Since turning in my manuscript last weekend, I’ve been taking it relatively easy. For three days in a row I didn’t even go upstairs to my office. I did work on a couple of diagrams for the manuscript, though, and was pleased at how they turned out. I’m nobody’s artist, but I think these do the job quite well.
This week’s Survivor was on the tame side, I thought. The product placement segment was as well done as these sorts of things can be. There were no huge developments, and even the blindside wasn’t that big a deal, I thought. I wouldn’t mind it if the women went on a clean sweep of the men. I wonder what things would be like on the island after that, once they’re forced to turn on each other. Could be entertaining.
I watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy last night. A well done Cold War spy thriller, a remake of a BBC TV series from the late seventies and an adaptation of the John LeCarre novel. He knew whereof he wrote, having been a member of the circus himself for many years. Made me think about how much things have changed in the last 25 years or so. In 1986, I walked from the train station in Berlin to Checkpoint Charlie, crossed over to East Berlin and spent the next ten days behind the wall. There’s hardly anything to compare it to these days. I’d love to go back to Berlin some day and see what it’s like now. I know I was anxious the whole time I was on the other side, paranoid that I was being watched constantly, though there was probably some truth to that. I was astonished at how freely I was able to move about, though. I figured people would ask me for my papers all the time, but I got on a train and went to Leipzig without anyone questioning my intentions. I had to register with the local police when I got there, but I had to do that when I lived in Switzerland, too, so that wasn’t a huge deal.
Gary Oldman was excellent in a role established by Alec Guinness. I hope he didn’t get paid by the word, though, because he was silent a lot of the time he was on screen, and often only said one or two words when called upon to speak. He was intense, though, and cracks in his British veneer showed through from time to time. I always like seeing Toby Jones, too. I spent a pleasant half hour or so talking with him in his trailer during a lunch break on the set of The Mist a few years back. The movie made you work to figure out what was going on some of the time. It certainly didn’t coddle the audience. Makes me want to see the original now, though, since it was seven hours long and the movie was only two.
