Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts and such like. In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived) ¬Bishop George Berkeley

Not even I understand everything I am ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.).
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com website or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

Though this is the first book I've read by this author, for over 20 years Colson Whitehead has delivered novels notable for (a.o.) cultural satire and racial allegories. A few well known titles: The Intuitionist,
Sag Harbor, Zone One, The Underground Railroad (Pulitzer #1), and The Nickel Boys (Pulitzer #2).
In his 8th novel, Harlem Shuffle, Whitehead offers a literary crime saga that is allegedly a lighter read than his previous 2 novels.

'Harlem Shuffle' is the captivating story of Ray Carney: a furniture salesman, family man, entrepreneur on the rise and a walking & talking striver.
Set from 1959 to 1964, the novel comprises three episodes charting the precarious rise of Carney, a self-made man who habitually dips and sometimes dives into New York’s criminal underworld.
Act 1 shows how easily a man can step downward into crime. Act 2 considers Carney’s upward criminal climb. Act 3 considers whether a man should step up to help others. The three parts present our options: descent, personal advancement, social progress.

In his straight life, Carney is the owner and proprietor of Carney’s Furniture, which serves the neighborhood’s Black clientele. arney is also a tender husband to his supportive pregnant wife Elizabeth and father to their young daughter Mary.
Carney gets sucked into schemes and heists through his cousin Freddie, whom one would call a bad influence (and Freddie himself has his own bad influences..). Also, Carney is the son of an infamous, long-deceased local hoodlum named Big Mike Carney, from whom he’s inherited a healthy sense of cunning..

My fascination for this book probably stemmed from watching a tv-series: 'Godfather of Harlem' (starring a.o. Forest Whitaker and Nigel Thatch). And indeed Bumpy Johnson and Malcolm X get mentioned. So I mentioned this book to my wife as a possible birthday gift recently and am very glad my wife followed up on the suggestion!

www.theguardian.com/books/2021/- -/harlem-shuffle-by-colson-whitehead
harvardreview.org/book-review/harlem-shuffle

Season 3 is the closing chapter of this remarkable dramatic thriller series in an unusal setting: the high arctic. And it isn't the only thing unusual ingredient: it has to do with a mutating virus (how appropriate in these days of the Covid-19 pandemic) stemming from a defrosted mammal in the first season
Fortitude is a fictional community located on Svalbard in Arctic Norway.
It probably helps to see the 1st and 2nd series before watching this 3rd series.

Sheriff Dan Anderssen (a role by Richard Dormer) is still a key player, though his infection and survival by the virus becomes more apparent and outlandish. Governor Hildur Odegard (Sofie Gråbøl makes a reappearance, as a ghost accompanying Sheriff Dan).
Some of the scientists of Season 2 continue in this season, but the sponsor Elsa behind the (secret) science project in S2 travels from California to Fortitude to see what can be saved from the project.
Annie Burgess is a new arrival in Fortitude and has a personal reason for wanting to know what happened to DCI Myklebust, who is killed with her assistent early in this 3rd series.
Dan's violent spree catches up with him.
One needs to embrace the strange occurrences due to the virus to enjoy this series, and I did.

www.imdb.com/title/- - -season_3
en.wikipedia.org: Fortitude_(TV_series)
See also Season 1 on MyBlog 2015Q4

I

'Annika' is a British crime drama tv-series, based on the BBC Radio 4 drama 'Annika Stranded'.The 1st episode aired on 17Aug2021.
Annika Strandhed is a Detective Inspector (DI) in the Scottish Police, recently transferred to the Glasgow Marine Homicide Unit.
She brings with her a teenage daughter. The relationship between Annika and her daughter is the basis for the sub-plot across all the episodes.

Annika is of Norwegian ancestry, mirroring the original radio series.
The radio series 'Annika Stranded' was also written by Nick Walker and featured Nicola Walker as Annika Strandhed, but was set in Oslo.

Something on the narrative (6 independent episodes):
DI Annika Strandhed joins a new unit in Scotland, on her first day she's heading up a murder case, after a dead man is pulled out of The Clyde.
The 2nd episode sees a body found on a boat in the Clyde; the case takes the team to the Isle of Bute. Evidence points to a jilted lover, but as the team investigate, a darker secret starts to emerge.

Much of the filming took place in Glasow. Nicole was photographed filming on a police rib boat on the River Clyde in February 2021, and a Marine Homicide Unit vehicle was pictured on Bridge Street, by Glasgow Bridge.
A fan also caught a glimpse of a car chase scene being filmed further up the River Clyde in Govan.
The crew headed up slightly North-West to Loch Lomond for their breathtaking scenic shots of the peaceful lake and rolling hills. Annika’s house is said to be located on the banks of Loch Lomond.
The Loch Lomond Shores shopping centre tweeted how Annika walked passed here.

Nicola Walker again plays a masterful role, and I love how she pauzes and adress the viewer with quotes from classics and her personal considerations. Walker never put a foot a wrong since I watched her on 'Spooks' and the 4 series of 'Unforgotten'. She ranks among the greats with a.o. Olivia Colman and Kate Winslet.
There is an excellent rapport between the main characters in this series. Looking forward t a follow up!

en.wikipedia.org:_Annika_(TV_series)
www.imdb.com/title:_Annika
en.wikipedia.org:_Nicola_Walker

Floriade (EXPO) 1982 was a garden festival held in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The 2nd Amsterdam Floriade was held from 08Apr-10Oct1982.
It was the 9th edition of the international horticultural exposition organised under the auspices of the Association of International Horticultural Producers (AIPH) and the 3rd held in the Netherlands.
Floriade 1982 was held at a recreation area surrounding the Gaasperplas lake in the neighborhood of Gaasperdam. The entrance to the Floriade was near the previously constructed Gaasperplas metro station.
What remained after the Floriade, after some of the structures were removed, became the Gaasperpark.
The planetarium (in one of the photos below) today houses a conference and meeting center. The interior furnishings of the planetarium were moved in 1988 to the Artis Planetarium.

