Denise Mina's version of Marlowe

Spoilers in my review.

The Second Murder by Denise Mina is pretty good. You can still make more reality of having gay people and competent women, social awareness. I find it richer to rewrite things with a modern sensibility. There’s still a feel of Marlowe.

Kittens only cabaret, men aren't invited. Putting Marlowe in the club and uncomfortable is genius. She makes a female PI, sort of like Enola Holmes. I really enjoyed Lidia Poet on Netflix. Putting people back into history that were present. The whole world is there, not just a slimmed down version. People are brave enough to proudly proclaim their twisted prejudices nowadays, but in the America I grew up in, they were slightly ashamed and hid their negative and narrow views.

I really liked Shelly Parker-Chan's book She Who Became The Sun, writing transgender experience into ancient China historical novel. Good writers don't make it feel programmatic, pushed it, it feels balanced, and accurate.

Makes me want to see the movies:

The Falcon Takes Over (1942) – (adaptation of Farewell, My Lovely with detective "The Falcon" substituting for Marlowe) George Sanders as The Falcon.
Time to Kill (1942) – (adaptation of The High Window with detective Michael Shayne substituting for Marlowe) Lloyd Nolan as Shayne.
Murder, My Sweet (1944) – (adaptation of [and released in the UK as] Farewell, My Lovely) Dick Powell as Marlowe.
The Big Sleep (1946) – Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe.
Lady in the Lake (1947) – Robert Montgomery as Phillip Marlowe ("Phillip" is spelled with two "l"s in this film.^[3])
The Brasher Doubloon (1947) – (adaptation of [and released in the UK as] The High Window) George Montgomery as Marlowe.
Marlowe (1969) – (adaptation of The Little Sister) James Garner as Marlowe. This became the partial inspiration for The Rockford Files, the other being the series Maverick.
The Long Goodbye (1973) – Elliott Gould as Marlowe.
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) – Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.
The Big Sleep (1978) – Robert Mitchum as Marlowe.
Marlowe (2022) – (adaptation of The Black-Eyed Blonde by Benjamin Black) Liam Neeson as Marlowe.

Honestly not sure the quality, probably should just read Chandler.

I wonder how Mina learned about midcentury LA from Glasgow 70 years later.

One mistake she makes, she uses "queue" which Americans and Marlowe would not have used. We use "line" (p. 192).

She even put in some incomprehensible and boring pages to copy Chandler.

In the end Marlowe gets drunk because a woman he's attracted to has a boyfriend, silly of him, but probably more realistic.

Manet and Degas

Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special. In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

Silo

This is a dark show that I'm reluctant to watch. Slow burn with reveals along the way. Lots of padding and important small details you have to pay attention to, which sometimes I don't because I'm looking at my phone. The TV competes with the phone. Either I'm playing chess, or another game, or surfing for news about my favorite soccer team NYCFC. They're supposed to sign some new players and can register them tomorrow, but the team usually doesn't do things in a timely way, they're messy. The first few episodes of the 10 episode first season are about the sherif and his wife, played by Rashid Jones . Then there's like a buffer action episode where the generator almost goes kaput. Then it becomes Longmire, a woman sheriff who doesn't know the protocols and rules, and doesn't care, she just wants truth and answers. Everyone lives in the Silo, it's huge and mysterious and you can't have relics, things from the past, that might clue you i...

Introduction

Robert B. Palmer's introduction to his translation of Walter F. Otto's Dionysus: Myth and Cult (p. ix-xi) Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas, Can ye listen in your silence? Can your mystic voices tell us Where ye hide? In floating islands, With a wind that evermore Keeps you out of sight of shore? Pan, Pan is dead. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING The Dead Pan W H E N Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote these lines which sound so pessimistic and so limited to any lover of the beauty and truth of Greek mythology, she had in mind a famous passage out of Plutarch's De Oraculorum defectu {Mor. 419 A-E) in which it was reported on good authority that Pan had died. But let Plutarch tell the story (Philip is speaking): As for death among such beings [i.e., deities], I have heard the words of a man who was not a fool nor an impostor. The father of...

Motley Kamuka

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