Well, dear readers, we are in the final throes of January. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, we are in the final throes of January. Not the final throws of January, mind you, no, we are in the final throes of January. Just today and tomorrow and then, by gum and by golly and buy bonds, it will be February. I had quite a lovely day yesterday. I drove here and there and everywhere, I delivered book pages to my friend Margaret, who really liked them, I ate pasta, I walked into Bookstar and saw three count them three copies of Writer’s Block, and I managed to get in some DVD viewing. It was a nice relaxing day and evening, just the kind I like and need every now and then and also every then and now. Isn’t that exciting? Isn’t that just too too?
My goodness, that was a nice compact paragraph, wasn’t it? It’s always fun to have a nice compact paragraph every now and then. And now we’ve had one. And now we can move on to a nice long paragraph with lots of words, which turn into lots of sentences. Last night I watched a motion picture on DVD. But before I watched a motion picture on DVD, I watched the first disc of my new The Best of Johnny Carson DVD set. The first disc covers the 60s and 70s and is filled with one hilarious clip after another – most of which I’ve seen dozens of times, but a few which I’d never seen. The only problem is their brevity – there’s one bit where Ed McMahon is obviously tinkered, and it’s just too short. I wanted more of that and a few others. There are a few extras on disc one, but I think most of the good extras are on the other discs. The quality is fine, but this is an ineptly authored DVD – the menus are terrible, the extras section freezes at the ends of clips and takes forever to get back to the menu – it’s shoddy. The DVD, formerly only available through television, is now in stores everywhere at half the price. Then I watched a motion picture on DVD entitled Le Bossu (The Hunchback), which for some stupid reason was retitled On Guard for the US. It’s based on a classic French novel that has spawned no less than six screen versions. I would doubt that any of the previous versions approached the greatness of this latest from 1997. It was directed by the marvelously marvelous Philippe de Broca, one of my favorite French directors (That Man from Rio, King of Hearts, Cartouche, Le Magnifique) – in his mid-seventies he puts all these young Turk directors to shame. His film is effortless – the camera is always in the right place, the direction and photography are never show-off and always in service of the story being told. It’s a classic swashbuckler with some of the best swashbuckling swordplay ever put on the screen. The script is a constant delight – funny, suspenseful, sweet, and romantic. The cast is perfection – Daniel Auteuil, an actor who, before three weeks ago, was completely unknown to me, and who I’ve now seen in quite a few films, is great in the leading role. Fabrice Luchini, who I discovered recently in Patrice Leconte’s latest, Intimate Strangers, makes a really interesting and strange villain, Vincent Perez is wonderful as is the leading lady, Marie Gillain. The film has a terrific score by the terrific Philippe Sarde (with a little Mascagni thrown in). Every one of these French films I’ve seen recently, all made in the last ten years, put to shame anything that’s come out of Hollywood. Seek out On Guard, you won’t be disappointed.
Now, we’ve had our nice compact paragraph, and our long unwieldy paragraph. Unwieldy – that’s one of our favorite Jerry Lewis words. Okay, everybody, on the count of three in your best Jerry Lewis voice: One, two, three – UNWIELDY.
Excellently done.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because soon I must hie myself to the City of Culver, which I’ll tell you about in the next section.
I had a late-night visit from my friend Nancy Lee – I’d been bugging her to make a batch of her faboo potato salad, and last night she brought it over. I’d already eaten so much pasta that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, which was scarf it all down immediately. I did have a small bowl of it and it was ever so yummilicious. I’ll off the rest of it today.
Speaking of potato salad, this morning I’ll be trotting off to the City of Culver to rendezvous with some of my sixth grade class. This was actually supposed to be a small group of us making plans for a big reunion this summer. But, today I was told there will be thirty-five of us! That’s a much larger gathering than I care for, especially in a restaurant, but I’ll make an appearance and if it’s unwieldy I’ll just beat a hasty retreat.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must attend the little get together, I must write a little, I must eat a lot of potato salad and then I must watch a DVD or three. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to choose the topics and we all get to post on them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, especially topics and posts that are unwieldy.