I’m pretty ambivalent about the Olympics. I watched the opening ceremonies so that I could hear the announcer say “ceremony” the British way, and because I love a good national spectacle. I was thrilled to hear Branagh recite Shakespeare, I am always teary when I hear the opening strains of “Jerusalem,” and I admired the man-made Tor that acted as centerpiece to Danny Boyle’s history of Great Britain.
He lost me somewhere around the Industrial Revolution hand jive, and I was kind of skeeved out by the childrens’ nightmare sequence with “Tubular Bells” and a gigantic baby; taken as a whole, the idea seemed to be that children were tucked into bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital by smiling, dancing doctors and nurses and then abandoned to nightmarish characters from literature until they were all saved by a fleet of Mary Poppinses. Presumably the Marys speared Voldemort, The Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, et al with their proper British bumbershoots and eased the minds of all of us who associate “Tubular Bells’ with Linda Blair’s green and rotating head.
But I digress. My problem with the Olympics has nothing to do with its location (a place, frankly, that I would rather be than where I actually am) and everything to do with sports-related media. If a person is interested in watching Olympic coverage during prime time, which is the only time we watch television in this house, one is necessarily watching network coverage. Network coverage is kind of like “American Idol” with contestants who swim, vault and run. Favorites are cultivated, highlighted and vignetted; we are basically fed everything we need to know about who will probably win, who we should like, and why.
The Wild Boar (a.k.a. my husband) and I were having a little contest yesterday trying to decide who had a worse day. He won.
I never expected to visit Dijon. But on my first trip to France, I asked
my Parisian friends for suggestions for where to go and they said Dijon
and nearby Beaune, so off I went. The historic capital of Burgundy,
Dijon is a dramatic looking city with lots to do and see. It has many
museums, churches, medieval buildings with gargoyles and stunning
geometrically patterned roofs of green, white, yellow, black and terra
cotta ceramic tiles.
Oscar night approaches and something is missing. My kids. The nest is empty, and 364 days a year I’m fine with that. But not on Oscar night. Let me tell you why. Growing up, kids are like natural hostages. Until they get their driver’s license, they’re pretty much always there. And the night of the Academy Awards was no different. On that night in March (now February) my children, the two cats and I would gather in front of our living room or sometimes bedroom TV and take it all in. This was before we all had wide screens that now make the event seem like a private Oscar party. It was just a modest little TV. We’d sit in rapt attention and watch what to me was the most exciting part. Everyone’s magical entrance. The Red Carpet.
As each stunning actress made her way through the gauntlet of tedious interviews, I would ooh and aah at how beautiful she was. That’s when my kids would turn to me, me sitting there in my dirty sweats, my unkempt hair tied above in a twisted knot, no makeup, and assure me that I was even prettier!!! I’m not kidding. No matter who the actress was or how young and beautiful, my kids would yell, in unison, that I was MUCH prettier. “You’re MUCH prettier than her, mom!!” Don’t get me wrong, I know they were humoring me, I’m not delusional, but I bought it. And, I looked forward to it every year.
Cinespia screenings on the side of the mausoleum at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery have been staples of Los Angeles summertime since their first screening in 2000. Still, I was too afraid to attend until last summer. I thought watching icon filled movies amidst the sleeping corpses of the icons themselves would be too tempting to their ghosts. Would not an actor or director or musician—narcissistic by trade—want to take a final curtain call? Wouldn’t the music of applause be enough to wretch their resting spirits from eternal slumber? So I left the screenings to burgeoning hipsters and longtime cinephiles and chose to rent classic movies at Vidiots instead.