The best of the tube

Television
I wanna write about my reaction to Mary Poppins the Musical which I saw last night, but first, my thoughts on the best on TV these days.

I am very lucky to have a tv setup with tons of channels and a PVR (Bell Fibe). I have also developed the ability to read a book while the dear-heart is watching something I'm not really interested in. So I restrict myself to the best of the TV world with clever juggling of the remote and whatever book I happen to be reading.

My current faves (in no particular order):

Web Therapy - Lisa Kudrow is absolutely brilliant in this half-hour comedy about a woman with a business degree who decides to set up an online therapy practice that replaces the usual 50-minute session with 3-minutes of right-to-brass-tacks talk. At this point, I'm watching it On Demand and am not sure that it's currently airing. [Just put up the link and realized that it's all available online, and there are 4 seasons already!]

Enlightened - Co-written, produced, and starring Laura Dern and Mike White. Dern plays a thirty-something (forty-something?) woman who, after a breakdown at her corporate job, goes on a yoga retreat.  The season started with her return to "real life", moving in with her cold mother (Diane Ladd), dealing with her ex-huband (Luke Wilson), and going back to work at her old company, but into a secret, basement-located job with a group of other misfits (including Mike White). It is perfect in so many ways. Including the music that is curated especially for each episode. 

The Wire - I'm late to the party on this one. (I think Season One was originally in 2002, or somthing.)  If I start to use the f-word repeatedly, this show would be why. 

Boardwalk Empire - Steve Buscemi rocks prohibition Atlantic City. Great cast, storyline getting a little freaky, but totally compelling viewing.

The Good Wife - A prime time drama in which the lead women don't have their breasts hanging out of their tops. Seriously, this is probably one of the best dramas on main-stream tv. Julia Marguiles and Archie Punjabi are both dreamy. 

Michael: Tuesdays and Thursdays - I wish this Canadian half-hour was getting more viewership. It's quirky and stars the brilliant Bob Martin (of Drowsy Chaperone fame). I have fears that it will be cancelled.... 

Modern Family - Can't get enough of this comedy. But enough's been written about it already.

Suburgatory - A new half-hour comedy about a father and teen daughter who move from NYC to the suburbs and go through culture shock. Reminds me of my time in a suburb of Atlanta. 

Living in Your Car - Read something about this in the paper and am catching it On Demand. A corporate exec gets fired (and jailed) for fraud. When he gets out, all he has is an extremely expensive car, in which he ends up living. I may start to hate it, but three eps in and it's still pretty entertaining.

Tagged television

The Lisa Simpson Book Club...

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via lisasimpsonbookclub.tumblr.com

All you readers AND Simpsons fans...check out this new-ish tumblr! Features Lisa Simpson's books and other reading material (and reading-related dialog). Lotsa laffs.

Tagged humour reading television

Man Men theme music...a different take!

For all you Mad Men fans out there, check this out! From Videos Recorded Live.

The notes accompanying this clip:

We loved the song "A Beautiful Mine" by RJD2 that plays during the opening credits of "Mad Men." We wanted to put lyrics to it and realized that "Nature Boy" made famous by Nat King Cole, and written by eden ahbez, was the perfect fit. This was filmed in one take (this one, specifically, happened to be take 29 of the day)...no cuts, dubbing, lip-syncing or auto-tuning. More videos coming soon...This is a Video Recorded Live.

This is the piece that was sampled for the theme:

H/T to Kerry at Pickle Me This who retweeted these clips.

Tagged music television

It's been a bookish week.

I've got books coming in like crazy these days.  I won a couple of books from McClelland Books in their July Book Giveaway twitter-fest.  They sent me Colm Toibin's Brooklyn and Thomas Trofimuk's Waiting for Columbus, along with a bonus copy of Anne Michaels' The Winter Vault .  

And then this weekend, I was notified that I'd won what I believe is the first extra challenge in the fourth annual Canadian Book Challenge (CBC4):  I read a book by an author NOT read in (last year's) CBC3 (Terry Fallis' The Best Laid Plans).  John Mutford, our CBC host will be sending me a signed copy of Roderick Benns' Mystery of the Moonlight Murder. (I'm tracking my personal progress on CBC4 here.)  On top of a spate of holds from my local library, I am well fixed for reading material this month.

