Week in Seven Words #572

This covers the week of 1/3/21 - 1/9/21.

abed

Tousled hair, face smushed into the pillow, cold air leaking in.

attends

Applying for a job, she wonders how she can make her qualifications look more impressive. "Doesn't fall asleep during Zoom meetings, usually," is a good one.

continue

Stay calm, and keep writing.

friend

Whenever I hear from her, I think about how glad I am that we're friends.

incapacitated

Once seated at the piano, she merely stares at the keys. She doesn't know how to begin, because inside her there's no music, only knots of fear.

morbid

As soon as I start slipping into helpless spectator mode, I try to wrench my attention away from the news.

unsteadily

Buildings in the background, denuded trees in the foreground, and slick muddy paths that make the world wobble.

Week in Seven Words #482

miscommunication
Phone calls yielding false information, corrections, sarcasm from rude receptionists, repetition (what's your date of birth? what's your insurance?).

nibbling
Throughout the afternoon, I enjoy samples of the food she's prepared.

opulence
A silvery waterfall in a marble lobby. The tap-tap of heels, the squeak of leather shoes.

peaceable
I enjoy singing with them. I enjoy his jokes. We walk back on a cool, windy night.

scene
Some of the characters: A chatty widow with a chin that looks like a weedy garden; another woman, quiet and carefully put together, wearing creamy makeup and eating her cake with quick, tidy bites; a young man propelled by wine and joy to dance at the end of the meal with two other men, their shirts crawling out of their pants, their faces flushed.

services
Going to a different type of synagogue. I notice what's been truncated in the service and omitted deliberately or carelessly. I also notice the atmosphere of geniality, welcome, and compassion.

stuck
She prays for people who are feeling stuck. I close my eyes, hearing this prayer.

Week in Seven Words #480

betrayal
More schools handing out high grades based on low standards. They lull students into a complacency that's shattered by failed statewide exams.

dirt
The fierce wind blows dirt into our eyes. The dirt is loose because nothing has been planted yet. Only a few stringy weeds have claimed the soil.

do-si-do
We're stumbling through the steps for completing the square, as if we're in a clumsy mathematical square dance with no feel for the music. Just going through the motions.

duck
A duck puffing and rustling with deep blue in its wings, looking like an agitated decorative pillow.

glares
She urges me to admire the chandelier, to contemplate its intricate beauty, but it's blazing, and my eyes hurt.

together
People gather in the park to fish, share a blanket, feel fresh air, catch at a friendship that's slipping away.

turtle
A turtle on a rock, its head tilted up as if it's scenting the weather.

Nine Short Stories That Involve Friendship in Some Way

Title: The Devoted Friend
Author: Oscar Wilde
Where I Read It: The Happy Prince and Other Tales

"'There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow lasts,' the Miller used to say to his wife, 'for when people are in trouble they should be left alone, and not be bothered by visitors. That at least is my idea about friendship, and I am sure I am right. So I shall wait till the spring comes, and then I shall pay him a visit, and he will be able to give me a large basket of primroses and that will make him so happy.'

The Miller is wealthier than Hans not only materially but also in wisdom. He has such strong ideas about what a good friendship should look like and makes sure that Hans lives up to them. Even if this results in Hans giving and giving to the point of death, while the Miller benefits without losing anything at all, the Miller will still be able to pat himself on the back for being a steadfast, devoted friend.

Title: Fish
Author: Lienna Silver
Where I Read It: Los Angeles Noir

The story features older Russian immigrants living in Los Angeles. The main character, Ivan Denisovich, was forced into a gulag earlier in his life (the character is an allusion to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn). These days, Ivan lives comfortably, though he isn't entirely satisfied with his life and feels out of place in California. In the course of the story, he heads out on a fishing trip with a much more easygoing friend; their lifelong friendship, which has spanned continents, has given Ivan's life a greater sense of stability and continuity. But by the end of the story, he learns some things about his friend. Should he react in anger? Because what would anger change, anyway, late in life.

