Week in Seven Words #547

This covers the week of 7/12/20 - 7/18/20.

barbering

The barber works outdoors on a path by the lake. At his station: a chair, a radio, a case of supplies, and scraps of hair softening the ground.

dragonflies

The air above the water is glittering with dragonflies. They swoop around in taut ellipses. They also bring to mind a faint memory, one that remains unrealized: that the word "dragonfly" once stood as a code for something, when I was a kid.

humidity

Humidity settles in like a rude, sweaty man arriving late to a concert, filling the seat next to you with body heat and sticky elbows and the moistness of the breath he expels through his mouth. 

pose

People pose before the words Black Lives Matter, which have been painted in large yellow letters on the street. When they're done taking selfies and group photos, they walk past a bus stop where two black homeless men are curled up on the ground (#noeyecontact #nocomment #quicksteps).

preserved

A shuttered museum, the garden behind the gates still beautifully tended.

thinly

Small businesses are evaporating, though some restaurants stay afloat with outdoor seating. For pedestrians, there remains a narrow path between tables arranged on sidewalks. Near one cafe, a homeless man sleeps on a discarded sofa, about a dozen feet from diners who can finally say they're eating out.

zooming

The funniest joke I hear this week is the one about the cost of different streaming services. The most expensive one is Harvard, at roughly $50,000 a year.

Week in Seven Words #501

babbling
Round every corner you turn, there's a TV. At least one of them is on at all times, sometimes two.

business
"Please don't take a photo of my work," she says, emerging from her art booth. "Buy it."

disobedience
She hops on my lap to lick watermelon droplets from the table. She disregards the calls for her to stop, and the reminders that she's not supposed to eat from the table, because watermelon is worth being disobedient for. Besides, as a good dog, she gets a lot of leniency, because her main offenses are eating from the table and attempting to steal and eat toilet paper. Nothing serious.

expecting
Feeling a bit sore and bruised inside after receiving entirely positive, detailed feedback on a piece, only to be told vaguely that it's not a good fit.

meatless
Eating a chicken sandwich that tastes mostly like salt, ketchup, and bread.

sinks
The heart-shaped anniversary balloon was bobbing around by the ceiling. Now it sinks towards the tile floor, where it's kicked around by restless feet.

stag
A male deer, looking puzzled and wary, slips into a backyard away from us. We watch him through the gap in the faded wood fence.

Week in Seven Words #462

answered
On the train, a toddler keeps asking why the doors aren't closing yet. His mom rephrases her answer several times, providing explanations that he doesn't seem to understand or accept. Or maybe he just enjoys the series of answers, each one tweaked to be slightly different while remaining reassuringly repetitive at the same time.

cozily
For part of the year, they live in a motor home. It's a little over 24 feet long, with a bed tucked in back, a seating area like a small diner booth, and a shelf full of books above the opening to the cab area.

cravings
She doesn't know what to do with herself without her phone. She craves the infinite scroll, the fresh supply of images.

moderators
Two wolf-like dogs oversee the debate from the sofa. They look mildly interested, and a bit intimidating. Maybe they could be moderators, growling at anyone who goes off-topic.

quest
There needs to be a game in the style of Oregon Trail, only the characters are trying to navigate the phone system of a major corporation with the ultimate goal of speaking to a human being who can provide accurate and complete answers. Along the way, your characters suffer from: disconnected lines, misinformation, long stretches of obnoxious music, rising blood pressure, automated voices that request and fail to process your input, a dozen paths or more and only one leading to competence.

treated
The Ghirardelli squares left on each seat are a lovely touch. Chocolates on chairs, a fantastic way to welcome people to the event.

uncoordinated
The toddler has a helmet with spikes on it. In between bursts of smooth gliding, he trips and topples over his scooter. Picks himself up, looks over his shoulder, and glides and trips and topples again. He's like a baby dinosaur learning to walk.

