The Sunday Salon

This weekend, I'm remembering memories. Every week I play a meme called Saturday 9, which is nine questions inspired by a song. Anytime a question about childhood comes up, one of the Sat. 9 regular dismisses it by saying, "That was a long time ago. Who remembers?" This 60-something woman always offers up the same response, whether the question is about childhood songs, birthdays, school teachers, TV shows, or toys. 

Well, I do remember. This week, apropos to nothing (I was cleaning the microwave), a jingle popped into my head. "Come to 5727 South Ashland Avenue. It's Ferrill-Hicks! Ferrill-Hicks!" Suddenly I was a little girl again, transported by memory into the backseat of my parents' car, hearing a commercial from the radio broadcast of The Cubs game.

Through the wonder of the internet. I looked up 5727 South Ashland Avenue in Chicago. It's now a vacant lot, but in the 50s and 60s it was a popular Chevy dealership. I even found this postcard of the dealership. (Postcards seem to be disappearing from our landscape, as well.)

From the early 60s

So how about you? Can you recall any jingles from your childhood?

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Sunday Salon

"There is no such thing as coincidence." That's Rule #39 as decreed by Leroy Jethro Gibbs (the dreamy Mark Harmon), for many seasons the leader of the special agents on NCIS.

I don't care what Gibbs says, I've found coincidences in my reading lately. First of all, I kicked off Pride Month with a biography of Rock Hudson, the actor who became the first public face of AIDS. It wasn't by design. I'd forgotten June was Pride Month. I've wanted to read this bio since I saw two of Rock Hudson's best films at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April, and I just now got to it. Still, when I finished it, I was sad that he lived his life so deep in the closet. He seemed like a nice, hardworking, gentle man. I wish he hadn't had to live with the fear of exposure.

Then I picked up Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline. I chose it because my library app (Hoopla) recommended it. I find Scottoline books diverting so I clicked on it. Guess what: it's about a judge who has a secret and is terrified of exposure.

I don't know what I'll read next, but I hope it's light and frothy. After all this intrigue and suspense, I'd like to spend time with people whose secrets are, to borrow from the movie Cabaret, as "fatale as an after dinner mint."

What about you? Do you find patterns to your reading/viewing? Do you plan it that way, or does it just happen?

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Sunday Salon

I'm a little in love.  His name is Andy Carpenter. He's a defense attorney in New Jersey. He's got money, millions he just recently inherited, and that gives him the freedom to only take cases he believes in. He's also got baggage: an ex-wife. He has a smart mouth and a rebellious streak that gets him in trouble at times but endears him to me. Best of all, he's into rescuing and re-homing shelter dogs and can't go very long without mentioning his golden retriever, Tara.

Andy is the creation of David Rosenfelt, the centerpiece of a series of legal thrillers. I just started Book #3 in a series of 26 and counting. I enjoy them as much for Andy as I do for the courtroom drama. 

Before Andy there was Archie Goodwin. I had a mad crush on him. I know what Archie did for a living, but I'm not sure what to call his occupation. He worked for genius detective Nero Wolfe as ... appointment secretary, bookkeeper, and private investigator. He was as smart as he was versatile. Next to his photographic memory, his greatest gift was annoying people in positions of power. I loved how he genuinely loved women and could find something attractive in just about every female he met -- her shapely ankle or turned up nose or maybe a note he hears in her voice or an intelligence in her eyes. I wondered how he would describe me. 

Rex Stout gave me Archie. Robert Goldsborough took over the Nero Wolfe series in the 1980s and for the most part has maintained Archie's integrity and attitude.

Both Andy and Archie love baseball. I love baseball. Sigh.

What about you? Are there any characters from a continuing series that you especially enjoy spending time with?

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Upstairs, Downstairs

This week has been all about big households and servants.  It wasn't by design. It just happened this way.

•  I'm a big fan of Downton Abbey and caught the new movie at my local theater yesterday. I wanted to see it before I read or heard too much about it. (I loved it.) Anyway, it shares the parallel points-of-view of the aristocratic Crawley family and their loyal staff.

