AuntieMame

I’m enjoying it a fair bit at this point. Adding television writers seems to have kept all of Gibson’s good points as a writer and lessened his bad points. Then again, I’m a sucker for time travel and this isn’t the usual fish out of water in the past fare. Flynn and her stub are key to history which is why some want to kill her and some want to save her. With the whole paradox thing of time travel and branched universes, you have to wonder if they accidentally created Flynn’s importance in the future. I guess we will see. They keep hinting at some kind of environmental catastrophe with the carbon scrubbers and the multiple bee extinctions and the drastically reduced population but aren’t giving us enough information. It seems that catastrophes keep the upper class and their habitats intact. The doctor villain in the future is genuinely unsettling and the actress must be having a great time playing her. I love what the costume designer is doing too. I could believe that this character is wearing future couture. That said, I do wish we would get just the tiniest bit of subtlety with both villains. Evil people are scary because of their ruthlessness and sadism, yes, but trying to reconcile contradictions in character, even in a bad person, is one of the things that makes evil so unsettling. When our future villain killed Aelita’s friend so viciously after saying she had always been fond of her it felt one note. As for Corbell, too many things just don’t make sense. He feels he’s saving the town by keeping the crime organized and contained, but his sadism runs away with him too. Why didn’t the biker villains try to take off the inner door panels and unlock the doors that way? Would have been bad news for little Jasper. I don’t think Jaspers wife betrayed Flynn. I think she is very well aware of Jasper’s weaknesses and plans accordingly. Im intrigued to learn more about Aelita and Wolfgang’s back story both before and after their reclamation from the Jackpot. I’m starting to really like Wilf/Wolf but fear he’s in a very tenuous position in terms of pretty much everyone. Can anyone comment on whether the book is worth reading? Reviews are mixed. Thanks.

Thank you for this, it out a smile on my face this early morning.

I love the giant statues too, but can’t imagine why they’re being built. Love the time travel aspect of the show because it is so mysterious. Those people from the future need something in/from the past and it is an existential level need or they wouldn’t be going to this kind of trouble. I’m very interested to find out what world changing event has forced them into the past for a fix. The show is gorgeous visually. I’m definitely on board, though I hate waiting for each week’s episode; I live to binge.

Agreed, exceptions can be made and we’re all products of our own historical moment and our art and entertainment will reflect that. I just don’t think every exception has to be made. In truth it was almost impossible to be a middle class Victorian woman who was alone in the world unless you had an inherited income sufficient to meet necessary expenses. I would just choose different exceptions. Of course we want to see Eliza and William together and that wouldn’t have been socially acceptable. But I would like to see some of the real difficulties any woman trying to make her own living or start a business would face, especially as she wasn’t allowed free movement through the world. There are ways to balance fun and exactitude. Speaking of fun, I’m looking forward to next week’s episode and Mrs. Parker does the Victorian version of The Bachelor with Eliza on background checks. I’m expecting that to turn up another mystery that needs solving.

I don’t think the show would have to be necessarily less enjoyable if these things were a bit more realistically portrayed. As it stands, it looks like women of that era (and thus any era) had it easy and all they had to do was do things differently. This does a disservice to everyone, especially younger viewers who truly might not have the knowledge to identify the anachronisms. I hated Kate Winslet giving the finger to another character in Titanic and I know that was blockbuster fun. In Titanic though, the inaccuracy that really got me was the character assassination of Lightoller, a hero several times over, first the night Titanic sank, than WWI, finally dying during WWII rescuing stranded soldiers from Dunkirk. These kind of anachronisms matter because they lessen the character and deeds of truly great individuals.

Agreed. I noticed the drinking in a bar to tail a person and walking around unattended at night. Even middle class Victorian women were escorted most of the time, at the very least by a servant, especially at night. When Eliza was following the museum lady I scoffed that both of them were walking around Victorian London at night without anyone. No woman other than a prostitute would have been in a pub, especially the rough kind. These are some of the iron clad conventions that made life so difficult for the trailblazing women of that time, but it doesn’t mean that they flouted all of them directly, especially the ones that could reflect on the perception of their purity. These women had to choose their battles and where and how they rebelled very carefully. This is the era where disobedient women were packed off to the madhouse if they weren’t very careful indeed. I enjoy this show for what it is, but I would love a show that depicted a Victorian woman trying to navigate the minefield of sexism and convention. That would show us our true history. This amounts mostly to fluff and propaganda. Though I do think the Duke is handsome. I also liked the bookending of Mrs. Parker at the beginning and end of the episode and how it sets up the next mystery. Clever.

