#MARVELOUS MISS MAIZEL

[wfodicks]

#608: JOHN JAMINGO AND MAURY POVICH

mike, travis and drunk are joined this week by john jamingo of the boomer bunker podcast. they discuss the following topics…. the bud light thing (here’s an article about the esg thing john talked about) the denver airport says we can’t kick people in the nuts any more…. steely and cleevie vs. pretty much everybody…. the king of cola reviews wbc maraschino cherry cola: 8.2 thanks to myster…

[dclevinson]

5/27/20: this and that

I discovered some time ago that my retirement gift Thayer Chair (wood, with spindle back and engraved seal --- the company likely makes them for every school on earth) was placed in the living room quite fortuitously. That was the only place that made sense for it to fit, but the chair has proved useful: for C sitting exercises on occasion (high arms for safety), plus it’s perfectly placed where I can leave C on her own and still keep her in sight. I can sit in the living room and dive into a novel (which has again become my preferred form of meditation) and turn my head slightly to see C in her chair, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table. Good separation but she doesn’t have to worry where I went and I don’t have to fret about what she’s doing --- e.g. maybe stuck in an awkward position reaching for something on the floor. Hey, things catch her eye and I never know.

I learn I can still learn (relearn, actually, a bit of a cheat) a new skill. Every once in a while out of nowhere Cindy has and articulates a sudden desire: not counting watching Rick Steves in Scotland and saying “Let’s go to Scotland or the routine “I want to go upstairs”. Neither trip, unfortunately, very doable.  As warm weather was late arriving, she’d been into hot drinks. Last year she was nearly impervious to cold and this year she’s often easily so. I liked the former better: easier to dress her. I could accommodate hot chocolate when that sudden craving first popped up. Also the out of the blue “I want candy” after having refused anything sweet for weeks. But what about recently when out of nowhere she’d wanted an espresso. Espresso? I was going to say no can do, when I remembered we had an old but handsome stove top espresso maker. The instructions were long gone and we hadn’t used it in years and years. And when we did, I think C did the work. I did an internet search using the make and model name, found instructions, and semi amazed myself that it worked. We do have cute little espresso cups and saucers and I knew where those were. Some people rearrange all their books or knit umpteen sweaters during isolation. We dug out our old espresso maker. I don’t think C appreciates how pathetically proud I am of the accomplishment.

I like to keep one TV series going with her (but just one for clarity), often for some late afternoons just before a lie down rest time. She handled The Crown well and looked forward to it when I asked if she wanted another episode, and also old fave Brit stories like the newish serial version of Howard’s End. I hadn’t quite tested the limits of her understanding when we were watching things she was familiar with, as I discovered when I picked up a new series by Downton Abbey’s creator called Belgravia. It’s contrived, but it had setting and a story that should have been very familiar and appealing to her. Maybe we just stretched out the episodes too far apart, but she was having trouble keeping the characters and time sequence straight. When I asked her some questions, her answers and further questions suggested how much she was missing. It’s nice to have a good series in my back pocket, and well over a year ago we’d tried the first episode of Marvelous Mrs. Maizel, which I was surprised to find she just didn’t care about. I tried again recently, and now she really liked it. With multiple years of episodes to stream, we’re set there for a while.

[pawsitivevibe]

Who wants to see my alphabetical future dog names list? No one? Too bad!!

Call Name - “Registered Name Ideas” 

A

Amidala - “Spark of Rebellion” 

Anarchy - 

Anomaly - “Deviance in Design” 

Antic - 

Arcana - “Roll Initiative”, “Make An Arcana Check” 

Atomic - 

B

Baloo - “Bear Necessities” 

Banzai - “Crash Test”, “Bombs Away”

Bigby or Bixby - 

Blink - “And U Miss It” 

Boomer - “Kangaroo Boomerang” 

Bound - “Adventure Abounds” 

Bright - 

C

Captain - “Space Captain”, “Pirate Life For Me” 

Carol - “Captain Marvel”, “Punch Holes In the Sky”, “Higher Further Faster”

Codex -

Comet - “Haley’s Comet” 

Cyclone - “Rather Blustery Day”, “Wind Rider” 

D

Dash - “Now You See Me”

Dax - “Daxidilian”

Denver - 

Dilemma/Emma - 

E

Eleanor/Ella - 

Enigma - “Riddle Me This” 

