1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 47: Cracker

I may as well begin with IMDb’s description:

Dr Edward “Fitz” Fitzgerald is a criminal psychologist. He is rather anti-social and obnoxious but he has a gift for solving crimes. Thus he is employed as a consultant by the Manchester Police.

Stock character? Too much like Sherlock Holmes? Or Doctor Gregory House?

(House is Holmes.)

“Fitz” – Robbie Coltrane, Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies – is greater than either of them. Greater in greatness, and in girth. He’s the Sir John Falstaff of police TV. He gambles and drinks and smokes and constantly needles people because he’s often bored; and he’s bored because he’s so, so smart. He’s also breathtakingly humane. He is, as they say, a “well-rounded” character in more senses than one.

The police are numbskulls, except for D.S. Jane Penhaligon (Geraldine Somerville). “Panhandle,” “Fitz” calls her. Penhaligon is smart and humane, too, and she loves “Fitz” despite his enormities.

One other young woman loves “Fitz.” She ends up committing a series of murders to capture his attention.

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“Fitz’s” wife, Judith (Barbara Flynn), isn’t much better. She also loves “Fitz,” but then, understandably enough, she leaves him; and comes back, and leaves him, and comes back, and leverages her woes to gain advantage (although “Fitz” is mostly immune to manipulation, which frustrates Judith to no end).

I wonder if today’s cop shows are trying to follow Cracker’s lead. Many policing dramas double as domestic ones, and Cracker is hands-down the best in this respect.

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So, I guess the show’s premise is:

What if Sherlock Holmes were – like Sir John Falstaff – fat, witty, and empathetic, but still outrageous; and what if this hero had, instead of bachelor acolytes, a wife and kids?

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There is no “Watson” figure. The closest analog would be D.S. Penhaligon, but she is very much a force herself. I’ve sometimes thought, As great as “Fitz” is, this is the Penhaligon show.

“Fitz’s” is a hiltarity of excess. Penhaligon’s mode is lean, restrained, acerbic, grim.

Then tragedy afflicts her, and even her humor goes away. It’s not altogether a bad development. It allows her to free herself from “Fitz.”

The Shakespearean parallel would be with Prince Hal: Penhaligon is made for better things.

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Then there are the murderers.

Not many policing shows bestow so much time or sympathy upon these people. Almost all are wounded little birds – “grotesques,” to recall Winesburg, Ohio. Cracker arguably made some of these acting careers (Robert Carlyle’s, Susan Lynch’s). One actor who didn’t become so famous, but who is perhaps the most affecting, is Andrew Tiernan, who plays a stutterer caught up in a Bonnie-and-Clyde relationship with Lynch’s chilling character. Broken though he is, he is allowed a great measure of self-determination and dignity until the very end of his story.

Almost all the “grotesques” are complex. This show is a whydunnit, not a whodunnit; often the murderers don’t know their own motives. But “Fitz” knows, and by the end of each story, he is sympathetically explaining to them what has driven them to do their crimes. Each motive is understandable; sometimes, in a very sad way, it is even laudable. Some murderers lash out at “Fitz.” Others surrender to his insight. The woman I mentioned earlier, the one who murders to gain “Fitz’s” attention – to earn a diagnosis from him – is the clearest example of this. Would you like me to explain to you? he asks, tenderly, in the interrogation room. Yes, she begs. It is a moment charged with eroticism and humanity, because it’s about the possibility of finally being seen and understood.

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“Fitz” himself is converted, within many of the stories, from bully to empath. It’s not so much that he can run hot or cold at will; it’s that he has one tap, one irrepressible, gushing stream of intelligence, and it has to run a while before it’s fully warmed up, before self-gratifying banter can become clever guesswork and then intimate certitude. Each murderer, each colleague, each family relation, is a different, evolving person, and so “Fitz” undergoes this process again and again.

In this scene, he is in the middle of the process.

(I like Penhaligon’s smirk.)

The show ran from 1993 to 1996 and had an encore in 2006: “Fitz” returns to Manchester after several years in Australia.

Ecuador 1, Brazil 1

Samuel is a well-read and affectionate little boy. Should he maintain his current interests, however, he is likely to become a wrestler for the WWE. Eighty percent of his waking hours are spent gleefully kicking, scratching, eye-gouging, headbutting, and bodyslamming his father. I don’t exaggerate; if he weren’t pint-sized, it would be unbearable.

Also, he doesn’t allow me to read. The last three weeks, I made it my priority to read one book. (I was out of renewals and needed to return it to the library.) It was an easy and entertaining book. I only got through half of it. I’ll blog about it should I ever finish the last two hundred pages.

Tonight Samuel is mugging me while I type. This afternoon he mugged me all during Ecuador’s World Cup qualifier against Brazil. Brazil scored in the first ten minutes; a little later, our goalie, Alexander Domínguez, was red-carded; a little after that, a Brazilian was red-carded. Then another Brazilian, the goalie Alisson, was red-carded, but his red card was rescinded by the VAR. In the second half, we were awarded a penalty kick; it was rescinded by the VAR. Then we scored the tying goal from a corner kick. Then we were awarded another penalty kick and Alisson was red-carded a second time, but again the foul and red card were rescinded by the VAR.

