Okay, I say that deliberately sounding like Mr. Emerson in "A Room with a View." Ooops.
I had not seen RKC for five years, since she was 17, and her friend Sarah for longer than that--probably since 1995 at CKC's high school graduation party. RKC is all tall now, I think the tallest of the three, I think even a smidge taller than I.
Sarah was never a victim of mine but she remembers getting piggyback rides, which I hardly doubt. The best game a babysitter can play is to be human furniture or a cat jungle gym. They both remember when I used to carry all three of my girls around at once, RKC being one of the carry-ees and Sarah being impressed when she witnessed it. When I was 18 and strong as hell, they were 9, 7, and 5 and I could stagger a few steps with them slung about my various limbs.
Since last time, RKC has graduated from high school, attended college, and most important devoted a year to AmeriCorps, which seems to have been one of those life-changing events that shape your whole future. I love being so proud of her.
It was also tremendously reassuring to have her here. They drove up from Tucson by way of Albuquerque, and RKC opined that "Colorado could not be more beautiful." That, coming from another Old Lyme native, who therefore knows natural beauty when she sees it, was wonderful to hear--especially since they only drove up the interstate, alongside not through the Sangre de Cristo and other lumpy bits.
She said she'd thought she'd got used to the desert enough to find it beautiful, but as soon as she saw the green of the Colorado mountains she realized what she'd been missing. I know I have to get over my geographical assumptions--considering how irritating I find it when people insist that Denver's in, not next to, the mountains--but if Colorado is green (to a Connecticut eye) compared to Arizona, then I think the Grand Canyon is as much of that state as I need to see. But then in Animal Dreams there are orchards and flowing water, so not all of it can be sere and ochre.
They had been in the car--she's keeping up the family tradition of Volvo station wagons, I was glad to see--all day and I suggested a stroll around City Park. This they also liked, the pond and the pavilion and the view from behind the Museum of Nature and Science. Stormclouds rolled through, though it was clear over the mountains, which could not but improve the view.
We had a really nice visit, though too short. And I learned that the middle one--whom I haven't seen for four years--plans to visit in August.
Fiona Shaw plays one of my favorite characters in "Persuasion," Mrs. Croft. I finally bothered to look her up and she plays Aunt Petunia Dursley as well.
It's called acting, I know. But it's the same startlement I felt when I realized that Daniel Day Lewis played such unlike characters in "My Left Foot" and "Room with a View" and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," or that Jonathan Pryce, so endearingly geeky in "Brazil," was the foxy shill for Infiniti cars.
Two 3.8-mile city rides, the homeward again in a stiff wind, at least until I gained the shelter of the residential, tree-filled areas.
Now, this is summer. Minne, who's lived in Denver three times, or four, as long as I have, says that this is summer as it's meant to be: hot but not unendurable (of course it's only June, and only beginning to hot up), with dependable afternoon storms.
I am really liking Denver this year.
Why must there be such campy caricature in every single Jane Austen adaptation? in "Persuasion," Sir Elliot is portrayed as quite silly, rightly silly, exactly silly enough, but Elizabeth Elliot is over the top and not nearly as attractive as either Anne or even Mary, which doesn't suit the family dynamic. In "Pride and Prejudice," Caroline Bingley isn't nearly as attractive as she ought to be, and it's not just that she overspends on her wardrobe. And no one who married Mr. Hurst could possibly sneer at the Bennets.
Okay, that's two. I don't count "Mansfield Park"--of course Fanny Price is not palatable to the contemporary audience but she doesn't take nearly as well to "Oh and I happen to be the author in her youth" as Jo March does in the latest "Little Women." "Sense and Sensibility" is well cast. Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't look like Emma Woodhouse nor Toni Collette like Harriet Smith nor Euan Macgregor like Frank Churchill nor what's-her-name like Jane Fairfax (or she did, plus about ten years) but at least they're not campy. The only one I don't have is the Kate Beckinsale "Emma."
Satire, yes; foolishness, yes. Camp, no.
Now I'm done with "Persuasion" and I've cranked up "Sense and Sensibility," which I've worn a groove into. Man I love this movie.
Besides that Jane Austen fetishism is my usual state of being, one of my birthday gifts finally arrived. My mother-in-law gave me a gift certificate to Amazon and I indulged myself with The Making of Pride and Prejudice (and Out of Africa and Quincunx). I am all about paying attention to the man behind the curtain.
Pictures! Pictures of Colin Firth! Pictures of all the rest of them, including David Bamber, who played Mr. Collins, looking--quite startlingly--kind of attractive, in a Wes Bentley circa "American Beauty" kind of way.
Also some words. I was particularly interested in the research process. The Complete Servant, published in 1825. Digging through sketchily cataloged stores of wigs and hats. How to light a scene so it can be filmed without forgetting that in 1813 there was neither a constantly full moon nor the convenient 20th-century fallback of damping black asphalt for better reflectivity.