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Posts Tagged ‘Movies’

Sleepless in Florida

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on November 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

It’s the morning after. Some of you may have participated in this strange, compulsive shopping tradition we call “Black Friday.” The stampedes started early this year, on Thanksgiving night for some. I’m one who never really got into the spirit by pushing and shoving my way around Walmart in the wee hours for a “deal.” http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/23/pf/black-friday-2012/ Plus, some workers are striking, and if I learned one thing from my PA coal miner family, you never, ever cross a picket line. Maybe that’s old fashioned, but I’m not a scab! And, sleep is a wonderful thing, better than a sale any day.

The Love Bug loves the beach, and she’s sleeping like a baby here. Ever since we arrived, for 10 straight glorious hours, she has been sleeping through the night. For the rest of us, it’s touch and go. The tennis team from UNC thought right next door would be a good place to party; and their shenanigans lasted until dawn. Bob and the Bride had a serious talk with the British team captain, and that seemed to do the trick. Not sure if they used the Blue Devil approach, but whatever was said worked.

The Rocker and Ms Cait are already heading home, after trying out a driving range and some go-carts. Last night we stayed in to watch a movie, “Moonrise Kingdom,” which was perfect. Today we met a friend of the Bride’s at Rosemary Beach and I discovered the most wonderful combo bookshop/art gallery. It’s the off-season now in FL, they are even expecting a frost tomorrow night. The turkey has been carved, we gave thanks for all our blessings. We’ve had fun, sightseeing and beach walking, roaming around, getting the lay of the land. So long sand and sun, the mountains are calling us home.

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Fifty and Fab

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on November 10, 2012| 1 Comment »

What do Mick Jagger and Bond, James Bond have in common? The passage of time. This year is their Golden Anniversary. Yes folks, my generation has brought you the two most consistently successful entertainment franchises in the history of the universe. The Stones are set to tour the world, post Keith Richard’s head injury in Fiji; and Keith and Mick Jagger are the only original members left standing. Once the symbol of rebellion for me and mine, today they play for big bucks and family outings. Believe me, I loved the Beatles, just not as much as the Stones. I was a teenager on the banks of Lake St Joseph when my conversion began.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VbImuG71M

“And a band that was once synonymous with a riotous volatility has become — despite all commercial, cultural and chemical odds — a symbol of stability. Members now describe the band with an unexpected word for the Rolling Stones: discipline. ‘It requires quite a bit of discipline to be a Rolling Stone,’ Mr. Richards said. ‘Although it seems to be shambolic, it’s a very disciplined bunch.'”

As a young teen, my brother Dr Jim, always brought me to the Baker Theatre for a Bond double feature. Remember when you could see 2 movies for the price of 1, and get a good half an hour of Wylie Coyote cartoons as a prelude? Sounds like I’m dating myself, and I guess I am. But Bond hasn’t grown old. The Ian Fleming template began with the best, Sean Connery, and now only continues to get better with Daniel Craig. We have a new movie theatre in town, an Imax, and I’ve got a date with Bob on the calendar to see “Skyfall.” Here’s a little walk down memory lane http://www.eonline.com/photos/5837/23-best-and-worst-james-bond-movies/208602

Funny thing is, I saw the Stones at the Meadowlands for my 50th birthday and I’ve really no need to see them again. Unless, maybe someday, when the pre-teen Love Bug wants to see them? Let’s see, Mick will be about 80 by that time. I’ll be holding on so long!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWaR29_sMrs

Here is the octogenarian Great Grandma Ada holding our Sweet Thing – 4 generations of fabulous Rose-Lynn Girls. Bond Girls, move over!

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Are We Happy Yet?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on October 23, 2012| 4 Comments »

I live down mountain from the President who first proposed we Americans should be happy. TJ actually penned it right there, in our Declaration of Independence, that we must feel free to pursue happiness. There are just 2 problems – he didn’t define happiness, and we didn’t start measuring it until 1972. And strangely enough, we Americans seem to maintain the same score on this scale no matter what party our President belongs to, only about one third of the nation is “extremely happy.” http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/america-the-anxious/

Why so glum? Well last night this word nerd was impressed with how many times Mitt used the word “tumult.” I felt like I had fallen into a time warp, even the President had to remind him that the Cold War was over 20 years ago and this isn’t a game of Battleship! Tumult is a word from the last century. Sure these are tumultuous times, Arab Springs are quickly getting frosty. The Islamic world is more dangerous now than anytime in recent history, and electing a guy who seems to auto-correct his platform on foreign policy would be more like “malarkey” to me.

One thing that will always make me happy is going to the movies. In another instance of art imitating life, we saw Ben Affleck in “Argo” over the weekend. It was brilliant, right down to the set and feel of 1979. The juxtaposition of the actual photos next to the movie stills from the Iranian Revolution at the end only added to the power of the film. The attack on our Embassy in Benghazi is still fresh in our minds, http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/timeline-of-events-comments-surrounding-attack-that-killed-4-americans-in-benghazi-libya/2012/10/20/ef5addbe-1a89-11e2-ad4a-e5a958b60a1e_story.html and only added to the terror of watching angry actors in Argo scaling the walls of our Embassy in Tehran.

