February | 2015 | dual personalities

February 17, 2015

Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow*

by chuckofish

We had a “snow-event”–not like the ones back East–but enough for me to call a snow-day and not go into work. The way the TV meteorologists carry on these days, you would think every time it snowed it was snow-mageddon. Which of course it is not.

Anyway, I stayed home and continued to lug boxes of stuff up and down stairs and to read my Anne Tyler book. I have always felt akin to Anne Tyler. We are interested in the same things: “I am fascinated by how families work, endurance, how do we get through life?” (You can read a good interview with her here.) This new book makes me laugh out loud and sometimes the tears come. Yes, the characters are familiar–at least that’s what her critics say–but so what. People are familiar.

Meanwhile, there is nothing I like better than to sit and look out my window on a snowy day.

The sky looks like a watercolor painting.

It was a good day.

Today, it is back to work for me and very low temperatures. Keep warm and have a great Tuesday!

*“Snow-flakes” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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February 16, 2015

Day-star in my heart appear*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend?

Mine was very pleasant. I received three of my favorite magazines in the mail on Saturday.

So when I took breaks from my office clean-up, I could read them. I also have two new books to read.

My dual personality found the Jacques Perret book (which I had mentioned in a blogpost a couple of weeks ago) online and ordered it for me. Wasn’t that sweet? I can’t wait to read it, except I am waiting until I’ve finished Anne Tyler’s newest book which was released last Tuesday. I am enjoying it first.

Happiness is a pile of books waiting to be read.

At church I was reminded that Lent starts this Wednesday.

Many lenten pamphlets were available, so I took them all. The “Saintly Scorecard” is for hip Episcopalians who “learn from those who came before us as faithful witnesses to the gospel” while having fun just like the ungodly who bet on basketball during “March Madness.” You pick a bracket and all that jazz. No thanks. (I do not make this stuff up.)

Well, I guess I will have to get in gear for Lent. My life is pretty spartan as it is, so Lent is really just a change of focus for my movie-watching. And I’ll go to church on Tuesday night for pancakes. However. I draw the line at giving up wine or candy in the name of religious fervor.

Let’s just call a diet a diet, shall we? Such as the Diet of Worms…

We couldn’t let Playmobil have all the fun could we?

*Hymn #7 (Charles Wesley)

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February 14, 2015

Love is in the air

by chuckofish

Wait, no, it’s just more snow.

Well, for those who need to find that (last minute) one right thing for their one true love and don’t mind braving the February weather, here are a couple of unusual suggestions.

1. Buy the fastest selling Playmobile character ever, Martin Luther!

Seriously. I’m not a Playmobile fan, but who wouldn’t want their very own Martin Luther? It restores my faith in humanity — I mean just the fact that they made it is cool, but that it has sold out world wide is just awesome. And I’m not even Lutheran.

2. Make your own Lego Valentine. Our middle son made this for us when he was about 9. I think it was for our wedding anniversary, but it doubles nicely as a Valentine, don’t you think?

3. Do a chore that your Valentine has been wanting to get done for a long time. Put up those drapes

hint, hint

or help with the piles of ironing

not ours, but you get the idea

4. Bake something yummy and give it to someone who lives alone.

5. If you don’t have time for any of the above, just be sure to tell your loved ones that you love them and give them lots of hugs and kisses.

XOXOX to all!

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February 13, 2015

Love your life

by chuckofish

Emily McDowell, of course

Here’s hoping we all have a happy Valentine’s Day, complete with candy and grocery store flowers. If you don’t have someone to give them to you, buy your own. And love your life. Enjoy the day! Smile, even when you don’t feel like it! Someone will smile back.

Just remember: your glass is half full, not half empty.

And if you are lucky enough to have a husband/wife/partner, remember that having the same exact thought at the same time is not habit or routine–that’s a blended soul. You are meant for each other. Set me a seal upon your heart.

