Well, dear readers, we’re up and running, with fresh batteries in the keyboard and track pad. I wrote that sentence twenty minutes ago and an entire other paragraph, noting that the cursor looked like it never had before. I then noticed that clicking anywhere on the computer was absolutely useless, and we were in frozen mode. So, I had to manually shut the computer down, then, of course, it takes forever to boot up, especially because it puts back all the Word documents I am working on and have minimized. Normally when you’re working on a document and you have a computer malfunction and shut down manually, Word goes into recovery mode and makes a clone of what you were working on. Only it didn’t do that, so here I am starting the whole damn thing over again. I hate when that happens and when that happens I hate it. But here we are and to prove it we’re here.
Yesterday was a day in which I forgot she of the Evil Eye was coming. I was up anyway, having a chat with an Apple worker because my Time Machine hadn’t backed up since I’d had to unplug and replug the modem a few days ago. I thought I remembered what we did, and, as I was later told, I did remember – it just didn’t work because when Time Warner makes you go through all this unplugging malarkey, it assigns a new IP and it forgets to let the Time Machine know that. So we power-cycled the Time Machine and that did the trick and then we did the backup and all was well. Then I went and had a breakfast burrito and fruit. After that, I picked up one little package, then came home. We have our cast replacement, so I got her the music and we chose a third song for her.
Then I finished the first draft of the liner notes I’m working on, then I had to e-mail a bunch of stuff and now we have a waiting game and I hope it’s a waiting game we win, so send excellent vibes and xylophones for sure for successful end to waiting game and for additional miracles. After that, I went to Gelson’s and bought stuff for my lunch today and lunch tomorrow (trying not to eat out every damn day), then came home and sat on my couch like so much fish.
Yesterday, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Mr. Holmes, a film by Bill Condon starring Ian McKellen and Laura Linney. About ten minutes in I really wasn’t into it at all, so I took a break, started it over and this time really enjoyed all of it. First of all, Ian McKellen is simply one of the greatest actors ever. He sports a fake nose in this, but it’s done very well and it kind of makes him look like John Gielgud. He plays Sherlock Holmes at ninety, with a failing memory. His housekeeper is dour, but her little boy loves the old man, and he helps him when he tends to his bees, which is all he does – oh, and he’s also trying to write about his last cast from thirty years prior, but his memory is just not serving him well. The boy has been reading it and enjoying it. It’s not the “suspense thriller” the box trumpets – it’s slow, rueful, meditative, but compelling throughout. If you allow yourself to just go with it, I think you’ll really enjoy it as I did. The transfer is swell, as is the sound. The chamber score by Carter Burwell is also very good.
I then watched another movie on Blu and Ray, this one something I’ve had for ages but never watched, entitled The Hunt, a Danish film from Denmark. It’s a harrowing film, nothing fun about it, and difficult to watch, but it’s also an important film. A little girl in kindergarten dotes on her father’s best friend, who works at the school. One day she gives him a little card and a kiss on the lips – he tells her she shouldn’t really kiss anyone on the lips but her parents and that she shouldn’t be giving him presents. She’s a moody girl with a vivid imagination, and, in her annoyance, tells the head of the school that the guy exposed himself to her (this she says in exactly the same language as her crass brother, who showed her a photo of an excited male part). She’s clearly lying, but the head of the school believes her immediately, even though she’s aware of the girl’s vivid imagination. She’s then questioned by a therapist, who asks nothing but leading questions. I’m sure you can figure out where it goes from there, with the guy being ostracized from his community, his life in ruin, because everyone is a judge and jury. The hysteria is exactly like the McMartin hysteria. The little girl tells her parents several times that she made it up and that he didn’t do anything, but they simply tell her that her mind is covering the pain of it and she begins to believe them to make them happy. It’s nauseating and really hard to take. Then other kids are queried and asked leading questions, with the expected result that they all say he did inappropriate things with them in his basement, which they all describe in the same detail. The only problem with that is – he doesn’t have a basement. Therefore they police let him go and he has never, at any point, actually been charged with anything. But that doesn’t stop people from staying away from him, throwing things through his window, beating both he and his son up, and on and on. His best friend finally realizes he’s been telling the truth and they make up. I’m not sure the best friend’s wife ever goes to that land. It’s an issue film but it’s done very well and the acting is superb. Like The Crucible, another witch hunt film, this is powerful stuff.
After that, I relaxed and played some music, and that was that.
Today, I’ll rustle myself up some lunch at some point, but I was just invited to see a school production of A Chorus Line that I’m told is really good. I’m not sure schools should even be doing A Chorus Line, but I may go. We shall see. Otherwise, I’ll write some commentary and relax.
This week is all meetings and meals and writing and going and doing and hoping against hope to announce the new Kritzerland CD by the end of the week. We should be able to turn in the packaging on Monday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, eat, maybe see a show, write, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, hoping we have no more frozen episodes.