Title: A Friend in the Trade
Author: William Trevor
Where I Read It: The Hill Bachelors

This is a surprisingly moving story about a married couple (Clione and James) who part ways from an odd, often self-absorbed friend (named Michingthorpe). They're about to move out into the country, and because Michingthorpe doesn't have a car, he likely won't come by anymore.

Their friendship has a professional basis, as they're all working in the book trade, but Michnigthorpe has become more than a professional connection. He's a part of their life in a way that feels more personal. He's probably in love with Clione, even if he doesn't (or can't) show it in a conventional way. Also, he appears to need the couple more than they need him. Few other people – maybe no one else – would spend time with him as they do.

Whatever the true nature of Michingthorpe's attachment, Clione doesn't want to write him off as just some oddball with poor social skills.

She does not know why he will not come, only that he won't. She does not know why the pity she feels is so intensely there, only that it is and that his empty love is not absurd.

Week in Seven Words #464

appeasing
The small box of chocolates is a gift of appeasement, and I'm pleased to be appeased at this moment.

bite-sized
It's important to trust in small tasks. To fight the tendency of trying to catch up by doing too much all at once, failing, and feeling discouraged.

crinkle
The surface of the lake looks like crinkly photographic film, black and white.

denouement
The day is fading, leaving a last gentle imprint of light on windows and bricks. We walk in silence.

lazily
For a minute, he embodies laziness. He lies on the floor. Pretends to need other people to tug him to his feet and into motion.

loft
We enjoy a discussion that makes us feel cozy and connected, in a room many stories up with a view of steel and blue shadows.

refreshments
None of the foods are appetizing. Not the sticky muffins, not the pretzels crackling like dry grass. But we appreciate that they've been laid out for us; we weren't expecting refreshments.

Week in Seven Words #430

canine
An impromptu playdate for a couple of dogs. One of them shivers on his owner's lap. The other is a little rocket of a dog, testing the limits of his leash. They sniff at each other for several minutes.

cheering
I receive a book by mail from a friend. She calls me inimitable.

degraded
The problem with these political conversations isn't the agreement or disagreement. The problem is that conceding anything or introducing nuance is considered a personal defeat and a betrayal of "your side." The assumption underlying each conversation is that you're aren't going to achieve a greater understanding. It's that you're going to do everything to destroy the other person, and that includes relying on underhanded tactics such as misrepresentation. Don't listen closely or think too much, just attack.

formations
Rocks are mounted up the sides of the reservoir, with ducks squashed into the crannies, their heads tucked into their backs. Pods of turtles blend in with the rock.

grouping
With peony robes and flickering fans, the girls rehearse a dance show at the foot of the hill.

mineraloid
Magnolia blossoms, before they open, look like mineral formations.

sprouted
From the soil of the first draft, a second draft has emerged. It's thin and in some places sickly, but shows promise of fuller color and foliage.

Week in Seven Words #410

curtailing
On a walk down the dark path, I hear the rat traps popping by the side of the building.

enchantment
Leaves are spiraling down, swirling around my head, and a bright moon is peeking past the edge of a skyscraper.

fueling
One chocolate chip cookie helps him through math. The second cookie remains uneaten, and he has poked his pencil through it in frustration.

one-time
I don't know what else is going on in their lives or if they'll even be back next week, but I appreciate that they're here now - a group of men and women playing folk music in the waning light.

rapport
I like how she and I slip into easy conversation as if we haven't not spoken for several years.

slackening
Now and then, I dose myself with an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a show that's funny and undemanding.

tectonics
The assignment moves towards completion, one paragraph after another. The paragraphs sometimes shift position for greater flow and cohesion. It's a slow but inexorable process.