I have no specific plans, but I will probably watch one of my favorite romantic movies. I have to say that the lists of such movies I’ve seen on the internet are pretty pathetic. Usually they include nothing older than twenty years and those chosen are pretty lame. Maybe the list will include some old chestnut like An Affair to Remember (1957) with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr–which really is a terrible movie and doesn’t deserve to be on any list ever–but that’s a big maybe. List-makers usually haven’t seen a movie older than Titanic (1997)!

My list would include:

Captain Blood (1935)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Casablanca (1942)

Key Largo (1948)

The Quiet Man (1952)

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The Princess Bride (1987)

Green Card (1990)

The Man Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain (1995)

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Chocolat (2000)

Dear Frankie (2004)

Of course, there are many more, but I couldn’t think of them and particularly anything from the 1970s (Worst. Decade. Ever.)

What is your favorite romantic movie?

7 Comments

February 12, 2015

This and that

by chuckofish

There has been a lot of head-scratching and wink-winking over the fact that Bob Dylan is featured in the February/March issue of AARP. But Bob does not consider himself too cool for AARP. He is 73 after all.

In this interview he talks a lot about his new album of standards from the American Songbook (“Shadows in the Night”), many popularized by Frank Sinatra.

These songs are songs of great virtue. That’s what they are. People’s lives today are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don’t survive. We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it — everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life. These songs are anything but that.

Bob speaks the Truth. He has a lot to say, including this about Billy Graham:

When I was growing up, Billy Graham was very popular. He was the greatest preacher and evangelist of my time — that guy could save souls and did. I went to two or three of his rallies in the ’50s or ’60s. This guy was like rock ’n’ roll personified — volatile, explosive. He had the hair, the tone, the elocution — when he spoke, he brought the storm down. Clouds parted. Souls got saved, sometimes 30- or 40,000 of them. If you ever went to a Billy Graham rally back then, you were changed forever. There’s never been a preacher like him. He could fill football stadiums before anybody. He could fill Giants Stadium more than even the Giants football team. Seems like a long time ago. Long before Mick Jagger sang his first note or Bruce strapped on his first guitar — that’s some of the part of rock ’n’ roll that I retained. I had to. I saw Billy Graham in the flesh and heard him loud and clear.

You can read the interview here.

And here’s a tidbit from the Let’s-Not-Mince-Words Dept.:

“One might wish that the leadership of the Episcopal Church would come to grips with reality. The people of the Diocese of South Carolina voted by an overwhelming majority to leave the Episcopal Church. Any church bureaucracy that would try to force its will on a Diocese where the majority of people have said they no longer want to be affiliated is manifestly evil. They are just trying to suck the life out of the Diocese of South Carolina (and the other dioceses they are suing) by bleeding them dry through lawsuits. (That’s just my opinion, of course. But this kind of continued pernicious evil from the Episcopal Church’s leadership has been going on long enough that it just makes you wonder what it will take to finally drive a stake through the vampire’s heart.)”

–Rev. Robert S. Munday, former President and Dean of Nashotah House

He’s talking about the bruhaha in South Carolina where part of the Episcopal Church has broken off and joined the Anglican Church. The problem comes down to money and who owns church property. Read the whole thing here.

The other night I watched A Tale of Two Cities (1935) which I had DVR’d from TCM. I was really impressed. This movie is 80 years old, after all, and you might think it would be a tad dated/stilted. But it really isn’t and Ronald Colman is superb.

He was nominated for an Oscar three times, but not for this movie! He is so engaging and sympathetic as the doomed Sydney Carton, who, you will recall, switches places with the husband of the woman he loves and goes to the guillotine in a final act of selfless sacrifice. I nearly wept. Really. (If the music had been better, I would have.) All the supporting players are marvelous as well: Reginald Owen, Basil Rathbone (excellent as the Marquis St. Evremonde), H.B. Warner, Blanche Yurka (Madame De Farge), Edna May Oliver (wonderful as Miss Pross), and Isabell Jewell as the little seamstress.

Well, anyway, if you are ever looking for something to watch, remember this one. You’ll be glad you did. By the way, TCM is showing Academy Award-winning or nominated movies all month in their “31 Days of Oscar.” I check every morning before work and set my DVR accordingly.

