A few facts.

fact: although I have worked like a dog, both alone and in concert with my excellent colleagues, and though I have materials and ideas and notes and links galore, I feel I am no closer to having an actual syllabus ready for class next week than I was mid-December.

well, a little closer.

(okay, like a lazy dog.)

fact: there are still movies to be seen that I haven't yet seen, but somehow, at 3 or so in the afternoon when I could theoretically shoehorn a movie-viewing experience in, it doesn't quite seem like a good time to leave the house. when there's a storm a'brewin'! and it's cold!

fact: the moment when an afternoon movie seems like a good idea/possible is quickly, quickly passing.

fact: I am still not reading a book, because none of the books sound awesome.

fact: television = renewable pleasure.

fact: sometimes a new recipe is only okay (I'm looking at you, corn and poblano soup, although to be fair I used pasilla peppers and not poblanos, so you be the judge). but sometimes a new recipe is awesome (all hail, butter kuchen!).

(dramatization of the actual facts)

fact: my Christmas tree is still up. and although I had every intention of taking it down by now, I am finding the lights cheering and magical, and thus am disinclined to be in a hurry to dismantle the whole festive affair.

fact: there should be a "whoa now, hold on a minute, now!" function that activates whenever I send in a proposal. I don't see, in fact, why that couldn't be, like, a setting on my e-mail.

More than once.

In the last couple of days I have seen one movie for the third time, and another movie for the second. I'll spare you the specific stories that motivated the rewatchings, but it turns out that I do re-watch things on a fairly regular basis. (The eight times I watched Liar, Liar in one summer is my record, I think, although I may also have watched Cabaret a shocking number of times in a movie theater.)



I found each of the films stood up well to re-viewing. What I loved about Silver Linings Playbook--the specificity of the environments, the details of the characters, the flip of Jennifer Lawrence's ponytail and her I'm-so-tough eyeliner and nail polish, the way Robert deNiro wakes Bradley Cooper up to tell him he wants to watch football with him, his own obsession in mighty struggle with his desire to convey his love, the sweetness and watchfulness of Jackie Weaver as the mom--all these things, to me, shone with greater clarity. Sometimes what you love about a film is better when you don't look again, when you just remember it--the cracks are more evident, the wit more forced. But sometimes, what you love is burnished upon re-watching.

Anna Karenina's artifice, staginess, rigorous construction, seemed this time to melt away. It was present, it reasserted itself, but it felt less intrusive, and this time, I found the film more devastating. Which is as it should be, I think.

Who can say what shapes our viewing, or re-viewing, of a film? Is it the company in which we see them? the time of day, the pressures on us in our regular lives that exert themselves with greater or lesser insistence at a particular moment? The fact that we saw it on a holiday, or in a stolen afternoon? And some films, might reveal themselves more fully to us over time, and upon reexamination? Why would we believe that everything about a film should reveal itself in just one viewing? I have visited certain paintings, or series of paintings, every chance I get--not that often, because I don't live in a city with a big art museum--but I've looked at, for instance, a huge work of Anselm Kiefer in the National Gallery any number of times. It seems like forever that I have been visiting this painting. Whenever I'm there, I spend some time in its presence, to experience its scale, its force and dominance.

Or there's a painting at the Milwaukee Art Museum by Jules Bastien-Lepage that rivets me. I don't know if it's a great painting, but everything about it is beautiful to me. I have been to Milwaukee just two times--one more time than I needed to, probably--but each time I went to the museum (several times each visit to the city), I made sure to spend time with this painting. I loved its texture, the movement of everything, the gaze of the woodcutter. The little girl's hair.

Who knows if I'll ever see it again? If I'll have the chance to go to Milwaukee, or New York or Chicago or L.A. or Washington D.C.? And who knows if I will ever watch Cabaret again? If I have the chance to do any of these things--to return to them--I will.

Spark.

Today I was working on the syllabus for my creative writing class. I had some ideas that I had noted on a piece of paper in my purse, cryptic little phrases ("shapes," "locations," "voices") that were just not giving me much momentum in terms of overturning the categories that had governed this course for awhile. It has been a good course. I've felt pretty proud of it. But I have the chance this semester to teach it in the Pedro Almodovar style ("Live Flesh!"), and I want to make the most of it. I don't want to do the same thing I've been doing.

So I wrote those words down on a new blank document. I thought about them. I took the sheets off the bed and put them in the washer. I looked at those words some more. I thought about going to Target. I realized with great fervor that my iPod needed a charge, so I went into my study and plugged it into my desktop. I organized some stuff on my desk like it was my job. I found another piece of paper that had some notes on it. I added those to the blank document and thought about it some more.

Then I started to look for this one book on the upper corner of my shelves. I couldn't find it. I looked again and again in that corner--I thought I remembered it there. Then, I looked on the shelves adjacent to that, and then I looked at all the shelves, my eyes raking those spines. No luck. The book is, I think (I'm not absolutely positive at this point that the book is a real thing as opposed to a fantasm, or else sitting on some shelves in my work office, which amounts to the same thing). Right: the book is an estimable creative writing textbook (I think). I was hoping to harvest some stuff from it. Ideas, exercises, assignments.

But what happened instead (since the book is either not real or else not on the present shelves) is that I began to get new ideas. I ran to the other room and got my little piece of paper and a pen, and looked over the books more carefully, and thought of new categories, and activities, and little writing prompts, and more. By the end of my shelf scan, I had the big shape of my syllabus, more or less, and the momentum to keep working on it. It seemed exciting and fun and worthwhile.

And that, the people, that is what books are for: the spark they hold of your experiences with them, the memories they're vested with. The actual physical artifacts, organized however the reader has organized them, so that they speak not only to you, but to each other.

Sunday stats.

Weather: brumous

Music: whatever was in the background of The Good Wife and Downton Abbey. (This & this.) The song my son sang in the kitchen while he was making Chuckwagon (which is macaroni & cheese mixed with canned chili and grated cheese) after church.

Plans: to talk on the phone with my daughter in Scotland. To read the whole newspaper. (I would say I planned to clean and organize stuff, but I didn't plan it. However, I was seized by the desire to clean and organize. It was ruthless and ferocious. It was fearsome. It was wonderful and terrible. In the coat closet, no dust bunny &c &c was spared!)

Viewing: The aforementioned Downton Abbey and The Good Wife.
 
Comestibles: cookies? spaghetti and green beans and toast. And cookies.
 

