ME AND MY OLDESTS

My daughter Caitlin and son Miles and me in an airport on our way to Ireland around 1995

(PS: I've been the same weight (skinny) since I was fifteen, so I think my seemingly hefty midsection is an illusion from the way I'm sitting and the way my shirt(s) are situated but I like the way it makes me seem substantial....)

HERE'S A TAKE ON MY READING LAST MONTH ON LEAP DAY

Check it out.

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS

The most delightful thing about this movie is watching older actresses work out on screen, even if the storyline is a bit contrived and not all that weighty. The enormously talented Sally Field, who always brings her A game no matter what she's asked to do, was worth the price of admission for me. And then to have scenes with her and Tyne Daly, who, like Fields, isn't to everyone's taste but nonetheless, like Fields, is a great actress, and in a much smaller role the under appreciated Caroline Aaron...

...well, for my taste I was just happy to see these three getting movie work, let alone working out their acting chops. Don't expect fireworks or anything too deep, even when the script reaches for that (I thought there were several problems with the writing: interesting avenues of action that could have been explored but were abandoned, set ups that were too pat and didn't add anything to the dramatic or comedic aspects of the story, etc.)...

But just to see a film starring a female actor over fifty (in fact over sixty) who doesn't look like she's been frozen in her thirties, and actually at times parts of her look her age, let alone carrying some scenes that were totally entertaining, was sweetly satisfying.

I WONDER WHAT'S DIFFERENT ABOUT HIM?

HOW I SPENT MY EASTER (MORNING)

100 YEAR AGO TODAY (THE EASTER UPRISING THAT EVENTUALLY SPARKED AT LEAST PART OF IRELAND'S FREEDOM)

EASTER 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

—William Butler Yeats

QUOTE OF THE DAY