My November entry at Storytellers Unplugged is now up. It’s called Taking Care of the Laundry and has to do with how different the copy-editing process was for The Dark Tower Companion compared to that for The Road to the Dark Tower.
I’m about a third of the way through Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan and the story is really just getting going. A little slow-paced for a spy novel.
We went to see A Christmas Carol at the Alley Theatre yesterday afternoon. It’s a familiar story, of course, but they don’t scrimp on the effects or on the ghosts. Some of it is positively creepy, like a good Doctor Who episode. The ghost of Christmas yet to come was particularly effective, a tall, lean skeleton of a creature who rode around the stage on an oversized tricycle with rear wheels that made me think of a penny-farthing. Comic relief was provided by having Scrooge’s housemaid played by a guy in drag. Python-esque and quite amusing. If you’re looking for a way to get in the mood for the season, this would good. Far better than enduring Black Friday Thursday crowds at the malls, in my opinion.
Lorelei is one of my favorite recurring characters on The Mentalist. It’s always good to see Malcolm McDowell, too, but Lorelei brings out a different side of Patrick. He’s attracted to her and seems to be interested in her well-being, but he’s also using her, just like he does everyone else. Although she played the part of Red John’s siren, she’s attracted to him, too. She could have escaped any number of times, but didn’t. It was an odd episode, though. There were a couple of over-long scenes that seemed like they were going to mean something that didn’t. First there was the encounter with the park ranger on the beach. Then there was the staring match with the boy in the convenience store. The only payoff for that encounter was Patrick demonstrating that he could cross his eyes. It seemed like they didn’t have enough script to take up the entire episode, so these things were stretched out. I’m starting to suspect Homeland Security guy. Why? Partly based on his resemblance to the guy in the “origin story” episode from a few weeks back and partly because Lisbon is attracted to him, as evidenced by the way she patted her hair when she saw him in her office.
The long-hairs never had a chance to get back into the game on The Amazing Race. Even if they had somehow miraculously come up with the missing passport, they were too far behind everyone else—even the goat farmers who suffered a 4-hour penalty for failing to complete the synchronized swimming contest. The time zone challenge was a humbler for many of the teams.
