1. AOTW: Last week our son and his family came up for a couple through-the-front-door porch chats--we used my iPhone for audio (!) (and they are the HBOTW this week--no question), but here's the AOTW part: The first day they were here, a couple of older men were walking along the sidewalk (men, in other words, about my age), and one of them stopped, mask-less, and came over to talk to our daughter-in-law (masked) and stood about two feet away from her. She's a nurse and was clearly alarmed--but he was on her, and it was beyond awkward. (He was telling her that she reminded him of someone he knew--how he could tell through her face mask is ... impressive.) He finally returned to the sidewalk, comforted by the fact that he was the hands-down winner of the AOTW Award this week.
2. I finished just one book this week (the book I was reading for Kirkus Reviews was very long this week, and I spent most of my time with it).
- Arthur Phillips' 2009 novel, The Song Is You, was the last of Phillips' novels I had not read. He's still fairly young (compared with me) and still writing, so here's hoping there will be many more.
Like The Egyptologist, 2004, which I wrote about a few weeks ago, this is a novel about obsession and what it can do to you--and to those around you. Like almost all of Phillips' other novels, though, this one is about a world totally different from the other worlds he's written about: Egypt, Prague, Shakespearean times, Victorian London. He is a polymath--evidenced, I guess, by his having been a five-time Jeopardy! winner.
Julian Donahue is the focus of this one, and the novel begins with an account of how his father's voice is in a live recording done by jazz singer Billie Holiday (1915-59).
In adulthood, Julian has become a very successful director of TV commercials, but his marriage to Rachel has fractured--a fracture due in some (large?) part by the death of their four-year old son (and only child), Carlton.
Visiting Julian frequently is his odd brother--who has been on Jeopardy! and seems to know every arcane fact there is about ... well just about everything.
One day, in a local club, Julian hears a young woman singing. Her name is Cait. And he and the other patrons recognize that she is a wonder--definitely a rising star.
Julian becomes obsessed with her--stalks her (even across the Atlantic on a tour)--and convinces himself (is it true?) that she has reciprocal feelings--even though he's quite a bit older.
Well, that's enough ... Phillips takes us on a twisted, anfractuous* journey through their relationship--many surprises along the way--arriving at a resolution I did not expect.
A major writer is Phillips. Can't wait for the next one!
3. This week, in the evenings, while waiting for Joyce to finish her work and come to bed (where we stream bits of shows we like for about an hour), I streamed The Long Goodbye, a 1973 film by Robert Altman (based on the eponymous novel, 1953, by Raymond Chandler). Altman updated the film to the early 70s (Joyce and I saw it when it was released), and it stars Elliot Gould (a young Elliot Gould--he was 35 at the time), who frolics around in his character of P.I. Philip Marlowe--very agile and even athletic.
One of the things I really liked: the music. The theme song ("The Long Goodbye," by John Williams--yes, the Star Wars guy--sung by Clydie King) appears throughout the film in a variety of ways: underneath the story and transitions, a guy playing it on a piano in a bar, various people singing parts of it--it's everywhere. (Link to the song.)
I got a surprise, too, later in the film. Marlowe has been taken by a hood and his minions who want to know where the money is (Marlowe doesn't know), and as I was watching I saw that one of the minor hoods in the room was ... Arnold Schwarzenegger! (He takes his shirt off--the gangster has ordered everyone to strip--and then there's no doubt!).
Anyway, I loved seeing the film again--even though I remembered the ending quite clearly. (Boy, did it shock me back in 1973.) Just before the credits roll, we get an almost Chaplinesque scene as Gould playfully/friskily walks off into the distance down a wooded lane in Mexico, moving ever father away from the fixed camera--I almost expected an iris out!
Link to some video.
This made me want to go an Altman-binge.
I actually saw him once. I was in Chicago with my older brother (at the time, he was the classical music critic for the Boston Globe) seeing an early performance of an opera by William Bolcom, an opera based on Frank Norris' 1899 novel McTeague, a novel with which I have a "history" that I will not get into right now.
Altman co-wrote the libretto--and directed the performance. And he and others did a Q&A with the audience.
Link to some video of the opera.
4. I've had a little trouble acquiring flour recently--but I lucked out this week when I acquired a 50-lb. bag of organic flour! You should have seen me carrying that sucker from the front porch back to our pantry. Arnold Schwarzenegger, you ain't got nothin' on me! (I didn't see how easily the FedEx guy carried it from the truck, up our few front porch steps, onto the porch. I bet he got a lot of HELP!)
5. Final Word: a word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers:
- from dictionary.com
proxemics [ prok-see-miks ]
noun (used with a singular verb): the study of
the spatial requirements of humans and animals and the effects of population
density on behavior, communication, and social interaction.
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF PROXEMICS?
It is hard to find a more apposite word right
now than proxemics “the study of the spatial requirements for humans and the
effects of population density on behavior and social interaction.” Proxemics
is made up of prox(imity) and –emics, which is extracted
from (phon)emics “the study of the system of sounds of a
language,” or is formed on the pattern of a word like phonemics. Proxemics
was coined in 1973 by the U.S anthropologist Edward Hall.
HOW IS PROXEMICS USED?
We’re likely to see a recalibration of the
bubble of personal space we keep around ourselves—a field scientists call proxemics.
AMIT KATWALA, "CORONAVIRUS COULD KILL HANDSHAKES," WIRED, MARCH 6,
2020
Proxemics, however, is not merely about
interactions between individuals. On a larger scale, it helps developers, urban
planners and executives in various industries understand how people move
through public spaces, how they shop, even what type of restaurants they find
most comfortable. STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM, "IN CERTAIN CIRCLES, TWO IS A CROWD,"
NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 16, 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment