One of the things I’m toying with is posting a brief diary of the new “culture” consumed every day. I find I look back and can’t always pinpoint when I read something, hence this.<\/p>\n
There are some possible exceptions. I don’t know that I want to include anything here about short fiction I’m reading for the year’s best because it conflicts with Last Short Story<\/em>, and because it seems like a fairly poor idea.<\/p>\n I also won’t post about some novels. Every now and then manuscripts fall into my hands, legitimately (!), and it’s best not to comment publicly on them until a more appropriate time.<\/p>\n With those two caveats, though, here’s the rather passive amount of culture I consumed on a holiday Sunday when I slept as late as I have in three years, and when we did go swimming for a while.<\/p>\n I’m been watching the first season of Kelsey Grammer’s new political drama, Boss<\/strong><\/em>. For those unfamiliar with it, Grammer plays a mayor of Chicago diagnosed with a degenerative neurological condition. The script is tight, the cast is good, and the stories work. I’m not 100% I love it, but I find myself compelled to keep watching, which is a good sign.<\/p>\n I also watched the final two episodes of season two of Downton Abbey<\/strong><\/em>. Somehow I seem to have watched most of Downton Abbey on planes – season one on the Reno\/WorldCon trip and most of season two on the NYC\/LA\/World Fantasy trip – but I’d not quite finished till last night. It’s a real soap opera now, and I’m not as impressed with s.2 as I was with s.1, but it still the right thing for the day.<\/p>\n Finally, during 2011 I purchased an iPad. That lead to me dipping my toes into the world of comics. I’ve never been an active comics reader, having read a small number of superhero comics as child, then Neil’s Sandman<\/strong><\/em> and Dave Sim’s Cerebus<\/strong><\/em> later on in life. Everything else passed me by, but James Bradley had me check out and rather enjoy Warren Ellis’s Planetary<\/strong><\/em>, and it got me interested enough to dabble.<\/p>\n Yesterday I read the opening three issues of Grant Morrison & Sean Murphy’s Joe the Barbarian<\/strong><\/em>. I’d seen the omnibus in Planet, but don’t really want to get into acquiring physical comics, so was happy to read it on the iPad. The story, of a young boy going into some kind of insulin shock and either seeing or hallucinating a great universe-saving epic adventure is pretty cool, and the art is great (though I sometimes seem to find comics panels generally confusing). I also tried issue 1 of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s Spaceman<\/strong><\/em>. I think I want to re-read it before posting more on it.<\/p>\n That’s my culture for 1 January. I’m not expecting to add much to it today. It’s my birthday and I expect demands for my time will distract me from things, but we shall see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the things I’m toying with is posting a brief diary of the new “culture” consumed every day. I find I look back and can’t always pinpoint when I read something, hence this. There are some possible exceptions. I don’t know that I want to include anything here about short fiction I’m reading for … Continue reading What I read or watched yesterday…<\/span>