Under the weather

Mr. Blind-Man: "I see clearly that this man is a heretic"--The Pilgrim's Progress

I was sick Saturday and worried that I'd got the COVID bug.  But now it looks like a false alarm.  I did get slowed down with my reading and writing this blog and such.  Once again, I've been eating huge pomelo grapefruit.

The week before last we rented a bin to get rid of the mud in our back yard. Lucky we shifted it to make room for the tip when we did, because soon after there was a cold snap and it froze so stiff that John had to loosen it with a jackhammer so we could move it!  But that turned out to be an advantage, because this way we could pick up big pieces and tote them at a faster rate than shovelling.  We filled the whole bin in one day, and a second one the day after.  Once again our timing was fortunate, as it snowed the day after.

So what have I been watching on Youtube lately?  The Lennon Sisters from The Lawrence Welk Show!  It started when someone in my music group was singing "You Belong to Me." (We were doing an online karaoke, in which I sang "Limbo Rock"). That's the song that Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters are singing in that guilty-pleasure movie The Jerk.  So I listened to it on Youtube, then the software brought up the Lennon Sisters version, and after I heard that it produced more of their songs.  I particularly liked their version of "Till the End of Time," Perry Como's first hit with a melody from Chopin's Heroic Polonaise.

I finished watching Dragon Ball Z.  I also finished the One Piece Ennies Lobby story:  some compelling episodes with the crew saying goodbye to their ship the Going Merry, and Ussop rejoining them.  Now I'm going to look at the movies and specials based on both shows.

My book club discussed The Pilgrim's Progress the other day, and our next book will be The Handmaid's Tale.  Last night I saw Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously, for the third time, with the Watch Party in connection with Indonesia being the History Discussion Group's subject. (The week before we showed Peter O'Toole in Lord Jim.) It's food for thought that improves with repeated viewing, and Linda Hunt's gender-bending performance was ahead of its time, though she did win an Oscar.

I'm pleased that Jeremy Corbyn's started a "Peace and Justice Movement." (They should bring it to America!) Just the other day I read a Tweeter who said "I hope this is the last Tweet I write about Corbyn....  Why doesn't he just f**** off?" Methinks thou dost protest too much.  That Tweeter has since blocked me, like I care.  These days the Corbyn-haters are looking like sore winners!

Another movie cliche I hate

Our work in the back yard is almost finished.  Last weekend we laid the pipe from the downspout and filled the space around it with rocks and put a layer of styrofoam insulation on top.  A few days ago we were mixing concrete in the basement!  And yesterday John and I combined forces to lift our biggest rocks and wheelbarrow them to the far end of the pipe zone.  We'd made another big mountain of basement dirt in the back yard and also had to move some of it to make room for the tip that'll carry it away.  And talk about muddy--it was like the Grey Cup championship game of 1950!

I just finished the book on Indonesia, and I've got to the part of The Pilgrim's Progress where they're going through Vanity Fair.  I'm also reading a book about Hayao Miyazaki and his anime creations.  I'm going to start A Little Princess in the Saturday afternoon reading-aloud Meetup event, but decided to delay it till the new year.

Last night my historical movie watch party showed the British musical Half a Sixpence, which I had to see because I liked the stage show's revival.  It was handsome but rather pedestrian. (Besides Tommy Steele in the lead, the cast included Cyril Ritchard, who was Captain Hook to Mary Martin's Peter Pan.) I just saw the thrilling climax of the One Piece Enies Lobby story, and now I'm watching the last episodes of Dragon Ball Z.

What's another movie cliche I hate? Plots that require characters to be passive at key moments!  Like in Dirty Dancing (which I liked overall despite its cheesiness). This dance teacher in a fussy Borscht Belt resort gets knocked up by a fellow staffer and has to get an abortion quick before management finds out and sacks her, but the responsible guy won't help her out because he believes in Ayn Rand.  All she has to do is say, "If they find out, I'll naturally tell them of your part and you'll get fired too!" then he'll have to do something about it.  But the plot requires Jennifer Grey to save her...

Another example is the 2002 Spider-Man movie.  In this version Peter Parker needs money for some reason I don't remember, so he enters some event where you win $200 if you can last two minutes in the ring with the Champ.  He KOs the Champ, but when he comes to get his prize the manager, who's made a fortune from the show, stiffs him on the grounds that he didn't stay in the ring for the whole two minutes!  Well, all Peter has to do is say, "I want that $200, and if you keep resisting imagine what someone who just KOed your champ can do to you..." But he doesn't, because his getting stiffed is absolutely crucial to the plot (which also requires the manager to be an extreme jerk, of course).