I received an invitation to participate in a cool project last night. I won’t say anything more about it at this point because the project is in its infancy and it will be a while before all the details are sorted out, but any time I get an invitation rather than working through the slush, I feel good.
So, I hear there’s an election going on today. Really? You’d think that would have made the news lately. I’m a friend of CBC News on Facebook. A couple of weeks ago they sent out a request for American students living in Canada who were interested in the election to get in touch with them, so I forwarded it to my daughter. A producer from CBC got in touch with her, and they sent her a small video camera to record a bio and her impressions, as well as footage during the evening while the results come in. It’ll be interesting to hear her thoughts and experiences.
I’m about 40% of the way through Drood by Dan Simmons. The man sure immerses himself in his research. The book starts with Dickens’ near-death experience in a train accident late in life and follows through his final years. The publication of his last serial novel, Our Mutual Friend, his dalliances, etc. The narrator is Wilkie Collins, for whom Dickens was a mentor and friend, and many of the events and even some of the dialog (I suspect) are lifted straight from period records. Unfortunately, Dickens destroyed all of his personal correspondence, so the record is sparse in that respect. The nature of the mysterious Drood is the book’s focus. He starts out seeming like an agent of the underworld, but then Dickens recasts him as a less sinister figure, though Dickens’ “testimony” is suspect—as is Collins’, who in both the novel and in real life was addicted do laudanum and believes his Doppelganger is stalking him. Like The Terror, this is not a fast-paced book, and its language is Dickensian, which is to say somewhat dense, so it’s not a quick read by any stretch of the imagination. There is a tie-in to The Terror, too, in that Collins and Dickens cowrote a play based on that expedition, in part to defend the crew against allegations of cannibalism, which Dickens abhorred.
Boston Legal had an interesting take on the election. While there was the usual bickering between Alan and Denny, and even a colorful paintball duel, the most poignant commentary on the show’s political slant came from Jerry while he was speaking to the partners. In attempting to sell himself as a partner candidate, he described the assets his character would bring to the partnership in carefully phrased language that left no doubt in my mind that they were describing Obama instead. Valerie Bertinelli looked terrific, and played it absolutely straight, not taking any of the guff that was going on around her. Good to see Julie Bowen back again, too.
