The Ghost of Midsummer Past

… The title alluding, of course, to “the ghost of Christmas past” in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens…

On my way home from the very crowded Midsummer’s Eve celebration in the museum park on Friday afternoon (link to Friday’s post in my Picture Book blog), I passed this smaller maypole of different design in a totally empty park closer to home. I knew there had been a smaller celebration there the day before – probably for elderly people living in the buildings close by – but as I passed on the actual Eve, it was deserted. Coming from that other place (where all the people were) the impression of loneliness was increased.

Looking through the photos now, some memories from the past came fluttering by. For young people, Midsummer’s Eve is a night to stay up late – preferably all night – together with friends. I do remember some such Midsummers. Since I spent them with friends from church though, and none of us drank alcohol, it never got really “wild”. For some people… unfortunately, Midsummer is drinking, to the extent that they can hardly even remember the next day what they did the night before. That (I’m glad to say) was never part of my own experience. But staying up all night was, on a few occasions.

I was never really a night-owl by nature, though. And these days I certainly am not! So what all this rambling down Memory Lane is leading up to… is that on this Midsummer’s Eve, in fact I had an unusually early night. I was going to add that I took David to bed with me, but then realized that very few readers will know who – or what – DaViD is. He’s a portable DVD-player. Well, now that I’ve enlightened you on that point, I can write it: I took David to bed with me. We watched one episode of Monk (American detective series) and then I told him to shut up and close his eye, and then I did the same; and I dare say we were both asleep by 10.30 pm.

Ironically, on a New Year’s Eve, an early night is not to think of, because then everyone is shooting fireworks all night long and especially around midnight. But on Midsummer’s Eve, it can be blissfully quiet around here, because 1/ fireworks are not part of the tradition, and 2/ most people seem to be celebrating Somewhere Else. 

Watcha Watchin' ?

Recently I somehow landed on a blog new to me - clicking my way there from another one - and found the blogger to be in a mood not unfamiliar to me; weighed down by a combination of winter weather and other circumstances, including funerals; but still also recognizing "moments of lightness" (the title of her post).

One of the things mentioned was that while being in this mood, she was still feeling drawn towards TV series having to do with forensics and paranormal stuff, even though not feeling quite sure this was the best way to improve her dark mood. This triggered me to a comment; and then I kept thinking about it, so decided to expand a bit upon it in a blogpost of my own.

Now someone might be expecting a "you are what you eat" post recommending a TV diet excluding this or that, but that's not quite what I had in mind. Instead, what came back to me was memories of an extremely hot summer four years ago, when I had to undergo surgery in the midst of the season's worst heat wave, and after a few days in a hospital ward lacking air condition was also confined to spend some equally sweaty weeks indoors in my own flat, doing pretty much "nothing". I was only just about able to stand on my feet for as long as it took to get myself some food and wash the dishes; and sitting was not comfortable either, so most of the time there was not much else to do but lie flat on the couch and watch TV/DVD.

In that kind of weather and circumstances, you might think that I'd want to watch something cool and soothing. I might have, in between; but what I remember is a real craving to watch other people sweat!

Ben Hur

What I longed to see was people fighting their way through deserts and rainforests, suffering dramatic pain and heat, and one way or the other walking that thin edge between life and death. So I watched films like African Queen, Out of Africa, Lawrence of Arabia, Ben Hur, Gone With the Wind, Anna and the King, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Green Mile, Fried Green Tomatoes, The Bridges of Madison County. (In the last ones, not so much wilderness, but still a lot of sweating!)

Mary Stuart Masterson in Fried Green Tomatoes

And somehow, mentally, I actually found that helpful. It created a sort of distance to my own situation, while there was still some identification involved.

Bridge on the River Kwai

I think it might also have been around that time that I watched one or two daily TV series about superheroes hunting for mysterious and more-or-less magic old treasures, in Indiana Jones-like circumstances. I know there was one (super)woman (the kind with very little clothes on but able to kick her way through just about anything)*, and one man (ordinary-looking but of course with Special Gifts making him not so ordinary at all)**; but I can't even remember now if they were in the same series or in two different ones. Probably two different ones. I can see them both in my head but no names come up! Anyway, they were both that kind of series that makes you ask yourself ever so often: "Why am I watching this?" And you still find yourself not wanting to miss a single episode.

Personally, and especially lately, I really can't watch anything "forensic". I still like a good old mystery (Agatha Christie kind, free of bloody details), but spare me the mortuaries and forensic labs, please! But maybe those series do kind of the same job for someone else, as the fighting-our-way-through-the-jungle movies did for me. Who am I to say?! (I, by the way, would never ever endure a real jungle even for a day. Not even when I was younger.)

By the way, I'm 2/3 through the first series of M*A*S*H now - and loving it. Mercifully, back in those days, they never really felt the need to pretend to show the messy details of surgery, but kept the camera well above the operating table; content with showing some blood stains and an occasional passing of a pair of forceps.

But it contains a lot of inventiveness when it comes to fighting boredom and meaninglessness!

So - what are you watching?

- - -

* P.S. I managed to track down the female super-hero.
(Or should that be super-heroine?)

Tia Carrere played archeology professor (!) Sidney Fox in Relic Hunter (series from 1999-2002).

** P.S. 2 One should never give up! Here is the other guy:



Adrian Pasdar played Declan Dunn in Mysterious Ways (series from 2000-2002); an anthropology professor teaming up with a female psychiatrist (played by Rae Dawn Chong) to investigate various miraculous and unexplained events.

Collector's Madness

Are you a Collector of anything? I mean, are you really possessed by that Collecting Mania that makes you want "the complete set" of whatever-it-may-be?

So far, I have not thought of myself as one. I guess I have some collector's instincts, but in my own opinion they were never really all that strong. I do have a lot of books, and quite a few CD's and DVD's. With books, if there is a series where the individual books connect to each other with an ongoing plot (and if I like them), I do of course like to have them all. However, most of my books are paperbacks, or bought on sale; I'm not really a collector of valuable First Editions or The Complete Works Of.

In later years, DVD boxes of old TV series have become very popular. My brother does have quite a nice collection, and he is more of a proper Collector than I am - which I benefit from, since I get to borrow them, or get copies! And when he does buy a DVD series, he usually wants the whole set - seasons one through whatever.

My own collection is smaller, and more random. When a true Collector looks at my collection, he may approve of my owning a number of first seasons of various series; because a first season can be seen as a beginning to be followed by more. What the Collector finds much harder to understand, is why someone would have just season 4 out of 9 of  Seinfeld, or seasons 4-6 of M*A*S*H (out of 11). When a Collector sees a lonely season 4 out of a much higher number, something within him is deeply disturbed. Eyebrows go up, forehead gets wrinkled; something is not quite right in the world...

Until just recently, I owned only one Complete Series of that Many-Seasons kind. And even that collection is not quite right from a Collector's point of view, because I have seasons 3 and 4 recorded from TV (with one episode missing), and then bought the rest (1,2,4,5,6,7). The series? Gilmore Girls. My absolute favourite American 21st century series (2000-2007), starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel. (The dialogue is marvellous, which to me means I can watch it over and over and pick up new things every time. And funny without ha-ha studio laughter.)

Last week, however, I must have got a stroke of collector's madness.

Looking in on one of the websites from where I sometimes order things, there happened to be a sale. As a result,I can no longer brag about being completely free of collector's syndrome, and hold up my seasons 4-6 of M*A*S*H as evidence; because today I received a package containing not only seasons 1-3, but also seasons 7-11.(There will always, however, be some evidence left that I did not buy the whole series at the same time, because while my old seasons 4-6 came in the old-fashioned thick kind of covers, seasons 1-3 and 7-11 arrived in the slim kind of covers...)

If I wasn't insane before, I probably will be after watching them all in one swoop. Do I really want 11 seasons of dirt-coloured Army Hospital humour??? Well, that remains to be seen...