Well, you know I think it has been a little over a year since “two weeks to stop the spread” began and I started quarantining (except for my daily constitutional and weekly trips to Hy-Vee). I’ve been back in the office since this summer, but I thought I’d take a little time for some self-reflection on the ways the past year has changed me.
Number 1) I’m now a person with daytime sweatshirts and nighttime sweatshirts. Not only that, I have sweatshirts that I purchased to wear in public and didn’t receive as a gift or as a souvenir from a trip to a college.
Number 2) I keep my office door closed because “germs” and not because I want to be catty on the phone about a co-worker and definitely not so Brad the mailman doesn’t bother me.
Number 3) I buy my wine by the case. For the discount.
Number 4) This line doesn’t amuse me as much as it used to.
Number 5) You all know that my foray into “making” has kept me going. I owe most of it to YouTube. When I gave up social media (can’t recommend it enough for your mental well-being), I promptly switched to watching videos on YouTube. The algorithm sure is interesting. Sometimes I get clips from Wayne’s World. Other times, I find things like this:
I hope you can gather together this weekend–have a Happy Easter!
Readers of this blog may remember that How the West Was Won (1962) is one of my favorite movies, and that, indeed, it was one of the first movies I ever saw at the movies. I was six and I went to see it at the Cinerama movie theater with my friend Trudy Glick. (It was her birthday party.)
It had quite an effect on me. Anyway, Paul Zahl mentioned it in his list of movies to watch on TCM in April, and he specifically referenced the John Ford section of the film, and this got me thinking about George Peppard, who has a big, pivotal part in the movie.
He is actually in two of my favorite movies of all time. This is kind of weird since he is not really a favorite of mine.
GP as Paul Varjak in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
He’s very handsome in a blue eyed/blonde kind of way, but he’s also kind of wooden. He reminds me of a taller Alan Ladd. He says his lines and doesn’t give much more. He almost seems a little embarrassed, like he’s wondering how did I get into this line of work anyway? You know, they pay me a lot of money, so okay, I’ll do it. But I think I’d prefer to sell insurance. When you think about it, there are actually quite a few famous actors that fall into that category. They got into acting and success came pretty easy and then they had to keep it up and they were expected to emote a lot. They had to pay the bills. Sheesh.
Once in awhile actors like Alan Ladd and George Peppard can really stand out when they land in the right role with the right director. We remember them for those parts. Other actors can make a mediocre movie watchable just by being in them. (I’m thinking John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Audrey Hepburn–you make your own list.) Those are the real stars.
Well, old George has re-entered my life recently for another reason. Before going to sleep at night, I have started watching old episodes of the TV show Banacek, that aired originally from 1972 to 1974. Banacek was a freelance investigator based in Boston, who solved seemingly impossible thefts. He then collected from the insurance companies 10% of the insured value of the recovered property. (What a concept!) He was debonair and had a chauffeur, who was a real character (wink wink). He smoked cigars and was irresistible to women.
Guaranteed to send you to sleep in a jiffy! (Even better than Murder She Wrote!)
And guess what? There is a Simpson’s episode based on Banacek in season 29–voila! George Peppard again in all his Sansabelt ’70s glory!
We took the train, as planned, to Jeff City on Thursday and got our 2nd vaccine shots on Friday morning at the HY-VEE. Everything was blooming in JC…
…and the river was high.
After saying ‘hey’ to old friends,
…and rewarding ourselves with a Chick-fil-A breakfast, daughter #1 drove us home. I took a nap.
We took it easy for the rest of the weekend, but the wee babes came over on Sunday. We blew bubbles on the driveway…
…and read the liner notes on some cool LPs we got at an estate sale…
and played with some more vintage wooden toys we unearthed in the basement…
…and only one boo-boo resulted.
Good times.
Here’s Paul Zahl’s list of movies to watch on TCM in April. Once again he hits the nail on the head.
Sir Laurence Oliver’s Henry V was produced in England in 1943 with morale in mind. Somehow it has never dated. (I prefer it to the Kenneth Branagh version for all kinds of reasons.). And the music, by Sir William Walton — well, one can remember almost every note.
He is my soul brother.
Have a good Monday! And here’s something from Josh Turner and Carson McKee who always make me smile.
This week, in between doing the things I always do, I started reading a book that my DP and I once gave our mother about C.S. Lewis and his world. Full of lovely photos of the countryside and thoughtful quotes, it makes soothing bedtime reading. Lewis was a lifelong, avid walker who covered a great deal of ground in Britain and Northern Ireland. He went out in all types of weather and noticed everything.
I love this passage from Lewis’s book Surprised by Joy (quoted in the book we gave our mother) in which he discusses what a friend has taught him:
But Jenkin seemed able to enjoy everything; even ugliness. I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town to seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was no Betjemannic irony about it; only a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one’s nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was.”
