Sunday Sundries, 267

1. AOTW: This was a wild one out on the highway. The AOTW passed me on the right, then veered across in front of me into the left-turn lane. (No signals involved, natch.) I'm starting to rethink my position on capital punishment.

2. I finished one book this week, the 2020 novel by Arthur Phillips, The King at the Edge of the World.

I'd read only one Phillips novel before this one--The Tragedy of Arthur (2011); it deals with a "lost" Shakespeare play. (Real or not?) Phillips wrote a "Shakespeare" play to include in his text, and the whole thing is amazing. (How nervy is that--writing a play by the Bard!)

This new one deals with the imminent death of England's Queen Elizabeth I and the worries in England that the logical heir, James VI of Scotland, was a crypto-Roman Catholic. In a sort of complicated maneuver English spies send to Scotland a Turkish doctor who was in England as part of a diplomatic mission--and was forced to stay because of his medical skills.

The doctor's mission? Find out if James is a Protestant or not. The English fear a religious war if he is not. Henry VIII had switched the country to Protestant; then his daughter, Queen Mary (aka Bloody Mary), reversed it; Elizabeth reversed it again. Each reversal cost countless lives as the unwilling-to-convert were horribly tortured and executed.

Phillips does a wonderful job of narrating the story over time, shifting the focus, surprising us at the end. I mean, we know the ending (James VI of Scotland became James I of England), but what happens to the other principal players?

I liked this novel so much--and remembered Arthur so fondly--that I've decided to read Phillips' other novels--not a lot (he has only about a half-dozen--and he's only 50).

3. We started streaming the new Netflix film: Spenser Confidential, a film based on the Spenser novels of the late Robert B. Parker (1932-2010). He wrote forty of them--and the series is now being continued by others. I read his 40 but cannot bring myself to read the new ones--seems weird.

There was also a TV series in the 1980s: Spenser: For Hire (1985-88)--with Robert Urich as the P.I. and Avery Brooks as his buddy, the dangerous Hawk.

In this new iteration, Mark Wahlberg plays Spenser; Bokeem Woodbine is Hawk. Alan Arkin is along for the ride--as is comedian Iliza Shlesinger, who plays Spenser's wacko girlfriend (a character not in the books).

We've watched about half of it--pretty dull so far (despite some graphic violence). I just don't see Wahlberg, who's not a big man, playing Spenser, who is a very big man in the books. (Reminds me of Jack Reacher being played by Tom Cruise.) And the mammoth Hawk has to take boxing lessons from Wahlberg?! And Spenser as an ex-con? All is just WRONG!

The similarities to the books are slight. But maybe this is just the inauguration for what might become a series? Who knows? Netflix does this. Longmire is not much like the books--nor is the series about Jack Ryan. Or the one about Bosch.

BTW: Back in the 90s I took a few middle-school students up to Booksellers (a shop now long gone), where Parker was doing a signing. No one else was there when we arrived, so we got to talk to him a bit--and he signed a bunch of books for me!

Link to some video.

4. Sadly, a couple of nights ago we finished streaming the latest season of Vera, one of our favorites. In the final moments of this season's final episode, Vera (Brenda Blethyn) has some of her best moments as an actress in the series--and she's had some great ones.

5. When we went to the grocery store this morning, we were wondering if we'd see evidence of hoarding, etc. Empty shelves? Nope. Hudson seemed the same--although there were fewer people in the stores (Acme & Heinen's). Coincidence?

6. Last Word: a word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from dictionary.com

cacoethes [ kak-oh-ee-theez ]

noun: an irresistible urge; mania.

The rare noun cacoethes, “irresistible urge, mania,” comes from the Latin neuter noun cacoēthes “malignant tumor at an early stage, incurable disease (of character),” from Greek kakóēthes “malice, wickedness,” neuter singular noun use of the adjective kakóēthes, “ill-disposed, malicious, malignant,” a compound of kakós “bad, wretched” and the noun êthos “custom, habit, character, usage.” Cacoethes in the sense “irresistible urge, mania” comes from the Roman satirist Juvenal’s phrase insānābile scrībendī cacoēthes “incurable urge to write.” Cacoethes entered English in the 16th century.

We must talk, think, and live up to the spirit of the times, and write up to it too, if that cacoethes be upon us, or we are nought. ANTHONY TROLLOPE, BARCHESTER TOWERS, 1857

“Malachi has caught cacoethes scribendi, the scribbling craze, and is writing more sermons,” Turlow reported.