I thought the Brazilians managed the game quite well, though they didn’t create many scoring chances. For Ecuador, it was good to earn the draw after such an awful start.

We have three more matches to play. If we win Tuesday night’s match, away to Peru, our qualification will be guaranteed. Many other scenarios also would allow us to qualify.

It is still very cold and snowy, and Karin has built a shelter in our back yard for stray cats, using plastic bins and straw.

A good weekend

Lots of snow. We stayed home from church. Samuel begged to go out strolling, but it was impossible. In the afternoon, I took out the “snow blaster” and cleared off most of the sidewalk and driveway.

Jasper, inspired by last week’s kill, played with his toy mice. He was like a kitten again.

I watched four good playoff games, the first three of which ended with field goals. The fourth quarter of the last and greatest game – Chiefs vs. Bills – also ended with a field goal, and then the Chiefs won in overtime. Both quarterbacks played spectacularly. The teams scored something like 25 points in the last couple of minutes of the fourth quarter. Tony Romo was going nuts. The Chiefs’ victory was due to their clock-eating third quarter, in which the Bills ran just a handful of plays (the Bills’ first drive was a three-and-out, and their second drive was a one-play touchdown). By the end of the contest, the Bills’ excellent defense was too tired to keep up with the Chiefs’ offense, which advanced at will. Even so, the Bills kept regaining the lead, and with thirteen seconds to play, they looked like they’d win. But they wouldn’t.

My favorite play was Tyreek Hill’s long touchdown reception. Look at him flash the peace sign on his way to the end zone.

The NFL does this a lot. Game after game has caused me to think, This has been the best game I’ve ever seen. I’ve thought it so often, it probably isn’t true most of the time; but this really might have been the best playoff weekend I’ve seen.

Jasper, mighty mouser

The shots did make us sick and miserable for a day, but now we’re all better.

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After weeks of darting into the mud-room to chase after the mouse, Jasper has caught and killed it. He pounced on it like lightning and brought it into the house with its tail dangling from his mouth. Samuel thought this was super cool. Ziva went around sniffing. Jasper didn’t want to be interfered with, so he carried the corpse under Samuel’s bed and played with it there until Karin took it away from him. Then, how Jasper glared.

I think the mouse was his little gift to himself. His adoption day was this week.

In the seven years that he’s lived with Karin, this is the third mouse he’s caught but only the first he’s killed.

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The kitties used to run back and forth like crazy every night around nine o’clock. Now Samuel does this.

“Everybody wants to be a cat.”

The kitties laze around.

Football in español and inglés

Yesterday, Karin & I got COVID-19 booster shots, and I got a flu shot. I feel ill. I slept poorly last night. Both of my shoulders are sore, and it hurts to lie in bed.

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I turned on NBC to watch the Chiefs-Steelers game. The commercials’ sound and picture were unsynched, and when the game appeared the commentary was in Spanish. What was going on? Was this broadcast meant for Telemundo?

Not that I minded. I’ve listened to Spanish NFL commentary plenty of times. I’m always delighted by the subtle terminological differences: for example, the term for a false start is falsa salida.

I also enjoy the cultural differences, which are rather more conspicuous. The Chiefs fans were doing “The Chop,” and the commentators were (unironically) like, Qué lindo ambiente, what a lovely atmosphere.

Sometimes the TV would show Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels of NBC speaking on mute while the Mexicans talked over them. I think the Mexican play-by-play guy might actually be better than Michaels.

The best commentators had just finished calling the 49ers-Cowboys game on CBS. Tony Romo knows what he’s talking about, and he says it promptly and without fussing; and because he’s so quick, he says a lot. It spills out of him good-naturedly. He wears his learning lightly, as the late John Madden did (besides, he sounds like my friend Andrew). And Jim Nantz, Romo’s play-by-play man, is appropriately artless, not as incisive as the late Pat Summerall but pleasingly self-effacing.

Nantz, before a fourth-quarter, third-down play: “Is this the play of the game, Tony?”

Romo: “Yeah. It is. But there will be, like, four more of them after this one.”

Turns out, he was right; his feel for the pace is dead-on. It’s as if he were still quarterbacking. His precision is a joy to listen to; no other commentator is nearly as good in this way.

I am mistaken for a celebrity; or, rather, the celebrity is mistaken for me

What with this pandemic, I haven’t seen a barber since June or July, and my hair has gotten bushy. Today our family went to a bookstore so I could use up some gift cards. While I was finding my books, Karin perused the greeting cards with Samuel, and he came upon a photo of Bob Ross.

“It’s Daddy!” Samuel said.

I wasn’t expecting to hear that anytime soon.