Earlier this year a plan was introduced to restructure the park in 2022: 40 years after the creation of the Gaasperplas it is time to tackle the park so that it can last for another 40 years.

en.wikipedia.org:_Floriade_1982
www.amsterdam.nl/projecten/gaasperplas/ (NL)

The continued appeal of 'Shetland' is the way its human dramas are entwined with the dramatic and haunting landscape, with each facet feeding into the other.
There is plenty of crime narrative next to the drama involving the main characters Jimmy Pérez (Douglas Henshall), his friend Duncan (Mark Bonnar; who sees a dark episode of his past coming up to haunt him), Cassie Pérez (role by Erin Armstrong; Jimmy's stepdaughter), DS ‘Tosh’ Macintosh (Alison O’Donnell) and the various characters in the category ‘suspects’.

A local lawyer is murdered in his house and an Army veteran, Logan Creggan, is the first suspect; he suffers from PTSD after returning from Iraq. He lives with his son, who has a website on crimeon which he publishes info on the murder investigation.
A few other suspects make it to the crime board but a toxic connection to Galbraith, who has his wife running in a local political campaign, cannot be made.
Eamon Gauldie, supposedly in the neighbourhood of the murder flying a drone, is killed on board a dive ship before a witness statement can be made: murder or accident?

This 6th series opens with people gathered for the burial of Jimmy’s morther. We are witness to Perez’s pain as while mouring the loss of his mother, he watches his father’s decline into dementia.
Henshall has been playing the role for the best part of a decade, and the long litany of deaths and betrayals is mirrored in his increasingly haggard appearance; no trace of his role play becoming flat!

The combination of Henshall and the Shetland landscapes – ranging from crystal-clear blue skies and glittering blue water to vistas of wind-swept, snow-covered hillsides spattered with a few cowering sheep – that makes my desire to go and see for myself getting increasingle stronger and stronger!
This series ends with events that must see a series 7 soon (2022). Looking forward!

Shetland, Series 6, BBC One review.
Shetland (TV series) - Wikipedia
Imdb.com

'Mare of Easttown' is an American crime drama tv-series, created by Brad Ingelsby for HBO. The series premiered on 18Apr2021, consisting of 7 episodes.
It stars Kate Winslet as the title character, a detective investigating a murder in a small town near Philadelphia.
Mare of Easttown was acclaimed by critics, who lauded its story, characters, acting, and representation of women. Rightly so, I think.
The series received 16 nominations at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards and won 4, including Outstanding Lead Actress for Winslet, Outstanding Supporting Actor for Peters, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Nicholson.

Narrative:
In a suburb of Philadelphia, police detective Marie-Ann 'Mare' Sheehan (a superb role by Kate Winslet) investigates the recent murder of a teenage mother, while trying to keep her own life from falling apart.
Mare is a local hero, having been the star of a high-school basketball championship game 25 years ago, but others bear a grudge for her as she has also been unable to solve the case of another missing young girl, Katie, for a year.
Her personal troubles include a divorce, a son lost to suicide, and a custody battle with her ex-heroin addict former daughter-in-law over Mare's grandson. Mare's mother lives in with her, taking care of Mare's grandchild and they have a complicated relationship.
Mare's ex/ husband and his financée live in a house with their backyards towards each other: too close for comfort.
Mare's daughter Siobhan can talk about her dead brother with her father, but not with Mare. The only person Mare confides in is her friend Lori Ross (Julianne Nicholson).
The local police see the county detective Detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters) joining the investigation of young Erin's murder; Mare and Zabel have a strained start but gradually get along working together.
While Mare pushes everyone away on an emotional level, she does get involved with a writer turned teacher, Richard Ryan (Guy Pearce).

Truly excellent role playing, spellbinding narrative and I fervently hope for a 2nd series!

en.wikipedia.org:_Mare_of_Easttown
Mare of Easttown (TV Series 2021) - IMDb

Robert Frank was made famous by his massive book The Americans, which I purchased in a fine edition many years ago. I love his work and since I was in Paris 2 months ago, visiting photo exhibitions and doing some street photography, this work by him titled 'Paris' (published by Steidl in 2008) was an inevitable purchase for me.

This publication of 'Paris' (80 photographs reproduced here) marks the first time that the significant body of photographs which Robert Frank made in Paris in the early 1950s have been brought together in a single book.
Having left Switzerland in 1924, this 1951 trip to France was only Frank's second return to Europe after he'd settled in New York City in 1947; some of the images he made during that visit have become iconic in the history of the medium.
Frank saw the city's streets as a stage for human activity and focused particularly on the flower sellers. He's a constant source for inspiration.

bintphotobooks.blogspot.com/2015/03/views-reviews-paris-robert-frank
en.wikipedia.org:_Robert_Frank

The idea of making photographs while driving a cab is certainly not a novel idea. Ryan Weideman, Michael Goldfarb, David Bradford, and Matt Weber all come to mind. Joseph Rodriguez is yet another member of this club.
In this monograph from Rodriguez, we see some of his finest images from his time behind the wheel.
Taxi is a worthy collection of work.

I very much like Rodriguez’s photography, like the gritty content. Some are clearly very candid and others imply at least some tacit cooperation from the subject.

I've read some objectio to the text, captions, in the book. It does not bother me. Sure, photography books should contain photography and interpretation should be left to the reader. But I am also a data person, so I'm ok with it, others might not.

Rodriguez equally loves the beautiful bits and the ugly bits of what makes us human – a vital skill for a documentary photographer. This is the first time I came across his work, I'll keep my eyes out for more.

Page Count: 132 | c.70 photographs
ISBN: 9781576879313
streetphotography.com/taxi-by-joseph-rodriguez/

'The Shadow Knows' is a remarkable collection of work by Lee Friedlander, my first of books by him. Just the idea, while so obvious out there, is fascinating.

