Good Housekeeping, Vol. 1
Catching up on writing, watching, and reading
Perhaps you have not even noticed that I have been a little less prolific in sending out my weekly editions of Everything Is Broken these past few weeks or so. (For those who have noticed, thanks for noticing!) In any event, apologies to all of you who have grown to expect a regularly-scheduled letter from me in your inbox. I take my commitment here seriously, and I can’t wait to recommit to this. My main excuse or explanation, if you are looking for one, is that I have been drawn back into working on my book about George Harrison. (For those of you who are not aware that I am writing a book about the Beatles late guitarist and songwriter, who enjoyed a fabulous solo career beyond the short eight-year life of the Fab Four, and/or for those who need reminding, I wrote a bit about it here.)
I am in the near-final stages of revising and fine-tuning the manuscript, as well as assembling a host of collateral documentation too boring to describe in any detail. (It puts me to sleep just thinking about it.) To use that overworn cliché, I can see the light at the end of the manuscript tunnel, which is very exciting. There will be one or two more tunnels to pass through after this one, but I don’t think they will require nearly as much focused time and energy as what I have been facing these past couple of months and will continue to be working on for the next few weeks.
So thanks for bearing with me, and please know that I look forward to nothing more than putting Harrison and the Beatles aside for awhile and turning my attention to other topics and subjects, here in my Substack and more generally in my writing (and non-writing) life.
I did steal a day a week ago to write a piece about novelty singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett—who passed away last week—for The Forward. It turns out there was a surprisingly kosher side to the late artist—even if his idea of paradise involved the consumption of very non-kosher cheeseburgers. You can read my appreciation, “The Secret Jewish History of Jimmy Buffett,” on the Forward’s website.
In the evenings, after my days immersed in all-things-George-Harrison, I have been enjoying watching some of my beloved Scandic-noir TV series. I subscribe to a little-known streaming service called MHz, which features TV programming from around the globe. I’m a big fan of the Nordic noir genre, and MHz has tons on offer. I binged three seasons of a Norwegian program called Aber|Bergen, set in the western Norway city of Bergen (which I visited this past June). It’s based at a small, family-run boutique law firm, where the internal dynamics at the firm are as fascinating as the cases they represent in court, set against a background of city politics and business lousy with corruption.
I have been on a Finnish kick these last couple of weeks. Finland is not part of Scandinavia and Finns are not Scandinavians, but they nevertheless make great, intriguing crime shows and police procedurals. Enemy of the People views crime and corruption from the vantage point of a young, investigative journalist who risks her life and well-being in the service of exposing a conspiracy that touches all segments of society, including politics, business, law enforcement, and even her own newspaper. And I’m partway into the first season of another Finnish show, Freezing Embrace, set in the police department of a medium-size city, where the cops are trying to outwit and catch a serial killer who may be part of a decades-old conspiracy, while they themselves are bogged down by intramural squabbling. All these programs feature terrific acting, flawed if not compromised heroes, and titillating elements of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. It all provides a great release after a long day sitting in front of the computer.
Oh, probably my all-time favorite portrayal of a Finnish police officer — or any detective anywhere — can be found in Bordertown, in which actor Ville Virtanen plays detective inspector Kari Sorjonen, an officer gifted with near-psychic intuition and unorthodox investigative methodology that allow him to be a super-solver of crimes in a small town which unaccountably has more than its fair share of law-breaking and corruption. The show is currently streaming on Netflix.
I only watch these shows on nights when the Mets are not playing or when I cannot bear to see them lose another game. But I watch almost every game, and I have already written about this bad habit. And lately, the Amazins are starting to show flashes of … amazingness, especially with a batch of new, young players, many just up from the minors, who make up about half the lineup every night.
And then, when I am totally done with screens for the day, if my eyes allow me, I hunker down in bed to read. At the moment I am in the grip of Polish Nobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob. The book is about one-thousand pages long, but it reads like a page-turner, even though it is a work of (beautifully researched) historical fiction, set mostly in 18th-century Poland (with bits taking place in Turkey and other nearby countries), and based on the historical figure of Jacob Frank, a Polish Jew who threw much of the Eastern European Jewish world into turmoil when he gathered up a following of thousands who believed him to be the Messiah. It’s not light reading, and the length might be intimidating to some, but I strain to stay awake late into the night as I find it enthralling, entertaining, and provocative.
I actually had planned to read James Joyce’s Ulysses for the first time, speaking of intimidating books, but after reading the first ten pages or so, I got waylaid by The Books of Jacob. I still plan to get to Ulysses before too long.
What are you reading? What are you watching? Please leave your recommendations by clicking on the “Leave a Comment” button below.
Until next time ….
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Roll Call: Founding Members
Anne Fredericks
Anonymous (5)
Erik Bruun
Benno Friedman
Richard Koplin
Steve and Helice Picheny
Rhonda Rosenheck
Elisa Spungen and Rob Bildner/Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook
Julie Abraham Stone
Mary Herr Tally
If you'll excuse the absence of umlauts, you and I are dopplegangers. Before Substack, I wrote about "Sorjonen" and other European noir from MhZ and elsewhere for an online video mag. During spring and summer, we cut down our show-watching when the Mets are playing, and also are delighted that in the absence of a playoff race, the new young Mets are starting to jell as the core of next season and beyond.
For a unique read, “The Phone Box (U.S.= Booth) At The Edge of The World.” It’s a zen masterpiece that you can’t put down. I don’t usually read this type of novel and was prepared to dismiss the recommendation, but I read the first 29 pages and was hooked.