There were many Victorian women doing interesting things and fighting the slings and arrows of society. I don’t think anyone is denying that, but the accusations of anachronism, especially in Eliza’s pugnacious and often downright rude behavior is a fair criticism of the writing. Contemporary women would hesitate to be this rude.

I’m looking forward to more too. I read William Gibson back in the day and while cyber punk hasn’t remained a favorite sub genre, this show is striking a balance between nostalgia and contemporary that’s working for me so far. Makes me want to pull Mona Lisa Overdrive off the shelves. I wish they let us know more about why gaming is monetizeable for players and what it takes to be good at it when one of Gibson’s main themes was that it took a toll on the physical body and that mortality always won despite illusions to the contrary. Definitely willing to stick with this one for a bit.

Maybe! Let’s hope so. Most of the writing is just so good with this show and the acting is stellar. Gives me another reason to look forward to summer. Hey, is anyone else watching anything they’re liking? I’m open to any recommendations.

https://deadline.com/2022/10/p-valley-renewed-season-3-starz-1235150177/amp/ We are getting Season 3! Whoopity! Very happy about this.

This plot point just confuses me, even when it is explained. What is the connection to the rest of the events? And why aren’t people gossiping more about it? Two murdered/suicided corpses would be huge news in a community like that and the questions about how they got there would bring the talk to turbo levels.

Homophobia on the part of society I absolutely agree with you. But a fair bit of the criticism back in the day tried to spin Rice as homophobic and I never agreed with that given the intense love between many of her same sex characters.

Just that this isn’t how Rice wrote it in the novels. This is compare and contrast the novels and the new show. In Rice’s books the vampires lose functional physical sexuality as part of the nature and price of vampirism. It was interpreted as homophobic which never sat right with me even when I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to say why. The show is interpreting this differently.

Oh man, thank you. You’ve made my day. The Talamasca of the Mayfair witches and of the Vampire Chronicles is the same organization just at different points in time and different members and leaders characterized. It’s hinted a couple of times that the Talamasca has a hidden agenda of which most of the members are unaware. I’d love to see this explored. I understand that sexuality is multifaceted and that mind body dualism is a continuing ideological evil in terms of how humans think of themselves and order their world. Rice’s point was that sexuality is definitive of life whether generative or pleasurable emotionally or physically and was thus inimical to vampires. Rice also hinted that this loss was the price of immortality and the other vampiric gifts. Like I said, I thought it was an interesting idea even though back in the day she was criticized as it being homophobic. It wasn’t my intention to say that sex was only reproductive or didn’t have other components or deny the realities of human anatomy or physiology. I thought that all of these things were assumed as a given by other adults.

I can’t quite decide whether to be excited or nervous about this. Because I love the source material both the 1988 movie and the epistolary novel. A series that went in depth and had time to really explore the characters would be amazing. I like the idea of exploring the original romance of the Marquis de Merteuil and Valmont. The Marquis’s self-invention could be shown too. How cool would that be? However, the possibility of ruination exists too. Ah well, I’ve ignored other bad adaptations, I’m just hoping this won’t be one of them.

When are we expecting this? I thought the idea for Daisy Jones was amazing as I adore epistolary novels and created documents. Alas, the execution was the tiniest bit mundane IMO but I will still check it out as I really like TJR and lived The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Does anyone know a timeframe for release?

