Quid Novum Infernum

the first page of the first Peach How did I not know until today that The Desert Peach is available online now? (I've been dreaming of the books at Lulu.com , but as I'm only intermittently employed, could never justify the expense.) If you don't know about the Peach, the link above barely scrapes the surface. The Desert Peach is Rommel's (fictional) gay brother, also a WWII German army officer. Terrible idea, right? Must be distasteful, right? Ahhhh, no . No, my darlings. Pfirisch, our Peach, is the dearest, sweetest thing, a man of grace and taste, kindness and principle, struggling to keep everyone safe -- his men, the men Germany's fighting against, his adored brother, his danger-loving fiance -- in some of the loopiest adventures imaginable (surfboarding in search of submarines, anyone?). Sounds broad and flippant, right? But no, no ,   my darlings. Well, okay, just a bit of both. But it's -- it's -- it's darling , like Pfirisch himself...

We all want to be Somebody, don't we? Everyone craves the glow of admiration, the satisfaction of achievement, the confidence of understanding. Don't they? But Special isn't available to us all. It's the blue ribbon, and there's only one for any contest, unlike all those green  " participant" ribbons. The very definition of a "participant" ribbon is that it's not the blue....  Slogging through decade after decade of life, I still haven't had made my peace with being on the wrong side of that divide.  I have said for years that unless your talent cures the sick or feeds the hungry, it's immeasurably less valuable than to be good to people, to be respectful, kind, helpful. That should be how we measure ourselves. That is how we contribute.  I believe this, mostly. I value the people in my life largely based on the care they take with others, on their kindness, on their thoughtfulness. I value public people in much the same way...

Much as I loved Michael Emerson in Person of Interest (Harold Finch will always be in my heart) and Lost  (because Ben Linus's creepy ambiguity/ambiguous creepiness was delightfully destabilizing), I'm so far not feeling him in Evil. I think  it's because the character seems more of a plot device than a character. Even his brief stint as a serial killer on The Practice  was more, well, ambiguous -- deniability, sometimes just this side of plausibility, was his hallmark. Or maybe I just miss Harold Finch, and this Leyland fellow is in my damn way. Wouldn't put it past me. Can we agree that Martin Freeman is possibly not of this freaking world? The man is routinely marvelous , which should Not Even Be A Thing: it's either routine, or it's a marvel, right? We watched Cargo  on Netflix recently, a moderately good movie featuring a stellar (that is, standard) Freeman performance that made me actually weep for his character. A few months ago we saw him in a smallish...