Thoughts on Remembering; or, A Highly Scientific Study

Remember, remember

the fifth of November,

Gunpowder treason and plot . . . 

So I have to confess that I've never seen V for Vendetta. A few years back when I first got on Facebook (I was a late-ish adopter) I was surprised but nerdily pleased to see the number of Guy Fawkes references bandied about on November 5th. (You may have noticed by now that I'm American. I assume that these references are more plentiful among the Brits.)

I didn't realize that there had been a huge movie in which Guy Fawkes (or at least the mask version of him) and his associated rhyme featured prominently. I just thought a whole bunch of other people were book nerds and liked Agatha Christie. 

I mean, sure, I'd heard of the movie; I just had no idea what it was about except for Natalie Portman shaving her head.

I don't think I figured out the V for Vendetta/Guy Fawkes link until the next year when Guy Fawkes day rolled around, everyone started quoting rhymes, and a few people started complaining about people not knowing anything about history and just quoting dumb movies, blah blah blah. (The fact that people were throwing sheep at Guy Fawkes, or sheep dressed like Guy Fawkes, or foxes dressed like sheep, or whatever, clearly showed that Facebook also endorsed the Guy Fawkes thing, which made the likelihood of the book geek scenario shrink, collapse, and dwindle down into a bedpost nothing.)

It was slightly deflating to realize that, far from being a co-conspirator in geeky book type lore, I actually was simultaneously 1) not a member of the Kool Kids Klub and 2) being despised for appearing to belong to the Kool Kids Klub by members of the We Actually Know How To Spell Cool But We Are Soooooo Over It Kids Club. And nobody but me seemed to know or care that I knew the Guy Fawkes rhyme like twelve years before it was a cool/lame movie. 

Ah, the trials of being a book geek. 

All of which is to say, I have apparently discovered the limits of the popular memory. The populace at large only remembers things for six-and-a-bit-years. I can say this with some certainty after conducting a highly scientific test (i.e., looking at my Facebook feed and realizing that only one person mentioned anything about Guy Fawkes and then figuring out that the movie came out seven years ago). 

Obviously, V for Vendetta has now been forgotten; it has become lost, as my old Welsh professor would have said, in the mists of antiquity. 

That, you know, or people were too busy throwing tantrums having political discussions in preparation for tomorrow's election to bother with silly pop culture references. 

One of those days.

When the first Lord of the Rings movie came out in 2001 I went to see it on opening night (the roommate of the guy I was dating had gotten tickets for all the guys in his apartment and their dates). I loved it, and gushed and raved about it at great length to my dad when I went home to visit the next weekend. My dad had introduced me to the books when I was in tenth grade and I could tell he was excited to see it, too.

My mom, because she loves my dad, took him to see it for one of his Christmas gifts. After their date, my dad and I joined in a mutual gush session, and at one point I turned to my mom and asked her what she thought of it.

Now, my mom is one of the cutest, sweetest, most awesome people ever. Period. She doesn't like to say bad things about people or things. She also, if given the choice, prefers to watch things like musicals and chick flicks where the swooning is more the result of hunky Mr. Darcy saying romantic things rather than because someone's head got cut off by a really ugly and probably very smelly orc. Just one of her little quirks.

So when I asked her what she thought of it, she paused for a couple of seconds and then said, "The scenery was really pretty." She thought for a moment. "And Bilbo's house was cute."

* * *

Flash forward to my day today. How was it, you ask?

Sigh.

Well, the scenery was really pretty.

And Bilbo's house was cute.



My mom once observed to me re: Viggo Mortenson: "Why does such an attractive man have to have such an ugly name?" She's got a point there. (Love you, Mom!)

How can you not love it?

So I don't have much to say tonight, or at least not much energy to say anything worth reading.

And that means it's time for a video link!

I love this clip and have shown it to several of you throughout the years, but it's always worth revisiting. (Stick around through the opening and watch the whole thing. It's worth it, I promise.)



And that, friends, is how you make an acceptance speech.

Sweet and tender

I wanted to take a brief break from this last big push to finish my Major Paper (neigh!) to share this link with all y'all. I ran into it yesterday and really liked it, but haven't had a chance to put it up here until now.

Amazing what the prospect of another hour with the Major Paper (neigh!) will do to your unimportant-but-it-would-be-nice-to-do list.

