barbara_hambly: Writ upon water...

barbara_hambly (

barbara_hambly) wrote,
@ 2008-02-28 18:57:00

Current location:	Here
Current music:	stillness

Writ upon water...
When the Cable Guy brought a new, digital box this morning (three times the size of the analog box, and complete with a small and bewildered cockroach which crawled out for lagniappe), he expressed surprise that I do not get any cable channels: just the local broadcast stations. I said, I watch TV so seldom that it wasn't worth the $45/month for 150 channels which is the least you can get. What TV I watch, is either movies or old shows bought in boxed sets. We enthused a little over what he considered "old" shows, and he mentioned he enjoyed Get Smart. I countered with saying, I was waiting for The Man From UNCLE to become available on Netflix (it's only available now through Time-Warner, I gather)...

And this fellow had never heard of The Man From UNCLE. (Yes, this fellow was young enough to be my son, but still...) The original Spy Show? The show of which Get Smart was a parody? I blush to say I can still rattle off that UNCLE (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) was a secret law-enforcement agency headquartered in New York and entered through the changing-booth of Del Floria's tailor-shop and pants-pressing establishment... What's wrong with these people? Does no one recall its zillion imitators in the mid-sixties? (Secret Life of Henry Pfyfe, anyone?) (Which I never watched, either... there was a reason I gave up TV).

Misty-cool evening after a gorgeous day. Salt-fog coming in off the ocean, slowly enveloping the sky during my walk. The smell of the sea. Crows.

Still fighting the Civil War.

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	2ndsoprano 2008-02-29 03:29 am UTC (link)
	I am also awaiting UNCLE's appearance on Netflix. I watched religiously. They just don't make 'em like that anymore- or not very often, anyway. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Don't Make 'em Like That... barbara_hambly 2008-02-29 04:29 am UTC (link)
	Well, I gather from some folks who've seen them, that they didn't make 'em like that back then. As a friend of mine said, "Somebody went back and re-made a lot of those episodes so they're really stupid..." But I still need to see. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Don't Make 'em Like That... 2ndsoprano 2008-02-29 03:23 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, but aren't many of the shows we watched in our misspent youth rather lame appearing, when looked at from our now gained "wisdom and maturity"? (gack I can't believe I actually wrote that!) And I have always been (still am, really) a fan of the campy. I will also add my voice to those who were crushing big time on Ilya... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Don't Make 'em Like That...

barbara_hambly
2008-02-29 03:54 pm UTC (link)

The one that amuses me is re-watching Miami Vice, and seeing Our Heroes being SO COOL and cutting-edge... and hunting all over town for a pay-phone. No cell phones, of course. And no laptop computers. It wouldn't amuse me if the show hadn't been so clearly into its own hipness (Paladin didn't carry a cell phone, either)(although, now that I think of it, Nap & Ilya did, after a fashion).

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Re: Don't Make 'em Like That...

2ndsoprano
2008-02-29 07:24 pm UTC (link)

Lordy, Miami Vice! Now THAT brings back a memory- hubby going out and buying a "Don Johnson cool" outfit: The "deconstructed" look jacket, open shirt, pleated front trousers... He even bought a pair of suspenders, so he could wear the trousers beltless!!! ROFL The only thing he didn't do was the scruffy, unshaven look! He wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit now! But I'm getting a good chuckle out of the memory.

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	Re: Don't Make 'em Like That... barbara_hambly 2008-02-29 08:25 pm UTC (link)
	Well, any show where they're more concerned for the show's "palette" than its writing, you know is gonna be pretty risible in a couple of years. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Don't Make 'em Like That... ethesis 2008-03-01 09:34 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, but when I was a kid, it was my favorite show. I stumbled here, looking for the book that goes with the cover http://www.barbarahambly.com/anne1.jpg but I think I'll just enjoy the site for a while. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	U.N.C.L.E. ankhorite 2008-02-29 03:45 am UTC (link)
	Ah, but I thought Get Smart was much groovier, because it had Agent 99. Even though Illya Kuryakin was my first crush evah in my life—I was seven when he caught my eye—I still, even then, held a grudge against the series for not having a female lead. Sorry about the roach; hope she didn't portend Things To Come. (Reply to this)(Thread)

Re: U.N.C.L.E.

barbara_hambly
2008-02-29 04:37 am UTC (link)

It's a risk you take bringing any new piece of electronics into the house, of course. Though the worst unscheduled importation of livestock wasn't from electronics, but from a (God help me) weird made-in-China statue of horses that George ordered from Singapore one night when he went on e-Bay after he'd taken his Ambien (an activity he pursued with distressing frequency.) The box arrived - a mammoth triple wooden crate - with SINGAPORE stamped all over it, and I thought, "If there's a hitch-hiker on board I'm gonna f-'en kill you, George." Sure enough, we came home that night to find a mammoth - but fortunately rather dazed - specimin of SOMETHING staggering around the living-room. It didn't even try to flee when I whacked it with a hammer. The crate spent the night on the porch, where I unpacked it in the morning. And Christ, that statue was ugly.
George was a dear, dear man and I treasure his memory.