Taking the long view: started working on my syllabus for one course. School is one whole week away! I can hardly see it, way off there in the future, its contours obscured by the mist and the brume.

Contemplating:  the dimensions of the semester to come. Even way off there in the future, looming and leering in the mist and the brume, it is starting to clarify, and it is scaring me.

Thought about, but did not: go to Target. 

Promised: to make my son breakfast tomorrow morning, because he starts classes at the U tomorrow. Sucker.

Mood: wintry. cabin-feverish. syllabus-adjacent. like shopping.

Tomorrow: Semester-launching breakfast. Possible movie. Definite syllabus-work.
Take down the Christmas tree? And more brume.

The first Saturday of the new year.

It went down like this:

I got up at 7:45, having snoozed for 15 minutes after a 7:30 alarm, to take my son the soccer coach to breakfast in advance of his departure from the snowy, smoggy, supercharged-cold lands of Utah. We went to Village Inn. We chatted over eggs and toast about all sorts of things. The historian and I saw him off in our driveway.

I went inside and promptly--or sort of promptly--went through three different closets and identified many garments to give away. Bagged.

I considered my plans for the next week. I have to get my courses ready to go. I have to see a bunch more movies. I have to chill. I may have to do some more organizing. I need to take down my Christmas tree.

I made my son a grilled cheese sandwich, and myself a piece of peanut butter toast for lunch, and also I ate some leftover pineapple (because I bought, yes, four of them for that dinner party, and four is too many, the people. Too many!).  The cheese sandwich helped me negotiate with my son with the recovering ACL to go see Frankenweenie with me, which I have been obsessed with seeing. Score! We saw it at the dollar theater. It was, perhaps, not the most amazing thing ever, but it was clever and witty and sweet, because it was about a boy and his dog. And death and reanimation, but, you know. Sweet.

We came home, I ate a desultory stray cookie or two, got a shower, put on a sparkly dress, and then the historian and I went to dinner and a jazz concert. It was Freddy Cole, brother of Nat King, and the Bill Charlap Trio. It was a good if slightly too sedate set, and Freddy Cole, who has to be eighty or so, got increasingly good. The second set ending rousingly, with Cole bringing it on this tune (written by Billy Eckstine, covered by multitudes).

Not bad, not bad, not bad. The end.

No, wait: 


NOW it's the end.

What shall I read?

Over the holidays, while I was organizing stuff, by which I mean "moving stuff from one place to another," I brought to the surface of my holiday-bedazzled brain this thought: "I should put all the books I want to/should read in the same place, so I will know what I have to read that I haven't already read."

Then I went and ate a couple gum drops and a couple cookies and surfed the internet and scrubbed out the lasagne pan and turned on the Christmas lights and watched sitcom reruns and slept, sort of, and woke up and ate some Frosted Mini-Wheats and thought, "Now what was it I was going to do again?" And hung up some clothes and did some laundry and downloaded some new music and made a list of the movies I want to see this week, if I see a movie every day, which, why shouldn't I? and read some stuff in my files and got the mail and asked myself, "Now what shall I read?"

The reality is, the people, that none of the books on my newly curated Books I Own But Have Not Yet Read shelf are books that have seized me by the epaulets and said, "Now listen, soldier, you need to get off that internet, straighten up and fly right and read me!" and made me say "Sir yes sir!" Instead of thus seizing me and whipping me back into reading shape, what these books are doing is looking at me balefully, pointing out my character flaws, such as

(a) lazy
(b) no stick-to-it-iveness
(c) unfocused
(d) am not Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be
(e) dawdly and unambitious

Okay, judgmental books, I get it, but you won't tell me the answer to the question: whatever shall I read? I have been in the middle of this one book  for so long that I have forgotten who the detectives all are and the main details of one of the two crimes. But Lord! I do not want to start it over, and heaven knows that I cannot move on to the last two books in the series until I finish it. Also, I fear my library's robot is not paying attention to me, since I put in a hold request for a book that is allegedly on the shelves, and yet I have heard nary a peep, nary a beep boop beep, from the robot. Robot, O Robot, wherefore dost thou turn thy book-reserving back on me?

What is there to do, then, but take pictures of the snow? I ask you.

Today's stats:

New music: Bombay Bicycle Club (thx jason mcf!)
walks: a short one at 10:45 p.m. in the breath-freezing cold
enjoying my life: lovely lunch with friends; dinner and a movie with my husband

The archives.

Today, around 11 a.m., I was driving along 5600 West, from West Valley City through Kearns to West Jordan. During one part of my life, I drove along that road a lot--for soccer games, especially, and for a few blocks, it was also the westernmost leg of my daily walk. One year, there was a huge migration of tiny orange butterflies, and we saw them, in flight and grounded, all along this road

Like every other place in the valley, lots of things along this road are still recognizable, and many things have changed. When we lived out there, our subdivision was called "Oquirrh Shadows," because the Oquirrhs loomed to the west. The wind blew fierce and wild. The road still feels like a wide, windy corridor. All the shapes of the houses seem familiar, except for the new ones built in big developments to the west, in what were once fields.

There was a new building, a plain boxy structure built of some kind of beige brick, not a single frill or ornament, except the letters spelling out SALT LAKE COUNTY ARCHIVES. I wondered briefly what might be archived there. Wondered if maybe something fanciful, or scandalous. Probably not--probably just minutes and records.

Early this morning, my daughter left. Her flight was at 5 a.m., which meant she left the house at 3. I got up to give her a kiss and a hug goodbye. All day, I've been in a little haze--of interrupted sleep, of the end (almost) of the holiday visits--and thinking about the new year, what I want, how to focus my efforts to those ends.

I have a document called "Daily Writing" that I have been keeping--not daily--for a few years now. So when I turn my attention back to writing, I usually start there. Sometimes I look through it. Does it create momentum or drag, to look back at what I've composed there? What is this activity, anyway--recovering pieces of memory from the shred of a voice, a little note, an old poem or part of a poem?

In my archives--it is an unsystematic archives, it is unstable, it has no specific focus, it is copious and diffuse, it is unsearchable by any method but the delve--there are old journal articles, college papers, drafts of poems by myself and others, letters, drawings by my children, immunization records (although I cannot be asked at this point to find them at any point when they might be of use), certificates, photographs. Sometimes I think it is time to get rid of all, or most of it. That prospect overwhelms me. Periodically, I will find myself in a ruthless mood, and will just toss things with very little examination of the specific things I'm getting rid of.

