Should I have a television category? Should I not censor books into their own category?
Trish lent me the first season of "Gilmore Girls" and she was right that I would like it. I couldn't've watched it as a television show but as 20 hours of smarm-set-in-"Connecticut" it did fine.
The other town troubadour runs a Kinko's in Groton? The town was founded in 1779 but had (or not) a battle in the Revolutionary War, which is chronologically possible but highly unlikely, and what New England town with any pride gives such a late date? Even Old Lyme, which wasn't named until the 1850 split from Lyme, claims "settled" so it can weasel a 17C date. Hartford is 30 minutes away from what seems like a Litchfield County town? Hartford is a nice place for people as displaced in time and culture as the grandparents to live in? (Oh, maybe it's the Hartford from "Judging Amy," another show I tried for the Connecticut tie-in.) You can walk to all these great places in Stars Hollow, which has fewer than ten thousand people and was founded in the 18C but has a distinct downtown with three-story edifices? Driving from Stars Hollow to Hartford takes you past the Gelston House in Haddam?
And don't even get me started on the fact that Lorelai declares she and Chris wouldn't be where they each are if they had got married at 16, as if by contrast being a single, teenaged mother didn't hold her back at all. And that house, and those clothes, on the income of the manager of an inn?
Anti-feminist subtext aside, mostly all I want to say is that Stars Hollow is no Cicely, Alaska--which I'm sure also couldn't exist but at least had a better personality along the way.
Where's season 2?
Reportedly, only Usan English has "fall" and the other Englishes, even Canada's, say "autumn." Autumn is merely a season and might only be poesy, not a season but only a section of calendar for those freaky wrong places where leaves do not fall. Fall is a season and a mood. Fall is wonderful.
This morning I looked out at the birdfeeder that I have left empty since July but neglected to take down, and upon it perched a hopeful finch, the first bird I have seen on it since a week after I left them all to starve. I also noticed raindrops on the last of the nectarine leaves. I took a hint and filled the feeder before retreating to my breakfast. Over no more time than breakfast I watched the rain turn to snow turn to bright blue sky and strong sunlight.
I do like Denver. And fall.
Oh my. Leah Stewart has written a book reminiscent to me of The Dogs of Babel (in tone and forensic storytelling) and The Evolution of Jane (in the rediscovery of self that happens upon the rediscovery of a friend), and Angle of Repose (for family history and an old historian and younger assistant, though the points of view are reversed) and I think of The Archivist too, even though I barely remember it and perhaps only through its title. I love it, even though no one wearing contacts opens her eyes underwater, but whether because its plot and theme are my touchstones or because it's actually good I cannot tell.
Also I'm listening to No Country for Old Men, which I love as I guess I've determined to love all Cormac McCarthy, and Chigurh's search for people who tell him things or not reminds me of Cameron's search for Sonia, and of the trusting people who I hope exist in more than just the pages of fiction.
Just a brisk lovely walk in the park in the late afternoon. Fleece on top, shorts below. A good day.
Over dessert at Café Star (chili chocolate pot du crême for me and Key lime pie for RDC), we saw former neighbors, chatted with the bartender, drooled over the new winter menu, and delighted that all this was here within walking distance in our neighborhood that we love. The bartender comped us a dessert after I told him and RDC about how, at the latest Other bookgroup, a woman asked about new nearby restaurants to take friends to and Kal and I blurted, in unison, "Café Star," and when after our descritpion she continued that these friends lived in Highlands Ranch, we said, again in unison but more emphatically, "Café Star." Suburbanites need to see Colfax Avenue, the grit and vitality of a real city street.
On our walk home I suggested that in whatever kind of town we lived, I'd come up with justifications for why it was the best. The favorite boast of some of our Connecticut friends is that from their houses they can see no neighbors, but though I wouldn't mind space enough for more trees, it's front porches and sidewalk and proximity that make my neighborhood a thriving community. Do people who can't see their neighbors get trick-or-treaters?
The one Connecticut house owned by friends of my generation that I admire is an 18C farmhouse in North Windham--old enough still to have character, near a real town square instead of in the faux country of two-acre lots, imbued with the love that only owners who are doing the work themselves can bestow on a dwelling. RDC pointed out that North Windham is basically Willimantic and who would want to live there, and I countered, "But what is Willimantic other than the Colfax of Connecticut?" He retorted, "Yes, all the heroin and none of the restaurants."
I think Romantic Willimantic has a new tagline.