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Re: U.N.C.L.E. / "SOMETHING"

ankhorite
2008-02-29 05:11 am UTC (link)

"SOMETHING" ???

Not to traumatize you further by making you wallow in the memory, but how many legs did "SOMETHING" have?

I need to go to sleep tonight, and I'm afraid I'm taking "SOMETHING" with me into my dreams.

AIIIIEEE!!!

My sympathy, of course, and I'm glad this memory brings smiles as well as shudders. One of the things making me smile right now is the way you resort to literal profanity (that is, in the ecclesiastical sense) in moments of stress, as do I, despite forty years of committed atheism. More than once, my own dear partner has heard me shriek, "JEEsus MAARry and JOseph" when, you know, "something" comes lunging out of somewhere.

Most recently, a beastly big cricket launching itself from an overhead soffit into my hair. In my kitchen. Holy Mother of God!!!

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	Re: U.N.C.L.E. / "SOMETHING" barbara_hambly 2008-02-29 03:38 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, six legs. It was clearly a member of the cockroach tribe. And I may have slaughtered it by dropping a volume of the OED on it instead of hitting it with a hammer. It needed something fairly large; the thing was about 3 inches long. As a former resident of New Orleans, I got REAL tired of the genus orthoptera. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	writergirlie 2008-02-29 04:41 am UTC (link)
	Ah and Robert Vaughn was quite the looker in his younger days :). I have to admit, that was a little before my time as well, but at least I know the show! Kids these days... (Reply to this)

namastenancy
2008-02-29 08:25 am UTC (link)

Ah, The Man From Uncle - my first crush. I remember the first glimpse I had of David McCallum, all blond and mysterious and looking very sexy in a black turtleneck sweater. I am anxiously awaiting their arrival on Netflix and I hope that I'm not too disappointed. Even if I am, I am sure that there will be some fun things to rewatch.
RE: the critters that lurk. I used to live in Trinidad and we never put our shoes on in the morning without shaking them out first. What crawled out was often a scorpion or a tarantula (ug). I hate bugs.

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	mirandaflynn 2008-02-29 11:37 am UTC (link)
	The very earliest UNCLEs, the black-and-white versions, played the show straight and kind of sinister. Solo was a fairly dark character. Later, the producers camped it up. (Reply to this)

	chickwriter 2008-02-29 01:23 pm UTC (link)
	Ah, U.N.C.L.E. - absolutely one of my favorites. I had a mad crush on Ilya Kuryakin (who didn't?) and thought Napoleon Solo was the epitome of debonair. Of course, my crushes changed when Starsky and Hutch debuted. ::g:: (Reply to this)

melodywilde
2008-02-29 01:24 pm UTC (link)

I blush to say I can still rattle off that UNCLE etc.

I can remember Illya's middle name (Nikovitch) (which may or may not be spelled correctly). And THRUSH. And the Girl from (which had an episode with Boris Karloff as Mother Muffin). Good good stuff, some of which is shudder-making in retrospect. Recently, one of the cable stations was rerunning some episodes from later seasons, and they were pretty awful. The one I especially remember was The Evil Villain perfecting a something (drug? shot?) that would make people hiccup themselves to death. Why? No clue; I think I missed that part of the program. My friend Ellen and I were talking about this phenomenon ("We watched that?"). She pointed out that the first season was quite good, but then they decided to move toward doing "camp" episodes for some reason. (She sent me a copy of the first season, BTW; just got it and can't wait to start watching!)

However, I must admit that much as I adore Napoleon and Illya, my real true first "spy" love is John Drake. It embarrasses me when I stop to realize how many years I've been in love with that man...

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Mr. K and Mr. D

barbara_hambly
2008-02-29 03:49 pm UTC (link)

Ah, John Drake.
And let us not forget Mr. Steed and Mrs. Peel.
Yes, I recall the hiccup drug, too. Actually, one of my very favorite characters on that show was Mr. Waverly (Leo G. Carroll); I still think of (and have heard others refer to) the "older-wiser-boss of the sexy young team-guys" in any show as the "Mr. Waverly character" - one of my favorites of that category being Mr. Cowley (Gordon Jackson) of The Professionals. And of course, Edward James Olmos on Miami Vice.

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	Re: Mr. K and Mr. D melodywilde 2008-02-29 04:02 pm UTC (link)
	I never forget Mr. Steed and Mrs. Peel. To paraphrase Judge Turpin, I have them all--DVDs of them--right here. (Or, rather, there, since they're at home and I'm at work.) I adored Leo G. Carroll. And Edward James Olmos (although I must admit my feelings for EJO were somewhat...er...different from the ones I had for LGC). (Reply to this)(Parent)

	handworn 2008-03-01 01:05 am UTC (link)
	There was a book that came out some years back titled something like "Cultural Literacy: X Number of Things Every American Should Know." The Man From U.N.C.L.E. should be in that number. I'm young enough to be your son-- not by much-- and I know about it, though I've never watched it. (I'll take this post as a recommendation, should it ever finally make it to Netflix.) (Reply to this)

	dracschick 2008-03-01 02:51 am UTC (link)
	I don't watch much tv either these days, mostly DVDs (or even my old VHS tapes) as well. (Reply to this)

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