Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

Non-matriculating

I have never seen “The Graduate.”

I’ve never seen lots of movies in my time, but “The Graduate” was supposed to be one of THE movies of MY generation.

In the summer of ’68, I was at a Christian summer camp. I was at a theological crossroads that I will explain some other time. In any case, the folks at this particular facility considered themselves more enlightened than some other Christian folks. So, while other church groups forbade ever seeing ANY movie (except, I’d guess, “The Ten Commandments” and “The Robe”), this body was “liberal” enough to permit the viewing of some movies. Disney movies, which, at the time, was synonymous with “family movies.”

I wondered aloud about what the meaning of the line “Jesus loves you more than you will know,” in the Simon & Garfunkel song Mrs. Robinson, which was featured in the movie. “Ooh, no, you don’t want to see THAT,” one of the adults proclaimed. So, I didn’t. My views on the world evolved, and I later decided that it would be all right to see “The Graduate.”

I have The Graduate soundtrack, an odd item that, with all those somewhat schlocky Dave Grusin instrumentals, and at least three variations on Mrs. Robinson. And I love the extended version of Scarbourough Fair/(Canticle). That album (9 weeks at #1) and Bookends (7 weeks at #1, also featuring Mrs. Robinson) both dominated the charts in the spring of 1968.

I have seen movie clips such as “Plastics” and “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?”, the latter delivered by Dustin Hoffman to Anne Bancroft. I probably saw them on the Oscars or one of those American Film Institute shows. Not so incidentally, there’s another AFI program, on Movie Quotes, Tuesday, June 21 on CBS at 8 p.m. EDT. Both quotes are on the list of the 400 nominated quotes, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if one or both appear on the final list of 100. Yet, somehow, in nearly 40 years,I’ve never actually seen The Graduate, though I’ve watched the last scene, on the bus.

The movie has been on TV, available on video, and for the last year, on DVD. Anne Bancroft, who died June 6 of uterine cancer, expressed surprise that The Graduate is the movie by which she was most remembered, rather than The Miracle Worker (1962), which I also haven’t seen. But I have seen her in The Turning Point (1977), Agnes of God (1985), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), G.I. Jane (1997), and probably others, plus I heard her in Antz (1998).

Mel Brooks once said in a 60 Minutes interview that God gave him one great gift and that was Anne Bancroft. My condolences to Mel. So here’s to you, Anne Bancroft: I’ll go out and see The Graduate AND The Miracle Worker this summer.

ROG

Don’t care

If he were found guilty, you would have gotten, “We always knew that.” And since he was found not guilty, you’ll get, “The D.A. put on a poor case” or “His expensive lawyer got him off.”

But if YOU care, go here-June 14. You’ll also find a link to yesterday’s blog on THIS page. In other words, you’ll go ’round in circles, get dizzy and fall down.

ROG

Lunaversary TM

lunaversary (loon’ a ver’ sah ree) – the monthly recurrence of a notable event. At the half-year point in their relationship, Roger chimed, “This is our sixth lunaversary!”

“Six month anniversary.” Something is just linguistically WRONG about that. Anni- refers to year. Now semi-anniversary, or some variation, maybe.

You may have read about the recent study about the “swooning magic of head-over-heels love.” Researchers “found high amounts of activity in a ‘reward’ part of the brain when the smitten subjects were shown photos of their honeys. That part of the brain has previously been linked to the desire for cocaine, chocolate and money. ‘It shows us exactly why love looks so crazy. It’s activating these circuits that are associated with very intense desire,’ said SUNY Stony Brook psychologist Arthur Aron, who [helped lead] the study.”

Well, luna- is the prefix, not just for moon-based objects, from which the word “month” comes, but for “lunatics” and “lunacy,” all the things “early-stage intense romantic love” is.

I sent this word to William Safire’s “On Language” column in the New York Times about a dozen years ago. Safire thought it was interesting construction, and wrote that he considered using it in his column, but never did. (But a question I had about “Joe Sixpack” did appear in a Safire column.)

Use at will. Tell them when they say “fifth month anniversary” that the PREFERRED term is “fifth lunaversary.”

You never heard of lunaversary before? That’s because I created it. Impress your friends, and confound those who aren’t.

This would be Carol’s and my 73rd lunaversary, except that it isn’t really the way I envisioned using the term. We have a more stable, MATURE love. But we do try to go out to a dinner date once a month around the 15th (sometimes two days early or three days late.) Maybe we CAN still use lunaversary…

ROG

Ragged Old Flag

My family was not one that flew the flag on major patriotic holidays (Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, etc.) I don’t know why, and I never asked. One could theorize, and my May 30 post may provide some insight, but it would be just an educated guess. They may not have even owned one.
So I was a bit surprised when I went down to visit my family in North Carolina in 2002 that there was this flag motif in the front yard. Of course, my father was deceased by then, but it got me thinking that there’s one thing 9/11 definitely DID change.

(There’s an interesting debate about flag pins in the Letters to the Editor section of a webpage I came across.)

After 9/11, and the beginnings of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been lots of flags put up, not just in front of homes, but from vehicles, at highway overpasses, in store windows, and the like.

Though I still don’t own a flag myself, I’ve found that I have been bothered by the well-meaning displays of the colors, but not for the reasons you might guess. It bugs me because too many of them look TERRIBLE- flags that are frayed, torn, soiled, faded.

There are rules for displaying the flag in the U.S. Code, the codification of laws in the United States, and one section deals specifically with treatment of the colors.

You don’t make a scarf for a dog in the Memorial Day parade out of a small flag (as I saw in Oneonta this year.)

When a flag is worn out, you take it and ceremonially burn it. Yes, burn it. There was a real to-do about creating an anti-flag burning amendment to the Constitution a few years back. I always wondered how it would have been worded so that the legitimate disposal of the flag could be achieved.

So, if you have a flag, or have put a flag in a public place, check it out. If it looks worn out, take it down, and dispose of it properly. If the idea of burning the flag bothers you, bring it to the local VFW. It’s very likely that they will do it for you.

If you want, get a new flag to replace the old. Do it now, in this prime flag flying period that ends on Independence Day. If you’re going to do it, do it right.

I know that Johnny Cash performed a song called Ragged Old Flag, but it was ragged because it had been through battle, not through the car wash once too often.

ROG

TW3 Contest Winner

TW3 refers to That Was The Week That Was, a show I watched back in 1964-65, which (don’t hold me to this, as it was 40 years ago) was an antecedent of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart blended with the political satire of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, mixed with the old Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

And the winner of yesterday’s contest is (oh, no, not him again!): Fred “Too Much Useless Information in His Brain” Hembeck!

Note to MR: you were the first to guess, but you got the first word incorrect.

ROG
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