Just had to share

Good poetry is very hard to write, good poetry satire must be even harder. This is from a book called Conversation Pieces: poems that talk to other poems.

THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

(William Carlos Williams)



VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to
live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2.
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3.
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live
on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy
and cold.

4.
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy, and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

(Kenneth Koch)

A random walk

At one of the craft blogs I read, I came across a reference to Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I got it from the library and started reading (and perhaps that will be the subject of a future post). But she quoted a passage from Agatha Christie's autobiography, which made me think "Hmm, I bet that is interesting." I mean, who did not read all of Agatha Christie's books when they were twelve? So I got that out of the library.

So far it is OK, the introduction tells us that "A few episodes which to some might seem important - the celebrated disappearance, for example - are not mentioned." So I guess it is pretty subjective. On the whole I can say it seems to be just a massive brain dump. She Rambles, she defines the word "ramble".

But so far, I have come across some interesting things, such as her description of bathrooms:

"We were very delicate about lavatories in those days. It was unthinkable to be seen entering or leaving one except by an intimate member of the family; difficult in our house, since the lavatory was halfway up the stairs and in full view from the hall. The worst, of course, was to be inside and then hear voices below. Impossible to come out. One had to stay immured there until the coast was clear."

Can you imagine having to hide in your bathroom until everyone was gone, just so they would not see you leaving the room? Imagine how much time was wasted.

P.S. Note to self: use the word immured more often, it looks intellectual.

Bride and Prejudice

Well the movie viewing continues, yesterday I watched Bride and Prejudice, the Bollywood-like adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I enjoyed it, but you kind of have to be either a Jane Austen fan, a movie musicals fan or a fan of chick flick pictures to like this one.

It is a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel, with a few changes in the subplots (most notably the Wickham-Lydia subplot). It was strange watching this movie knowing what would happen yet not knowing what they might change.

I have not seen any real Bollywood movies, so I was a bit surprised by the singing that seemed to crop up at the oddest moments. There were also some cute fantasy scenes, and a lot of dancing. A lot of dancing. I guess big dance numbers are a staple of Bollywood movies, with hundreds of extras.

What I enjoyed the most about this movie, besides it being yet another version of one of my favorite books, was the COLOR. The colors were fantastic in this movie. The women wore dresses (sometimes saris, sometimes not) of turquoise, salmon, coral, lilac, and grass green. All the extras in the dance scenes were dressed in similar bright yet clear colors. People mostly wore solids or near solids, so there were just big bright blocks of color everywhere.

It made me think about my own wardrobe. I have always mostly worn solid colors, not being a fan of stripes, plaid or dots in clothing (fabric for decoration and quilting is another story). But why did I go through a phase five years ago when I thought the simplest way to dress was to buy everything in gray? I have so many gray sweaters and shirts from that period. Now they depress me.

Also, you would think that cultures from the "drab" north would crave these bright colors, but it seems like the "tropical" cultures, like Mexico, India, the Mediterranean, etc, are the ones we associate with bright colors. I wonder if it was the availability of dyes, or the inspiration from the indigenous plants (like bougainvillia, hibiscus, etc) that caused certain groups to use more bright colors. Maybe it is the effect of the light at the equator, if things aren't bright, they just look dingy? Or maybe it is just a cultural cliché.

When I think of colors and Northern countries, I think of Blue and Yellow with Sweden, which I guess is bright. I also think of the reds and blues and greens of Lapp and Finnish costumes. But in general, the pinks and corals and oranges and greens and yellows conjures up more tropical places.

Then I think about my own decorating, using sage as the main color, with accents of beige and cream and natural wood. Hardly Bollywood. Maybe we should redecorate......

P.S. The movie is almost three hours long.

Closer?

Do you feel that when you see a movie and you don't "get" it, that it is

a) your fault, you are not that smart

or

b) the movie's fault, it is not that good.

Usually I feel a), but after seeing Closer, I feel more like b).

The movie, from 2004, is about Alice and Dan, a couple in London, and their encounters and relationships with Anna and Larry. Briefly, Alice and Dan are living together when Dan meets Anna, with whom he becomes obsessed. By a plot quirk, he introduces Anna to Larry, and those two become lovers. But Dan continues to stalk Anna, and eventually convinces her to start a relationship with him. Havoc ensues.

As my husband pointed out, the movie sucks because both the guys are jerks, who treat the women as possessions to fight over. But I realized that the women are the ones who make the final decisions in the relationships, although they aren't necessarily happy.

But I wonder, why did Anna do what she did in the end? Why did Alice make her decision? Was Larry lying to Dan about his relationship to Alice? Does my not knowing the answers to these questions mean that I am obtuse or that the movie was poor? I am not sure.

I will point out that we watched the whole thing, even though we said throughout the movie that it wasn't that good..... how bad can a movie be with four beautiful people in it? It had Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Jude Law, and Clive Owen. They are all so beautiful and enjoyable to watch that I wonder if that didn't make the movie more palatable.

Vanity Fair

Watching a movie made from a book instead of reading the book is a little like reading Cliff Notes, isn't it? After trying to read Vanity Fair umpteen times, I rented the movie this week and it wasn't bad. Not really a chick flick, not really a Masterpiece Theater rip-off, it was a fun few hours with Reese Witherspoon. I don't think you can forget for a second that she is a Hollywood star instead of a nineteenth century adventuress, but no matter. She looks good, the sets look good, the costumes look good, and the screenplay is a pretty good adaptation of a "classic"novel updated for the screen. And it is much better than Gwynneth Paltrow as Emma.

And James Purefoy as Rawdon Crawley is hot, hot, hot. I see from IMDb that he was in Rome as Marc Antony, gotta check that out.

Still not happy

Well I am still not too happy about my crocheted blanket progress, maybe someone can give me a suggestion. I was initially in love with this crocheted blanket from a Garnet Hill catalog I saw a few years ago.



So when I decided to make a blanket, I thought hexagons would be cool. I even saw a pattern in Essential Crochet by Erika Knight.


So I tried some. This first one is a pattern I made up to imitate the blanket from Garnet Hill.


This is a hexagon from the Essential Crochet pattern.


Here is a hexagon from another pattern book I have.



And here are some squares, just in case. I realize piecing together squares would be much easier than hexagons....



But overall I am not too crazy about any of them. I don't like how the white of the sheet shows through the spaces in the blocks. The only way to change that would be to do solid squares....

Any ideas?