Friday Flashback: Rec. #228: The Daughter of Time

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: First of all, the title. You know the saying "Truth is the daughter of time" (credit to Sir Francis Bacon)? Well, that's why the title.

So. Josephone Tey's Inspector Alan Grant is recuperating with a broken leg and is feeling restless. (As you do.) He decides to pass the time by solving a historical mystery: Who killed the Princes in the Tower? Grant suspects it was not the notoriously wicked Richard III.

Comparable to: Prolific mystery author Elizabeth Peters took her own stab at defending Richard Plantagenet with The Murders of Richard III.

Opening lines: "Grant lay on his high white cot and stared at the ceiling. Stared at it with loathing."

Representative quote: "It was Grant's belief that if you could not find out about a man, the next best way to arrive at an estimate of him was to find out about his mother."

You might not like it if: Too. Much. British. History.

How to get it: Buyable, borrowable, Kindle-able

Connections to previous Wreckage: I've already recommended two of Tey's other books --- Miss Pym Disposes (Rec. #75) and Brat Farrar (Rec. #200).

All of them are clever mysteries, but they're very different kinds of mysteries, and very different kinds of clever.

[Originally posted 4/10/12.]

Streaming Suggestion of the Week #25: My Mad Fat Diary

Stream what: After a four-month stay in a psychiatric hospital, teenager Rae throws herself into new friendships pinned firmly in the aesthetic of mid-'90s Cool Brittania.

Stream why: It's soooooo gooooood. My Mad Fat Diary was the best thing I watched in 2013, even though at the time I could only watch it in segments on YouTube.

Stream where: Hulu


Read more:
List #26: Content That Has Actually Made Me Throw Something Across a Room
Rec. #283: My Mad Fat Diary, series 1
List #37: Some of the Best TV I Watched in 2013

Friday Flashback: Rec. #269: 2D Goggles

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Graphic designer Sydney Padua appreciates this and has created a webcomic all about Ada Lovelace --- a genius mathematician and the daughter of Lord Byron --- and fellow mathematician Charles Babbage.

Fighting crime for Queen Victoria. Using a difference engine. As you do.

Comparable to: Very Kate Beaton sense of humor, but with a lotta lotta footnotes about how much Charles Babbage hated street musicians (fact!).

Opening lines: "Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate child of mad, bad, and dangerous to know poet and nutcase Lord Byron. Her mother Anabel fled the exploding planet her husband yet worried that Ada had inherited his wild blood."

Representative panel:

Bonus representative panel:

How to get it: The main page is here. Meet the cast here. See the Pocket Universe Guide here. Access the archived stories here.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Yes, as a matter of fact I did mention Kate Beaton. I also mentioned her in Rec. #95, List #2, List #3, List #8, Rec. #186, Gift Idea #2, List #14, and List #21.

[Originally posted 12/10/12.]

Quote from a Fictional Character #87

"Surely there must be some compensation in the next world for the loneliness in this one. I've lived as long as the century, and I can count on one hand the years I've been loved."

--- Frederick Ashton (fictionalized),

"A Midsummer Night's Dream," White Swan, Black Swan: Stories,

Adrienne Sharp, 2001

(Rec. #53)

Friday (er, Saturday) Flashback: Rec. #293 (abbrev.): Noises Off

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Michael Frayn stage play turned Peter Bogdanovich movie, classic slamming-doors-farce about a classic-slamming-doors farce, Christopher Reeve, director, final rehearsals, Michael Caine, doors, opening night, affairs, Carol Burnett, fading star, missed cues, backstage, on tour, Marilu Henner, contact lenses, John Ritter, sardines, oh god the sardines

Representative dialogue:
"I'm starting to know what God felt like when he sat out there in the darkness, creating the world."
"And what did he feel like, Lloyd my dear?"
"Very pleased he'd taken his Valium."

How to get it: Buy it or borrow it.

[Originally posted 5/28/13.]

