Saturday, March 12, 2005

“I had hopes once, but I gave ‘em up.”

The Movie: Key Largo, 1948 (Richard Brooks & John Huston, screenwriters, from the play by Maxwell Anderson; John Huston, dir.)
Who says it: Humphrey Bogart as ex-war hero Frank McCloud
The context: Gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), holding a group of people hostage, asks McCloud if he even knows what he wants.
How to use it: To recognize an arbitrary universe.

Remember back in December, when I couldn't wait for the first real snowfall?

Yeah. Those were good times.

Actually, it's beautiful outside. We got about four inches overnight, and it's supposed to snow for the rest of the day. The temperature's quite warm -- right around freezing -- so the snow is heavy and wet, and easy to shovel. Dizzy and I took a long walk this morning, and he got to romp with a neighbor's Shepherd mix for a while.

The great thing about having a such a big family is that someone's always there for you. No sooner had I posted yesterday's blog entry than my brother Ed sent me an e-mail to ask: "How do you tell your seasonal [depression] from your chronic?"

Good point.

Paradoxically, I'm in a much better mood today, partly because I spent part of yesterday afternoon composing a list of things I hate even though the rest of the world seems, inexplicably, to like them. This too may become a regular feature of the blog, though even I probably couldn't come up with ten new things every week.

But just to start things off, here's my list:

Ten Things Other People Like that I Cannot Stand

1. The words “hubby,” “utilize (never better than “use,” never),” and “craft” as a verb.
2. Norah Jones’ voice. Also Andrea Bocelli's.
3. Food adjectives applied to anything that isn’t food.
4. Everything Lenny Kravitz has done since “Let Love Rule.”
5. Hazelnuts in anything.
6. White chocolate.
7. Boiled eggs, poached eggs, eggs in any format where you can tell whites from yolks. Egg salad. Deviled eggs. Also, Cadbury crème eggs.
8. The Three Stooges.
9. Birds as pets.
10. The comedy stylings of Jeff Foxworthy.

Feel free to post your own list, and see if it doesn't cheer you up, too.

5 comments:

Tom Ehrenfeld said...

1) Being told by friends how much I will love certain pieces of art (John Irving, About Schmidt, Lost in Translation, Blue Velvet) and then at best being disapointed and at worst hating them with a vengeance.
2) Blue Velvet. Hate that with a vengeance.
3) Ann Coulter. How can ostensibly smart people be such public fools who dispense pure venal and even dishonest meanness?
4) That extra bit of wrapping on a new CD (not the plastic wrapping of the whole disc but the unremovable material that still keeps the box closed and which, in bits and pieces, stays on your person for days.)
5) The recent bankruptcy bill. Hate it.
6) The phrase "real time". Hello? Should I explain my loathing of this now, or in real time? Isn't the phrase itself an oxymoron in the first place--is time the most not-real thing of all?
7) The 17 pages of US Weekly coverage about Brad and Jen's breakup one week after the tsunami hit.
8) Eggplant.
9) Tom Cruise (especially in Top Gun) and Julia Roberts (especially in Pretty Woman.)
10) Journalists who take or write about swag.

Ellen Clair Lamb said...

Good list, but who likes Ann Coulter? No one I know.

I do, however, like Blue Velvet... can't help it, it's part of my shameful passion for Dean Stockwell. Even in full makeup.

Anonymous said...

I don't even know who most of the people you are talking about once you get past Key Largo. You know me and I like Ann Coulter. And in case you are wondering, I am saving my supply of Vietnam Vets against John Kerry bumper stickers in case they are ever needed again. Hillary Clinton is why God gave us the remote control.
Dad

Anonymous said...

Lost in Translation rules! Tom, you obvisiosly wrote this great movie off only because people you don't trust told you to like it. Come into the light. LIT is goodness. -- Ed

Tom Ehrenfeld said...

Oh, I liked Lost in Translation. But after all the huge hype and buzz over the film I expected much much more. I'm perfectly happy to accept a film on its own merits, to let it meander, to have its ambition be tone more than plot. But in this one case I felt that I "got" the movie early on and that from then on it was just a bit smug, keen on itself. I liked the idea of it but just got impatient with it.

Haven't you had movies that you enjoyed, but not nearly so much as you expected (or were told you would?)