Some Losses

It has been a particular season of losses. Most noticeably, we lost spring and moved right into summer in May and June.  Our seasons are slowly changing.  Winter will run from January 1 to January 31; spring runs through February and March. Summer (90 degree days) runs from April into June. July and August could be labeled Hot Sauce Summer or Nuclear Summer with temperatures up to 105 or 110 degrees almost every day.  I'm retired, so I can move to Manitoba so that I don't become a cinder. I'm getting ready for "funny money."    
And as for the Cubs, "We stinks!"  OK, so that's not really any different.      










On a more serious note, we lost Ray Bradbury, who meant a lot to readers like me. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois, right here in Lake County. Waukegan became "Green Town" in Bradbury's stories, like Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.   He was lifelong friends with Ray Harryhausen and cartoonist Chuck Jones. We were fascinated by the movie "Something Wicked This Way Comes," the 1983 adaptation of Bradbury's classic tale of shadowy dreams come true. Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark, the devilish leader of the Pandemonium Carnival, brings temptation to a small town.    

Ray Bradbury

So some of my summer is spent re-reading some Ray Bradbury classics in honor of his life.       

Also on the losses side are some geeky TV shows that we really liked that got canceled way too early. The geek website IO9 has come up with a novel idea to save us from feeling too sad about the cancellations: "Awesome Books to Replace Your Favorite Canceled TV Shows."   Kindle as Therapy! Better than poetry, art, and clowns, maybe.    

High on my list of stupid cancellations was "Pushing Daisies." Ned, the pie baker, had the ability to bring someone to life by touching them once, or sending them back to dead by touching them a second time. He touches his dead girl friend to bring her back, but now can't have any physical contact of any kind.  It was an incredibly quirky show from the people that did "Wonderfalls," which also ended too soon. It also includes our favorite maniac actress: Kristin Chenoweth who we saw as Glinda the Good Witch singing "Popular" in Wicked     

The book substitute: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender.
Just as pies provide a huge motif in Pushing Daisies, so too is food vital in Bender's 2010 novel. Rose is a "magic food psychic" who can sense people's secrets by eating their food. Eventually, she hones this ability to the point where she can learn all sorts of things by eating — and this changes her relationships with everyone around her. Like Pushing Daisies, Lemon Cake shows how a strange power can change your relationship with people around you, and with the world.   

A second TV show I cried over losing was "Journeyman."  It is a Quantum Leap sort of show, but the protagonist is not a scientist and seems to be a random choice for someone to move around in time. The added difficulty is that he jumps several times without warning while working on a specific case, thereby causing difficulties with his wife, son, and friends. A clever, well-written show, it should have lasted longer than 13 episodes.    

The book substitute: This one is easy — The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (ignore the terrible movie adaptation.) Niffenegger's masterful look at a man who becomes unstuck in time, and how it affects his relationship with his wife (whom he meets as a little girl, thanks to time travel) was probably a major inspiration for Journeyman, and it's a pure, incredible dose of everything we loved about the show.    

If you have other gaps in your life due to the cancellation of a sci-fi / fantasy TV show, check out the website given above. It will help you get over Firefly, Caprica, Angel, and Jericho with some well thought out suggestions. Happy reading!