Things I Like: Sherlock Holmes

My love for Sherlock Holmes falls slightly outside my usual run of interests. (My usual run of interests, for those of you new to the blog, being more along the lines of attractive desperate women and stories about consequences.) Yet Holmes is a character I almost always adore. 1. In the currently-running BBC series Sherlock [...]

Things I Like: James Alan Gardner’s League of Peoples books

James Alan Gardner is the author of a series of books referred to as the League of Peoples books. This series, in all of its depressing and hopeful glory, is one of the most comforting things I re-read on a regular basis. The series of books, beginning with Expendable, makes the following presumption, which I [...]

Things I Like: 5ive Girls

5ive Girls is a movie about, well, here, I’ll quote the Netflix Watch Instantly page: Ron Perlman (Hellboy) stars as the resident Catholic priest in this horror flick from director Warren P. Sonoda set in a reform school. When five troubled teenage girls are sent to the academy, they expect to clash with their keepers [...]

Things I Like: Miles and Ekaterine

There is an author. Lois McMaster Bujold. And she has written, among other things, a series of multiply-award-winning books about the Vorkosigan family. The books are science fiction. On the surface, these books are space opera. If I recite the plots to you, they include space-ship hijacking, interstellar wars, galactic empires, and a band of [...]

Things I Like: Weight Lifting

I was never a particularly elfin child. Kinda tall, a bit clumsy during adolescence, always a slightly bigger kid. As a child, I thought of myself and strong and sturdy. I would rather pick up another kid than be picked up, I would rather be the base of the pyramid than the top. My body [...]

Things I Like: Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie

The movie Marnie was not considered one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best. Moreover, it’s highly problematic to a modern eye both from a feminist point of view and a psychological perspective. That’s just fine with me. Tippi Hedren is note-perfect as Marnie. She is determined, goal-oriented, brittle, intelligent, and full of a lacerating humor that she [...]

Things I Like: Gershwin’s “Someone To Watch Over Me”

The version of this song that I grew up with is this: It’s Linda Ronstadt and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. There are people out there who have very, very strong opinions about definitive renditions of classic tunes, or who should or should not sing things. I am not that person. I like the Sarah Vaughan [...]

Things I Like: Cordelia Grey

Cordelia Grey is the protagonist of two novels by P.D. James, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin. Grey was never as popular as James’ other detective, Adam Dalgliesh. Yet it’s Cordelia Grey that I most adore. There is something in her internal emotional life that is compelling to me, [...]

Things I Like: New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”

The song Bizarre Love Triangle by the band New Order is one of my comfort songs. Here, listen to it while you read. And here’s the lyrics: Every time I think of you I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue It’s no problem of mine But it’s a problem I find Living [...]