_________________________
Friday, May 10, 2019
Will she still need you when she’s grown?
You grow her up from infancy and she goes off to school.
She’s grows old enough to look for work and she writes a resume.
She sends it to you.
You read it and realize that
Suddenly your little girl is a grown woman.
Will she still need you when she’s grown?
We’ll have a lot of rainy days coming at us.
Let’s not skip a single step because of the weather.
The hours are ticking away and if we don’t make the most of our time another day will soon click past.
Unnoticed.
Unappreciated.
Tick Tock.
In clock language:
Enjoy today.
Enjoy the week.
____________________________________________
Postings Count, Weather Brief, and Dinner
Friday, May 10, 2019
Our 399th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
After 399 posts we’re at the 7.98 percentile of our commitment, the commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.
Time is 12.01am.
On Friday, Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 61* with a feels-like of 59* with rain.
Dinner tonight is a dinner party with marinates, then fresh Eataly pasta with fresh pesto sauce, followed by a traditional Roast Half-Turkey and cannoli.
____________________________
Question of the Day:
What was Blithe Spirit?
___________________________________
Chuckle for Friday, May 10, 2019
So a rabbi hesitates at the eulogy.
“Actually, folks, since I’m so new here, perhaps it would be better if several of you said some things about the deceased.”
One minute went by and then another.
No one spoke.
Finally, after the third silent minute someone from the back said loudly, “And his brother was even worse.”
_________________________
Friday, May 10, 2019
Love your notes.
Contact me at domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Howard D.
Hi Dom
Given the intermittent attention you give to what are now clear motifs in your blog: death, eternity, the paranormal (you wrote a whole novel from the POV of a teenage superheroine in the genre), and now you’ve added OBE, to which I would add your articulating the experience of being knocked for a loop briefly by a bicyclist while on your walk one day, I thought you’d enjoy looking up and seeing (or maybe re-viewing) a classic British movie, the original filming of a Noel Coward masterpiece, “Blithe Spirit.”
I just watched the other night (and proceeded to another great film, somewhat earlier, of another classic, “Pygmalion,” a great and loyal rendition of the G.B. Shaw masterpiece that inspired “My Fair Lady.” I also recommend it, but that’s off point).
Anyway, Blithe Spirit, and especially the performance of the magnificent Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arkady, the batty medium, is a nice way to keep your wildest flights of fancy and imagination in check as you contemplate these existential themes.
Whatever happened, anyway, to your post, every day, including a synopsis and implied recommendation of favorite films. Aside from your lifting just a bit too much for my taste directly from you know where, and including not enough of your own personal views, I enjoyed that part of the blog, I mean like a regular person, and not like me.
Anyway, check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blithe_Spirit_(film)
xo
hhd
And very quickly, Howard again:
It’s Madame Arcati in “Blithe Spirit”
It’s Mr. Arkadin, in the Orson Welles movie of the same name.
I kept thinking about his movie while watching the other, every time they mentioned Margaret Rutherford’s character’s name.
sorry about that
Web Meister Responds: Always entertaining, Howard. Thank you for sharing.
___________________________________
Answer to the Question of the Day: Friday, May 10, 2019
What is Blithe Spirit, the film?
Blithe Spirit is a 1945 British fantasy-comedy film directed by David Lean.
The screenplay by Lean, cinematographer Ronald Neame and associate producer Anthony Havelock-Allan is based on producer Noël Coward's 1941 play of the same name, the title of which is derived from the line "Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert" in the poem "To a Skylark" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
UK film poster for Blithe Spirit
Source (WP:NFCC#4)
The film features Kay Hammond and Margaret Rutherford, in the roles they created in the original production, along with Rex Harrison and Constance Cummings in the lead parts of Charles and Ruth Condomine.
While not very successful at the time and a disappointing adaptation according to Coward himself, it has since come to be considered notable for its Technicolor photography and Oscar-winning visual effects in particular and has been re-released several times, notably as one of the ten early David Lean features restored by the British Film Institute for release in 2008.
THE PLOT
Seeking background material for a mystery he is working on, novelist Charles Condomine invites eccentric medium Madame Arcati to his home in Lympne, Kent, to conduct a séance.
As Charles, his wife Ruth and their guests, George and Violet Bradman barely restrain themselves from laughing, Madame Arcati performs peculiar rituals and finally goes into a trance.
Charles then hears the voice of his dead first wife, Elvira.
When he discovers that the others cannot hear her, he passes off his odd behavior as a joke.
When Arcati recovers, she is certain that something extraordinary has occurred, but everyone denies it.
After Madame Arcati and the Bradmans have left, Charles is unable to convince Ruth that he was not joking. After Ruth retires for the night, Elvira becomes visible, but only to Charles. He becomes both dismayed and amused by the situation. Relations between Charles and Ruth become strained until he persuades Elvira to act as a poltergeist and transport a vase and a chair in front of his current wife.
Ruth seeks Madame Arcati's help in sending Elvira back where she came from, but the medium professes that she does not know how. Ruth warns her disbelieving husband that Elvira is seeking to be reunited with him by arranging his demise.
However, the spirit miscalculates; Ruth, not Charles, drives off in the car she has tampered with and ends up dead.
A vengeful Ruth, now in spirit form, harasses Elvira to the point that she wants to leave.
In desperation, Charles seeks Madame Arcati's help.
Various incantations fail, until Arcati realises that it was the Condomines' maid Edith who summoned Elvira. Arcati appears to succeed in sending the spirits away, but it soon becomes clear that both have remained. Acting on Madame Arcati's suggestion, Charles sets out on a long vacation.
However, he has a fatal accident as he is driving away, and he joins Elvira and Ruth as a spirit.
I have my resume in here.
____________________________________________
Good Morning on this Friday, the tenth day of May, 2019
Our homily talks about our children growing up, of a sudden.
We posted the weather and date and tracked the number of postings.
Also, a letter from Howard and a cute joke.
And the question and answer taught us about Blithe Spirit, the film.
And now? Gotta go.
Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?
See you soon.
Your love.