F

Fleet - “Fleet Feet” 

Fly - “When Pigs Fly” 

Frenzy - 

G

Gadget - “Thinamajig” 

Galleon - 

Gambit - “Card Trick”

Glinda - “Good Witch”

H

Harleen - “Mischief Maker”, “Boom Smash Pow”, 

Havok - “Wreaking Havoc”

Hubble - 

Hugo - 

Hurricane - “Storm Warning”  

I

Ivy - “Pretty Poison”, “Poison Ivy”, “Guardian of the Green” 

J

Jaina - “Sword of the Jedi” 

Juniper - 

K

Kell - “Darker Shade of Magic”, “Red London”, “As Travars” 

Korra - “Hero of Legend” 

L

Lady - “Luck Be a Lady”, “Lady Luck”, “Bella Notte” 

Larka - “Winter Wolf” 

Laureline - “Adventure In Spacetime” 

Leia - “Rebel Princess”, “Not a Committee” 

Lila - “Darker Shade of Magic”, “One of a Kind”, “Never Too Many Knives”

Luke - “Jedi Skywalker”, “New Hope”, “Farmboy Skywalker”

M

Maeve - 

Maizel - 

Mara Jade - 

Marvel - 

Mayhem - “Making Mayhem” 

Mera - 

N

Nebula - 

Nova - 

Nym -

O 

Oliver - 

P

Pajamas - “Bananas in Pajamas”, “Goodnight Moon” 

Pilot - 

Pip - 

Pirate - “Hoist The Colours” 

Polaris - “Follow The North Star” 

Pym - 

Q

Qismat -

Query -  

R

Ranger - “Ranger Danger”, “Roll Initiative”, “Roll A Nature Check” 

Rey - “New Hope”

Risk - 

S

Saga - “Tale As Old As Time”

Sansa - “Winter Is Coming”, “Lady of The North” 

Scorch -

Scout - “Scout About”, “Scoot Aboot” 

Sirius - “Mischief Managed” 

Slam - 

Solo - “Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder” 

Sonic - “Supersonic Boom” 

Starbuck - “Eye of Jupiter”, “Space Pilot” 

T

Tenzin - 

Thor - “Bring the Thunder” 

Torrent (Torri) - 

Tundra - “Northern Calling”

U

Ursa - “Constellation Majora”, “Ursa Major” 

V

Valerian - “Adventure in Spacetime” 

Valkyrie/Val - “Valhalla Is Coming” 

Velocity - “Airspeed Velocity”

Venture - “Adventure Is Out There”

Vivian/Viv - 

W

Wanda - “Shade of Scarlet”

Whimsy - “Whimsical Adventure”, “Wit and Whimsy”, “Fun and Fancy Free” 

Whirl - “Whirlwind of Chaos”

Winona/Winnie - “Even Longer”. 

X

Xena - “Battlecry”, “Warrior Princess”, “Drums of War” 

Y

Yasha - “Winter Soldier”

Z

Zurri - 

[greengreen-blueblue]

wait, is Marvelous Miss Maizel like Man Men for happy people

[abelhorwitz]

The year ended quietly, up in Whidbey Island with my family (minus, alas, my sister). It snowed on Christmas Eve, and we woke up to a white Christmas.

As I have done for the last two years I wrote down all of the books, shows, movies and TV I saw this year. 

However, a lot of my writing this year was done by hand, and so even though I went back through my journals to record what I��d consumed, there are still gaps. So this list is imperfect. 

But, as I’m learning, that’s ok.

Let’s start with books: 21 books this year. I tend to read a book every two weeks, so this keeps with that pace. Three of these were audiobooks that I listened to while traveling around the United States, and so I associate those books with a lot of visual memories. 

I also read three classics this year, “The Sun Also Rises”, “Pride and Prejudice” and “Dune”, which was a lot of fun.

“The New Bohemians” has spurred my design for my apartment, “Will in the World” has stirred an interest in doing “Hamlet”, and “Untethered Soul” -- recommended by a coworker -- is a book I think everyone should read.