And, hey, just a reminder…

Happy Thursday!

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February 11, 2015

Woke up this morning feelin’ fine*

by chuckofish

Do you remember Mary Quant?

She was born on this day in 1934 in London, the daughter of Welsh teachers, and became a famous fashion designer and British icon. She is credited with inventing the miniskirt (named after her favorite car–ahem) and as such was an instrumental figure in the 1960s London-based “Mod” and youth fashion movements.

Twiggy in a Quant design, 1966

Quant was also responsible for hot pants, the Lolita look, the slip dress, PVC raincoats, smoky eyes and sleek bob haircuts, but it was make-up that eventually made her company the most money.

I remember those days. My dual personality loved Twiggy and collected pictures of her. (She was in the second grade.) We thought it was all pretty cool: Carnaby Street,

Jean Shrimpton,

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,

the Rolling Stones,

Herman’s Hermits!

Living in flyover country, the hip new fashions were slow in catching on, but eventually skirts got shorter, hair got longer and girls started wearing Yardley make-up.

I still have some of these iconic tubes somewhere!

Needless to say, We were oblivious to the darker elements of the mid-sixties. I think we thought, if it’s British, how bad can it be?

Anyone in the mood for Austin Powers?

Yeah, baby–me neither. And happy birthday to Mary Quant!

*Woke up this morning feelin’ fine/There’s something special on my mind/Last night I met a new girl in the neighborhood, whoa yeah/Something tells me I’m into something good (Herman’s Hermits, 1965)

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February 10, 2015

Thought for the day

by chuckofish

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”

–C.S. Lewis

“Angel of the Lilies” by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst

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February 9, 2015

When the storm of life is raging / Stand by me

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? We enjoyed a glorious mid-winter weather break this weekend with record-breaking temperatures in the low 70s. Wow. After church the OM and I headed down to Ted Drewes only to find it closed with a sign saying it would be open by Valentine’s Day! Why? I have no idea. Confused and let down, we drove back to our flyover town and settled for Andy’s frozen custard, which was good, but just not the same.

Otherwise the weekend was pleasant enough. I did some more work on the basement re-organization project and went to lunch with some girlfriends. Again, we were thwarted in our plans, due to our chosen restaurant being too busy. Everyone and his brother was out and about this weekend!

Since I had finally gotten the DVD back from the boy, I watched Road to Perdition (2002) and enjoyed it a lot.

I was quite struck by the cinematography, so I looked up the cinematographer, Conrad Hall who, it turns out, won his third Oscar for this movie. I found out that he was the son of James Norman Hall, who along with Charles Nordhoff was the author of Mutiny on the Bounty. He was born in Tahiti and studied filmmaking at USC. Nominated ten times, he won Oscars for American Beauty (2000) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1970) and the aforementioned Road to Perdition, his last film. He was nominated for one of my favorites, The Professionals (1966), but not for another favorite, Cool Hand Luke (1967). Indeed, he was a great cinematographer.

The beautiful musical score is by Thomas Newman, who is the son of the great Alfred Newman (How the West Was Won and many others) and the cousin of Randy Newman. Thomas has been nominated twelve times for an Oscar, but has never won. He composed the music to Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Oscar and Lucinda (1997) among many others.

Considering that The Road to Perdition is a movie about Irish-American mobsters, there is not an overabundance of violence. (But it is directed by Sam Mendes and not Martin Scorcese.) Bad things happen, terrible things, but first and foremost it is a very low-key film about fathers and sons. Tom Hanks plays the anti-hero who is so screwed up by his upbringing that he cannot escape perdition, but he does the best he can to save his son.

Daughter #1 sent me the link to Bob Dylan’s speech accepting the MusiCares Person of the Year Award. Read the whole thing, because it is quite the speech. Bob is just the Best.

I can not tell you how much I love it that he quotes the old hymn “Stand By Me” in front of all those unbelievers! Testify. When I do the best I can / And my friends don’t understand / Thou who knowest all about me / Stand by me.