Turning an older person is Rice canon. David, the head of the Talamasca was turned in the books, I believe at the end of Tale of the Body Thief. Becoming a vampire at that age removes ill health and aging and emphasizes the good points of every stage in life. Experience and wisdom and the good looks of that age would be in absolute ascendance. I think it might be a great time to be turned as you would have the potential for both the height of human and vampiric wisdom. Speaking of the Talamasca, I always thought that was a rich vein of unexplored story in Rice’s work as it stands. Much is hinted but only tantalizing glimpses are given. If this becomes a series of long standing I would be thrilled beyond all measure to have new Talamasca material wedded to the old. Aging Claudia up does ruin the tragedy of her. There isn’t any way around that, but as others have pointed out, there isn’t an easy way for a child actress to channel that tragedy easily. So far I’m happy with the reboot and think it is mostly true to the spirit of the works. Louis’s race was indeterminate in the books and the homoerotic subtext of the books was commented on even in the seventies and eighties. One change I do find interesting (and a bit disappointing) is that the vampires can consummate sex when they couldn’t in the books. The idea was that genitals are, well generative and that vampires are creatures of death and lost their generative abilities even as a source of pleasure. For Rice’s vampires it was all spiritual passion and romantic longing. This idea has been criticized over the years but I thought it was logical and clever, especially in works that another poster described as “high-toned”. A better description might be prose so over the top purple that a seventh grader on crack writing their first breathless slash fiction blushes at some of the excesses. Rice has always been mega-conflicted about her congenital Catholicism. In the first part of her career she was a critical lapsed Catholic that seemed agnostic. Then she had a late midlife re-conversion and disavowed her entire trashy body of work and publicly announced that she would have no truck with vampires or witches any longer and wrote (bad) books about Jesus and angels. Then about ten years ago she went back to a spiritual agnosticism and back to her roots. If I had to guess I think that apologetics on the reason for evil just don’t work for her no matter how hard she tries to make it so. I make fun of Rice’s prose and much of it is pretty bad, but I was handed a copy of The Vampire Lestat by a bar customer as a seventeen year old barmaid. I remember reading it in my fifth floor attic walk up in bed with minimal heat and the descriptions of the wonders of the modern world and Lestat the French aristocrat turned rock star vampire enchanted me and beat back the cold, fear and loneliness of my actual circumstances. I was still young enough to be a reader who loved both the ridiculous and the sublime and read across every genre and the classics with joy and without judgment. I still remember looking out at the snow on the fire escape and deep dormer windows and diving back into my bed and Lestat’s wolf hunt in his freezing winter and for that I bless Rice a little.

Male society doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth of the numbers regarding every form of sexual crime. The reason female offenders are so well known is because they are anomalies. I’m having trouble suspending any kind of disbelief to even watch this on it’s own terms. First, males are a minority in prostitution (less than 20 percent) and when they’re there it is other males they’re servicing(over 95 percent) and the percentage of males is skewed heavily (as with women) to underage teenagers. It isn’t women whom male prostitutes serve. Certainly not rich beautiful women. Women don’t have to buy sex, no, not even middle aged women whom society says are ugly and worthless. Even for them “sex” as defined here, is always available. This is some sort of bizarre male fantasy and it isn’t even interesting to watch. If we were prurient enough to want a show about prostitution that wasn’t some sort of bizarre sex work Cinderella fable trying to normalize the global sex trade, why not follow a teenage girl trafficked into the trade? Or if we’re showing a straight male, why not show him having to service gay men against his inclination? That’s what prostitution is: sex that the sex worker doesn’t want. I’m assuming because those truths would make viewers uncomfortable rather than titillated into accepting sex work as anything other than human trafficking. This doesn’t even work as propaganda for the sex trade or as a lame attempt to try and convince people that women are sexual predators of the same kind and in the same numbers as men. PS - Why isn’t the main character suing for wrongful prosecution and imprisonment? At the very least he should have lawyers all over him looking for a piece of the pie. Especially since his confession was forced. That isn’t the kind of thing treated as casually as depicted and it might be covered up rather than the prisoner released. The detective isn’t facing any repercussions? Are ex-cons in high demand as gigolos for rich women? Just nothing to get ahold of to even enter the story. Definitely a contender for the raspberry awards. Failed propaganda and clearly the writers can’t even manage to google some basic information about the global sex trade.

Here’s a pretty good article both on the docuseries and explaining that none of these folks are anarchists. https://www.wired.com/story/the-anarchists-hbo-docuseries-finale-anarchapulco/amp

I have serious objections to any of these people being called Anarchists from a political, philosophical or ethical point of view. What these people are are Libertarians with a smattering of Randian Objectivism. Not the same thing at all. True anarchism believes strongly in the principle of Mutual Aid, just for starters. I did a bit of further reading on the Acapulco group and they referred to themselves as Anarcho-Capitalists with heavy emphasis on the capitalism side of the hyphen. The anarchist side of the hyphen means “no rules”, a serious misreading of anarchism. The anarchy part was a veil to hide the truth of their childish desires which were basically: “I want to get as rich as possible and not be bothered by ethics or the fact of other people’s existence and I don’t want any big meanie mommies or daddies trying to tell me what to do. So there!” I think they thought “I’m escaping the oppression of the state” just sounded better, all philosophical and stuff. In complete agreement with those who said John and Lily were dealing for income and probably branched out from pot which seems to be a gray area with the cartel. They were definitely on meth. I’ve seen too many people with those facial sores to ever mistake it again. Thanks for the answer on John’s murder that it was the cartel. That makes the most sense but it makes me wonder why Lily was so adamant naming Paul. Did she think she was covering her own ass by steering opinion away from the cartel? Or was she just that angry at Paul? Is it awful that even though I felt enormous compassion for Lily I didn’t think she was a very good person? And even now that she’s clean I still don’t think she’s a great person?

