Sunday Sundries, 234

1. AOTW: I didn't think I was going to have a winner this week--and then we went to the grocery store this morning. In the check-out line, Joyce was (slightly) blocking some guy behind us (and not realizing she was doing so). I saw. I conquered. I whispered to her that there was a guy behind her. She moved, and as he walked past, I saw him roll his eyes, and I could almost hear him thinking something ... unkind ... about Joyce. I would have punched him--but he was a bit too big (I don't think I could have taken him). So ... I just told Joyce later that I had wanted to punch him. That seemed to satisfy her. (Oh, we impatient Americans!)

2. I finished one book this week--the latest Jackson Brodie novel by Kate Atkinson--Big Sky, 2019.

Atkinson's incredible gifts and style are once again on full display. I don't want to say a lot about the plot (those who spoil should boil in oil in hell), but I'll just wax ecstatic about her organization--how she sometimes starts a new chapter with a slight (or not-so-slight) "re-wind" of the previous chapter, and we see what we've just read about occur again--but this time from the point of view of another character.

I don't think I know a contemporary writer who loves to play with coincidence more that she does. (Dickens and Trollope and Austen and Collins and other Victorians would welcome her into their circle.) In David Copperfield, David's old enemy, James Steerforth, washes up on the beach after a shipwreck; David is standing right there. And that's the kind of thing Atkinson loves to do, as well.

I'll say just this: Involved are murder, human trafficking, amateur theater productions, a surprise (and extended) visit from a cool character in an earlier Brodie novel, revenge, retribution.

And an incredible amount of fun.

And now I have to wait again. Atkinson's Wikipedia page says that she's at work on a new non-Brodie novel, tentatively called The Line of Sight. May I live to read it!

2a. I've started reading The Pioneers (1823), the fourth volume in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. It's actually the first one Cooper wrote, though in the narrative chronology it's the penultimate tale of Natty Bumppo (Deerslayer, Hawkeye, etc.). I'd read it many times in its Classics Illustrated comic book incarnation--I'll see how much I remember ...

3. We're also streaming, via Amazon Prime, the series based on the Brodie novels, collectively called Case Histories (the title of her first Brodie novel). Joyce and I decided not to watch them until we'd read the books, and although she has not quite finished them (I've been hogging them), she's read enough that we can safely watch.

We've gotten to like Jason Isaacs as Brodie (it's always an ... adjustment ... to see what someone else's idea of what a character is like, a character from a book you've read). The plots are slightly different--but very well done, we think.

Link to some video.

4. Last night we drove over to the Hudson Regal Cinema to see Rocketman, a film we've been wanting to see, but we ... stuff happens.

Overall, Two Thumbs Up. Taran Egerton (whom we'd loved in the Kingsmen movies--in the 2nd one, Elton John plays himself!) is great in the very demanding role, and I especially loved how, now and then, the film would morph into a Broadway musical--characters dancing around, singing.

Two things I kind of didn't like ...

• The sort of simplistic psychology: cold Daddy + snotty Mommy = messed-up Elton. (This, of course, can be accurate and true--but I felt they went to that well too many times.)
• There were also quite a few instances of this: people (relatives, acquaintances) witnessing Elton John at the piano for the first time (composing, playing) and standing there with that oh-wow! expression on their faces. I got tired of it. Sorry.

But overall? A great night out! Link to some video.

5. Final Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from The Oxford English Dictionary (a couple of citations from R. Kipling's writing!)

doggo, adv. Chiefly in to lie (also play) doggo: to lie flat, remain hidden; to lie quietly. Also in extended use: to keep a low profile, lie low.

Origin: Probably formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: dog n.1, -o suffix.

Etymology:Probably <  dog n.1 + -o suffix, with allusion to the characteristically light sleep of a dog (compare dogsleep n.).

 slang.

  Chiefly in to lie (also play) doggo: to lie flat, remain hidden; to lie quietly. Also in extended use: to keep a low profile, lie low.

1882 Sporting Times  25 Mar. 5/3 He had been a guest, after lying doggoh for some time, at one of Blobbs' quiet little suppers.

1886 Time  Dec. 684 ‘Sharks abroad. Breakers ahead. Benjamins on the war-path. Lie doggo. Joe.’.. ‘What's the meaning of it?..And what is “lying doggo”?’

1890  R. Kipling in Pioneer Mail  28 May 698/1 The other subaltern lay doggo in camp.

1893  R. Kipling Many Inventions  259 I wud lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a shot, an' curl my long legs behind a bowlder.

1914 Strand Mag.  July 89/2 You'll play doggo and keep out of sight. She'll just have to concentrate on me.

1945  H. Pleasants From Kilts to Pantaloons  100 He..knew that he would catch hell..if he were discovered. Accordingly, he..tried to play doggo at his desk.

1955  F. Maclean Back to Bokhara  iii. 136 Lying doggo with an expression of angelic innocence when he came to see if she was in bed and asleep.

2002  G. K. Watt Rebellion in Mohawk Valley  vii. 168 Instead of shooting, simply lying doggo proved the salvation of many militiamen.