Every Day Is Sunday
Dec. 24th, 2018 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloI had to pause and think what day of the week it was because at this time of the year every day feels like it's Sunday.
There are four squirrels hanging out in our front garden.At least four. Could be more. I go out the back door and they scatter. I like squirrels; they're the most elegant animals. People who dismiss them as tree rats are just not seeing them. Mind you, rats are pretty elegant too....
When I've finished writing this I'll go scatter peanuts over the lawn.
I watched the first two episodes of Killing Eve last night- and found myself wondering why an American woman was working for MI5- which was me showing my age. Back in the day (when my world view was being formed) American stars (usually fading ones) who had been drafted in to add a sprinkle of Hollywood glamour to British movies had to be explained away- usually as Commonwealth citizens. If they were playing fighter pilots they were glossed as Canadian because to a British audience of that era all North American accents were the same. Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love was given a complicated back story as a British Guianian who has lived in California. These days, however, national borders and national identity are fluid. Hence the reactive rise of nationalism. Hence Theresa May's "hostile environment" and Donald Trump's "beautiful wall". But it's a losing battle they're fighting because the nation state is on the way out. Who knows where Sandra Oh's character originates- and who cares? A Korean American woman working for British state security is no longer anomalous- and doesn't have to be accounted for. Oh, and she's married to a Pole. Because that's how things are.
Killing Eve is pretty good, by the way.
Ailz is preparing Christmas dinner. She's going to be feeding ten. The logistics would fry my brain but she loves the challenge. Isn't it good we're all so different!
I have a big pile of books to read. Which is good. Too often I finish a book and don't know where the next is coming from until it jumps off a shelf and lands at my feet. Some of the books are Christmas presents. One of them is my oldest son's second Christopher Wren thriller- still in draft form. He's looking for an agent for the first- and he really should get one because he's produced something that's very commercial. My daughter is looking for an agent too. She writes in the spirituality/self help genre- and her latest book is terrific.
Another book on the pile (a gift from my youngest son) is a big fat collection of Lovecraft's finest fiction. Poe took horror to the edge; Lovecraft took it over the edge, across the valley of nameless terror, and up the mountains of madness on the other side. He's absurd but gloriously so.
It's been raining a lot, the fields are waterlogged- and now the temperature's dropping. We won't get a white Christmas, but it could be an icy one.
There are four squirrels hanging out in our front garden.At least four. Could be more. I go out the back door and they scatter. I like squirrels; they're the most elegant animals. People who dismiss them as tree rats are just not seeing them. Mind you, rats are pretty elegant too....
When I've finished writing this I'll go scatter peanuts over the lawn.
I watched the first two episodes of Killing Eve last night- and found myself wondering why an American woman was working for MI5- which was me showing my age. Back in the day (when my world view was being formed) American stars (usually fading ones) who had been drafted in to add a sprinkle of Hollywood glamour to British movies had to be explained away- usually as Commonwealth citizens. If they were playing fighter pilots they were glossed as Canadian because to a British audience of that era all North American accents were the same. Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love was given a complicated back story as a British Guianian who has lived in California. These days, however, national borders and national identity are fluid. Hence the reactive rise of nationalism. Hence Theresa May's "hostile environment" and Donald Trump's "beautiful wall". But it's a losing battle they're fighting because the nation state is on the way out. Who knows where Sandra Oh's character originates- and who cares? A Korean American woman working for British state security is no longer anomalous- and doesn't have to be accounted for. Oh, and she's married to a Pole. Because that's how things are.
Killing Eve is pretty good, by the way.
Ailz is preparing Christmas dinner. She's going to be feeding ten. The logistics would fry my brain but she loves the challenge. Isn't it good we're all so different!
I have a big pile of books to read. Which is good. Too often I finish a book and don't know where the next is coming from until it jumps off a shelf and lands at my feet. Some of the books are Christmas presents. One of them is my oldest son's second Christopher Wren thriller- still in draft form. He's looking for an agent for the first- and he really should get one because he's produced something that's very commercial. My daughter is looking for an agent too. She writes in the spirituality/self help genre- and her latest book is terrific.
Another book on the pile (a gift from my youngest son) is a big fat collection of Lovecraft's finest fiction. Poe took horror to the edge; Lovecraft took it over the edge, across the valley of nameless terror, and up the mountains of madness on the other side. He's absurd but gloriously so.
It's been raining a lot, the fields are waterlogged- and now the temperature's dropping. We won't get a white Christmas, but it could be an icy one.
