The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (1959)*****

Jed came over on Wednesday, and we went to TKC Thursday to see the vascular doctor, Dr. Patterson, who said he will get with Dr. Stein and they'll decide whether to do an angiogram to see what's wrong with my painful leg.

Wednesday evening Jed and I watched the movie, The Haunting (1963) starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn, the first movie that was based on Shirley Jackson's book. It's a somewhat scary movie, but nothing to compare with the book. Some of the characters were different; Richard Johnson played the doctor/psychic-researcher, Dr. Markway, who in the book is named Dr. Montague, and Eleanor Vance is changed to Eleanor Lance, for some reason. I read the book again, from Wednesday to this morning (Saturday), careful not to read the horrifying parts alone at night.

Dr. Montague of the book is a cherubic little man with a very stupid wife, and Luke Sanderson is the romantic interest quarreled over by Eleanor and Theodora.

Interstellar****

Good Movie

I watched this movie Monday night. There were exciting moments, the computer TARS was a comedian, and one of my favorite actors blew himself up. Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, Anne Hathaway, Ellen Burstyn; good cast.

My cold or whatever is better. I didn't go to the poetry group meeting Monday night; didn't want to expose people to my germs.

Some Recent Notes

Last night I watched (again) the saddest movie I have ever seen, and certainly one of the best--"Legends of the Fall," 1994.

Putting Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins in the same film conjures up magic. The same thing happens in "Meet Joe Black."

*

Here's a poem I wrote on Jan. 10:

Water Sign

Water-colored, my eyes are
turquoise, blue-green
I crave the rain, clear aquamarine
water-bearer to earth, air and fire

Clouds cheer me, wet, weighty
with jeweled drops airborne
to anoint dry lips that mourn
for moisture in sea, sand, humanity

Drought alters all that lives and thrives
My eyes reflect the face
of earth in sere and sun-burnt poise

When silver rain revives
this parched and withered place  
my eyes turn back from amber to turquoise

Great Movie

I just watched "Legends of the Fall" (1994) again. If I had to name 100 best movies, this would be in the top ten.

The Way We Were

I have resisted watching this movie again ever since the first time I saw it. Because it's a heart-breaker. But today I broke down and watched it again. It's impossible to describe, but so beautiful. I always said Streisand was the prettiest ugly girl I ever saw, and Redford is incomparable.

I Lay There Like a Log.

But didn't sleep at all last night. I should have found a picture of a Yule log, but I'm not that cheerful.
Last night I drank a glass of wine before going to bed, and I felt pretty good and brave. To heck with the burglar. But I couldn't sleep.

*

Yesterday I cleaned out a cabinet where I could store stuff from my laundry closet. It may take most of next year, but I'm determined to clean that space. I also shopped for a few groceries, at Food Giant because I know where everything is. I can only shop for half an hour or less before I go back and collapse in the car.

Today I plan to address a few Christmas cards, renew a few prescriptions, and pay a couple of bills online. If I can stay awake till 8 or 9 p.m., I'll go to bed early.

*

I watched part of "The Wiz" on TV, whichever night it was on. The film was visually stunning, but the sound was so loud and confused, I finally gave it up. It's wonderful for people who like noisy musicals.

William Goldman

The Novelist and Screen-writer Genius of the Age.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Princess Bride," and "Marathon Man" were all his from start to finish. He wrote the screenplay for "Misery," said to be Stephen King's most difficult novel to adapt to screen.

Goldman is 83 years old.

[Images listed as "free."]

*
What's Fair About This?

As if winter weren't hard enough to begin with, my whole winter, and one autumn month, have been dominated and spoilt by clinic, hospital and dental visits. I guess it is my fair share, after a generally healthy adulthood. When it starts catching up to you, you might as well hunker down and deal with it. It has left me with tremors in both hands, and sometime in my knees--my kneecaps will jump up and down!

"They stayed away in droves." - Dorothy Parker

Ramey and I went to the play. I wish I could say it was excellent. For amateurs, I guess it was good. They shouted to an almost empty house. But then, it was a matinee. The furniture onstage was beautiful. Victorian, complete with price tag and bar code on one piece. I've never seen a play I didn't like, and this one was no exception. But maybe for different reasons.

One of my favorite movies is "Beaches," Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey. I watched it on TV sometime over the weekend. That girl who played 12-year-old C.C. Bloom was so good! The ending makes it a tear-jerker.

I also recently watched Tom Stoppard's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," on TV.

*

Speaking of TV, the sound has gone out on my set. I can get pictures, but no sound. Can't watch Jeopardy. Well, I can watch it but can't hear it. It went out suddenly yesterday, and I thought for a minute I had lost my hearing, but the tinnitus corrected that impression.

*

4:28 p.m. - I hear the storm a-coming.

Another Good Old Movie

Yesterday TCM showed "The Elephant Man" (1980), for which John Hurt won a BAFTA award as best actor in a leading role. It also had Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, Anne Bancroft and Wendy Hiller.

John Hurt must be one of the most versatile and skillful actors in history. He was born in 1940, has had hundreds of stage, screen and TV roles, and is currently in another (filming) movie. The first role I saw him in was Richard Rich in "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), one of the best movies ever made, with one of the best casts ever assembled.

When I was a child, I took it for granted that someday I'd be a movie star. Later accepted the fact that I was just born in the wrong social and economic stratum, in the wrong part of the country. Had to wait for the new millennium even to see some of the best old movies.

Barbarosaaaa!!!

Sunday evening Jed and I watched this old movie from 1982. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Mud

After pigging out on fried chicken and the trimmings, Jed and I watched two good movies yesterday evening. "Mud" was great. "Serenity" was sort of disappointing, as two members of the old Firefly crew got killed.

