Yesterday was one of reiterated puking by little Daniel. He has my sympathy, but he’d have more if he’d used his bucket instead of, you know, our best furniture.
The BUCKET and the COUCH
My compatriot, Pervis Estupiñán, scored a nice goal for Brighton today.
This movie, unfortunately, is less compelling as a story than as grist for speculation about the artists’ offscreen misdeeds. Which, in a way, is fitting, because it depicts the backstage scuzziness of a high-end theatrical production.
(The theatrical process itself is treated affectionately and accurately. This, I gather, is what critics like about the movie.)
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For nearly two decades, British-born Australian director John Duigan helmed acclaimed but smallish productions, including two longtime favorites of mine – wonderful coming-of-age movies – The Year My Voice Broke (1987) and Flirting (1991).
Alas, his relationship with Flirting’s leading actress, Thandie Newton, was … sinister.
(Allegedly. Newton denounced Duigan in several interviews, including this sobering one for Vulture.)
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Duigan gained international note for the fleshy Sirens (1994), which is about an English cleric and his wife whose mores are loosed when they visit a “liberated” artists’ colony in Australia.
Colonials 1, Mother Country 0.
The sides swap home fields but play similar games in Duigan’s The Leading Man (1996). Another colonial libertine – movie star Robin Grange (Jon Bon Jovi) – travels to London to headline a play. The movie’s opening scene shows Robin peering wolfishly across the Thames at the Houses of Parliament. This may not be enough to evoke Guy Fawkes, but soon Robin is talking of “blowing things up.” Hmm.
(I’m probably making too much of this association.)
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Anyway: Robin, with gusto, wreaks havoc on the production’s backstage intrigues.
One intrigue is conducted along typically dreary upper-middle-class British lines. Established playwright Felix (Lambert Wilson) is miserable in his affair with the ingénue lead, Hilary (Newton – at the time, allegedly, still in Duigan’s thrall). Felix spends evenings in the flat that Hilary shares with other young strugglers and returns late to his wife, Elena (Anna Galienna), for tongue-lashings.
Robin sizes things up and makes Felix an indecent proposal. Out of the goodness of his heart, he’ll seduce Elena: to take her off Felix’s hands, or at least to reduce her moral advantage over Felix.
So far, this is like an Iris Murdoch novel (A Fairly Honourable Defeat, perhaps). The difference is that the movie appears to side with the scheming Robin. It’s as if, in Othello, the patsy Roderigo were the tragic victim, Desdemona guilty, Iago worth cheering for.
This moral repulsiveness swamps whatever craftsmanship, style, and comedy the movie offers – which are not inconsiderable.
The movie is still better than what passes for urbane adult drama nowadays: e.g., The Undoing, with Duigan’s former actors, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.
And so it bolsters my claim for 1996.
P.S. Newton went on to become a star. Duigan went on to make the terrible, pointless Lawn Dogs.
I read about cassoulet in an Iris Murdoch novel. Tonight, I cooked it. That is, I cooked “quick cassoulet” in a skillet (traditional cassoulet requires hours of baking), using canned beans.
The result was flavorful but chewy. The bites with celery were crunchy. I’m not sure that that’s how cassoulet is supposed to end up.
I ate three-quarters of the dish. Karin, Samuel, and Daniel ate much smaller portions. I doubt they’ll beg me to cook it again.
Tomorrow: Almanzo Wilder’s “fried apples ’n’ onions.”
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Half of vol. 3 to go in LOTR.
I continue to read (and, in some cases, re-read) Forster. Each book has bettered its predecessor. I’m now reading Howards End (1916). What does Forster really think of his sadsack, the clerk Leonard Bast? This poor young striver spends his free hours going to Beethoven concerts and reading Ruskin to “improve” himself. He befriends the rich and cultured Schlegel sisters and tries to talk literature with them, and they couldn’t care less; they’d rather treat him as their pet. And they’re much nicer than the other richos. Forster clearly pities Leonard, but he doesn’t seem to like him much. He makes him about as attractive as a trespassing cockroach that must be squashed. Forster likes other proles in other books; just not the strivers. Everything in its rightful place, after all, I guess.
This biography of the Oxonians Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch has been receiving buzz and now is endorsed by Thomas Nagel, the best reviewer of philosophical books of general interest. I expect that not a few upper-level seminars will be taught at Christian colleges on this episode in the history of philosophy – Anscombe is our (very judgmental) co-religionist – as well as upon one or two of Murdoch’s novels, because novels are fun. (The biography also touches upon Ayer, Austin, Hare, the French existentialists, and of course Wittgenstein.) I certainly am itching to design such a class, whether or not I’d teach it. Would Samuel allow me time for this pointless project? Would he even let me read through the book (not to mention, texts discussed in it that I haven’t read)? Would Samuel’s little brother allow it? It’s doubtful. Anscombe, famously, used to change her seven twerps’ diapers while conducting tutorials, and Midgley left the professoriate for many years to raise her children. So the endeavor would be personally as well as intellectually meaningful to me. And futile. And impossible.
Ben Lipscomb, the biographer, is interviewed here.
Three days of tutoring; so far, no tutees. :) And today, no work for me …
… or for Stephen (unemployed) …
… or for Mary & Martin (last night, Martin came downstairs and announced that because of the weather, school was canceled for him. Then he laughed maniacally and removed his trousers. … Mary anxiously peered at the TV until, several hours later, her school was canceled). I finished reading Iris Murdoch’s book, The Unicorn. All along, I wondered: How should it have been typeset?
One major character has this sequence in his name: f-f-i. This, in itself, is unremarkable; but the resulting ligature leaps out. In Times Roman — what I was reading — the name looks like this:
Which, reiterated, is distracting.
Earlier this week, at IU, I found an edition set in Fairfield:
Would Palatino have improved the name? (I wondered, walking home through snow). The fs and is are discrete:
At body-text size, they pose no obstacle to readability:
And then I considered that the person, Effingham, is pompous and self-important, and no doubt deserves to carry such an ostentatious marker in his name.
(Source.)
