Go and do likewise?

 Have you been feeling lately (the last fifty years mayhap?) that art, literature, media, culture, politics is all one?  You can't pick up a modern novel or watch a modern show or go to a movie or hop online or visit a modern art gallery without hearing the same message over and over and over, whatever the vogue message of the moment may be?  Yawn, we filter it out and stare dazedly at the blank wall, finding the random pattern of dust and fly specks somehow innovative and soothing by comparison.  Here's a short article on kids' books that points out that exact problem.  I've actually tossed out or donated books people have given us because they are so vapid, dull, and insulting to everyone's intelligence; many of the books my daughter brings home from preschool go unread in her backpack.  Who writes this stuff?  Kids aren't idiots, and then again, neither are the people raising them.  Even if you aren't a kids' book afficiando, you have probably noticed the dearth of even decent movies in the last two decades, nothing but bad remakes, poor prequels, and obscure superheroes; I didn't even watch the last Star Wars movie, and I was the kid that read ALL the books, had the original trilogy pretty much memorized, and owns several themed lego sets.  I know the originals aren't great, but compared to the new ones, they are phenomenal when it comes to acting, plot, and characters, the new ones are just CGI and nothing more.

Art and literature were made to celebrate beauty, expose evil, and expand the soul, not to be just another mouthpiece for the cultural vogue.  No wonder it is so easy for we moderns to forget we have souls!  Get outside, peruse old books and paintings, reawaken your sense of wonder and unplug your moral outrage for a wee bit!  Then maybe get inspired to write or paint or add something beautiful to the world to inspire others to do likewise!

Sanditon...the mini mini series?

 I was not impressed with the second season debut of Sanditon, and after watching the second episode, while I am more resigned to the series, it still doesn't spark of Jane Austen.  Rather than following one main character (and a colorful cast of secondary characters) and a major story arc, rather we follow about 27 minor characters, none of whom are who they were last season, and 42 minor subplots.  It is more a 'who's who' of Sanditon than a Jane Austen novel.  I'm glad our gay love story is taking off (totally Austen!), as no other romance is even in view.  I don't like Miss Lambe, in this day and age I suppose that makes me racist, but it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with personality, personally I don't care if she's human, martian, or a fairy, she's a spoiled, immature, sulky, pessimistic, strong willed, impudent, cynical and selfish little beast, sadly I like Lydia Bennet out of the 1995 BBC classic Pride and Prejudice far more, at least she wasn't mean and was a little bit of fun, vulgar though it be, and added energy and zest to the story, even if her strident whining and eternal 'poor mes' drove one to distraction.  And apparently it is 'raining men' as every eligible female has a bevy of beaus when everyone knows that in classic Austen style, 'more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner.'

We've already strayed into Jane Eyre, now we are adding a bit of Frances Burney (an author Austen was rather fond of and probably was a major inspiration to her own writing), as apparently Tom Parker is developing a gambling addiction and the somewhat intriguing Colonel is now encouraging it, ugh!  All the characters have no character, they have become mere caricatures of themselves, devolving into mere vices or habits rather than complex and deep individuals.  Poor Arthur (who I rather liked, along with his sister Diana, hypochondriacs though they be) is merely the token gay man, his burgeoning personality lost to stereotype.  I never liked the Hankins, as they've never been anything but stereotype: nice but bumbling people who are behind the times and in the way of progress and happiness to all comers, at least Mr. Collins was amusing if odious, they are only annoying with just enough heart that you can really dislike them but there's not enough there to attract or keep your interest, sort of like ecru walls and beige carpet: universally acceptable but nobody really likes it or even looks twice at it.

The former main character, Charlotte, is no longer audacious, outspoken, bold, caring, sweet, fun loving, tries to do the right thing even when she makes mistakes, she's just a bland, quiet little mouse that has decided life isn't worth living any longer and she's just going to exist through the next few seasons?  And then we have Clara reappearing, perhaps a nod to Sense and Sensibility, except the abandoned and pregnant mistress never shows up to add yet another unneeded subplot.  Edward is a less than stellar Wickham stand-in, he's so stiff and boring and tedious and dour and one dimensional, at least you sort of liked Wickham, even after he was absolutely disgraced, I join Mr. Bennet in rejoicing that he has found himself a son-in-law even more absurdly baffling than Mr. Collins!

