dual personalities

November 19, 2015

“In my case, self-absorption is completely justified.”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of the wonderful character actor Clifton Webb (November 19, 1889 – October 13, 1966). Born Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck (what a great name!) in Indianapolis, Indiana, he moved to New York City with his mother Maybelle when his parents divorced. By age 19 he was a professional ballroom dancer using the stage name Clifton Webb.

Between 1913 and 1947, Webb appeared in 23 Broadway shows, starting with major supporting roles and quickly progressing to leads. He introduced Irving Berlin’s “Easter Parade” and the Gershwin’s “I’ve Got a Crush on You” in Treasure Girl (1928). Most of Webb’s Broadway shows were musicals, but he also starred in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and in his longtime friend Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit and Present Laughter.

Movies followed and he made some great ones: Laura (1944), of course,

and The Razor’s Edge (1946)–he received a supporting actor Oscar nomination for both. But remember him in Sitting Pretty (1948) where he played Mr. Belvedere for the first time? This movie is hysterical.

And he received a leading actor Oscar nomination for it. (Laurence Olivier won that year for Hamlet–go figure.) He made three Mr. Belvedere movies and also Cheaper By the Dozen (1950)–another classic Webb role.

I also really like him as Barbara Stanwyck’s husband in the under-appreciated Titanic (1953)

and in the English war movie The Man Who Never Was (1956).

He was equally adept at comedy and drama–never over-doing either. You could probably argue that Clifton Webb always played Clifton Webb, but he was always wonderful, so who cares?

He lived with his mother until her death at age 91 in 1960, leading Noel Coward to remark, apropos Webb’s grieving, “It must be terrible to be orphaned at 71.”

A toast to Clifton Webb and, if you can find one of his movies, watch it!

*Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) in Laura (1944)

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November 18, 2015

November rain

by chuckofish

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

November rain, when it goes on for days, cannot help but bring a person’s spirits down. But I like old Longfellow’s thinking on this subject. When did we stop reading him? He’s kind of great.

Henry was one of those handsome mid-century American writers we are so fond of. Read more about this poet here.

Anyway, please note that there is a slight chance of snow on Saturday! It won’t be long until the weather media is whipping us up into a stock-up-on-bread-and-milk frenzy.

3 Comments

November 17, 2015

Blue moon of Kentucky keep on shining*

by chuckofish

Over the weekend I went to a couple of good estate sales where I picked up several good books.

I was happy to see the book by Janice Holt Giles. Chances are you have never heard of her, but she was a popular mid-range author in the 1950s-70s. She never got rich from her writing, but she was able to support herself, and that is saying something.

Janice Holt was born in Arkansas in 1905. As a child she moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) where her parents were both teachers. She grew up with books and music and went to college. When her first marriage ended, she and her daughter moved to Louisville, Kentucky where Janice worked for Dr. Lewis Sherrill, Dean of the Presbyterian Seminary.

On a trip to visit family in 1943, Janice happened to share a 40-hour bus ride with Henry Giles, a soldier on his way to a new assignment. In two days on the bus they became such good friends that they corresponded throughout the rest of the war while Henry was in Europe. When he returned from active duty in 1945—although they had not seen each other since the bus ride—they married immediately. Henry was 11 years her junior.

After a year in Louisville, Henry could not bear the big city any longer, and the couple moved to Adair County, KY, living on Henry’s family land. Janice, as I recall, had quite a lot to adapt to–no indoor plumbing for one thing–but love will conquer all. Janice wrote and Henry farmed.

I always thought they must have been a very interesting pair. Their unusual romance and life together is the stuff of good fiction. Indeed, some of her earliest books have a strong autobiographical flavor.

Anyway, I was interested to discover, while checking Holt out on the internet, that the Janice Holt Giles and Henry Giles Society was established in 1996 to preserve the literary legacy of Janice and Henry Giles and to restore their log home.

Their home is now open to the public, June-October on Saturday and Sunday.