At a time when our culture encourages us to seek novelty and worry about what we don’t have rather than appreciate what we do have, that passage is a good reminder to live in the here and now. It is not just a matter of ‘seizing the day’; it is a matter of gratitude and wonder. This life is short and we don’t want to squander it.
Well, as is often the case, one book sent me to another, and I started reading the first volume of C.S. Lewis’s letters. I was curious to find out about his experience in WWI, during which he served as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry. Here’s a photo of the regimental aid and post staff (not Lewis’s section but the only photo I could find of Somersets).
It seems that Lewis spent much of his war in the hospital, first with a nasty bout of trench fever and then again after being wounded at the 2nd Battle of Arras. Although I knew he had been wounded, my grasp of the details was hazy to say the least. For some reason, I thought that he had been left for dead on the battlefield at the Somme, but it turns out he wasn’t even in the army in 1916. Lewis was wounded at Arras on April 15, 1918, when a shell hit, killing the Sergeant standing next to him and knocking Lewis out. In a letter to his father dated May 4th, he described his wounds:
As a matter of fact I was really hit in the back of the left hand, on the left leg from behind and just above the knee, and in the left side just under the arm pit. All three were only flesh wounds. The myth about being hit in the face arose, I imagine, from the fact that I got a lot of dirt in the left eye which was closed up for a few days, but is now alright. I still can’t lie on my side (neither the bad one nor the other one) but otherwise I lead the life of an ordinary mortal and my temperature is alright. So there is no need for any anxiety at all.
With typical humor, he wrote in another letter home:
I expect to be sent across in a few days time, of course as a stretcher case: indeed whatever my condition they would have to send me in that way, because I have no clothes. This is a standing joke out here–the mania which people at the dressing stations have for cutting off a wounded man’s clothes whether there is any need for it or not. In my case the tunic was probably beyond hope, but I admit that I mourn the undeserved fate of my breeches. Unfortunately I was unconscious when the sacrilege took place and could not very well argue the point.
It turned out that his wounds were more severe than he initially described, since two pieces of shrapnel had penetrated his chest and could not be removed. Indeed, if we pay attention to the letter dates and read between the lines, his near-death becomes apparent. Eventually, he was transferred back to England, and though soon ambulatory, he was still in the hospital in mid-June.
One can’t help thinking how different our world would have been if Lewis had not survived. Yet survive he did, and by 1929 he could deny his belief in God no longer. The rest of the story you know well, but I highly recommend that you revisit Lewis’s Christian writings; they’re next on my list.
Have a blessed Palm Sunday!
Letter quotes from Lewis, C. S.. The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 1: Family Letters, 1905-1931. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.
Friday again. The OM and I are in Jefferson City getting our second Pfizer vaccine shot. We took the train in yesterday after work and daughter #1 is going to drive us back home later today. We lead such glamorous, fast-paced lives, n’est-ce pas? Anyway, I will be glad to have all this vaccine business behind us.
Speaking of Jeff City, daughter #1 sent me this article about hometown Hollywood producer Gina Goff, who just made a movie starring 90-year old William Shatner. It’s a small world.
Meanwhile the spring term at my flyover institute commences on Monday. A whole year has gone by since we canceled our spring term last year. Yes, we are still online and Zooming.
“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend; The difficulty will not me offend. For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear. Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”
John Bunyan, “Christian” in Pilgrim’s Progress
We could all be reminded of this, written by William Crawford, Minister of the Gospel at Wiltown, Hawick FromA Short Practical Catechism, 3rd edition, Edinburgh, in 1745.
Are you following @ultimatelacrosse on Instagram? The boy has started making videos again and they are pretty great. Daughter #1 is his producer. (You have to click on the link to watch the videos.)
And here’s to DN whose birthday is today. You know we’ll be thinking of you and toasting you tonight! L’chaim!
In other news, I watched Seven Samurai (1954) again and it was great.
It took two nights, because it is a long (207 minutes) movie, but I highly recommend it. It is a top ten film in the foreign film category.
Sunday is Palm Sunday and marks the beginning of Holy Week:
And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Beth′phage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, 2 and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it. 3 If any one says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away, and found a colt tied at the door out in the open street; and they untied it. 5 And those who stood there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said; and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their garments on it; and he sat upon it. 8 And many spread their garments on the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!”
11 And he entered Jerusalem, and went into the temple; and when he had looked round at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Mark 11:1-11
To help you picture the landscape of the scriptures, here are a few photos from my trip to Israel in 2018, including one of the model of ancient Jerusalem.
Things advanced quickly in the back half of our spring break last week! Katie’s bottom two front teeth came in and she officially began crawling.
She is not terribly skilled at it yet but she’s exponentially more mobile now and we are adjusting. Returning to work has not been very fun — it’s frazzle city over here.
At least we managed to fit in some fun last week, including a trip to a botanical garden…
and a patio happy hour…
(Katie is happily people watching from her stroller, outside of frame)
with lots of family playtime as well.
