Monday

Well, here we are and Happy Easter!

I’m going to begin the week with a bit of digesting, then hopefully post something more substantive later today.

Reading: I am bound and determined to finish Trollope’s The Way We Live Now…TODAY.

I do like Trollope, but this one is even more of a brick than his others. It’s a novel that’s not part of one of his well-known series like the Palliser or Barchester novels, but some regard it as his best. I’m not so sure about that. I’m enjoying it, yes, but I don’t know if I’ve ever read a novel for which its serialized origins are so obvious.

I’ve been working on it for weeks. Part of the reason it’s taken so long is that if I don’t stay with it, I forget half the details of the plot and must spend time flipping back to review. But I’ve finally reached a surge point where, it seems, those details are sticking in my head.

It’s a very interesting book because in it, Trollope is trying to capture a particular moment in social, economic and political time – after being abroad for a while, he returned to England, and what he saw concerned him. He weaves all that with his usual domestic drama, but do remember that “domestic drama” during this time reaches far beyond personal relationships – it is deeply interwoven with political and economic concerns as well. So more on that, hopefully tomorrow.

Watching: Somewhat related – I knew that there’d been a BBC mini-series adaptation of The Way We Live Now, but had deferred taking a look, first because I wasn’t even close to finishing the book until this weekend and didn’t want to spoil it for myself. Secondly, while I was, back in the 70’s and 80’s, a huge Masterpiece Theatre fan, and in fact adored the BBC adaptation of The Pallisers even more than say, Upstairs, Downstairs, as I’ve dipped into adaptations of some of my favorites recently, I was put off by staginess and other factors, and never went further than an episode.

But  – noting that it’s now on Prime, I took a look, and watching  the opening to The Way We Live Now, I saw something a bit different – a more sweeping, cinematic approach – and decided to give it a go – slowly, so I wouldn’t watch past my point of reading. I also hoped it would help me keep characters and incidents straight. It helps that it was created by Andrew Davies.

So I’ve watched the first four episodes (out of six) and…it’s…okay. At this point I would give it a 3/5. I’ll have to wait until after I’m finished to come to a definitive conclusion, but at this point I’d say that the series gets points off for two reasons: first, a simplification of the central economic/political plot point, and secondly, the WORST Southern American accent EVER in a non-American production. The actress? Miranda Otto, who is Australian, and usually Australians do a good job with American accents, but not this time. It’s painful and every time she opens her mouth, I think of this:

Given work and liturgical responsibilities, and that well, it was Holy Week, not a lot of watching beyond that – except for last night, when we watched Sanjuro – we’d seen its companion piece Yojimbo ages ago, so it was time. 

Starring, of course, my favorite, Toshiro Mifune. 

Very enjoyable, sort of strange, odd comedic moments, and a very effective, if shocking ending.

By the way, we watched it via TCM via YouTubeTV. In this new world of streaming, we go back and forth between services – we’ve had YouTubeTV for a few months because, in the pre-pandemic world, it was going to be the best one for sports, plus we had Better Call Saul coming. If you have TCM through any of the streaming services, you’ll find that they have a large library of films available to watch at any given time. I am planning to cancel YouTubeTV after Better Call Saul is over in a couple of weeks – especially now that the new season of  Fargo has apparently been delayed. So we won’t have that TCM library anymore – but hopefully we’ll have the real library open again by then….

Cooking: 

Easter dinner was my usual go-to for things like this –flank steak made with this recipe,these roasted potatoes, and some vegetables. Just always remember to cut your flank steak against the grain, and there’s nothing like it.

I’ve done a bit of baking – these muffins and these hot cross buns for Friday, which weren’t pretty, but tasted fine.

Now that Lent is over, we can recalibrate the cooking…..more baking and meat, basically.

Educating: 

College son continues his online work. The college came through with two good developments last week: a refund for unused room and board (and considering they hadn’t been back since the beginning of March, which was there spring break – it was considerable) and the option for students to make any of their classes pass/fail. Grateful for that.

High school freshman has been doing a lot of music – he played at several livestreaming liturgies last week and his regular piano teacher is back home from graduate school (early, of course), so we are doubling up on those lessons.

But…we will be back in school business this week. Wrapping up geometry, continuing with the Odyssey, looking at the OT prophets.

Also – he made a Gold (Summa cum Laude) on the National Latin Exam! Only missed one!