Week in Seven Words #405

calming
It's a gentle room. Blonde wood floors, small folding chairs, purple, pink, and light blue yoga mats rolled up in the corner. A diaphanous, dark curtain has been drawn across the floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

celebrating
For his son's birthday, he asks other family members to send in warm greetings and anecdotes that collectively create a picture of the young man's character and all the good he's done for the people close to him.

concert
At the subway station, there's a heavy, happy woman belting out James Brown's "I Feel Good," and her performance is full of real joy. A few hours later, on my return trip, I see that she's gone, and in her place are a small group of men that seem to be combining a bagpipe with jazz, an effort more creative than successful.

disposition
I'm settled awkwardly at a table, sipping spiked cider and not sure I'll find anyone to talk to. Two people find me though. They're lovely, and the afternoon swims by on laughter and food.

grimly
A few hours spent looking up health insurance rates and coverage.

stuffing
Our afternoon is hurrying to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant for greasy food, eating it too quickly at a small park, and running to catch a movie. Bloated but satisfied, we arrive late enough to miss the previews.

vibes
Is this guy flirting with me? He's in my personal space, but he's from a culture where personal space is minimal, so I don't know. He's also touching my arm a lot and talking at length about James Bond. It's one of those times I wish I could read social cues more easily. In any case, I learn a lot about James Bond.

Week in Seven Words #357

dessert
Pumpkin pie filling rises between the tines of my fork.

hooked
The choice of entertainment falls to the youngest child. He picks a documentary on fish that weigh a lot. Everyone winds up gathering at the TV to watch.

hushing
She calms her patients with soft string music, a dish-sized fountain, and a murmured mantra.

inordinate
A parent, embarrassed by his children's bickering, loses his temper. His overreaction is significantly more embarrassing than anything his children have done.

juxtaposition
One of the apps on her phone lets her make movie trailers. The latest one features a bad-tempered dance instructor and the floating head of a unicorn.

membrane
The waiting room is part of a suite of doctors' offices. The sofa cushions are stiff. I toy with a book, without reading it. Through a thin wall, I hear wracking coughs and a low, anxious voice.

reconnecting
It's been a year since we last spoke, and it would be a shame if we never spoke again. I email her, and she replies with warmth and surprise. We're still friends.

Week in Seven Words #314

absolution
They love talking about actions having consequences, until it comes to something they've done. Then, good intentions are all that matter.

absorbers
She writes a tribute to her friends, the three closest, who cluster around her when shockwaves spread through her life.

coagulation
The greatest gift her parents gave her, she writes, is a love of cheese. Cheese platters and wine are what hold her family together at home and abroad.

guesswork
We play charades. I act out a kangaroo. "Karate bunny!" she shouts. I try again.

moth
The boy runs straight at the headlights. He cries when his parents snatch him away.

rebounds
The basketball flies around like Flubber in the cluttered room.

unused
Dark windows and deserted streets tell me stories I don't know how to interpret. Some neighborhoods wither like unwatered vines, and it isn't always clear why.

The dancing isn't the best thing about Dancing Lady (1933) and Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Older Hollywood movies often called on actors to display singing and dancing talent (and the movie industry actively recruited people from musical theater and vaudeville). Many of these movies are set in Hollywood's conception of a Broadway theater. And they can be pretty uneven, with weak plots strung around musical numbers that vary in quality.

The following two movies are uneven, but I still liked them for various reasons, including the fact that they're sometimes ridiculous. They're both theater stories, specifically stories of women trying to make it big in musical shows. Neither of them has amazing dance scenes.

(A movie I highly recommend, better than either of these and more witty, is Stage Door, which I wrote about here. It's also a much better choice if you want a non-musical drama and comedy; there are some brief scenes of dancing, but no musical numbers.)