Pictured with her favorite toys: the Aquaphor tub and the coffee table leg
Crawling certainly ups the nutball ante, but of course Katie remains as sweet as ever.
And no matter how mobile she gets, we know one thing will stop her in her tracks…
My mother was telling me about some giant potholes recently (boy we lead interesting lives) and it made me think of this classic number.
Of course, when I went to find the clip on YouTube, it only made me want to watch more of The Simpsons. The Monorail episode is often ranked as the best Simpsons episode–and while it is one of the best, it is not my top episode. Because it is Wednesday morning, and because I don’t really have anything else to blog about, and because these clips are bringing me joy right now, enjoy these highlights from some of my favorite Simpsons episodes.
Today is the birthday of the great film director, Akira Kurosawa (March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998). Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, including a number of highly regarded (and often copied adapted) films, such as Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961). After the 1960s he became much less prolific, but his later work included two epics, Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985).
There are quite a few Kurasawa classics available to watch/rent on Amazon Prime. That is my plan to celebrate his birthday.
(This Criterion Collection set would make a wonderful gift!)
I might watch one of my favorite Kurosawa movies, Seven Samurai, tonight…
…and then The Magnificent Seven (1961) tomorrow night to celebrate Steve McQueen’s birthday on Wednesday.
That works out rather nicely. Synchronicity, I think it’s called.
Not exactly lenten fare, but I can dig it.
Also, let’s all give a big shout out to William Shatner, who turned 90 yesterday. Ninety!!
Spring is here and the Florida Room is open for business. I worked all day on Saturday, taking everything out of the room, cleaning it, cleaning everything, moving it all back. Then I moved all the plants in. Phew, was I tired when I finally finished.
I deserved some refreshment afterwards.
My friend Carla came over on Sunday for an inaugural SP21 visit to the Florida Room and we gabbed away, catching up–sans masks. All these little steps seem like a bigger deal these days, don’t you think?
The wee babes came over after that and frolicked outside. Running down the hill,
playing velcro catch,
driving the Cooper,
drawing the solar system on the driveway,
and so on. All the fun stuff. Pappy barbecued a feast of hamburgers and hotdogs. We had ice cream sandwiches for dessert.
And I have to say, after a work week full of rain and dark skies, there is nothing like sitting in a folding chair on the driveway in the sunshine watching the wee babes frolic.
Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.
Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”
I had a fine week. There’s a definite hint of spring in the air and the sun has been shining quite a lot. But what I really long for is a good thunderstorm and plenty of rain to wash away the winter grime. Since the forecast contains no hint of rain, I looked for thunderstorms online, and naturally found myself perusing 19th and early 20th century paintings. Somehow even the grimiest cities look romantic in the rain.
Take, for example, James Tissot’s painting of a Rainy Day on the Thames in 1876.
The date of this painting got me thinking that while people were swanning about in London (and indeed New York, Boston…), settlers were eking out a precarious existence in sod houses on the American prairie or riding to slaughter at the Little Big Horn with Custer (June, 1876).
Rainy Day in Camp, Winslow Homer 1871
And that got me thinking that there has always been a disjunction between the experiences of city people and those who live in the countryside. Other people’s struggles are easy to judge from the comfort and safety of our homes but the consequences of such casual judgments can be dire.
Recently, I read the memoir of Sarah Raymond Herndon, who traveled from Missouri to Montana in a wagon train in 1865, during a particularly violent period of the Indian wars in Montana Territory. She has firm convictions — as inexperienced youth often do — and is disparaging about the few Indians she encounters, noting that one warrior “was very disappointing as the ‘Noble Red Man’ we read about. He wore an old, ragged Federal suit, cap and all. There were no feathers, beads or blankets.” Obviously, back in Missouri she developed an idealized view that gave birth to a dangerous contempt when it met reality. Unconcerned about the Indians, she leaves camp frequently and wanders off into the hills to pick wild flowers. She seems impervious to the sight of burned-out sod houses and wagons and to the frequent graves they pass. When two men fleeing Montana because of the Indian deprivations join her train, she writes, “how I pity any man who has so little grit. I should think they’d be afraid to show their faces to their neighbors and say, ‘We were afraid, so we came back home.'” She goes on to remark, “We would not like to be scalped and butchered by the Indians, but it does seem so cowardly to run away from danger.” Her strong belief in God and her ingrained code of behavior give her the gumption to continue the trip as friends die of disease and the Indian threat increases. But make no mistake. Her fortitude is largely the result of inexperience, a jaw-dropping underestimation of the foe, and a deep determination that life will go her way. In short, it’s nothing short of a miracle that the Indians never kidnap her or attack her wagon train.
All of this reminds us of how our preconceptions can blind us to reality. When the news creates a stereotype, ask yourself if there can be more to the story. Next time you want to reject someone who doesn’t believe what you believe, bother to find out why. The answers may be hard to take, but at least they’ll be real.
dual personalities 