J A N E T I L I T Y

I’m not a rabid mystery fan, but I confess — I’ve got a soft spot for the English murder mystery.  You know, the kind that takes place all within a quiet village, or a big manor house.  I have a morbid appreciation for how completely civilized everyone can act after a horrible murder.  This is probably because I’m also a huge weenie; too often now-a-days, mysteries edge too close into thriller territory for my taste, asking not only who the murderer is, but why, exactly, he ate the victims eyeballs.  It makes you really appreciate a little old lady who can calmly discuss the possibility that someone set the victim up to be murdered, and then politely inquire whether she might have some cheese and biscuits.

One lump or two? Now then, garroted, you say? Most unpleasant.

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I think I’ve said before, there’s times when you see an actor in something, and they’re just so perfect they get cemented in that role for all time.  No matter what else they do, or how good they are, they’re always going to be that other character to you.  Or maybe not ‘you’.  Could be just ‘me’; I have a tendency to stereotype people cause it’s so much easier than getting to know them as individuals.

That’s the case with me and Joss Ackland.  I don’t know the gentleman personally, but I’m sure he’s good and kind and helps little old ladies across the street, and lord knows he’s been in everything.  Trouble is, a couple of years ago I saw him in Hogfather, the BBC adaptation of the novel of the same name, where he played Ridcully, the blustering head of Discworld’s top (and only) wizard university.  As a huge fan of Terry Pratchett’s books, Ackland was exactly how I pictured Ridcully.  Which means, as effective as he is as the tyrannical head of the Barrett clan, I’m always wondering where his pointy hat is.

Hat = wizard, wizard = hat. Everything else is frippery.

Also his hair is a bit silly.

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My first introduction to Elizabeth Barrett-Browning came through the Baby-sitter’s Club books.  Specifically, Babysitter;s Club #8, Boy-Crazy Stacey, where Stacey (the diabetic New Yorker) and Mary Ann (the shy one) are on vacation with the huge Pike clan as mothers helpers, except Stacey falls hard for a lifeguard (who’s in college, I think, ooooo….) and basically ditches Mary Ann to take care of the forty Pike children by herself.  Anyway, early on in the book everyone heads to Burger Garden and there’s a rush to see who doesn’t have to sit with Vanessa, the aspiring poet who rhymes every single sentence.  ”No one,” explains big sister Mallory, “wants to sit with Elizabeth Barrett-Browning.”  It then has to be explained to aspiring poet Vanessa that Elizabeth Barrett-Browning is a famous poet.  Of course, this only strikes me as weird now.

Except that these books are awesome.

Greetings, Internet, and Happy December!  Welcome to the final installment in our Richard Chamberlain month.  Months are now six weeks long, by the way.

Once more, I learned about this one from Mom, who, in addition to making the best pasta fagioli ever, in the history of mankind, is apparently a walking encyclopedia of Richard Chamberlain movies.  (The secret is to use a soup bone.)

Also, Mom, you still need to send me that recipe.

The Woman I Love is a short look at the famous (or infamous, depending on who’s telling it) story of Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII.  They met, they fell in love, they wanted to get married — and what might have been a very ordinary romance was complicated by the fact that Edward was heir to the throne, and then king of, England.  And Wallis was a twice-divorced American commoner, who was still technically married when they met — which is a big deal, you guys.  If you can accept that Lydia Bennett running off with Wickham is a big deal — other than the fact that she is sixteen, and he is apparently into teenagers — then you can accept the fact that Wallis is an American and a commoner and divorced is a huge problem.  Any one of those things would probably cause friction.

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The Three Musketeers is on of those stories that I don’t really know, I just pretend to on TV.   I there’s Athos, Porthos, and Aramis — which basically sucks all of the tension out of the end of Slumdog Millionaire — and also D’Artangan, who the story is really about (right?).  And I’ve seen the Chris O’Donnell version a couple times, mostly of a giggly girl-night in college, but the story never stuck because about twenty minutes in we’d start making Batman and Robin jokes and try to figure out when Keifer Sutherland was going to turn into a vampire.

Maggots, D'Artagnan. You're eating maggots.

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