Mary Louise Eklund

Tag: Tuesday Thoughts

  • Happy Birthday Patricia My BFF For Life

    goofin-with-statues-2

    Patricia and I have been BFFs since 5th grade for me, 4th grade for her. This photo is from 2006 when we met in Chicago with our kids and took the Gangster Tour. She’s as silly as I am. Her lack of sense of direction but ability to find cardinal points on the compass compliments my sense of finding things via landmarks and gut feeling while never being able to point to North. We enjoyed taking weekends away each year when the kids were growing up. I’m heading down to Hollywood Florida to see here sometime around the first of the year. In the meantime go wish Patricia a very happy birthday on her Facebook account.

  • Tuesday Thoughts – Mystery makes these Podcasts

    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    I like mysteries. I like ones that are eventually solved and those not yet solved. I prefer real life mysteries but do enjoy a good fictional one now and again. However to feed my love of real life ones I listen to many podcasts and these are among those that answer that interest.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – Dr. Mutter’s Marvels by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

    dr-mutter
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    Every Halloween I see articles about  The Mutter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The piece usually plays up the ‘creepy’ and ‘macabre’ aspects of the collection. While I owe a debt to one of these articles for making me aware of the museum I feel they do a disservice to what the museum really was and is – a teaching collection. It’s a tribute to the human body’s amazing diversity and endurance. The cases documented there are stunning and were collected to teach physicians of yesterday and today how to do no harm but help. So when I saw the book Dr. Mutter’s Marvels I was drawn to it. I wanted to know the history of the collection and the cases documented within. However, when I picked up the book I learned it was Dr. Mutter’s biography. My disappointment didn’t last through the introduction. The man is as riveting today as his collections.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – The Night Manager

    night-manager
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    I’ve always been a fan of John le Carre (whose real name is David Cornwell) novels. I like how sometimes in the spy stories there are no winners. I like the subtle shifts in them. I think he does wonders on the page. At times there are great movies from his work Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes to mind. Others are just okay Tailor of Panama (see Daniel Radcliffe before he was Harry). So I was ambivalent when I heard that Night Manager was coming to the small screen as a miniseries and updated to modern day.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – More Podcasts Worth a Listen

    blind-stenographer-using-dictaphone-loc-20oct16-fl
    Blind Stenographer using dictaphone from the Library of Congress collection. The image has no known copyright.

    My listening is as diverse as my reading. I’m not a big music person but I love a good story. So when walking, cleaning, driving, grocery shopping, or whatever you’ll find me listening to either an audiobook or podcast. I subscribe to around 30 podcasts at any given time. There are always new ones I’m trying out for those that podfade. Currently here are three I enjoy now – two are crimal based one isn’t but all are strange in an interesting manner.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – Cartelland

    cartelland_poster_small
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    It’s been a few months since I watched this riveting documentary. Still I find myself thinking about it and just what did I take away from it. It is about the drug cartels in Mexico. It follows two men, one on each side of the border. Both are trying to protect people from the violence of the cartels.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – Rosemary, The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson

    rosemary-by-kate-clifford-larson
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    What I know of the Kennedys is the political aspects of the family. Which in their case is a good part about the family. However, I never knew much about Rosemary. I was vaguely aware there was a sister to JFK that was institutionalized. Other than that I knew nothing. Then I was reading an article about this book. Interesting, but what got me considering it was that Rosemary spent most of her life in seclusion in Wisconsin not far from where I worked there. What had me buy it was learning that her father had put her there and told the rest of the family she was dead. It was only after he was incapacitated by a stroke that the other children learned their sister was still alive. So how did a prominent family come to lose and hide one of their own members? A sister of a President? The tale is a sad one.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – The Intern

    intern
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    I’m very picky about comedies but I do like a ‘fish out of water’ comedy. You know the type someone is in a situation they are unfamiliar with but after some funny errors they make friends get into the groove then by their adapting they change the new place for the better and everyone wins. Yay. That is that I thought The Intern was going to be.

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  • Tuesday Thoughts – The Martian

    the-martian-poster
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    Okay I’ll admit it. I was skeptical about this movie. Finally, a friend of mine, Paula, raved about it. She convinced me to see it but alas the moving madness had begun. So it had to wait. Then no streaming of Netflix. Again waiting until we got the DVD to Tennessee then on Red Box rental we finally got to see it. Yes, it was worth the wait. (more…)

  • Tuesday Thoughts – The Richest Woman in America by Janet Wallach

    richest-woman-in-america
    The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique The required US legal disclaimer: All images are the property of their owners I reproduce them here under the Fair Use Doctrine of the copyright law for commentary and critique

    When I was a kid in the mid-70s I had a Guinness Book of World Records. It was a small but think paperback of fine print and few pictures. One of the pictures was of a woman in black walking away seen at a distance. It was made in the early 1900s and was associated with the stingiest woman entry for a Hetty Green. She was said to have a fortune but her son lost his leg after she tried to sneak him in to a free clinic to be found out and refused. That she kept her office cold and ate leftover oatmeal for lunch. It certainly sounded like she deserved the Stingiest Woman In the World Record. (more…)