•  My movie group is discussing Cluny Brown, so I have to finish it before tomorrow's meet up. This 1946 movie is about an English girl (Cluny) whose uncle/guardian is concerned about her tomboyish ways and sends her off to a grand country house. There, as a parlor maid, she will see firsthand how ladies behave. There's romance and mistaken identity and hijinks.

•  Then there's our nation's grand house, the one on Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm reading First Ladies: The Ever Changing Role. Because the role has no job description, each First Lady has handled it in her own way. Whatever else she does, there's one constant: Every First Lady is responsible for managing the White House staff of butlers, maids, cooks, and gardeners.

Was there a theme to your reading and watching this week?

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Trying to keep parallel lines parallel

I admit I'm having trouble keeping my plots straight. First I began a thriller: The Marriage Lie. It's about a woman who learns distressing things about the man she was shared her life with and was sure she loved ... after his death. It's my second book by Kimberly Belle, and it's wonderfully suspenseful. 

Then I started bingeing on The Flight Attendant. In Season One, Kaley Cuoco is a flight attendant who parties a bit too hearty during a layover in Bangkok and can't recall how she ended up in bed with a dead guy. She unwisely decides that the only way to clear her name is to solve the murder herself. 

The book and movie were very different in tone, but both involved mysterious deaths from anything but natural causes, and both have plenty of intrigue and secrets. And I found myself confusing elements of the two stories.

How do you deal with this? Do you try to alternate genres so this can't happen? What's your secret?

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Sunday Salon

This weekend, I'm thinking about new vs redo. I just got back from the TCM Film Festival in Hollywood. Sponsored by Turner Classic Movies, it give us classic films fans a chance to enjoy old movies on the big screen. I loved it. Loved. It. This was my second festival, and I'm already planning to go next year. But it's expensive, and won't leave me much in my travel budget for other trips in 2023.

At the Festival, I chose 11 movies. Four were new to me, 7 were rewatches. In preparation for my trip, I reread Furious Love, the story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the Hollywood-est couple ever. 

On HBO Max, I recently binged on The West Wing. I loved that show, and realized that while I remember the characters and their personalities very well, plot details were lost to time so I was quite engaged. But here's the thing: there are almost a gazillion shows I haven't yet seen.

So that's my dilemma: Do I luxuriate in enjoying old favorites -- be they movies, books, TV shows or destinations -- or do I try new things?

How do you deal with this? Do you reach for the new experience or do you long to return to a favorite? Or have you decided that new vs. redo doesn't matter as long as you enjoy your choice?

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Sunday Salon

 

I'm thinking about two books today. I'm not going to give them a thumbs-up/thumbs-down. This post will be more concerned with their genres than the actual books themselves.

•  Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood. Why does this single novel have four authors? Because it's a reimagining of Little Women, and each March sister has her own voice and, therefore, her own author. This time it's set in the 1940s, The March family is reeling from two blows: the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Beth's fatal illness. I know Gone with the Wind received a similar treatment in the 1990s with a sequel called Scarlett. (Though Alexandra Ripley left Rhett and Scarlett in the 1800's.) Are there classics that you'd like to see updated or continued?

•  All About All About Eve is an exhaustive look at the making of the 1950 film, All About Eve. To this day it remains the only movie to receive four Oscar nominations for its lead actresses. That's how good it is. Influential, too. One of its lines, "Fasten your seatbelts! It's going to be a bumpy night!" has made its way into the vernacular, and it spawned a Tony Award winning play and Emmy nominated made-for-TV movie (both called Applause). Author Sam Staggs tells us how a short story in Cosmopolitan magazine started this juggernaut, explains the role of the set designers and costume designers as well as the writer/director, and dissects the performances (and off-screen shenanigans) of the actors. Staggs tried to interview the last surviving cast member, Oscar-nominated Celeste Holm, when he began this book. She refused to cooperate, saying, "A work of art speaks for itself. A book like this is a waste of time." Do you agree? Do you enjoy the reviews and analysis of a book, movie, poem or play? Or do you prefer to let the art speak for itself?

