Wisdom and Folly

My mother is a very classy lady. She isn’t classy in the lift-your-pinky-a-bit-higher-while-sipping-your-tea-dear kind of way. She makes no pretensions at elegance and is most definitely not hoity-toity. When she opens her home to friends and strangers, she makes you feel welcomed and at ease while making you want to be on your best behavior in her presence. As I grew up, she set standards of behavior that were not overly strict but the rules regarding permissible language were stringently enforced. Words such as “b-u-t-t” and “pee” were not allowed, and though I never remember a mouth full of soap or a harsh rebuke, it was enough to get “the look” and perhaps a whispered “Amy!” One day, our pastor greatly offended my mother, not by wondering from theological orthodoxy, but rather by using a word she found inappropriate in the pulpit. I can still envision her fuming in her rather adorable way and remarking that “If you are going to use the word crap in a sermon, you might as well say—” here she paused and probably blushed—”s@*%”

As the mother of three boys and the wife of a man who is one of four boys, I often struggle to maintain the sort of standards for appropriate verbiage with which I was raised. If I weren’t so busy snapping and shushing, I might marvel at the myriad words and phrases boys can come up with just to describe bodily functions. I can’t bring myself to list them here but I am sure if you have spent any amount of time with young men of a certain, or perhaps not-so-certain, age, you can imagine. As time passes, I have begun to wonder if it is really worth the effort. Do the words they use really matter all that much? After all, if “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” then does a “dump” really smell any worse than a “poopy”? Well, for now at least, I have decided to hold my ground and say yes. Though it might be no less offense to my sense of smell, it greatly offends my ears to hear my two year old inform his father that he has just “dropped a big log.”

But why? I think I found a bit of the answer in picking up one my beloved Jane Austen novels the other night. In an attempt to prove a point to Jim regarding the tenacity of women’s feelings, I began to quote a passage from Persuasion that nearly always fills my eyes with tears and my heart with bittersweet pride at the ability of my fellow-woman to craft such words. The language a few centuries back was cumbersome, but it was weighty and well-chosen. This is one of the reasons I prefer email over the telephone. It gives me a chance to ponder and meticulously make my point, rather than quickly ingest what has been said and respond, usually while hiding from the riotous commotion of the kids in the background. In one sense, writing is much more impersonal, but in another sense the distance helps rather than hinders your ability to communicate. Though you miss out on all the nonverbal dimensions, you can process more carefully what is being said and what you want to say.

We are finite creatures. Our abilities to make ourselves known and to be known are so few. Shouldn’t we handle with care the limited means we do possess? Just as my mom takes special care in preparing for guests, straightening the house, choosing the menu, I think we should take special care in choosing our words. The other great lady in my life, my mother-in-law, has often told me to be wary of people who don’t care what others think of them. To me, people who aren’t careful with their words are displaying a certain recklessness. I recognize this officially places me in the swimming-against-the-current category in our increasingly casual WGAS society (No, Mom, that doesn’t stand for the West Gloucestershire Art Society. I will explain later.) Here I stand and I can do no other. But then again, I could just be full of c-r-a-p.

Brief comments on film by Amy.
Some old, some new.  Domestic films and foreign too.

Atonement — I went into this movie with pretty low expectations, but wanted to give it a try since it was nominated for several Academy Awards. When will I learn? This movie was like a puzzle that should fit together nicely but somehow everything doesn’t come together. The lovers separated by lies and war, the soldier trying to get home to his girl, the wrongdoer trying to make things right. What’s not to like? Unfortunately, a lot. For me the characters were difficult to understand and the ending was one of the most dissatisfying I have ever seen. It seemed as though the makers of the movie and the writer of the novel (that’s right, I read the book just to make sure I wasn’t missing something; I wasn’t) were trying to say “Atonement isn’t possible in the real world. Everything is senseless and without meaning. Atonement is just the fantasy of a sick mind.” Uplifting, huh? I don’t mind “depressing but true” but this one only qualified for the former.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly — Now here is a depressing but true movie. True in both the sense that it is based on a true story and in its themes and message. I want to give as little away as possible but the basic story regards a man trapped in his body with only a limited means of communication. He faces the choice of sinking deep inside himself or struggling to the surface in order to touch those around him. Ironically, while The Diving Bell would certainly never appear on any “Top Ten First Date Movie” list, and movies like Atonement (am I beating a dead horse, here?) are touted as great love stories, I believe The Diving Bell portrays the truest, deepest love and makes Atonement look like a cream puff (a stale cream puff, no less) by comparison. One disclaimer, however: the technique used to film this movie can be a bit tough on the stomach. If you are prone to motion sickness, grab a Dramamine beforehand.

The Privileged Planet — Our boys are forever watching a Discovery Channel something or other and have learned to patiently listen as I drone on about how just because the narrator says we evolved from primordial soup it doesn’t mean that it’s true. So The Privileged Planet was a nice change of pace. Lots of really smart guys talking about how perfectly placed (as in by an intelligent designer and not the lottery of the cosmos) our planet is both for sustaining life and observing the universe. While not as detailed as others of it’s kind, such as Planet Earth, it was interesting and informative.

 Sense and Sensibility — I know what you are thinking: how many versions of the same story line can you watch? Answer: at least one more. This recent adaptation of one of my all-time favorite books somehow manages to tell a story that I have read and watched innumerable times and still have me in tears and breathless to see everything turn out all right. Whether you have failed to see any of the adaptations of Jane Austen’s works or you are a diehard anglophile, this is a winner. I would also recommend Miss Austen Regrets, a fictionalized account of Jane Austen’s later life, and Cranford, an excellent adaptation of several Elizabeth Gaskell novels.