It's practically the eternal question. She was a nearly unbearably creepy old lady, am I right?
Just before the movie -- Sunset Boulevard -- started, the Turner Classic Movies guy was saying that another actor -- I didn't catch who -- didn't want the part that ultimately made William Holden's career because he didn't want to be identified with a role in which he was romancing a woman twice his age. So I was watching the movie while it recorded to disc, and let me tell you, it's not her age, it's her horrid ickiness, which was clearly a tribute to Gloria Swanson, who played the part with an uncanny kind of perfection. If anyone deserved an award, baby, she was it. (She didn't get it, though; Judy Holliday did for Born Yesterday, which I watched next.)
Just before the end, where Norma shoots Joe -- oh, you didn't need a spoiler alert; the movie came out in 1950 and the whole thing is told in flashback by his corpse -- he says something to her about being "a woman of 50." Well. I LAUGHED!!!!
Once again, it's not her age so much as her character, but I was amused that this wicked old has-been was only 50. Anyway, I was thinking of Carol Burnett through the whole movie.
So I was very curious to read the original story Brokeback Mountain, and was a little surprised that it was 100% unavailable online, at least as far as I could see. It's said to have been only a six-page story in its original magazine form. But I found a paperback edition of it that's published a little unusually; I think it's stretched out to 45 pages of fairly big print and big margins. But I liked it very much. It doesn't seem possible, but it felt exactly the same as the movie. Of course, that isn't possible, given the variation in length between the two, but I liked it a lot.
Tomorrow is the last of the odd extended days that we have at school this year. We've never done it before and I hope they don't do it again while I'm still there. Because the calendar was tight this year, the school board couldn't find a day to use for one of the mandatory full-day in-service workshops for teachers, so our union agreed that on three faculty meeting days, we would stay until 5:30 instead of 3:30. (We start at 7:30. The kids leave at 2:35.) So that's one real long day, and it's not as if there is anything planned for us in the library, since this one is a departmental in-service and it's just the two of us with no supervisor. It's just working for two more hours, alone there with the SCM. Oh, goodie. We'll see how that goes. Most likely, no one would know if we were there or not, which will be his cue to disappear, which is okay by me. What I will have to do though, is take a break before the day is actually over, around 2:00, and dash home and feed the cats, because if they don't eat until 5:30, Q will no doubt murder Boo and consume his corpse, leaving no evidence behind.
Have I mentioned that my two darling daughters, are, in fact, traveling alone together to Toronto at the end of next week? The only reason they could possibly have for doing this is that they are trying to kill me, which is a likely by-product of their trip because I'm already stressing out over it each time it comes to mind. Not that I have a problem with a weekend in Toronto, which I hear is lovely and safe, and not that they don't have a legitimate reason for going, which is that K needs to do some research there for her history thesis project. What I can't believe is that they are driving there, and driving at night. Oy. Freaking. Vey. R will be doing all the driving, for a variety of reasons, but one is that she's letting K sleep in the car so she can be fresh to do her research the next day. Swell. She said something about their having to stop a lot since she'll be drinking lots of coffee. I said, good, they'll have to call me each time they stop so I know they're still alive. I'll be fine once they're there and fine once they're home. They're traveling on a Thursday night, the night before my day off, which is good since I'll be awake all night. I'm told it's about a nine hour drive. Would it be sexist of me to say I'd feel a lot better if one of their male friends had decided to go with them? So be it.
