Weblog 304
December 11, 2011~ 1:30 am
My vacation week is almost over. Monday it's back to the old grind, the 'iffy' weather and the constant bustling about.
And just how was my week to myself?
It was at best.... a 'mixed bag'. I know... I know... I said I'd do absolutely nothing except online shopping and christmas cards but saying that and allowing it without guilt or mixed feelings are two different things. I literally 'vegetated' Saturday through Tuesday, and felt anxious the whole time. LOL!! Wednesday I did manage to get the online stuff taken care of... and the JOY of my daughter's surprise early Christmas gift stashed in my door, those were a BOOST to be sure, but I'm an odd sort. I fret. It may not show, but I fret a LOT in my head.
And Saturday I received the very sad news from my sister (who's incidentally HOME already from her bilateral knee replacement surgery) that my godmother-- my much-loved Aunt Anna passed away on Friday in her nursing home in Ohio. She was in her mid-nineties- a ripe age to be sure, but to hear about the death of one so dear, especially since, as a child, I spent a LOT of time with her... is grievous.
I will tell my mother about her passing when I go to visit this afternoon, do her laundry, and have dinner. That will be tough. The three ladies- Anna, Bert and Catherine (two sisters and a sister-in-law) were called the 'ABC club' in the family. My mum, sister Bert, and Aunt Anna their sister-in-law, used to have lunch and go shopping every Tuesday for years. Aunt Bert passed away a year and a half ago... which was a great blow to mum, and now Ann. (I hope they're shopping and dining out together right now-- with Aunt Bert driving, as she always did.)
I've said this before and I'll say it again...Christmas is a time for both poles of emotion. Joy... and always always sorrow for those no longer here: it's a time for ghosts... a holy time for remembering the love, yet mourning the loss of those beloved souls' physical presence in our lives, and it affects me every year, some more than others. It also brings (at least for me) a cool hint of the breeze of my own grave one day, wondering what mourners will be left to remember the life I lived.
I did manage to watch a film Saturday evening. A very loooooooong film. Two hours and 40 minutes. (Yes, Wayne left 2 hours into it.) It was a 1999 adaptation of Shakespeare's bloodiest and least performed play, 'Titus Andronicus'.
I'd always wondered how they'd translate that particular story to film, and somehow (though I told Wayne we'd 'seen it', we hadn't, as became crystal clear as soon as the movie began) the only way I think it could have been done without achieving something like 'Saw' status, is surrealistically. It was a blending of ancient Rome and modern times. There were fierce gladiator foot soldiers.....
- striking and certainly riveting in the opening sequence with their puppetlike, frightening marching in low and blueish light, and the constant THOMP! THOMP! THOMP! of approaching warriors. But there were also guns..... and cars..... and arcade games. (There were a lot of Shakespearan interpretations put to film in the 90's. I'm thinking of Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in their modern 'Romeo and Juliet'... and Ian McKellen in a brilliant version of 'Richard III', in a setting much like fascist Germany, complete with black uniforms and jackboots.) 'Titus', however, will not be pinned down to anything other than a kaleidoscope of Roman trappings.... late 20th century inventions and Dali-like dreams. And LOTS and LOTS of brutality. In a word, this film was
"WEIRD"
LOL!!! That's it... (but I happened to enjoy its strangeness.) Though not a 'great film', it's a thoroughly interesting one that surprised me constantly. First off, Titus is a fool. A pompous, doddering, self-delusional fool (played by Antony Hopkins) who brings all the subsequent horrors upon himself by his own initial barbarous act. He sacrifices the eldest son of Tamora, a captured Goth queen who, despite 'on her knees' pleading, must witness her son's slaughter- his saved entrails carried in a bowl and thrown to the flames before her own eyes. It's Tamora's vow for vengeance that sets in place a chain of brutality right to the end of the play, when Titus turns the tables, kills her remaining sons and FEEDS them to her at a banquet, baked in a pie he's tricked her into eating.
Villainy and horrific acts weave their way throughout this much-maligned play, and honestly, I think that it's only the film's surrealism that made it palatable and watchable... sometimes fascinating.
The costumes were amazing. The settings.... continually unexpected.... and just to watch Jessica Lange play the scheming, vengeful Tamora
was well worth it. She shines in roles like this one. So....... if you enjoy Shakespeare and have a taste for a truly different rendering of a dark, distasteful tale... give it a try. I can promise you, it will be like nothing else.
I believe it's the only movie in which Anthony Hopkins comes across as weak... or foolish... but he's supposed to. It's his genius that he can pull that off so beautifully. (And now, I'm taking my own well-thumbed copy of 'Shakespeare's Complete Plays' and paging through 'Titus Andronicus'. I want to read it as it was written. It's in my blood now....God help me. LOL!!)