Would a complete purge constitute a clean slate? Sometimes I think so, but mostly I do not. The deep structure of the archive, as it turns out, is in my brain, where there are and will be--have never been-- any more clean slates.

Today's stats:

New music: Whatever they were playing on KRCL midmorning; Foster the People
Long walk: one
Writing: added notes to "Daily Writing"; this blog post 
Enjoying my life: two grandsons came over for pancakes, watercoloring, block-building, and Spiderman. A quiet moment with the historian when he came home from work.

2013, these are my demands, take them or leave them!

Today, to celebrate my daughter's birthday (happy birthday, Sophia!), we had lunch at a little grill at the mouth of the Cottonwood Canyons, Big and Little. My son, younger daughter and I drove in my car. I knew exactly where I was going. I got on the belt route and my son commandeered the iPod.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Birdy," he said.




I listened for a minute. "I was just thinking that I wanted to hear more new music this year, and maybe I would ask you guys to make me a Spotify playlist, like, once a month."

"Once a month!" he said. I smiled, and then my mind started to drift from this song to another song (from Pitch Perfect, probably), and then I was thinking about some other music and then my son said, "Aren't you supposed to get off here?"

Yep, I was. So I drove to the next exit, and got back on the belt route going the other way. But then at the designated exit there were three possible ways to go and you had to be in the right lane to go the correct way, and there was a super bossy semi that wouldn't budge and let me in the correct lane. Annoying!

I know what you're thinking: this is a long story about going to a restaurant, and you don't really care, and what's the point? The point is this: thinking about the new music I want to hear--music I haven't yet identified!--got me going, so much so that I had two wrong-way attempts before we finally got to the restaurant. I think it's a sign, is what I'm saying: surely I need more, and new, music in my life in 2013? I say yes. Maybe if I get enough new music in my life, I won't get so over-excited and dreamy that I can't find my way to a totally familiar restaurant at the mouth of the Cottonwood Canyons, Little and Big.

While I'm thinking about the year 2013, I think I also want

• more long walks
• stronger muscles 
• maybe some other kinds of movement, like dancing and swimming and skating?
• more writing

And I want to enjoy what I have, which is a full, rich life full of meaningful work, chances to learn and grow, a beautiful family, wonderful friends, and plenty of everything I need. 2013: get on it.

We come to a close.

Today we had our family dinner party. Our house was full of candles and lights and children and beloveds of all ages. As usual, I planned for too much food, but that also meant that there was plenty.

I cooked for three days--just a little on the two days ahead of today--and that meant that, while today was a busy day, it was also manageable. My sons came over and trimmed brussels sprouts, helped me put Christmas wrapping away, swept my floor, and chatted away while we worked.

When we went out at 10:30 to take Bruiser for a walk, I said to the historian, "Well, that's it. That's Christmas. The end."

We both laughed. "I guess so," he said.

It feels good to finish on such a lovely note. We've had a few ups and downs over the holidays, but they've been good nonetheless.




Notes on festive family dinner parties:

1. You really only need two pineapples. Don't panic on the morning of the party and buy an additional two. Or, go ahead. Pineapple is good.
2. Make as much food as you want, but remember that everyone won't eat a huge helping of everything.
3. Go ahead and light all the lights and burn all the candles.
4. Three desserts is not too many, but two would also be fine.
5. An excellent salad is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
6. Don't think twice about making something extravagant, like a crepe cake, that you've always wanted to make. It's fun! And try a new recipe. Try two! Or five!

The Blogging Every Day In the Year 2012 project: a letter to my readers.

Dear reader of hightouchmegastore,

Today is the last day of the Blogging Every Day In The Year 2012 project. I have blogged 362 times up to this point. Assuming that the world does not end before I publish this post, I will have blogged 363 times. That's only three days missing, if I'm counting right--2012 was, as you may or may not remember, a leap year. (I had to go back and check.) In any case, I feel satisfied that I have fulfilled the spirit of my project, if not the precise letter.

...(363) as soon as I publish this.

I worried, at a certain moment, that I would reach a saturation point--that there wouldn't be enough topics. Well, not that there wouldn't be enough topics, but that the genre of the blog post would become tedious. Well, not even that. I worried, I think, that I would reach the limits of my own inventiveness. That's probably the nature of a project like this--it's not enough to just do it, one wants to do it well. One wants not to say, at the end of a day, "Actually, I don't have anything to say. Also, my dinner was boring, and also my lunch, so I can't write about that. Also, my character is shallow and materialistic and perhaps I am a narcissist? Also, I am annoyed with myself for having promised...who, exactly? a post a day. Unreasonable. I'm a bad person. Blah. No more!"

But now, having finished it, I admit that I feel proud of this project.  I admit that I liked saying, "I'm blogging every day in the year 2012." As the year went on, I liked saying it more and more.

And I like the blog as a form of writing. People have said that blogs are over, and I can see that they might be, in some sense. But I like that the blog post is more elastic than the tweet or the status update. I like that it invites a little more exploration, that it can contain more than one link, that it can reach out to other sources in more expansive ways. I like what I've learned about writing from writing a blog.

The nice thing is that I can and will still keep writing here. I might not write every day, but I do like knowing I could if I wanted to. And I really am grateful--truly--to you, dear reader, for reading what I write here, regularly or intermittently. I think of you as my friend.  I find that I like writing for my friends.

Happy New Year to you! I hope to be reading your blogs, status updates, tweets, comments, and other writing in all genres in the bright new year 2013.

love, htms

p.s.

The last party.

We are having a party on New Year's Day, a dinner party, and a big group of family are invited. We started trying to have our dinner after Christmas, because the number of events multiplied by the enormous number of family connections multiplied by a factor of divorces/remarriages would knock the breath out of you if you tried to have a dinner before Christmas. At least that's what we've found.

This means, though, that after having baked myself unconscious, practically, I needed to dig deep within and contemplate making food for around thirty five adults and children. Come up with something to make, then a plan for making it. Shop for the food. Find a place to put it. Then cook it.

Truthfully, I love doing it. I've really enjoyed learning how to cook for a big party, making everything festive and delicious, and it's fun to have an occasion for trying things I've not tried before. Simultaneously, I've tried to figure out how to scale back a little--how to cook a lot because we need a lot, but not so many things, and not so many complicated things. This simplifying goes pretty well in theory, but in actual execution, simple tends to flower into fancy pretty quickly. Here's what I mean.