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Sunday Salon

 

It's Oscar Day, so let's talk movies! This is my Super Bowl. Here's how I'm celebrating:

•  Naturally, I'm going to the movies. The Music Box Theater here in Chicago put together a special program honoring Academy Award winning actress Cher. My friend Elaine and I are going to see a matinee of Mask, which is my favorite Cher performance. She plays the ferocious mother of a special needs son.

•  I'm reading about an Oscar-honored movie, All About All About Eve. All About Eve is one of my go-to movies. I love the dialog, the dresses, the performances, so this up-close-and-personal accounting of how it was made fascinates me.

•  Of course I'll have the awards show on tonight. I've seen 8 of the 10 Best Actor/Best Actress performances. Here's my prediction. Best Actress: Jessica Chastain; Best Actor: Will Smith. Though if I were voting, I may have cast my ballot for Andrew Garfield in Tick ... Tick ... Boom! Will Smith was very good as Venus and Serena's dad, and it's been fun to watch him grow up before my eyes, going from the Fresh Prince to a serious actor. But I could not take my eyes off Andrew Garfield in Tick ... Tick ... Boom! (It's on Netflix.)

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The Sunday Salon

 

I belong to a classic film group. Every week our moderator chooses a movie and then we get together via Zoom to discuss it. We just watched Unfaithfully Yours, a 1948 romantic comedy about an imperious conductor and his younger wife, whom he believes is cheating. It seems everyone had something glowing to say about it.

"I loved it!" "I watched it twice." "One of my favorites!"

I hated it. I thought the conductor was an overbearing narcissist and, while I never for a moment believed his wife was unfaithful, I wouldn't have blamed her if she was.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever seen something, or read something, that absolutely everyone is raving about so you wondered if somehow you got a different copy?

I made progress on the biography I'm reading: Lady Bird and Lyndon by Betty Caroli. I'm very ambivalent about LBJ. His work on civil rights and Medicare was spectacular and truly life changing. Vietnam? What a painful chapter that was! Anyway, as I make my way through 480 pages, I'm surprised anew by how quickly Lady Bird fell in love with him and how committed she remained. She was 22 -- a financially independent new college grad starting out on life -- when she was fixed up with the 26-year-old politician. Three months later they married. It was the most impulsive thing this cautious woman would ever do in her life, but she never looked back, never wavered. 

I gotta tell you: I don't get it. Bird was so smart, a natural businesswoman. She also had tremendous people skills. Except for a stepmother she didn't trust, it doesn't seem she made any real enemies throughout her entire life. Yet she seemed to feel lucky to have married this man! I think he married up. A friend's mom used to advise us: girls, there's a lid for every pot. Maybe she was right, and these two were made for each other. At any rate, I think LBJ hit the jackpot when he went on that blind brunch date with Bird.

Do you believe there's someone for everyone?

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The Sunday Salon

 

This is my first time participating. It's the first Sunday in March, so I'm going to start by looking back at the books I read in February.

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom by Carl Bernstein. A highly-entertaining memoir and candid look at the last part of the 20th century. 4 stars out of 5

Careful What You Wish For by Hallie Ephron.  A mystery by a writer with a sure hand. I think of books like this as candy bars. I enjoyed it while devouring it, but I doubt I'll still be thinking of it often or ever six months from now. 3 stars

She Made Me Laugh by Richard M. Cohen.  Cohen's affectionate memoir of his decades-long friendship with Nora Ephron (Hallie's older sister). I'm such a fan of Nora's that I loved it before I even picked it up. 4 stars

My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle.  A thriller that's actually thrilling. One of those plots you try to unravel in your imagination when you're forced to put it down and go do other things. BTW, My library's Hoopla's algorithm recommended this, based on what I've read before, and they aced it! 4 stars

Diana by Sara Bradford. A sympathetic but still clear-eyed look at the life of the Princess of Wales. 4 stars

I'm anticipating a grueling workweek ahead. I hope I'm wrong, or if I'm right, I hope I still can carve out a moment to find refuge in books and in cuddling my cats. (I also have a bottle of Bailey's Irish Creme in the refrigerator, just in case!)

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