dual personalities

September 24, 2013

Happy birthday, F. Scott Fitzerald

by chuckofish

(September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940)

I always felt kind of sorry for Fitzgerald. He had talent, but he also had a serious drinking problem and he married the wrong woman. That can be a deadly combination.

According to Wikipedia, Fitzgerald died at age 44 and was originally buried in Rockville Union Cemetery, an Anglican cemetery and the oldest burying ground in Rockville, Maryland. His daughter Scottie Smith worked to overturn the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s ruling that Fitzgerald had died a non-practicing Catholic, so that he could be buried at the Roman Catholic Saint Mary’s Cemetery where his father’s family was interred; this involved “re-Catholicizing” Fitzgerald after his death. His remains (and those of his Episcopalian wife Zelda) were moved to the family plot in Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland, in 1975.

Seriously?

“Oh, the poor son-of-a-bitch.”*

But I got a little side-tracked there. Here’s a quote:

“He did not understand all he had heard, but from his clandestine glimpse into the privacy of these two, with all the world that his short experience could conceive of at their feet, he had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited and Other Stories

*The Great Gatsby

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September 23, 2013

That old September feeling

by chuckofish

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

― George Eliot

How was your weekend? Mine was very low-key. The weather was lovely. I went estate sale-ing but actually found something at one of my favorite antique malls.

I have been looking for a small desk or work table for some time now. I found a nice old slant-top desk (and a chair) for a wonderful price and snatched them up. I had to go home and get our trusty Subaru to transport it and then asked the boy to come over and get it out of the Subaru and upstairs. He, as usual, was more than willing to do so. I sure do appreciate his man-strength and his good humor.

He also hung up a very large watercolor that I got at the Autumn Gallery Auction at our local auction house last week. It was their quarterly fancy auction as opposed to the monthly ones I usually go to. Sometimes I’ll just throw in a lowball silent bid to see what will happen and sometimes I win. Very exciting.

We moved some things around and that is always fun.

I went to church on Sunday (five weeks in a row!) and we celebrated St. Matthew’s Day and had our annual picnic. It was a beautiful sunny day–perfect for outdoor dining, bouncy houses and bar-b-que.

After doing some house cleaning and laundry, we wound down the day with these:

A perfect start to fall!

*The pictures from the church picnic are from the Grace church Facebook page.

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September 21, 2013

Not to be negative

by chuckofish

but it was a super, super busy week — the kind that makes you feel like this

instead of this

and that leaves you incapable of coherent conversation.

Just to make life perfect I have 40 papers to grade over the weekend. I can attest to the fact that

What exciting things do you have planned for the weekend?

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September 20, 2013

Friday movie pick: Hiya, Tightwad

by chuckofish

Recently I was reading Child Star by Shirley Temple Black, which she wrote back in 1988. She is, of course, the amazing film and television actress, singer and dancer, who became the U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia as well as the White House Chief of Protocol for Gerald Ford. She began her film career in 1932 at the age of three, and in 1934 found international fame in Bright Eyes.

Inspired by her autobiography and the description of the behind-the-scenes goings on of Little Miss Marker (1934), I decided to watch it last week. Also, I had never seen this particular Shirley Temple movie.

Shirley Temple Black’s favorite picture of herself from her movie career (from “Little Miss Marker”)

Based on a story by Damon Runyon (of “Guys and Dolls” fame), it is about a little girl left with a bookmaker named Sorrowful Jones by her father as his “marker” to cover a bet on a horserace. He never returns, so Sorrowful reluctantly takes her in. His motley crew of fellow bookies takes to her and their cynical ways start to rub off on her. Hilarity ensues.

Watch this scene where the guys are passing the 5-year old Shirley around trying to guess her weight. It is classic. Notice when Shirley says, “I like it!” (at 4:12)–it is a key to the mystery of her amazing success.

Shirley Temple was a kid who liked what she was doing. She was having a good time most of the time and that comes across to the audience in spades. Smart as a whip, very few people could fool her and she did not suffer fools gladly. She also had a mother who kept an eagle eye on her at all times and stood up to the studio bosses as her daughter’s staunch advocate. They were a pretty awesome pair.

Anyway, I suggest you get ahold of a copy of Little Miss Marker and watch it tonight. It is a gem. And it is not a children’s movie. It was made for an adult audience. I remember my mother telling the story of how her parents came home from the movies one night and they had seen a film with an adorable little girl in it. My grandmother was over the moon–for Shirley Temple. I bet it was Little Miss Marker. The supporting cast includes Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell, Charles Bickford, and a wonderful cadre of character actors. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

4 Comments

September 19, 2013

Tout va bien

by chuckofish

Well, something nice happened to me yesterday.

I had had a long, hard day at work–leading a workshop at my flyover university. On the way home I needed to stop at the grocery store for a few things. Of course, it was raining.

It was one of those weird midwestern storms where you can clearly see the demarcation line of the storm: rain and sunny sky. It was thundering. By the time I was checking out it was pouring rain, a deluge of biblical proportions! But you could still see the sun shining off in the distance and god-rays shining down through the clouds.

