dual personalities

Month: May, 2012

May 4, 2012

Friday movie pick

by chuckofish

I don’t know why The Best of Times (1986) was not a commercial success when it was first released, because it is one of my favorites. I think it’s funny, and it appeals to me on a nostalgic level. Robin Williams plays Jack Dundee, a thirty-ish banker who cannot let go of his failure to catch a pass in “the big game” back in 1972, a move which (in his mind) made him the goat forever. His best friend Reno Hightower (Kurt Russell), the quarterback and high school hero, wrecked his knee in the game and ended his football career. They live in a crestfallen, has-been town. Then Dundee hits on the idea of re-playing the game and regaining their self-esteem.

Kurt Russell and Robin Williams are in top form. I like them both very much and Robin always reminds me of my brother (especially in this movie). It endears him to me. This movie even boasts a 15-year-old Kirk Cameron as Kurt’s son.

The movie is funny and sweet and there is very little vulgarity. The literary reference in the title infers that high school was also the worst of times, which we all know is true. And most of us can relate to Robin’s character: “I’m not a has-been, I’m a never-was. I aspire to be a has-been.”

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May 3, 2012

Lucky Faye

by chuckofish

Steve, Faye and Paul on the set of The Towering Inferno. Back in the day when even a bad movie could be bearable because of the awesome cast! Do I sound enough like an old lady? I know. But, gee, some fun was being had.

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May 2, 2012

Happy 401st birthday

by chuckofish

…to the King James Version of the Bible. Time flies, doesn’t it? In 1611 the King James Bible was published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker. It molded the English language, “buttressed by ‘the powers that be’–one of its famous phrases–and yet enshrined a gospel of individual freedom. No other book has given more to the English-speaking world.”

Phrases that originated in the KJV:

From time to time
The root of the matter
As a lamb to the slaughter
Stand in awe
Turned the world upside down
To every thing there is a season
Unto the pure all things are pure
A thorn in the flesh
A still small voice
Suffer the little children
Pour out your heart
No small stir
Know for a certainty
The skin of my teeth
Fell flat on his face
Set thine house in order

(Thank you to the National Geographic, December 2011, for this information)

Let’s all take a break today and read a chapter from the KJV. Here’s one to start with (I Corinthians 13):

1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

And while we’re at it, Happy birthday, David Beckham!

David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English association footballer who plays for the Los Angeles Galaxy. He has played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, Milan, and the England national team for which he holds the appearance record for an outfield player. And, for the record, he is perfect.

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May 1, 2012

Among the dust and cobwebs

by chuckofish

True to my routine, on Saturday I went to a couple of estate sales. One was in a lovely home on a street down by my old church, a neighborhood I am very familiar with and which is one of my favorites. It was the home of a former professor and his wife, the home they raised their three children in. The children are my age and went to the other private school (the co-educational one) in this flyover town.

(Not the house I visited, but similar)

It was a beautiful three-story house, probably built in the 1920s, with a wide front-to-back front hall, a lovely staircase, and back stairs from the basement to the third floor. The kitchen looked virtually untouched with an old-fashioned pantry. The basement, although not “finished” to today’s standard, had terrazzo floors and a fireplace. Such a wide and airy house, full of lovely things, and books, and evocative testaments to lives well lived–canoe paddles, skates, skiis, pictures taken out west. All I could think, however, was how the next family to buy this house would undoubtedly feel the need to gut-rehab it, ripping out walls to make a huge kitchen with granite counters, and all the rest. Sigh.

I also could not help wondering why the three children did not want all their parents’ stuff! No room for their childhood twin beds? Trunks from dad’s days at summer camp? Their mother’s St. John suits? Her sewing baskets? There were even some family pictures and engraved teaching awards! I suppose things are never what they seem.

I bought a couple of books. Mostly this outing made me very sad. It was a little too personal I guess. Much as I love estate sales, I hope my own children do not have one. The idea of people pawing through my things! Just give it away!  Or throw it away! Have a big bonfire and burn it (probably not legal, but somehow preferable)!

Time marches on; obviously some people have a much easier time moving with it than I do.  The past is prelude and all that. So true, Will Shakespeare, but for some of us, the past is always with us.

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