Category: Longform
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Who Do You Think You Both Are?
I suppose I should tell you what I thought of the three Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials.
They were good. Not great, but good. My favourite of the three — and I think probably the best, too — was the middle one, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’.
As to the ending, the ‘bi-generation’ thing was daft, but fun. It was good to give the leaving and arriving Doctors the chance to interact, and a Doctor ending without it being a death was good.
However, let us speak of the extension of that effect, as explained in this Radio Times article. I was directed there by @BenSouthwood, via a conversation on Micro.blog.
As I said there, I loved the idea of the Timeless Child, and the expansion it brought to The Doctor’s past and the prehistory of the Time Lords. But this ‘every Doctor is now bi-generated’ idea just seems like it leaves things in a mess.
Sure, you can explain it all away with branching timelines, alternative realities and all that. But it all just seems a bit too chaotic, you know? Even if they never use it, it feels unnecessary.
And then there’s this idea of making an expanded ‘Whoniverse’, in the vein of what Marvel and Star Wars have become. Disney’s money is going to allow this, presumably. More shows, even, than when we had Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Trouble is, from my point of view, that I’ve lost interest in both Star Wars and Marvel exactly because there’s so much stuff. It’s all just too much.
So I hope my favourite programme doesn’t go the same way. Or at least, if it does, that the original programme will always remain at the hearts of the franchise, and not depend on any of the expansion packs.
The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (Books 2023, 25) 📚
A reread so soon? Hell, yes, why not? I think I enjoyed it even more this time. It’s amazing how compelling a book can still be on a reread.
The Affirmation by Christopher Priest (Books 2023, 24) 📚
I’ve had this book for years, and I thought I had read it. Took a look at it a week or two back and realised I hadn’t. So I did.
What I also didn’t realise was that it’s a Dream Archipelago story. Which is surprising, since it starts in present-day (1980s) London. In fact it’s the first novel (though not, I think, the first story) to use the Dream Archipelago as a setting, or state of mind.
Peter Sinclair suffers various crises in his personal life, and decides to write an autobiography to better understand himself. Through various revisions his writing becomes more fictionalised, until he’s writing about the islands. Or living in them. Is it alternative world or madness? Portal fantasy or mental breakdown?
Or maybe both, or neither. You could argue that as a story it doesn’t entirely make sense, but I don’t think I’d go there. I mean, I’d go there, to the Archipelago, for sure (it feels a lot like Greece to me, and indeed Sinclair and his ex/not-ex girlfriend met there, we are told).
It’s a novel that leaves you questioning its realities, and maybe your own. And that seems like a good thing to me.
… And Took the Road for Heaven in the Morning
In a way it was surprising that Shane MacGowan survived this long, considering his noted and dramatic habits. But it’s still sad that he’s died.
I count The Pogues as one of the bands I’ve seen live most of all. The only other one that comes close would be The Fall, and either could be the winner. Goes back to 1985, either way.
The Pogues were vey much a band of supremely talented musicians and songwriters. But Shane was the driving force. What they did was to meld punk with Irish folk music. The former, of course had helped me through my adolescent years and would remain a lifelong love. The latter: well, I came from a Scottish Catholic background, so it was pretty familiar, between Scottish folk and Irish songs sung at Celtic matches.
So on the instant that I first heard them — certainly on Peel, and probably ‘Sally MacLennane’, I’d say — they clicked. There was no learning curve, no adjustment to this new sound. It was just there, it belonged, as if it had always existed.
The Pogues may have been inevitable, but Shane was a genius. And his songs, as I wrote when Phil Chevron died were steeped in death imagery.
I’ll leave you with a couple of excellent screen grabs from Twitter (where, just to note, as I write, ‘Sodomy and the Lash’ is trending under a ‘food’ heading, which is just beyond weird.
First, this excellent mashups of the day’s deaths of noted figures:
And this typically topical ‘Fairytale’ reference (even if it does misspell his surname):
So it goes.
8½, 1963 - ★★★
Fellini's 8½ is a weird, fragmentary, confusing, semi-autobiographical piece about a filmmaker who's trying to make a movie and is creatively blocked.
People come and go, scenes change almost at random, none of it really makes sense. And yet, in a weird and surprisingly charming kind of way it all does.
And it's one of those classics where you can see hints of the things or people it inspired. Most notably for me, David Lynch. I feel like he must have mainlined this.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Books 2023, 23)📚
Why did nobody ever tell me that this book is funny? I had it in my head as a slightly worthy, if much-loved, courtroom drama. But the trial is only part of it, and quite small part at that. Though its ramifications play out to the end, and echo back to near the start.
Scout is an endearing narrator, wise beyond her years, tough, smart. Lee conjures a believable, well-formed picture of life in small-town Alabama in the thirties. A place of community and friendship, gossip and criticism, poverty and hard work. And a few people, notably Atticus, of course, willing to do the right thing in the face of dangerous racist neighbours.
It’s intriguing, from a writer’s perspective, how the narrative voice changes in the courtroom scenes when they do come.
And Boo Radley gave the band their name. I don’t think I knew that, or if I did I’d forgotten.
You don’t need me to tell you it’s a classic, and it turns out, for good reason.
All About Eve, 1950 - ★★★½
Not dissimilar in themes to the various A Star is Born instances we've been watching, in that it's partly about fame and performance.
A successful stage actor is not-quite-stalked by a fan, the titular Eve, who then becomes her personal assistant, and gradually moves almost to replace her.
Which makes Eve sounds more sinister than she comes across in the film.
And despite the title, it's really more about Margo than it is about Eve.
Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler (Books 2023, 22) 📚
There is no evidence in the text of this book that it is SF. Yet here I have a copy, published in the SF Masterworks series.
Graham Sleight addresses this in his introduction, but doesn’t try to give a conclusive reading either. There is no definitive answer, as the work is deliberately ambiguous.
The titular Sarah is a woman described as ‘ugly’ who turns up in the camp of some Chinese men who are working on railroads in the USA of the 1870s. She speaks no known human language, though she does make sounds. She gains her name later because, a character says, ‘she sings like an angel’. One of the men, a young man called Chin, is volunteered to try to find where she belongs, or failing that, at least get rid of her, so she stops distracting them.
So begins a trek across the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Along the ways we meet various characters with various good and bad qualities.
The ending is, as I say, ambiguous. We never find out who or what Sarah Canary is. But the journey is quite enjoyable.
A Star Is Born, 1976 - ★★★
Three stars because this is a bit better than the fifties version that we watched a couple of months ago.
It's the same story, with tighter telling, slightly better songs, and seventies fashions.
Here, both the fading male star and rising woman are singers. not actors, but that doesn't make much difference. The ending is more ambiguous, but not much more.
And it does a good job of showing the negative side of fame. I quite enjoyed it.
GoodFellas, 1990 - ★★★½
I somehow wasn't interested in this when it came out in 1990. Gangsters didn't really appeal at that time, I guess? Maybe the idea of a based-on-a-true-story gangster film? Although I don't think I knew that about it back then. I think I only learned it when we decided to watch it now.
In the intervening decades, of course, it has come to be considered a classic, on peoples' greatest of all time lists, all that kind of thing.
Turns out past-me might have been right. It's well told, reasonably interesting once it gets going, but it didn't do a lot for me. I'm glad I've finally seen it, but it won't be going on any of my favourite lists.