Well, dear readers, I do suppose it’s time to put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, I suppose it’s time to break out the cheese slices and the ham chunks, and I suppose it’s time to dance the Hora or the Lambada (The Forbidden Dance), for today is the birthday of, well, me. So, let’s dispense with that right off the bat so we can move on to other things like – CAKE. I just looked in the mirror and I definitely don’t look sixty-two, I don’t look a day older than sixty-one, but that’s because I’m sixty-one and I won’t be sixty-two for another hour and fifteen minutes, at which time I shall immediately look sixty-two. Not. I refuse to look like sixty-two, whatever the HELL that is. Frankly, I can’t even think about it or anything else right now because there are fershluganah helicopters flying overhead, circling, flying low and making horrendous noise. It’s really annoying. In any case, shortly I shall be sixty-two and more about that in the next section. In this section I’m still sixty-one and, as the Gershwins once said, they can’t take that away from me.
Yesterday it rained quite a bit, which we really needed. Within two hours of the rain falling every street corner in my neighborhood was flooded. Okay, these circling helicopters are driving me to distraction. Have you ever been driven to distraction? I hear it’s lovely there this time of year. Where was I? Oh, yes, the rain. It rained most of the day, then the sun came out for three minutes, then it rained some more. I slept really late (as I tend to do when it rains) and that was a good thing. I got up, answered e-mails and then went and had a sandwich and onion rings for my meal o’ the day. After that, I went to the mail place where I was told there were no packages because there were no slips in my box. I suggested that the man who told me that look for some packages. And what do you know – he found one. Then he found another. Then another. Funny that. I also got a lovely fruit basket with a lovely thing of flowers alongside the fruit, and that was very nice – a gift from our very own FJL, Skip, and their lovelier than lovely dogs, Toby and Dylan. I then came home, did some work on the computer, prepped everything for our official announcement for the new Kritzerland title, made some telephonic calls, answered more e-mails, and then I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.
Last night, I watched a motion picture on Blu and Ray entitled Julie and Julia which tells the story of Julie, who decides to go through the Julia Child cookbook for one year and as she does so she writes a blog about it. Concurrent with that, we see the story of Julia Child and her learning how to cook while in France with her husband in the late 1940s. Being a Nora Ephron film, it just sort of lays there like so much fish, but I enjoyed it anyway, mainly because of Meryl Streep’s wonderful performance as Julia Child and Amy Adams’ equally wonderful performance as Julie. I know everyone loves him, but I just don’t care for Stanley Tucci all that much and that didn’t change with this film. And the fellow who played Julie’s husband was sort of irritating and when he eats he’s a pig, and I’m not sure that’s just the way he chose to play the character, if you get my drift. The writing is okay, but it’s telling when the funniest thing in the film is a clip from Saturday Night Live with Dan Ackroyd playing Julia Child. The film just sort of meanders along, but it’s enjoyable and I’m glad I saw it. The music by Alexandre Desplat is sadly typical of film music today – it’s travelogue music because Miss Ephron will not allow him to actually let film music serve its real purpose, which is to underscore the characters and drama (and comedy) in a well-placed manner. Here we have nothing but bridging moments and it actually hurts the film because there are scenes where some good film music underscore would really help. But Miss Ephon’s idea of how to score scenes is to pull out a song that tells you exactly what we’re about to see – it’s the worst kind of music use there is. So, when the young marrieds have a tiff, the scene where they get back together has a song whose lyric keeps repeating “take me back, take me back” – thanks for hitting me over the head, Miss Ephron. Really, filmmakers, we’re smarter than that. The transfer is fine but nothing exceptional, but I’m sure that was how the film was shot.
After I finished the film, I had some fruit from the fruit basket, answered more e-mails, and took a hot shower. Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because it is, after all, birthday notes, so perhaps I’ll write a little birthday prose on the other side.
I’m actually looking forward to my sixty-second year, and pray that it is filled with health, wealth, happiness, and creativity. Sixty-one was a fascinating year and a good one, and I’m hoping it was only a prelude for better things a’comin’. I share this day with some pretty amazing folks, including Georges Feydeau, Sibelius, Martinu, Paul Klee, Diego Rivera, Frank Faylen, Lee J. Cobb, Ernest Lehman (I love that we share a birthday), Richard Fleischer, Jimmy Smith, Sammy Davis, Jr., Maximilian Schell, Flip Wilson, James MacArthur, James Galway, Nick Nolte, Jim Morrison, John Rubinstein, Rick Baker, Roy Firestone, Kim Basinger, and many, many other interesting folks, none more so than one of my all-time heroes, James Thurber. I’m in really good company.
I am happy to report that the helicopters are gone. Today, I shall be having a lunch meeting, just not sure where yet, and I’m quite looking forward to it. Other than that, I have no real other plans for the day of birth, but maybe someone will surprise me. If not, I shall go get some cake from Gelson’s and celebrate with my very own self. I also had a bunch of wonderful birthday wishes on Facebook, so that was fun, too.
Tomorrow, CDs arrive and so does Cason Murphy, and we will get everything shipped out by the early afternoon. After that, we may partake of a meal, since other plans got canceled for very silly reasons.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, have a birthday, I must have a lunch meeting, I must hopefully pick up a package or three, and I must eat CAKE. Today’s topic of discussion: Since it’s my birthday, let’s make this a real ego-fest – tell me how you first came to know who I was. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I get ready to be sixty-two, a year that will hopefully be filled with health, wealth, happiness, and creativity.