December 12, 2011~ 6:30 pm
First day back.....
may I present.....my desk as it looked when I got into the office this morning. (I must be changing.....I didn't even MIND it. I dug right in, got things organized and started hacking away.) A peaceful day, honestly. Not too many phone calls, left alone to try and start to get caught up. I ENJOYED IT. lol
Oh! And LOOK at this incredibly LOVELY gingerbread house cake Donna made! I fell in love with it.
It tasted wonderful too. Like buttery bundt cake, powdered sugar snow on its rooftop. (Donna said it was really neat when it came out of the oven because the chimney was smoking from the heat.) It's made from a mold..... all one piece! What a terrific idea.... and easy to make. Heck.... even I could swing that.
All in all, this was probably my BEST day returning to work ever. I must have really been low last week, because being AT work was preferable, and that's never happened before. (Also, mum took the news of my aunt's passing very calmly. "We're OLD, Karen. What do you expect. If God takes us it's fine at this stage." (Of course, I was crying while I told her and I thought I would be so stoic about it. Guess not. She was trying to comfort me.) LOL!!! Typical.
I've also been thinking a lot about 'Titus'. (Yes, I did read the play through before I went to sleep on Saturday night, so I'm fairly immersed in the tale.) The one thing I forgot to mention was the knock-out performance by Harry Lennix in his role as Aaron, the moor. (And paramour of Queen Tamora.)
It's AARON who was the central villain, the driving force behind all the bloodshed. That actor became a burning pillar of absolute anger and evil.....and WHAT a performance. (It's true, Shakespeare wrote some of his most venomous words for that role, so an actor has to be able to throw them like daggers.... like swords..... and he did. He was perfection!)
I'd read online that Lennix had a role in 'E.R.' for a time. That sounds vaguely familiar, but THIS was the role he was born to play. Unrepentent, gleeful.... vicious to the core. ( I can't believe I didn't mention that before. Even Hopkins was outshone by that guy. Amazing.)
December 12, 2011~ 7:30 pm
Vocal Fry!
At last! There's a NAME for this sh*t!! LOL!!
(I just thought it was practiced boredom.)
It makes everyone sound like Mary-Louise Parker, who sets my teeth on edge... I want to shove an icicle up her butt just to get her to f*cking EMOTE. Remember her on West Wing, ordering Josh around? OOOOoooooo ..... if I'd have had a brick.....
December 13, 2011~ 4:50 am
Put a CAGANER in your Christmas creche!
That cute little guy is just observing nature's call. Such creche figures have been a tradition in Catalonia for centuries. Who knew? He symbolizes the common humanity in all of us... rich or poor...... every race, creed and type. I'd say 'the caganer' is everyman. And I love him.
***
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My vacation week is almost over. Monday it's back to the old grind, the 'iffy' weather and the constant bustling about.
It was at best.... a 'mixed bag'. I know... I know... I said I'd do absolutely nothing except online shopping and christmas cards but saying that and allowing it without guilt or mixed feelings are two different things. I literally 'vegetated' Saturday through Tuesday, and felt anxious the whole time. LOL!! Wednesday I did manage to get the online stuff taken care of... and the JOY of my daughter's surprise early Christmas gift stashed in my door, those were a BOOST to be sure, but I'm an odd sort. I fret. It may not show, but I fret a LOT in my head.
And Saturday I received the very sad news from my sister (who's incidentally HOME already from her bilateral knee replacement surgery) that my godmother-- my much-loved Aunt Anna passed away on Friday in her nursing home in Ohio. She was in her mid-nineties- a ripe age to be sure, but to hear about the death of one so dear, especially since, as a child, I spent a LOT of time with her... is grievous.
I will tell my mother about her passing when I go to visit this afternoon, do her laundry, and have dinner. That will be tough. The three ladies- Anna, Bert and Catherine (two sisters and a sister-in-law) were called the 'ABC club' in the family. My mum, sister Bert, and Aunt Anna their sister-in-law, used to have lunch and go shopping every Tuesday for years. Aunt Bert passed away a year and a half ago... which was a great blow to mum, and now Ann. (I hope they're shopping and dining out together right now-- with Aunt Bert driving, as she always did.)
I've said this before and I'll say it again...Christmas is a time for both poles of emotion. Joy... and always always sorrow for those no longer here: it's a time for ghosts... a holy time for remembering the love, yet mourning the loss of those beloved souls' physical presence in our lives, and it affects me every year, some more than others. It also brings (at least for me) a cool hint of the breeze of my own grave one day, wondering what mourners will be left to remember the life I lived.
I did manage to watch a film Saturday evening. A very loooooooong film. Two hours and 40 minutes. (Yes, Wayne left 2 hours into it.) It was a 1999 adaptation of Shakespeare's bloodiest and least performed play, 'Titus Andronicus'.
I'd always wondered how they'd translate that particular story to film, and somehow (though I told Wayne we'd 'seen it', we hadn't, as became crystal clear as soon as the movie began) the only way I think it could have been done without achieving something like 'Saw' status, is surrealistically. It was a blending of ancient Rome and modern times. There were fierce gladiator foot soldiers.....