At any rate, this is one of the sweetest things I have read in a while. Enjoy!

And please don't be deterred by the fact that most of what I have read in the last while is stuff related to my Major Paper (neeeeeeeiiiigh!); even if I had just finished reading Persuasion,* this would still have been a strong contender.


*This whole scene is amazing, but if you want to cut to the chase, fast forward to 2:20.

Salmon Carrot Cake; or, Good Grief, I Love Parentheses!

So back when I was an English undergrad, I had to take a course entitled "Introduction to the English Language." I called it my crazy language class. The professor (whose name, and I am not making this up, was David Bowie) opened the class by saying that he was a Linguistics professor and that he didn't know why English majors had to take this course as a requirement, but that the powers that be didn't really know where else to put the class.

I spent a fair amount of the class keeping a detailed record of the random things this professor would say, along with the three other people who sat in the back right-hand corner of the class. One of my favorite moments (besides the time when he stopped, mid-class, to tell us "Where I grew up, hurricanes were the natural disaster of choice, so earthquakes just freak me out") was when he was talking about how the mind processes things we think we hear but that just don't make sense. The example he used was from his youth in the South (yayy for sight rhymes!) and a group of ladies (in my mind I picture a Sewing Circle like in Anne of Green Gables) were discussing what goodies and delectables to bring to the Big Function. (Probably a bazaar. Which, when I was little, I always thought people were saying "bizarre." This could explain some of my dislike of shopping.)

BUT ANYWAY. One lady said, according to my professor, "Salmon carrot cake sounds nice." (His response: "And it DOESN'T sound nice.") Everyone did a bit of a spit-take until they remembered that they were in the South, where people insist on speaking in such a way as makes misunderstandings mandatory (think: that moment in Gettysburg where Johnny Reb explains that the Confederacy is fighting for their rats), and realized that what she was really saying was "Cinnamon Carrot Cake" (which does sound nice), but her crazy accent had produced gobbledegook which everyone's brains had translated as "Salmon Carrot Cake."

Mmmmm… imagined malapropisms…. yum.

Well, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

There's a moment in the Disney version of Peter Pan where this crazy pirate (I think he's wearing a pink shirt, but I may be wrong on this) is sitting up in the riggings with a (very fake-looking) accordion (seriously, it has no buttons!) and singing. (Yodeling, almost.) And Captain Hook loses patience with the long, drawn-out caterwauling and shoots him (whereupon you hear the sound of a falling fake accordion and a splash). And cute Mr. Smee tsks at him and says, "Oh, Cap'n. Shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza? 't ain't good form, you know!"

Yeah, I like that part.

But it wasn't until I was older that I actually realized that the word was "cadenza." As in, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

No, what I had heard as a child and for a rather ridiculously long time afterward was "credenza." As in, one of these:




It gives the line a whole new meaning, doesn't it?


Okay, everyone, all together now:

Mmmmm… imagined malapropisms…. yum!

Nice.

So I figure it's about time for a new post, but as I am once again doing epic battle against my old nemesis, the cold of the century, I'm going to pull the old if-I-post-a-randomly-cool-picture-they-might-not-realize-I-didn't-actually-write-a-post trick. Enjoy, and I'll try to get a real post out soon.

Oh, now that just ain't right...

Why? Why? Why?

My soul just died a little bit.

Although I will concede that they got the look of the Wild Things right from the book. But still, I ask, why?

Awkward transition phase.

What's with the phony accent? Nobody talks like that!

So I just saw a movie trailer on TV for Revolutionary Road, and the voice-over announcer guy pronounced it "RevolutioNAHRy."

I guess they're still in the awkward transition phase of trying to find a go-to announcer guy after Don LaFontaine's death. Which is going to be hard, and I'll try to cut them some slack. (After all, it's got to be hard to find a replacement for a guy who, in Shallow Man's words, "sounds manly enough to have been a character in The Godfather.")

But seriously. RevolutioNAHRy?

I hope they find a satisfactory replacement soon and this guy's just some sort of temp.

Oh, and 15 points to whoever can correctly identify the opening quote.

DUDE.

You MUST click here. Immediately. Because it will disappear on the 20th of July.

But it will be oh so worth your time.

Classic

It was inevitable, I suppose

The guy just can't leave anything alone, can he? :)

Common Courtesy; or, Incident at the Cinema

So we just got back from seeing The Bourne Ultimatum (which I quite enjoyed, but that's not what this story is about).

