2T Repeat Performance

So you may have heard that in December, the lovely Magical Musings crew decided it was time to close down their blogging shop. I had three wonderful years with them. I thought you might be interested in seeing the posts here.

photo credit: noir photographer via photopin cc

Television, Books and the Power of Story -- originally posted April 2014


Do you enjoy television or movies or the theater? What are your favorites? I have some confessions of my own to make, and I think you’ll be surprised.

Before we get chatting, I'd like to introduce myself. I’m Mary, usually Mary Hughes to differentiate me from the zillions of other Marys out there, Mary Jean if you’re my cousin Mary Ann :) . I’m a new regular to the Magical Musings team and I’m so very thrilled to be here. Huge thanks to Edie Ramer, Michelle Diener and the awesome Magical Musings team and readers for welcoming me!

Books are a passion of mine. But a picture paints a thousand words—you can’t get more concentrated storytelling than a movie, television, or play.

A couple hours can plunge us into deep drama, as with Death of a Salesman or Streetcar Named Desire. An hour brings justice to an NCIS criminal or cures (or kills) a House MD patient. Sitcoms solve world problems in 30 minutes or less. Commercials tell a complete story in mere seconds! (Have you seen the TJ Maxx/Marshalls commercial? Two groups of sassy women march at each other like football teams about to clash. One set carries red Maxx bags, the other blue Marshalls. We think it’s going to be a Jets/Sharks West Side Story moment but they meet and become friends. The message: you can have both! That’s a story in a nutshell.)

But books...ah, nothing will ever replace them. Because, Scrubs internal asides aside, nowhere else can you truly get the thoughts and smells and raw feeling and emotions found in a book.

So here are my confessions.
*My husband and I didn’t own a television for the first five years of our marriage.
*One of my favorite entertainments? The Geico commercials. “Do Dogs Chase Cats?”—yes, they do, in a Bullitt-style car chase—continues to top my list.
*Though I adore sparkling comedies, I never saw Scrubs before this year.

What visual entertainment is your favorite? Do you have a can't-miss show or a movie that will forever be with you?

BONUS! I also adore quirky comic strips. Here’s XKCD on television before the Internet.

Want to see what I mean about the up-close-and-personal touch, taste, and emotions you can only find in books? Get inside a shy flutist’s head in hot vampire romance Downbeat. Striking the right note could shatter more than their hearts. Warning: Contains a master of seduction and symphonies, an awkward and innocent flutist, small-town humor, heart-stopping action, and an exodus to Iowa. Oh, and the cheese balls are ba-a-ack—and deadlier than ever.