Dog days

In these sluggish dog days of summer, I've been too busy reading, watching TV, eating, and doing nothing to post here in a while. What has occupied me:

1. My birthday: I got lots of wonderful DVDs and CDs (like a Charlie Chan set, a Wild Wild West set, the 1980 Flash Gordon, the Michael Shayne Mysteries set, a very very 70's TV special with the 5th Dimension, and the new album by the Decemberists) and I got treated to lots of wonderful meals--at the Olive Garden, at Thai Taste (the pomegranate martinis are heavenly), and at a homemade grill-out at which I ate 2-1/2 cheeseburgers (with luscious slabs of onion), 3 ears of farm corn, assorted sides, and some dark chocolate cake, so I guess you could say I've been in recovery since.

2. The Burma Road, a book by Donovan Webster on what was known as the China-Burma-India theater in WWII. I'm an amateur WWII buff, but I often get lost in books which focus on the battlefields. This, however, is an excellent account of the bloody conflicts between the Allies and the Japanese, focusing on the figure of Joseph Stillwell, who not only fought with the enemy but had to traverse the tricky waters of diplomacy with Chiang Kai-shek, not to mention an early rivalry with American Claire Chennault, head of the independent Flying Tigers. The book is clear, well written, and informative. I could have used a few more maps--one reason I get lost in battleground books is that I need detailed maps to visualize what's happening--but otherwise a very good book. (It doesn't hurt that the photo of Webster on the inner book flap (see left) makes him look like Richard Gere.)

3. Masters of Science Fiction, a 4-episode series that ABC has dumped on Saturday nights in August. The shows are all very reminiscent of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, both in content and tone. Even the visual style is a bit retro, though what fx they use are fairly well done. The first two episodes had explicit political messages (one about a president who has a nervous breakdown after he triggers a nuclear holocaust, the other about a military attack against aline beings who are not quite what they seem); the third was about genetic engineering and issues of what it means to be human. The actors have been an interesting bunch: Sam Waterston, Judy Davis, Malcolm McDowell, and Terry O'Quinn. It was fun to see William B. Davis, the Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files, and the only bad apple so far is Anne Heche. There's one more episode due, and sadly it almost certainly won't get picked up for the future, but it would be nice to see this kind of anthology show find a home at Sci-Fi or HBO.