Several weeks of entertainment

You may have noticed blogging's been sparse - 'cause work's been crazy. Should get back to normal this week.

Live: A very good Rigoletto by the Peabody in Baltimore, at the Lyric. Wonderful singing from Bryan Hymel as the Duke (who gets the aria La Donna e Mobile) and if possible even better from Stephen Powell in the title role. The staging was traditional and good looking, and the whole thing was a wonderful way to end the season.

TV: The end of the season for Grimm, and wow. Also for Psych - loved the spot-on assessment/lampshade of "We're a crack police force - we've solved over 100 homicides in the past five years." "That says the deterrent effect isn't very good". Can't wait for next year (though I'm not crazy about the 'wacky new boss' thing on Psych)! And of course the Doctor. I'm not sure the answer to "the impossible girl" was all that, but I did enjoy watching the episode. A run of old Perry Mason episodes on Hallmark...

Read: The Human Division by John Scalzi - released episodically, like a tv series, and like a tv show it ended on a cliff hanger (but they'll be releasing a part two). Set in the Old Man's War universe, and following the story after The Last Colony, it's a interesting (if unresolved) story. Can't wait for the next bit. Quite a few Miss Withers books by Stuart Palmer -  very enjoyable. Inferno by Dan Brown - another galloping good story though pretty much like the other Langdon novels. Out of the Black Land, a novel about Ankhamen and quite fascinating. My Beloved Brontosaurus, Brian Switek's journey through paleontology, which was a blast - a lot of fun and educational. Rachel Maddow's book Drift was also well written and educational, but it wasn't fun at all - infuriating, more like it - though very important. The Friday Society, a YA about three girls in a turn of the 20th century steampunkish/Verny London (with cavorite offering floating ships) who become a team of heroes - it's very enjoyable. Also, a wonderful novel called I No Longer Like Chocolates [Já não gosto de chocolates], by Álamo Oliveira and translated into English by Diniz Borges and Katharine F. Bake, an exploration of the immigrant experience through the prism of one old man from the Azores and his children.