Brain food - Shortly after John Updike died in January, Dick Cavett blogged about interviewing Updike and John Cheever on the same show in 1981. People begged to see it. So he wrote a follow-up post on his New York Times blog, accompanied by the full program. Wow. The post, the video, just wow. And even if you don’t have 30 minutes to watch it, hearing the opening theme again is like catnip.
News you can use - Consumerist tells us four reasons why we should not book hotel rooms through third-party sites, such as Expedia and Travelocity. If you’re looking for the best price, it says that is not the way to go. And its parent, Consumer Reports, answers the question: Is it safe to buy meat when the sell-by date is about to expire?
Artsy-fartsy stuff - The world can’t even agree who wrote the stuff, so why am I not surprised there’s disagreement about what Shakespeare looked like? We have a new clue after a portrait surfaced that is said to be the only one painted in his lifetime. And back in January, my blogger pal Ian in Hamburg was visiting London and his friend snapped an evocative photo of Hitchcock in the snow. This was during the 8 to 10 inches of snow (”blizzards” in the parlance of British tabs) that brought the city to a halt.
Passings - Two favorite actors died recently. Wendy Richard, known to American Britcom fans as Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? but better known at home for her long-running role in the soap East Enders, died February 26 after her third bout with cancer. She was 65. She loved to cook and left instructions for her recipe for chili con carne to be printed on the order of service for her funeral. And it was. It’s a huge recipe and I can just imagine her using her Miss Brahms cockney voice and saying ‘ere! as she ladled it out.
Natasha Richardson’s death you know about, but you might not know about a little gem of a film from 1994 she was in that I enjoyed so much I bought it on laser disc back in the day. It’s called Widows’ Peak, also starring Mia Farrow and the always-wonderful Joan Plowright. Critics loved it, the public took a pass. I think the reason it flopped in most parts of this country is the studio wasn’t sure how to market it and had a mishmosh of ads. Comedy? Mystery? Indie? Yes to all, and IMDB has trailers. Richardson played the Mysterious Stranger and I won’t say more, but when you’re looking for a movie to rent, you could do a lot worse than this one.
Strayin’ Alive - And finally, any story about my forever favorite Bee Gee, Robin Gibb, catches my eye, but I think any story about anybody would catch my eye with the following sentence: “Friends say that Dwina, a bisexual former druid priestess, had previously given her blessing to her husband’s eight-year affair with Miss Yang but now feels ‘betrayed’.”
That packs a punch with an economy of words, doesn’t it? Dwina is his wife of a bazillion years in an open marriage, Claire Yang is was their housekeeper and is the mother of Robin’s new baby. He is, by the way, 59. Years. Old. Yang is 33.
Britain’s Daily Mail reported the story in early February, and the final line quoted here still holds as understatement of the year to date:
The former lover of a pornographic film director, David Waterfield, she [Dwina] has been a devotee of various religions and once proclaimed herself as a druid priestess.
In recent years, she has been a member of a Hindu sect called the Daughters of Brahma, whose members are meant to be celibate.
A friend of the couple said: ‘It’s an incredibly unusual arrangement.’
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve never been an Updike fan, but when the NYT published his obituary poem “Requiem,” I was bowled over.
Updike was keenly aware of what he was, and more importantly, wasn’t.
I think I underestimated him because I thought him so overesteemed.
As a human and writer, he cherished few illusions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/opinion/29updike.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=john%20updike%20poem&st=cse
Thanks for this entry.
Word Bandit’s last blog post..Misplaced Sympathies?
I can take or leave Updike and much prefer Cheever, but I’m a lifelong Cavett fan and love his blog. I ought to stick in the blogroll, now that I think of it. Anyway, those two posts were so engaging and the show just sparkled. And I did see Updike through new eyes.
Good point about his awareness. I think Norman Rockwell had that same knowing of what he was not — an artist. He was an illustrator and a damn good one and I think he knew that and didn’t pretend otherwise.
How sad that a mediocre, treacly illustrator like that Kinkaid guy considers himself to be an artist and is accepted as such by millions who consider his uninspired chocolate box illustrations “art.”
Hey, thanks for the link to Alfred!
That photo I must however credit to my friend Douglas, who was snowed in on the Monday and Tuesday and mailed me that shot. It’s right outside his front door in the courtyard. We had escaped the London chaos the night before, flying out of Luton only an hour or so before it started snowing for the next day or so.
Hi, Ian – my pleasure. I really do love that photo and while I certainly remember your caveat about Luton, I forgot that detail. I tend to just stare at the photo when I visit it. I will correct the text.