![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Apr. 30th, 2023 08:33 pm1. Now that I've found old manuscript, not sure what to do with it. 20 years ago - I had a lot of folks read it, and they sent me written responses. Including my father - which I'd forgotten. All said more or less the same thing, too convoluted, the paranormal stuff doesn't quite work, and I needed to condense and simplify.
So, I've decided to re-read the thing and decide what to salvage, if anything, and what to ditch.
But first I need to finish revising my current manuscript. It's odd, a lot of folks state in their comments - "hey at least you completed a book", what they didn't know was that I'd already completed three books prior to that. Completing the book isn't my problem, it's revising, polishing and publishing it. Plus marketing it.
I think our difficulty as humans is that we insist on relating to information through our own experience. When often it lies outside of it, and is not relatable, and that's okay. Actually it makes things more interesting.
2. Television
I've watched television this weekend, but the only thing that held my attention and was at all engaging was The Citadel on Amazon Prime, starring Robert McFadden (Game of Thrones, the Body Guard), Prianka Chopra (the best thing in that CIA series a while back), and Stanley Tucci. It's about a spy who loses his memory (McFadden) and covert spy agency that fell. Kind of Bourne Identity Meets Mr & Mrs Smith by way of Alias.
I found it interesting. It's a series. Also it has a similar trope dynamic to Company You Keep - lovers to enemies to lovers.
Ghosted starring Chris Evans, Anna de Armas, and Adrian Brody (with a bunch of guest appearances by people who appeared in the Avengers, and unfortunately would have been more interesting than the stars). It's about a dumb but buff farmer living with his parents, while writing his book on agriculture's effect on civilization throughout the ages - who runs into a lovely woman at a farmer's market. Also lonely, and unable to maintain a relationship, she strikes up a conversation with him, they argue, flirt. Meet cute. Have sex. She leaves. He texts her a million times. She appears to ghost him - except, whoa she accidentally took off with his inhaler (which he never uses again in the movie - but whatever). He tracks her down - only to get mistaken for a superspy. And taken hostage - she saves him, because she turns out to be a badass CIA field operative. Which apparently isn't something one reveals on a first date.
Most of the film is them bickering and a lot of fight sequences. I was bored. And the bickering got on my nerves. Whomever work the dialogue - is not very good at it. The actors seemed to struggle with it at times.
At any rate, I spent most of it doing other things, and it never really grabbed my attention.
So far the spy trope on television is a mixed bag. I liked Company You Keep, but True Lies bores me. I liked the first episode of the Citadel but Ghosted bored me. Company and Citadel are more equal pairings, both characters are smart and super capable. True Lies and Ghosted have unequal pairings, and kind of incompetent folks who suddenly without warning are competent.
Schmigadoon S1 is kind of boring - I've playing it as background music, sometimes entertaining but mostly boring. I may check out Schmichicago which is a send up of the 70s and 80s musicals.
Ted Lasso S2 isn't bad, but slow going. I liked S1 better.
3. Making my way through the non-fiction audiobook : Killing John Wayne - the Making of the Conqueror
It's literal - John Wayne actually was killed by that film. So was several other people, including Susan Hayward and Agnes Morehead (Bewitched). (I got curious - because my mother told me this - but couldn't remember what the movie was. Probably because she never saw it and it was never released.) They were doing nuclear testing in the Nevada desert in the 1950s. The testing was done several miles south of the film location. They were told it was perfectly safe by our idiotic government. They did look into it. It's not like they didn't know. Dick Powell who was directing the picture, actually halted production when he discovered it and checked it out - only to be told, no worries.
( Read more... )
4. One of my favorite singers from my childhood and beyond, died this week.
Harry Belafonte died at the age of 96.
He will be missed.
A lovely man. A humanitarian, singer, song-writer, and activist.
Among my favorites?
The Banana Boat Song aka Day-O
"Daylight Come, and we want to go home..." - which he said before he died. Just like my dad actually, who told my mother it was time for him to go home. He wanted to go home. Harry said the same thing, it's time, I want to go home.
I grew up listening to Harry Belafonte - my mother loved his music. They had his albums when I was a kid. He also did Free You and Me with Marlo Thomas in the 1970s, and was close friends with Martin Luther King and Sydney Poiter.
Here's Harry Belafonte singing Turn the World Around on the Muppet Show.
