Death on the Nile (2004): A Review Sunday, Nov 28 2010 

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Yesterday, PJ and I went to Columbus to do a little sales shopping. Mostly, we bought clothes. PJ’s recently gotten back into reading Agatha Christie novels, and at some point while we were shopping he mentioned something about Hercule Poirot and Death on the Nile. This started us off on a quest to find a DVD of it.

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, my family enjoyed watching the Joan Hickson Miss Marple series and then the David Suchet Hercule Poirot series. So, I was particularly desirous of finding the Suchet version of Death on the Nile, which I had never seen (at least that I can remember). While looking at Barnes and Nobles, we found a multi-disk collection of the episodes for about $100, which seemed like a lot more than we really wanted to pay. But then PJ pointed out that, if we were really going to watch all of the episodes, then it would be worth purchasing. So we did.

So, last night we watched Death on the Nile, which I thought was wonderful. Death takes place mostly on a cruise on the Nile. Simon Doyle and Linnet Ridgeway are celebrating their honeymoon. The couple would be perfectly happy if it weren’t for one little problem: Linnet’s former friend (and until quite recently Simon’s former fiancée) Jackie is hounding them in revenge for Linnet stealing her man. Every where they go, she pops up to torment the new couple. And her taunts and jeers seem to be getting increasingly irrational and potentially violent. Everything comes to a head when a murderer strikes during the cruise.

I had seen the 1978 movie version, which starred Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Mia Farrow, Maggie Smith, and David Niven. Here’s a clip from that adaptation:

This version is rather campy and even comical, but it’s also fun and engaging.

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Jake & Eddie Friday, Nov 26 2010 

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This is Jake and Eddie. Jake is the little gray and white kitty; Eddie is the black one. They’re the newest editions to our family.

Even before Marlowe died, it was clear to me and PJ that Paisley doesn’t like to be alone. She’s a very sociable cat, and she likes feline companionship. While we were at the vet with Marlowe, we saw a little black female kitten, which PJ really took a shine to. He especially liked the potential symmetry of meeting a new cat as we said goodbye to our little boy.

We filled out the application to adopt her from our local humane society, but unfortunately she was adopted by someone else that same day. She has a little brother, who is also black, so we decided that we would adopt him instead. PJ really wanted a black cat.

We were then told by the humane society that it could take up to two weeks to adopt him, which made no sense to me at all. The woman who was fostering him also thought that it sounded unreasonable. We decided not to wait. On the one hand,we were missing Marlowe terribly and needed something to help ease the pain. On the other hand, Paisley was also acting severely lonely. What especially got me was when she would go out onto the back deck and sit in her usual spot, where she’s wait for him to come up the back steps. She was clearly waiting, and Marlowe wasn’t ever going to come up the stairs again. So, PJ and I decided that we needed to get another cat as quickly as possible — for our sakes, if not for hers.

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Happy Thanksgiving Thursday, Nov 25 2010 

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PJ made this delicious pie totally from scratch to take with us to Thanksgiving dinner, which we had with our friends Rick and Nicole and their friends. This was our first attempt at making pie crust, which came out wonderfully! He wanted it to look rustic, and the crust thin and delicate. I think we probably should have cooked it about 10-20 minutes longer, but it tasted delicious, and now we know how to make crust.

Having Thanksgiving with people we barely knew turned out to be more fun than I had expected. The other three couples all have children the same age, which is how they all know each other. Dinner was delicious, and the three courses of wines were an education in and of themselves. And having three six-year-olds and two babies around reminded me how lucky we gays are that we don’t have to worry about pregnancy or raising children unless we really want to!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

Theater of War: A Review Monday, Nov 1 2010 

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Recently PJ and I watched a documentary titled Theater of War, which is about The Public Theater’s 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children starring Meryl Streep. The stage production was directed by George C. Wolfe and was newly translated into English by Tony Kushner.

Here’s a clip about the production that I found on YouTube:

We had just received our Netflix for Wii and wanted to watch something just to try it out. Of course anything starring Streep was going to catch our eye, and we both love the theater and Bertolt Brecht’s work in particular. Theater of War turns out to be an excellent and engrossing documentary that covers a lot more than just this one production.

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