Slow Sunday

Dear family and friends,

Nothing special on the menu today. We had a brief visit from Laury and her son David yesterday, which gave me a chance to walk out into the garden and see all that is happening there. Unfortunately, one bad thing has been the death of our fish, which had survived two winters by burrowing in the mud at the bottom of the pond. Then one day, all gone. Did our neighbor spray poison on his plants? Did a heron swoop down and gobble them up? Or did a raccoon go fishing? Can't tell.

Otherwise, the day was spent either at the computer or with the Sunday paper or, in the morning while on the stationery bicycle and in the evening, watching television. The morning TV treat (in between MSNBC) included some minutes of Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in a Southern costume flick, with a full roster of slaves (African Americans) and indentured servants (white folks). I remember some of those 1940s songs and can sing along, and they can bring tears to my eyes, but it is appalling to see the racist depiction of the sorrowful slaves, finding comfort in religion and, in this movie, in a tree that could take away their suffering. What did it do to our young heads to see this kind of nonsense. Plenty of it left today, though it takes different forms. In the evening we started with a 4-star Preston Sturgess film with Eddy Bracken, but after enjoying the stable of actors so familiar in many films of that time (1944), we could not tolerate the plot, so repetitious, so limited. We turned to a mystery from the BBC, and once we accept the fact that certain characters' accents will be impenetrable, we settle in to enjoy this show, made recently but showing Britain in 1945. It seemed more realistically convoluted than the one-note Sturgess film, but in retrospect, it is just as silly—though with a respectable British gloss—as the USA film made in wartime. Nowadays the makers have to have more than one plot-line, a la the TV show ER (Emergency Room), I think, but the relation among the plot lines is either empty or unbelievable. And so to bed to read more of the NYT: also disappointing. This could be me.

Another sunny day today. Hoping to get some work done to prepare for more work by my Columbia helper—and I hope to send off the Measure for Measure review. Good news from Harry: he may get a new publisher for Fairleigh Dickinson Press. Laury may collect her Shakespeare Association essays in a book after all. Go, Laury!

Talk to you all later,
Love,
Bernice