The Last Ship: A review
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The Last Ship: A review

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Review of THE LAST SHIP on TNT.

I am a Navy brat, let me get that out of the way immediately. My father was career Navy. He served on several submarines: the George Washington, the Benjamin Franklin. He served on one of the old pig boats, too–and anyone who knows what that means can email me directly and ask which one. When my dad was done with subs, he served on a destroyer. My dad was career Navy and I am a Navy brat, got that?

I am also a red-blooded woman. Yep, I appreciate eye candy, aka HOT GUYS. And isn’t Eric Dane just SMOKIN’ HOT?! Ohmigod. Eric Dane in a uniform is like…oh, skip the first two bases and go directly to a home run. Ok? I mean, Wow.  The man is hot. Have I mentioned that Eric Dane in a uniform is hot? Hot like, wore out my vibrator, wore out my right hand, started in on my left….

So this series started out with two features strongly in its favor, concerning me: it revolves around a US Navy ship, and it stars Eric Dane, ohmigod. This show couldn’t have hit more of my buttons IF IT TRIED. Oh please. Somewhere, Sigmund Freud, that old misogynist, is chortling in his grave.

But it wasn’t Eric Dane’s hotness that got me to buy a season pass to Season 2 on my Apple TV. Nope, it was the fact that this TV show is very well written, with intriguing 3 dimensional characters and plot lines that grab you by the throat and keep you hooked. The action is AMAZING and exciting and I can’t WAIT to see what happens in the next episode. I care about all the characters and about the US Nathan James.

The Apocalypse has happened and one lone US Navy ship is fighting to save the world. What stronger premise could there be?

“Mom, this sounds like something you wrote,” said the Munchkin.

Yeah ok, I am post-apocalyptic, as an author.

So, watch this show, OK? Buy a season pass on iTunes. It’s GREAT!

The Last Ship

 

 

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Delicious Girl Porn: CW’s Beauty and The Beast
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Delicious Girl Porn: CW’s Beauty and The Beast

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Imagine eating a Mallomar cookie. It gives itself over to you on your tongue, surrendering utterly, melting into sublime marshmallow and chocolate mush. It’s so gooey and rich and sweet that you can’t stop with just one. You sort of hate yourself while devouring the next five, but you’re also secretly exulting in the vice.

I am, of course, talking about CW’s Beauty and the Beast, starring Kristin Kreuk and Jay Ryan, both of whom are utterly gorgeous and drool-worthy.

During the long hours of posing for Sabin at night, I’ve Netflixed a lot of TV shows. I don’t like TV much, in general, so finding shows I enjoy is a challenge. There’ve been some fun surprises. I enjoyed The 4400 and Continuum. I really grooved on White Collar. I have a running daydream about my second career as an art thief. Art thieves get to wear sleek black leather catsuits, use all the coolest gadgets, and go into great museums at night, when no one is around to disturb them. Also, do you realize, they search you when you enter the Pinacoteca Vaticano, but they don’t search you when you leave? If you can get that superb little Fra Angelico panel under your shirt, you might be able to keep it!

Last week Netflix suggested Beauty and the Beast, and I started watching. It took me a few episodes to get engrossed. Then, suddenly, without my even realizing it, I was hooked.

It’s all that gazing into each other’s eyes and talking about their relationship. The desire and the longing, the stolen kisses and murmured declarations of eternal love. The intensity of their oft-thwarted passion–and how they discuss it endlessly. Oh, lordy, my girly heart swoons at all that flowery verbiage. I just can’t help it.

No one’s picking up anyone’s dirty socks, which strikes me as highly romantic.

A few nights ago, as Catherine and Vincent dissolved into each other’s arms in a ravishing tangle of beautiful limbs, I sighed. “They’re going to do it,” I cried, clasping my hands to my chest. “They’re finally going to do it!”

“You’re such a girl,” said my husband, rolling his eyes.

“You noticed?” I responded.

He groaned.

This is the man who phoned last week, disgruntled after a long day’s work on a business trip, and declared, “I’m going to eat, poop, and go to sleep!”

“That’s so romantic,” I replied. I mean, you’d think the world’s greatest living figurative artist could muster something a little less pedestrian, right? But I guess all men have a bit of the beast in them.

“I’m not feeling very romantic,” he muttered. I understood that he was tired and that he hates to sleep apart from me and that he travels because the money is good on these gigs. In their own way, his commitment and hard work as a husband and family man bespeak grown up romance. I reminded myself of all of that.

