Life in the ER

Last night was the ER episode that my wife wandered into on a bus trip to Chicago with my mother and mother-in-law. They turned the wrong way off of the bus and soon were in the midst of a bunch of trailers and tents and all of a sudden there was Goran Visnjic and Maura Tierney having a pretend fight. Since my wife loves Goran Visnjic she described him as dashing and handsome in real life and chatting up the crew and since she suspects I like Maura Tierney she described her as pale and wan and standing off by herself with the hood of her coat pulled around her face to ward off the cold. She has since expressed an interest in the movie DOCTOR SLEEP, an agreeable enough supernatural thriller with the faint whiff of crapola wherein Mr. Visnjic plays a psychologist with the psychic power to invade dreams, the kind of stuff my wife would normally avoid with a passion. If Visnjic gets cast on DOCTOR WHO or the STAR TREK movie this might work to my advantage; otherwise I must monitor this situation closely, and Visnjic's career with deep suspicion.


In other movie news, I went to see BEOWULF. I liked it well enough that I am re-reading the great Seamus Heaney translation. But on the other hand I don't know why they felt they had to mess with the story; somehow people have liked it for thousands of years just the way it was. Although I think their depiction of the dangers of sleeping with Angelina Jolie were well documented.

In other entertainment news, I finished a truly excellent book called THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO by Junot Diaz that I strongly recommend to all of my nerd friends. It's like an urban version of FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE by Jonathan Lethem, one of my favorite books of the last few years (along with THE BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEAD by Kevin Brockmeier and CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL by Glenn Gold).

I'm getting tired of taking the rest of the year off from writing and wondering what the new year will bring. Until then, give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.