Week in Seven Words #259

audacious
A cockroach scales the chrome and neon walls of the ice cream parlor like a sci-fi hero.

bluster
A storm whips the houses, cloaks the streetlights.

chagrin
She doesn't want to admit to buying the junk food for herself, so she claims it's for friends or family. It gets me annoyed with how much guilt and shame is associated with food (with some brands even labeling their products 'guilt-free'), as if shame or guilt will reliably motivate people to make healthier choices long-term. And as if it's shameful to have some dessert.

choo-choo
He asks me what I'm sentimental about. The first thing that comes to mind: trains. I still have sentimental ideas about taking a train trip across the US. I know I'm romanticizing Amtrak. Amtrak, of all things. I know about the possible difficulties of long distance train travel, especially in this country, where it's not a popular way to get around. But I really like traveling by train (even in subways sometimes, when the cars aren't crowded). For more than several hours? I don't know. I haven't done it yet.

fostering
What makes for a good friend? Someone who can respect you and accept your essential self. Who can challenge you without belittling you. You can grow, and they will not insist that you need to stay the same or make yourself smaller to suit them. They will not demand that you stick to an outdated version of yourself or a version of you they've built up rigidly in their minds.

sensuously
She presses a lemon to her ear, pauses, puts it down. Picks another one to listen to and decides to keep it. Then she moves on to the peaches. She rolls them against her cheek, one by one, until she finds the peach with the most pleasing caress.

variation
Imperfections enhance beauty.

Three Stories with Flowers in Their Titles

Title: At the Time of the Jasmine
Author: Alifa Rifaat
Translator: Denys Johnson-Davies
Where I Read It: The Anchor Book of Modern African Stories

A son goes home to attend his father's funeral. The funeral rituals prompt people to pay their respects regardless of their feelings for the dead. And by serving as the basic steps for what to do, the rituals can act both as a guide through a difficult time and as a means to free people's minds from the details of what they need to do, so that they can consider feelings and questions they've long avoided.

The son had drifted apart from his father. Now he asks himself why. He also considers duty and love. What did his father feel towards him - some mixture of both? At the very least, duty maybe, but perhaps more. What happened to their relationship, and was the son also dutiful to the father? Jasmine - its scent and its significance to father and son - traces its way through the story.

Title: Blue Poppies
Author: Jane Gardam
Where I Read It: The Garden of Reading

"Mother had been staying with me for a month, sometimes knowing me, sometimes looking interestedly in my direction as if she ought to."

A woman and her senile mother seem to talk across each other a lot. She takes her mother to the old estate of a duchess and duke, where there's a field of blue poppies that maybe the mother has visited before but can't remember. Both noble personages are on the scene, though they don't much look the part of nobility; the duchess is gardening, the duke sits outdoors looking forlorn, and they've opened up their home to public visitors to raise money. In the course of the story, the duchess acts both as a force that keeps mother and daughter apart at a critical time, and as a means of giving some awkward, painful closure at the end. It's told with a light touch that still lets darker emotions like grief and regret seep through.

Title: Roses, Rhododendron
Author: Alice Adams
Where I Read It: American Voices
I like the sense of place in this one, and the rich details. As a child, Jane Kilgore moves from Boston to North Carolina with her mother, who has taken up selling antiques; Jane's father has abandoned them. After some exploration, Jane finds the home of the girl who will become her childhood best friend: Harriet Farr. Harriet's personal qualities, parents, and home are everything that Jane hopes she could have. Some years later, after Jane moves away, she realizes that she was more important than she could have imagined to Harriet and her family. The story explores the girls' friendship and how they've imprinted themselves on each other - and even years later, after they've moved away from their childhood and from each other, their friendship can linger and show them new things about themselves.

Passion Fish (1992): Rediscovering yourself after tragedy and poor decisions

Title: Passion Fish
Director: John Sayles
Language: English
Rating: R (for language)

I love the unsentimental approach to the characters in this film and the friendship that develops between them. The movie doesn't so much have a happy ending, as it has a hopeful one. The characters have grown. They're stronger, and they've found strength in their relationship with each other.

The dialogue is thoughtful and well-written, and the visuals are beautiful. There's no fake or stale Hollywood feeling in this movie. The characters are real.

Passion Fish Poster. Via Wikipedia.