Awhile ago, whilst roaming the aisles of Target, I came across an adorable teacake pan:

It was marked down for some unknown reason, and is everything a person might want in a teacake pan and more. Of course I bought it. Have I made teacakes? No, of course not. This pan belongs to a parallel life, the same parallel life occupied by the several sets of teacups and saucers (and matching tiny versions, demitasse size) I also happen to own, i.e., a life I do not actually lead, but imagine myself leading with great vividness. It is a fine life, with leisure in it, and friends who also have leisure, because they come over for tea and cakes. Adorable little cakes, baked in a teacake pan.

Well, be that as may be. As I was thinking about what to make for our holiday dinner--perusing my previous menus, feeling generally uninspired, contemplating a menu of sandwiches and potato chips--I thought, well, at least I know what I'll make for dessert. Petits fours, that's what! That's right: I imagined anchoring my festive post-holiday meal, to which three dozen people were coming, with tiny little, labor-intensive cakes, for which I would need not only to identify a foolproof recipe (doesn't exist), but also master a number of techniques (not going to happen).

In my thoughts, I carried around the petits fours version of this dinner, with a hazy, vague entree and ill-defined side-dishes hovering around the tiny, unbearably cute dessert portion of the meal, for a few days. But shit, as they say, got real when I started trying to find a recipe, a made recipe, vouched for by other bakers, one that would not result in tears when the cakes came out of the pan, or when I attempted to cover them with a suave ganache. Petits fours, as it happens, are a pain in the ass. This is a truth universally agreed upon by all who have ever tried to make them. I myself tried to make them once, prior to the acquisition of the adorable pan, and they were a pain in the ass at that time, and a pain in the ass they remain, apparently.

Fine. I said to myself. I will make petits fours another day, when so much is not at stake. When I have leisure, and my friends will have leisure. And we will sit in the back yard under the cherry tree, and drink tea and eat cakes, and life will be beautiful. I.e., never.  Scratch that 25%-of-a-menu-plan. What next?

I Googled "New Year's Day dinner" and "New Year's Day buffet" and "festive holiday dinner" and came up with these two ideas: Butternut Squash and Sage Lasagne, and Tuscan Roast Turkey Breast. That led inevitable to this plan: two entrees, a lovely salad, fruit, roasted vegetables, and dessert, whatever it might be. I plotted out the shopping list and a basic scheme for cooking the food. I invited my daughter to come food shopping with me.

"What are we having for the party?" she asked.

"Butternut Squash and Sage Lasagne and Tuscan Roast Turkey Breast," I said. As soon as I said the words "Butternut Squash" and "lasagne," I knew it would not do. I knew that half the people coming to the party would eat it. But I knew that the other half of the people would find it repellent and vile, in large part because half the people were children. Why should I make a dish that I knew children would hate? Why?

"That sounds..." my daughter hesitated.

"...awful, right?" I knew it. I knew it.

"Yeah, I tried, but I can't find a way to say that sounds good," she said. Menu revised: vegetarian lasagne of the more traditional kind.

Does this menu sound simplified? Well, maybe not. I am cooking parts of it on three successive days. For instance, I have made a cake today already. I've also made the lemon curd that goes into another dessert. Tomorrow I will make yet another dessert. That's right: there will be three desserts. In my defense, I believe they will be delicious. And at the end of the affair, that will be the last of the holiday cooking, and we will begin the rigors of the new year. The end.

Free.

Today, my daughter, son, a friend, her daughter and I went to the dollar movie to see Pitch Perfect.  Somehow, I had missed seeing this movie which is entirely up my street, with a cappella choirs singing competitively. It was shot partially at LSU, where my daughter is studying, so she actually saw some of the action, including running into the ultra-tiny Anna Kendrick on campus.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie so, so much. My son, the soccer coach, gave it an 8 out of 10, which seems about right, but my enjoyment was pretty much maximum. It was funny, which was a bonus, but the singing and the music were just wonderful. So that was a good way to spend the afternoon, we all agreed.

We drove home to find the historian having spent a satisfying afternoon reading, napping, and taking the dog for a walk, all in the blessed, blessed calm of a house where almost everyone but himself was gone. He and I had a date planned--we were going to get Mexican food and then go to the Tower, where they were showing City Lights. This seemed both delightful and also virtuous, City Lights being a film I had never seen before, a venerable film, part of the history of film, and entirely worthy.

But as we were talking at dinner about all sorts of things, including Pitch Perfect, I said, "I would see it again in a heartbeat."

"Maybe we should do that," he suggested.

I paused. If the pause had been shot in slow motion, it would have been a really really really really long pause, my fork suspended between my enchilada and my mouth, my mind filled with the history of my relationship with the historian, with the many, many moments when he said or did something sweet that he knew might make me happy. The pause would also have included the full extent of the ethical dilemma: should I see a film that would fill in a gap in my knowledge, and thus take the dutiful path of obligation and seriousness? should I instead see a film that was, in all honesty, sort of a throwaway, and for a second time? in the same day? and would the historian enjoy it? and would I be selfish if I said yes? well, would I?

So I said, "Really? Wouldn't you prefer to see City Lights?" ( . . . and all that choosing that film implies, I thought, fleetingly.)

"Not necessarily," he said. He looked like he meant it too.

So that's what we did. And the people, I did enjoy Perfect Pitch for a second time on the same day, and very much indeed.

After we got home from walking the dog, running son (on crutches--the running is existential, not actual, at least not at the moment) was upstairs, rummaging in the refrigerator. "How was City Lights?" he asked.

I told him what we had done. "On the same day?" he said, shaking his head. (Literally: he shook his head at me.) "Did you enjoy it, John?"

"I did," said the historian. He sounded like he meant it.

"Seeing a movie twice in one day makes you feel free," I said to the historian, putting on my robe. "Because you just do it because you want to, and you don't feel like you should go see this or that film, just because you haven't seen it yet."

Yep, the people: these are the lengths we go to around here--and by "we" I mean "me"--not to let things be the boss of us. Like Charlie Chaplin. Or movies we haven't seen. (But for real, I did love Pitch Perfect:)

My year at the movies.

Not in order. See "*" indicators for movies I especially liked or valued.

A Dangerous Method: ** Against all the tides of opinion, I loved this film. I'm not quite sure I should have, but maybe that's why I did. Viggo Mortensen is Freud, Michael Fassbender is Jung, and Keira Knightly is Sabina Spielrein. It's about the systems of psychotherapeutic thought, and the uses to which psychotherapy may be put. It's vivid and sexual and heartbreaking.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: * I also thoroughly enjoyed this. When I say this in knowing company, they always point out that the third MI is the good one. I'll take your word for it, knowing company. But I still had a good time, and the shots of the action were incredible. So there. (Maybe a bit long? And: if you didn't see it in the theater, never mind. There's really no point on a small screen.)