- striking and certainly riveting in the opening sequence with their puppetlike, frightening marching in low and blueish light, and the constant THOMP! THOMP! THOMP! of approaching warriors. But there were also guns..... and cars..... and arcade games. (There were a lot of Shakespearan interpretations put to film in the 90's. I'm thinking of Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in their modern 'Romeo and Juliet'... and Ian McKellen in a brilliant version of 'Richard III', in a setting much like fascist Germany, complete with black uniforms and jackboots.) 'Titus', however, will not be pinned down to anything other than a kaleidoscope of Roman trappings.... late 20th century inventions and Dali-like dreams. And LOTS and LOTS of brutality. In a word, this film was
LOL!!! That's it... (but I happened to enjoy its strangeness.) Though not a 'great film', it's a thoroughly interesting one that surprised me constantly. First off, Titus is a fool. A pompous, doddering, self-delusional fool (played by Antony Hopkins) who brings all the subsequent horrors upon himself by his own initial barbarous act. He sacrifices the eldest son of Tamora, a captured Goth queen who, despite 'on her knees' pleading, must witness her son's slaughter- his saved entrails carried in a bowl and thrown to the flames before her own eyes. It's Tamora's vow for vengeance that sets in place a chain of brutality right to the end of the play, when Titus turns the tables, kills her remaining sons and FEEDS them to her at a banquet, baked in a pie he's tricked her into eating.
Villainy and horrific acts weave their way throughout this much-maligned play, and honestly, I think that it's only the film's surrealism that made it palatable and watchable... sometimes fascinating.
The costumes were amazing. The settings.... continually unexpected.... and just to watch Jessica Lange play the scheming, vengeful Tamora
was well worth it. She shines in roles like this one. So....... if you enjoy Shakespeare and have a taste for a truly different rendering of a dark, distasteful tale... give it a try. I can promise you, it will be like nothing else.
I believe it's the only movie in which Anthony Hopkins comes across as weak... or foolish... but he's supposed to. It's his genius that he can pull that off so beautifully. (And now, I'm taking my own well-thumbed copy of 'Shakespeare's Complete Plays' and paging through 'Titus Andronicus'. I want to read it as it was written. It's in my blood now....God help me. LOL!!)
December 12, 2011~ 6:30 pm
First day back.....
may I present.....my desk as it looked when I got into the office this morning. (I must be changing.....I didn't even MIND it. I dug right in, got things organized and started hacking away.) A peaceful day, honestly. Not too many phone calls, left alone to try and start to get caught up. I ENJOYED IT. lol
Oh! And LOOK at this incredibly LOVELY gingerbread house cake Donna made! I fell in love with it.
It tasted wonderful too. Like buttery bundt cake, powdered sugar snow on its rooftop. (Donna said it was really neat when it came out of the oven because the chimney was smoking from the heat.) It's made from a mold..... all one piece! What a terrific idea.... and easy to make. Heck.... even I could swing that.
All in all, this was probably my BEST day returning to work ever. I must have really been low last week, because being AT work was preferable, and that's never happened before. (Also, mum took the news of my aunt's passing very calmly. "We're OLD, Karen. What do you expect. If God takes us it's fine at this stage." (Of course, I was crying while I told her and I thought I would be so stoic about it. Guess not. She was trying to comfort me.) LOL!!! Typical.
I've also been thinking a lot about 'Titus'. (Yes, I did read the play through before I went to sleep on Saturday night, so I'm fairly immersed in the tale.) The one thing I forgot to mention was the knock-out performance by Harry Lennix in his role as Aaron, the moor. (And paramour of Queen Tamora.)
It's AARON who was the central villain, the driving force behind all the bloodshed. That actor became a burning pillar of absolute anger and evil.....and WHAT a performance. (It's true, Shakespeare wrote some of his most venomous words for that role, so an actor has to be able to throw them like daggers.... like swords..... and he did. He was perfection!)
I'd read online that Lennix had a role in 'E.R.' for a time. That sounds vaguely familiar, but THIS was the role he was born to play. Unrepentent, gleeful.... vicious to the core. ( I can't believe I didn't mention that before. Even Hopkins was outshone by that guy. Amazing.)
December 12, 2011~ 7:30 pm
At last! There's a NAME for this sh*t!! LOL!!
(I just thought it was practiced boredom.)
It makes everyone sound like Mary-Louise Parker, who sets my teeth on edge... I want to shove an icicle up her butt just to get her to f*cking EMOTE. Remember her on West Wing, ordering Josh around? OOOOoooooo ..... if I'd have had a brick.....
December 13, 2011~ 4:50 am
Put a CAGANER in your Christmas creche!
That cute little guy is just observing nature's call. Such creche figures have been a tradition in Catalonia for centuries. Who knew? He symbolizes the common humanity in all of us... rich or poor...... every race, creed and type. I'd say 'the caganer' is everyman. And I love him.
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