Alan Parsons has released a remixed version of his classic instrumental “Sirius” (the lead-in to “Eye in the Sky”). I’ve used the original as my phone’s ringtone for as long as customizing ringtones has been a thing. The new one is called Sirius 2017 (Disco Demolition Remix).
On the subject of Sirius, the XM radio service (see what I did there?), Robin Furth and I are featured on “Behind the Scenes” with Anthony Brenzican from Entertainment Weekly. The show debuted yesterday on Sirius XM 105 and probably runs a few more times this week. I don’t know anything about Sirius, so I can’t be any more helpful than that, I’m afraid, other than to provide this link to their schedule.
We were only supposed to be featured on part of an episode, but things went along so well that Anthony decided to extend the interview and use us for an entire episode. It was a neat experience that spanned many time zones: Anthony is in California, I’m in Texas and Robin is in the UK. Anthony uses an online audio recording utility that allows him to send each person’s chatter to an isolated track, so he can post-process if there’s cross-talk, etc. Near the end of our almost hour-long discussion, my computer hiccuped momentarily and, for a long, dreadful few minutes, we thought my track might have gotten lost. Talk about a sinking feeling, thinking that we might have to do the whole thing over again. Fortunately, technology prevailed and my words were saved. I haven’t heard the episode yet to see how it turned out, but it was definitely a lot of fun.
I posted a new review today: Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak. It’s a little different from what I normally read, an interesting change of pace. Now I’m onto The Seventh Decimate, part 1 of The Great God’s War series by Stephen R. Donaldson. It takes place in a realm that has been at war with its rival for generations, a rivalry that started over two brothers in love with the same woman. Every so many years, once they’ve recovered from the most recent conflict, the two have a new battle that is supported by magicians who have a limited arsenal of tools. One side has developed firearms, which helps to level the playing field because they’re outnumbered, but after the most recent battle, something happens that robs them of all magic, which sends the realm into ruination because they don’t know how to do a lot of basic, important things without magic. So a small group is dispatched to try to find a library that has books of magic to see if they might figure out what happened and how to fix it. It’s a relatively brief book, but I’m enjoying the story so far, although I’m constantly having to de-Game-of-Thrones-ify it in my mind.
My wife’s been in Okinawa for the past couple of weeks (she gets back tonight–yay! She was supposed to get home last night but backed-up traffic on the motorway to the airport because of a five-car pileup delayed her arrival by three hours and she missed her flight), so I’ve been binging through shows I know she wouldn’t care much for. I saw the third and penultimate series of Bron (The Bridge), which features a Swedish detective who is, as they say, on the spectrum. The crimes in this show always involve Denmark, too. The bridge in the show’s title is a span that joins Malmo to Copenhagen. Then I watched The Five, a British adaptation of a Harlan Coben book. Though it’s an interesting story, about a boy who vanished twenty years ago whose DNA is discovered at a couple of contemporary crime scenes, I thought the filmmakers didn’t put much trust in viewers. Every time something came up that hearkened back to an earlier scene or episode, there was an insert that showed that. See? Remember this? The French did much better with Une Chance de Trop (No Second Chance), which is an all-out thriller about a woman who is shot and nearly killed. When she comes out of her coma, she learns that her husband was shot and killed and her baby is missing. Lots of twists and turns, some great characters, and the added benefit of a beautiful Parisian setting. The denouement is a bit muddled, but on the whole a thoroughly satisfying six-part adaptation, which features an extended cameo by the author and Dana Delany speaking stilted French.