Lady Denham pretty much carries the show, which is a pretty heavy load for the poor old girl.  Lord Byron (or whatever the artist's name is) parades around lauding France just to irk people, courting Miss Lambe's fortune and providing a love interest for Arthur?  Yeah, I don't get it either, at least in a good Austen novel if one was after someone's fortune, one didn't spend half one's time courting someone else, at least until Miss King's uncle whisked her off to Liverpool.  But apparently everyone is taking Elizabeth's courtship of Mr. Darcy and turning it into an object lesson: disdain his every word, insult him, and if he persists, marry him?  This seems to be the case for both Miss Lambe and Lady Babbington and is rather aggravating while Charlotte's sister is off making eyes at everybody and willing to fall in love with a rock if it would but ask her to dance and spout a little Cowper, Byron and Arthur have the deepest relationship of the whole bunch and I'm worried about Arthur getting hurt, what a strange show!

The sad reality is, I really don't like or care for any of the new versions of the characters.  The scenery and costumes are gorgeous, the music is great, but I really don't care if Miss Lambe flies off with Peter Pan or shacks up with Byron at this point, while the brooding Charlotte/Jane Eyre has yet to discover the mad wife in the attic, but maybe Rev. Hankins will ask her to marry him and go to India as a missionary and save us all the nuisance of both, and then Colonel what's his bucket will follow in vengeful pursuit?  That sounds like a far more interesting story than anything brewing at the moment.  This is more cheap regency romance with woke undertones than it is Jane Austen spin-off, and that's too bad, because it was starting off as a deep, thoughtful, colorful story and characters, now all I can do is listen to the music and take in the local color and wish the characters were equally as vibrant, instead of two dimension, faded cartoons of themselves.  But maybe it is a good cautionary moral tale for our age, wherein we pride ourselves on our extreme individualism only to let our tribe, race, gender, economic status, interests, politics, whatever define our character, rather than to be the unique individuals we are, we slip quietly and gently into the stereotypical box defined for us, we have no individuality save what mere statistics grants us.  Even the renegade Lord Byron is a stereotype.  Austen was a master of character, the writes of Sanditon, mere caricature.  

Jane Austen's Spiderman 3 II?

 I watched 'Sanditon' a year or two ago when it was live streaming on PBS online, more out of curiosity than for anything else.  Then when Jane Austen's unfinished novel became an unfinished mini-series, I thought it rather ironic and moved on with my life.  Then my husband left for a two week trip legally requiring me to binge watch Jane Austen or other movies based on classic novels: Jane Eyre, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, all those shows he only watches when forced, but one of the kids is currently going through a 'has an anxiety attack the minute I go downstairs to watch anything' phase, I hope it's a phase, so much for that idea.  Being stuck upstairs with a computer, my choices were rather limited since we don't subscribe to any streaming services, but I happened by PBS's website just to see what might be interesting, perhaps Father Brown was still being produced?  Only to find that Sanditon had been renewed for two seasons and the premier was coming up and you could livestream the first season the whole week, binge watching it was!

The first season, upon second viewing, was actually pretty good, especially when I reviewed the source material they had to work with.  So I was rather looking forward to the new season, so much so that I threw a Jane Austen party in anticipation, it was only me and the kids and some stuff we had around the house, but it was fun and gave us something to do while daddy's gone.  And last night it premiered, and all I can say is I feel like I've been run over by a freight train composed of every classic novel ever written with a hearty dose of progressive agenda to make it even more painful.  Just a note to the BBC, people don't watch period dramas to get yet another taste of 'wokeism,' they like the stories, the characters, the settings and costumes and music, don't we get enough liberal approved worldview lectures from every other form of media every other minute of the day?  Do you have to ruin Jane Austen too?  I guess Amazon is doing the same thing with Tolkien so why should this surprise me?  This wasn't quite as bad as the transgender ball featured in an episode of the Netflix Anne of Green Gables remake but it is only the first episode.  Also, don't pull a Spiderman 3 and have 27 plot lines going on at once which might take 50 separate episodes to resolve or The Hobbit and make an epic out of a children's novel.

