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Action Concept, the crowd that makes Alarm für Cobra 11: die Autobahnpolizei, has an English trailer for the show on its site. I am surprised no English channel has ever picked up the long-running series. Sure, it’s devoid of real plot and there are inconsistencies the size of Düsseldorf itself, but my gosh, is it fun.
The budget has been cut since its heyday and the ratings are down, but from what I have read in the German press, it still outperforms everything else in its time slot.
One problem is that the trailer is ancient. The German accent on the American English (why do announcers in Germany all sound the same—is this the same guy as on DW-TV?) might make it too foreign for some English-speaking countries, but who cares?
As fans can see, Semir’s partners end with Tom Kranich (played by Réné Steinke). Since then, Chris Ritter (Gedeon Burkhard) has joined and been killed off in the course of duty, and Ben Jäger (Tom Beck) has been fielding the sidekick position since. The intro is pre-Chris, though this is still the only one I can recite with my extremely limited German.
This is the sort of show that might start off at a bad time slot on an English channel and steadily work its way to prime-time. Even if it was dubbed, I am sure it would get plenty of fans.
PS.: I have tried Vox at another office, and I have used it with another ISP. The compose screen either fails to come up or takes several hours. Something is afoot.
Ever wandered into a music or video store here and there are sections marked ‘A–Z’, ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Foreign’?
The biggest section is the first one, and often we have the smallest section.
Think about it though: shouldn’t everything not in ‘New Zealand’ be under ‘Foreign’?
The other one I get a kick out of is ‘World’, which Borders uses. Shouldn’t everything be under ‘World’? I mean, if you have this category, there is no need to have any others.
Who knew that there would be an Already Ghosts group right here in Wellington?!
Peter Rock's My Abandonment is the first book read in my Book Club by Proxy project. That's the one where I read other people's book club books for them. AmyH told me about this book. I probably wouldn't have bothered except the book was only 225 pages long and the blurb on the back sounded interesting.
My Abandonment is the story of a thirteen year-old girl named Caroline who lives in the woods outside of Portland with her father. Caroline and her father get by pretty well when you consider that they live in a hobbit hole. Their lives are shattered when a jogger stumbles upon their home and reports them to the authorities.
I must admit that this book took me by surprise. I read it as a joke and wasn't expecting much, but My Abandonment was an exciting, well-written story that was a pleasure to read. It was a damn good book. It's actually one of the highlights of my literary year. I would highly recommend this book to you, AmyH, or anyone else with a few hours to spare and an interest in quality reading.
What follows is the portion of the post dealing with cheating at book club. It starts out with my in-depth synopsis of My Abandonment's eight chapters and then ends with a couple talking points that should convince others that you've read the book. The thing to remember here is that what follows will absolutely ruin the book for you. Do not proceed if you have any interest in reading the book for yourself.
The Happy Days in the Forest Park (p. 1 - 48): Caroline and her father live in the woods outside of Portland. Caroline is thirteen; her father is a veteran who has bad dreams about helicopters. They've got an underground dwelling full of sleeping bags, a chess board, and Caroline's toy horse, Randy. They keep to themselves, but once a week they put on their city clothes and go into town. They go to the library, the Safeway, and stop by the post office for the father's government check. One day a jogger accidentally stumbles upon their camp while Caroline is lounging in a tree. The jogger tries to talk to Caroline, but she stays in her tree and hides. The jogger returns a few days later with the police, a canine unit, and a man named Jim Harris. Caroline's father is arrested and Mr. Harris takes Caroline.
Getting Caught and Put in the Building (p. 49 - 76): Mr. Harris drives Caroline into the city. During the drive, she makes reference to a foster family and a younger sister. Mr. Harris turns Caroline over to a woman named Jean Bauer at some sort of detention center. This woman cleans the girl up and gives her some new clothes. Then she subjects Caroline to a series of physical and psychological exams. She determines that Caroline is is good shape for a girl who has been living in the woods for years. Miss Bauer eventually returns Randy the Toy Horse and gives Caroline her own room...one that looks out on her forest.
Living on the Farm (p. 77 - 110): After a chapter apart, Caroline and her father are reunited outside the detention center. The police drive them out to a horse farm owned by a man named Mr. Walters. He's agreed to employ Caroline's father on his farm. In addition to the job, Mr. Walters is allowing Caroline and her father to stay in the bunkhouse on his property. Things are looking up. Caroline meets some neighbor boys and thinks they might turn out to be friends. She gets her first bicycle. She's excited about starting real school in the fall. Her father isn't doing as well, though. He starts to get paranoid and begins to imagine people spying on them from behind hay bales. He tells Caroline to pack her old backpack. As the chapter ends, the two sneak out to the bus stop in the middle of the night.
