Discovering Podcasts: The Wierd World of "Rabbits"

I'm a little old lady exploring the smartphone world. Of course I had listened to podcasts before ... on my pc ... but now I am bravely entering the world of podcast apps and podcasts on my phone.

I tried one app which seemed easy to use. But it immediately refused to play my downloads if I wasn't connected to the internet...which didn't seem to be the point. And yes I did look under "settings". So I ditched that app and got another - PodcastAddict - so far so good. It does what it says on the tin: I download episodes and can listen to them anywhere. No more sitting next to my wi-fi box.

And so I've just started listening to "Rabbits"  - a US docudrama podcast produced by PRA. It's narrated by "a journalist investigating the sudden disappearance of a friend" as she becomes aware of that friend's involvement in a sinister, underground and ancient game known as the aforesaid "Rabbits" (think burrows and maybe even Alice, although the last is my idea and may be very wrong!!)

I admit that I can be a bit at sea in "Rabbits", being too old to have dived into gaming which is very much the background to this thriller ... But hey, I used to read William Gibson. I can cope.

Public Radio Alliance likes to describe itself as "creating television for your ears". And that sounds very fine to me. I shall be investigating their other podcast series.

Oh! And I have discovered the joy of falling to sleep to podcasts rather than audible books ... which is ... that when the episode finishes, the broadcast stops. I don't have to trawl backwards through the book to find my falling asleep spot! Though I expect there is an app for that.

How to Listen to Rabbits

Grey Doll Will Be Watching ... The Handmaid's Tale

Without a doubt  I shall sit myself down for the new TV serial based on Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" -  Episode 1 of which is due to be aired UK telly on Sunday evening (28th May 2017) - Channel 4 at 9pm.


Margaret Atwood  is a great writer, I genuinely think so. I read The Handmaid's Tale and think it is one of the most chilling pieces of speculative fiction, alternative histories whatever you like to call it - since Orwell's 1984. Was that a lazy comparison? Possibly. But I am old, hot, tired and want to get back to drawing. Incidentally, this also means that I am old enough to remember the mindset of things before late twentieth-century feminism reared it's "nasty", "castrating" Medusa head ... and I am referencing just such a mindset here.
Finally and a propos watching the new serial, I just plain want to see what they have made of the book.

I give you a link to Atwood's own article (published in the New York Times earlier this year) on her writing of the novel and her thoughts about it.

Read Atwood, Yeah!

Grey Doll Turns From A Life of Crime...To Magic: Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell

I loved the BBC TV serial adaptation of the novel "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke which ended last month. The story is a blend of alternate English history and fantasy with perhaps... an element of satire. The production is a terrific blend of script, performances, visual effects, sets and props... which re-creates the book's world beautifully. And I find this a great relief..... because I am a little tired of visuals produced by over-clocking the CGI in a production so that everyone and everything, including the light, appear to have been been fed through a single smoothing filter.

Not so with this one. So...every hat I own is taken off to director Toby Haynes and adapter Peter Harness. Eddie Marsan's "Mr Norrell" is pitch perfect - all timorous distrust, dull wig and little pot belly. Berti Carvel's "Jonathan Strange" is as dashing and Byronic as you could want. (The whole thing seems to take a nod at the distinctions and conflict between the Augustan Alexander Pope's "Norrell" versus the Romantic Lord Byron's "Jonathan Strange"....er... I think). Most of the performances were really strong so I would if I could not stop here with me glowing praise but......

Anyway, I love it all so much that I have downloaded the hours and hours of the spoken word version of the book from Audible and am plunging into its world of Georgian England alternate history and the battle between Theoretical Magicians and Practical Magicians all over again. A wonderful book, wonderfully written... and a long-time in writing (am I surprised?).

Note: Whilst researching Susanna Clarke, I see that she is the partner of (perhaps under-estimated) British sci-fi writer Colin Greenland, quite a few of whose books sit on my shelf from my sci-fi-reader phase. Well. There you go.

Animated Discussions: "The Congress" by Ari Folman

Just watched The Congress on DVD - a combination live action/animation film. Now I couldn't find it in the shop under "Animation"... but I did find it under "Sci-fi". And that sci-fi hating Old Man did watch it. Mainly because it is another film from Ari Folman whose full animation "Waltz with Bashir"  (based on memories of his own and of friends who were soldiers in the Israeli army at the time of the Shatila Massacre).....he do like.

The Congress stars Robin Wright... as Robin Wright, a middle-aged film star facing the choice of accepting her final contract... to be digitally scanned and become the property of the film company. She must not act or perform in any way for the duration of the 20 year contract, because the film company Miramount owns the character Robin Wright. She finds this an outrageous offer but her son is ill... and as an "aging" Hollywood property she has no prospect of work. What follows is a long exploration of identity, choice, reality, fantasy not to mention the Hollywood machine.
I found it a quite difficult but fantastic film. It is layered with allusions... even the animated sequences refer to different animation styles, including my favourite Japanese master, Miyazaki. Towards the end the film reminded me of "Solaris"... the Tarkovsky version... it had the same flavour of psychological journey. Then when the credits went up I saw that it was based on The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem, the author of the originating novel of Solaris. Which sends The Old Man scurrying to his bookshelves to see if he has it.... cos he do like Lem. But No. Have to get on the internet and see what we can find.

For me The Congress is a feast of a film which left me pondering for some time afterward.

Graphic Passions: "Robot"- Lem Inspired

Just bought myself another "graphic novel".

Which is "Robot" by Danuta Schejbal and Andrzej Klimowski. Based on two of Stanislaw Lem's short stories. Published by SelfMade Hero in 2011.

For those of you who say they don't like sci-fi... well not sure you can really call Lem just sci-fi. Lord knows The Old Man was sniffy when I used to rave about Tarkovsky's 1972 film "Solaris" based on Lem's novel, but when persuaded by another friend that Lem was philosophy... he got very keen on a Lem story or two, and wanted me to read them. Mea Culpa I have not read any yet.

Yous may well know the film "Solaris". No, sorry... I don't mean the George Clooney one. Much as I like to watch George Clooney. (See my Post on "Good Night and Good Luck") No, I mean the Tarkovsky film.

Anyways I digress... the graphic novel is very short and maybe not sweet. Personally I loved the first story "Uranium Ears" but found the second, "The Sanatorium of Dr Vliperdius" a bridge further! I shall look and read again.

An Observation Upon the Relevance of Science-Fiction

People often dismiss sci-fi as fantastic gobbledygook. If it's not their cup of tea, that is. But I am still impressed at the rate at which ideas from the realm of science fiction prove prophetic.

Many years ago I read a novella by Larry Niven in which the invention of teleportation, instant travel from one place to another in the time honoured "Star Trek" manner, leads to unforeseen social consequences. The novella is called "Flash Crowd". And the unforeseen consequences are that as soon as trouble "kicks off"... to use the current parlance.... mobs and criminals teleport into the site of the incident and the whole thing becomes a Flash Riot.

Of course we haven't managed teleporatation yet. But we do have mobile phones and instant messaging.

You get my drift?

Stranger than fiction... shmiction.