Every year there is an arts and crafts fair in early October, and I am thinking of adding this event to my calendar for 2016. The OM’s family is from Kentucky and I have long wanted to investigate the Bluegrass State.

In the meantime I am reading The Six-Horse Hitch and enjoying it very much. She is a thorough researcher and she always knows her subject. If you are interested, I recommend you check out some of her other books. The Piney Woods trilogy, consisting of The Enduring Hills (1950), Miss Willie (1951), and Tara’s Healing (1952), though not as famous as, say, Catherine Marshall’s Christy, is just as good. I have not read all of the Kentucky trilogy, but I have read Hannah Fowler (1956) and thought it excellent.

Reading historical fiction, especially about American pioneers, is for me a good escape from today’s Modern Problems.

(Photos are from the Janice Holt Giles and Henry Giles Society website.)

*Blue Moon of Kentucky by Bill Monroe

8 Comments

November 16, 2015

“Sois notre lumière dans les ténèbres, Seigneur…”*

by chuckofish

So in church on Sunday the readings were all apocalyptic. I do not believe in coincidence, so it was just awesomely appropriate. We had the book of Daniel and the letter to the Hebrews and we had the gospel of Mark with the Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times.

And as he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” ²And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.”

³And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,⁴“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?” ⁵And Jesus began to say to them, “Take heed that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷And when you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. ⁸For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs.

I was the intercessor and we had a special prayer en français for the people of Paris. I was afraid I would have to read it along with the Prayers of the People, but the rector had asked a former French teacher to do it. I read the translation. After 12 years of French in school, I could have faked it, but I was relieved that I did not have to do so.

The rector, who spent a couple of years earlier in his ministerial career at the American Cathedral in Paris,

gave a personal and heartfelt sermon related to the terrorist attacks and to the lessons actually assigned for the day. We sang “Oh, God, our help in ages past” (#680) . Old Isaac Watts is hard to beat for keeping things in perspective.

It was good to be in church and to pray together.

*”Be our light in the darkness, Lord”

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November 14, 2015

“Remember, remember the 5th of November,

by chuckofish

Gunpowder, Treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!” So goes the children’s rhyme commemorating the foiling of Guy Fawkes’s plot to blow up British Parliament in 1605. As you can imagine, it was a big deal in England and celebrations started a lot of traditions, especially bonfires at which Guy Fawkes and the Pope (or villain of the moment) were burned in effigy.

Down in Devon, where my in-laws live, they not only celebrate with a huge bonfire, but also by piling tar barrels onto a sledge, setting them on fire, and dragging them burning through town. Time was when they simply lit the barrels at the top of one the many hills in the village and sent them careening down, but parked cars and other fire hazards eventually called for the sledge modification.

The tar barrel carnival is this weekend and son #2 will be there working with a team of photographers and filmmakers (including his step-granddad) to capture the conflagration. Exciting as Hatherleigh’s tar barrels look, they have nothing on nearby Ottery St. Mary’s tar barrel tradition. Follow this link and watch the short documentary (be sure to watch the whole thing). It’s priceless.

http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#ec=R5bmo5NzoFWfR7ZtazVVJwBHq4KTkryS&pbid=7dfd98005dba40baacc82277f292e522

Can you imagine anyone doing that here? Call the fire department! Call social services! Oh, my. Let this be a lesson for us this Saturday. Traditions are important to maintain. It is also important to let our kids test themselves. And, yes, a certain amount of risk is fine. Let us also respond to terrorism with the same united will and assurance that the English did in 1605.

Vive la France!

4 Comments

November 13, 2015

Have a nice weekend

by chuckofish

Middle age is when you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn’t for you. ~Ogden Nash

Maybe I’ll see what the boy’s up to.

What are you up to?

8 Comments

November 11, 2015

Old man take a look at [your] life

by chuckofish

Okay, get this–today is Neil Young’s birthday

and he is seventy years old!