Living on the Streets of the City (p. 111 - 134): Caroline and her father head back to the woods, but that turns out to be a bad idea. They then decide to hide out in public...where they walk on opposite sides of the road and communicate with umbrella signals. Caroline gets a haircut and dye-job. She and her father set up camp in an abandoned hotel. Caroline's father starts doing "deliveries" for a mysterious man named Vincent. You can tell he's a villain because he has a pointy beard. Guys with pointy beards are always bad. Caroline gets recognized by Taffy, a girl she met at the detention center in Part Two.
Escaping Down Through the Snow (p. 135 - 160): Caroline's father is getting even more paranoid, and he decides they need to hop a train out of town. The only thing is that he's never done it before and he falls off the train as he tries to board. They opt for a bus. Caroline's father gets angry at her when she talks with a woman on the bus. He forces the bus driver to let them off in the middle of nowhere on a snowy night. They sleep outdoors and try to keep warm at a thermal spring. The next day they break into a cabin. Caroline recognizes all the books in one of the rooms. She used to have the same books when she lived with her foster family. They spend the night in the cabin and then use snowshoes and a sled to travel to the nearby town of Sisters, a town that Caroline's father seems to know.
Losing Father in the Cave (p. 161 - 192): Caroline and her father hike out of town, but are soon lost in a sudden snowstorm. They stumble upon a yurt and join a woman and very weird boy inside. The four of them spend the night in the yurt. In the morning Caroline and the very weird boy go out for a sled ride and the two adults stay inside to talk things over. The woman eventually comes out wearing a wig and Caroline's father's backpack. She gives Caroline's snowshoes to the very weird boy and the two of them head off. Caroline goes back into the yurt to find out what's going on. Her father is dead. It appears that he has been electrocuted or burned by the yurt's heating mechanism. Not knowing what to do, she puts her father's body on the sled and wanders around in the snow. She stumbles upon a keg party taking place in a cave. She hides her father's body and joins the party. She waits until the party breaks up and then brings her father's body into the cave. Sitting by the fire, Caroline thinks back and remembers when she first met her father. She remembers how he took her from her foster parents' backyard in Boise. She remembers how he handcuffed her in a hole while he joined the search party to look for her. She remembers how he changed her named to Caroline. She remembers how she used to see her picture on missing posters.
Boise (p. 193 - 210): Having left the man's body in the cave, Caroline heads for Boise. She walks around freely, knowing that nobody will recognize her now that's she's grown and looks different. She walks by her old house and then goes to her former elementary school where she sees her sister Della. She follows Della for awhile and then goes over to a cemetery. She can't find the headstones she's looking for. She takes the bus to the mall where a couple girls follow her into the bathroom and try to talk with her. They run for their mother when they notice that Caroline's foot is bleeding all over the place from frostbite. Caroline runs out the emergency exit.
There is Not Much to Say (p. 211 - 225): Time has gone by. Caroline has left Boise and returned to the town of Sisters. She gets her GED and studies at the community college. She becomes a part-time librarian. She also gets a job as caretaker at a rich man's house. He's rarely there and doesn't mind that Caroline lives in a yurt on his property. She compiles her thoughts and journals into eight sections and types them up at the library. She finds out that Randy the Toy Horse is actually a Chinese acupuncture model.
Something to Discuss in Your Book Club: Perhaps the book's most important sentence takes place on page 222 when Caroline writes about the book she's writing about her experiences with her father. She says, "I remember the conversations as best as I can. If I make up words he says at least they're close or taken from his notebook. I stitch it together and I only add what I have to. If I don't remember something I skip over it and leave it out." Is Caroline a reliable narrator? Do these sentences change your thoughts on what you've read in the earlier chapters? What do you think Caroline added to her book? What do you think she skipped over or left out?
Smart-Sounding Thing to Memorize and Regurgitate at Your Book Club: Did anyone else here find this book reminiscent of the work of independent film director, Kelly Reichardt? I certainly did. Rock's Portland-area setting combined with his protagonist's fascination with canines, brought to mind Reichardt's 2008 film, Wendy & Lucy. Should a film adaptation of My Abandonment be in the works, I think she should definitely be in the running to direct. I can already see Will Oldham in the role of "Nameless". I love the irony of a man with so many nicknames portraying a nameless character. Hah hah!
Did you join a book club because you thought it was the cool thing to do? Now that you've joined, do you have difficulty finding the time to read your club's book selection? Well, you can stop worrying about it. I've decided to offer my reading services to those of you who are either too tired, lazy, or busy to read your own book club books. Just let me know the title and author of your book and then sit back as I read the book for you. Once I've finished, I will provide you with a detailed synopsis and an in-depth analysis of the book. If you'd like, I'll even give you some insightful questions and talking points that you can use to impress and amaze your fellow book clubbers.
