Sunday Sundries, 285

1. HBOTW: For our Human Beings of the Week let's celebrate today the kindness of strangers (that's right: I stole that from Tennessee Williams)--those drivers who let others out into traffic, who stop at crosswalks, who wait till it's safe to make turns out onto the main road, who remember what a turn signal is for, who never tailgate, who pass only when it's safe, who ... you know!

2. We've given up on a few shows we've been streaming--three of them, in fact. All started out well; then we just lost interest: via Acorn: Blood and Dead Still; via Amazon Prime: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

• We watched most of the two seasons of Blood (about a, uh, troubled Irish family), and the other night we realized we didn't really care about any of these people. (Buh-bye.)
• Dead Still is in its first season (about a 19th-century photographer who specializes in photographs of the newly deceased); we thought the first episode was really clever. And then ... downhill ever since. (Buh-bye.)
• We're in the 3rd season of Mrs. Maisel and have tired of it all--the snarling between her parents, their snarling at her, etc. (Buh-bye.) Tremendous production values in that series, though--costumes, scenery, choreography, etc.

We're still enjoying Black Adder (a little bit at a time, mind you), and we're determined to finish all nine seasons of Waking the Dead--though it's taking a major effort. We're also still hanging in there with Perry Mason on HBO (though we're having to be very patient).

3. In our departure from these shows we've been left with a question: Now what? And the other night, just for the heck of it, we started streaming Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film of Much Ado About Nothing (which is one of my favorite Shakespeare films).

When we first saw that film (1993), I was so smitten by it that I immediately replaced The Taming of the Shrew (Burton & Taylor) with Much Ado with my eighth graders every winter. Most of them loved it, too. Branagh, Emma Thompson, John Wick--uh, Keanu Reeves, Michael Keaton, Denzel Washington, Robert Sean Leonard (a heartthrob back then--what's happened to him?), plus a number of wonderful character actors: Richard Briers, Brian Blessed, Phylida Law (Emma Thompson's mother), Gerald Horon, Imelda Staunton). Music by Patrick Doyle.

I showed that film to my classes (five of them!) every year the last few years of my middle-school career--never tired of it. Kids seemed to like/love/tolerate it, too (we had read the play aloud in class). I always wept in class--and wept last night (we watched about 1/2 hour). Emma Thompson is fabulous.

4. We're also streaming the most recent season of Luther (took us a while to get started!), and it's one of those shows that require I don't stream too much each night (I can't take too much tension these days--there's enough of it in the Real World, you know?). Idris Elba. Fantastic.

5. I finished three books this week ...

     - The first, via recommendation by Joyce, was Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl (2008) by Stacey O'Brien.

For nineteen years, Wesley (a barn owl) lived in the house with O'Brien, where she, a scientist, studied and loved the creature. And she does not really romanticize the bird (not all that much anyhow). We learn some amazing things about it--its astonishing power of hearing (it can hear the heartbeat of a mouse under the snow--and only mice appear on the barn owl's menu); Wesley figured after a while that O'Brien was his mate, so, some "activities" were performed on her arm now and then; he loved winging around the room, the house; they mate for life--and when their mate dies, they shut down and die as well. So much more in this wonderfully informative book!

     - The second I finished was the first novel by Maggie O'Farrell, After You'd Gone (2000). I'd recently read (and loved) her most recent book, Hamnet, 2000, so I thought I'd try her earlier novels. Good idea!

This is a multi-generational story (O'Farrell cuts back and forth from Grandmother to Mother to our principal, Alice, who appears to attempt suicide in the early pages). So we travel through the pages (and the decades), learning about this family, wondering why Alice would do such a thing (we do not find out until near the very end), reading about love and failure and success and heartache and sibling relationships.

Have to say I loved it. So complex and gripping for a first novel--she was in her 20s! (She was born in 1972--the same year as our son.) How on earth did she do this?!?!?!

     - Finally, I'm reading my way through the novels of Alice Adams (1926-99), known principally for her short stories (she was often in the New Yorker). And last week I read her second novel, Families & Survivors, 1974, a novel that deals with many of Adams' common themes and tropes.

It's the story of two young women, Louisa and Kate, whom we first meet in 1941 when they are fourteen years old, having a naked swim. We follow them, back and forth (though we spend more time with Louisa, the more troubled of the two). The novel ends on New Year's Eve, 1970-71, and in the pages that exist between those mileposts (yearposts?) we learn about Louisa's difficulties in love, her involvement with a married man (who--surprise!?!--lies to her persistently about his determination to divorce his wife and marry Louisa).

The action is mostly in San Francisco (where Adams herself lived for quite a while). No real surprises thematically (I've read Adams' collected short stories, and all of the issues here seem very familiar), but Adams can surprise, as well--stylistically, especially.

The novel is fairly naughty for its era: explicit sex, frank language, an interracial sexual relationship--common enough in fiction in our day. Generally uncommon then.

6. On a personal note: I'm waiting to hear if I'm going to get some financial help on the very expensive med that's next in my metastatic cancer treatment: Xtandi (link to info on the drug). Like the other treatments I've had (meds, radiation, surgery, immunotherapy) this one will be just a delaying tactic. I'm incurable. And I'm worried this time about side effects: Some are downright odious, and I fear yet another decline in the quality of life. Crossed fingers.

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

     - from dictionary.com

rhathymia [ruh-thahy-mee-uh] noun

carefree behavior; light-heartedness.

WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF RHATHYMIA?

Rhathymia “carefree behavior, lightheartedness” comes straight from Greek rhāthȳmía (also rhāithȳmía, rhāḯthȳmía) “easiness of temper, taking things easy.” Rhāthȳmía is a derivative of the adjective rhā́ithȳmos “easygoing, good-tempered,” but also “frivolous; indifferent, slack.” The first part of rhāthȳmía is the adverb rhã, rhéa, rheīa “easily, lightly” (its further etymology is unknown). The second element of rhāthȳmía is a derivative of the noun thȳmós “soul, spirit, mind, life, breath.” The combining form of thȳmós, –thȳmía, is used in English in the formation of compound nouns denoting mental disorders, such as dysthymia, alexithymia, and cyclothymia. Rhathymia entered English in the first half of the 20th century.

HOW IS RHATHYMIA USED?

Rhathymia is the preferred mode of presentation of the self.

   DONALD BARTHELME, "PARAGUAY," THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 6, 1969

From this sprang slackness, rhathymia, long delays in reaching decisions or paying out salaries, and downright callousness in ignoring positive distress.

E. G. TURNER, "PTOLEMAIC EGYPT," THE CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY, VOL. 7, PART 1, 2ND ED., 1984