Friday, January 17, 2014

Amy, Justified, and Willy



                           



At The Cinema                             



By now you will have discovered that I am your best go-to guy for T.V. and movie reviews.  You will know that if I like something

  1. Chances are you will too; or
  2. Chances are you will hate it
Below you may scroll through three videos of stuff that I have recently fancied quite a bit.

1) A few weeks ago I told you about Key and Peele, a Comedy Central offering that I'd never seen because I don't look at Comedy Central anymore.  Inside Amy Schumer is another jewel, although it was evidently canceled after one season.  I think it's funny as hell, but it's also unbelievably naughty, even for standard cable.  No worse than South Park, but that's no-holds barred too. Some of her sketches are brilliant, brilliant parody.

2.  The second needs no introduction.  Justified is simply the best television series ever made.  Season 4 is now available on Amazon Prime.


3.  Shakespeare Uncovered is a BBC series featuring various stage actors delving into the mechanics of various Shakespearean plays. And let's be honest.  The only time most of us read Shakespeare was in high school, and then people were randomly chosen to play roles which could make it all drearier than it actually was to a 16 year old boy sitting next to that girl with the blond pageboy.  I was lucky.  As one of just two boys in her AP English class, I was always the lead role, and I think quite skilled.


Episode (Original Air Date)
1. Macbeth with Ethan Hawke January 25, 2013
2. The Comedies with Joely Richardson January 25, 2013
3. Richard II with Derek Jacobi February 1, 2013
4. Henry IV & Henry V with Jeremy Irons February 1, 2013
5. Hamlet with David Tennant February 8, 2013
6. The Tempest with Trevor Nunn February 8, 2013
I've watched just the first three so far.  Ethan Hawke's Macbeth gets 4 stars; created within me a spark for it all that I never before had. (shown in full below)

After 10 minutes or so of The Comedies with Joley Richardson, I stopped.  Joley's mother is Vanessa Redgrave, whom I abhor.  The two comfortably interact here, and I found it all insufferable.  I accidentally (really) Googled up a page of Joley Richardson naked; she does that fairly well.

I loved the historical background of presentation of Richard the II.  Derek Jacobs is not someone I should want to take a long trip with, but his presentation is worthwhile, as are  his reasons for not believing Shakespeare is not Shakespeare.  And no, he's not part of the Bacon crowd;  not that I care one way or another.  My high school English teacher Mrs. Meginnis  would be abhorred.

You're welcome


AMY, JUSTIFIED and SHAKESPEARE

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HARK! A Bird in the bush


I Knew 
This Was Coming Back!
Is America is On the Way Back?


Harmonica Therapy




When CO2 Matters





Back in the early 1970's MoSup and I watched a Mike Douglas show guest  discuss emphysema, as COPD was then called. He opined that the only known "cure," or reversal was playing the harmonica. We knew someone who was on oxygen for emphysema so I told her.  She poo-pawd it; said she'd already been inundated with 
phony cures. and then died.  

Before I quit smoking for good in 1999,  I had peaked at three packs a day.  At $7 a carton it was not only an expensive habit, but I had already been sent home once with oxygen tanks.  The thought of hauling that around for the rest of my life scared the crap out of me. 

I had a lung doctor.  She told me that the lungs were a remarkable organthat would stretch to cover a tennis court Her point being that we only use a fraction of that so the trick is to find ways to get at the healthy stuff (I'm using medical lingo here, so I hope you can follow).   Gave me breathing exercises.  Soon, I was able to send the oxygen machine back, and haven't smoked so much as a candy cigarette since.  But still ....

Just had blood work done prior to my cataract surgery and noticed that all my numbers were well within normal, save for CO2


ME
Normal Range

CO2 32 18 - 32 mmols/L

I looked that up and saw that it was COPD related.  I took out a harmonica I'd purchased several years ago and started playing it.  That was two days ago.  I am not making this up.  I'm already breathing much better, and a lot of crap that was hiding in my clear sounding lungs is coming out. And watch this:

*dancing a jig to the Irish cup thing*

I'm just saying.  If you have a lung disease, get a harmonica.  BTW, I'm yet able to figure out how you're supposed to discriminatley blow one of those holes at a time, so I sent for Harmonica Playing for Dummies


PS - I was utterly shocked yesterday to see a gas station advertising their cigarettes for $5/pack!  That's $50/Ctn.  HFS!  My habit of yore would be costing me  $5475 a year! 

Fkn government.








Satire only works if it's based on a truth

Oh My


Res Ipsa Loquitur  Merrily