When we walked out of the movie theatre, Bob turned to me and said, “If our involvement in that rescue mission had been made public, Jimmy Carter would have been re-elected.”  Interested in researching the 444 day occupation of our Embassy? http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/hostages.phtml It was fascinating last night to see Mitt’s newer, softer approach to Libya. Maybe he realized that trying to win political points in the midst of a national crisis is not very Commander in Chief-like.

The Bride was barely eight weeks old when the Iranian hostage Crisis began. We only got one channel on TV late at night in the Berkshires, and there was no internet at the time; the newspaper was our window to the world. My memory was filtered through a new mother’s eyes. I remember being sad when Carter was defeated. Like McGovern, he was a man you could trust, a man of peace. I like to think we are a people who can learn from history. And since the Arab world is in such flux, now more than ever, we need to keep our respected world leader in the White House.

For a little comic relief, to improve your level of happiness for the morning, why not follow-up on Gov Mitt’s auto-correctness? http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/category/best-of-dyac/

And don’t forget to vote! 

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The Con

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

While we are all getting unzipped today on Google http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/24/gideon-sundback-celebrated-google-doodle?newsfeed=true I thought I’d opine at the intersection of art and reality. Bob was caught watching his favorite movie on TV the other day, The Sting. Truth be told, a movie that includes Newman AND Redford would have to count as one of my favorites too. Like certain baseball movies, The Sting appeals mostly to men, and was produced in the 70s amidst a whirlwind of social change. Set in Depression era Chicago, it’s a buddy film, a comedy/crime caper with a thieving banker as the villain. Hmmm. Is revenge ever enough?

For some strange reason, seeing John Edwards getting hauled into court this week is reminiscent of that classic movie. Two pretty boys colluding to con the American people. Or was it his wife, Elizabeth, he was trying to shield from his mistress. Edward’s closest aide, Andrew Young, is now a witness for the prosecution. And now we learn that Young has sold the movie rights to “The Politician,” a scandalous page-turner he wrote about his former boss. After all, this is the guy who claimed he was the father of the mistress’ baby. He was the one who helped funnel almost a million dollars of ‘political donations’ to help cover up the affair as Edwards ran for the Presidential nomination.

Who will play Edwards and Young in this modern day Sting? Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling? And the villain, I’d say Reese Witherspoon would make a great mistress, or wait, maybe Young is the villain for snitching to the Feds? I have to think that Europe is laughing at us again, for the puritanical interest our press seems to have with our presidents. And just for more comic relief, we have the secret service demanding a discount for its secret menage a trois services. Sex and power, it just doesn’t get any better than that! If convicted of 6 criminal counts of attempting to grift the campaign finance rules and regs, the former senator from NC may have to face up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines. And that would be a crime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/24/john-edwards-trial-andrew-young_n_1448314.html

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The Help

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , on August 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Cali girl, Wendy, brought The Help to my Ivy Farm book club’s attention. It was over a year ago, and I remember feeling like maybe I shouldn’t be reading this book, with its stereotypical  Black maids and Southern tinge of racial superiority. Then I got into it, and I got it, and the whole book club loved it.  Race is still, such a trap for this country; think about certain politicians threatening to take back our country. I always wonder where exactly they think we all went? This surprisingly nuanced little book captured those watershed civil rights years so well, from a safer angle, one we could all relate to, the homefront.

A few of us Farmers got together to see the movie. What a gem. A movie that holds its own weight next to the book, I was alternately teary and laughing. The music was incredible. One woman swore her Mother had that exact same green stripped shirtwaist dress. Another wanted to hug the large Black family that was sitting in front of us. We decided to continue the night and lingered over dinner, not wanting to let the glow of something real end. I talked about going to MN after my own Mother, the Flapper died, and wanting to keep her letters with me. My older sister, Kay, helped me clean out her desk. She kept every letter and every newspaper article I’d ever written. One letter, in particular, stood out to me.

I was 19 and in college. Postmarked April 6, 1968, it was a small orange envelope with white ink – the return address, 271 Beacon Street, Boston.  At the top of the dramatic orange letter dated the day before, April 5, I wrote: “It is truly a sad day in Boston. I just got back from a march downtown in honor of a great man who died last night in Memphis. We all wore black bands and marched arm in arm and spoke of things like truth and justice and equality…” I never mentioned MLK or race, but I had turned some mysterious corner into adulthood that day. The National Memorial to Dr Martin Luther King, Jr will be dedicated on August 28th. It took awhile, but I think our children grew up in a better world. Michelle Obama most likely had a maid in her ancestry; as did I when my Irish immigrants first got off the boat. We stand on their sacrifice.

I just pulled out a small orange card Mother placed in the envelope  dated 1-9-84. I never saw this card before. In her distinct handwriting she has given me one last admonition; “Save this letter for Jessica. Some day she will appreciate.”

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