Time Goes On; No More Psychotic Reactions, Readings, Netflix

Limping Towards the Weekend - I forgot to post this

 I am still not getting anything down. The pain is just enough to be annoying, and I am too tired to fight it. Instead, I watch Netflix! Then I sleep. This cannot be sustained.

 Another of my "Dead and Dying" stories, "Second Chances, Last Chances", was rejected:

Thanks again for your submission to takahē and for your patience while I read through all the submissions.

I'm sorry we didn't find a place for your work this time.

As you'll be aware, we can only publish a fraction of the submissions we receive, and often find we have to decline excellent stories.

Thanks for entrusting takahē with your work.

Ngā mihi,



Zoë

Fiction and Comics Editor, takahē

Life Advice From the Armed Forces 

The Russian bear is out of the woods - aren't we told not to feed the bears?

Maybe today I can accomplish something.

Oh, the best hopes turn to: 

 A little improvement from yesterday. I gave up on the Zen browser - after wasting too much time on that. I did some reading, a visit to the convenience store, naps, and watching Netflix. I did clean the apartment and wash the dishes.

As for Saturday night, I almost wish this was still my attitude - doesn't seem right at 65:

Today was church, a nap dinner, a call from John about a fight with CC, and editing my latest story. A trip to the convenience store. Working on this post. Edge crashing. CC does not answer her phone. That was my Sunday.

Something learned: Indiana native Adam Driver returns home to talk to students, visit alma mater (NewsBreak). Kylo Ren is from Indiana!

 Djuna Barnes’s Playthings by Missouri Williams

At their best, the stories make a serious demand of their reader, which is something rare and special. When met with drives that seem to have no origin and actions that appear incomprehensible, you have to read between the lines, surmise, guess at meaning. There’s a line I returned to in “Aller et Retour” where the narrative voice describes “the lane of flowering trees with their perfumed cups, the moss that leaded the broken paving stones, the hot musky air, the incessant rustling wings of unseen birds––all ran together in a tangle of singing textures, light and dark.” It’s a line that makes me think of reading. It’s your job to untangle light from dark, to figure it all out. And that aside, it’s worth making the effort with this collection, even if just for the strength of certain images. There are arresting moments, as when Madame von Bartmann wanders through Marseille at night and observes the city’s prostitutes, “full-busted sirens with sly cogged eyes.” It’s hard to decipher what “cogged” means in this context, but it compounds the force of “sly” while evoking the same mindless, mechanical intensity ascribed to other women in the collection, with the cogs whirring in their brains and bodies as they make their calculations and act upon them. In “Dusie,” the movements of the story’s namesake are “like vines growing over a ruin,” and the source of her mysterious charm is that “something in her grew and died for her alone.”

I read about Barnes while in prison, then I read here when I got to Muncie. Ignoring her makes me think we have distorted American writing. Reading her is an antidote to too much Hemingway.

Fearless and Free by Josephine Baker review – ‘ten lives in one’ I know more of the legend of Josephine Baker, but I still have to say: what an American woman, too bad America rejected her.

‘Who else could ever have had a story like hers?” writes Ijeoma Oluo in the foreword to Josephine Baker’s memoir. “The dancer, the singer, the ingenue, the scandal maker, the activist, the spy – Josephine Baker lived at least 10 lives in one.” Translated gorgeously into English for the first time by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis, Fearless and Free comprises stories and reflections in Baker’s own voice, drawn from conversations with the French writer Marcel Sauvage that began in 1926 and continued for more than 20 years afterwards. They cover her early life in St Louis, her adventures in Europe and eventual transformation into, as Sauvage puts it, an “actress and French citizen of worldwide renown”.

Memoirs that span a lifetime can lack narrative drive. “Life, when you think about it later,” says Baker, “is a series of images … a film in your heart.” And yet Baker’s matchless character propels the reader. She exudes love and life on the page. And that voice! Her younger one, bright, witty, effervescent, and her older one, wiser, angrier, and still so funny.

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy review – incurable sadness if bravely borne (The Guardian) wherein John Banville reviews a reprint introduced by Colm Tóibín. I read two of McCarthy's books in prison, but I cannot recall if this was not one of them. The review makes me think it was - a reminder how barren and nasty could be pre-WW II life. We have come to think Leave It To Beaver was reality when it was an unrealized ideal.

