This is the nicest time of year in southeast Texas. It’s cool enough that most of the pesky critters have gone away. I can open my upstairs office window in the daytime and not be overwhelmed by heat or humidity. My wife and I have been taking lots of local bike rides. It’s nice.
Last night we watched A Year in Burgundy, which sounds like it might be a follow-up to A Year in Provence, but it isn’t. It’s about that unique wine district in France and documents the 2011 season, from spring through winter, to show how different wineries and families create their hallmark wines. We aren’t exactly wine experts, but we’ve grown to appreciate wines more since our trip to Sonoma a few years ago, so we found it quite fascinating. Though there are subtle differences in the way the vines are treated, the real difference happens after the harvest. Those secrets the vintners guard jealously. We grow with the doors open and ferment with them closed, one man said, which reminded me of King talking about writing with the doors open and revising with them closed. Only two kinds of grapes are grown in Burgundy: all whites are Chardonnay and all reds are Pinot Noir. French laws forbid them from irrigating their fields, so they are very much at the mercy of the elements. It’s amazing the damage hail can do to a crop. Timing the harvest is as much an art as a science. It’s quite a process.
I’m about halfway through the second season of Bron/Broen, the Danish/Swedish series that has been adapted over here as The Bridge. I vastly prefer the Scandinavian version. The main characters are quirkier and more interesting. I feel that in the American version they’ve forgotten how idiosyncratic Sonya is. In Bron, Saga is full-on weird. Completely socially inept. It’s fascinating to see how different the actress is from her character. And her “partner,” Martin, is few people’s idea of a leading man. Overweight, grizzled, balding, grey, woebegone. But he and Saga make an interesting team. The second season is about eco-terrorists.
I liked the most recent Doctor Who. It was a tense thriller with plenty of thrills and chills. The idea that the Doctor would step aside and let humanity decide its own fate was interesting, even if Clara decided to override humanity’s decision at the last second. I wonder, though, if the “leak” that Jenna Coleman would be leaving at Christmas is a red-herring. They certainly seem to be building towards that with her increasing frustration with the Doctor, but I wonder. This Doctor is much more disconnected from humanity than the recent batch. It’s almost like there was some kind of short circuit during that regeneration.
We’re caught up with Intruders, too. That little girl continues to impress. She’d make a great lead in The Girl Who Loves Tom Gordon, if anyone were to decide to make that movie.
Haven is moving to Friday nights in the US. At 6 p.m. Central. What a strange, strange time for a TV show to air. Canada still gets it on Thursdays, but a week after the Syfy appearance.
I’m sort of tickled to hear that Twin Peaks will be back, albeit not until 2016. My first thought was that I had to tell a friend of mine the news, because I knew he’d be jazzed about it, too. Then I remembered that he was no longer with us. Funny how things like that happen.