The Old Testament reading on Sunday was the wonderful passage from Isaiah 40:21-31:

²¹Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

²²It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

²³That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.

²⁴Yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown: yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth: and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble.

²⁵To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.

²⁶Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

²⁷Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?

²⁸Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

²⁹He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

³⁰Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

³¹But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

So do not faint and grow weary, Kiddos. All will be well. Have a good Monday.

7 Comments

February 7, 2015

Here in this little bay

by chuckofish

Taking a cue from my dual personality, I spent some time yesterday sorting through papers, photos, and children’s art. Like her, I found some doozies, some of which I will share later (I give you fair warning, boys and girls). One of the things I found was this poem that son #2 wrote in 5th or 6th grade and which got published in our local paper:

I’m not sure what prompted his style, but we all liked it a lot. Anyway, this put me in mind of a couples weeks we spent in New Brunswick on the Bay of Fundy when Chris was roughly the same age as when he wrote the poem. The Bay of Fundy is famous for its dramatic tides. This is the view upriver from our cottage at high tide

and the same again at low tide

Sometimes the fog rolled in and covered everything in mystery.

That didn’t stop the boys, though. They became intrepid explorers. As I recall, they found Atlantis.

And, of course, they got cold (really cold) and wet.

We loved it there and vowed to go back again as soon as we could.

Alas, life swept us along to other destinations and we never did go back. Maybe some day…

In the meantime, I leave you with a thought from Coventry Patmore,

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes.

As my dual personality has shown with characteristic wit and charm, it’s good to take time to remember and reflect on past adventures (I’m saving the wit and charm for a future post, so tune in next week). [Please note: I’m not sure why the font got small all of a sudden, but I can’t seem to change it]

3 Comments

February 6, 2015

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”*

by chuckofish

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I thought I would share some Valentines from days of yore–specifically some I received in 1975 when I was a freshman in college.

You can guess who sent me this one. Isn’t Holly Hobbie great?

Here’s one from my aunt. So seventies.

And here’s one I got from my pseudo-love Chucko who went to Cornell. Funnily enough, the postmark was from a women’s college in Norton, MA.

There is even a naughty poem by John Donne transcribed inside!

I found these cards while going through a box of my mail from freshman year. This chore has been a hoot and a half–especially reading the letters from my sister (and dual personality)–alias soror idiocritus–who was a high school sophomore at the time.

The letters from my DP frequently arrived in an envelope like this.

The return address was always from “Pierre Dumaine’s #1 fan” or “Lumpy Rutherford’s #1 fan” or “Cool Hand Luke’s #1 fan”–or “Old Faithful” or “Guess Who?”

I was kept up to date in minute detail concerning every J.V. hockey game she started in, school gossip, her social life (much fuller than mine), and how her classes were going (badly per usual).

Yes, I am alive. I haven’t broken my hand or even lost my eyesight. No, you’re right those aren’t good excuses–but I do have a good one. I’ve had a nervous breakdown. Ruth [her math teacher] sent me to it. It was the last straw when she made me get up and be a point on a line–I was -A (that’s negative A). Actually, I probably could have stood that, but when she put her arm around me and breathed on me…I thought I would faint!…I’m not going to be able to stand a whole year of her!

As it turned out, it was the teacher who did not make it through the year. The replacement, according to my sister, was even worse. But then, according to her, all her teachers were pretty terrible and all had a very low opinion of her and were always accusing her of never working.

(I’m sure they were all shocked when she got into Smith College and then got a a PhD from Yale. Are nine out of ten high school teachers always clueless?)

Well, these distant days are indeed gone with the wind. But it is fun to visit them via letter and look back, isn’t it? I am reminded of many things that I had totally forgotten. It is also a fascinating window into the world at home and all the Life that went on without me. It did, really.

In conclusion: “You’re all wool and a yard wide!”

Have a great weekend. Find something to laugh about.

*Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

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Month: February, 2015

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