zeitgeist

Bingeworthy

~ MaryG ~ 25 Comments

What are you watching and/or reading to escape paying attention to the fall of democracy?

My husband and I just started season 5 of “Poldark”—the period drama from Masterpiece. We were watching it in Passport (the PBS app), but Netflix just acquired it, so you can watch it there. Highly recommend (if you like period dramas). I’m a longtime Masterpiece lover, but somehow I missed Poldark when it originally aired. It takes place in the late 1700s, with the main character (Ross Poldark) having returned to Cornwall from Virginia, where he was fighting for the British in “the American War.”

Ross and Demelza Poldark will win you over as they gallop across the cliffs of Cornwall, which look very much like Ireland to me.

Also, we recently read “A Visit from the Goon Squad” (copyright 2010) by Jennifer Egan in my book group. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011, but I had never read it. This genre-blurring book traces the lives of a GenX record-executive and his young assistant across decades of cultural change, interlocking thirteen short stories into a vivid mosaic of time, music, ambition and memory. I liked it so much, I read “the sequel” The Candy House, which came out in 2022. I can’t really explain it, but the term “sequel” is not particularly apt in this case. It’s more of a prequel & futuristic running out of the stories from Goon Squad. Highly recommend if you’re between 50 and 70 years old and find the zeitgeist interesting. Even if you simply enjoy saying the word zeitgeist, I think you will like these books.

Knowing me as you do (😉), please let me know if you have any other recommendations.

Related:

Bingeworthy, part 2

Zeitgeist

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What topics do you like to discuss?
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I like talking about the zeitgeist—current events and popular culture (especially movies and TV). I also love talking about books with my book group and music with my choir peeps. I enjoy hearing about people’s travels (to a point). I’m not a big sports fan, but if a Boston team is in the playoffs, I like to know what’s happening with that. Go Celtics ☘️! (and Bruins, I guess)

And as anyone who follows my blog knows, I despise Trump with a deep, burning, crimson hatred I’ve never felt for any other public figure in my lifetime, so I’m always up for any conversation which involves trashing him.

Am I the only one with a sign like this on display in my kitchen for the past 8 years?

The Z Word

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite word?
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I am a church-goer, but not a Christian. For many years I have attended Unitarian Universalist (UU) churches in Massachusetts. Nearly every town has one. My #1 reason for going to church is to sing in the choir. My #2 reason is to hear a good sermon. I’ve been lucky to have some very smart ministers who consistently deliver thoughtful, interesting sermons.

My current minister opened the church year last Sunday (UU churches take summers off) talking about how she likes learning foreign words that have no real English equivalent. “Esperanza,” she said means both hope and waiting in Spanish. She said “expectancy” was the closest English equivalent.

That got me thinking about other words like that. In Italy, they say “prego” all the time. Sometimes they say it twice in a row – or even three times. It can mean anything from please, to what, to “after you.” On a trip to Italy in 2009, my family got a quadruple prego, which meant “hurry up and get on this bus NOW.”

There are a couple of German words that have made their way into English that I really like. One is “schadenfreude.” So fun to say. And I mean, let’s face it, Facebook basically required the adoption of “schadenfreude” into English. (Show me 67 pictures of your perfect family Thanksgiving and you’re setting yourself up for some schadenfreude. Sorry!) But the one I really love is ZEITGEIST. It’s SO fun to say and to think about. Something in the zeitgeist helped make Barbie the top-grossing movie of 2023. I wonder which new streaming shows will truly capture the zeitgeist of the 1980s?

My husband knows I like “zeitgeist” and texted me at work to let me know that Dana Bash had just used it on CNN. About what? Hunter Biden.

My family in Rome where we got a quadruple “prego”