MOVIES and BOOKS and POLISHNESS

We watched a DVD last night: a favorite around here—Shakespeare in Love. It’s cleverness charms, and it is a satisfying kind of charm, you don’t have to say things like “It’s dumb, but I liked it anyway” since it isn’t dumb, it’s quite clever.

But the reason we watched a DVD is that we have been having trouble finding a movie to go to. Having waded through the sugar of Something’s Gotta Give, Love Actually, Under the Tuscan Sun, and suffered through the darkness of the remaining shows (does anyone NOT agree that it’s been a somber movie season?), there wasn’t anything that grabbed.

I suppose NOT seeing a movie is an option, but SC was supposedly on her last night home (I say supposedly because the weather did make it impossible for her to make the connection today after all; all her flights got cancelled and so now we have her for one more day: more movie v. DVD dilemmas for tonight!), and it seemed the frivolous thing to do. And, there is, in January and February, a sense of urgency: let’s see as much as possible because of the imminent Academy Awards (showing off linking abilities again) – note early date this year! We’ve been tracking the Awards faithfully for 28 years (those here that are old enough to say that), and everyone except for me is extremely good at Academy trivia. To me, the Awards are sort of a periscope into the future: this is what dementia will feel like when I’m 95 (note the inherent optimism in that clause): I’ll look around and not remember the names of people in the room. Currently, I only don’t remember the names of people associated with the movie industry.

Anyway, “reading a book” is not a great option. I am in the middle of four. But I have issues with some aspects of all of them. There seems to be a randomness there, but in fact, each book does have its reasons for sitting with a Borders book mark stuck in the middle:
1. How To Be Good by Nick Hornby is one of my book club’s selections. It is darkly humorous. The dialogue (thus far) gives you a good taste at what it feels like to live in a querulous relationship. It must be an eye-opener to the few (do they even exist?) who manage not to be repeatedly nasty to their partners, friends, or family. Kind of depressing, on the other hand, if, by page 3, you think to yourself, for the tenth time no less, “sounds like something I would say…” [A NEW YEARS RESOLUTION to myself: use less of Hornby’s dialogue in daily life.]
2. From Here, You Can’t See Paris by Michael Sanders. This is one of those endless titles that I pick up just so I can brag that I have read EVERYTHING on the shelves about rural life and artisanal food production in France or Italy.
3. The Lady and the Monk by Pico Iyer—I’ve been on this forever! And also his newer book, The Global Soul, which I only just started. I actually do like The Lady etc, but every once in a while it has to go into a state of repose, because Iyer is so slow in his reflective meditations about Kyoto and Zen Buddhism, that my interest stagnates.
4. Listy Albo Opor Materii by Stanislaw Lem—ahhhh, the other side of the ocean wakes up. I picked this up in Krakow last month. It seemed like a great way to keep me focused on things Polish. The trouble is that when I am here, Polish things there are like faces in the Academy Awards – very very vaguely familiar, but I can’t seem to remember why I had this pressing need, while there, to keep them vibrantly alive. Anyway, Lem, for those on this side of the Atlantic, writes commentaries on politics, society, etc. This book is a collection of his letters—written in a sardonic tone to bureaucrats, to acquaintances, other writers. I don’t really admire sarcasm in writing, but I do admire Lem’s wit. It’s very Polish (whatever that means: note my latest story on this topic, forthcoming, as they all are, someday somewhere).