Tag: Feud

Room Full of Roses

Monday morning has rolled around again somehow, and it’s another week of work for me (and everyone else). I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning–and I’d really like to go back to bed–but I feel okay as far as rest and everything is concerned. My neck has been sore for a few days because I slept on it wrong (it’s sooo much fun being old), so I’ve been making sure my head is correctly positioned on my pillows the last couple of nights and what do you know, it’s gotten better. The one thing I hate about being older is that you have to be a lot more careful about doing things, else you’ll be sorry. I’m not very keen on that aspect of being older, frankly. The Saints lost yesterday in the final minute, which was disappointing, but I think the Eagles are one of the better teams in the NFL? I probably should start paying more attention to the NFL overall, I suppose, but it’s still too early in the season to start thinking about play-offs and so forth.

I did make a grocery run yesterday morning–I’ll have to stop on the way home to get a few things I didn’t get, but other than that, it’s straight home for me tonight. We almost finished Monster: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story, which apparently the brothers aren’t all that happy with; and in all honesty, I thought the first episode was truly terrible and we weren’t going to watch any more of it…but after the game yesterday we decided to give the second episode a try, and we got hooked into it. I’ve not seen much chatter about the show, but the acting is really good and while the writing and plotting are all over the place (the Dominick Dunne representation by Nathan Lane is quite good, but very reminiscent of Truman Capote from Feud), it’s very well done and while there are some things I don’t remember in the story (doesn’t mean they didn’t happen; it was over thirty years ago they killed their parents and my memory isn’t good anymore), it’s not intended to be factual but entertainment. I don’t know how I would feel about my life being offered up as fictionalized entertainment for the huddled, teeming masses (and hopefully will never find out). But we’re enjoying it, and I’ll talk about it more once we’ve finished watching.

I didn’t get any writing done this weekend, and that’s perfectly okay. I was very low energy both Friday and Saturday, and finally felt more like me yesterday. But after the grocery run and the Saints game, I just wasn’t up for writing…and the primary reason was I got very deep into Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows and I even hated to put it down to watch the Saints game, but I was so into it that I was reading during the game. I will most likely finish it this week or this weekend, and I will have a lot to say about this incredible novel when I do finish it. I’ve really hit a lucky streak with my reading–this and the forthcoming Alison Gaylin are both fantastic; and I am really looking forward to all the good reads in my TBR pile. It’s also eerie reading Harper’s book, having recently watched Quiet on the Set and with the currently breaking Sean Combs story, which is truly terrifying and sending, it seems, even bigger shockwaves through the entertainment business than even Epstein’s arrest. I will have some things to say when I do finally write about Harper’s book, which is truly incredible; I can see why it got so much awards love; I would have short-listed it myself had I been a judge that year.

Reading other good writers always inspires me; this is how I can tell someone is a truly terrific talent–I get ideas of my own from reading their work, and will note phrases and sentences that sound like great titles. This is why, I think, I always have so much trouble talking about my influences, because I’m influenced by everything I read, whether I like it, enjoy it, love it, or hate it. Same will visual media–film and television. (For example, that Menendez show makes me think, again, about murders within the family, and how monstrous those stories are. I can’t imagine killing my father or my sister, under any circumstance, because it’s not even on my register. And killing your mother? Yeah, can’t even conceive of any reason powerful enough to do that…so I am lucky and kind of grateful to be lucky.)

So, I’m kind of hoping to have a good week this week, with reading and writing and cleaning and filing everything. I feel good going into the week, so let’s hope this lasts. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in again at some point.

Venus

Saturday.

Yesterday was a good day, productive both for day job business and chores and things around the apartment. My PT, as noted yesterday, didn’t seem as difficult as it had the last few times, which was awesome, and like I said, I got shit done yesterday. I started rearranging and reorganizing and making the kitchen more functional (which also required me to throw out a bunch of shit I was just hoarding, really), which is long overdue. I need to work on that some more today before I run errands. I had hoped to not have to leave the house either day of this weekend, but I decided yesterday to postpone the Apple Store trip until Sunday morning–and Paul ordered some things that require me to go by the post office, which means I am going to make a stop at the Fresh Market on the way home from the postal service. We watched this week’s Abbott Elementary, which is terrific, and then we finished True Detective: Night Country (I am guessing that all the men that hated this season? Misogyny, period. How dare a crime show center women? How dare a crime show be run and written by a woman? I enjoyed it, thought it was very well shot, and so they didn’t tie up every loose end? Ryan Murphy never does, either, and studios keep throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at him. And this season engaged me so much I am curious about rewatching season one and watching the other two, as well).

I also listened to the Bad Gays podcast on James Buchanan (shout out to myself for my story “The Dreadful Scott Decision,” which was in The Faking of the President anthology and centered on Buchanan and his “mysterious” sexuality), which I greatly enjoyed.

