esprit de l'escalier

Pretty as an airport

I decided to give the book I had been reading a heave-ho and settle back with an old friend. My first class in college was an English lit class on tricksters. My very first class, Monday morning, 8am, first day of college, my professor asks us to fill out a 3x5 card with various information. One piece being naming several of our favorite books. What did I say at the tender age of 18? The World According to Garp by John Irving, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams. He must have thought I was mental. Anyhow, that is what I've returned to, and I thought I'd share it's opening. I won't be flying anywhere in the near future, but I'm sure I'll forget to post this before I fly anywhere the next time I do. It's especially apt for those of you that may be traveling some time soon...

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an aiport."

Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only known exception to this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in thier designs.

They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with brutal shapes and nerve-jangling colors, to make effortless the business of separating the traveler forever from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveler with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location of depature gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not.

--The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Douglas Adams

Zing zing zing went my heartbeat

I had an especially nice time in class this evening. I am currently taking a class called "Old media, new media" which is something of a readings class on the history of different sorts of media forms and how they have adapted to new technologies. Tonight we discussed movies, the Hollywood system and how adolescent boys are dropping like flies from movie theatres to instead play video games. My favorite part? The movie clips. My professor always intersperses his lecture with clips, but this class was especially nice. I've got the Trolley Song from Meet Me in St. Louis in my head. (He showed that for an example of integrated movie musicals. It was a favorite as a kid.) He also showed the title song from Singin' in the Rain. I would like to go out right now and rent them and watch them back to back. Unfortunately life won't let me do that. (Why don't I own either of them?)

Some find me a little annoying to take to movies, because I tend to have loud reactions to things. Tonight was no different. I couldn't help but laugh in the scene from You Can't Take It With You, when Jimmy Stewart gets Jean Arthur to scream in the restaurant. I hate it in classes when people don't respond to anything. I think I'll have to rent it and watch all the way through. I'm also going to have to watch The Lady From Shanghai. Maybe I'll skip my Superbowl parties and have a little film festival instead.

I have a question, if any one out there can answer it, I'd be much obliged. We watched the running scene from Drums Along The Mohawk. Is the "It's..." man from the Monty Python Flying Circuses a joke on that? Because that's what I thought of when I saw that scene.

Mother, a poet and a haggis

Check out the new album on the left to see some photos from this weekend, if you are interested. Above is my mother while she was parading the haggis around the house before its introductory poem was read and it was eaten.

During the revelry, or perhaps I had thought of it in the car ride but it was the whiskey that truly crystalized my thoughts, but I came to the conclusion that the time was ripe for a biopic of Robert Burns. His life is perfect fodder for a Hollywood movie. There was sex and romance and poetry and more sex. GOOD LORD. Do you have any idea how many illegitimate children the man had? Plus, his popularity is apparently waning with young Scots. St. Patrick's Day is celebrated more than Burns night! (Which is because the alcohol companies are pushing that holiday, though it has little to do with Scottish heritage.) The movie would be easy enough, plus it'd be the perfect place for some hot, young Scottish actor to make a name for himself. His memory needs to be revived!

Brief thoughts as I kill some time

I drove home to my parents' house this weekend. I think I was in the car for about as long as I was home, but it was well worth the trip. My parents threw a Burns Supper and it was very successful. They had a bartender in a kilt (who at one point warned my roommate Natasha to take it easy on the Scotch, that "it wasn't Kool-Aid" and all she thought was, "I'm the soberest person in the room!"), a haggis, poems, copious amounts of food (all delicious Dad), and a lot of drunk people. A couple of friends from Chicago made the journey with me, and a friend from Columbus came over for the night. We all had a great time. I reconnected with a couple whose youngest child I babysat. (The youngest child is now 17 and looking at colleges! Good grief! Blue Girl has some thoughts on a similar manner here.) I'll post some pics in a bit.

I'm waiting out a half hour at work before I go to meet some friends to see Paradise Now, the movie about Palestinian suicide bombers. It's a little heavier fare than what I'm feeling at the moment, but it's not enough cause to flake out on a friend. It will be my brain fiber for the day.

Since it is the time of year where I become vaguely interested in basketball, I'll write a bit about it now. I think that the Hoosiers may break my heart (yet again). Seriously guys, I missed the win over Illinois because of my class, but I'm really glad I missed you all getting your asses handed to you by Minnesota. I'm going to watch the game against Connecticut on Saturday, but I'm not holding my breath. I have caught some great non-Hoosier related games though. Or at least the ends of some. Like the great game between Georgetown and Duke. It is always nice to see someone else's streak end. Especially when it is Duke's streak. I don't believe in perfect seasons. It's no fun.

