dual personalities

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the experience of watching The Thomas Crown Affair, a movie that was so purely of its time (the sixties) that it actually managed to take me out of the current moment. Well, I continue to think there’s something to that. The other night, some odd flare of nostalgia inspired me to select Garden State for our night’s movie viewing.

Is there a movie more 2000s than Garden State? It showcases the manic-pixie-dream-girl love interest, an indie soundtrack, and a painfully-earnest script ready to be excerpted in quotation compilations published to Thought Catalog.

So it didn’t change our lives — it’s really pretty bad — but it was mildly captivating for a Sunday evening in quarantine. (“Mildly captivating” is my new bar for entertainment.)

Watching Garden State reminded me of another angsty early-aughts indie film, Donnie Darko, which I similarly remember primarily for its soundtrack. I might have to watch it next.

My apologies if I’ve forced you to you listen to this song and now you feel like this:

“Mad world,” indeed. Any other ideas for comfortingly era-specific films to add to our list?

*”Outlier” by Spoon

Well, hello there. It must be Wednesday again. And as usual I’m all frenzied having had a busy day topped with a trip to the grocery store. There’s something about the parking lot at the Jefferson City Hy Vee that just really does not bring out the best in me. I need to do some deep breathing exercises to recover.

Maybe a little Jim Gaffigan will help.

I can’t decide if watching that made me feel fatter or thinner. My favorite part is when he refers to Jon Hamm as his stunt double. I feel a little like this these days:

If only I’d spent the last seven (eight?) weeks doing sit ups and burpees as I’d intended and not just calling my one walk a day “exercise”. Oh well. It turns out summer bodies are NOT made in quarantine.

I always say I should start writing these posts on the weekend so they aren’t just my angry ramblings on Tuesday evening–but I sat down this Sunday and was like “Hmmmm….no inspiration….maybe something will inspire me on Tuesday” and here we are.

This did make me laugh this week. And I did hear some Marty Stuart on the radio. But boy I feel like we all need a reprieve from this pandemic. My weariness does amaze me. I feel like this calls for some singing of Bob Dylan. Loudly. Sorry neighbors.

*Mr. Tamborine Man, Bob Dylan

Did you have a beautiful spring weekend where you live? Saturday was absolutely perfect in our neck of the woods. We sat outside on our balcony reading and drinking coffee in the morning, and later we took a long walk around the neighborhood, wearing shorts. I am ready to get some sun on my pale winter skin. All that sun took it out of me, though, so after the walk I took an afternoon nap and then it was practically dinnertime. Gone are the days of my chore-filled quarantine Saturdays…

We continue to monitor our backyard bird life. DN has been very enamored with this woodpecker, whose interesting calls and cries he can hear but I cannot. But aren’t you impressed by how he’s gone to town on this tree? The bugs don’t stand a chance!

On Sunday, we focused on preparing for the arrival of baby — this month! We installed the car seat, and inventoried the gifts and hand-me-downs we have received. I did a wee bit of laundry and vacuumed.

Besides that, I kvetched about how much the baby moves around and how literally no sleeping positions are comfortable anymore. The countdown is on!

*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Due to extended social isolation, many of us have experienced some confusion over time and it seems to be getting worse. On Thursday, I missed one Zoom meeting and apologized for missing another only to discover that the apology was a week early. Will I have to apologize again next week? Anyway, these events got me thinking about time and reminded me of the famous statement, “time is what keeps everything from happening at once.” Often falsely attributed to Albert Einstein, the adage first appeared in 1921, in a story by Ray Cummings.**

A brief Google search revealed that Mr. Cummings (1887-1957) was a prolific author who wrote over 700 stories for pulp science fiction and other genre magazines. Here’s the cover of one such periodical:

This discovery reminded me that during the same era, our own grandfather, ANC JR, wrote a couple of short stories for pulp detective magazines. I have found the cover of one, but have not yet been able to track down his story, “The Man who Cheated the Hot Seat,” published in it.

Despite the lurid cover art, the stories are generally well written. Certainly, they offer much better entertainment than the equivalent today.

If you can’t settle on anything to read and need something more stimulating to occupy your mind than  dusting your books or arranging them in alphabetical order, you might try sending a message via book titles:

Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I found this!

Clever as that is, we need not focus all our creative efforts on Covid-19. Why not write a story via email chain? When our children were younger, we used to play story ‘telephone’. That is, one of us would write a paragraph and then pass it along to the next person in the circle, and so on. Today, we are adapting that activity to email. Here’s what I recommend:

1. One person, the editor, starts the story and sends it along to the first person in the chain, who then adds to it and sends it back to the editor.
2. The editor takes the last sentence or two from the new installment and sends only that much to the third person, who adds to it and sends it back to the editor.
3. The editor takes the last sentence or two from the third installment and sends it to person four, and so on.

This method guarantees hilarity, if not literary merit. If you are after the latter, then skip the return to the editor step and just pass the story along.

Finally, I recommend online scrabble, which is addictive and will keep your brain occupied, albeit mostly with three-letter words.

Hang in there and have a great weekend!

* Dr. Seuss

**I found this information here.