Tuesday, September 23, 2008

New Visitors, and Digressions

Only Son and his family arrived yesterday afternoon! This is the first time the family has been here; Only Son's paternal aunt lives 50 miles away and he has been with his father to visit her here.

The kids were really tired after a day and a half on the road. They presently are conked out. But so adorable were they before they hit the hay. Especially GS #1, aged 4.5. He is a hoot. He is either very happy or very sad, and yesterday he was almost totally happy! He attached himself to Taciturn and it was fun to see the two of them lounging about on the loveseat.

Episcogranny loves the granny part. I'm living into that right now!

It was nice to be back in church Sunday. Another person we knew from when we lived here before was there at 8 am mass and mobbed us when she saw us. It is nice to be wanted in community.

Digression: I love silent movies. Off and on since my teen years, I have studied old movies and their societal implications. Taciturn created a monster the other night by TiVoing an old documentary about the silent/sound director King Vidor, who directed what is arguably the first anti-war movie, The Big Parade. Vidor was pals with people I've studied before, so I've been reading about him the last several days, trying to see what made him tick. I have the biography of one of his pals, Frances Marion, with the provocative title Without Lying Down. That book deserves its own review, particularly in light of some women today that have power. But I've picked that book up again for new insights.

3 comments:

Ruth Hull Chatlien said...

I'm glad you're enjoying the grandkids.

I've never watched many silent movies, but we saw Modern Times a few weeks ago on TCM, and I thought it was brilliant.

Kirkepiscatoid said...

OMG...another twilight zone connection. I am a silent movie GEEK. Particularly:

Ben Hur (the one with Ramon Navarro--chariot seen is 10x the one in the Charleton Heston version)
Greed (Erich von Stroheim films, although long, play on every human nature)
Metropolis
Cabinet of Dr. Calligari
Birth of a Nation (explains 99% of racial stereotypes today)
Intolerance
Nosferatu (someone FINALLY found a copy!)
The Phantom of the Opera
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Penalty (Is my Lon Chaney fetish showing?)

Well, you get the drift...

It's the rawness of how human emotion was expressed in silent films b/c the dialogue could not carry it, and the raw emotions (including sex) that the silent film era got to enjoy before the Hays Office took over the movies...

Fran said...

I love the imagery of the grandkids- especially GS#1 with Taciturn.

You are one busy woman!!