Happy Lamas

Was it all just a dream?

Was John Lennon just a dream? Seems so long ago.

And Then There Were Lists

(Part Two of Miss Marple Saves The World)

[Again, not an ad, and no financial interest.]

So many people are sharing quarantine reading and movie lists lately, it’s inspired me to add a few of my mystery favorites to the mix.

While British mysteries work for me, there are mysteries from nearly every country in the world, in print, audio, film and television, from every community, every culture, and every era, in many languages. (Google just brought up 1.5 million+ hits for “Japanese mystery detectives”) The mystery genre is one of the most popular worldwide, and there are so many subgenres you will certainly find plenty to choose from.

Most of my choices are old because I’m old, and nostalgic, especially during these sheltering in place days of craving comfort binge-watching, but there are many good new programs as well. Check out your favorite streaming and rental sources, as well as your local PBS public television station schedule.

 

Television Series

Inspector Morse (late 20th century police chief, in Oxford, England; attended Oxford, prickly loner, drinks, drives a classic red Jaguar, loves opera)

Lewis (spin-off series with Morse’s Sergeant Lewis promoted and now in the DCI’s shoes)

Endeavour (prequel to Inspector Morse with Shaun Evans as the young Detective Constable Morse during the late 1960s England; in my not-so-humble opinion each season is better than the previous one)

Midsomer Murders (1998-2011, breathtaking English countryside, urbane Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby (John Nettles) solving village murders, perfect touches of British humor; wonderful cast, guests. (from 2011-current replaced by Neil Dudgeon as Tom’s “cousin” DCI John Barnaby) )

Sherlock Holmes (with Jeremy Brett. Benedict Cumberbatch is easy on the eyes, and the modern series is well done, but I’m too old to change my ways. Brett’s series is true to Conan Doyle, with a meticulously detailed Victorian-era London.)

Shetland (contemporary police detective in Scotland’s Shetland Islands, compelling location and story lines)

Luther (with Idris Elba as DCI John Luther, a brilliant London police detective solving contemporary crimes)

Prime Suspect (Helen Mirren as a DCI who struggles with late 20th century London police force sexism)

Murdoch Mysteries (Canadian detective/inventor of the Toronto Constabulary solves crimes at the beginning of the 20th century, well done period drama)

Nero Wolfe (the 1950s New York private detective; an intellectual who never leaves his brownstone, and loves food and beer)

Miss Marple (with Joan Hickson, to whom Agatha Christie told she’d like her to play her Miss Marple one day, features the bucolic English countryside with a suspect in every hedgerow and tea room)

Hercule Poirot (with David Suchet, a delightful adaptation of the fussy retired police detective that uses method and order to solve crimes, wonderful Art Deco scenery)

Perry Mason (serious Los Angeles attorney/crime 1950s-60s TV series with Raymond Burr; the 1930s movies starring Warren Williams are quite fun)

Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries (very modern and chic lady detective, set in 1920s Australia, excellent earrings (I’ve picked up a pair or two of look-alikes online), costumes and sets, intriguing stories, plots and characters, good cast)

Decades-long collection of well loved mystery film and series DVDs

 

Film

Lots of films, just going here with the Film Noir genre which is literally “dark film” with moody lighting, drifting cigarette smoke, booze, existential plots, worn-out detectives and cynical women. Noir ran mainly from 1940s through 1950s, when film became officially an art form; The Maltese Falcon, Laura, The Third Man, He Walked By Night (my grandfather’s favorite), and so many more.

 

Bookstores

The Mysterious Bookshop, online and a storefront in Manhattan

Stop, You’re Killing Me, online

GoodReads, online, search for mysteries and reader reviews and recommendations

Best Mystery Books, comprehensive overview of the genre and top picks

Mysteries old and new

Authors

Agatha Christie (any and all, short stories and novels)

Sue Grafton (the alphabet murder series beginning with “A is for Alibi”)

Colin Dexter (Inspector Morse, also a TV series)

Caroline Graham (Chief Inspector Barnaby series, also the Midsomer Murders TV series)

P.D. James (Adam Dalgliesh, also a TV series)

Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)

Ngaio Marsh (the Roderick Alleyn mystery series)

Martha Grimes (the Richard Jury mysteries)

Dorothy L. Sayers (Lord Peter Wimsey, also a TV series)

Michael Connelly (Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, also an Amazon TV series)

Edgar Allen Poe (just try him)

Ellery Queen (short story magazine published six times a year)

Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe)

 

This should give you a good start. Have fun!

Miss Marple Saves The World

The entire world has flipped upside down. I’m very lucky. I’m surviving. By the skin of a grape, but I’m surviving. And having no end of guilt about indulging in escapism, while so much pain, suffering, and isolation goes on in the world day after day.

For months I’ve been on online, hour after hour, crying at injustice and deliberate cruelty. Stress eating. Reading. Pacing up and down, not sleeping, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find a solution. Trying to stop this nightmare.

