dual personalities

After raining all week, it rained all day Saturday and our front yard was literally a lake. On Sunday morning, however, a great bright orb appeared in the sky, and proceeded to dry everything up. It was nice to see the sun after such a long time. Of course, there are now signs of spring everywhere.

But we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves.

I re-read The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry. It is a very short novell(a) about Charles Goodnight, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Buffalo Bill, various women and Indians. McMurtry is long past his Lonesome Dove powers, but there is something about his books that soothes my soul. When I finished that, I started Goodbye My Lovely by my hero, Raymond Chandler. I have a whole pile of current novels to read, but I just can’t seem to want to read them.

A couple of weeks ago, I gave my Valentine the DVD set of the three Godfather movies, because it had occurred to me that I had never actually seen The Godfather (1972) in its entirety. We watched it Saturday night. I remember when my parents went to see it. (I was deemed too young.) They didn’t love it, but they were somewhat impressed I think. It was new and different and shocking for the time.

It holds up after all these years, but I can’t say I loved it or anything. I guess I just do not understand gangster movies or their appeal. They are about criminals, violent sick criminals. With whom am I supposed to identify? Much less care about? The OM says their appeal has to do with people’s vicarious desire to kill/do violence to their enemies without consequences. Really? Yikes. And why did Marlon Brando win an Oscar for that role? If anyone deserved an Oscar it was Al Pacino who was the center of the film. He is really good–you can follow the arc of his character, how he changes, how his eyes deaden, how he becomes a criminal. [According to IMDB, Pacino did not attend the Oscar ceremony in protest of perceived category fraud. As his performance reflected greater screen time than that of his co-star Marlon Brando, Pacino believed he should have received a nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Well, welcome to Hollywood, Al. You were robbed.] The movie has a very good cast–James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton. Well, now I’ve seen it.

I went to church on Sunday–rite I for Lent–and enjoyed the service except for an overabundance of virtue-signaling in the sermon by our associate rector. Saints preserve me. The ushers were also annoyingly loud out in the narthex during the sermon, and I was seriously contemplating going out to tell them to please shut the heck up, but was saved from having to do so when my friend Carla got up and went and did it first! You go, girl. We all know that guys want to usher so they don’t have to sit through the service, but gabbing in the narthex is not okay.

While I was sitting in church during this penitential season, I couldn’t help but think some more about The Godfather, especially the sickening baptism scene, the climax of the film. You remember: while the baptism of Michael Corleone’s goddaughter is being enacted in some ornate Catholic church, the elaborate murders of the heads of the five New York mafia families are  simultaneously going on, orchestrated by Michael.  In essence, he is being baptized twice: once as he renews his own baptismal vows, and secondly as he is “baptized” into organized crime as the new don.

This is all very well and brilliant film-making, blah, blah, blah, oh the irony. But no thank you. Just not my cup of tea I guess.

When I got home from church, I convinced the OM to take a drive down to Ted Drewes–our first of the year.

My mocha concrete hit the spot. The OM did a little advertising for the boy.

I spent quite some time washing some more 30-year old toys I unearthed, but sadly, the wee babes didn’t come over as planned–sad face–so I don’t have any cute pictures. C’est la vie. We roll with the punches.

So it’s back to the salt mine today. Have a good Monday.

*Clemenza in The Godfather