Halloween After-Action Report: Virtually kid-less, how’d you guys do? Are they all being kept out of sight somewhere? And now we’ve got all these Kit-Kat bars sitting around – half off.
Things picked up, Kid Wise, later in the evening as groups of teens gathered at various locations around the 24/680 and partied their All Hallows off. So far – some scrapes, definitely some First Hangovers, a dent or two in the family sedan but no serious damage to report. Hope yours made it back to you safely. A few were dropped off in Mom and Dad’s driveway.
Business Front: Signs of life. Faint pulse beats. There were some stealthy submergences going on with people quietly running up the white flag, packing the U-hauls and leaving town there for a while. But there’s some buzz about new endeavors and signs of hope on the bubble so we shall see what comes.
Politics: A prickly dog. Watching closely to see what develops on Election Day. Public interest appears superheated.
Highways and Byways: Lethal lately. We’ve had a series of crashes resulting in deaths or devastating injuries and we would hope there was some way to stop this but it appears that would be like asking the wind to stop blowing. For some inexplicable reason many among us are committed to racing hell-bent for leather from one place to another and all it takes is that one thing: a moment’s hesitation, an under-inflated tire, another driver edging into our lane – to set a catastrophe in motion.
Many accidents out there last night and while a couple of them seemed scary, we don’t believe anyone was seriously injured.
Arts & Culture: Well, there’s something growing behind the refrigerator we’ve been meaning to get to but that’s as close to active culture as we’ve gotten, lately, trying to remain characteristically aloof and mysterious and away from crowds and the bright lights of Broadway. Unabashed music and movie fans, we’ve been giving the home theater a workout, marveling yet again at what David Lean was able to create with Lawrence of Arabia and watching every Swedish murder mystery ever made.
Russian movies last month. And now we’re exploring Sweden, and all these bizarre crimes set in remote, really cold locations. Cranked up The Grapes of Wrath just to get warm, and fell in love with that great story all over again.
Our communication lines have been on fire as the readership checks in and it has been interesting to hear what you all have to say. We predict a minor cessation in that contact as Election Day nears and attention turns, deservedly, to the selection of our national leadership.
We’ll be here. And we’ll be listening. We’ve got a few things to work out and we’re as interested as you are to see which way things go.
What’s good? I’ve watched all of the Beck (Swedish) detective shows I haphazardly found, but I don’t seem to be very good at searching. It looks like Netflix has some stuff.
The genre is called Nordic Noir! Really sparse, flawed characters, usually built around detectives or journos (far better!) and beautiful settings. Fortitude was interesting and then the story arc died out. Bordertown (Finnish). Mammon (Norwegian).
Yeah, I love the Nordic landscapes. Noir indeed. My memories of Sweden go back to Seventh Seal and Max von Sydow, though the grim black and white deathscapes of that particular Bergman film are not what I’m looking for these days. Thanks for the tip.
You betcha. Definitely not Bergman…
The tension is killing me.