Now, for what I have been watching on Netflix. Graveyard (2022) has had my attention since Friday. Another choice that turned out better than expected; my curiosity turned out to have made as good a choice with this as with One Night in Paradise. Graveyard is a Turkish TV show produced by Netflix. Its style is more of a high quality TV movie - great cinematography, great sets - it just looks superb. Yes, Birce Akalay has more than a passing resemblance to Gal Gadot. She is surrounded by actors as good as she is at carrying characters of depth. So, what is this show like? Using American comparisons: it has some of the same visceral, almost gross-out, imagery of the original CSI; it has some of the same unit reaction and politics of The Closer; and it has some of the same brief as Law & Order: SVU, without degenerating into what I thought was prurience and a TV-Movie-of-the-Week tone (but then Graveyard has run only two seasons). And it is more than all of that, Graveyard leaves SVU looking slight and sensational.

First of all, what Graveyard talks about in the series is very valuable and bold. Every kind of violence against women in Turkey has been a very serious and vital problem. So, “Graveyard” is a dark basement, where a special unit works to solve unsolved murders of women. By doing so, the Chief Commissioner Önem Özülkü needs and must struggle with masculine biases that support male violence.

The titles of the four episodes are “Hotter Than the Sun”, “As Breath Away”, “The Woman in the Lake” and “The Bound”. In every episode, the series says its words and critics the system very plainly. The chief commissioner Özülkü and her team fiercely criticize the state, police organization, and male-dominated mentality. So, the question is this: What makes Graveyard (Mezarlık) so precious? So, the thing that makes the show so precious is that the series is a powerful critique and objection that comes from the very heart of the system itself.

Graveyard (Mezarlık): What is the Story of Netflix Turkish Original Series? 

***

 Crime dramas often depict law enforcement battling against external threats, but Graveyard (originally Mezarlık) takes a different approach—one that exposes the deeply ingrained biases within the system itself. This Turkish crime thriller follows Chief Inspector Önem Özülkü, who is appointed to lead the newly established Special Crimes Unit. Tasked with investigating the murders of women, Özülkü and her team soon realize that their biggest obstacle isn’t just the complexity of the cases, but the systemic prejudice that minimizes crimes against women.

The series masterfully weaves together crime, mystery, and psychological drama to create a gripping and thought-provoking narrative. Each episode unfolds with meticulous attention to detail, keeping viewers hooked as the team unravels a complex web of secrets, motives, and hidden truths. Rather than just focusing on the "whodunit" aspect, Graveyard delves into the societal attitudes that enable violence against women, making it a chillingly relevant watch.

‘Graveyard’ Netflix Series Review - Crime Thriller that Gets You Hooked (Midgard Times)

Catching up on my rejections. 

The first two are for "Problem Solving":

Thank you for your submission to the Santa Clara Review.  We regret to inform you that we will not be extending an offer of publication at this time.  

Thank you for your interest in the Santa Clara Review, and we wish you every success in finding a publisher for your work.

Sincerely, 

Sophie Copple

Fiction Editor

Santa Clara Review

***

Thank you for sending your piece(s) to Long River Review. Our editors have carefully looked over your work, but feel it does not suit the journal's needs at this time. We wish you the best in submitting elsewhere and hope that you will consider submitting again in the future.

Sincerely,

Sofia Tas-Castro 

Fiction Editor of the Long River Review 

This was for "No Ordinary Word":

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your work. Although "No Ordinary Word" is not the best fit for Write or Die Magazine at this time, we hope you will submit your work again soon.

As writers, we know how hard this process can be. Remember that a rejection is not a reflection of your work—there are so many circumstances that contribute to a rejection or an acceptance. Keep doing the work. Keep submitting!

Please note that due to the volume of submissions we receive, we cannot provide feedback as to why a story was not accepted. 

Cheering you on,

The Write or Die Magazine Team 

This one was for "Road Tripping":

Thank you for submitting to New Letters. Although we are not able to publish your work at this time, please be assured that we value your submission and your interest.

Our general reading period is open. You may also send fiction, poetry, and essays to our award programs with yearly deadlines in mid-May and mid-November.  Awards total $8,500.00 annually.

Thanks, again, for thinking of New Letters.

With best wishes,

Christie Hodgen

Editor-in-Chief

One more thing to watch, enough to make Americans blush at how the rest of the world sees us - anti-democratic, liars, cowards. So much for making America great again.

 Lastly, The Sunday of Orthodoxy: Accepting God's Extraordinary Gift  (Public Orthodoxy)

Okay, maybe just this Psychotic Reaction?

 sch