Sunday Sundries, 183

1. AOTW: Oh, have there been some fierce contestants the past two weeks! People who Face-Time, full-voice, in the coffee shop? A guy who zoomed around me (double yellow line), then, 100 feet farther on, turned into a mini-mall? Or--the winner! I'm approaching an intersection where I will turn left; a guy, approaching me, is also signalling to turn left; I begin my turn; he goes straight, turn-signal be damned. Brakes. AOTW Award!

2. We enjoyed seeing Isle of Dogs last night at the Kent Cinema--the latest from the fecund mind of Wes Anderson. Loved almost all of this tale (tail?) about dogs banished to an island of trash. Survival. Etc. Two things bothered me: (1) the excessive caricatures of Japanese characters; (2) the very minor roles played by the female dogs. It seems to be a "guy thing," saving the species. Anyway, I still loved the film, imagination infusing every frame ...

Link to film trailer.

3. We're streaming an old friend--and a new one:

     - Old Friend = Bosch (based on the LA detective created by novelist Michael Connelly), back for his fourth season on Amazon. We've barely started ... no real reactions yet, other than the happiness at a visit from an Old Friend. (Link to some video.)

     - New Friend = an HBO series--Barry--about a hit man, Bill Hader (!), who, on assignment in LA, gets bitten by the acting bug--thinks he might have a career-change. We've watched only 1 1/2 episodes but are having a good time. (Link to some video.)

4. I finished one book this week--The Vault, 1999, a Brit cop thriller by Peter Lovesey, another in his series about DS Peter Diamond. A friend--I think it was former WRA colleague Mac McClelland?--recommended this one to me because it has a pretty significant Frankenstein connection.

The story takes place in Bath, where Mary Shelley wrote much of her novel. They'd moved to 5 Abbey Churchyard on September 9, 1816., a little over a year before she published the novel (January 1818). Mary also took drawing lessons there. All of these things figure in the novel. Leap into our present: Some body parts are found near in the old vault (basement) of 5 Abbey Churchyard (the house was razed long ago), and the criminal case commences.

Also--Mary's portable desk is a factor--as are some drawings she'd done--as are some old illustrations for Frankenstein done by William Blake (but are they authentic?).

Anyway, it was lots of fun to read--and Lovesey had clearly done a lot of reading about Mary and her novel--though he did seem unaware that after the 1818 publication, there was another in 1823. He did mention the one in 1831. The 1823 publication would have caused a wee plot problem for him, so maybe he ignored it on purpose?

5. Last Word--A word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from dictionary.com

carking [kahr-king]

adjective

1. Archaic. distressful.

QUOTES

Laranger's answering smile showed no trace of the carking anxiety and deadly uncertainty which filled him at the thought of the future.

-- Joseph B. Ames, "The Secret of Spirit Lake," Boys' Life, September 1927

ORIGIN

Carking derives from Norman French carquier “to load, burden,” from Late Latin carcāre, carricāre “to load.” In Old French, i.e., Parisian French, the dialect spoken in the île de France (the region of France that includes Paris), Late Latin carcāre becomes chargier (which becomes charge in English). Norman French does not palatalize c (representing the sound k) before a, which Old French does; thus in English we have the doublets cattle (from Norman French) and chattel from Parisian French. Late Latin carcāre becomes cargar “to load” in Spanish, the source of English cargo. Carking entered English in the early 14th century.