I feel good this morning. There’s a little bit of fatigue, but it’s not terrible in the least. (It always hits on the second day with full force, so tomorrow will be a challenge.) I want to do some writing to day (actually, need to) and of course I need to keep working on the apartment, and I have some things to assemble that I’ve order. I also want to read more in my book, and possibly watch some classic gay cinema later on today. I don’t know what Paul will be doing today, but I suspect he’ll go to the office and I won’t see him for most of it. I want to watch Christopher and His Kind first, and of course need to finish my rewatch of Saltburn so I can finally finish my entry on it. (Interesting how I’ve recently become obsessed with openly gay writers of the mid-twentieth century, isn’t it?) I’m still enjoying Feud, but it feels like it’s getting repetitive and is being too drawn out; like four episodes might have been sufficient instead of the planned eight.

All right, it’s a bit brief but I really need to get back to work around here this morning, so more coffee, perhaps a bit of breakfast, and a brief one-hour repair to my chair to read for a bit. And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I will probably be back a little later.

I Say a Little Prayer

Today I venture north to Oxford, Mississippi, home to one of my literary heroes, William Faulkner, and also home to Ole Miss, aka the University of Mississippi. This isn’t going to be a quick ‘in-and-out’ like Montgomery; I am spending two nights there (the event is tomorrow night) and will drive back down to New Orleans on Wednesday. I have to work later that evening, which is daunting and will make for a long, exhausting day, but I feel like I will sleep rather well that Wednesday night, if for no other reason than pure exhaustion. I am feeling rested this morning, but not quite awake; I am going to continue with coffee-swilling before I shave and shower and depart. I am already packed; all I have left to do is put the current book I’m reading (Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll) and my iPad into my bag. I believe the event is tomorrow evening, so I will have all day to explore Oxford. I will be taking the camera with me, and I plan on making a pilgrimage, at the very least, to Faulkner’s home. (In an aside, sometimes when I mention that Faulkner is one of my literary heroes I get mocked, or get called pretentious; but I truly enjoy reading Faulkner. He isn’t easy to read, or follow, but the language! The way he builds the story! I still think The Sound and the Fury is the greatest American novel, no matter what–but I have been thinking lately I should, as an adult and more mature reader, give both Hemingway and Fitzgerald another try.)

I did finish reading Thirteen Reasons Why yesterday afternoon, and no, it didn’t end in the same was as the television series, and yes, it’s ending was just as dissatisfying to me, although it made sense. The book makes no judgments of the characters, including Clay, although the relationship between Clay and Hannah wasn’t as developed or as evolved in the show; I didn’t get a sense of why Clay would care as much as he did from the novel. But it was a fun read, and let’s face it–as I said on the panel Saturday, what could be more noir than high school? All of my young adult fiction, frankly, is based on that principle.

We also finished Feud last night, along with the rest of the country, and Jessica Lange was absolutely heartbreaking. Sarandon really was great as Bette Davis, but for some reason, I just think Lange was better as Crawford. The whole cast was terrific, really, and it was horrible what happened to both women as they aged, how the industry turned their back on them, what it’s like to be a woman in Hollywood–and how that hasn’t, really, changed. Ryan Murphy is an interesting writer/producer. American Horror Story seems to go off the rails every season; I never got past the second episode of Scream Queens; and I never watched Nip/Tuck–but really enjoyed Popular. But with American Crime Story and Feud he’s done an extraordinary job; but then again, in both instances he didn’t have to really come up with a plot or an ending to the story he was telling: both were based in reality. I also am terrified of his Hurricane Katrina season of American Crime Story. It could be terrible, absolutely terrible; all I can do is hope that filming in New Orleans–as he did with American Horror Story–made him fall in love with the city the way Jessica Lange did (she now lives here).

Obviously, I’ve not written a word since I left for Montgomery on Friday (other than here), and hope I’ll have both the time and the energy while in Oxford.

And now, back to the spice mines.6f72d89ae05ea0959513f24176fd12e5

Hold Me Tight

Monday morning of a short work week, as I am traveling to Alabama on Friday, returning to New Orleans on Sunday, and then it’s off to Ole Miss and Oxford, MS for another event.

It was a rather lovely three day weekend, quite frankly; I wish there was some way to make every weekend three days, to be honest. Having the extra day makes all the difference, really. I spent one day running errands and cleaning, another day cleaning and reading, and the last day reading and writing. I now feel completely relaxed and rested and thoroughly prepared for this week, as opposed to whining about how the weekend never lasts long enough. Alas, there won’t be another such three day weekend until Memorial Day at the end of next month. Heavy heaving sigh.

I finished reading Finders Keepers yesterday, and I did really enjoy it. It was an excellent follow-up to Mr. Mercedes, and it was fun catching up with the remaining cast of that novel: Bill Hodges, Holly, and Jerome, who team up to help out a teenaged boy who has discovered a treasure trove–a buried trunk full of money and manuscripts, the haul from the robbery/murder of noted American author Joel Rothstein. Like all of King’s novels, it was compulsively readable, highly entertaining, with strongly built characters and relationships, brilliants touches of pop culture, and a good story. And, like so many of King’s novels/stories, at the center of the story was an author and his work–not to mention how that work affected his readers. Like Misery, one of his readers takes the work too seriously and becomes overly attached to the main character, doesn’t like what the author does to the character, and that fanaticism is what leads to the robbery/murder, and triggers the rest of the story.