Basically, every character now has their own modern socially approved plot to pursue while also following a plot line stolen from other Austen works or classic novels.  There is no more cohesive story, no more character growth or interaction, the whole thing seems to be devolving into an infomercial for various modern causes and concerns: a modern sitcom in period clothing.  So here's the plot thus far along with the characters' alter egos from other classic movies/books, obviously there are spoilers ahead:

We start with a soap opera-esque murder of Mr. Sydney Parker in Antigua and slip briefly into Mansfield Park mode with a dash of Father Brown.  It was bad enough when he basically married for money last season and was going away forever, now you have to kill the guy too, definitely a soap opera!  Now we have Charlotte and her sister Allison going back to visit Sanditon, but instead of mourning her lost lover, Charlotte has decided to renounce marriage altogether and become a governess after about two days back in town, uh huh?  So Jane Eyre/Charlotte goes off to hang with Mr. Rochester and his trans-daughter and early feminist niece while Allison stays in town and somehow manages to be both a Lydia Bennett (a whole camp full of soldiers!) and a Charlotte Lucas (mercenary marriage here we come) and later even shows her Marianne side by having an accident only to rescued by a cute guy, but Elenor/Charlotte is off at Thornfield Hall hoping there aren't any mad wives lurking about.

Meanwhile, Miss Lambe is going all Amazing Grace and boycotting the sugar trade to oppose slavery, which at least is a realistic subplot for the era, but sadly I must agree with Lady Denham and wonder what good it will do for this jumped up fishing village to protest thus, sort of like modern activists thinking their social media posts actually do something productive!  Just go watch Amazing Grace instead, it is a far better movie and exploration of the subject.

Then we have Edward turned soldier who has brought his whole regiment to Sanditon for the summer, not telling them that his real name is Wickham and he doesn't have any money and wants to get revenge on the evil rich people that ruined his life.  While his stepsister is apparently doing a horrible job trying to make us all feel sorry for the plight of women at the time whose only value is as baby machines or maybe it's a nod to the 'infertility community' or something, but whatever it is supposed to be, it is dreadful.  Esther was an interesting character last season, warm hearted but wounded, manipulated and desperate but fierce and strong willed but suddenly she's all 'I want to give my husband a baby' even if she dies for it, deciding she has no value whatsoever without a child?  Maybe we're just wandering into the Soap Opera weeds again as apparently everybody needs a plot line.

Then we have Lady Denham complaining that she isn't invested enough in Sanditon when she couldn't be bothered to help out during last season's various disasters and set backs which makes no sense, not that anything does at the moment, but apparently if she's that concerned about it, why doesn't she just repay a little bit of that owed to Mrs. Campion?  They shipped off Mr. Stringer and Lord Babbington apparently, some of the best characters in the batch.  Tom Parker seems to be a minor character this season, another interesting character benched.  His other brother, who is so memorable I can't think of his name at the moment, is probably going to be the token gay character.  Lord Byron is also in town, guised as an eccentric and temperamental artist.  Dr. Fuchs is back but I don't know if it is a different actor or just a poor scene, but he is hardly the bold, polite, quirky little German dude of last season, he's bland as lukewarm tea and about as interesting as a chorus member in a greek tragedy.  The pedantic reverend now has a strident sister, apparently we need not one but two bumbling, backwards, retrogressive token christians.  Anybody else feel like this season is full of 'token' representatives instead of actual unique characters?  And there certainly isn't any unique or interesting plot going on.  I guess they'll get a black out on their progressive agenda bingo card but as far as making a good story, I'm afraid they should have left it at one season and leave the rest to our imaginations.  There's just too much going on, the characters are taking a backseat to agenda, and I'm starting to feel like the entire show is a Mr. Collins for the progressive movement's Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and we all know how much people like to hang out with him for any length of time: desperation makes people do funny things but anything short of that and they'll flee the room in droves!

Hope Floats!

 The lazy blogger returns, here's a great article for anyone and everyone who is wallowing in the Swamp of Despair, look up O Pilgrim, you aren't alone and hope is not dead!