BOOK

Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan (1/9)

Future Sex - Emily Witt (1/22)

Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great - Judy Bloom (1/26)

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfus (2/24)

Closer (play) - Patrick Marber (3/7)

The Sun Also Rises - Hemmingway (4/6)

The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfus (4/11)

A Man Without A Country - Kurt Vonnegut (4/20)

Some Girls - My Life In A Harem - Jillian Lauren (5/11)

Catching the Big Fish - David Lynch (5/22)

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson (7/9)

Hillbilly Elegy - JD Vance (audio) (8/15)

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck - Mark Manson (audio) (8/20)

Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenneger (audio) (8/25)

The Untethered Soul  - Michael Singer(9/20)

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (9/30)

I Hope I Screw This Up - Kyle Cease (9/29)

Spoon River - Edgar Lee Masters (11/14)

Will in the World - How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare - Stephen Greenblatt (11/14)

The New Bohemians - Justina Blakeney (11/25)

Dune - Frank Herbert (12/28)

The picture above is of me and the rest of the students in the acting class I finished last December. Two years of driving to Santa Monica twice a week. The class started with forty(-ish) people and these are the six of us who made it to the end. I am so proud of myself and my classmates for finishing the program.

Here is the list of shows I saw this year, both concerts and plays. Seeing U2 perform the Joshua Tree album was jaw-dropping. Seeing Tony Bennet and then The Muppets (both at the Hollywood Bowl) was a joy.

I went to two major festivals -- FYF and Arroyo Seco -- this summer, and was lucky enough to see both Tom Petty and Charles Bradley before they passed. 

SHOW

White Guy on a Bus (2/5)

Drunken Devil Bloody Gras (2/25)

U2 - Joshua Tree Tour (5/20)

Don't Call Me Anything But Mother (6/7)

Don't Call Me Anything But Mother (6/14) (Tina Preston, amazing. Saw it twice.)

Lambchop (6/3)

Arroyo Seco (6/24)

Tony Bennett (7/15)

Hamlet (8/19) with Grandma

The Muppets Take The Hollywood Bowl (9/9)

Afro Music Festival (9/9)

Spoon River @ Ruskin (11/28)

Dhani Harrison (11/30)

BØRNS (12/14) at Viacom office

The haunted house list is limited, as I have scaled down the immersive theater elements in my life, but I still love Halloween and cannot believe it has been five years of Urban Death: Tour of Terror. MAJOR props to both The Nest and Kaidan Project, which took the haunted house trope and brought it to levels I’d never seen before. 

Also, this year I went to three branded haunted houses (IT, Horror Rewind and Lore), which shows me that there’s very much a corporate interest in this type of art, which makes me happy and makes me wary to see what comes next.

HAUNT

Tortured Souls (3/4)

Fear is What We Learned Here (3/26)

The Nest - Scout Expedition Co (4/14)

Knotts Scary Farm (9/23)

Urban Death (all October)

The IT Experience (10/1)

Night Shift (10/13)

Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin (10/15)

Horror Rewind (10/15)

Lore (10/22)

While on vacation in Mexico City I saw three movies, “Moonlight”, “Split”, and “T2 Trainspotting”, which was such a joy to simply BE in a foreign country, have leisure time, and see a movie every day if I wanted to. I loved that.

The experience I want to hold tight to is going to the Clyde Theater, the single-screen gem near where my parents and grandmother live, to see “Coco” with my brother and my grandma.   

MOVIE

Muppets Most Wanted (1/1)

When A Man Loves A Woman (1/2)

Deadpool (1/8)

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (1/8)

Tim's Vermeer (1/13)

La La Land (1/14) director Damien Chazel spoke afterwards

Hyperrealism (2/6)

Top Five (2/25)

Moonlight (3/12)

Split (3/15)

T2 Trainspotting (3/17)

Knight's Tale (4/7)

Ever After (4/8)

What We Do In The Shadows (4/13)

Inside Man (4/14)

Moana (4/21)

Closer (5/6)

City of Gold (5/8)

The Usual Suspects (5/13)

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (5/27)

Wonder Woman (6/4)

Baby Driver (7/7)

Baby Driver (7/14)

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (8/11)

The Wackness (8/15)

The Tao Of Steve (8/27)

Teaching Mrs Tingle (9/3)

The Third Man (9/10)

IT (9/17)

Total Recall (9/21)

Sicario (10/3)

Love and Mercy (10/8)

Hocus Pocus (10/11)

Blade Runner 2049 (10/16)

Michael Clayton (11/5)

Haunters The Movie (11/14)

Jim & Andy (11/22)

Thor Ragnarok (11/21)

The Meyerowitz Stories (11/27)

Murder on the Orient Express (12/9)

Star Wars Last Jedi (12/22)

Coco (12/29)

As always, TV consumption was my largest category. Most of these were watched inside of my apartment on my laptop. Amazon and Netflix make it easy to binge shows. A lot of these shows I simply loved -- The Tick, G.L.O.W., Kimmy Schmidt, Marvelous Mrs. Maizel, Big Little Lies. A few of these I didn’t (mostly Obama saying goodbye).