This morning we got out before noon, for an early lunch at Cracker Barrel. Then Jed went back to Atlanta to practice a presentation he'll give on Tuesday.

Cyrano de Bergerac

The most beautiful work of fiction or drama I have ever read, the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. English language, literally translated into French (or any other language, I suppose), would probably strike French readers as more or less comical, or at least boring. I long ago read an almost literal English translation of Rostand's play; in spite of the stilted language, it was a beautiful work.

And then I discovered the Modern Library edition of Brian Hooker's translation of Cyrano. I have read this book almost to pieces. It is stained with spilt wine, coffee and tears.

I used to feel sorry for people who like to read, who have never read this book. But the pity for others has turned into a sort of miser's glee for myself. I own something precious that nobody else I know possesses. I won't urge it on my friends, because I've done so with other works and found myself disappointed by their judgment and comments.

The movie "Cyrano de Bergerac," made in 1950 and starring Jose Ferrer and Mala Powers, is very good. The book, the play, is exponentially better.

"Mignonne, allons voir si la rose. . ."

Watched "The Razor's Edge" last night on TCM. It's a good old movie, and is close to the book, since the author Somerset Maugham wrote or supervised the screen play and is represented by one of the characters in the story. But the film itself is mostly a sketchy reminder of the book, and makes one want to read it again. In the book, Isabel is a cold, calculating female, and in the movie, Gene Tierney (incidentally one of the most beautiful women who ever lived) is more like a petulant child. Old Elliot Templeton is one of the delights of the book, but Clifton Webb makes him seem like a feeble-minded fool. Anne Baxter as Sophie is pathetic; reading the book, one thinks of Old Joan in "Rain" instead. The most satisfactory character in the movie is Herbert Marshall as Maugham. But it's a good movie, such as Zanuck and others made back then.

1994

Great review of a great movie:


'"Shadowlands" . . . is intelligent, moving and beautifully acted [by Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger]. It understands that not everyone falls in love through the avenue of physical desire; that for some the lust may be for another's mind, for inner beauty.' - Roger Ebert, January 7, 1994.


Ebert's review: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/shadowlands-1994


Julian Fellowes was in that movie.


A Dab of Recognition:


1994 was also the year that, led by my supremely talented sister Ramey, I joined the Alabama State Poetry Society, won my first prizes and thought well, maybe verse is the way to go instead of writing novels and sticking them back in a drawer for shame, as I had done several times before.


Now we are engaged in a great book publishing enterprise, the enterprise greater than the book is likely to be. Rowan Wood Press (namely me), mostly through the dogged collaboration of Mr. James DeWitt Cage, will publish The Lightness of the Dark, Poems by Joanne Ramey Cage, this month if we're lucky, next month if we hit a snag. If anyone wants to rush in and contribute blurbs of high praise beforehand, come on down.


Crazy Computer:


When I hit the return key, it throws in an extra line space. Don't blame me.


Crazy Critters:


I went into the kitchen for another cup of coffee, and out the window I saw a chipmunk (or a little bobtailed squirrel) run up behind a bird and nip at its tail.

Blue Shadows

Blue shadows on the trail
Blue moon shinin' through the trees
And a plaintive wail in the distance
Comes driftin' on the evening breeze

Move along, blue shadows, move along
Soon the dawn will come and you'll be on your way

But until the darkness sheds its veil
There'll be blue shadows on the trail

-- Roy Rogers

*

I watched my old video recording of "Michael" this morning, to banish some of my blue shadows.

Excellent, dude!

While I ate my lunch, I watched a few minutes of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." I think this film is probably what inspired my poem "River Cruise," in which we picked up Joan of Arc, Richard II and a couple more Plantagenets, Mary Queen of Scots, Father Murphy, and a lot of other folks in danger.

Recent Stuff

Last night I watched "A Beautiful Mind" on TV. That's a powerful movie. I hadn't seen it in several years. "Terrified! Mortified! Petrified!"

Mo passed on a couple of weeks ago, and I still occasionally start to the basement to check on him, then remind myself that he's gone. I'm very tempted to let the white cat come in and establish residence; but then I remind myself of my resolution. Haven't seen the black cat in several weeks, so I guess he's gone, too.

Today I reworked my Amazon.com inventory, lowering many of the book prices.

In From the Cold

So I've read five John Le Carre spy novels this month:

Call For the Dead
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Honourable Schoolboy
Smiley's People

 To me, the best one is The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, published in the 1960s. This is a link to William Boyd's 2010 review and synopsis of the novel: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/24/carre-spy-came-cold-boyd. A great review, because he seems to agree with me. Ha ha.

 I had read at least three of these novels before, but reading them all in a bunch, and nearly consecutively in the order they were written, provides a pretty good grasp of the spy novel as a genre, and of Le Carre's genius as a novelist.

Richard Burton was a great actor, maybe one of the two or three greatest* in modern times, in my opinion. But I think the movie of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold was largely a failure. It certainly didn't come near the appeal of the book, to me, anyway.

*The other two greatest actors, according to me, would be Alec Guinness and Marlon Brando. But one gets the feeling that Brando, as an actor, was made, not born. Alec Guinness was born with it. Years ago, Dick Cavett cryptogrammed Guinness' name to "Genuine Class." And I think Burton was born with it, just didn't always give a damn.

Burton had the best speaking voice I've ever heard. It wasn't a pretty voice; I remember it as sort of nasal and raspy. But I don't think the man ever uttered a syllable that wasn't clear as a bell, and spot-on to whatever effect he meant to convey. I remember him in some minor movie, reading Hamlet's speech to Gertrude, "Return not to mine uncle's bed," and the memory of that few seconds has made me go back and read Hamlet over again more than once.