I also had a great weekend at the cottage.  I read Tish Cohen's The Truth About Delilah Blue, Jessica Grant's Come, Thou Tortoise, (reviews will be up soon) and made progress in Cory Doctorow's For the Win and Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.  I've also started Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely.  These last three are on my Kindle.

Good thing that there isn't much on TV these days (except for Mad Men and Pillars of the Earth)!

Tagged books reading television

Seven Quick Takes Friday

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Welcome all Company Girls!
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--1--
The last couple of days have been rather nerve-wracking, health-wise.  The night before last, I woke up at 3 am with stomach pains that wouldn't go away.  They continued all day yesterday and pretty much prevented me from doing anything....I only managed to take Wilson around the block, and I drove to the library to drop off and pick up books.  My blood pressure was also up. Quite a bit.

I kept reading these websites about how heart attacks in women can mimic indigestion, etc, and was getting a bit freaked out. We didn't have anything in the house for stomach ailments, and I didn't really feel like eating.  I forced down some plain yogurt and a couple of bananas over the day (and a cookie)  and basically lay on the sofa with a book.

My stomach was still bothering me last night when I went to bed, but it's all better this morning.  I have a headache, and my bp is still up, but hopefully it will subside as I start to feel better.  At least I'm up for errands and housework today.  And dinner out with friends tonight.

--2--
One of the "benefits" of being under the weather is getting some reading done.  Yesterday, I read the Philip Roth novella The Humbling
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.  Very dark and intense story of a successful, aging actor who can no longer work.

--3--
I also got NutureShock: New Thinking About Children:
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by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman from the library (again).  This is the third time I've checked it out but I've never been able to get it read before having to return it.  I"m halfway through and it's a book that I wish I'd had when my kids were young.  So many important insights, but mainly it's a debunking of many of the prevailing child-rearing tenets.  Like praise.  Like talking about race.  Like gifted testing in the early years. Like TV makes you fat.   Highly recommended reading for all parents of all ages.

--4--
I have a couple of resolutions from the book above regarding Michael.  First, it is imperative that he gets more sleep every night.  To that end, the laptop, iPod, and phone will be turned off at 10 and  left outside his room at night.  Second, he needs to understand that his brain is like a muscle, and the more he uses it, the more it grows.  He needs to start doing more work at school, more than is required by his teachers, if he is to keep it growing.   He has decided to drop Japanese for the rest of the year....he was quite far behind and unable to catch up, so we have let him stop going.  In it's place, we've registered him in the Saturday Science and Engineering Academy at University of Toronto.  Their spring program is ten weeks, starting next month, and he'll be taking the Math and Physics for Engineering program for students in Grade 9 and 10.

--5--
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There are a couple of new TV shows that we're enjoying.  The Republic of Doyle is a charming hour-long detective show set in St. John's, Newfoundland.  The main characters are a father and son, who share a house with the father's lady-friend and the son's daughter.  The son is going through a divorce and his soon-to-be-ex-wife is also featured prominently.  The dialogue is fast and funny, and the scenery is gorgeous. The show has a retro buzz about it and is thoroughly engaging.

We also watched the first episode of the HBO production of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, an adaptation of the Giller award winning book
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of the same name by Vincent Lam.  The show really pulled us in, and is complex with flashbacks, fantasy scenes, and unanswered questions about why certain things are happening.  Another one for the PVR.

--6--
This Saturday, Z, Michael and I are heading to Koerner Hall to see Quartetto Gelato and Ethel.  Should be a high energy evening!  Check them out:

Ethel


--7--
The online Declutter Group I've joined starts on Monday!  I"m looking forward to having a focussed approach to getting the house in order as well as the accountability of doing it in a group.  There are still spots, if anyone's interested in joining me!

That's all for today!  I"m off to get my house in order and run some errands.
Tagged decluttering family health and fitness reading seven quick takes television

My teens are really missing out....

....because I'll NEVER get them this.
Tagged family television

Grabbing a few moments...

It's been a whirlwind since my mother-in-law arrived on Monday.  Which is nuts, because she has slowed down considerably over the past year with some stomach complaints and other ails.  But for a 78-year-old, the woman outlasts me in the kitchen.  She's been cooking non-stop for the last couple of days, with time-out only to shop (for more food, to cook), and for some visits and chats on the phone.