Friedlander (b.14July1934-) is an American photographer and has been producing fantastic and original photography for a very long time.
He began earning pocket-money from photography when he was just fourteen, which would have been in 1948. However, it was during the 1960s when Friedlander came into his own and garnered attention from those who matter.
This new volume, from SPQR Editions (2020), features Friedlander’s 'shadow' photographs, which span virtually his entire professional career. The earliest is dated 1963 and others are dated as recently as 2011.

One aspect of this work that jumps out is the very pleasant sense of humor, though I am somewhat uncomfortable about his shadow falling over a young woman sunbathing in a bikini (but that may be the sign of the times).

His work is in many acclaimed galleries and museums and he is considered a master photographer of his age.
When reading up on the monumental cemetery at Staglieno, near Genoa (Italy), which I visited last month, I was pleasantly surprised that Friedlander had made a photo trip there too!

streetphotography.com/the-shadow-knows-by-lee-friedlander/
en.wikipedia.org:_Lee_Friedlander

P.J. O'Rourke is a celebrated political humorists and has been hailed as 'the funniest writer in America by both Time and The Wall Street Journal.
In 1988 he published the classic however unlikely travelogue 'Holidays in Hell', in which he traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission to what were then some of the most desperate places on the planet, including Wars...

The man from Ohio travels to hellholes around the globe in Holidays in Hell, looking for trouble, the truth, and a good time.
After casually sight-seeing in war-torn Lebanon and being pepper-gassed in Korea, P.J. checks out the night life in communist Poland and spends Christmas vacation in El Salvador He gets into a close encounter with a Philippine army officer whom he describes as "powerful-looking in a short, compressed way, like an attack hamster”.
No mean feat to bring a smile on the face of the reader while describing the havoc, chaos in locations where there seems no no shelter from the storm.

P. J. O’Rourke has written 19 books on subjects as diverse as politics and cars and etiquette and economics. He lives in rural New England, as far away from the things he writes about as he can get.
I am sure I will pick up one or two of his books along the way to read more of his work, his wit and sarcasm is without equal.

groveatlantic.com/book/holidays-in-hell/
en.wikipedia.org:_P._J._O'Rourke

The media was saddened to report the death of Tom Stoddart, reportedly one of the finest documentary photographers and photojournalists the UK has ever produced.
The award-winning British photojournalist, whose work has appeared in the most notable international magazines and newspapers, died at the age of 68 of cancer.

Tom Stoddart began his photographic career on local newspapers in his beloved North East, before moving to London and building a solid reputation as a photojournalist, most notably for his coverage of Desert Storm.

His international frontline assignments included almost every major conflict and natural disaster over four decades, from wars to earthquakes and from the fall of the Berlin Wall to pandemics.
He really made his name, however, with his images from the frontline of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia (he was seriously injured by Serbian artillery while covering the siege of Sarajevo in 1992).
Stoddart’s work is notable for its humanity, putting the casualties of strife to the fore.

In 1992 he was seriously injured in heavy fighting in Bosnia. After a year of recovery, he produced a powerful feature on the aftermath of the Mississippi floods and, later that year, an award-winning photo-essay on the harsh training regime of Chinese Olympic Child Gymnasts.

In December 1993, Stoddart returned to Sarajevo to report on the hardship of life in the city during a freezing winter under siege. Tom’s acclaimed in-depth work on the HIV/AIDS pandemic blighting sub-Saharan Africa won the POY World Understanding Award in 2003.
In the same year, his pictures of British Royal Marines in combat, during hostilities in Iraq, was awarded the Larry Burrows Award for Exceptional War Photography.
His book iWITNESS was honoured as the best photography book published in the US and his first major exhibition in London in 2012 attracted nearly a quarter of a million viewers.

Stoddart is the recipient of Lifetime Achievement awards from this peers and his new book, Extraordinary Women: Images of Courage, Endurance and Defiance will be published in October 2020 by ACC Art Books and Iconic Images.

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/- - -/remembering-tom-stoddart
iconicimages.net/photographers/tom-stoddart/

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder (c. 54 BC – c. 39 AD), also known (less correctly) as Seneca the Rhetorician, was a Roman writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Corduba, Hispania.

He was a prominent Roman philosopher and playwright who published several essential works about Stoicism. He is considered one of the three key Stoic philosophers (alongside Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus), counseled Emperor Nero, and is often credited with rendering Stoicism more accessible to a larger audience than his counterparts.

In basic terms, Stoicism teaches us that if we have the essentials and a strong inner spirit, we can radically accept and endure whatever circumstances the universe throws at us. 'Letters from a Stoic', which Seneca wrote toward the end of his life from approximately 63 AD to 65 AD, expands upon these lessons.
'Letters from a Stoic' is presumably a collection of 124 letters Seneca sent to his friend Lucilius – then the procurator of Sicily (essentially an official in Ancient Rome) — advising him on how to become a better Stoic.
"Presumably" because many scholars have hypothesized that Seneca’s letters were “essays in disguise” – there is no evidence of Lucilius writing back to Seneca, and the letters’ style suggests that they were meant to be published rather than read by a friend.
The first recorded full translation of these letters to English was by Thomas Lodge in 1614, and they have been translated many times since.

How can we cope when life's events seem beyond our control? These words of consolation and inspiration from the three great Stoic philosophers - Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius - offer ancient wisdom on how to face life's adversities and live well in the world.

Some quotes I particularly enjoy:

This is an exquisite publication in the superb Penguin Classics series, by Penguin Random Books;
this edition was published in 2014.
ISBN 978-0-141-39585-2
It is also one of 20 books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series, a new selection showcasing a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists. My wishlist become longer and longer...

en.wikipedia.org:_Seneca_the_Elder
www.penguin.co.uk/- - -/seneca
dailystoic.com/letters-from-a-stoic/
penguinchecklist.wordpress.com/penguin-classics/classics-2nd-edition/

The Pembrokeshire Murders is a British 3-part television drama miniseries, based on the Pembrokeshire murders by Welsh serial killer John Cooper.
In 2006, newly promoted Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins decided to reopen two unsolved 1980s murder cases linked with a string of burglaries. New advances in technology for Forensic DNA analysis, witness reports and artists impressions of the suspect lead to Dyfed-Powys Police reviewing a 1989 episode of Bullseye, which led to the serial killer finally being caught.
It premiered on ITV on 11Jan2021.

