But first ...
1) What's the one movie you've seen more times than any other? Sadly, it's probably The Wizard of Oz, which I do not like, but the summer that R was 2, we watched in a minimum of twice daily. I've also seen the various Back to the Futures a thousand times. I don't know which movie I love I've seen more than any other. (Oh, might be Singin' in the Rain.)
2) If you could turn one book, comic book or other print story into a feature-length movie, what story would you pick and why? I want to see Daddy Long Legs! It's the best story ever, and hasn't been made into a decent movie since the silent era. That musical travesty with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn may have been a good movie, but it wasn't this book.
3) Whom would you cast? Oh, tough one. I've wanted to see this for so long that anyone I thought of for the cast is a great-grandmother now.
4) What one movie would you like to see "updated for the year 2005"? (Ie, a remake) I don't like to see remakes of movies I love. I think it's impossible, for example, to update a Cary Grant or a Katherine Hepburn movie because who could do it better than they did? (Although I prefer the Winona Ryder Little Women to the Hepburn, but that's because of the director and the script.) Why oh why did they ever remake The In-Laws, the funniest movie of all time?
5) What one movie are you most looking forward to this year? I don't see a lot of contemporary movies, so unless there's a new Harry Potter coming out, I'm not that eager and I can wait for the video. I'm looking forward to The Incredibles, actually, and Neverland. Also, I just heard today that a movie's coming out -- in June, I think -- of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which I read last week, and I'd like to see that. I like the actresses in it, but I wish they weren't all ten years too old to play 15.
And now ...
Yesterday I was going to show you pretty pictures of the outfits I got to wear to my Niece's wedding, but I got all caught up in that other minor stuff, you know: right to life, sanctimonious religious types, pope dying, yada yada yada. So first off, here they are:
The green
The purple
I think I will wear the green, as I've mentioned before. I got black shoes, and I've got a black bag. In fact, about a year ago, I was returning something at ... Saks, I think, maybe Lord and Taylor's, some upscale place where the MIL always buys me brooches and shit for Christmas - and as I was walking out, my eye was caught by just the cutest little dressy black bag and I bought it! What a girly thing to do! I never do that stuff, and I had so little use for it, but now I've got it and it is cute and I'll use it for the wedding. So there.
Before I get to the today that was the Shower with a capital S, a follow-up to yesterday because I know you're all dying to know how I came to have an uncle who was probably Jewish (yes, of course he was) and who changed his name to Angelo because of Pope John XXIII and you think I'm making it up. Well, I'm not. In fact, I think I probably have written this before, but it will take me less time to write it than it will to search my archives and find it. And here's the other thing before that:
My father, who claimed to be an agnostic but was really an atheist, nonetheless had great admiration for religious figures who were, in his opinion, sincere. He liked Billy Graham a lot, and always watched him when he was on TV and not specifically evangelizing. He also thought very highly of John XXIII. Now, my dear Cousin, of whom I have spoken, was quite enamored of Italy in the early 60s, had an Italian exchange-student boyfriend and actually went there for a semester herself, and spoke Italian and studied this pope and his policies, and was also an admirer. And then, there was Uncle Aaron.
He was my mother's mother's baby brother, so that's the youngest of about 12 or so. Certainly, his older siblings were old enough to be his parents. When he was 13 and the only other sister still at home was 15, their parents decided to emigrate to America to be with the children there, and as the journey began, the father died, and then the mother, and the two kids had to bury their parents in strange cities and travel on alone, which they did. My grandmother, who was Aaron's godmother, adopted him when he got to New York. He was 10 years older than my mother, so he was about 6 years older than my mother's brother, whom he hated with a passion and routinely tried to kill or maim as they were growing up.
He was artistic; he became a professional translator (of several languages) and poet as an adult. He published about 8 volumes of poetry. And he was, as you might have guessed, unhinged. He was very unhinged, although he married and had children. He worked at various ordinary jobs when the arts weren't feeding the family. In the 1930s, like a whole lot of intellectuals, he became a Communist. When news broke about what Stalin was really doing over there, like a whole lot of intellectuals, he renounced Communism. And so it goes.
What put him over the edge was the Kennedy assassination. He became convinced that the FBI was trying to pin it on him. He was so convinced of this that one night, after he was living with my grandparents again around 1970 (his wife had left him by this time), he woke up my grandfather in the middle of the night, standing over him with both wrists dripping blood, explaining that this was the only way he could think of to make them stop.
Well, they got him help; in fact, he committed himself, and after treatment he was just odd, but not so much actively schizophrenic and never dangerous again, to anyone else or himself. Until he died, which I guess was in the mid 80s, he would send my mother odd rambling letters in Yiddish, which were typed on his Hebrew typewriter, and which she couldn't read because although Yiddish was her first language, she'd never been taught to read it. My father could read Hebrew and understand Yiddish, but did not speak either language - don't ask - so he would have to read the letters aloud phonetically, and he and my mother would listen to what he was saying and then they would get it.
So they're reading one of the letters one day and they both start laughing out loud. Uncle Aaron has told them that he has found peace in his life at last because he is following the example of the most wonderful man who has ever lived, and he, Aaron, is going to dedicate his life to living the principles that this man believed in. The man, of course, was Pope John XXIII. And, he goes on to explain, he has had his name legally changed to reflect this important change in his life.
And he has. We hadn't noticed, but his personalized stationery, using exactly the same print size and type that he's always used, now says Angelo A. S---- instead of Aaron S -----. He's had his name legally changed to Angelo Aaron S---- in honor of John XXIII, whose real name was Angelo Roncalli.
Now you're giving me the hairy eyeball, because, oh, really? Well, really. That's how he's listed in the Social Security Death Index. And trust me, there was nobody else with this name.
Okay, that's it. Shower stories tomorrow. I'm tired.
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I'm watching Mona Lisa Smile
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Sweet Sorrow - 06.12.2007
So ... - 12.19.2006
Christmastime Is Near - 12.18.2006
Fifteen Years - 12.17.2006
A Message From Our Sponsor - 12.16.2006
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