Through the Broadsheet on Salon, I found out about a women's media conference and I think I'm going to go. It fits really well with what I'm studying, and I want to get more entrenched in media related issues. I'm excited.

Speaking of a Salon blog, have any of you noticed the Video Dog blog? I sort of ignored it at first, but I was wrong to. It has some hysterical things on there. Like a clip from Creature Comforts about snoring. And this kid is totally adorable. There is also a clip of Felicity Huffman that reminds me of why I think she rocks.

Alright, now I need to get going. Hope everyone out there is well!

More birthday wishes

When I was 15, I discovered the beauty of Paul Newman and became hopelessly infatuated. I was blessed to live down the street from a wonderful public library with a huge movie collection. I proceeded to spend the summer renting every Paul Newman flick I could find. The older the better, because the younger he was. I have seen The Long Hot Summer so much I'm embarassed. It's not a good movie, and Orson Welles is in it and is BIZARRE and has, what looks like, shoe polish on his face. But Mr. Newman looks *fine* in it. And his wife, Joanne Woodward, plays his love interest, who's name is Clara (which is close enough to my own name to suffice). There's a shirtless scene where he teasingly calls out to her: "Cla-a-a-ra." The giddiness that this brought to my teenaged heart.

Today is his 81st birthday, and I wish him many happy returns.

Happy Birthday to Robbie Burns!

On this day in 1759, Robert Burns was born. Since 1801, people have gathered to celebrate his birth with a fairly strict ceremony of haggis, bagpipes, drink, poetry and song.

This year my parents are reviving their Burns' Night party. In the easy era before children, they threw several parties honoring the bard. They sounded like an extremely good time. Mother even finagled her way to getting sheep gut to make haggis! This year she ordered one, apparently the government is worried about TB and this is somehow related to sheep gut. (I don't actually want to know.) A group of friends and I are driving to Ohio to be there for the party Saturday night. It should be a good time. If you are in the central Ohio area and are interested in reading some poetry (or have or can simulate a nice brogue), drop me a line!

(Check out the links above. You will learn so much about haggis and Robert Burns.)

More Dickens and some yarn

I didn't feel much like blogging this past week. I was busy every night and tired when I got home and just didn't feel the blogging spirit move me. Sorry about the lapse.

Today I spent getting a leg up on a baby afghan for my cousin Helene. I finally bit the bullet and went in on some more high end yarn. A couple weeks ago my friend Anne and I went into Arcadia Knitting at Lawrence and Ashland, but we both chickened out. I won't speak for Anne, but I felt unworthy of the beautiful yarns. I did take a peek at Candy Blankies : Cuddly Crochet for Babies & Toddlers which gave me some new inspiration. I had crocheted the body of an afghan, but it was extremely dull (not to mention too small, I am much too tight with my stitches) and I was bored with it. I have decided to do a blanket made of chevron stripes in punchier colors. Based on how it's crocheting up, I think I'm going to need a couple more skeins, but it's going to be quite nice. I'm using a cornflower blue and a lime-ish green color of really soft baby alpaca. (I ended up going to my neighborhood's yarn shop, Nina.) I think the end result is going to be a lot of fun. I hope Helene (and the baby when it comes!) likes it.

I worked on this new project while watching Masterpiece Theatre's latest take on Dickens' Bleak House. Jeanne over at Bluestocking Knits had predicted that I was about to go through a Dickens period. I thought she was wrong, because I don't have a lot time for pleasure reading while I'm taking a class and working full time, but she was right! She must sensed I was likely to be drawn into a Masterpiece Theatre mini series. Everything is still unfolding in the story, and I'm keenly interested to see how everything is related. It's very moodily shot, though I can't say I love some of the quick cuts to and from things. It's a little too much. Gillian Anderson seems to hardly be breathing the entire time she was on screen, which I find very effective. I am drawn to Esther, as many characters seem to be, and wonder why John Jarndyce is being so kind. I'm happy to see a couple of young actresses who I've seen in some films this past year (Carey Mulligan in Pride and Prejudice and Natalie Press in My Summer of Love.) I am also marveling after the names of some of the characters. Jellby and Turveydrop. I'll have to keep myself in yarn and new projects to keep up with series.

On a side note, according to IMDB, the actress that plays Esther played Lyra in the stage production of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. I badly wanted to see that, but missed it by a week when I was in London a couple of years ago. I like the actress, Anna Maxwell Martin, but think she's a little old for Lyra. It only underlines my wish of seeing it. Oh well.