The drama is the 13th in a series of ITV mini-series featuring notorious British murder cases of the past two centuries, following on from This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2000), Shipman (2002), A Is for Acid (2002), The Brides in the Bath (2003), See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006), Appropriate Adult (2011), Dark Angel, In Plain Sight (both 2016), Little Boy Blue (2017), Manhunt (2019), White House Farm, and Des (both 2020).

Main cast:
Luke Evans as Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins
Keith Allen as serial killer John Cooper
Caroline Berry as Pat Cooper, John Cooper's wife
Oliver Ryan as Andrew Cooper, John Cooper's son
David Fynn as Jonathan Hill (tv presenter)
Alexandria Riley as Detective Inspector Ella Richards

The Pembrokeshire Murders - Wikipedia
The Pembrokeshire Murders (TV Mini Series 2021) - IMDb

The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer (on photography)

Focusing on the ways in which canonical figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Andre Kertesz, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus and William Eggleston have photographed the same things – barbershops, benches, hands, hats, roads, signs – Geoff Dyer seeks to identify their signature styles.
What makes it particularly interesting to me is, in doing so he constructs a narrative in which I get to know more about these photographers. If they inspired their famous fellow craftsmen, Dyer inspires me through their work!

Dyer's lightness in writing and his dry humour makes this book easily readable. An fine journey through the history of photography, with an excellent selection of photographs included too. There is much to be inspired by.

Geoff Dyer (b.05Jun58) is an English writer. He has authored a number of novels and books of non-fiction, which have won literary awards and been translated into 24 languages.
Kathryn Schulz, writing in New York, described him as "one of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself, and one of our most original writers".
He is the author of the following novels: The Colour of Memory; The Search; Paris Trance; and Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. He wrote a critical study of John Berger – Ways of Telling – and two collections of essays: Anglo-English Attitudes and Working the Room.

Dyer has written the following genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (on jazz); The Missing of the Somme (on the memorialization of the First World War); Out of Sheer Rage (about D. H. Lawrence); Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It; The Ongoing Moment (on photography); Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker); and Broadsword Calling Danny Boy (about Brian G. Hutton's 1968 film Where Eagles Dare).
In 2019, Out of Sheer Rage was listed by Slate as one of the 50 greatest nonfiction works of the past 25 years.
His book Another Great Day at Sea (2014) chronicles Dyer's experiences on the USS George H.W. Bush, where he was writer-in-residence for two weeks.
Billy Collins, the former United States Poet Laureate and author of Aimless Love, said: "Geoff Dyer has managed to do again what he does best: insert himself into an exotic and demanding environment (sometimes, his own flat, but here, the violent wonders of an aircraft carrier) and file a report that mixes empathetic appreciation with dips into brilliant comic deflation. Welcome aboard the edifying and sometimes hilarious ship Dyer."

Dyer was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2005. In 2014 he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
He is married to Rebecca Wilson, chief curator at Saatchi Art, Los Angeles. He currently lives in Venice, CA.

geoffdyer.com/books/the-ongoing-moment/
ny-photography-diary.com/- - -the-ongoing-moment-by-geoff-dyer
en.wikipedia.org:_Geoff_Dyer

The Shadow Line is a 8-part British tv-series produced for BBC Two.
This a dark conspiracy thriller, as dark as any Scandi scenario, set in a world of blurred morality, with conflicted characters on both sides of the law.

The Shadow Line is about a murder investigated by both sides of the line – police and criminals – and the opposing methods they use to solve it.
But the real line is the morality within each character and how far they will go before they cross it.

We see Jonah Gabriel (Chiwetel Ejiofor) returning to the policeforce, albeit with a bullet stuck in his head: he survived a shooting in which his police partner was killed. Jonah does not remember a thing of the event, nor why he was there; many of his colleagues and his superiors think this is too convenient for Jonah. Jonah does find a briefcase hidden in a closet at home with a large amount of cash in it, also a mystery to him and decides to keep it hidden.
Jonah gets involved in the murder of drugs baron Harvey Wratten, who was released with his nephew Jay (Rafe Spall, a convincing psychopath) after having assisted with a large drugs bust by Customs. Jay wants to get back into the business but finds Harvey has carefully built up a legal front over several years for his operation and finds 'flowerman' Joseph Bede (Christopher Eccleston) in the driving seat.
Joseph Bede is struggling with the detoriating health of his wife, who is in advanced stages of Alzheimer. He is in the drugs trade to gather funds for the treatments he can finds and intends to step out once he has amassed several millions.
Sergeant Foley (David Schofield) is on the bend.
Bob Harris is a crime boss, the initial money man for Bede.
There is also Babur the Turk (XXX), a possible investment partner for Bede.
Peter Glickman (Sir Antony Sher), the senior partner of Harvey Wratten, has disappeared without a trace, both for the police and organised crime. Glickman knew he was going to be next on the hit list.
The individual Gatehouse (marvellous role by Stephen Rea as a lethal puppet master) is a mystery, it remains unclear until the end which side his loyalties lie; he did kill Harvey Wratten.
Reporter Ross McGovern and Gabriel don't get along, for McGovern harassed Gabriel's wife when he was in hospital. The reporter gets closer to a plot of police corruption, he thinks Gabriel and his partner was involved.
Gabriel also has a young child with another woman, he kept this a secret and also his pregnant wife does not know about this.
It is unclear if 'Operation Counterpoint' is still in effect and what the role is or has been of Gabriel's superiors Patterson (Richard Lintern) and Khokar (XAce Bhatti).

The cast is top of the line and the screenplay compelling and unnerving.

