Week in Seven Words #442

adorning
The table is crowned with a vase of lilacs and gladioli.

blades
They're cheerful and polished, but their smiles seem carved out of their flesh. Their brightness has the potential to become hard and repellent.

downpour
Heavy rain, so thick it seems to come down in clots. Afterwards, the air is cool and fresh.

limping
It's an odd, disjointed dinner. The conversation drifts frequently to weather disasters. During the silences, people peer at each other uncertainly. One guest is silent and remote, with a pinched look, as if he had been running from exhaustion for a while before it finally overtook him.

sluggishly
The 2 train crawls like an old fat snake that has eaten too much.

throwback
The office suite reminds me of a student center on a college campus. There's a coffee bar, vending machines, puffy sofas sitting low on the ground, and several tables tucked into booths.

verbalizing
A man is jogging with his dog by the lake. "How are you doing, boy?" the man asks. The dog pants. "You doing good?" The dog continues to pant. "Good boy!"

Worth Watching: Desk Set (1957)

Title: Desk Set
Director: Walter Lang
Language: English
Rating: Unrated

Desk Set is a charming office romance featuring Bunny Watson (Katharine Hepburn), the head research librarian at a major TV network, and Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy), an engineer whose giant computer might cost Bunny and her team of librarians their jobs.

One description I read of this movie claimed that Bunny and Richard clash dramatically, but I didn't find this to be true. The movie shows them slowly getting comfortable with each other and developing a mutual respect; both of them are quirky, middle-aged nerds, and their romance is gentle.


Bunny has a boyfriend at the beginning of the movie - one of the network executives, in fact (played by Gig Young) - but he desires her more for her dependability and usefulness and less for her personal qualities. Richard, on the other hand, just likes her as she is and respects her work. Given that Desk Set was filmed in the 1950s, I was surprised that the movie did a fairly decent job portraying a group of smart, hard-working women in the workplace who are friends and colleagues. These ladies are also very snappy dressers.


The only woman whose portrayal was off-the-mark was Richard's finicky lab assistant, who collapses into unnecessary and unrealistic hysterics at one point, because the filmmakers thought it would be funny.

I enjoyed the giant computer, EMERAC - really a sign of the times, how huge this computer was. And though computers have become much smaller, and more powerful and multifunctional, the concern raised in this movie is still relevant today: In what ways will computers take the place of people in the workplace? The movie's answer to that is rather sophisticated; it really takes into consideration the kinds of jobs people perform and the limitations of computers.

What else did I like? Bunny's friendship with her most senior employee, Peg (Joan Blondell), and their fun at an office holiday party.


I'm glad I came across Desk Set. It's low-key, lovely, with some well-written conversations and memorable scenes (including a rooftop lunch combined with a test of memory and logic). The screenplay was written by Nora Ephron's parents, Phoebe and Henry; I'm not that familiar with their work or with Nora's, but if you're a fan, that's another reason to check out this movie.

*All images link back to their sources (The Movie Projector and Glamamor).

Week in Seven Words #146

antiseptic
The office park is a tidy warehouse for people, with a view from each window of asphalt and bare trees.

charge
I'm in the passenger seat a lot, watching the world coast by past the window. I can't remember the last time I was behind the wheel.

gathering
There's a meeting house feeling to the room, all of us in chairs along the white walls as people take turns sharing stories and thoughts.

liberation
Escaping from the depths on the back of Beethoven's 9th.

superstition
He doesn't understand that "1" isn't a difficult number to get when rolling a die, that you've got as much of a chance of landing on it as any of the other numbers. He insists that if he curls his fingers a certain way when he touches the die, he'll get it. Once he's made up his mind, he forgets about all the times the die doesn't land on 1 and remembers only when it does.

underhanded
On Hangman she cheats, uses her best friend's nickname.

uplifting
The trees catch the light in their leaves and throw it at you in a blaze.

Week in Seven Words #99

destination 

Near the athletic complex I walk through a network of trails and elevated walkways without being sure where I'll wind up: on the main street or on a lonely embankment by the river. 

diametric 

Two people in stark contrast: one of them doesn't say outright that he cares but shows it, while the other one proclaims in a smooth, affected voice that he cares (really really cares) but gives little evidence of it in his actions. 

finality 

The last of my old office is cleaned out. I close the door behind me and look back only once.

mapping 

I carry a notebook with me because I never know when I might see my way through a dead end in the plot. 

mild 

Lunch at the park on a stone ledge with the sunlight sinking in between the trees; I can't think of a December where I was able to eat comfortably outdoors. 

striving 

I watch a movie to relax a little and celebrate, and as it turns out some of the themes are fitting for the day: people strive, accomplish, and move on. They don't rest on their laurels. 

wedded 

Two candles on the menorah tip towards each other and share a flame.

Week in Seven Words #46

bespectacled
She tells me about her new glasses, what they look like, how she realized at school with the blackboard and clock getting fuzzier and fuzzier that she'd need them. Her words remind me of when I put on my own first pair of glasses, the summer before fifth grade. How I slid them up my nose in the optician's shop, and the little squares on the shop's screen door leapt out sharply, along with the trees beyond and the license plates on the cars parked by the curb.

cerise
The clouds are a powdery pink, and the glass walls of the building blush in the sunset.

commiseration
They're overworked, I'm overworked. We'll muddle through this together.

enigma
A wooden stairwell, carpeted, the air thick with potpurri and the banisters twined in holly. On the wall above the first landing a mirror hangs too high for people to see their reflection. In some places it's spotted a moldy black. I wonder, if I were to drag over a stepladder, what I'd see in its surface.

finals
Students, pale and sniffly from stress and lack of sleep.

lair
For a few hours each week I need to use an office in their building. The office they give me doesn't open at first to any keys; who knows what’s happened, I’m told, and who was the last person to have set foot in it - maybe the lock was changed. An aura of mystery builds around the room, until at last I’m given a key that works. The lock clicks, I find a small dark room, no window, no visible light switch, a desk rearing up with its legs sticking out like a creature making a last desperate defense of its lair. An empty thermos and a granola bar sit on the other desk. From the floor a phone occasionally purrs; its blinking red light hints at messages that may never be heard by human ears.

lull
People-watching from a library window. The first reckless forerunners of snow spin through the air.