The Problem with the Modern West, solved?

 I'm a professional, I have too much education and worked my tail off to prove it, but then life happened and I ended up at home raising a family, helping keep a church alive and thriving, writing too much, and baking too many desserts.  When I was a kid in daycare, daycare was weird and a last resort and socially questionable.  When I have kids, not having your kids in daycare is looked at askance, as if I'm socially depriving them or shipwrecking my own personal life.  I get questioned by people who never utilize my services, save perhaps once in five years, why I'm not working full time and depriving them of the convenience of interrupting Christmas or so they can get something minor done when it is convenient to them.  Then the pandemic happened and everyone is bemoaning all these poor women 'trapped' at home with their own children, how dreadful!  Congratulations are due to the Great Enemy of Humanity for his propaganda campaign that has transformed the heart of human society and culture into drudgery, toil and tedium.  But this gal says it much better, and far more graciously. 

I worked so hard at my career, but it failed, it left me in debt and burned out with no knowledge of myself and no social life, just a phone that might ring at any hour and nothing else.  I don't get paid now, at least not much, but my kids, my husband, and I, have a life, a happy, peaceful, fun life.  It's nice to set my own hours, not to start when the phone rings, and be my own boss.  And to be able to be there for other people when they need someone.  This is freedom, not slavery.  And the lives that I am touching will touch countless others for years to come.  That's a better legacy I can leave my kids than just money in the bank, though that's nice too!  So for most of the problems in our modern west, reestablishing stable, happy, healthy homes is vital, if only we will embrace it.  We all set off into the world looking for the one place we leave behind: Home.

Lazy blogging all the way!

 Here's a great little story on imagination and why it is even more vital in our ever more virtual reality, enjoy!

Life in a minor key!

 If you have ever read this blog before, you probably realize that I am obsessed with the old Christmas hymns, and while I am not musical (if I had ever learnt!) I love music, especially this time of year.  One thing I have learned about music is that there are both major and minor chords, if you play three notes to the chord on a piano for instance, the two outside notes are the same, only the inside note changes slightly but that makes all the difference.  Major chords sound happy and bold while the minor variation is sad, mysterious, deep, and haunting.  Think about the difference between 'Joy to the World' and 'What Child is This?' the former is mostly major chords, bold and triumphant and happy, while the latter is composed of many minor chords, full of mystery and enigma, haunting melodies and tinged with grief but certainly not hopeless, similar to many of my favorite carols: 'We Three Kings, God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen, O Come O Come Emmanuel...'

That's what the gospel gets right, that's one big reason it resonates with so many people through countless cultures and times: it reflects the reality to which they are accustomed, it fits the tale of life as they know it, save it introduces this strange thing called hope, along with love, peace, and joy beyond the world's understanding, but in pursuing that, it doesn't ignore the pain, the sorrow, the ugliness, the death of this current age.  The Gospel of the Modern West is rather: happiness now and always on my own terms.  And when we have pandemics, political upsets, supply chain problems, we don't have anywhere to turn or know what to do.  We've been told from our cradles that if we just elect the right person or pass the right laws or teach the right stuff everybody will be happy and prosperous and get along and if they don't, it must be a problem with the system, or education, or something, because we are owed happiness and if we don't get it, we have every right to complain and whine and even revolt.  But life isn't written in a major key, we can't write our own reality no matter how technologically advanced we become, yes there are songs and measures strong with major chords, but most of life is fraught with mystery, confusion, grief, and hurt.  We need a worldview big, broad, and deep enough to contain it all and provide an answer thereto, not just more empty promises of what life will be if we only do X or refrain from Y.

But even in the sorrow there is beauty, in the grief there is hope, there is depth and meaning and a future and purpose.  The best Christmas songs are those that regard not only the manger but also the cross, but they don't stop there, for easter morning looms brighter still.  So with those haunting melodies in mind, I leave you with these curious words, the little known latter verses of 'We Three Kings:'

"Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume 

breathes a life of gathering gloom; 

sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, 

sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Glorious now behold him arise; 

King and God and sacrifice: 

Alleluia, Alleluia, 

sounds through the earth and skies."