My favorite actress this month: Brit Charlotte Rampling. (I’m always a little late to the game — everyone else has known about her for ages.)
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. It it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
— E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
We saw Charlotte’s Web on Thursday, the new one. (The actors who voiced the animals were great, as was Dakota Fanning, who plays Fern.) Wacky Girl kept sneaking little sidelong looks at me during the movie, Is she crying yet? No. Now? No. So stoic, my kids. They never cry at books or movies, and they only rarely sob about real life. (Right before winter break, Wacky Girl saw someone at school pitch a major tantrum and asked me later, “What was up with her, anyway?”)
She knows how I feel about Charlotte’s Web because I won’t read it with her. She’s read it with her dad three or four times, she reads it sometimes by herself, but for me, I can’t get over Charlotte dying.
“But her babies live!” Wacky Girl tells me. Spoken like a true spawn.
Unlike many creatures, I’m here to do more than live for one mere year (possibly less) have my babies, nurture my babies (or possibly not be allowed that opportunity) and die. I hope I’m here for more than that. But some days (weeks, years) it does seem like that’s my only purpose. I hate that. I love mothering, but I hate having it define me. Being seen as a “bitch,” or worse, “a fat bitch,” who is here just to mother. Gestate, nurse, mother. Gestate, nurse, mother. Die.
“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”
Of course I cried.
Emilio,
May we have a word, Emilio? “Bobby”? “BOBBY”? No. No, no, no, no, no. Repo Man. And in case you’ve forgotten it, here’s a hunk of dialogue:
Otto: You eat a lot of acid Miller, back in the hippie days?
Miller: I’ll give you another instance. You know the way everybody’s into weirdness right now? Books in all the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFO’s, how the Mayans invented television. That kind of thing?
Otto: I don’t read them books.
Miller: Well, the way I see it it’s exactly the same. There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America for example. In South America thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just like disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there was no people. Right?
Otto: Yeah. I guess.
Miller: Well, where did all these people come from? Hmmm? I’ll tell you where. The future. Where did all these people disappear to? Hmmm?
Otto: The past?
Miller: That’s right! And how did they get there?
Otto: How the fuck do I know?
Miller: Flying saucers. Which are really? Yeah, you got it. Time machines. I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That’s how come I don’t drive, see?
Otto: You don’t even know how to drive.
Miller: I don’t want to know how. I don’t want to learn. See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.
Hello, Thursday Thirteeners. How about my Thirteen Favorite Movie Scenes, ever? And awaaaaaaaaaay we go!
1) “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” when Audrey Hepburn yells “Timberrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” as the big drunk lady topples.
2) “Slapshot” — how to choose just one? Top favorite: Paul Newman: “That’s great. Why should she give a shit what people think? She’s just scrappin’.” Second favorite scene: when the team’s manager asks Paul Newman: “Reg! Do you see this quarter? It used to be a nickel. Now, the golden years are behind you.” (Does that line make any damn sense? It does not.)
3) “An Officer and a Gentleman,” when he carries her out of the stinkin’ factory.
4) When Ruth Gordon goes careening around in the hearse in “Harold and Maude,” and doesn’t know it’s Harold’s car that she’s stolen until he tells her.
5) In “The Night of the Hunter,” when the old lady, played by Lillian Gish, is sitting in the rocking chair, guarding the children with a shotgun — “It’s a hard world for little things.”
6) “The Last Waltz,” when Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko start craning their necks around, looking for the birds, while Neil Young sings, “…big birds flying/across the sky…” And Joni Mitchell singing, “Coyote” — “Now he’s got a woman at home/He’s got another woman down the hall/He seems to want me anyway…”
7) “Yours, Mine and Ours,” the original, when Lucille Ball gets so drunk she can’t stand up.
8) “The Crow,” when the lovers are reunited.
9) Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby having a sandwich together in the middle of the night in “White Christmas.”
10) When Jimmy Stewart flips out (“Why do we have to have all these kids?”) in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and in the end, with Zuzu’s petals. And the angels getting their wings. And his wife and family and friends love him so much. He didn’t know! How could he not know? Get me a tissue, would you?
11) “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” everytime Elizabeth Taylor walks in the room. Meow…
12) …and “Giant,” everytime James Dean walks up. Grrrrrr…
13) And, last but not least, “The Aristocats,” when Duchess and O’Malley first meet. Oh, love. Don’t you love love?
first blog from Wacky Boy:
I like to play video games. I like to jump in the swimming pool. I like to play with games.
Wacky Girl: He likes to go in my room and mess up my bed.
WB: Yeah.
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