Tintin: I think they should have made this into eight little fifteen minute shorts, with cliffhangers at the end of each. As a full length film, it was cool-looking but tedious.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: * We both quite enjoyed this. I thought Gary Oldman as Smiley was splendid. It was a quiet, quiet movie. I found myself literally leaning forward to catch every breath.

Big Miracle: * Here's what I said about this movie when we saw it: "Last night, the historian and I saw Big Miracle because we were in the mood for a movie that would not (a) trouble us with its flaws, (b) make us mad at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, or whatever it's actually called, because the movie in question was (1) nominated, and (2) undeserving, or (c) make us feel sad or depressed or downtrodden. I think we can all agree, there are times when the offerings in the theaters all exhibit one or more of these negative traits (Shame, Albert Nobbs, and War Horse, I am looking at you). So we saw the whales in jeopardy movie, and surprise, it was quite a bit better than we thought it would be without beating us over the head by being a Major Work of Art. It had a fair amount to recommend it, though: a good cast, all doing swell work in small roles; a more complex-than-you'd-think take on the whole (mostly true) story; interesting observations about politics and conflicting/coinciding interests; and whales. Entirely satisfying, and that was without popcorn. Just think if I had had popcorn!"

The Vow: Schmaltzy nonsense. Which we saw on our anniversary, so sue me. The leads were appealing. Appealing-ish. Oh whatever. Can't really recommend it at all.

The Secret World of Arrietty: ** Loved. Here's what I said about it when we saw it: "It's not quite Spirited Away, but it was so delicate and beautiful and moving, I just loved it."

Wanderlust: * Enjoyed thoroughly. Everyone was funny and there was a lot to love: Paul Rudd is always great as a handsome-but-not-too-handsome guy. Jennifer Aniston: also charming and funny, reminding me yet again that she deserves many more and much better comedic roles. Justin Theroux as a way chilled out hippie dude on the make--very, very funny. Worth your time if you're looking for a laugh.

Lorax: Fine. Took lots of grandchildren. Loud, as these things are now wont to be.

Friends with kids: I read someone put this on their worst of the year list. Really? I didn't think it was great, but also interesting enough, well-performed, both funny and poignant...? Well, anyway, it wasn't on my worst of the year list.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: This movie is sentimental and improbable and has the excellent good sense to have Emily Blunt and the ever-wonderful Ewan McGregor. See if you like sentimental and improbable movies with very attractive stars and gorgeous scenery, and mostly decent and even very good acting. I liked it, but I won't say I should have.

Footnote: *** One of the very best movies I saw this year. Completely indelible and utterly original. A father and a son, both Israeli Talmudic scholars, are in a mixup as to who is going to be awarded a prestigious prize. There is a scene with one of these two characters arguing with a tiny, crowded roomful of academics that is one of the most riveting scenes I have ever seen. See it, see it!

Jeff Who Lives At Home: *  Purty darn good. Someone put this film on his best of the year list. Nope. Not really. But it was good. The two brothers, played by Ed Helms and Jason Segal, are just great. And Susan Sarandon as their mom--terrific. The movie is small. The ending, ultimately, is improbable. Still, I liked it.

21 Jump Street: Boy, I wanted to like this. My kids all loved it and I read all sorts of reviews that said it was surprisingly funny/sharp/other adjectives that were adjacent to "good." But I did not like it, and that's that. This fact, that I did not like it, has led to an intermittent and ongoing argument with my kids ever since about how wrong I am. Well, take that, my kids: no stars for this movie on my blog.

The Hunger Games: ** I thought this was terrific. Saw it twice, and found it great both times. It had most of the complexity of the book, was visually satisfying as a representation of that world, had terrific acting throughout, and created an emotional experience that mirrored the spectacle-craving of our own culture. Well done, all involved!

Mirror Mirror: Directed by Tarsem Singh, who also directed The Fall, one of my all-time faves. This was jokier and bouncier in its tone, but visually a joy, and plenty of fun.

Damsels in Distress: ** I really, really enjoyed this. One, I love Greta Gerwig, and she was absolutely charming in this. Two, I have enjoyed the films of Whit Stillman, and this did not disappoint. Three, it had hilarious little subplot/jokes, like the vaguely invoked sexual practices of the Cathar religion (?!) that make you think, what now? in the best possible way. Four, it had terrific little cameos by Audrey Plaza and Alia Shawkat. And five, it involved dancing! Including the great ambition of its heroine to start an international dance craze. I saw this movie twice, once at the dollar theater with some kids, and the fact that they found it weirdly enjoyable speaks, I believe, for the sheer enjoyment to be obtained from this little gem.

The Five Year Engagement: Yes. Good. Solid but not masterful. Having the following to recommend it: Jason Segal, Emily Blunt, Rhys Ifans, Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, and a few other fine players. Having the following to somewhat dampen the whole affair: a ridiculous ending. Now, I generally don't hold a happy ending against a film, but this one features a wedding that made me feel grouchy. Just bear it in mind, is all I'm saying.

Bernie: * Odd and good. A treat to see Jack Black mostly play down his outsize self, singing like an angel, being sweet to one and all until things get ugly. Better: Shirley MacLaine as a tough old bird. Better still: Matthew McConaughey as the town sheriff. Most of the other characters are played by townspeople from the actual town wherein the true-life events of the film transpired.

The Avengers: * Thoroughly enjoyed, except for the lethal amount of popcorn I accidentally ate. Here's what I said: "I will eat no more popcorn forever, is what I told my son this afternoon. "Yeah, you will," he said. And he's probably right. Luckily, the popcorn-of-death syndrome did not strike until after the movie, which I enjoyed quite a bit. Mark Ruffalo plays my all-time favorite The Hulk, which heretofore was Bill "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" Bixby, of the television show. Seriously, that was some fine family entertainment."

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: * This movie can take all the knocks you'd like to say it has--possible hackneyed plot, sentimental...hmm, I'm not sure I can think of what any more of the knocks should be, since what I mostly remember is a radiant performance by Judi Dench, an agreeably acid Penelope Wilton, and sweet (not cloying) turns by Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy. Also, Judi Dench's clothes are what I want to wear when I get old (-er).