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I don’t subscribe to The Atlantic, but after I clicked on all my free articles this month I wanted to read the rest of the current issue so I could keep learning how U.S. democracy is on its last legs. Happily I was able to order a hard copy through my library branch. It was the first Atlantic hard copy I’d seen in years. The magazine is now typeset in teeny, tiny Adobe Garamond, which, like the text in The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, is elegant enough to admire and puny enough to bemoan.

Very interesting to you, I’m sure.

January’s poems

The previous entry got many, many more views than my entries usually get. It’s gratifying, but I can’t rely on McKenzie and Uncle Fred for copy every time.

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“After Henry” by Joan Didion (R.I.P.) is the Library of America’s newest Story of the Week.

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This Christmas, Karin’s friend Nora bought some Mother Goose books for Samuel. They are illustrated by Rosemary Wells and edited by Iona Opie (who, along with Peter Opie, compiled that pleasing folk-book, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren).

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My mother said

That I never should

Play with the pixies

In the wood;

The wood was dark,

The grass was green,

Up comes Sally

With a tambourine;

I went to the river,

I couldn’t get across,

I paid ten shillings

For an old blind horse;

I jumped on his back

And off in a crack,

Sally tell my mother

That I’m coming right back.

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I could read these rhymes to Samuel all day long.

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Donkey, donkey, old and gray,

Open your mouth and gently bray,

Lift your ears and blow your horn

To wake the world this sleepy morn.

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Karin bought some cheap musical instruments for Samuel. I played “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on the recorder for him. He thought it hilarious and walked around panting the notes like a laryngitic dog (which is how that recorder sounds, more or less).

A wedding

Continuing on the subject of gluttony, yesterday was my “last hurrah,” at least for the season: I made two trips down a Polish buffet line. (If anything has a claim to being “South Bend cuisine,” it’s Polish food.) The occasion was my mother-in-law’s wedding. You’ll recall that she was widowed in 2020. Now she is married to Scott, her dead husband’s ex-roommate. It was a canny move. When Rick died, she griefstrickenly bequeathed Rick’s guns to Scott; now, presumably, she has got them back. Karin and Samuel and I rode to the wedding with McKenzie, Karin’s mom’s ex-foster daughter. McKenzie wore sweatpants and swigged from a half-gallon of milk and talked on her phone to her imprisoned boyfriend. “I have a gift card,” she told him. “I’m going to sell it to buy you another phone card.” It was a cheerful conversation. Like Scott and unlike the rest of my mother-in-law’s family, McKenzie is a happy-go-lucky sort of person. She gleefully told her boyfriend that her tattoo artist had just been jailed.

We also had a delicious venison stew, courtesy of my mother-in-law’s Uncle Fred, who shoots deer and hangs them up in his front yard. Uncle Fred preached the sermon. Karin said it was about sin (Uncle Fred is another happy-go-lucky sort of person). I didn’t hear it; Samuel started howling as soon as the bride walked up the aisle, so I took him to a Sunday School room where he played with toy cars and I read Agatha Christie. Karin told me not to bring a book to the wedding, but I did anyway; one never knows. I don’t think Karin’s mom noticed. She seemed to be relishing everything else that was going on.

Corn pudding

While it’s worth remembering that the U.S. Capitol was attacked one year ago, this entry will discuss something far less momentous: my diet.

After Thanksgiving, I started procuring, from the store, pies of pumpkin, apple, and blueberry. This was a speed-bump on my path to personal excellence.

Happily, the last two weeks, I didn’t bring home any pies. But on New Year’s Day, at my mother-in-law’s house, I ate serving after serving of corn pudding; and so, lately, that’s what I’ve been craving.

Yesterday I made this recipe in the slow cooker. Some of it was gooey and some of it was burnt. I stirred it all together and it tasted better than I expected. In fact, it was delicious.

Next, I’ll make the “Mexican street corn” version.

Corn pudding is a calorie bomb. There were 625 kcals in yesterday’s serving of 250 g (a little less than 9 oz). I think corn pudding goes best with meatballs, meatloaf, chorizo, and the like. Those foods also are calorie bombs. Adopting corn pudding as your staple food is no way to live.

(“This is a fair assessment of corn pudding,” Karin says. “The good and the bad.”)

The new year

Karin has moved to a different office. She’s pleased that her commute has been shortened from twenty-five minutes to eight minutes.

At home, on my computer, I’m pleased that “2022” is easier to type than “2021.”

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Right on cue, winter has hit hard. Yesterday we didn’t have salt to melt the ice on our driveway. I slipped and badly scraped my left arm, from elbow to palm. Today I am sore all over, and Samuel keeps trying to peel my bandages off.

Just about every winter, it seems, I do a terrible fall on the ice. Readers will recall that three years ago, I sprained my ankle and had to use crutches. But worst was when Karin & I were newly married: I kept falling down the rickety, icy staircase that was our apartment’s only exit.

Those are fond memories now.

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This year I hope to read all of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It’s very different from the Good News Translation. I loved the GNT – “This Bible loves people,” was how I often felt while I was reading it – but I also want to read a “formal equivalence” translation from time to time. Every translation I use casts new light on the text (but then, so does every font).