I rewatched something of the sections with him and I think you’re right and that was what I was reacting to with him. I love his grandma in fact between his grandma and John’s grandma I think we should have rule by the abuelas. Think what a good world that would be.

And why not? Snakes LARPing Christians and other religious types generally make good money off of the gullible, the devout, other snakes and everything in between. Religion has always been a good money maker and access to power for the unscrupulous.

Well, there was the whole fairytale prince aspect to the entire thing that must have mitigated the “inbred mouth breather” aspect of the proceedings. But your point is well taken, at 19 men in their early thirties seemed impossibly antiquated to me. Then again, Diana is a Lady and raised in the aristocracy and bred to believe that aristocrats are truly better than their lessers and that royalty is better still. This would have been an assumption so deeply rooted as to not even be articulated much less examined. At nineteen she might have been thrilled by the honor and not able to examine the con side of the list, even when the royal family made it clear that her role was virginal breeder, preferably a silent breeder. I loved the way they did this because it really did make the viewer examine the events in sequence and almost without later knowledge intruding. I’m sure Diana could be a complicated handful but as someone who was manipulated and done wrong at the same tender and naive age, I’ve always maintained that everyone, everyone was in on the joke except Diana. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. It seems the contemporary equivalent of throwing a sacrificial virgin into a volcano.

Thank you!! I was astounded at the naïveté of the film maker who seemed to believe that she and John had nothing to do with drug dealing, no siree Bob. We ain’t doin’ no drugs or dealing no drugs. When both of them had those gross meth sores all over their faces and Lily looked to be less than a hundred pounds. I know during some of this she was prostrate with grief and shock and the continuing trauma of running for her life with a seriously injured man and that didn’t help, but the evidence of heavy drug use was all over her body before John’s murder. And what charges made them fugitives? That would be correct. Drug charges. Has nobody heard of discretion? Who packs up a car with paraphernalia and supposedly “spent” weed meant for the compost pile while sporting a personal style that practically screams ‘I’m a druggie with a half-assed douchebag philosophy and other antisocial tendencies” for an interstate move? The guy didn’t deserve to be shot, but the stupidity and narcissism of all of these people just floored me. That said, who do you think did the murder? Paul or the cartel? I could go either way on this but tend towards the cartel. Was anyone else surprised by how nonchalantly the Freemans admitted to dealing with the Cartel to supply the conference with drugs? That kind of surprised me. I wonder how you open that subject with the luxury hotel concierge or conference manager. I’m sure they snickered up their sleeves at first but they were useful idiots in terms of bringing money into the city. The moronic aspects of these people, all of them, not to mention the narcissism and absolute selfishness continues to astonish. For starters, they aren’t anarchists philosophically or ethically. That would require some passing familiarity with actual anarchist philosophers like Emma Goldman or Kropotkin or at a stretch Fourier. These folks are half-baked Objectivist Libertarians and even that classification gives selfish assholery a dignity it doesn’t deserve. The Freemans named their kid Axiom? Just wow. Why not just tattoo “your parents are navel gazing narcissists who hate you” on the kid and be done with it? I did enjoy watching this in a witnessing something terrible way, but I went in thinking I was going to watch something about actual philosophical anarchism. Imagine my surprise. These people are nothing but money grubbers with various mental health issues, a taste for drugs and a belief in the principle of rules for thee but not for me. I couldn’t understand why they felt so unfree when in fact most of them seem to be some of the most free people in the history of humanity. I feel a bit like I rubbernecked at the site of a fatal car crash. I predict that “Lily” will develop into a zealous reformed addict with a do as I say ethos. PS - Did anyone else get a very weird vibe from that Mexican guy she took up with after John’s death? Something felt off there. Just me?

Just a quick point regarding women actually owning our own bodies and full reproductive and bodily sovereignty vis a vis the FLDS. It isn’t just the FLDS by a long shot. I live in the Mormon Corridor (long story and I’m oftentimes bemused by the strange twists life takes) and I can name a dozen women of my acquaintance who had babies and were married off by 17. Not just LDS either because the church runs the government and society around here. You are affected no matter what your personal beliefs. God the disillusionment when ADOS women discover that white men are just men and they aren’t treated any better as a class. The underlying assumptions are worse too because women who looked like you were chattel slaves not that long ago and no woman owns her own body even before Roe fell. Urph. I have to go face my day. Not looking forward to it. More this evening. I’m enjoying our talk so much. Thank you @Scarlett45