Monday, October 9, 2017

Christopher...


...Columbus! I hope you've had a very pleasant weekend; it's the holiday I generally think of as "Oh, that's right - we have a day off on Monday" 'round about 3:00 p.m. on Friday.

Beyond that, my association to the Genoan explorer himself extends mostly to thinking about Katharine Hepburn as Jo March (on the off chance you're wondering why, go here).  My affection for this particular great lady is rather more moderate than has been the general style over the years, but in Little Women I concede her perfection (ditto Holiday, Bringing Up Baby, and The Lion in Winter, to name just a few).

As for us, it's characteristically quiet hereabouts. As it was a gray, dank day, neither quite summery nor autumnal, the dog walking was curtailed, with napping and iPad Scrabble filling in the gaps around laundry and cooking. A chicken-and-leftovers casserole is bubbling happily in the oven at the moment, and I think perhaps I'll see if I can't track down some forgotten B-movie treasure online. If worst comes to worst, there's always Kay Francis's attempt at a Little Women sequel, Little Men (part of Warner's attempt to drive her from the studio by giving her dreck* and long in the public domain), but I'm afraid it might only make me feel even more warmly about Kate, and who knows where that might end?

* Some idea of this epic's mise en scène (not to mention its non-Alcottishness) can be gleaned from knowing that Miss Francis, erstwhile Queen of the Lot, is given equal billing - under the title - with Elsie, "The Moo Girl of the New York World's Fair," as "Buttercup." Yup - Elsie the Borden Cow had her cinematic debut in a Kay Francis movie...

2 comments:

  1. as a federal employee, I ADORED Columbus Day. All the bankers and other private sector minions would look baffled and then enraged when I would explain that I would not be available because of the sacred holy day, the only the confectionary companies have not figured out a way to cash in on. Probably because of its obscurity.

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  2. You have a bank holiday to celebrate an Italian man who worked for the Spanish Empire, and never set foot on the North American mainland? That is almost as strange as the Irish celebrating the tenuous "life" of a holy Welsh swineherd by drinking a black'n'white brew that had its origins in the markets and docks of London... Jx

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