What is an island but a break in the ocean?
Once again my week begins with phone calls, phone calls, and more phone calls, but I am disproportionately entertained by this recent interview with Matthew Rhys:
To me, when I read "Widow's Bay," I was, like, This is Wales. Like, sixty-five per cent of the country is coastline. An enormous amount of the population live in small coastal towns. My mother was from there—we lived in one for a while. She's from a seafaring family, where you throw a stone and there's a myth or a legend [. . .] Oh, God, well, as kids we were raised with these ancient tales called the Mabinogion. And there's four branches of the Mabinogi, and they're wildly dense myths about different parts of Wales. There was a princess who turned into flowers, and you know, the only way her husband could be killed was if he had one foot on a trough and the other on a goat, and he was killed by a special silver spear.
I understood that reference.
It is also funny to me because I have been recommending the show on the strength of its regional specificity about which I had not thought I had particular feelings, except that the familiarity of the geography, the material culture, the accents, and the attitudes whose reality encloses the shadow-stretches of the comedy-horror startled me past its engagement with a history of New England weird fiction and horror that scratches deeper than Stephen King. I am much more used to finding my formative coasts by analogy in other stories, not for the process to run the other way. On sort of the same level, I remain amazed that what feels like an idiosyncratically local show despite its backing by Apple seems to have taken the American TV-streaming public by storm. Yesterday I sent![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch an article on the revival of fishing in Boston Harbor:
"Mike Delzingo, a well-known guide who has been fishing in the harbor for 34 years, said people are surprised when he gives a talk and refers to Boston Harbor as a world-class fishing destination. 'People think about Block Island and Cape Cod and Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, but the fishing in the harbor is phenomenal.'"
and was thus obliged to append, "Fuck Cape Cod!"
Otherwise I feel my priorities may be gauged by the fact that I dreamed that I was eligible for the shingles vaccine.
To me, when I read "Widow's Bay," I was, like, This is Wales. Like, sixty-five per cent of the country is coastline. An enormous amount of the population live in small coastal towns. My mother was from there—we lived in one for a while. She's from a seafaring family, where you throw a stone and there's a myth or a legend [. . .] Oh, God, well, as kids we were raised with these ancient tales called the Mabinogion. And there's four branches of the Mabinogi, and they're wildly dense myths about different parts of Wales. There was a princess who turned into flowers, and you know, the only way her husband could be killed was if he had one foot on a trough and the other on a goat, and he was killed by a special silver spear.
I understood that reference.
It is also funny to me because I have been recommending the show on the strength of its regional specificity about which I had not thought I had particular feelings, except that the familiarity of the geography, the material culture, the accents, and the attitudes whose reality encloses the shadow-stretches of the comedy-horror startled me past its engagement with a history of New England weird fiction and horror that scratches deeper than Stephen King. I am much more used to finding my formative coasts by analogy in other stories, not for the process to run the other way. On sort of the same level, I remain amazed that what feels like an idiosyncratically local show despite its backing by Apple seems to have taken the American TV-streaming public by storm. Yesterday I sent
spatch an article on the revival of fishing in Boston Harbor:"Mike Delzingo, a well-known guide who has been fishing in the harbor for 34 years, said people are surprised when he gives a talk and refers to Boston Harbor as a world-class fishing destination. 'People think about Block Island and Cape Cod and Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, but the fishing in the harbor is phenomenal.'"
and was thus obliged to append, "Fuck Cape Cod!"
Otherwise I feel my priorities may be gauged by the fact that I dreamed that I was eligible for the shingles vaccine.
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Despite liking the first few episodes, I faded out on Widow's Bay when the socially awkward secretary was foregrounded, since I tend to find that kind of thing painful rather than funny. (The monsters and haunted hotel were fine, in contrast!)
But I loved the unusual setting and dark comedy, plus I've been appreciating Matthew Rhys much more over the last couple of years. Middle age suits him. Perhaps it's delivering up better roles.
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I ended up trying to figure out where I would first have encountered stories from the Mabinogion. Lloyd Alexander is likely to have been the most general gateway just because I was five at the time, but I had read someone's version of the relevant branch by the time of Alan Garner and Elizabeth E. Wein. I wouldn't find Evangeline Walton until I was in college. I'm blaming my elementary school library.
Despite liking the first few episodes, I faded out on Widow's Bay when the socially awkward secretary was foregrounded, since I tend to find that kind of thing painful rather than funny. (The monsters and haunted hotel were fine, in contrast!)
Variable mileage recognized. For the datum, I did not find Patricia to be a cringe comedy character as opposed to a person as awkwardly real as Tom or Wyck. I liked her immensely. (And Kate O'Flynn appears to be having a career breakout because of her, which I find delightful.)
But I loved the unusual setting and dark comedy, plus I've been appreciating Matthew Rhys much more over the last couple of years. Middle age suits him. Perhaps it's delivering up better roles.
I had scarcely seen him at all before Widow's Bay except in admittedly compelling gifsets. He turns out to have been in Julie Taymor's Titus in 1999, but I do not feel bad about not placing him from his platinum Goth phase.
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Photographs!!
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*tilts head*
(It could be prescribed earlier than age 50, I think, were it wanted.)
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Apotropaically trying to ward off anything else that could go wrong with my body given the current cascade, I think.
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*sends positive energy*
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Otherwise I feel my priorities may be gauged by the fact that I dreamed that I was eligible for the shingles vaccine.
<3
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You should link me some gifsets of Y Gwyll!
(This is really funny.)
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But here's my Hinterland tumblr tag anyway: https://thisbluespirit.tumblr.com/tagged/hinterland
<3
(Y Gwyll btw is the Welsh language version, whereas I watched the English language version, which is Hinterland, and while it is not cool that the BBC made them do two versions instead of subtitles, they turned around and did something very cool with it, having Tom further isolated by not speaking Welsh very well, so he speaks English and characters often speak English to him, although not always, while everybody else speaks Welsh.)