The Shadow Line (TV Mini Series 2011) - IMDb
en.wikipedia.org:_The_Shadow_Line_(TV_series)

Saint Martin's Day, also called the Funeral of Saint Martin, Martinstag or Martinmas, as well as Old Halloween and Old Hallowmas Eve, is the Funeral day of Saint Martin of Tours (else Martin le Miséricordieux) and is celebrated on 11 November each year in many countries.
Saint Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier who was baptised as an adult and became a bishop in a French town. He died on 08Nov397, and was buried 3 days later.

In the Netherlands ('Holland') he is known as Sint-Maarten.
It is also celebrated in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Sicily (Italy), Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Sint Maarten / Saint Martin, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and locally in the United States.

As soon it gets dark, children from the ages of 5 to 12 (primary school age) go door to door (mostly under parental supervision) with hand-crafted lanterns made of hollowed-out sugar beet or, more recently, paper, singing songs such as "Sinte Sinte Maarten", to receive candy or fruit in return.

en.wikipedia.org:_St._Martin's_Day

Devastating news reached me recently, that the wonderful person and photographer Lawrence Schwartzwald passed away on Monday 20Sep21 from heart problems. He was buried on Wednesday on Long Island.
We had #OnReading in common, travelled in photography parallel along similar subjects: people reading books or other printed publications in the public domain. But I never encountered a celebrity!

From his website:
"Born in New York in 1953, Lawrence Schwartzwald studied literature at New York University.
He worked as a freelance photographer for the New York Post for nearly two decades and in 1997 New York Magazine dubbed him the Post’s 'king of the streets'.
Books and literature have shaped several of his photo series including “Reading New York” and “Famous Poets,” both self-published in 2017.
THE ART OF READING, hardcover, was published by Steidl in 2018. Schwartzwald lives and works in Manhattan."
The latter I purchased that year, having just come across his work. See MyBlog 2018Q4.

The subjects in 'the Art of Reading' are mostly average New Yorkers--sunbathers, a bus driver, shoeshine men, subway passengers, denizens of bookshops and cafes--but also artists (most notably Amy Winehouse at Manhattan's now-closed all-night diner Florent).
He too mentions the book by André Kertész as a source of inspiration. I also have a similar book by Steve McCurry.

I'd hoped to visit New York City this year (been there before but this time more for streetphotography rather than the Big Apple's famous locations). And to meet Lawrence!
After years of exchanging items on Facebook. And I'd sent him 2 Blurb books by me on #OnReading; by that time (2020) he did let me know he wasn't in a good health (though he wasn't specific).
Sadly the Covid-19 pandemic measures prevented me from crossing the Atlantic for NYC this year and I had to postpone my travelling, hoping it would materialize somewhere in 2022.
Now he is no more. He'll be sadly missed.

www.lawrenceschwartzwald.com/
museemagazine.com/culture/2018/10/17/b- - -the-art-of-reading-by-lawrence-schwartzwald
www.facebook.com/TheArtofReading/

A young girl is found killed at a camping resort and criminal psychologist Maja Angell is convinced, from her boyfriend's home in London (where she is finalizing her thesis on serial killers), that the police have arrested the wrong man.
She travels to the scene of the crime, her hometown in Norway (up north, in Finnmark among the Sami), but she's not able to convince the police of her theory. She rather barges in and claims the police have got it all wrong, because they are all men... That does seem to be her modus operandi all through the series.
Maja is convinced that the murderer will strike again and attempts to research history for previous wrongfully interpreted deaths and uncompleted missing person reports. Esspecially the latter has her interest and she is able to compile a profile of the 'soft targets'.

The local police chief, Johan, prefers to ride a clean desk in order to keep his modest budget under control. Erik, his deputy, notices that Johan's attitude gradually slides into total apathy.
Maja has a childhood trauma in the locality and is regarded by the police and local community as a troublemaker.
Her father, a recently retired journalist, has a share in Maja's trauma of which she herself has no clear recollection.
Her mother has withdrawn in a mworld of her own, presumed victim of Alzheimer combined by the death of Petter, Maja's brother.

The narrative of finding the serial killer while another young girl disappears, and Maja tries to recover the reason of her trauma and troubled childhood, it all slowly comes together.

The total dysfunctional character of Maja, supposedly a pschychologist and teacher, is not capable of a single empathetic interview and is constantly angry and aggravating family and people in the community.
Her partner and mentor in her studies wants to drag her back to London, asks her to forget all about it, which is clearly a too big a task for Maja.
She is curt in her work with the policemen who decide to help her, never is there a 'sorry' or 'thank you' for those who help her.
In short, combined with the long sullen stares by various characters, the person Maja is a bit over the top as 'troubled protagonist', filming a tad too dramatic and the narrative also sometimes goes off the rails.

Outlier (TV Series 2020– ) - IMDb
Outlier (TV series) - Wikipedia
www.imdb.com

Ed McBain 87th Precinct omnibus
'Like Love' | 'Lady, Lady I Did It! | 'The Empty Hours' | 'Storm'

Evan Hunter (b.15Oct1926 – d.06Jul2005) was an American author and screenwriter who also wrote under a number of pen names, most notably Ed McBain, used for most of his crime fiction.
Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952; he also used the pen names John Abbott, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Ezra Hannon, and Richard Marsten, amongst others.
His 87th Precinct novels have become staples of the police procedural genre.
These were the first books I read by Evan Hunter / Ed McBain and I did enjoy them.

Salvatore Lombino was born and raised in New York City. He lived in East Harlem until age 12, when his family moved to the Bronx.
As Evan Hunter, he gained notice with his novel Blackboard Jungle (1954) dealing with juvenile crime and the New York City public school system. The film adaptation followed in 1955.

Ed McBain, his best known pseudonym, was first used with Cop Hater (1956), the first novel in the 87th Precinct crime series. Until his death, McBain's 87th Precinct novels appeared at a rate of approximately one or two novels a year.
He was also successful as screenwriter for film and television.

