fried food.)

However, this capacity for fried food has its downside. Without vigilance, we could eat way more fried food than we should.  However, I am happy to report that we do use restraint and only have fried food a few times a year.

Here was our line-up for Friday: fried onions (Clif), fried mushrooms (me, although I shared a few), and fries (both of us). And a whoopie pie to share for dessert.

The food was very, very tasty and served piping hot. So cheer to us! In another three years we will have been together for fifty years. Yikes, that’s a long time.

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Watching

The Gentlemen, television series, 2024
Created by Guy Ritchie
Available on Netflix

Along with having an enthusiasm for fried food, I am also keen on quirky crime dramas. The Gentlemen definitely qualifies as a quirky crime drama, and Guy Ritche’s fingerprints are all over it. Clif and I were so caught up with the story and the acting that we blew through four episodes on Saturday morning while it snowed outside.

Eddie (Theo James), an aristocrat, is called home to the family estate where his father is dying. After his father’s death, Eddie learns, much to his surprise, that he has inherited the estate. He is a second son, and always thought his elder brother Freddie would be the one to get the estate. Neither Freddie nor Eddie is pleased with this turn of events, but the will is clear. Eddie gets the estate.

Eddie also receives another surprise. For some years, his father has been renting out a barn to a weed enterprise run by the delightfully deadpan Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario), who is about the same age as Eddie. Eddie wants the weed business to move; Susie does not.

To complicate matters, they both have brothers who have a knack for getting in trouble. Naturally, complications ensue as do murder and mayhem. James and Scodelario have a wonderful chemistry. Are they attracted to each other? Are they out to get each other? Or maybe both? This tension gives the show a nice energy.

The supporting cast is equally delightful, with each character, no matter how brief the performance, being distinct and memorable.

I’ve read that season two of The Gentlemen might be in the works.

Fingers crossed.

 

Television, Winter

Five Below on Saturday

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Last weekend, we had another stretch of brisk weather. Five below on Saturday.

In the morning, my bare feet stung as I walked across the cold tiles in the kitchen. I could hear the house snap in response to the weather. On the north side of the house, ice rimmed the inside edge of one of our least insulated windows.

We haven’t had a deep freeze like this for a long time. It reminds me of childhood winters when the snow was piled high enough to make snow caves, and the temperature would dip below zero for a week or two. I am hoping that the frigid temperature keeps the tick population down.

I am very glad we have a blanket of insulating snow on the ground. Without the snow, the below zero weather would kill many of the perennials in my gardens. Years ago, this happened one extremely cold winter without snow. Half the perennials in the backyard didn’t make it and had to be replaced. That spring was an expensive one.

About a week ago we had rain on top of snow—what weird weather!—and our driveway became icy and treacherous as everything froze. Clif, however, has a solution that he only employs as a last resort: wood ash from our furnace. The ash is messy when we track it in, as we always do, but we both figure this is a lot better than falling. And by taking off our boots as soon as we come in, we keep the mess to a minimum.

The ash is in a metal can by the cellar. (You can see the walkway already has a layer of ash.)

After collecting the ash, Clif heads to the front, where he spreads it  on the driveway.

Winter in Maine requires thinking ahead as we deal with snow and ice. But as Clif and I are Mainers, this seems normal to us. For now, anyway, we are up to the task.

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Nifty Posts from Some of the Lovely Blogs I Read

On a recent post on his blog Now I’m 64, Platypus Man wrote something that should be emblazoned in everyone’s heart: “All living things are intrinsically valuable, worthy of our respect and protection regardless of their looks or lifestyle.” Imagine what kind of world we might have if this were the case. The post is about warty pigs, but Platypus Man’s words apply to all creatures great and small, including us.

From warty pigs, I moved to musings about science with Frank of Beach Walk Reflections. He laments that today too many people think science is an opinion. Instead, he writes, it is the search for an explanation of what we observe in nature. Amen, Frank!

Science, of course, is not the only way to observe nature, and in his post “Atmospheric,” Derrick, of the blog Derrick J. Knight, presents an enchanting series of pictures he and his wife Jackie took of their garden and the countryside.

From Thistles and Kiwis: Summer, beautiful summer, and a Teddy Bears’ Picnic.

From Touring My Backyard, fabulous public art.

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Last week, Clif, Dee, and I finished—all right, binged—a snappy Netflix series called Archive 81, a supernatural thriller with a tinge of horror.  I tend to be a little wimpy when it comes to horror, and this one passed the “Laurie Test” with flying colors. We’re really hoping there will be a Season 2.