Moonrise Kingdom: ** I saw this twice, once with the historian after the Great Avengers Popcorn-Eating Debacle, and once with my daughter later in the summer. The first time, I was not at my best and I may have even dozed off a couple of times. The second time, I loved it. Full of delight and texture and tender humor. I loved the beautiful Benjamin Britten Noye's Fludde that laced through the film. I recommend this film, and it bears rewatching. May I also just note that Jason Schwartzman, of Rushmore fame, almost never disappoints, and his performance in this film is no exception. It is superb.

MIB3: * Not sure why I enjoyed this so much, but I really, really did. Maybe it was the Josh Brolin business--that he made such a perfect young Tommy Lee Jones. Maybe it was the lost father thing. Maybe the bad guy was awesomely, creepily bad. Maybe the little lessons that Will Smith preached before flashing the flashy thingie. Anyway, I did. I enjoyed it.

Snow White and the Huntsman: * Liked quite a bit. I liked all the main players, and I especially enjoyed Charlize Theron as a really really really bad queen. Here's what I said when I saw it: "Today, after my writing, or "writing," as the case may or may not have been today, I put on my red shoes and my red scarf and my sunglasses and went to the movies, by myself. So that was awesome, right from the get-go. Basically, my criterion for the movie was: it had to be on my list of movies I wanted to see (obviously, I guess, but I can't say that all the movies I've ever seen even fit this one, very basic, criterion. That's how crucial it can be to see a movie, is all I'm saying). Okay: it had to be on the list. It had to be a movie that the historian probably wouldn't want to see. And it had to be at a theater near me and at a time when I would have finished my writing/"writing."

This movie fit all those criteria. How was it? It was pretty good, actually. My daughter's friend Hazel says it was "a rental," and that's probably justified. However: this was a movie with plenty of big-screen goodness--color and some effects and whatnot--and Kristen Stewart looked ravishingly lovely a lot of the time, and Chris Hemsworth (Thor) was very hunky as the Huntsman. Charlize Theron fulfilled her destiny in playing an evil queen like a boss.

An aside on Kristen Stewart: what's with all the Kristen Stewart hate? I can name several movies in which I thought she was swell. Hating on Twilight shouldn't mean hating on the K-Stew. She's an all right actress, and sometimes better than that. Don't be unfair, the people. Don't hate.

In conclusion: good vs. evil, ever satisfying, am I right? Right?"

Prometheus: Cool and absurd. Don't bother, though, if you didn't see it on a big screen--films like this exist for their effects and their images, and there's really nothing in here that will translate, I don't think. Except Stringer Bell. He's good on any screen.

Brave: ** Truly loved this. I loved the ferocity of the bears, the fact that the film was about a mother-daughter relationship, and about female power and agency. And I loved that it was set in Scotland. Love loved it.

To Rome with Love: Boo. There was 25% of this movie that was quite good, and 25% of it that was passably good (Judy Davis wore an amazing jacket that I would like to replicate in a dozen different fabrics), and that is all. How does he (Woody Allen) get away with this?

Ted: It was the middle of the summer. It was hot. There was a movie theater called Brewvies, with a film called Ted that had been playing for what seemed like half a year. There were the several weeks prior to this point when we had said, "What about Ted?" and concluded, naaa. And then we gave in. We laughed. That is all.

Magic Mike: I saw this in the summer time, during the day, by myself. I felt like a perv, paying for the movie, because that's the way people represented this film. Well, that's not why I saw it (she says defensively). I saw it because it was Soderbergh. And it was pretty good.

people like us: A weepie, and a completely implausible plot (my daughter insisted, because I usually will give in to implausible plots, when the movie's a weepie). The acting wasn't bad, though, I said, and she would not allow even this. So there. Hammy, implausible plot. Still, neither of us was sorry to have seen it.

the dark knight rises: * Good. My family maintains that this is the best of the Christopher Nolan Batmans. I think the second one, The Dark Knight, is best, but this was pretty good. I am not down with the ending, in which a city is saved because the hydrogen (?) bomb doesn't explode in the city itself, rather in the sea surrounding Gotham. Right. HOWEVER. This movie was engrossing and compelling.

step up revolution: * So awesome, I saw it twice. Wait, let me back up. ONE. Dance movie. TWO. From the thrilling Step Up series. THREE. With an "Occupy X" theme. FOUR. Public dancing as a form of social protest? BAM I even took the historian.

celeste and jesse forever:  Pretty good. Would have loved it to be more amazing. In reviewing the plot on Wikipedia, though, several truly funny scenes came to mind. So, y'know, if you like a romantic comedy with serious undertones and Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, you might like this movie.

hope springs: This is entirely a middle-aged person's movie, and you have to put up with some terrible music in it, i.e. the score. Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep have been married a long time and she thinks they need to re-engage with their marriage. Guess what? He doesn't want to. So they go to a couples therapist. In Maine. And try. But for all the reductio ad absurdum of that plot summary, it pretty much works, and is moving. Steve Carell is excellent as their therapist.

cosmopolis: * Had to see this because (a) Don Delillo (author of the novel), and (b) David Cronenberg, that big weirdo. Well, it was weird, just like the book, and quite good, just like the book. Paul Giamatti has an excellent part right at the end.

paranorman: It was this or Frankenweenie. We chose this. Kind of scary for kids. Luckily, we aren't kids. The historian liked but did not love. Actually, same for me. Cool looking, though.

premium rush: * Super fun. Swift and breathtaking. Probably my favorite action movie of the year.

the master: *** Possibly a masterpiece. I think this is the best movie I saw this year. Mysterious and not entirely explicable, but riveting and compelling. Every actor is perfect. I was especially glad to see Joaquin Phoenix back, and in fine, fine form. Go, go go!

the perks of being a wallflower: * I read the book, then we went to see the movie. It was a lovely little thing. The sweet faces of those kids.

looper: * I liked this movie quite a bit, though it was (as nearly everyone I've talked to and read has said) more violent than I expected. But there were so many satisfactions to it--nifty visual turns, exemplifying the plot, a great rural setting plopped in the middle of an urban dystopic movie, terrific performances, including a very good one by Emily Blunt. I will never turn down a great Bruce Willis performance, and there are plenty of them, despite the plenty that aren't great. And Joseph Gordon Leavitt's not bad either. Well, never bad. Well, pretty much always good.