My first client is AmyH, who was worried about finding time to read Peter Rock's My Abandonment. This is going to be good for both of us. She'll be able to enjoy the social aspect of her book club without the additional time commitment of actually reading the book. What do I get in return? Well, I get a chance to redeem myself after my miserable showing in the Anna Karenina Book Club of 2002. I finished that book before the others and blurted out the ending. I ruined it for everyone, so now I feel I need to do something good for a different book club.
I picked up a copy of My Abandonment at the library a couple days ago. I'm about halfway through it.
I like the media
I know, I know, everyone loves to hate the press. I feel like everywhere I go people are whining that things would be better ‘if only the media would cover things right.’ Well, boo-fucking-hoo.
When George Clooney gave a press conference to ask the media to quit following him around I thought it was a pretty douchebag move. You call the press to come to an event where you tell the press not to cover you? Are you fucking serious? Oh, right, you are serious. I would have been far more impressed had he said something like the following:
“I would like to thank all of you for coming today to my press conference. I have a request to make, not of the media covering this event but of the fans who will read about it. I owe, all of in Hollywood owe, everything to you. You are the reason we have careers. For that, I cannot thank you enough. Having said that, I would like to make a deal with you. If you stop buying People and the Inquirer, the paparazzi will stop stalking us. The situation with the gossip press has gotten totally out of control and does more than take away our privacy. It endangers us, our families and innocent bystanders. I cannot stress enough how much it means to all of us that you enjoy our work. We promise to share details about our lives with you if you will stop buying the magazines that send photographers after us all the time. As the consumer, you have the power to stop this. Please consider helping us with this problem.”
I have no illusion that this would end the paparazzi crap but it would have been more honest and to the point than what he did. And that brings me to my real point, if you don’t like the press coverage of an issue or topic, do something about it. You can boycott certain outlets, sure, but there is more you can do. Support press you like by buying it. Write the sponsors of the press you dislike and tell them. The press produces a product to be sold. That probably seems pretty basic but for a long time, the news divisions of certain companies were not required to make money like the other departments. ABC News wasn’t expected to make the same money as the entertainment departments until Disney took over. In local news, the adage is ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ Bottom line: if consumers stop buying the product they are selling they will change it.
And if you want more immediate coverage of something, use Twitter. Seriously. CNN must spend eight hours a day reading Tweets. Personally, I don’t need CNN to read Tweets, I can go to Twitter myself and would prefer they do some actual reporting but it is one way to get their attention.
I managed to get NZ$20 credit thanks to the Real Groovy loyalty card, meaning that I paid a grand total of NZ$10 for these two purchases today:
There is even a documentary about the 50-year journey of the novel to this version of the movie, and clips from the first James Bond (with Barry Nelson) and the first time Casino Royale hit the big screen (in 1967, with David Niven—and we do get clips of Barbara Bouchet, Jacqueline Bisset, etc., too).
Given how basic the Quantum of Solace DVD set is, my bet is that Sony will do this again.
Secondly, this CD was on special anyway (NZ$5), and it has a few John Barry tracks, plus one Chet Baker one. It’s not the special album that Barry and Baker put together for this film, but considering that was never released in New Zealand, it’s the next best thing.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood--Charles Dickens
Edwin Drood is a young orphan engaged to be married to another young orphan named Rosa Bud (saddled with the unfortunate nickname of "Pussy"). They live in Cloisterham, an ancient English cathedral town littered with tombs, a lime pit, and a series of spooky underground vaults. Edwin goes missing. He is last seen with his rival, the hot-headed Neville Landless. Edwin's watch and shirt pin are soon found in the nearby river and suspicion is thrown upon Neville. Most boisterous in his accusations against Neville is a man named John Jasper. In addition to being Edwin's guardian, John Jasper is also Rosa Bud's music teacher and something of secret opium fiend. Isn't that always the case?
Did Neville kill Edwin Drood or was he set up by John Jasper? Did Jasper kill his own ward so he could have Pussy all for himself? Did he toss Edwin's body in the lime pit and then throw his possessions in the river? And who the heck is Dick Datchery, the mysterious white-haired gentleman with the gigantic head who shows up shortly after Edwin's disappearance? Dickens hints that Datchery might be one of the other characters in disguise. Is it Edwin? Is it Neville? Is it Neville's cross-dressing twin sister, Helena? Could it be Bazzard, Tartar, Grewgious, or any of the book's other strangely-named characters who never appear at the same time as Datchery?
We'll never know. Charles Dickens died before he could finish The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He didn't leave any notes and he didn't tell anyone how he intended to finish the book. The story is told that he offered to let Queen Victoria in on the ending (during a private reading), but she turned him down.
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