And for the Turkish soap-operas.  There are two that she likes in particular, Alia and Assi.  They are shown on MBC which I'm guessing stands for Middle Eastern Broadcasting Company, or something like that and they are either dubbed into Arabic, or filmed in Arabic. I think she gets them at her apartment in Stockholm on satellite television.  We don't get MBC here, so we found the programs online at the MBC website, but they weren't up to date.  My nephew in Paris was able to direct me to a website that has more recent episodes, so she watches them on my laptop after her work is done in the kitchen.  Z and I were sitting in the living room last night watching something on TV and he kept smiling as the romantic music would get louder from the kitchen, with Arabic exclamations of love, or whatever.

She's been keeping me pretty busy as sous-chef and driver, and I love listening to her stories.  So I haven't had too much time to read these days, but yesterday I managed to finish Giller-Prize-winning novel The Bishop's Man

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 by Linden MacIntyre.  It is a compelling portrait of a priest involved in "managing" the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Canada.  MacIntyre writes with an authoritative voice and portrays the parties involved in all sides of this tragedy.  Highly recommended.

I'm on to Audry Niffenegger's most recent (after The Time Traveler's Wife

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) called Her Fearful Symmetry
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.
Tagged family journal reading television

Who knew? He's Welsh!

Maybe I've been living under a rock or something...

I've been following ABC's Brothers and Sisters since it started, and it's a very interesting drama with a great cast, including Sally Field, Patricia Wettig, Calista Flockhart, and Rob Lowe.  It's been getting pretty tense this season, and so when I noticed that my Tivo had picked up an episode of The View with guests Sally Field and Calista Flockhart, I watched it while folding laundry.

As part of the segment, they did a tour of the B&S set, led by Matthew Rhys who plays brother Kevin Walker.  I had never noticed his (real) name before, and when he started speaking with a Welsh accent, I though he was putting it on.  And then it became apparent that it IS his real voice, and his Kevin Walker accent is put on!  Holy cow! Another Hugh Laurie/Gregory House thing (although he's a Brit, but you get my drift.)

I have a thing for accents.  Z initially won me over with his cute Lebanese-French accent.  And let me tell you, I could listen to Matthew Rhys lecture on particle physics and pay total attention.  Here's a clip from the YouTube, an interview with ABC News, talking about his role on Brothers and Sisters.
Tagged television
Reading:  Just finished Blackouts
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 by Craig Boyko and The School Of Essential Ingredients
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 by Erica Bauermeister.  The first is terrific collection of short-stories, very astute, some rather dark.  The second was a light set of interrelated stories, or maybe a novel, set around a cooking school.  Each chapter gives the back story for one of the students (or couples).  It was moderately moving at times, but not hugely engaging.  Am now reading Country Girls Trilogy
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 by Edna O'Brien.  I picked this up after listening to an interview with O'Brien on the BBC World Book Club podcast. 

Listening:  I've been catching up on a few Vinyl Cafe podcasts, the Two Edge Talk series on education, BBC Thinking Allowed, and the last few episodes of King Leary on CBC's Between the Covers.  

Watching:  The two hour episode of Brothers and Sisters last night.  Sheesh!  What a roller coaster.  Wild Roses is also moving along.  Saw the season finale of (spoiler link) Top Chef  and, well, felt so sad for the person who was essentially out before the food was even plated.  

Cooking:  Nothing much new in the kitchen these days.  Tried this Southwestern Flank Steak in the crock pot to raves.  Very piquante, and great leftovers.

Knitting: I needed to darn a navy wool sweater belonging to Z...it had a hole right on the chest so I needed a good colour match.  I ended up buying a ball of sock yarn, so once I used the 10" of wool required to darn the hole, I decided to start a pair of matching socks using this pattern.  Unfortunately, it's using more wool than I thought, so I will need to buy another ball, which will require a drive all the way out to Michael's in Mississauga (if I want to try to get the same dye lot on this inexpensive brand of wool.)
Tagged crafts family food reading television

Food, frugality, and Dwight Schrute

For all you The Office fans, and even those who aren't. This is a very funny post titled "11 Things Dwight K. Schrute Has Taught Me About Food and Frugality".

For example:

DWIGHT SAYS: “My grandfather left me a 60-acre working beet farm. I run it with my cousin Mose. We sell beets to the local stores and restaurants. It’s a nice little farm ... sometimes teenagers use it for sex.”
DWIGHT MEANS: Buy local.
Not only does it support neighborhood farmers (who need security to keep randy kids away), but food that’s shipped from nearby tastes better, is better for you, and is easier on the environment.
Tagged humour kitchen television
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