argo: * Sharp and well-made. I did think it was hilarious when there was a gratuitous shirtless shot of Ben Affleck. Nice work out, dude. Still: why does it please me, and plenty of others, so much that B.A. is making a nice career turn in directing? This isn't the best of his three movies, but it's good, and very enjoyable. Alan Arkin and John Goodman give a beautiful little duo-cameo that is entirely worthwhile.

your sister's sister: Another of the implausible plots of the year, in which Emily Blunt and Rosemary DeWitt play sisters who get entangled with the same man. And there's a pregnancy. And so on and so forth, gads. Well, they're all good actors (Mark DuPlassis being the man). I paid to watch this movie in a hotel room--I wasn't sorry, exactly, but I didn't exactly think it was money well spent, either.

safety not guaranteed: ** Loved this little movie about a guy who thinks he's built a machine for time travel. A band of merry/dissolute/rookie journalists go to do a story about him. So it's a story about belief and doubt, essentially, about cynicism and faith, etc. It's all good, full of interesting locations and characters and good writing, and very odd. This will translate well to watching on a small screen, so make sure you see it.

cloud atlas: * What a whacked out movie that I loved. I have not read the novel, so I have nothing to compare it to except other people's descriptions of the novel. But I found it fascinating and thoroughly engrossing and weird and great, especially in great swaths of the movie. I loved the relationship between Ben Whishaw, whom I adore, and James D'Arcy especially, but I found the entire thing, even in its more cracked-out moments, to be ambitious and, for much of it, pretty successful. I would see it again.

flight: Fairly predictable movie with a terrific Denzel Washington performance. John Goodman hamming it up as the fixer/dealer. The whole first twenty or so minutes are riveting and sickeningly thrilling.

skyfall: I haven't seen a James Bond in literally decades, I think, and I quite enjoyed this for what it was. Good stunts and action sequences. The ever-perfect Judi Dench; the spectacularly amusing and menacing Javier Bardem.

red tails: My dad loved this as a piece of aviation history, and for that it was pretty darned interesting. Tells the story of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen as a rousing, broad good-and-evil tale--but with some killer aerial dogfights. One interesting fact: author Aaron McGruder (Boondocks) co-wrote.

rampart: Good, but freaking depressing. For my brief essay on this and other cop movies, go here.

extremely loud and incredible close: I liked this quite a bit more than I thought I would. Here's what I said when I saw it: "Today, I bought eggs from Chad, went to the Roasting Co. to work on a poem (why do I have to go to another place to write a poem? another post for another day), ate lady fingers (but not really--they were actually langues des chats, and they were both darling and delicious), and cried my head off at a movie (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--you will have to decide for yourself if a movie that insists that you cry this much is your poison, but I expected to pity and perhaps despise it [the movie], and did neither, really)."

ruby sparks: Guy--a novelist--finds himself on a roll and writes a true-life girlfriend for himself. Girl of his dreams, more or less. While I thought the film got at some truths about the ways that we project our own desires on those we love, or "love," the whole scenario was creepy and got increasingly so as the movie had to more or less punch its way out of the corner its premises had boxed itself into. (I'll wait while you finish putting that image together.) So...not really.

the intouchables: Reviews of this movie that I read said it was yet another example of how a black guy will bring healing to a white guy. Maybe so. The white guy in this case is a genuine aristocrat with genuine old money and is French and also a quadriplegic. The black guy is hired to be his personal aide. There may or may not be dancing to Earth, Wind and Fire by the black guy. He's from Africa, living with his extended family in Paris. The aristocrat needs to meet the woman with whom he's been exchanging poetic and formal letters of love, but he is afraid. The aide helps him. See? This is where plot summaries get you. They show you what's hackneyed and formulaic, but they don't show the texture and vividness of the details. So I will tell you that the details are what made this formulaic film work, and that if its aims and charms are modest, they are nonetheless there in the film. I liked it.

the kid with the bike: ** This film, on the other hand, was pretty close to brilliant. Starring Cecile de France as a woman who takes in a kid whose father has abandoned him. It's terrible and heartrending and hopeful, which seems miraculous. Directed by those Belgians, the Dardenne brothers, who seem to specialize in terrible and heartrending; the hopeful seems like a bonus.

take this waltz: * At least one of my friends found this film unbearably tedious. I loved it. It did not feel remotely predictable to me. It has Seth Rogen in a serious role--quite good--and the luminous Michelle Williams as a married couple. Then this guy comes on the scene. I loved the way the film made you feel the rough surfaces of every day life.

Sleepwalk with me: Mike Birbiglia half-tells the story of a period of sleepwalking in his life, a story which also takes in a long-term relationship and the growth, or not, of his career as a stand-up comedian. Sometimes pretty interesting, sometimes only mildly so.

beasts of the southern wild: ** Visually glorious. I worried about that little girl for every minute of that movie. Felt entirely original.

the sessions: * Told in a kind of square way, but emotionally very affecting nonetheless. John Hawkes is splendid, as usual, playing a real-life guy, Mark O'Brien, who has lived most of his life in an iron lung and who wants to experience sex. But I was very very pleased to see Helen Hunt and I thought she was wonderful and very moving. I recommend this movie. There is plenty of sex in it and lots of sex talk, because it's a movie about sex. Just so you know, in case you didn't.

silver linings playbook: *** One of my favorites of the year, as you can see. The protagonist, played by Bradley Cooper, is a previously undiagnosed bipolar man who has been in a mental hospital as a part of his plea bargain with the court--he doesn't go to jail for severely beating a man with whom his wife was having an affair. He hopes to win her back, but in the meantime meets a woman in his neighborhood who has lost her husband and is emotionally wounded herself. There is a great dance sequence in this film, and it just felt wonderful, beautifully observed, compassionate, funny, and real all at the same time. I just loved it. I saw it again yesterday with my daughter and loved it again for the second time, where it was just as good as the first time.

wreck it ralph: * I love the conceit of this movie--that the "Wreck It" character gets sick of his bad-guy role and tries to escape it. Lots of fun throughout.

Lincoln: ** There was sap at the beginning and noble sap at the end. There was a perhaps too-eager score. As one friend said, there was an ostentatiously good supporting cast. And yet, I found the film in the middle of the two rather brief sappy parts at the beginning and the end to be absolutely riveting and engaging and very intelligent. Gorgeous visually. And Daniel Day Lewis was really splendid as Lincoln.

