Meredith Sue Willis

Author and Teacher
Online Journal and Photos

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See my Blog Literature and The Web

Bibliography of Books on Columbia University 1968

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This Online Blog is Now the Location for
Links to Old Blogs and Personal Photos
For Updated Blogs, see:

BlogSpot Blog
Literature and the Web Blog

 

Blog 2010
Blog 2009
Blog 2008
July-December 2007
Jan-June2007
Jan-June 2006 
July-Dec 2006
Blog 2005
Blog 2004

Personal Photos

Photos of MSW for Publicity Purposes

College Graduation
Christmas 2006
Andy's Honoring

 

January 29, 2011

 

I've decided to stop using this web page blog for my daily (or, rather, occasional) blogging. Blogger.com is easier and requires fewer steps. So this page will become a way to find things like my old blogs and family photos easily. I will continue to collect my newsletters and occasional thoughts about life at Blogger/BlogSpot. I am also continuing to keep Literature and the Web in its usual place-- latest post on "The Joy of George Eliot!"

I've had a lot of fun with this blog, but it is, in the end, unwieldy for frequent posting, and I think I'm more likely to keep up with two blogs rather than three.

 

                 

 

 

                           January 27, 2011

 

Snowed in again! Andy is snowblowing after a scare when the machine didn't work for a while, I've been out shovelling steps for two porches, will go out later for the car. The sun just came out so it is extraordinarily beautiful, a little blue sky peeping, and this means we'll get a lot of melting and evaporating, but this was at lot of snow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 1, 2011

 

 

A slow logy start to the new year. Banana waffles a la Andy, journal entries, bright and snowy uotside. It's a house bound few days for me followed by 4 days with Wayne 4th graders.

We saw a DVD of It's Complicated last night with Meryl Street and Alec Baldwin and a somewhat wasted Steve Martin (although knowing his comic genius makes his attractiveness to her believable– external to the movie, of course, except for one scene when high on pot and dancing, his zaniness busts out, his physical comedy) Streep is beautiful with her sixtyish face that occasionally collapses into crepey wrinkles, but comes back to beauty-- very realistic. Alec Baldwin is brilliant– fatuous, sleekly fat with his dense pelt of hair, smooth talking– steals the show, as does the actor who plays the older daughter's fiancé.

And then there is Southern California. When do we get a working class story in which the people look spectacularly attractive and have complex feelings and act generally ethically, or at least correc their errors? Hollywood, of course, doesn't believe this is possible.

There is something really obnoxious, too, about how these people live, that part of the plot hangs on Streep finally getting the kitchen she has always wanted– an extenstion for a house that is perfect as it is. Give me a break. As I have always said in these situations, sure it's fine to hear about the sufferings etc.– of the rich and beautiful, and the intrense interior struggles of straight white men– but only if we get the other side too! And the other side is not just symbolic suffering of the pathetic poor! Being working class isn't tragic.

But you won't get it from Hollywood, nor, apparently, from conventional novels.

Does this mean I ought to be adding a POV for Merlee to Safe Houses?

 

 

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