Quick trip to Madison

I'm off to Madison for a quick trip to see my uncle and aunt. My cousin Julie will be in town, and I don't think I've seen her since last MLK weekend. She's getting married in April, and since that is never a good time to catch up with the wedding party, I figured I really should go. I went to Uncle Fun yesterday with my friend Anne. I picked up a bunch of silly little things to make grab bags for my cousin Karen's kids. I'm not sure if the 13 year old will be thrilled, but you know, it's the thought that counts.

(Just in case you don't click onto Uncle Fun's website, here's it's motto: "A Unique Purveyor of Fine Goods and Accessories Designed to Restore the Whimsical Nature with which you arrived on this planet." In fact, do click over there. Or if you're in town, go there. It's great. You'll never know what you might find.)

For those of you with a day off tomorrow, enjoy! It's my last day paid day off until Memorial Day. Isn't that ridiculous? I think I would have given this holiday if we could have had one in March. After February, everyone needs a day off.

Blue skies, smiling at me!

Something truly out of the ordinary is occurring as I type this. Chicago is having a cloudless day in the middle of January! And it's kind of warm to boot! I went out to grab something to take back and eat in my cube (a habit grown of late), and realized that it was bright out. Not only that, but the sky was a perfect cerulean. I headed as quickly as I could to Millenium Park. I didn't have my book with me, so I decided to start one of my unspoken resolutions, which is to take walks during my lunch. I walked through the park, past the skaters in the ice rink, past the shiny bean, through the Pritzker Pavilion and over the serpentine Gehry bridge. I cut over Grant Park and ended at my favorite little take-away sushi lunch place. I even got a canteloupe smoothy to pretend it's warmer than it is. I've been instructing people to go out and take advantage of the sun for at least ten minutes if they can. The weather is supposed to return to its regularly scheduled gray soon.

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens has always sort of frightened me. He loomed too large. His reputation as a serialist scared me because I assumed it meant his prose would be too dense, too much to sift through to get to the story. My mother hates him, because he was forced down her throat by the unsympathetic teachers of her youth. I got through high school without having to read him, which, looking back on it now, I find surprising. I remember watching part of a Masterpiece Theater on Our Mutual Friend and thinking I might want to read it. After finding it was 900+ pages, I changed my mind. I read Great Expectations in college in a class on literature and the visual arts and loved it. I thought this was a fluke though, because my professor was English and read us aloud scenes in character. (I guess I discounted A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, because I was too familiar with popularized versions of them.)

Sometime last year I read Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree, which is about reading and how we find books. In one of the essays, he discusses his favorite novel, David Copperfield. (I just lent this book out to my friend Anne, so I'm probably poorly remembering somethings, so please bear with me.) He talked about how Dickens would take you off on these tangents, and give small characters so much more room to live and breath. He especially mentioned the scary old man that little Davy tries to sell his clothes to. This little toss-away oddity is given several pages. Oh goroo!! I had forgotten that he had included that segment of the book and it took me a while to recall where I had read it. According to Hornby, Dickens is credited with inventing some 13,000 characters. Think of it!!

Last summer I started reading blogs. (I blame this happening entirely on James Wolcott. It was his blog that got me started.) I was reading this one blog fairly regularly and found out that the writer also loved David Copperfield. It was at this point that I thought, "Well, if Lance and Nick Hornby like it so much, I should give it a whirl." So I bought it and it sat on my shelf for six months, among a stack of other recently purchased books. The slimmer novels were read around it, but it remained. Finally I promised I was going to read it over my winter holiday. Dickens for Christmas! It sounded about right.

And still I was surprised by how much I liked it. My roommate, Natasha, said she stopped reading it with about 50 pages to go. (She and I rarely agree on books, but then again she did major in Russian literature... Actually she's currently devouring the first in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series and I'm so jealous for her to be reading it for the first time. That thrill you get from a book that you can't put down.) I love how Dickens plays on every sense. It's such a hard thing to pull off, but he seems to with such an ease you don't realize that he's tickling your nose and ears as well as your imaginative eye.

Though I only finished the book a couple of weeks ago, some parts seem so much bigger than others. I forgot how early little Davy comes to his aunt Betsey. Dickens so perfectly captures the perspective of a little boy, that for me it's the central part of the book. His sweet mother and protective Peggotty, the suffocating Murdstones and the wonderful Miss Trotwood. Before I was finished with the book I had decided I wanted to get a little dog and name her Miss Betsey Trotwood and call her "Trot." If we could all have a Miss Trotwood in our lives.

I have recently decided to try and read Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote in sometime in the next decade or so. (I might as well be generous with my deadlines, right?)