Yet I can’t stop this nightmare. Seems no one can. I can only ride this wave of history and horror along with everyone else and hope and pray we all land softly together.

It’s been a long time since I blogged, and I might as well begin again by confessing. My escapist activity? The past few weeks I’ve been binge-watching my favorite mystery and detective series. Specifically, British. While the genre is represented worldwide, the Brits got me good.

My photo, Shakespeare’s Avon River in Stratford, 1987

Why? Why now?

Well, it’s not just the English real estate porn that makes them so appealing. And not just the handsome detectives or the period costumes.

It’s also not just the puzzle, begging to be solved. It’s all this, and much more.

My theory, and why I’m watching so much more now: It’s the need for justice. To see justice done, to see someone working toward that end no matter what, that the crime does not disappear into a seemingly unjust justice system that lets the perpetrator off on a technicality, or gives a short sentence or acquittal for good behavior or privileged connections. Remind you of anything, or anyone?

My photo, a cottage in the Cotswolds, 1987

A woman I once knew was horrified that I loved reading mysteries. “You harbor murderous fantasies,” she said. She thought I sat around all day thinking of different ways to kill people. I tried to explain my theory about a need for justice. She was unmoved. To her I was bloodthirsty, a homicidal manic in the making, and she wanted no part of it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it was she that sat around thinking of ways to kill people. Maybe reading mysteries would have helped her to relax a little. Then again, maybe not.

Thinking of her prompted me to do a search on this topic, which turned up a number of sources that were sympathetic with my theory (whew). One article from Psychology Today has an interesting take, and you can read it here. Mysteries take us on a “journey from fear to reassurance.” Children are comforted by fairy tales, and “In much the same way, murder mysteries may act as ‘fairy tales for adults.'”

Much comfort food for thought. And guilt-free. If you are so inclined, and are able to indulge, I say go ahead and watch and read all the mysteries you want. Or whatever empowers you.

All I know is it’s keeping me out of the kitchen. I’m not crying as much, and am feeling more empowered. Reassured, you might say.

[Not an ad, and no financial interest.]

It goes like this

Happy New Year

Who knows where the time goes?

 

Wall Street

President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus, 1883

Resist

How do fascists get a foot in the door of your nice country? The United States of America, for example? Here is the key:

No one knows better than conservatives, in the U.S. our Republican party, how to stir up this hatred, and use it to their advantage. Our very own fascists, ready to hand over our country to wealthy, even foreign, interests for personal gain.

Everything Republicans say and do is projection and deception. Believe nothing. Trust not one of them. The only way they can win is to lie, cheat and steal.

They’ve had years to plot and plan. Decades. They tried to assassinate  FDR. They aligned themselves with Nazis in WWII. They tried to stop Medicare by calling it socialized medicine, a “Red Menace” that will destroy our country. They lied us into war after war, economic disaster after economic disaster. They have effectively neutered our media, our Fourth Estate that keeps them in check, that caught Watergate and investigated other scandals, that now focused solely on a woman’s emails instead of Russian hacking and illegal influence in our nation’s affairs.

They worked for 30 years to discredit Hillary Clinton, then deliberately sabotaged our election and her candidacy to keep her from winning the 2016 presidency.

They did this by gutting the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering, engaging in voter suppression, then getting FBI director and stooge James Comey to drop a meaningless letter that inspired salacious headlines again Hillary just before election day.

And still she won the popular vote by an astonishing margin.

They have desecrated democracy in the process of picking our pockets to line their own.

Instead of  fighting racism and misogyny, they have fanned the flames of both with carefully crafted lies and propaganda designed to appeal to willfully ignorant poor white men.

And these poor white men, from the highest to the lowest, have applauded this. Along with their white women counterparts who seem to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, they are indeed poor in spirit.

These poor whites cheer on fascist looting that satisfies their yearning for certitude that they are the chosen ones, confirmation that they are the superior ones.

They are small in number, but easily provoked. Mindless. They operate on emotion. Thrive on disinformation. Easily manipulated. Attack dogs.

Now, thanks to the GOP’s dirty tricks and flying monkeys, we’ve got a president-elect who knows nothing about government. He is a malignant narcissist, a colossal buffoon, so self-absorbed nothing or no one outside himself is real or has meaning.

His electoral college votes are much smaller than President Obama’s.

But he is the perfect stooge for Republicans who have achieved a dangerous majority in Washington and are preparing to gut our social safety net and take all our money for themselves, and a useful idiot for Russians who want to dismantle NATO, peace, and democracy for world domination.

This is not a movie plot. This is really happening. To us. All of us.

This president-elect rabidly tweets his dog-whistle every morning and the poor whites fly into action on his behalf while the fascists laugh. Don’t feel sorry for them.

Resist.

Save

Get up, stand up

Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!