What may have been a factor in Biden's poor debate performance.

 Bob Woodward said this evening on MSNBC that Biden's debate performance was so bad that there must have been some causal factor or factors operating.  As I was listening to him, I suddenly found myself connecting to the fact that my wife and I returned from a trip to Finland last Friday and it featured a 9 1/2 flight through several time zones.  One week after our return we are still having some residual fogginess, sleep and meal dysfunctions,  and occasional overall feeling of things not being quite right.  And we are in our 80's just like Joe Biden and jet lag according to the following article cited next .  Now remember that Biden had two hard working literally back to back trips to Europe in the two weeks before the debate. Jet lag also impacts older people more strongly and can present lack of focus and tiredness.  I know Air Force One is a flying hotel, but is it possible that this was a factor in his performance.  Just thinking. See: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/jet-lag/symptoms-causes/syc-20374027.  

Review Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly

 

Hard to say much about the author who has published 37 previous novels. He will be read no matter what. And why not? He won the writing chops game long ago. His narratives are strong and full of surprises at just the right time. His characters live and breathe through simple familiarity. You are pre-primed to see how the Lincoln Lawyer will win another case and you want to know how his now investigator Harry Bosch’s cancer treatments are progressing and how he will contribute to the case.  The defendant is sympathetic to the core. And finally, the connection to the title is neatly positioned early on and solidly integrated at the end.

Of his books I have read this seems to be about half way--nowhere near the worst but not taking the gold. It is totally workmanlike and kept me turning the pages, which is what a legal or police procedural is supposed to do.

I give it a solid 4 out of 5

 

Good article in Washington Post today by Ruth Marcus on sentencing Trump. The guy said a few days ago "If they can do it to me, they can do it to anybody." Isn't that the point? We aren't; he isn't, Biden's son isn't, nobody is above the law in this country. If there are exceptions, the bedrock of the constitution is cracked wide open and special interest rules.

Review of Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench

 

Review Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench

What do you require to for a successful theatrical reminiscence? Do you look for inside show business stories, heartfelt emotion, laughter, literary comments, wise notes on the craft, etc.? Judi Dench’s latest book with Brendan O’Hea has all of that and more. Dench is in turn earthy, eloquent, wise, revealing, funny, and sentimental. She breathes an exuberance toward life into every chapter. I have seen a good deal of Shakespeare in England as well as in Canada and across the USA. I have directed six of his plays, acted in two, and worked on a few others. My only caveat here is that in order to truly enjoy the book, you had better bring some familiarity with the Bard’s works. It is organized around the Shakespearean parts Dench has played over her long career and each chapter takes up a role she has played. Her interviewer sets up the questions and then she goes off on the director’s concept, the staging, her own approach, speaking the verse, or her interactions with fellow actors. Even if you are not familiar with the script (say Measure for Measure or Cymbeline), there is still plenty of enjoyment in her often funny and endearing commentary.   

Did you know that Peter Hall, used to stand at a lectern beating out the rhythm of Shakespeare’s verse while she and her fellow actors spoke their lines. Or did you know she loves Stratford Upon Avon, not because she has played there so often, but because so many Shakespeare references can be seen in the countryside around the town. Or do you need some line reading tips like the significance of what she calls “a pick-up line.”  It is a complete iambic pentameter line which is shared between two actors, as when in Macbeth a servant speaks to Lady Macbeth.  

“Servant:  The King comes here tonight

Lady Macbeth:                                          Thou’rt  mad to say it.”

That, according to Judi, is “Shakespeare’s way of telling you to pick up your cue.”

 And finally, she hates The Merchant of Venice with scatological fervor, but the inscription on her beloved husband, Michael Williams, gravestone comes from a line in that play. She played Portia to “Mikey’s” Bassanio and it is spoken just after Portia’s famous quality of mercy speech when Bassanio says, “You have bereft me of all words.”   Has there ever been a more moving epitaph for an actor?

I could go on for a long time, but it is better for you to look for a copy of the book and see for yourself the pleasures it contains. If you have treasured the reruns of ‘As Time Goes’, know know a little bit about the Bard, or just plain love the theatre, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent is the book for you.   

I give it a five out of five.

 

I Only Read Murder by Ian and Will Ferguson

 

Review of I Only Read Murder by Ian and Will Ferguson

Two brothers have teamed up to write this comic cozy mystery. The title refers to a bookshop that sells only murder mysteries, but the real action (other than the conclusion) takes place in a community theatre on the Oregon coast.  A washed-up TV star (How’s that for comedy?) named Miranda Abbott, who had been a star playing a clerical detective named Pastor Fran, is down on her luck and takes off to Happy Rock to see if her husband (the main writer on her long defunct TV series) will take her back.  The town theatre just happens to be producing their yearly murder mystery and Miranda ends up at auditions.  There she finds a motely group of theatre types that are drawn from the stereotypes more expertly portrayed in plays such as The Play That Goes Wrong or Noises Off.  We have a weird director, a Prima Donna actress, a mousy stage manager, an over-dedicated set builder, and on and on. Miranda ends up with a small part in the show, but the big event is the death of the star on stage on opening night. It takes an excruciatingly long time in the book to get to the murder and once we do get there, it becomes a pretty much traditional figuring out who in the company did the deed. Some of the jacket comments claim the characters are funny and lovable. I found them mostly over the top caricatures and uninteresting. I prove this contention by telling you when I reached the last chapters, I chose to turn off the light and go to sleep rather than spending ten more minutes to find out who the culprit was. 

I give it a 2 out of 5    

Open this link to read Heather Cox Richardson's column for today.  The swing to sanity is beginning to gather steam.   

https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/may-15-2024?r=elg6h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Review of Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

 

Once again Anthony Horowitz retreats into a narrative quagmire by telling us the story of an author (himself) struggling to meet a publication deadline and finding his detective, Daniel Hawthorne,  dribbling out bits of an old murder case that took place in a Thames-side enclosed housing area in Richmond. Every occupant is a suspect and the past, the sort of past, the present, and the author’s attempts to write about the case makes for more frustration than I want to keep track of. The ultimate solution reminded me of one of those orchestral pieces that seems to have ten conclusions before the real one arrives. The-long winded back-story takes forever to reveal and the coincidences needed to support the brilliance of Hawthorne’s detecting just didn’t convince me that it might happen.  

Yes, it kept me turning the pages, but my tolerance for Horowitz has gone sour. He is getting to be too cute by half.    

Give it a 2 out of 5