And the The Kennedy Center Honors for Harry Belafonte in 1989
A quote attributed to Harry Belafonte, is "the artist can be caged but not the song."
So, I've decided to re-read the thing and decide what to salvage, if anything, and what to ditch.
But first I need to finish revising my current manuscript. It's odd, a lot of folks state in their comments - "hey at least you completed a book", what they didn't know was that I'd already completed three books prior to that. Completing the book isn't my problem, it's revising, polishing and publishing it. Plus marketing it.
I think our difficulty as humans is that we insist on relating to information through our own experience. When often it lies outside of it, and is not relatable, and that's okay. Actually it makes things more interesting.
2. Television
I've watched television this weekend, but the only thing that held my attention and was at all engaging was The Citadel on Amazon Prime, starring Robert McFadden (Game of Thrones, the Body Guard), Prianka Chopra (the best thing in that CIA series a while back), and Stanley Tucci. It's about a spy who loses his memory (McFadden) and covert spy agency that fell. Kind of Bourne Identity Meets Mr & Mrs Smith by way of Alias.
I found it interesting. It's a series. Also it has a similar trope dynamic to Company You Keep - lovers to enemies to lovers.
Ghosted starring Chris Evans, Anna de Armas, and Adrian Brody (with a bunch of guest appearances by people who appeared in the Avengers, and unfortunately would have been more interesting than the stars). It's about a dumb but buff farmer living with his parents, while writing his book on agriculture's effect on civilization throughout the ages - who runs into a lovely woman at a farmer's market. Also lonely, and unable to maintain a relationship, she strikes up a conversation with him, they argue, flirt. Meet cute. Have sex. She leaves. He texts her a million times. She appears to ghost him - except, whoa she accidentally took off with his inhaler (which he never uses again in the movie - but whatever). He tracks her down - only to get mistaken for a superspy. And taken hostage - she saves him, because she turns out to be a badass CIA field operative. Which apparently isn't something one reveals on a first date.
Most of the film is them bickering and a lot of fight sequences. I was bored. And the bickering got on my nerves. Whomever work the dialogue - is not very good at it. The actors seemed to struggle with it at times.
At any rate, I spent most of it doing other things, and it never really grabbed my attention.
So far the spy trope on television is a mixed bag. I liked Company You Keep, but True Lies bores me. I liked the first episode of the Citadel but Ghosted bored me. Company and Citadel are more equal pairings, both characters are smart and super capable. True Lies and Ghosted have unequal pairings, and kind of incompetent folks who suddenly without warning are competent.
Schmigadoon S1 is kind of boring - I've playing it as background music, sometimes entertaining but mostly boring. I may check out Schmichicago which is a send up of the 70s and 80s musicals.
Ted Lasso S2 isn't bad, but slow going. I liked S1 better.
3. Making my way through the non-fiction audiobook : Killing John Wayne - the Making of the Conqueror
It's literal - John Wayne actually was killed by that film. So was several other people, including Susan Hayward and Agnes Morehead (Bewitched). (I got curious - because my mother told me this - but couldn't remember what the movie was. Probably because she never saw it and it was never released.) They were doing nuclear testing in the Nevada desert in the 1950s. The testing was done several miles south of the film location. They were told it was perfectly safe by our idiotic government. They did look into it. It's not like they didn't know. Dick Powell who was directing the picture, actually halted production when he discovered it and checked it out - only to be told, no worries.
( Read more... )
4. One of my favorite singers from my childhood and beyond, died this week.
Harry Belafonte died at the age of 96.
He will be missed.
A lovely man. A humanitarian, singer, song-writer, and activist.
Among my favorites?
The Banana Boat Song aka Day-O
"Daylight Come, and we want to go home..." - which he said before he died. Just like my dad actually, who told my mother it was time for him to go home. He wanted to go home. Harry said the same thing, it's time, I want to go home.
I grew up listening to Harry Belafonte - my mother loved his music. They had his albums when I was a kid. He also did Free You and Me with Marlo Thomas in the 1970s, and was close friends with Martin Luther King and Sydney Poiter.
Here's Harry Belafonte singing Turn the World Around on the Muppet Show.
And the The Kennedy Center Honors for Harry Belafonte in 1989
A quote attributed to Harry Belafonte, is "the artist can be caged but not the song."