We arrived at the theatre in time and before the previews started but, since we had not seen fit to arrive an hour early to sit in line for seats, the theater was mostly full when we got there and aside from the very front row there weren't two seats open next to each other. I personally can't watch movies in the front row because, aside from not being able to see what's going on other than a minute inspection of Matt Damon's skin pores and chin stubble, I get a major headache and a stiff neck. Since I'm already having neck problems, we decided the front row was out and tried to find some other seats.

In general, I prefer the back of the theatre, but I also prefer watching movies with my husband, so when I saw two seats available on the first row of the back section, I decided we'd try there. Except that these two seats were separated by a couple already sitting down. I politely asked them if either of the seats were saved and they said no. I then asked if maybe they would be willing to move over one seat so --

I didn't get to finish before the guy started shaking his head no, they wouldn't be willing to move.

"So that my husband and I can sit together?" (This shouldn't have been necesary to point out, by the way; Shallow Man was standing right next to me.)

The guy absolutely refused to move.

Now, I realize they'd gotten there first. I realize that they wanted to sit where they were sitting. But I was only asking for one of them to move one chair over so I could sit with my husband. But this guy had apparently decided that the only possible seat in the theatre he could sit in was the one he was in and heaven forbid his date should have to move (in her defense, she was obviously unimpressed by his actions and she started to give him her opinion of them once we started to move on; but she didn't offer to move over, either).

So we ended up sitting on separate rows. (Some people on one row offered to scoot down three or four seats to let us sit together but it turned out one of the seats was already saved. Still, I greatly appreciated the gesture.)

Like I say, I understand that the up-front row people probably waited in line for a while to get good seats. Shallow Man and I did not.

But whatever happened to common courtesy?

Appomattox and Shoes

Side note before beginning the real story here: I asked my husband how to spell "Appomattox" to make sure I had gotten it right and his response was "I have no idea." This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that he is from the South and makes a big point of being a "suth'n boy." He dreams about fried okra, has nightmares about chitlins, and gets passionate and excited and all patriotic-like when the subject of Robert E. Lee comes up. He doesn't get teary-eyed over old Bobby, although I think this is due more to the fact that I have only known him to cry a total of three or four times since I've known him than to any lack of respect. The movie line he laughs hardest at is from "One, Two, Three" (taking place in divided Berlin; great comic movie with James Cagney) when Mac gets mad at Scarlett (a suth'n girl) for blowing up balloons that say "Yankee Go Home":

Mac: You were making anti-American propaganda?!
Scarlett: It's not anti-American, it's anti-Yankee. And where I come from, everybody's against the Yankees.

So with all that Southernness going on, you'd think he'd know Appomattox. Was he faking his suth'n-ness all along? Or is this one of those "The South Will Rise Again" denial-type issues? I'll have to look into it. In the meantime, on with the show.


Today, in a dramatic ceremony (at which no photographers were present, thank goodness), The Cold surrendered its family heirloom sword to me. Actually, it had been hiding behind some rocks, trying to evade the deluge of orange juice, and came out waving a white tissue on its swordpoint. I have won! Of course there are a few straggling regiments that I have to go take care of who haven't realized that they've lost yet, but my trusty Kleenex box can more than handle them. It'll all be over in a day or so.

I was so excited about this that I went out and bought some new shoes. Actually, I'd been needing to buy shoes for a while but hadn't been able to because of said cold, but still. I love shoes. Especially black shoes. A girl cannot have too many pairs of black shoes. My college roommate Margo (one of the world's most amazing people ever) can attest to this. She was always impressed at my collection of black shoes and my ability to walk into a shoe store at random, usually on a trip to help her find shoes, and come out with something adorable for myself, while she had been unable to find anything she liked. I think at the high-water mark I had nineteen pairs of black shoes, not counting a few other pairs of non-blacks. Since I've been married, though, my shoe collection has dwindled severely and I generally only get new shoes when there is a special occassion or when old ones wear out.

Today was triple-point shoe day. Two of my favorite pairs (one of them being my tri-continent shoes) had worn out and there is also a special occassion coming up, as my brother is getting married on Thursday. So I got a nice pair of black work shoes, some cute flats and some uber-fun, very high-heeled Mary Jane types. Life is good.