white on white

Yeah, the longness of the Oscars is daunting, not to mention the cringiness, but there's generally enough to keep me going (though last year I was spending the night at Thea's, and even though she was in bed, I didn't feel like interrupting the quiet of the house, so didn't watch them).

Usually I'm quite interested in the dresses, but oddly enough I didn't even think about that (except to notice how stunning Helen Miren and Meryl Streep looked -- and yes, I want Helen's dress, too) until I read the paper the next morning. Often the fashions are so outrageous that they win a great share of the attention, but this year they didn't seem to. The only person I feared to see falling out of her dress was Jennifer Hudson, when she was singing. Costume failure loomed, but did not happen. Jodie Foster always looks wonderful (Charlie loves her too); I've been her fan ever since "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."

As far as "Babel" goes, it is by no means a Pitt-fest. He's just in it, and quite good. Not all over the screen, as he so often is. I think you'd like it.

What brought me around to Streep (I was sick of all those accents!) was on the DVD of "Out of Africa," which I profoundly love (I'd read the book recently when I saw it for the first time -- one of the zillion books which happens to be in this house -- I was haunted by the first line "I had a farm in Africa," and though I thought it was too bad that they insisted on repeating it too many times at the start of the movie, I still think the movie is great), when Streep says, "They let her have a drink in the men's bar. Big fucking deal!" Then I knew she was a Real Person. I also thought she was wonderful in the schlocky but fine "Bridges of Madison County." Talk about trashy stories as good movies. Clint Eastwood made it convincing, too.

Night before last we rented and watched "Marie Antoinette." My commentary on that would go on longer than I'll be able to stay awake, but I'll say this. I thought it was awfully good, and I'm a tough critic when it comes to Marie. There were a number of major inaccuracies in it (particularly her affair with Axel Fersen, which, if it did happen, happened much later), but as far as capturing the spirit of the time, place, personality -- it was really very good. From what I read, there was much objection to the rock music during some scenes. Who cares -- it was just what was going on. Marie was out to have a good time, and she was not twenty yet. And at the end, there's a kind of threnody from a soprano that is perfect. Fear no severed heads. It just takes her up to their departure from Versailles. "I'm just saying goodbye." When I taught this part of the French Rev, it was always hard (if not impossible) not to choke up when I said, "And they never went back to Versailles." The first step on a hard, hard road. Anyway, I'd like to hear what you think of that one.

A drag to have the driver's license contretemps. Hope the solution is good.

And there's Jimmy Corrigan. You'll read it more times, but you'll never find a silver lining. I still think it's amazingly wonderful, but God! The architecture is great, and if you ever want to be reminded of the essential isolation of the human condition, go right to Jimmy. Chris will not let up. But even if you hate the narrative (and much of it is hateful, but still good), you can't fault the art. And as a fan of narrative structure, I have a lot to say about that, too. Not to mention thing like "And tell your mom I had a real good time!"

So we are even further buried in snow here. Yesterday I was measuring an average of fifteen inches of snow cover, and it snowed another four or five today. I actually got out on the snowshoes yesterday to go to the garden. Charlie slogged out with me in boots. We were trying to retrieve some tomato cages to stack up on the squirrel-proof bird feeder to keep the turkeys off of it (they trip it and close the flap, thereby rendering it useless to other birds until one of us suits up and stomps out to open it again). Tomato cages were frozen down, so this mission failed, but it was great to be outside in all that snow. Will not fail to get on the snowshoes again before this snow is gone.

On the other media front. If you're reading the first JA mystery, persevere. The second one is better, and they continue to improve. I'm enjoying Jane herself now. I have a big nasty paperback volume of the complete works in about seven-point type (ish), It has several heretofore (to me) unknown works. Forge on. When you've read the big six, there are still some more parts. I was dragged to discover, however, that I'd exhausted all of the JA mysteries. Too bad.

Enough for now. Will post some white-on-white photos soon.