Week in Seven Words #396

businesslike
There are several groups meeting in the atrium. One is for learning Spanish, another for figuring out how to make your home more neat. Although the neater home group is the one I should be signing up for, I've joined a discussion on streamlining business processes. It takes a while to get started. The host shows up late; most of the people who RSVP'ed don't turn up at all. (The conversation is interesting anyway.)

entertaining
A mariachi band steps into the subway car with the suddenness of a channel change. Everything's bright and lively and loud for a couple of minutes. Later on in the ride, as the train stalls on a bridge, breakdancers appear, a hair's breadth away from head injury as they swing wildly from the poles and do backflips.

gratified
A young boy and his mom sit in the mouth of a blue tent that's backlit by the sun. They take turns blowing bubbles.

happenstance
The different parts of Prospect Park feel only loosely connected. We explore a forest where a stream slips through tumbled rocks. We come to a dog beach where people wade ankle deep and throw toys for their dogs to splash after. A picnic area floats past us at one point, in a mist of smoke. We follow the tail of a larger body of water; it's serpentine and keeps changing shape. Clearings open up, criss-crossed with shadow, and large meadows suddenly spring into view, bared to the sun. These places don't feel like parts of the same park, only that they settled next to each other by chance the day we visited, so we could walk from one to the other.

overspread
In these narrow streets, a theme emerges of brick submerged in leaves. Trees screen polished windows, and plants spill out of window boxes.

preaching
A passionate sermon in a woman's voice resounds through a barred door. It's a storefront church that contains a cauldron of apocalyptic feeling.

transportation
The lower level of the museum is home to vintage train cars, one of them displaying an ad for cocoa with eerie children. The upper level shows a history of city transportation and its challenges, from overcrowding to extensive flooding.

Week in Seven Words #393

assistance
The cart with her belongings clanks against the walls and comes to an uncertain stop at the head of the stairs. Twice, a neighbor passing by helps her move something down to the U-Haul. Another time, it's a homeless guy who makes five bucks for the box he carries.

gather
She joins me at the synagogue that evening. I sit on a cardboard box at her left arm. The seats and floors are filled with people.

gone
One of the stories we hear: A concentration camp inmate, given an opportunity by the Red Cross to send a postcard to someone, realizes there may be no one left who cares whether he's alive or not.

minute
The storage facility reminds me of a video game where you need to adjust your speed and timing to keep from getting shut out and having to start over. The entry doors will stay open for ten seconds, the elevator doors for seven or eight. If you hit someone with your cart, you lose points. Lower level, make a right, then another right. If you hit the walls with your cart, you lose points.

overhead
Street after street, there are empty storefronts, evidence of high rent blight. To run a small business in this environment has become untenable for many.

salable
Hanging baskets of flowers at the farmer's market, nuts and chocolates too. Only the meat and seafood seem suspicious in their sweating coolers.

storybook
On both sides of a narrow apartment building, there are sunny, vibrant gardens with raised beds of flowers, a small fountain spilling its melody, and a gazebo where a woman and her grandchild sit among piles of picture books.

Hobson's Choice (1954): Biting humor and surprising warmth

Title: Hobson's Choice
Director: David Lean
Language: English
Rating: Not Rated

Watching Hobson's Choice made me happy. It's British comedy at its best, with brilliant characters, a tender and hilarious romance, and a satisfying ending.

Set in the late 19th century in England, the movie features Henry Hobson (Charles Laughton), who runs a bootmaking business and who abandons his shop every day to go drinking. He lets himself do this because he's got three grown daughters running the shop for him for free; the younger two are a bit flighty, but the oldest, Maggie (Brenda de Banzie), is smart and has a strong business acumen. He's counting on the fact that she'll remain a spinster and take care of him and his shop until he dies; he's also not too eager to marry off his younger daughters, Alice (Daphne Anderson) and Vicky (Prunella Scales), as he's reluctant to spend money on a wedding. In this way the movie starts: Maggie overseeing the shop and the other daughters helping out, while a talented but extremely humble boothand, Will Mossop (John Mills), toils away in the cellar to make the high-quality footwear the shop is known for. Henry Hobson, in the meantime, drinks and jokes around.

NYC Window-Shopping Walk: Columbus Circle to 5th Avenue to Greenwich Village

This past Thursday, the temperatures peaked in the high 40s, maybe low 50s (Fahrenheit), which is practically a heat wave considering what the winter's been like. Good weather for a walk.

It starts in Columbus Circle.


