Blackmoor Vituperative

I’ve started watching Stephen Fry In America (on Netflix). I’m scarcely 13 minutes into the first episode (there are six episodes, I believe, and each of them an hour long), but I am already charmed by Fry’s affable approach and his obvious affection and admiration for what is best about the people and places he visits. In a world with so much cynicism and so many reasons to be bitter, it’s really quite lovely to see someone visit the USA and find reasons to like it.

He says, while visiting Ben & Jerry’s in Vermont, “In a hard and harsh and unpleasant world, we need ice cream. That’s my feeling.” Well, in a hard and harsh and unpleasant world, I think we need Stephen Fry.

Here are ten tips which you can use to drastically reduce the quantity and increase the quality of your television viewing:

1. Do not watch “reality” shows unless you have a friend who is on the show.
2. Do not watch game shows unless you have a friend who is on the show.
3. Do not watch award shows unless you have a friend who is on the show.
4. Do not watch sports unless the broadcast is live.
5. Do not watch television shows that have a “laugh track”.
6. Do not watch television shows that feature musical numbers.
7. Do not watch movies that have been “formatted to fit your screen” (i.e., pan and scanned).
8. Do not watch movies that have been “edited to run in the time allotted” (i.e., butchered).
9. Do not watch movies that have been “edited for content” (i.e., censored).
10. Do not watch movies that are interrupted by commercials.

Susan and I just finished watching a movie called The Skin I Live In. I want to discourage you from Googling it or looking up too much about it, because there are some twists you may not see coming, and that’s a pretty rare thing. Better not to spoil it.

I will share some things that won’t spoil it for you. First, it’s in Spanish with English subtitles. Hopefully that won’t put you off too much. Now for the plot: Antonio Banderas is a mad scientist. He has a young woman locked in a room in his mansion (and wow, is that some mansion!). He appears to be using her as a Guinea pig for his artificial skin experiments. She doesn’t seem seem to be there willingly, but at the same time, she doesn’t seem altogether unwilling, either.

That’s as much as I can say without potentially ruining it for you. It’s a weird, weird movie. As Susan would say, “Why are foreign films so foreign?”

I do recommend it, though.

Susan and I had a conversation earlier about Sherlock Holmes, and whether the 125-year-old character was in the public domain (it should have been in the public domain before either of us were born, but that’s another topic).

In process of researching our discussion, I turned up this article regarding a suit filed recently in federal court in Chicago. A top Sherlock Holmes scholar alleges that many licensing fees paid to the Arthur Conan Doyle estate have been unnecessary, since the main characters and elements of their story derive from materials in the public domain (as of 2004, only 9 of the 60 Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle are still covered under US copyright).

Half a billion dollars, twice a year. Not to mention the needless deaths and injuries. Stop the madness!

[…]the phenomenon known as daylight saving time can disrupt people’s lives to the point where society experiences an increase in heart attacks, workplace injuries (particularly in the mining and construction business) and more aimless web surfing that hurts overall productivity. Collectively, the sudden jolt forward costs the U.S. economy $433,982,548 in 2010, according to an analysis by research firm Chmura Economics & Analytics.

[…]

And while the whole point of losing an hour of sleep was to save energy, there’s research that suggests the practice doesn’t even confer any such benefit. One illustrative example is the unique case of Indiana, which up until a few years ago, only 15 of the state’s 92 counties observed DST. Researchers at the University of California-Santa Barbara compared the electric meter readings registered during the time period before the change to the overall usage after and found that residents ended up paying $8.6 million more than we would have if they stayed on Standard time.

(From “U.S. economy lost $433,982,548 because of daylight saving time”, SmartPlanet)

I have been watching Sling & Arrows, a Canadian show about the theatre. It’s like Glee, but with better writing and no musical numbers (which also makes it better than Glee). It reminds me a great deal of Smash, although it has no musical numbers (which, again, makes it better than Smash). Here’s the thing: that camaraderie the cast feels on the completion of a successful show… I have felt that. Not often. Not after the conclusion of a successful convention (I was on the staff of a local SF&F convention for most of its history). The last time I felt that esprit de corps was probably back in the late1980s, after a successful performance of Rocky Horror (in which I was a cast member for a few years). I imagine (rather, I assume) that it’s the same feeling that members of a sports team feel at the end of a good game. It’s a good feeling. Even then memory of it is a good feeling.