Ekaterina (TV)

IMDB

Ekaterina (TV): 2014 Russian TV series on rise of Catherine the Great. Straightforward melodrama. Easy introduction to Ivan VI, Elizabeth, and Catherine and Peter III, St Petersburg's palaces and 18th century palace intrigues. Perfect preparation for a Russian vacation. C+

POTD: William Ricketts Sanctuary

From 2018 03 15 Melbourne

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the William Ricketts Sanctuary in the Victorian Dandenong Ranges in Australia. There, on a peaceful hillside nestled among towering mountain ash, from 1934 until his death in 1993, sculptor William Ricketts fashioned 92 ceramic sculptures of native fauna and flora, Aborigines and himself. Ricketts was an eccentric and a narcissist. He was an environmentalist with a New-Age spiritual attitude towards nature. He often shows himself as an Aborigine in his sculptures and in one case shows his own torso growing out of a kangaroo's hindquarters. In the 1930s, his was one of the few voices celebrating Aboriginal culture in Australia. He was ahead of his time, but today, his treatment of Aboriginal culture as primitive and childlike is considered as much condescending as ennobling. In any case, his heart was in the right place and his sanctuary remains a treasured retreat from the hustle and bustle of nearby Melbourne.

Review: Embassytown

Amazon

From Embassytown, by China Miéville:

Hosts, the indigenes, in whose city we had been graciously allowed to build Embassytown, were cool, incomprehensible presences. Powers like subaltern gods, which sometimes watched us as if we were interesting, curious dust; which provided our biorigging; and to which the Ambassadors alone spoke."

Embassytown is classic science fiction with something to say about Earth by imagining what language, consciousness, communication and colonization might be like at the edge of the universe.

POTD: Sculling on the Yarra

From 2018 03 15 Melbourne

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Yarra River in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia, where they have been sculling for at least 100 years.

POTD: The Yarra River

From 2018 03 15 Melbourne

The "old" North Bank CBD

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Melbourne, Australia. It shows the Yarra River at night. When I lived in Melbourne over forty years ago, the Yarra River was an industrial blight, flowing between rail lines on one bank and factories and warehouses on the other. Today, the Yarra River is the center of Melbourne entertainment and dining. The warehouses are all gone, replaced by a convention center, a casino, condos, offices, and restaurants all along the river through the central business district. By far, this change is the most noticeable difference from the Melbourne I remember from my time living there in the 1970s.

Bonus photo after the jump.

Tig Notaro: Happy to Be Here (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes

Tig Notaro: Happy to Be Here (2018): Netflix standup routine, again based on stories from her life, but this time small, everyday pleasures: her kitten, her wife, her adopted twins, her life. It's time for a smile. Tig brings it. B+

POTD: The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant

From 2018 03 15 Melbourne

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne has the world's largest tram network, including some classic old cars converted into rolling restaurants. There's no better way to see Melbourne than while dining in a moving streetcar with vintage decor.

Bonus photos after the jump.

POTD: Deer Park High School

From 2018 03 15 Melbourne

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Deer Park High School in Melbourne, Australia. In yesterday's photo of the day, I mentioned that I might have ridden one of Dallas's McKinney Avenue trolleys when it was still rolling the streets of Melbourne long ago. Today's photo explains what I was doing in Melbourne way back then: teaching high school maths in Deer Park High School. This year, on my first return trip in over forty years, I revisited the school. As expected, no one I knew then is still at the school. The last teacher I served with retired only a couple of years ago. Still, good memories.

POTD: Tram Down Under

From 2018 03 15 Melbourne

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Appropriately for the land Down Under, it's a photo of a classic tram car emerging from the ground as if it's coming from the land up top. Maybe it's an homage to Amarillo's Cadillac Ranch from a city that values mass transit over gas guzzlers.

POTD: Whales!

From 2018 01 31 Cabo San Lucas

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In winter each year Humpback Whales and Gray Whales migrate south to the warm waters off Baja California where they cavort for tourists like us.

Bonus photos after the jump.