Rec. #398: Memento Mori

What: The phone rings. You answer --- a voice tells you, "Remember you must die," and then the caller hangs up.

When this happens to some nubile youths, it's the premise for a splatter fest. When it happens, as it does here, to a group of elderly posh people, you've got something dark, unsettling, delicate, fast, and funny. Yes, funny.

Representative quote: "It is difficult for people of advanced years to start remembering they must die. It is best to form the habit while young."

How to get it: Muriel Spark's short novel is buyable, borrowable, and Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Spark wrote several dark and clever books, and I listed many of them as part of List #58: Happy Birthday, Muriel Spark.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #280: The Outs, season 1

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

Reblogging this one because Season 2 is here!

What: The Outs is a six-part web miniseries about the fallout after the end of a relationship. The series looks and feels like it should be programmed right before Girls on HBO, but instead it's on your computer, streaming for free.

Opening lines:
"Hi, I'm Jack."
"Whatever."

Representative dialogue:
"You said you wanted to kill him."
"No, I didn't. I said I wanted to outlive him."

You might not like it if: You have a low threshold for the number of scenes you can watch wherein the characters get high.

How to get it: You can go through Vimeo or just go to theouts.com. Plus, there's a Chanukah special!

Connections to other Wreckage: Shares definite tonal similarities with Rec. #374: High Maintenance.

Also: I have to mention that one of the main characters is named Oona and I can't seem to stop doing impressions of her.

[Originally posted 3/21/13.]

Rec. #397: Enchanted April

What: The film Enchanted April begins in England. It is drizzly, it is gray, it is cold ...

... and Lottie Wilkins has just seen an advertisement for the month-long rental of a villa in Italy.

A pleasingly mismatched group of women travels out, and a couple of husbands end up trailing along behind.

Representative quote: "In my day husbands and beds were very seldom mentioned in the same breath. Husbands were taken seriously, as the only true obstacle to sin."

How to get it: Currently streaming on Netflix.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Please also consider the source material, Elizabeth von Arnim's glorious novel of almost the same name (why drop the definite article, movie??) --- the novel The Enchanted April is Rec. #113.

See also Quote from a Fictional Character #41, in which I bend the rules a bit.

Quote from a Fictional Character #86

"I think I dislike what I don't like more than I like what I like."

--- Gwendolen Harleth,

Daniel Deronda, George Eliot, 1876

[Fun fact: Gwendolen was played by Romola Garai in the BBC miniseries adaptation, which starred Hugh Dancy and therefore shows up in List #29: So You Love the Cast of Hannibal, but Wish Watching the Show Itself Weren't So Psychologically Damaging.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #145: The Trouble with Harry

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Briefly, the trouble with Harry is that he's dead. Several people individually stumble across the body (a few of them literally), but no one alerts the authorities. 

For some of the stumblers, Harry's death is quite inconvenient. For others, it's almost too convenient. This mid-'50s Hitchcock film is notable for a couple of reasons: it's a rare comedy from the master of suspense, and it's also the film debut of Shirley MacLaine.

Comparable to: Although this is a comedy, it is not slapstick. Do not expect the physical humor of Family Plot. This movie is the deadest of deadpans.

Representative quote: "He looked exactly the same when he was alive, only he was vertical."

You might not like it if: You miss the suspense. And you get a little confused trying to keep track of all the times Harry is buried, then dug back up, then buried, then dug back up, etc.

How to get it: Between 1955 and 1984, you were sore out of luck. The Trouble with Harry was one of the five films Hitch bought back the rights to (along with Rope, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo). But it's 2011 2016, so you shouldn't have trouble getting it now.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Have yourself a Hitchcockian weekend with Rope (Rec. #5), Shadow of a Doubt (Rec. #78), and Family Plot (Rec. #120).

See also: List #6: A Few Seasonally Inappropriate Options for the Northern Hemisphere, List #12: Things That Are Good for Wallowing, and List #30: Nine Hitchcock Films Starring Non-Blondes

[Originally posted 6/16/11.]