Something/Someone Old

I have been re-reading the Richard Jury mysteries by Martha Grimes.

They are lovely, clever takes on the Agatha-Christie-style cozy, with enough self-awareness to poke fun at themselves and enough heart to make you believe in the characters and care about them. I don’t think they are the best work Grimes has ever done (that honor belongs to Hotel Paradise, a mystery I love despite the fact that it leaves a great deal unexplained), but they are funny, intelligent, good-hearted mysteries which I can’t automatically solve halfway through the book. If you like mysteries, you owe it to yourself to try this series for your bedtime reading. The best of them run from 1981’s The Man With a Load of Mischief, the introductory novel of the series, to 1989’s The Old Silent, a stunning work that would be Grimes’ best were it not for the existence of Hotel Paradise.

Something New

I have finished watching the Korean series Rookie Historian on Netflix,

and I can’t recommend it enough. To begin with, it is not warded (laced with toxic propaganda). Next, its tone and genre are unique in my experience. This is a story that is lighthearted, funny, and even, at times, silly. It uses conventions that in the United States would only exist in the goofiest of tales, most often in stories intended for children. Its tone is bright, optimistic, sympathetic to most of the characters, and light. Yet Rookie Historian deals with the most grave of issues. Who has control over history? Can dedication to the truth ever outweigh the demands of power? Can any limits be placed on power at all? How far would you go to protect the truth? Rookie Historian explores these issues with all the seriousness they deserve. It also takes the characters through some very painful and complex changes. Yet the narrative maintains its bright, playful tone, and for some reason, the incongruity of tone and content never jars the audience. That is quite an achievement, one I can’t recall ever seeing before.

Interestingly, Korean shows on Netflix seem to be dealing with issues of power, justice, and history lately. They seem to have chosen the same strategy as Zhang Yimou, the great Chinese film director, who gets away with examining issues of power and injustice by locating them in bygone eras, far removed from the present. The Arthdal Chronicles, a fantasy prehistory of Korea, deals with very similar issues as Rookie Historian, but is a much grimmer narrative. I stopped watching it because I suspected that the narrative was travelling to a place I’d visited many times before, the whistle stop village of Villainsmeade Notbourne, in the county of Canby Corrupthead. If a narrative is going to take me on a really terrible ride, I want the destination to be somewhere I haven’t often been.

Something Borrowed

It may be a guilty pleasure, but this song really takes me.

I thought I'd look up a few covers, to see what those who have borrowed this song have done with it. Usually, what I look for in covers is a band doing something really new with the song. But this rendition by The Main Squeeze is so heartfelt and the lead singer's voice so sweet, I had to include their very faithful recreation of the original:

This cover does more of what I usually look for in a cover. Seth Turner successfully makes this into a country song without damaging it. Another lovely voice, busking in Vegas.

Something Blue

My Something Blue comes courtesy of Microsoft trying to get me to use Bing instead of Google Chrome. In order to boot up, I always get a message about some interesting place or thing; clicking on it brings up Bing. It hasn't made me start using Bing (beyond the one click per day), but I have learned a few cool things from Microsoft's marketing strategy.

So today my Something Blue is Del Toro Lake, Chile. It's in Patagonia and is part of Torres del Paine Park. Looks like a South American Switzerland--glaciers, beautiful snow-capped mountains, and glacial lakes. Look at that blue.