Anna Karenina: * Gorgeous again. I loved everything about this movie except: (one) I thought the guy who played Vronsky was too soft, too pretty. No, is what I thought when he came on the scene. No, do not go with him, Anna Karenina! Not worth it!, and (two) I thought the staginess of the narrative frame both worked and didn't work. It made the tacit argument that Russian society, for upper class people, was like a stage, a constant spectacle; but it created too much distance between the viewer and the pathos of the story. I would say the movie was successful on its own terms, despite (one) above; but I longed for it to break my heart, and it did not. Special note that Jude Law was splendid as Karenin, and Keira Knightley was likewise wonderful.

Hitchcock:  Why not? It's Helen Mirren as Alma Hitchcock, and she is perfection, looking dishy in her clothes, and delivering a tart, sharp rebuke to her husband when he needed it. Not sure how consequential it felt. But it was fun. Scarlett Johanssen making a credible Janet Leigh.

Life of Pi: **  Loved the visual splendor of this film. Entrancing. Again, make sure to see it on a big screen, or there will be no point. It would be like moving Star Wars action figures around and acting out the movie script instead of seeing the movie. You want to see the tiger. You probably want to see it in 3D, although we didn't.

Les Miserables:  Okay. I have not read Hugo, nor have I seen the stage musical, nor have I ever listened to the music, except here and there. So, although I was basically familiar with the plot, I was hazy on the particulars, and thus this was effectively my first time with Les Miserables. Yes: I was a Les Miz virgin. So here's what I thought: (a) long. pretty long. (b) so much singing! (c) some of the singing seemed kind of not great. On the other hand, (d) some of the singing was surprisingly good! (e) I'm not sure I even liked the songs all that much, or not all of them. (f) I did cry several times. (g) the spectacle of Russell Crowe in his various uniforms was delicious. (h) Anne Hathaway made me cry on cue--really amazing. (i) the kid singers were great. (j) Eddie Redmayne was great. (k) war is stupid. The end. Did I pass?

This is 40: ** Just the antidote to, well, everything. We saw it this very night! I loved this movie and I laughed and cried through the lot of it. A zillion great things in it--it's loose and shambly, and the structure is ramshackle, but the performances are all vivid and lively and idiosyncratic. I loved Albert Brooks as Paul Rudd's dad, John Lithgow as Leslie Mann's dad, Chris O'Dowd as Paul Rudd's co-worker, Megan Fox and Charlyne Yi as Leslie Mann's employees, and Jason Segal as a personal trainer. AND Melissa McCarthy as a really, really angry mom at the Mann/Rudd kids' school. Raunchy and funny and great.

In progress...

I am busily writing my Movies of 2013 Wrap-Up. But I am not finished with it:

Should I stay up (like a madwoman) and finish it? or go to bed (like a sensible person) and finish it tomorrow?



Tomorrow it is, then. Stay tuned! and good night.

Status updates: Boxing Day edition.

Weather: snowy and snowier, especially as we drove south and then turned around. Because: too snowy.

Music: Fred Hersch, Alive at the Vanguard (played at home on the stereo).

Plans: to drive south and see the historian's son's family in Lehi. Denied (see: Weather.)

Viewing: Les Miz (with my daughters. Full of singing?). Rerun of Modern Family (with the historian. Still funny). The Jazz game (WOE.).

Comestibles: leftovers: spinach and fontina strata, Chinese food, fruit salad, green salad. Cookies of all stripes. Frosted Mini-Wheats.


After the fact: baked the rest of the cookie dough still chilling out in my fridge--date-nut pinwheels and sugar cookies, cut into stars and holly leaves and Christmas trees. Even though Christmas is over and we opened all the presents.

Contemplating: the family dinner we have planned for New Years Day. What will I make? I kind of feel like it should just be sandwiches. And maybe potato chips. Would that be wrong?

Thought about, but did not: stop in at Target on my way home from the movie.

Shocking: how tired I am and how I could not fall asleep last night.

Mood: a little sleep deprived, frankly.

Footwear: slippers. socks. work boots for the late-night dog walk.

note: it is almost the end of 2012, so I owe the readers of this blog

1. a list of the movies I saw this year, along with my big important opinions on them.
2. possible other lists.
3. a short reflective essay on the "Blogging Every Day in the Year 2012" project.

Just want you to know I haven't forgotten.

The day.

This doesn't cover all the things we did, but it covers a lot:



Near the end of it all, my dad pointed out that we ought to be able to see the moon and Jupiter. And when we went outside, we could.

I hope your day was happy and joyful.

and they heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight--

Candy, music, fun.

Tonight, we went to my aunt's house for the annual Christmas musicale. It was grand. There was trumpet playing by my niece, my son and I sang In the bleak midwinter, my nephew was pressed into service, playing Apologize on the piano, the kids joined in on all sorts of carol singing, and we joined together in a fantastic rendition of Bacon Pancakes (led by my son). Super-festive, in other words. Maybe the most fun ever?

In related matters: I made a bunch of candy over the last couple of days:

Listen. I don't know if people even like brittle anymore. I, however, will say this about it:

1. way easier than you'd think.
2. fast--if you've got your ingredients organized, it's like 15 minutes tops per batch.
3. makes you feel like a genius despite 1 & 2 above.

Also:

     4. it looks super cute in a box when you give it to your neighbors. AND
     5.  it must be said: when you make it yourself, it tastes dang fresh and damn good.

(The link above is what got me started. It is the most stripped down, essential version. Here's one that gives you a little foam in the candy at the last minute, which is different and also good.)

Good things: children singing.

This week, we went to the school where my son is the general music teacher;  it was evening, and the choirs, bands and orchestras were holding their Winter Musical Extravaganza.  The bands and orchestras played holiday music; the Honors Choir and the Rock & Roll History choirs sang songs loosely tied together by the theme of dreams. The choir music was drawn from the popular canon, both current and past--the kids helped to choose it. Lifted up by those young voices, piercing and sweet--the music moved us and sweetened our season. I wish I could play some of it for you. Frankly, I wish I could listen to it over and over again. So beautiful.

A tiny Christmas present.

It's been a wonderful day--breakfast with some kids and grandkids, my writing group, a movie with my aunt, cousin, and the historian, and making some awesome Rice Krispie treats for my son.

But I am tired. So I am offering something I heard yesterday:


 (Remixing the Holidays with Run-DMC, on The Takeaway, Dec. 20, 2012)

 and here's an awesome throwback that I believe you're going to enjoy:






Hope this tickles you and lifts your spirits as it did mine.

p.s. just moments after I posted this, I heard "Christmas in Hollis" on a Honda commercial. Not going to think very much about what that means.