The 87th Precinct novels It takes place in a fictional section of New York City called Isola, which was based on Manhattan. Similarly, instead of using the real names of the NYC boroughs, McBain has created his own boroughs; Calm’s Point (based on Brooklyn), Majesta (Queens), Riverhead (Bronx) and Bethtown (Staten Island).
Some of the main detectives: Steve Carella, Cotton Hawes, Bert Kling, Meyer Meyer; for more see the Wikipedia links '87th Precinct' below.

Ed McBain Omnibus (All 87th Precinct stories) – Like Love (1962; UK: 1981) | Lady, Lady I Did It (1961; UK: 1980) | The Empty Hours (1962; UK: 1981) plus an extra short story 'Storm' in which Cotton Hawes travels with a girlfriend to a ski resort and gets involved in a murder on the ski slopes.
This omnibus was published by Orion Books Ltd in 2010.

en.wikipedia.org:_Evan_Hunter
en.wikipedia.org:_87th_Precinct
www.orderofbooks.com/characters/the-87th-precinct/

Robert Frank (b.09Nov1924 – d.09Sep2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational.
His most notable work, the 1958 book titled 'The Americans', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider's view of American society.
Critic Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said 'The Americans' "..changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it; it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century".

160 pages | 19 x 22.5 cm
English | ISBN 978-3-86521-524-6
1. Edition 05/2008

en.wikipedia.org:_Robert_Frank
Steidl.de/Books/Paris

The idea of making photographs while driving a cab is apparently not a novel idea. I don't know these photographers, but they are mentioned to have worked in that way too: Ryan Weideman, Michael Goldfarb, David Bradford and Matt Weber.
In this new monograph from Joseph Rodriguez, we see some of his finest images from his time behind the wheel.

I very much like Rodriguez’s photography. Some are clearly very candid and others imply at least some tacit coöperation from the subject.
Rodriguez clearly has high regard for humanity, this shows in his work. He equally loves the beautiful bits and the ugly bits of what makes us human.
A New York cabbie could have gone wholly in either direction but Rodriguez didn’t. He remained true to documenting the delicate dance that is the human condition in action.

I like this PowerHouse book, they did a wonderful job with this one.
'Taxi' is a great collection of photography from a particular moment in New York City history. And it is a welcome addition to my growing collection of photobooks on 'New York City', time for me to go there too!
I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to any collector of fine photography monographs.

132 Pages | ISBN: 9781576879313

streetphotography.com/taxi-by-joseph-rodriguez/

David Gibson has been writing about photography for some time. He's also a photographer himself.
He has long been associated with the controversial (and now defunct) photography collective, In-Public.

This is a wonderful book, a book that has captured many of the greatest names in street photography and perhaps more importantly discover others.

The book, as a whole, is an admirable stab at what I am sure was no easy project.
Gibson speaks of this challenge in a self-effacing way. He explains to the reader the various things one might notice – the limited number of women, the choice of one 'iconic' image per photographer, or, even, whether to include photographs which, in his judgment, are (allegedly) 'set up'.

The book opens with some of the usual suspects – Edward Steichen, HCB, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Joel Meyerowitz, William Klein, Vivian Maier, Diane Arbus, and Mary Ellen Mark.
Some more obscure, but certainly talented, names also appear, which for me was the main attraction of this book.

There's a good number of more international names included in the anthology – Werner Bischof, Thomaz Farkas, Ferdinando Scianna, Raghu Rai, and Ramon Masats, to name but a few.
It is clear that Gibson made a significant effort to make the book truly international in scope and he seems to have succeeded.
On the subject of including women, there are only 13 women photographers among the 100.
Women and minorities need to be sought out. The action must be deliberate. It is a blemish on this book (in my selection I have tried to remedy that) but with this caveat in mind, it is a wonderful book to browse and one may consider other books to purchase!

streetphotography.com/book-review-street-photography- - -/

Aelbert Cuyp was born in Dordrecht on 20 October 1620, and died there on 15 November 1691.

Dordrecht had the Cuyp family of painters: father Jacob Gerritsz., son Aelbert and the latter’s uncle Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp.
Aelbert Cuyp is one of the greatest Dutch landscape painters, but his work is scarce in Dutch museums: the vast majority of his pictures were sold to foreign collectors in the 18th and 19th century. Over the years, the Dordrechts Museum managed to acquire important pieces by Cuyp and is now able to display his oeuvre in all its versatility.
Work by Gainsborough, Constable and Turner were also on display (a.o.), showing inspiration by Cuyp's light...

Aelbert Cuyp's Dutch landscapes are characterised by a warm, golden glow. Cuyp borrowed it from artists who had visited Italy, such as Jan Both. Cuyp himself never travelled abroad.

In addition to almost 30 of Cuyp's most important paintings - including from England and America - one can admire here for the duration extensive work by British painters who were inspired by Cuyp.

The story of Dordrecht's greatest painter is unique. Cuyp was a completely local artist in his time, virtually unknown outside his hometown.
He lived and worked in Dordrecht all his life and the buyers of his landscapes almost all came from his birthplace. Only after his death was he discovered by English collectors and artists.
From ± 1750 a true Cuyp-rage came into effect.
The British aristocracy was so fond of the sun-drenched landscapes that ca. 1800 no important work by Cuyp could be found in the Netherlands, all had gone abroad. In the large English country houses, a Cuyp could not be missed.