I notice that I am drawn to TV series with strong female leads and also late-night comedy that deals with today’s politics.

TV

Good Girls Revolt (1/9)

Obama Farewell Address (1/10)

Good Girls Revolt (1/11)

Blackish - Drumpf Episode (1/13)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/13)

Good Girls Revolt (1/13)

Good Girls Revolt (X3) (1/14)

Obama's Final Press Conference (1/18) (Yikes)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/18)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/20)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/23)

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (1/24)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/25)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (1/31)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2/1)

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2/3)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/5)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (X2) (2/8)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/9)

Abstract (2/12)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/12)

Abstract (2/13)

Last Week Tonight (2/13)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/24)

Oscars (2/26)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (2/28)

Abstract (3/6)

Z - The Beginning of Everything (3/10)

Samantha Bee (3/16)

Mike Birbiglia: Thank God For Jokes (3/20)

Series of Unfortunate Events (3/31)

American Playboy (4/15)

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (4/22)

Abstract (4/22)

Abstract the Art of Design (4/28)

Samantha Bee Correspondents Dinner (4/29)

Abstract (5/5)

Kimmy Schmidt (X2) (5/21)

Kimmy Schmidt (5/22)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (X3) (5/24)

Kimmy Schmidt (5/25)

Kimmy Schmidt (X3) (5/29)

Kimmy Schmidt (6/2)

Kimmy Schmidt (6/4)

G.L.O.W. (X3) (6/28)

GLOW (X3) (6/30)

Attack on Titan (7/4) (X3)

I Love Dick (7/14)

Abstract (7/18)

New Girl (X2) (7/20)

Weekend Update Summer Edition (8/12)

Abstract (8/22)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (X3) (8/26)

Weekend Update Summer Edition (8/27)

The Tick (X2) (9/5)

The Tick (X2) (9/6)

The Tick (X2) (9/7)

The Tick (9/10)

The Tick (9/15) (X3)

The Tick (X3) (9/22)

Wet Hot American Summer Ten Years Later (9/22)

Samantha Bee (9/24)

Wet Hot American Summer Ten Years Later (9/24)

Broad City (9/28)

Wet Hot American Summer - Ten Years Later (X4) (10/1)

Mindhunter (10/25)

Stranger Things (10/29)

Mindhunters (11/1)

Mindhunters (11/2)

Samantha Bee (11/2)

Mindhunter (11/3)

SNL - Tiffany Hadish and Taylor Swift (11/11)

Mindhunter (X2) (11/12)

Last Week Tonight (11/13)

Disjointed (11/13)

Mindhunter (11/15)

Disjointed (11/15)

Samantha Bee (11/16)

Mindhunter (11/17)

Mindhunter (X2) (11/19)

Disjointed (11/20)

Godless (11/24)

Disjointed (11/24)

Disjointed (X2) 11/26

The Marvelous Miss Maizel (11/29)

The Marvelous Miss Maizel (12/3) (X2)

Community (12/2) (X2)

Community (12/3) (X2)

Marvelous Miss Maizel (12/4)

The Marvelous Mrs Maizel (12/8) (X2)

The Marvelous Mrs Maizel (12/9) (X2)

Marvelous Mrs. Maizel (12/10)

Marvelous Mrs. Maizel (12/11)

Big Little Lies (12/13)

Big Little Lies (12/15)

Big Little Lies (12/16)

Disjointed (12/20)

Big Little Lies (12/22)

Marvelous Miss Maizel (12/27)

And lastly, MAGAZINES/NEWSPAPERS:

LA Times

NY Times

Los Angeles Magazine

Bloomberg Businessweek

Rolling Stone

Hollywood Reporter

Esquire

That’s my list. That was my year in consumption (at least, what I wrote down. If I included the amount of music and internet I inundate myself with it’s a surprise I did anything else at all). Here’s to the new year.