Friday, July 24, 2020

If We Had World Enough and Time



I have decided to let the repairman fix my washer.  I took some clothes to my mother's house yesterday to wash and dry.  When I put them in the dryer, after a couple minutes, there was a terrible thud. A little later, another.  I realized it was the dryer.  My mother looked at me with bug eyes.

"Well, maybe I didn't do as good a job fixing it as I thought.  It sounds like the belt might be doing something funny in there.  Either that or the tub is not seated properly.  I could take it apart again, I guess."

She laughed.

That is pretty much the way with all my repairs.  I always want to get the job done.  I am not patient.  I rely on luck.  When I was a kid, I was the same way with coloring.  My pictures had lots of white space where the crayons didn't hit when I was "done".  When they put them up in the classroom with the other kids', it was pretty embarrassing.  Mine didn't look finished.

And so this morning, I am using the tenants washer to wash the sheets before the cleaning crew comes, and I am in a bit of a rush.  I didn't clean up the house yesterday, and there is very much to take care of.  I don't want to, but I must.

What I want to do is tell you about the movie I watched last night, "First Cow."  Wow.  It is a most subtle movie in every way.  Shot in square frame, it is in large part a series of beautiful photographs set in a dark and muddy landscape.  The edits are slow so that the eye can linger.  The plot is complimentary to the movie's themes.  It is a study in character.

I want to say more, but I don't have time.  It would take much crafting of language and cadence to do the film justice, and I just can't.  Not now.

It is a memorable film that ups the ante on Altman's "McCabe and Mrs. Miller."

That's it.  That's a perfect statement, as concise as I can be.

Now I have so much to do and so little will to do it.  But one must do things in life that one doesn't wish to do.  It does not seem justice, but if we got what we deserve. . . etc.

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