dual personalities

One of the nice side effects of having a party, is all the leftover flowers…

(We also have a lot of leftover food!) But we miss seeing our loved ones and that “and then we were all in one place” feeling. Sigh.

Well, moving along, I read Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler’s latest novel. NPR said that it “is heartwarming balm for jangled nerves.” Well, maybe. It is an easy read, but there just isn’t much there. Tyler wrote a few masterful books back in the 1980s and some good ones followed, but she is yet another example of someone whose editor keeps goading her to write one more novel because the publisher knows it will make some money. Anne, you’re 79 years old, it’s okay to retire.

Now I am reading The Only Woman in the Room, a fictionalized telling of real life “glamour icon and scientist” Hedy Lamarr’s escape from Nazi Austria and transformation in Hollywood. She was, no doubt, quite a woman, but in the hands of this author, it’s all pretty dull, re-hashed material. The book was a gift, so I will read the whole thing and hope that it picks up.

To celebrate the 200th birthday of the state of Missouri, I watched Across the Wide Missouri (1951).

_{(This photo must be of lunch break on the set, because look at that cowboy in the background!)}

Directed by William Wellman, the film stars Clark Gable as a fur trapper and mountain man in the 1830s. Gable is a bit old for his part (typical for Hollywood) but I enjoyed it. Beautifully shot in Technicolor in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, there is a lot of action and nary a dull moment in this movie. Gable’s stunt double Jack N. Young was particularly impressive. The final action scene where our hero’s baby son, attached as a papoose to a horse that bolts, is quite exciting. The supporting cast is excellent and includes the usually suave Adolphe Menjou playing against type as a French trapper as well as Russell Simpson and James Whittemore.

Although romanticized, the plot and the depiction of the Blackfeet Indians seem fair. There are plenty of “good” Indians to balance Ricardo Montalban’s “bad” Indian. According to Wikipedia, the 31-year old Montalban was seriously injured during the making of this movie and had back problems for the rest of his life. I don’t doubt it. (You can rent it on Amazon Prime.)

Well, I hope everyone is keeping cool. We are experiencing a typical August heat wave.

Things could be worse.

I was happy to see this. You go, Isaac. You were always a favorite of mine.

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help; that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in thee, we may glorify thy holy name, and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ Our Lord.

–BCP, 1662