September 4, 2015

I woke up this week to find it was too chilly outside to read or write. I'll miss that quiet time as the days grow colder (I'll have to go to The District to keep up my routine), but hey, I still love fall! Pulled out my long pants and my hoodie. Slept without the a/c.

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Reveling in Turner Classic Movies at the house where I'm cat-sitting; I haven't watched it since dropping cable. Two standouts:

 

He Ran All the Way, with John Garfield and Shelley Winters. It was Garfield's final film, and it's a real nail-biter. I doubt a female screenwriter even then would have been comfortable with Winters' character, but I quibble. Garfield's a wanted criminal who hides out in Winters' apartment with her parents and young brother. His gift as an actor was getting us to feel for this cop killer even as we loathe what he's done. The last scene, outside the apartment building where they live, is unforgettable. Unfortunately, this is on a DVD that won't work in American players. Best to keep an eye on TCM's schedule, as it pops up now and then.

 

A Patch of Blue, one of my favorites since I was a kid. Elizabeth Hartman (her first film) plays a blind girl in an abusive (to say the least) household who befriends a kind businessman (Sidney Poitier) in a park. The girl is white, and this was at the height of the civil rights era. But the story is timeless, like Hartman's performance. Shelley Winters (again) won an Oscar as the mother from the pit of hell. She makes Hannibal Lecter look like a charm school instructor. Three things are indelibly etched in my brain: the girl's sheer elation at using a pay phone for the first time, her farewell scene with Poitier, and what he does with a music box after she leaves. I didn't understand what that music box bit meant when I was a kid, but I knew it was a perfect movie moment. Wonderful score, too, by Jerry Goldsmith. Sadly, Hartman battled depression all her life and committed suicide in her 40s, jumping from a five-story window.

I know he's not a household name, but Wallace Ford, like Winters, was also in both films, and also terrific in both.

 

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My friend Ang posted this funny observation on Facebook:

The pros and cons of making food

Pro: Food

Con: Making

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I've always liked the James Taylor song "Never Die Young," but I never knew what it was about. After learning this week that he doesn't know, either, I'm able to enjoy it more.

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You know what word's misuse bugs me? "Arguably." "This is arguably her best column." "He is arguably the best painter of his generation." Well, of course it's arguable. Any opinion is arguable. You know what's not arguable? "The sun is hot." "The sky is blue." Can you imagine someone saying, "That was arguably the first time the U.S. celebrated a bicentennial"? If it's an opinion, it's a given it's going to be arguable. Sheesh. I understand that people use it this way to let others know they're not being dogmatic, but it still rankles. (Apologies to Tami, who has already heard me rant about this.)

Don't even get me started on "literally."

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The pros and cons of cat-sitting:

Pro: Sitting

Con: Cat

I jest. Actually, Lucy is a great cat. (That's in case she's reading this.)

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I've worn a hole in my shoe from all this walking I've been doing, but I'm not paying $150 for a new pair. Off to Walmart!

 



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Can't say I've done much beach reading this summer. I meant to, but somehow I ended up reading two books about the Holocaust, a book-length poem about crimes in the U.S. at the turn of the last century, and a bio of Charles Manson, who, it turns out, was not a nice man. I'm not hopeless, though -- all this time I've been dipping into a couple of Get Fuzzy collections. In my opinion, it's the second-funniest comic strip going these days, right behind Pearls Before Swine. Arguably.