Well, the fact that he is old, makes me feel old. Zut alors, look at how the time goes past!*

Harvest, you will recall, was the #1 best-selling album in the U.S. in 1972 when I was in the 10th grade. Even I owned it, which is saying something.

So cut me some slack.

Happy birthday, Neil. You’re kind of a tool and a preachy one at that, but I’ll toast you tonight anyway and your survival to the ripe old age of 70.

*Clever inclusion of NY lyric

7 Comments

November 11, 2015

“Drawing no dividend from time’s to-morrows”*

by chuckofish

Today in 1921 the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated by President Warren G. Harding at Arlington Cemetery.

And today is Veterans Day. So we remember American veterans, known and unknown.

Guy Russell Chamberlin and Arthur Newell Chamberlin at home in Burlington, Vermont pre-WWI

Here’s to two brothers who went to war–one came back and the other did not.

We’ll toast our grandfather Arthur and his brother Guy, our father Newell, all our other ancestors who served their country, and indeed, all veterans.

O Lord God of Hosts, stretch forth, we pray thee, thine almighty arm to strengthen and protect the [military] of our country. Support them in the day of battle, and in the time of peace keep them safe from all evil; endue them with courage and loyalty; and grant that in all things they may serve without reproach; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

–BCP, 1928

Let’s all take a moment.

*Siegfried Sassoon, “Dreamers”

2 Comments

November 10, 2015

“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.” *

by chuckofish

These are the days to take long walks and savor all that blue sky and colorful autumn flora and crisp fall temperatures. Until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes…at 5:00 p.m.!

For those of us who work from 9 to 5, it means we come home in the near-dark and our evenings seem so much shorter! No walks. It seems like we eat dinner, watch something, read, and go to bed.

Well, c’est comme ça. Lately I have been watching Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014)–the show about a motorcycle club that operates both illegal and legal businesses in the small town of Charming, CA. It has a good cast headed up by the very appealing Charlie Hunnam

(an English actor), Katey Sagal and Ron Perlman.

So far in season one, they are developing interesting and three-dimensional characters–the guys in the MC are pretty great–so we’ll see if I can hang in there despite a good amount of (you can imagine) violence.

I do love watching shows on Netflix without commercials. (I had to laugh when Castiel, the angel on Supernatural, in response to someone asking what he was doing while recovering from nearly dying, said, “I’ve been binge-watching the first season of The Wire.”)

On the book front, I am reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015.

Set in occupied France during WWII, the novel moves back and forth in time, centering on a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths eventually cross. It is excellent. Sometimes “highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning” authors actually deserve the accolades.

Carpe diem!

*Anthony Doerr

4 Comments

November 9, 2015

“Awake, awake, to love and work!”*

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? Mine was quite enjoyably low-key.

On Saturday evening the OM and I went to the members’ preview of the new exhibit “St. Louis Modern” at the SLAM.

Luckily, he found something right away to admire.

As readers of this blog know, my own home is filled with antiques and reproductions. My taste certainly leans toward 18th and 19th century American style. I am, however, a great appreciator of mid-century modern–i.e. the 20th century stuff of my youth. The aforementioned exhibit was full of the contents of some pretty great Bernoudy and Armstrong and Dunn homes and offices and included the design products of Charles Eames, Russel Wright, Eliel Saarinen, et al. It prompted me to look around my own house and find the odds ‘n ends of this period that I love.

I mean who doesn’t love mid-century modern pottery and china?

Church on Sunday was enjoyable–the only blip being when our female assisting priest referred in her sermon to Beethoven’s “Erotica” symphony instead of the “Eroica”. Talk about your Freudian slip! I refrained from correcting her after the service, because I hate people who do that. You know–the ones who look for typos to point out in newsletters etc. Like they’re being helpful. I always say, “I know everyone thinks I’m perfect, but really I’m not!”

Have a good Monday. Learn something new.

*Hymn #9, Geoffrey Anketel Studdert-Kennedy

2 Comments