Sunday Sundries, 188

1. AOTW: Not even close this week. We were driving north on Ohio 91, approaching Hudson, in that strip of the highway that's divided (near the Regal Cinemas). I was in the left lane (knowing the right one soon disappears). The AOTW zoomed up on my right, passed me, cut right in front of me (brakes! brakes!) and turned left into one of the cut-throughs to the other side, changed his mind, zoomed back out and almost hit us a second time. Somehow, the AOTW designation seems a little ... insufficient ... for this guy.

2. I finished one book this week, the latest by Richard Russo (one of my favorites), The Destiny Thief, a collection of essays (and one graduation speech). And guess what? Russo can write essays with the same power and apparent ease as he does his novels. (Doesn't seem fair.)

It's an eclectic mix of pieces: a speech (as I noted--Colby College, 2004), personal essays (the title piece is a dazzler about his becoming a writer), forewords and afterwords to various books (one about Twain, one about Dickens' Pickwick Papers), and some pieces on craft. Another very powerful piece deals with the transgender surgery of a dear colleague, and if you have a dry eye at the end of it, you fail the I-Am-a-Human-Being test.

He ends with another fine piece about a writers' conference in Bulgaria--how he didn't really want to go--how when he went, he ended up with tears in his eyes.

Such a talent is Russo ... I've read all his work ... hunger for more.

3. We saw two films this week.

     - The first was one of those stage productions, filmed live and shown in a movie theater (we saw it at the Cinemark in Cuyahoga Falls). Macbeth (by you-know-who). (Link to film trailer.)

Rory Kinnear, who played the title role, is about as good a Macbeth as I've ever seen--and I've seen a lot of them. He communicated the fragility of the man as well as his overpowering ambition--not easy to do. Lady Macbeth (Anne-Marie Duff) was all right--capable. But I didn't really "buy" her sometimes. The witches were fabulous: sinuous, sexy, dark, and ominous. The only thing? The production cut the "cauldron bubble" lines--and "something wicked this way comes." Why? All the other players were strong, and the production--set in the near future when society and order have collapsed (impossible to imagine, I know)--was powerful.

Below, is the sheet they passed out to patrons + one of our ticket stubs! Proof!

Oh, and one sad thing: In the entire Cinemark theater there were only four patrons. Joyce and I comprised half the audience!

     - Last night (Saturday) we drove up to Chagrin to see RBG, the documentary about the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Link to film trailer.) It was terrific--moving in so many ways. (She has won, so far, two battles with cancer; she lost her husband--and I want to tell you: Their relationship was amazing. Love and Devotion with capital letters.

I liked, too, that the producers did not show only her postive attributes (and she has many)--but dealt, as well, with her failures, her mistakes. And we heard from her critics, too. I was surprised to learn that she and Justice Scalia had been good friends--both opera fans.

One of my favorite moments (and I had a lot of those) was when they showed Ginsburg some clips of Kate McKinnon from SNL portraying her on "Weekend Update"; Ginsburg does not watch TV (she is a workaholic--but loves the opera!), and the look on her face as she watched presented me with a tough decision: Do I laugh? Or cry? (Link to SNL clip.) (I did both.)

I was surprised, by the way, that there were quite a few people there to see it.

4. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my assorted online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from wordsmith.org

leptodermous  (lep-tuh-DUHR-muhs)

adjective: Having a thin skin.

ETYMOLOGY: From Greek lepto- (thin) + -dermous (skin). Earliest documented use: 1888. The opposite is pachydermous.

USAGE: “The brand new state representative from Artesia County got stuck with that trap -- House Bill 100 -- today. He’s got to throw a party for his colleagues, by an old tradition.”

Cole Not Leptodermous; ‘Pals’ Hope He’s Solvent; The Albuquerque Tribune (New Mexico); Jan 28, 1955.