Writing was easy. All you had to do was follow the bouncing ball. The real trick was in finding the bouncing ball.
Worth Noodling Over
He read that male giraffes will butt female giraffes in their bladder until they urinate. The male will then taste the female’s urine to see if she’s ovulating.
Imagining how all that might have worked if humans had followed a similar course, he decided that he was glad that humans did not.
Sunday’s Wandering Thought
Reading an article online, he encountered an asterisk at the end of a sentence and scoured the rest of the page for why the asterisk was there. None was found.
He shook his head in disappointment, muttering something about the shortcomings in life being found in unexplained asterisks.
Taste. What I Watched – and Didn’t
Maybe it’s me. Oh, and my wife.
We’re not enamored with either the GOT or LOTR prequels. What are they called again?
We watched the maiden episodes of each of these new prequels. Yes, it’s but one episode of each which we watched. We had our own opinions about them. I’ll not interpret my wife’s thinking, but she was disappointed. I’ll say that I didn’t find anyone to root for in either. They threw so much at me, dangling storylines, trying to force tension while showering me with music and CGI, that it all elicited a weary shrug for me. Yes, it’s just one episode. Needs to grow on me, right? Give it time, right?
Right.
Much better in my mind were several other shows. One that we’re watching now is The Nevers on HBO MAX. It’s a compelling, twisted, and complicated science fiction fantasy speculative fiction beast. Terrific acting, excellent production values, tantalizing spoonfuls of past, present, and future possibilities are regularly dribbled out. We cheer for many on that show.
Second, one we finished, was Paper Girls on Prime. Those were four girls and young women which we enjoyed watching and cheering, with an intriguing and different take on time travel. It was a fascinating look at life as well, about what we try and hope to become, and what we share with the world. I hope the sophomore season is as entertaining as the first. Doesn’t always happen for us. Like The Boys. Loved year one. Year two did little for us.
Of course, some, like The Umbrella Academy and Stranger Things stayed strong for me. My wife didn’t feel the same with either one, as far as I know, but I don’t want to elaborate on that because I didn’t follow her reasoning.
Likewise, we didn’t enjoy Picard season two as so many did, but Strange New Worlds delivered a solid taste of the Star Trek franchise.
We know that taste is subjective. Need the truth of that? Talk to others about food and drink, like pizza and coffee. You’ll see.
Others will love these new series no matter what. Others will never ‘get them’. Like, as fer instance, I enjoyed The Sopranos but had friends who disliked the lying, killing, and violence. Justified always engaged me but friends and others dismissed it as a cowboy soap opera. Yeah, huh? Okay, maybe some, but it had smart dialogue and strong acting.
I also enjoyed the Dune series when it came out, but it didn’t stay with me the way that the novels did. Of course, I was a young and impressionable human when I read the books. Never at all got into the Foundation series. It was a strike out for me. Again, others loved it.
While I loved Game of Thrones and enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies, I’m dubious that prequels will ever surmount the favorites upon the top of my list, The Last Kingdom and The Expanse. That could change. Someone might bring out The Murderbot Diaries as a successful series. And I’d be interested in seeing how someone handles When Women Were Dragons.
While I’m at it, I’m bemused that Quantum Leap has been rebooted, and that The Sopranos have a prequel series. While I’m at it, did you hear of the Hulu show called Reboot about a reboot of a once popular show? Perry Mason has already been redone. Multiple Sherlock Holmes versions exist and compete. Magnum PI and Hawaii 5-0 were rebooted. What show is next? I doubt they can do I Love Lucy. It wouldn’t be the same without Lucy, would it, although they brought us Lucy. It’s all about finding something that satisfies and entertains. That’s a pretty hard task.
Now excuse me, it’s back to my novel writing for me. Cheers
The Writing Moment
She sidled in, cool eyes caressing me, mystery floating around her like a cloud of perfume. Sitting, the muse crossed her legs, an orchestra of graceful and deliberate, unhurried motion. No wasted notes, nothing extraneous. “You ready to do this?”
I nod, bewitched by her voice.
Black diamond eyes sparkling, her pale smile shifts with quicksilver fluidity. “Then begin.”
The muse can be so seductive. After nodding again, I started writing like crazy one more time.
Friday’s Wandering Thought
He loves face watching. Looking at children’s faces, he wonders what they’ll look like in thirty, forty, fifty years and what they’ll become. As he considers elderly faces, he looks for the youths they were, and thinks of the lives they may have lived. So many mysteries slumber in each face, waiting to be discovered.
Thursday’s Wandering Thought
He and his friends met for beers and conversation. As they raised glasses and clinked them against one another, he said, “I just learned that the reason people originally clinked glasses like that was because the sound was supposed to drive evil spirits away.”
“Really?” Another asked.
“Yes, apparently the Gods didn’t like people to have fun outside of celebrations of Gods, and would send evil spirits and demons or minions or something after them to stop them from having fun.”
“Huh,” several said.
“Yes,” he continued, “and I just learned that when I made it up.”
Wednesday’s Wandering Thought
He read a Reddit thread on the insanepeoplefacebook forum. It claimed, with this capitalization and punctuation, “MENSTRUATION ISN’T Natural. It’s a UNNATURAL response to improper dietary habits & toxic environment. ALL ESTROGENS are POISONOUS.”
WTH, he wondered. Do people honestly believe this? Where do they get their ideas? Or were they just posting this insanity to pull attention?
Either way, it was from a wholly different world than the one he inhabited. Of course, that’s why he read it: to see what people in this other world were saying, so he could try to understand them.
Mewsday’s Wandering Thought
His wife needed new shoelaces. Only one store in town sells replacement laces.
He realized that finding shouldn’t surprise him. When he was a child, it was commonplace to snap a shoelace, forcing imaginative knotting to keep your shoe tied. In these times, the shoes usually wore out before the laces. His wife’s laces were for new shoes; she wanted white laces instead of the stripped ones that came with her shoes. Yes, it is a little first world pain, isn’t it?
No, the store didn’t have the laces she needed.
Sunday’s Wandering Thought
He was tired of fake news. They claimed that no one had done a moonwalk since 1972. He knew that was bull. He saw Michael Jackson moonwalk on televsion in 1983.
Michael Seidel, writer 