May-Alice (Mary McDonnell) is a soap opera star whose career ends when she gets paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. She moves back to her old, empty family home in Louisiana, where she intends to waste away gloriously, watching TV, drinking and driving away a succession of nurses. The latest nurse to turn up at the house is Chantelle (Alfre Woodard), whose quiet, self-contained demeanor hides the fact that she's struggling with some serious problems of her own. The two women become friends, renewing their lives by making discoveries about who they can be and by helping each other. Each character has her own story arc; they develop together and independently. They aren't portrayed as types, but as real, complex people.

Both McDonnell and Woodard are wonderful in their roles. There's also a strong cast of supporting characters, including: an outdoorsman, Rennie (David Strathairn), offering awkward, heartfelt companionship; an easy-going womanizer, Sugar LeDoux (Vondie Curtis-Hall), who circles around Chantelle, offering a good time with no pressure, and an understanding of what she needs; and one of May-Alice's soap opera cast members, the elegant Rhonda (Angela Bassett), who visits her with a couple of other actresses. That visit leads to a really funny monologue, where one of the actresses describes the way she gave her all to a tiny movie role, early in her career, where she had only one line and played a woman who had been probed by an alien. (She really researched that character's motivations, and found a dozen different ways to utter her one line about alien probing.)

Both May-Alice and Chantelle give themselves more fully to life as the movie goes by. The alternative is to blot themselves out with alcohol, drugs or hours of TV. They can either try to escape from themselves through self-destruction; or they can live with greater richness and variety of experience, within the constraints of past tragedies and poor choices. The way they open themselves up again to new relationships and experiences is inspiring to watch, particularly because it isn't portrayed in a cloying way.

Worth Watching: The Station Agent (2003)

Title: The Station Agent
Director: Thomas McCarthy
Language: English
Rating: R (not sure why - probably because of some of the language)

At the heart of it, this movie is about people's hunger for companionship and their adjustment to loss and the passage of time.

Three people form an unlikely friendship in The Station Agent. Finn McBride (Peter Dinklage) is a man with dwarfism who immerses himself in the world of trains: their make, their speed and movement, their history and the routes they've taken. Joe Oramas (Bobby Cannavale) is an outgoing, talkative food vendor, filling in at his family's food truck because his father is ill. And Olivia Harris (Patricia Clarkson) is an artist who could be genuinely calm and joyful if she weren't struggling with a horrible tragedy in her life.


One weakness in this movie is the way the characters keep getting thrown together in coincidental meetings that can feel forced; the filmmakers really want them to be friends. But I didn't mind so much, because I want them to be friends too. The kind of friendship that grows between them, three people who live in different worlds and ordinarily wouldn't connect in life, is beautiful.


And then, even with the movie repeatedly throwing them together, their friendship remains in some ways fragile. It doesn't take much to shut people out of our lives. Sometimes when we need people the most, we push them away. If we're lucky they won't go away forever.

*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).

Week in Seven Words #153 and #154

Week in Seven Words #153

conveyor
The cineplex is shot through with escalators that go nowhere, dumping you into narrow corridors with dirty red carpets that smell of popcorn and detergent.

eavesdroppers
An alley at night - giggles and dinner party voices and quiet windows where people sit alone and listen to their neighbors making merry.

nova
Wine and the illusion of lasting friendship.

previewing
The thirty minutes of previews I sit through show me that two kinds of things will happen in movies this coming year: 1) people will have gun battles on space ships and crash on unfamiliar planets where they'll have gun battles with beasts while possibly being targeted by sinister conspirators in tight body suits 2) people will fight criminals and go on road trips while cracking jokes and suffering repeated bodily injury.

prey
She's stunned that the one good vegetarian restaurant left in the area has been converted to a meat place. She even goes so far as to ask the people who work there if it was worth it - if they're really making more money now.

unsparing
The lake in the park is like the mirror, cold and silver, in the Sylvia Plath poem.

viewpoint
He talks about how a famous rabbi didn't want to refer to hospitals by the usual Hebrew term of "be'it cholim" (which translates to "house of the sick"). He preferred instead to call it "be'it refuah," or "house of healing," because that would be more hopeful and encouraging to people.