Anyway, the amazing thing was–when I left the store, there were several young Dierberg’s employees waiting outside with big golf umbrellas to escort shoppers to their cars!

Wasn’t that nice?

“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

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September 18, 2013

Bonne Anniversaire to us

by chuckofish

Today is the second anniversary of our Dual Personalities blog! This is our 643rd post! Yay, us! Last year at this time we had 34 followers. Now we have 140! We are truly shrimps in the greater blogosphere, but we’re happy.

As you know, there is much in the ~~modern~~ post-modern world that drives me crazy, but I do like blogs. It is nice to know that Mrs. Blandings is out there in Kansas City and Amanda Blake Soule up in Maine. It is great to hear what’s up with Meg Frazier Fielding in Baltimore and Jenny Komenda out in Arizona. And of course I love to hear from daughter #1 in NYC and daughter #2 in Maryland. I do so look forward to hearing from all of them. So I hope we are not being immodest in thinking that we add our little light to the sum of light in the blog world.

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September 17, 2013

Dancing With the Stars is back!

by chuckofish

“The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man
The second best is a formal order
The dance’s pattern, dance while you can.
Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.”

― W.H. Auden

I watched DWTS last night.

No one grabbed me like last season. And I thought the judges were way harsh with Bill Nye the Science Guy. We’ll have to wait and see who tickles my fancy next week. What did you think?

7 Comments

September 16, 2013

Weekend update

by chuckofish

Oh fall weekends! The heat finally broke here last Thursday and the temperatures plunged to where they really should be. Sweet relief.

On Saturday I decided to throw away my list of estate sales and instead I walked downtown to view our flyover town’s annual Greentree Parade. (Please forgive my iPhone pictures!)

Motorcycle cops ~~showing off~~ skillfully driving in circles opened up the parade.

They were followed by the High School band and cheerleaders,

motley groups of scouts,

local vendors,

Yes, that’s a giant bison he’s pulling!

bagpipers,

a giant motorized shopping cart,

and various groups of equestrians,

In addition, of course, the elementary schools and middle schools in town all had floats. A lot of churches also participated as well. The Methodist church always has the best entry and this year was no different with their own super-cool rockin’ Christian band blasting their live music.

Seriously, I always want to join their church after seeing them rock by. But my own Grace Church tries so hard—you have to love them despite the fact that they might as well hang a banner that says, “Yes, we’re Episcopalian nerds–join us!” We had music too, but we piped in hymns like “Let Us Gather at the River,” because we always stick to the yearly theme—this year it was “The Wild, wild West”. At least for our trouble we were awarded 1st place in the category of theme interpretation!

I took this picture on Sunday morning outside our church where it was proudly parked.

I did not take a picture of our float at the parade because I was so distracted by this friendly Episcopalian who was trotting around very much in character (“Howdy, Ma’am”).

(I found this better picture–with cacti–on our church website)

He handed out these invitations.

Real wooden crosses handmade in Bethlehem!

We may be a small congregation, but we are always classy! (No candy or dog treats for us.)

As if all this local excitement wasn’t enough, the boy and his bride invited us to go to the Cardinals game with them that evening.

Our seats were in the seventh row behind the home dugout–how perfect is that? Besides seeing the game at a great vantage point and the players up close and personal, we had many opportunities to see this guy.

Fred Bird never ceases to amuse and entertain me.

We may have lost the game, but the day was spectacular. God bless America!

4 Comments

September 14, 2013

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words

by chuckofish

Number 2 son turned 21 on Thursday this week, the day after his cousin Mary’s birthday. We celebrated by taking him to dinner at our wonderful local restaurant, the 1844 House. And, of course, I made him “Sarah’s special cake” too.

He’s a senior in college now, but not so (very) long ago he was just a happy little guy.

He’s always been cool as a rock star

or an Aussie commando,

and wild as a turbaned warrior,

but he’ll always be my ‘little heart thob’

Happy Birthday, Chris!

3 Comments

September 13, 2013

Another Friday the 13th

by chuckofish

It is a commonly held superstition that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day.

According to Wikipedia, the number twelve, in numerology, is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 successors of Muhammad in Shia Islam, twelve signs of the Zodiac, etc., whereas the number thirteen is considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table results in the death of one of the diners.

Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century’s The Canterbury Tales, and many have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Friday is also the day when Jesus Christ was crucified, adding to its unpopularity.

Well, you may be thinking that I am going to pick a movie from the Friday the Thirteenth film franchise (there are 12) to watch tonight, but I have not seen any of them. Horror movies are not my bag. I saw Halloween once on TV. Please. I recently saw Psycho (1960) and, despite the actors’ best efforts, it was really very silly.

The best scary movies are the ones that could actually really happen–like Jaws (1975) or Rear Window (1954). But I have to admit that I like the early M. Night Shyamalan movies, especially The Sixth Sense (1999) and Signs (2002). They kept me guessing and were very creepy when I first saw them. I even liked Lady in the Water (2006) which features a favorite actor of mine, Paul Giamatti. The horror in these movies is all based on the personal heartbreak and loss experienced by the hero in each story. The story lines may be far-fetched, but the human loss is real and relatable.

I think I’ll watch Signs tonight.

So, Merrill… swing away.

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