Headphone Honey
It’s the third time it’s happened so now it qualifies as an official pattern: I return from a rural vacation only to discover that somewhere in between my car and apartment I’ve lost my headphones. In addition to being expensive, this a rueful reminder that only in the city are headphones essential gear–vital to my survival and sanity as I move through the honking, hollering, general mayhem. On the plus side: my June dove neighbor, Sweet Baby Blue, was awaiting me on the fire escape when I woke today, as smooth and serene as ever, and newly grown up. A fine ambassador to my reentry, indeed. Nature is everywhere, I guess. It’s just that in NYC we’re too inundated with human nature.
Back From the Garden
I am coming downstate tomorrow and am not yet willing to be conversant on the following topics: Trump, Olympics, Pokemon, Stranger Things, Kimye, #AllLivesMatter, the freaking heat, flying cockroaches, movies, gluten, the decline of NYC, more Trump. For weeks I haven’t worn a bra, haven’t honked my horn or bit my cuticles, haven’t made small talk. I have only eaten food from local farms, fallen asleep to crickets rather than honking cars, read musty paperbacks, combed yard sales and thrift stores, bicycled down quiet green roads, listened to old records, drunk rosé on a screened-in porch, talked to animals, and taken long tromps in the woods rather than gritting my teeth through prissy gym classes. I’ve got my color back. Heck, I’ve got my sense of humor back. So why am I returning to the alleged grid? Why, to see you, my pretties.
Austen Auteurs
“Love & Friendship,” Whit Stillman’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, is one of the best films of 2016 so far. This is surprising not merely because Lady Susan, an epistolary novel that favors its wicked protagonist at the expense of its subsidiary characters, is easily Austen’s least-beloved book. It is also surprising because so few Austen adaptations live up to their source material. There is Ang Lee’s 1995 “Sense and Sensibility,” which, penned by Emma Thompson, boasts a delightful buoyancy, and Patricia Rozema’s appropriately salty “Mansfield Park” (1999). There is the 1995 BBC miniseries “Pride and Prejudice,” which launched Colin Firth as the dreamiest Darcy on both sides of the Pond. But for every Austen adaptation success story, there’s a film like the unfortunate “Emma” (1996), in which Gwyneth Paltrow simpers over cups of tea for two hours, or, worse, the 2005 production of “Pride and Prejudice,” in which Keira Knightley dimples and bats her lashes as Elizabeth Bennet.
No decent portrayal of Elizabeth Bennet entails dimples.
Yet given the general decline of Western civilization in both the U.K. and the U.S., I believe we need film adaptations of Austen’s work more than ever – films that uphold her wit, etiquette, and ethics. We just need good adaptations that match the right director to the material.
Here are some dream teams sure to deliver more truth than treacle. Continue Reading →