inside man

Inside Man is one of those shows where the way they hook you in is by going 'this is the most bizarre, awful ridiculous scenario getting to the point of horror-comedy - is that going to hook you in - just to see whether the makers of this preposterous show can pull it out of the hole they've dug for themselves in the first episode - wait, the first two episodes - wow, the first three episodes (of four)! 

To be honest I didn't recognise Stanley Tucci playing one of those roles where he has two sets and probably shot all his scenes in a couple of days (he's in prison, and he's one of those gifts to humanity of the murderer who has extraordinary insight into the worst impulses of the criminal mind). I actually thought 'who's this English actor doing a terrible American accent'. 

David Tennant must have really thought he had something to prove taking on this mad character - along the lines of, 'if I can play this piece of madness credibly and get away with it, I am probably the greatest actor in the world.'

This has a strong sense of being a play, possibly a play written in the 1950s (and updated with some shizzle about a USB with porn on it). The last episode is I have to admit extremely tension-riddled so kudos to them for that but then the same old same old from crime tv - basically, the women cop it. 

The last ten minutes go headfirst into madness. I wouldn't bother much unless you have covid and want to fill in time. That's right, I wrote this two and a half weeks ago. Now whose mind is being messed with. 

newspapers.com

Newspapers.com is absolutely my go-to for all kinds of insane things from actual information on stuff (particularly the Melbourne Age up till the year 2000, also the Sydney Morning Herald - the only two real Australian newspapers it features) to random nonsense for fun times. It's seriously depressing to see what its top five 'searched' words were in 2022 however. Presumably this is fool Americans trying to understand their world. But surely no-one actually searches on these words alone (it kind of makes it worse to think that they put these together, no doubt with their home towns or states, or their great-grandpappy's name). 'Wrestling' is of course the weirdest one, I mean, what the actual fuck?! 'Murder' is predictable but boring (this is the one I can imagine people do actually just search on - 'hmm, time for a murder. Sherman, set the controls for Dumfuck New Mexico in I think 1878 where Mr. Peachfuzz is just about to kill his five children with a cunning arrangement involving a candle burning through a rope attached to a guillotine.' 'Right away Mr Peabody!'). 'Died' is a funny one, too. But surely once again this is to find out when grandpappy died, not merely someone or something. Or when the dream of doing anything constructive with one's life died. 'Weather' and 'hurricane' are odd as well, I wonder if these are climate denialists or climate conformists? Probs both.  

Meanwhile in Australia the wonderful Trove is under threat and I'm bothered by that. It's actually a more sophisticated searcher than newspapers.com (it distinguishes, somehow, between advertisements, illustrated and non-illustrated articles, etc) and really provides a wealth of valuable minutiae not just on Australian stuff but on all the world's stuff. I love Trove. 

deadwind/ karppi season 3

I consumed season 3 of Deadwind (known in its original incarnation as Karppi) barely without noticing it over a few days, while absentmindedly avoiding watching The Sullivans (I don't suppose I've discussed this with most of you, but I have been watching The Sullivans' end-of/post- war exploits for a possible journal article) because I was uncomfortable with an adoption story arc and Homicide (you're going to think I'm a fucking idiot* but there were just too many homicides in Homicide in the late 1960s for me to handle, and I was kind of finding it hard to wade through all these child killings and young women strangleds - at least, I needed a break from them). 

Ironic that I would choose as a refresher Deadwind which has more than its fair share of insane gothic fuckedupness with people getting rubbed out left right and centre in obscenely ritualistic manner and always Pihla Viitala as Sofia Karppi with her extremely impractical lion's mane of hair and her ridiculous attitude of 'I will do anything to protect my children, except behave in a rational way at any given moment i.e. they are always exposed to my own possible demise'. 

If it's at all possible her partner in crimesolving Sakari Nurmi (Lauri Tilkanen) is even more of a mess. I don't think it's a spoiler to reveal that he indicates by weird facial reactions to Karppi that his mother shot her father then herself when Nurmi was a child. I mean, crikey. These people, incidentally, have known each other for at least three years by this time and are always constantly just about to kiss and this just comes up?! But more ridiculous is the whole insane (yes, literally insane) serial killer storyline which... well... the show is clearly not meant to be realistic, is it. I did enjoy it, let's be fair. But can I just advise any insane serial killers that leaving a trail of clues whereby links can be ascertained through various symbols splashed around in the victims' blood at murder scenes etc, probably leads to you not being able to complete your vengeful mayhem in the way you wanted, when it comes down to it. I mean when you put so much into something like that, why jeopardise it with flourishes? 

I'm hoping for a spin-off with Mimosa Willamo reprising her role as Henna, Karppi's stepdaughter who is easily as crazy brave but also more au fait with the crime world as, basically, a criminal and who has to be under the radar too after the events in this series where she essentially shops her adoptive crime family (not without reason - they had decided to execute her). 

Talking with my mother yesterday we agreed between us that a lot of the noiry shows we enjoy we'd really be just as happy with the scenery (see below) and that's it. I am not sure if that's genuinely true because I've never watched a show that was just scenery, I gather there's one on Disney + but it's just shitty Star Wars shit. Disney + has gone up in price it would seem and since I haven't watched anything on it since I got it it's probably time to throw that one away, it's garbage isn't it? Prove me wrong. 

* Don't read this then, jerk, if that's your attitude. 

persiflage: minor tweaks

Steve had good ideas for how to simultaneously draw out the tension of the final pages of Persiflage and set the reader up for its deflation, so I've just been patching up his suggested final edits. It's a whole different ballgame reediting something you've drawn but it is perhaps even more satisfying to continue to make it work, or to make it work better, in revision. 

I still have the next one running in the background of my thoughts a lot of the time. A kind of a revenge story I think although I am not sure whether the revenge will be conscious or unconscious. Perhaps unconscious is better. Yes, I've just decided, it is. It will also be a coronavirus story, very 2020. I think I might make it ridiculously overreaching, an epic of preposterous proportions. I may also make it more adult than Persiflage, which sets you up to imagine bizarre sex by depicting a naked woman on the first couple of pages (never seen again) but otherwise only goes so far as to show a vanilla postcoital scene towards the end but is otherwise only shocking in for instance the violence depicted above (which is however clearly framed as faked, cinematic). You're going to love it, well, I am anyway.  

I think it's always best to have something in the works and percolating while you weather the extreme letdown of response to the earlier thing. Gets you through the disappointment/irritation. It's all vanity anyway and as long as you know that you're fine. 

Steve is confident that Persiflage will be out before Christmas.