Week in Seven Words #563

This covers the week of 11/1/20 - 11/7/20.

buckling

Some stores are getting boarded up again in the event that election results don't turn out as preferred. At least the bookstore is still open.

denizens

Today what engages her mind are the fissures in the rocks. She wonders about the creatures that live in them, real and fantastic.

electoral

Can't get much work done when there's a map of the U.S. to stare at.

forgiveness

"It's easier to forgive others than forgive yourself," she says. I wonder: Do I forgive others more easily because I know them less well, or is it because I see them more clearly than I see myself? 

painfully

The cramps are so painful that when I hear the kettle shrieking, I think the sound is coming from inside my own head.

self-loathing

Self-loathing can feel like a scratchy but familiar sweater. At some point, she forgot that she had the option to remove it. Now she tries to, but can't pull her arms out of the sleeves.

unreassuring

I hear a lot about "a return to normalcy" and "putting the adults back in charge." For many people, this means wanting to know less and think less about the effects of policies and the behavior of politicians. It means less bother and more apathy.

Week in Seven Words #527

This covers the week of 2/23/20 - 2/29/20.

convincingly

He's convinced that he's a loser, and he speaks to himself the way he wouldn't speak to anyone else. After years of such self-talk, the words are almost comforting. They've become something like a reliable truth, even though they aren't true.

dragged
She doesn't want to finish her homework, so she stretches out each question with pretend thinking, bathroom breaks, trips to refill her cup with water, and off-topic questions. 

drones

A row of old computers chuntering on through the same tasks, year after year, under different masters wielding different tools.

floaty
Her skirt floats around her as she dances, as if it's a flowing extension of her energy and grace.

gobbled

Mounds of laundry fed into the maw of a washing machine.

pent-up

Her dragon sculpture looks as if it will come alive at any moment, whipping its tail around and stretching its jaws open to unleash fire.

slogging

I force myself to finish something I'd rather not be doing and that I wish I wasn't doing alone.

Two Movies Where Women Face Contempt From Their Families

Title: English Vinglish (2012)
Director: Gauri Shinde
Language: English and Hindi, with some French too
Rating: Not rated

Shashi (Sridevi) is a quiet, unassuming married woman who runs a small business from her home selling laddoo, an Indian sweet treat often served on special occasions. Because she doesn't speak English or show much worldly sophistication, she's regularly treated with dismissiveness and contempt by her husband, Satish (Adil Hussain), and daughter, Sapna (Navika Kotia). A shift in her life comes when she flies to New York to help with a family wedding. Secretly, she enrolls in a crash course in English, attended by people from around the world, including Laurent (Mehdi Nebbou), a Frenchman who falls in love with her.

The movie is bright and polished. Much of its depth of emotion comes from Sridevi's performance. Her acting really carries the film and makes even the clichés entertaining. The most moving scene is highlighted in the screen capture above: at the family wedding, Shashi stands and delivers a speech. During one part, she describes the beauty of a family – how a family isn't judgmental and will never make you feel small or mock your weaknesses, but will always give you love and respect. Many families (including her own) fall short of this, sometimes far short. Shashi describes her hopes of a haven free of contempt.

Title: The Heiress (1949)
Director: William Wyler
Language: English
Rating: Not rated

Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland) is the only child of a widowed doctor, Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson), who often reminds her, in various small sighing ways, that she isn't nearly as beautiful, witty, charismatic, or accomplished as her late mother.

Though Catherine lacks a lot of the qualities that would make her a social success, she's still a kind and gentle person who's full of love. Unfortunately, the people closest to her place little if any value on her good nature.

Who does love her? Not her father - something she realizes more starkly as the film goes by. What about Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), a handsome young man she meets at a party? Morris seems charming and tender, and it isn't long before he and Catherine are making plans to get married. But her father disapproves, insisting that Morris is a mere fortune hunter who's pretending to love Catherine because of her inheritance.