I often chastise myself for writing about writers; I’ve always considered it more than a little self-indulgent, and as I get older and further along in my writing career, writers as characters continue to pop up in my work. “Quiet Desperation” is about writers and writing; and an author character popped up in The Orion Mask– Jerry Channing, a character I became so attached I brought him back for Garden District Gothic, and even considered giving him his own stand-alone adventure. It also occurs to me that the unnamed protagonist of several short stories I’ve written–an author–are really early incarnations of Jerry (the only short story about him that’s been published so far was “An Arrow for Sebastian”). Yesterday I started a second draft of “Quiet Desperation”–an actual rewrite, rather than an edit (which is, I think, long been a part of my problem with writing; I don’t rewrite, I simply edit what I’ve already written, which is lazy) and it will eventually require me to drive out to New Orleans East, because where the new opening of the story takes place is a part of New Orleans I haven’t seen in over ten years, and I am pulling from my memories–and Katrina occurred since then, so the topography of that part of the city/parish has undoubtedly been changed by the hurricane and aftermath. Of course, now that I have a new car, that’s not an issue; nor is driving out there. It’s just a matter of finding the time. Next weekend is definitely out, since I’ll be in Alabama, and when I’m  not in Alabama I’ll be too busy preparing for the trip to Mississippi–although I could drive out that way on the way out of town to Alabama on Friday; it’s on the way.

Hmmmm. ’tis a thought.

We also watched last night’s Feud, and I have to say, both Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon are absolutely killing it. I’m not sure who’s going to win the Emmy, but my guess is on one of them–with Nicole Kidman’s performance in Big Little Lies giving them both a run for their money.

We also started watching Thirteen Reasons Why, and got through the first three episodes. Had I not needed to get up this morning for work, we would have watched more. There are some questionable aspects of the story/plot for me, but the young actors are incredibly appealing, and Dylan Minnette, who plays main character Clay Jensen, is quite compelling as the quiet loner. I have some thoughts about him, his character, and where this is all going, but I will keep those to myself and continue to watch.

dylan minnette

I also have a copy of the book in my TBR pile, where it’s been forever, and might just go ahead and read it now–reading Big Little Lies while watching the show didn’t hurt either, frankly.

And now, back to the spice mines.

 

A Beautiful Morning

Well, I finished reading The Underground Railroad yesterday, and will most definitely be blogging about it, once I’ve digested it some and thought about it some more. It was, to say the least, very powerful, and not only did it made me think about the subject matter–it also made me think about a lot of other things, which I will be more than happy to discuss once I’ve digested them. I also started reading The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, which I am enjoying as well.

We were supposed to get heavy weather yesterday, but it arrived over night instead–everything out there is wet and dripping, which is always a joy. Ah, well.

I didn’t write yesterday, or at all over the weekend, which is, of course, terrible. I did get some cleaning done and some organizing–not as much as I would have liked–but we’re also working on getting caught up on our shows and I did want to power through and finally finish the Colson novel, which I did manage to do, and then we got caught up on The Walking Dead, watched last night’s Feud, and then it was bedtime.

I am greatly enjoying Feud, and am very impressed with how it’s taking on the issue of how Hollywood/entertainment treats women; which also, in some ways, goes along with another show I am looking to finishing watching–the season finale of Big Little Lies was also last night; which we will undoubtedly watch tonight as well as continuing to get caught up on Bates Motel (a show that is KILLING it now in it’s final season). The way two of my favorite old Hollywood actresses–Bette Davis and Joan Crawford–are being depicted is brilliant, and the two women playing them, Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, are turning in stunning, award-worthy performances. Last week’s episode, in which both Davis and Crawford are still not fielding any offers before the movie opens–and then it becomes a huge hit–was particularly brilliant; the moment when Joan Crawford, leaving the theater after the preview of the film that ended with a standing ovation, is recognized in the lobby and then mobbed with fans–when this happens, the look on her face–surprise evolving into pure joy at being treated like a star again, is so poignant it’s heartbreaking.

Last night’s, Oscar night when Crawford was snubbed in favor of Davis, was also almost painful to watch; the naked need Davis had for that third Oscar, the pain and anguish Crawford felt about being overshadowed once again by her rival (the scenes where Crawford talks to Geraldine Page and Anne Bancroft, asking them if she can accept for them, and the pity and sympathy Page and Bancroft feel for her, agreeing to let her do it because she needs to…wow)–and Judy Davis is also killing it as Hedda Hopper.

And last night, for the first time, Catherine Zeta-Jones actually delivered as Olivia de Havilland.

I got the idea for an essay yesterday about women’s fiction–using three novels to not only compare and contrast to each other but also to talk about how fiction by, for, and about women is so regularly disdained and dismissed as somehow lesser–the three being The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, Peyton Place by Grace Metalious, and Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. I’ve been toying with the idea for quite some time, and I thought about it again yesterday, partly because of Feud, but also partly because of Big Little Lies. Of course, I have no idea where to publish the thing…and it’s not like I don’t have a million other things to write as well.

Heavy heaving sigh.

And on that note, back to editing.