'In the light of Cuyp' shows many works not previously shown in the Netherlands by British artists such as Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, J.M.W.Turner, Richard Parkes Bonington, Augustus Wall Callcott and John Crome.
Queen Elizabeth II generously lent 2 masterpieces by Cuyp from the English Royal Collection Trust!
Also 3 landscapes of Cuyp from Woburn Abbey that have not been shown before in the Netherlands, have temporarily returned to the city where they were made.

www.dordrechtsmuseum.nl/english/collection/
www.museum.nl/nl/dordrechts-museum/- -/in-het-licht-van-cuyp (NL)
en.wikipedia.org:_Aelbert_Cuyp

Statue in Dordrecht of Johan & Cornelis de Witt

The brothers Johan (b.24Sep1625 – d.20Aug1672) & Cornelis de Witt (b.15Jun1623 – d.20Aug1672)
were astute and righteous republicans, they opposed the House of Orange-Nassau and the Orangists and preferred a shift of power from the central government to the regents.
However, their neglect of the Dutch army (as the regents focused only on merchant vessels, thinking they could avoid war) proved disastrous. The Dutch Republic suffered numerous early defeats in the 'Annus Horribilis" of 1672.
In the hysteria that followed, the effortless invasion by an alliance of England, France and some German states, both Johand and his brother Cornelis de Witt were blamed and subsequently lynched in The Hague.
The rioters were never prosecuted, and historians have argued that William of Orange may have incited them.

en.wikipedia.org:_Cornelis_de_Witt
en.wikipedia.org:_Johan_de_Witt

Dordrecht, historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, pronounced 'Dort',
is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland.
It is the province's fifth-largest city after Rotterdam, The Hague, Zoetermeer and Leiden, with a population of 118,654.
Dordrecht is the oldest city in Holland and has a rich history and culture.

The name Dordrecht comes from Thuredriht (circa 1120), Thuredrecht (ca. 1200). The name seems to mean 'thoroughfare'; a ship-canal or -river through which ships were pulled by rope from one river to another, as here from the Dubbel to the Merwede, or vice versa.

The city was formed along the Thure river, in the midst of peat swamps. This river was a branch of the river Dubbel, which is part of the massive Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta complex.
Around 1120 reference to Dordrecht was made by a remark that count Dirk IV of Holland was murdered in 1049 near 'Thuredrech'. He's honoured by a statue, very Viking-like.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, Dordrecht developed into an important market city because of its strategic location. It traded primarily in wine, wood and cereals. Dordrecht was made even more important when it was given staple right in 1299.
On 18–19 November 1421, the Saint Elisabeth's flood flooded large parts of southern Holland, causing Dordrecht to become an island. It was commonly said that over 10,000 people died in the flood, but recent research indicates that it was probably less than 200 people.
Around that same period there were two other major floods.
On 29 June 1457, the city was devastated by a fire which started in Kleine Spuistraat, destroying many buildings, including the Grote Kerk.

Wikipedia, more..

Het Arend Maartenshof is a courtyard in Dordrecht, in the Dutch province of South Holland.
The courtyard was built in 1625 and was named after the founder Arend Maartenszoon.
He was known as a money wolf and tried to improve his reputation by building 38 homes for poor women. By founding this courtyard, the namesake hoped to appease his conscience. For a long time, Arend Maartenszoon was more interested in collecting as much money as possible than caring for his fellow man. A bad reputation among his fellow townspeople and the church was the result of his greedy attitude.
In the Museumstraat, at number 56, a richly decorated Renaissance gate gives access to the courtyard of the Arend Maartenshof. Visitors are welcomed with the saying 'Vita Vapor' or 'life is a vapor' can also be read on the sandstone gate.

NL.wikipedia.org:_Arend_Maartenshof
indordrecht.nl/locaties/arend-maartenszhof/ (NL)

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think is a 2018 book by Swedish physician, professor of international health at Karolinska Institute and statistician Hans Rosling with his son Ola Rosling and daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund.
The book was published posthumously a year after Hans Rosling died from pancreatic cancer.
In the book, Rosling suggests that the vast majority of people are wrong about the state of the world. He demonstrates that his test subjects believe the world is poorer, less healthy, and more dangerous than it actually is, attributing this not to random chance but to misinformation.

Hans Rosling (b.27Jul1948 – d.07Feb2017) was a Swedish physician (he also did field work in Africa), academic, and public speaker.
He was a professor of international health at Karolinska Institute and was the co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system.
He held presentations around the world, including several TED Talks in which he promoted the use of data (and data visualization) to explore development issues.
His posthumously published book Factfulness, coauthored with Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling, became an international bestseller.

Rosling's son, Ola Rosling, built the Trendalyzer software to animate data compiled by the UN and the World Bank that helped him explain the world with graphics.
Rosling co-founded the Gapminder Foundation together with his son Ola and daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund to develop Trendalyzer to convert international statistics into moving, interactive graphics. The provocative presentations and his lectures using Gapminder graphics to visualize world development have won awards. The interactive animations are freely available from the Foundation's website.

In March 2007, Google acquired the Trendalyzer software with the intention to scale it up and make it freely available for public statistics. In 2008, Google made available a Motion Chart Google Gadget and in 2009 the Public Data Explorer.

Rosling recommends thinking about the world as divided into four levels based on income brackets (rather than the prototypical developed/developing framework) and suggests ten instincts that prevent us from seeing real progress in the world.
He criticizes the notion of dividing the world into the 'developed world' and the 'developing world' by calling it an outdated view. He shows that today most countries are 'developed' and the others are not how developing countries were when the term became popular. Instead, he offers a four category model based on income per person (adjusted for price differences):
Level 1: less than $2 a day
Level 2: $2–$8 a day
Level 3: $8–$32 a day
Level 4: $32+ a day
He says that the majority of the countries in the world are on Level 2 or Level 3. A select few countries are on Level 1 and Level 4.

When he was 20, in 1968, doctors told Rosling that there was something wrong with his liver and as a consequence, he stopped drinking alcohol. Aged 29, with a young family, he had testicular cancer which was successfully treated.
In 1989, he was diagnosed with hepatitis C.
Over the years this progressed and he developed liver cirrhosis. At the beginning of 2013, he was in the early stages of liver failure. However, at the same time, new hepatitis C drugs were released and he went to Japan to buy the drugs needed to treat the infection. He expressed concerns in the media over the restricted use of the new drugs due to high costs, stating that it is a crime not to give every person with hepatitis C access to the drugs.
Rosling was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2016, and died of the disease on 07Feb2017.

