Martha Woodworth (The Psychic Is In)

This happened to me, and I have a foreign object inside of my nose as well. It's hard, like a piece of metal. A doctor examined it and said he had no idea what it was. Over the years it has shrunk some. I was abducted three times; once as an infant in Norfolk, Virginia, while my dad was stationed there with the Navy; once at age ten, in the woods down the hill from my home, and finally my last week of high school in those same woods, though I had to ride my bike there because we'd moved a couple of miles away - I felt called. I only remember the details of being in a ship when I was six months old. They touched me with their soft fingers (they were the "Whites" with huge, glossy eyes. (I was hypnotized for an abduction investigation, by a Harvard hypnotist when in my thirties.) I remember actually feeling the wonderful feeling of their soft skin. The aliens ooh'd and ahh'd over me, and I felt a huge, deep love I have never experienced again. (I was abducted from my cradle, outdoors, as my twenty-year-old mother fell asleep on the porch of our little house in Norfolk Virginia, where my father was stationed in the Navy.) I believe that "they" put her to sleep. I had no fear of them at that time, of course, because, as a baby I had no concept of what was "different" or "creepy." The hypnosis led me to understand that these particular aliens were good creatures. I was returned to my crib suddenly, and my mother awoke, unaware that anything had happened to me. I was abducted again as a little girl. I was playing in the woods below our house at around noon, puttering around looking at the detritus of a recent hurricane, when I came nose-to-beak with a giant white bird, bigger than me. It opened its mouth and screeched, which terrified me, and suddenly it was dark outside and I was running home for dinner. When I came through the door, my parents jumped up and pulled me into their arms. They thought I'd been kidnapped. (I'd never missed dinner in my life.) "The whole neighborhood was looking for you!" they said. I had no explanation for where or why I had disappeared. My memory was a complete blank, as if someone had taken an eraser to it. Several years later I read Bud Hopkins' books and became interested in UFO abductions. When I met my husband, "coincidentally", he was being hypnotized by the same group of Harvard UFO investigators. He was born in Kansas, in a "little house on the prairie," from the sophisticated city I came from, outside of Boston. His mother (an unsophisticated prairie woman) had told him that she's seen a huge, lighted "ship" come down in front of their living room window one night and she had been "instructed" by a voice "put in my head" to awaken her son (my husband) and bring him to the window. She did so, and lifted him up to the light, into which he suddenly floated up and away. She only remembered it years later. There have been several validating situations about this occurrence in my life, but I'll leave it at that. Just to say that this documentary about the "Abduction In Manhattan" has opened up the whole can of otherworldly worms for me. I felt compelled to leave some sort of description of my experience.

"Alias Grace" - even the title is enigmatic, inviting interpretation. "Alias" indicates "not the real" Grace, or the true one, or one taken on to hide the authentic one. She's more and more a mystery as the series progresses. Her handsome doctor/psychiatrist, hired to discover her guilt or innocence, though obviously a brilliant therapist begins to fall in love with her, trying to peel back the layers of her ambiguity. What starts out as the "simple" story of a young woman wrongly-accused of murder, doubles back on itself. I, too, scrambled to parse the subtle discrepancies in Grace's story. At first, I was sympathetic to her as a sad young woman in a historically domineering male world, but it was more and more frustrating to hold to that view as the story progressed. I never did fully "get" what really happened, and who did what to the murdered victims. "Alias Grace" is a confusing but fascinating production, and everyone in the cast is stellar.

I am watching this for a second time. You know how you do that and you're bored and think nah, I already saw this and it doesn't need repeating? Not "The Good Bandit!" Heck, I could watch this divine series more than once a year, and find new things in it that make me laugh out loud, smirk, snicker and sometimes cry. I previously described it as a "masterpiece" and I have not changed my mind. The comic acting chops of every single actor in this fun, sooo amusing series, is above and beyond. These are some of the greatest performers in the world, my friends. And who knew that the writers/directors and actors of Colombia are some of the funniest in the world? I saw "Formerly Rich/Formerly Poor" also - and another one - forget the name, but each had me rolling on the floor with laughter. I can't wait to see more like these, but frankly, "The Good Bandit" takes the cake. I wish I could hug every participant, the writers, the producers, the director, production staff, costumers, makeup artists, set people...it's well - perfect - that's all I can say. I have to wonder if the funniest American director - Mel Brooks - has seen this. It's right up his alley of hysterically funny, also the Coen Brothers, Jim Carrey, Mr. Bean, The Carol Burnett Show, whoever made "Bridesmaids" - and on and on..."The Good Bandit" and its stellar cast of adorable is right up there with the best and the brightest. Hugs and smooches to everyone. I guess if I could say one characteristic of the entire production that has my admiration, however, it's the timing...whoever "choreographed" this fabulous show has perfecto timing...don't miss it.

I loved this but was terribly disappointed in the ending. I don't want to spoil it for others, but come on. Fabrizio! Fabrizio!