Walk south to 57th, and then head east, past Carnegie Hall and the Russian Tea Room:


And an antique shop offering wares that look enchanted or cursed:

Worth Watching: Mildred Pierce (1945)

Title: Mildred Pierce
Director: Michael Curtiz
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

The movie opens with a man getting murdered. "Mildred" is the last thing he says. From there, the setting shifts to a nearby dock, where Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) is walking by moonlight. Is she the murderer?

Mildred is the kind of person who could have enjoyed much more success and contentment in life had she not been in the habit of nursing vipers at her breast. One of them is her daughter, Veda (Ann Blyth), who's monstrously spoiled.


The other is Monty (Zachary Scott), a man whose character is so cloying and rotten I found him physically revolting. He starts off as Mildred's lover. Then he becomes her second husband. He's like fruit that's been lying out in the sun for days; he just makes you want to gag.

Worth Watching: Dinner at Eight (1933)

Title: Dinner at Eight
Director: George Cukor
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Dinner at Eight is set among upper class Manhattanites during the Great Depression and ends with a dinner party that's not as important as it's made out to be. The substance of the movie is the build-up to the party: the people on the guest list and the comedy and drama of their lives. As the movie unfolds, you wonder who will show up at the end, and in what state (disillusioned, heartbroken, morose, contented). Who will live and who will die? In the movie some characters suffer setbacks, others double-cross their rivals, and a few make peace with their lives. Private, sordid tragedies are gilded with witty remarks and sharp humor.

Most of the characters in this ensemble movie are memorable, in part because of the well-written screenplay but also because of the quality of the actors. Even the ones in the smaller roles shine, like the maid, Tina, played by Hilda Vaughn, who maintains an appearance of regal boredom while blackmailing her equally sneaky employer, Kitty Packard (Jean Harlow).

Jean Harlow alone is a great reason to watch Dinner at Eight, as she plays the kittenish Kitty, who conducts her day-to-day affairs from her bed. Harlow is funny and makes an art form out of lounging around in satin. Though Kitty is an ignorant person in some ways, she's not to be underestimated, as her husband, Dan (Wallace Beery), finds out. Dan isn't such a stellar guy himself - a coarse and unscrupulous businessman who steamrolls people in pursuit of his ambitions. The Packards' antagonistic marriage is one of the most entertaining parts of the movie, mostly because they deserve each other. Their spats are ridiculous and ugly as each tries to get the upper hand over the other.

Both Lionel Barrymore and his younger brother, John, are in this movie, with Lionel playing a more gray and enervated character, Oliver Jordan, whose business is failing along with his heart. John's character, the washed-up film star, Larry Renault, is a more striking figure. Renault used to be famous, more for his handsome profile than for his acting talent, and in the darkest scene in Dinner at Eight he hits rock bottom. It's one of the most brutal depictions of self-sabotage, despair and self-loathing I've seen so far in movies (the brief helpless sobbing noise John Barrymore makes is haunting). But even at the end of that scene there's a faint touch of humor, as he adjusts himself so that his beautiful profile is facing the door.

In a way those who make it to the dinner at the end are survivors. The character who's probably best at surviving is Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler), an esteemed stage actress who has weathered fame, shifting fortunes, and numerous male admirers and reached an advanced age where her looks have faded but her strength of mind has not; she's not as self-deluded as some of the other characters. Dressler has a fascinating face, especially her eyes, which sometimes seem to be staring at horrors only she can see. Carlotta's charm and sense of humor keep her afloat, and I love how Dressler delivers her lines, which are among the funniest in the movie; the last word in Dinner at Eight belongs to her.

Carlotta is also a good example of how the characters' lives are interwoven in the movie. She's Oliver Jordan's former love interest and current friend, welcomed by him with sweet happiness no matter what else is going on in his life. She's friendly with his snobbish wife, Millicent (Billie Burke - "Glinda the Good" in The Wizard of Oz), who's throwing the big dinner party. And at one point she becomes the confidante and advisor of his daughter, Paula (Madge Evans), when the young woman desperately needs some guidance.

Dinner parties are great scenarios because of everything that lurks beneath the polite formalities. Appearances must be maintained, and people who despise each other shake hands, embrace and pretend they're friends. People who are crushed have to swallow their pain and look untroubled. In this wonderful movie there isn't a single personal secret that's fully a secret; however none of the guests knows everything about the others. Like all people, they act on a mix of imperfect knowledge and obliviousness.