This book is a legacy to get the facts correct and enables us to view the world with optimism.

en.wikipedia.org:_Hans_Rosling
en.wikipedia.org:_Factfulness:_Ten_Reasons_We're_Wrong_About_the_World_-_and_Why_Things_Are_Better_Than_You_Think

Ever since China sparked my interest during the 1980s, I find occasion to read or explore something on the subject, in whatever form. The 'Rechter (=Judge or Magistrate) Tie Mysteries' by Robert van Gulik offer an easy insight in China in historic times.
'Halssnoer' refers to the string of pearls that was stolen and 'Kalebas' to the gourd the monk Kalbas carries with him and refers to his view on life.

Dutchman van Gulik wrote historic crime novels in English; the translations into Dutch (including the name of the magistrate change from Judge Dee to Rechter Tie) are mostly by others.

Judge Dee (also, Judge Di) is the eponymous protagonist of Robert van Gulik's series of detective novels. The series is set in Tang Dynasty China and deals with various criminal cases solved by the upright Judge Dee (judges often play the investigator role in ancient Chinese crime stories).
The Judge Dee character is based on the historical figure Di Renjie (c. 630–c. 700), magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) in China, a 'folk novel' was written set in former times, but filled with anachronisms.
Van Gulik found in the 18th century Di Gong An an original tale dealing with three cases simultaneously, and, which was unusual among Chinese mystery tales, a plot that for the most part lacked an overbearing supernatural element which could alienate Western readers. He translated it into English and had it published under the title Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee.
This gave van Gulik the idea of writing his own novels, set with the similar Ming anachronisms, but using the historical character. Van Gulik was careful in writing the main novels to deal with cases where Dee was newly appointed to a city, thereby isolating him from the existing lifestyle and enabling him to maintain an objective role in the books.
Van Gulik's novels and stories made no direct reference to the original Chinese work and so Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee is not considered to be part of the Judge Dee series.
Van Gulik also wrote series of newspaper comics about Judge Dee in 1964-1967, adding up to a total of 19 adventures. The first 4 were regular balloon strips, but the later 15 had the more typically Dutch textblock under the pictures.

Robert Hans van Gulik was born in 1910, in Zutphen,Netherlands and spent most of his youth in the Dutch East-Indies.
Later he studied several Asian languages, became a diplomat, indulged in scientific research and found himself a literary talent.
He passed away in 1967, in The Hague, Netherlands.

As a magistrate, Judge Dee was not only a judge, but also a city administrator and chief of police at the same time, acting with a mandate by the Emperor.
In this position, as a master detective, he solves a number of complicated murder cases in an astute manner. In this mysterie he is without his two assistants, Ma Joeng and Tsjiao Tai.

When Rechter Tie travels to Rivierstad (EN='Rivercity'), for some rest an recreation (fishing), he is confronted with the horrific murder of the cashier of the inn The Osprey on arrival in the city.
Is it related to the mysterious theft of the Third Princess' string of pearls in the highly restrictive Waterpalace ? Or is there more at stake than a simple theft?A diabolical sophisticated plot by secret organizations spins like a web around the Third Princess, who as a defenseless victim is trapped between the dark practices of her court...
He gets help from the mysterious monk Kalbas and the young woman, Anemone; but Tie needs his skills as a swordsman as well as his deductive & cunning skills as a detective to get to the bottom of the murder and conspiracies.

en.wikipedia.org:_Judge_Dee

Back in the 1970s, when it was still acceptable to talk, kiss and even smoke on the London Underground, Mike Goldwater spent years documenting chance moments of intimacy and humour across this iconic network of tunnels that live beneath the capital.
My first time in the London Underground must have been ca.1970, on a student exchange program. Alas, I wasn't into this sort of photography then; I know better know!

Mike Goldwater picked up a camera as a boy and has rarely been without one since. His London Underground pictures were his first project.
A professional photographer all his life, he was a founder member of Network Photographers and carried out assignments worldwide; photo stories, assignments and film projects have taken him to more than 70 countries.
Making images is his continuing passion, no doubt an inspiration to many.

ISBN: 978-1-910566-61-9
128pp, cloth spine, 156mm x 196mm.

hoxtonminipress.com/- - -/london-underground-1970-1980
www.mikegoldwater.com
www.networkphotographersonline.com/overview

Born in Paris in 1928 to Russian parents, Erwitt spent his childhood in Milan, then emigrated to the US, via France, with his family in 1939. As a teenager living in Hollywood, he developed an interest in photography and worked in a commercial darkroom before experimenting with photography at Los Angeles City College. In 1948 he moved to New York and exchanged janitorial work for film classes at the New School for Social Research.
Erwitt traveled in France and Italy in 1949 with his trusty Rolleiflex camera. In 1951 he was drafted for military service and undertook various photographic duties while serving in a unit of the Army Signal Corps in Germany and France.

While in New York, Erwitt met Edward Steichen, Robert Capa and Roy Stryker, the former head of the Farm Security Administration.
Stryker initially hired Erwitt to work for the Standard Oil Company, where he was building up a photographic library for the company, and subsequently commissioned him to undertake a project documenting the city of Pittsburgh.
In 1953 Erwitt joined Magnum Photos and worked as a freelance photographer for Collier's, Look, Life, Holiday and other luminaries in that golden period for illustrated magazines.
To this day he continues to work for a variety of journalistic and commercial outfits.

"To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” — Elliott Erwitt

www.all-about-photo.com/photographers/- - -/elliott-erwitt

In the heart of the Landes region (France), with the great storm of 1999 raging, 11-year-old Charlotte Meyer vanishes without a trace. Police Captain Pierre Castaing, the head of the investigation, is forced to release his prime suspect, Serge Fouquet, for lack of evidence.
Another suspect, Tony, is earmarked by the local community as the paedophile responsible for the disappearance of Charlotte.
Twenty years later, Castaing's daughter Sarah, now a young detective in the Child Protection Brigade, discovers the case of another missing girl that points to the same suspect.
Her father succumbed to the failure of finding Charlotte, thus she resolves to bring Serge Fouquet to justice and restore her father's reputation.
Six episodes of French crime drama, some scenes superfluous to the narrative I thought, but generally an entertaining crime drama.

www.imdb.com