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Week in Seven Words #154

competitive
They're experts at getting to the buffet table first and parking themselves there even after they've filled their plates, to ensure that they'll be the first to get seconds too.

concealed
To her, ignorance is a source of deepest shame. She bluffs, doesn't ask questions, and retreats behind nonsensical answers so she can keep hiding what she doesn't know.

impelled
I love how coincidence can seem like finely tuned machinery (maybe it is?), life steered along with delicate pulleys and conveyor belts. I hear the right words on a day I really needed to hear them. I show up unannounced, and arrive right on time.

phalanges
His finger, almost definitely broken, is puffed up with the skin tight like sausage casing. It's hard to look at it, even harder to hear the pained noises he makes when it gets touched.

reserves
Most of the time when I go to this synagogue's services on Saturdays I feel like my batteries are getting recharged. I want to work on carrying that feeling of connection and quiet contemplation into the rest of the week.

rewarded
No matter what comes of it, I'm happy the experience has made us closer than we have been in years.

vexatious
It has everything a customer service phone line should have: long wait times, an annoying automated voice, convoluted instructions, and operators who greet you brightly before hanging up.

Worth Watching: Stage Door (1937)

Title: Stage Door
Director: Gregory La Cava
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

I had a feeling I'd like this movie, and I was right.

Much of it is set in The Footlights Club, a boarding-house for aspiring actresses and other stage performers trying to make it big (or at least find work) in New York City. Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers) is a smart-alecky blonde who butts heads with her new roommate, Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn), a bright Midwesterner who seems to have an enviable amount of money and more booksmarts than real experience. Linda Shaw (Gail Patrick) is enjoying jewels, furs, and fine dining paid for by her sugar daddy, while Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) has failed to find any new work after she made her successful debut on the stage a year earlier. The other boarding house inmates - played by the likes of Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Constance Collier, and Ann Miller – keep each other's spirits up by hanging out together and cracking jokes.

Worth Watching: Victor Victoria (1982)

Title: Victor Victoria
Director: Blake Edwards
Language: English
Rating: PG

It's 1934, and the scene is Paris. Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews) is an out-of-work soprano who can hit fearsomely high notes. She meets Toddy (Robert Preston), a self-described "old queen" and out-of-work cabaret singer. He has an idea to help her break into the Parisian nightclub scene: she'll pass herself off as a female impersonator named Victor. Everyone will think she's a man who's really good at looking and singing like a woman. Other than Toddy, no one will know that she's a real woman.

Week in Seven Words #136

hibiscus
The narrow lot has been abandoned by everything but hibiscus flowers, promiscuous against the brick walls and chain-link fence.

naturalness
With me she doesn't have to put on a pretense that all is well.

opportunity
Beyond a red door and up a narrow set of stairs I find a new foothold in the world.

peekaboo
Yes, roaches can be found in computer keyboards. (But thankfully not mine!)

propagation
Well-meaning and self-important men are sometimes thwarted by poor acoustics.

self-effacement
I get a sense that it's a welcoming society as long as you're a certain sort of person, otherwise you must oblige them by remaining invisible.

unnoticing
During the two hours I spend in a room with stained glass windows, a storm blows over the city.

Week in Seven Words #127

filament
A friend I haven't seen or spoken to in years, speaks to me in a gift I find while cleaning out a drawer: a little jewelry box and in it a small scrolling paper bearing a message about dreams, beauty, and light. Her name signed at the bottom.

impassioned
Ray Charles sang the best rendition of "America the Beautiful" I've heard so far.

larded
A paper made indigestible by jargon.

nonpartisan
Napping on a hot afternoon is the best way to stay clear of trouble.

panicled
Purple hydrangea blossoms and books neatly stacked on my newly tidied desk.

retrogress
Without knowing it, they push me towards making the same unsuitable choices as before.

sobering
The rumble of fireworks and the sigh and shout of the crowds are pierced from time to time by an ambulance or firetruck wailing in the distance.