The movie is a powerful look at how betrayal and lack of love can harden someone. Catherine's fine qualities wither under the contempt, ruthlessness, and dishonesty displayed by the people she loves most.

Olivia de Havilland has an expressive face and eyes. She's wonderful at playing the sweet-natured, naive, helpful, loving, loyal, kind, shy, and socially awkward woman... and later transforming into the compelling figure of the cold and terrible beauty. (If you feel optimistic, you can hope that one day she will find someone honest and loving, and will not shut out the world entirely. That maybe her capacities for love and trust have not been permanently destroyed.)

Week in Seven Words #269

abeyance
Winter is still on the gardens. The paths are empty, the domes and crenellated walls deserted. Everywhere there's a cold, fuzzy silence.

claimed
Geese have claimed the soccer fields, the gazebo by the river. Branches have fallen across the path that feeds into the deep woods. By a gap in the fence, a hole has opened up in the earth and filled with gray water.

confined
Restless people pace inside the mansion, their fingers tracing walnut furniture. Before each window they stop to study the river. They wish they could leap out of their skin and race to the water. Maybe one day. They turn from each window and take up pacing.

crammed
PowerPoint slides frustrate him. They're too small for what he needs to say. His words and numbers run on, in ever tinier fonts, as he fills the available space.

edible
Homes with cream trimming, cherry-colored shutters.

gutted
Even when she talks about a triumph, her voice wavers with pain. She can't believe in her own success. She's convinced that she succeeded only by chance.

percolating
The coffee pours warmth into chilled wet feet and fingers nipped with cold.

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.

Groundhog Day (1993): Egotist learns to love himself and others via a time loop

Title: Groundhog Day
Director: Harold Ramis
Language: English
Rating: PG

Hell is being stuck with yourself when you're full of self-loathing.

Phil Connors (Bill Murray) strikes people as having a high opinion of himself. He's a Pittsburgh weatherman full of contempt for his colleagues; he's convinced he's headed for a more prominent spot on national TV. An assignment to cover the Groundhog Day festivities at Punxsutawney is a personal affront to him; he hates the yokels in small towns and their silly traditions. When a snowstorm forces him to stay overnight in Punxsutawney with his producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell), and cameraman, Larry (Chris Elliott), he's gone through what he probably considers the most pointless, boring day of his life.

Until the gets up the next morning, and finds out it's Groundhog Day all over again.

Time is stuck in a loop, forcing Phil to relive the same day over and over. At first, he thinks he's going nuts. How can it be that he's waking up every morning at 6:00 am in the same bed and breakfast, with the same song playing from the alarm radio? As he realizes that this is real, and he's actually trapped in Punxsutawney in a 24-hour loop, he begins to indulge his hedonistic side: speeding, thieving, seducing women, eating junk food the way a man would when he doesn't have to care about cholesterol and cavities.

From Wikipedia, Fair use

Week in Seven Words #162

awakening
When I talk to him on the phone, he tells me that he's finally starting to treat himself fairly, see himself as someone who has a lot to offer. It's inspiring to hear him speak this way, especially in light of my own tendencies to undervalue myself and play down my abilities.

fandom
I love the unpredictability of people (as long as they don't turn out to be axe murderers). I never imagined I'd get into an in-depth conversation on fanfiction tropes with someone at a Shabbat lunch.

lonesome
Books, photos, a light behind a door that's mostly closed. She talks about all the things she'll do, some day, and casually mentions that she's afraid of dying.

potential
I'm reminded again of what an asset it is to have patience, as long as patience doesn't turn into inertia.

shamefaced
Two choices: implode with embarrassment, convinced that you've lost everyone's respect... or just keep going and realize that, contrary to what your melodramatic brain is telling you, things are actually ok, and no one cares as much as you think they do.

strop
The fierce sulking of a teenaged girl.

vowels
Wheel of Fortune is fun for young kids who are learning to spell.