Still, it would have been nice to hear something throaty and suggestive and oozing with ardor. But that’s what TV is for, right?

Last night, after an extended bit of dialogue during which Catherine and Vincent once again affirmed their abiding love and passion, Sabin threw down his sculpting tool. “I can’t take that show anymore!” He stalked out of the bedroom where we work. We were almost done with our third hour of work, and it was after 10 pm,  so it was a good time to finish for the night, anyway.

LISTEN TO THIS BLOGPOST AS A PODCAST HERE.

 

 

Marvelous Discovery: FOYLE’S WAR on Netflix
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Marvelous Discovery: FOYLE’S WAR on Netflix

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At night, after working all day and then tending to my little one and organizing dinner and cleanup, I pose for my husband, classical figurative sculptor Sabin Howard. This entails sitting and holding a particular expression and gesture while he sculpts.

It’s work, not play, trust me. And it takes forever. We’ve been working on this head for almost a year.

Whiling away the hours has turned me into a Netflix aficionado. I started with 24, and watched all 8 seasons. I went through Grey’s Anatomy (really gets lame as the seasons wind on) and The X Files (despite my obsession in the 1990’s, some episodes are tedious).

Recently, I watched The 4400 and White Collar, both fun shows. White Collar features an art thief/con man who works with an FBI agent to solve crimes. Since I secretly want to be an art thief when I grow up, I got hooked on this show immediately. Sabin stopped sculpting to watch an episode with me about sculpture forgery. There was some chitchat about Bernini while authenticating a sculpture that had Sabin grinning.

Then last night I stumbled upon an intelligent, suspenseful British historical crime drama called Foyle’s War. It’s set in England during WW2. After two years of research for novels I am writing set during that period, I can tell you: this show gets the details right!

It’s an impressive show. It’s fascinating to see how the moral complexity of individual lives plays out against the larger backdrop of the war, which was a war without any moral complexity at all: Nazi murderous, racist, unbounded aggression was simply wrong.

But individuals can seldom be depicted this way, strictly as saints or as demons. And so the people of that era who lived, who didn’t die one way or the other in the war, lived their lives with the richness and fullness of humanity–not with any false purity. They committed crimes, made mistakes, turned blind eyes, gave in to their worst impulses, took advantage, lied, cheated, and stole, the way people do, and have done since Cain and Abel, and always will do.

At the heart of this series is Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, a quiet man with a sterling moral center and a dedication to fly fishing. Other characters are also engaging: Sam, his girl Friday/chauffeur, and Foyle’s son, who has enlisted.

I recommend this show, and I look forward to watching more episodes as I perch on the small seat of a ladder and hold a lopsided smile, all for my husband’s sculpting.

 

 

3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN
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3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN

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3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN

My friend Gerda is not only a gifted healer and psychic, she is also a friend who understands. We have had this discussion many times, to whit: What are we doing on Earth? We don’t belong here. This place is crazy.

I maintain it is because of Chocolate. I was happily zipping around the cosmos as a gas being, all cool and free, when I approached a pretty little blue and white planet with its sticky astral plane, and someone waved a gooey piece of hazelnut-filled chocolate. BAM! I was caught, like a fly on glue paper.

“Oh, yes, chocolate,” Gerda sighs. “That would do it. Have you tried Milka?”

I am lucky there is someone else here from my unit…. And that 3rd Rock can still be seen on dvd. My children gifted me with seasons 1-4 for Christmas. I laugh and laugh watching it, the laughter of truth and understanding. The laughter of, when is my mission over, when do I get to go home?

Meantime, this planet is rich in pleasure. It wasn’t just chocolate that lured me here. There are also hugs from my children, swimming in a warm sea, lying in the sun, stretching into trikonasana, love-making, beautiful clothes, the scent of lilacs and white flowers in perfumes like DelRae’s Debut or Yosh’s White Flower, an old ripe amarone or brunello di montelcino (I’m partial to the 1997’s), sliding between clean, crisp sheets at night, Krishna Das rocking out to Hare Krishna, or the Dixie Chicks wrenching my heart with Landslide, walking through the Vatican Pinacoteca….

It’s worth it, even with all the accepted, institutionalized insanity, even with all the suffering and loss that come with this bipedal flesh bag with opposable thumbs and uncontrollable emotions. This mission is valuable in and of itself.