13 Aspects of the Summer Sun
Movies, etc.
Dear Summer Days,
Georgia O’ Keefe says she doesn’t really know how to manage you.
I saw a play at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia called A Summer Day, written by Bob Fosse. It was well done.
I think everyone should listen to the album from The National, First Two Pages of Frankenstein. Find it here:
Light some candles at night.
Everybody is hurting in some way.
You can’t know joy if you don’t hurt or feel sad, too.
I am reading a lot of John Steinbeck this summer. I have decided on it. The last time I did this was 2004. First up: The Pearl. In it, the doctor only helps people who can pay him and he daydreams about flying to Paris, France, to drink wine.
I keep writing about France, Paris, and French food for my monthly movie review in The Shuttle, which is from my local co-op The Weaver’s Way. This month, I wrote about a film I dearly loved when I saw it years ago—Paris Can Wait (2016), directed by Eleanor Coppola, who—yes!—was Francis Ford Coppola’s wife. (Read the review here on page 5 in The Shuttle.) I didn’t know that Eleanor Coppola wrote and directed the movie when I saw it in a theater years ago. Now, I recognize that this movie was her way of shining in a family where maybe she had to play the role of “dutiful wife and mother and support system to this male artist and winemaker.”
In Paris Can Wait, the main character Anne (played by Diane Lane) travels through France with a business associate, and finds more of her true self, and opens up her palate and her chakras. If I were Diane Lane’s talent agent, I would be writing scripts all day about her traveling in European cities and finding herself. Diane Lane is humble, classy, sexy, and just all around an earth goddess. This European storyline for her really works.
I want to watch/rewatch some Nashville and Tennessee films this summer. I don’t know why. I am just feeling Nashville invading my psyche, for some reason. The films are Wild Rose, Walk the Line, The Thing Called Love (one of my favorite movies ever!), and Coal Miner’s Daughter with Sissy Spacek. Wanna watch them, too?
Speaking of country twang, the song from Taylor Swift called “But Daddy I Love Him” is so cinematic that it blows my mind. Listen to it. Pay attention to the lyrics. Feel the movie happening in this song, even though the movie hasn’t been made. I’m astounded by this woman’s genius.
12. I started watching The Truman Show again this week, which stars Jim Carrey. (It is currently free with ads on YouTube.) The Truman Show is a brilliant movie about the way systems dehumanize people. It shows how many people join a shenanigan because they are ignorant, lost, and selfish. What a teachable movie, especially if you study philosophy and see the relevance of Foucault’s Panopticon in the 21st social media saturated world we’re living in.
13. My one-act play “Family Law Comedy Special (Or, White People Problems)” will be September 6th and 7th at Yellow Bicycle Theater for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. I hope you mark it on your calendar and come and see it. If you are an actor looking for a part, get in touch. Auditions and practice will be this summer starting in July: mswonderfufilmclub@gmail.com The play is a court room farce where a judge just can’t begin proceedings until she orders a breakfast of Chinese takeout and chats a lot about the neighborhood pilates studio. Plastics play a big part in the play.
Your Saturday Vinyl Playlist &
&
Me Reading the Paper
&
&
Spotlight on this Spotify Yogi Playlist.
You know the poet Wallace Stevens loves the number 13, right?