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millionreasonsWhen it's too hot in summer and the insects circle and the heat rashes bump up under the skin and the residents of Hackney play loud music form their open windows, I want it to be autumn, a time of stillness, flashes of red and gold leaves and sunsets. I forget about the inconvenience of having to dry clothes indoors, of wearing slippers and jumpers and remembering an umbrella. Of Wednesday evenings packing up in the dark and cold and trying to get home, Sunnydale like, before dusk because I've forgotten my bike lights.
I forget that it becomes unpleasant to sit outdoors, rather than the norm. On Saturday, we cycled down the Greenway to the View Tube to look at the Olympic site and have a drink in the Container cafe. The cafe was full of screaming kids and it was a choice between that and sitting outside and shivering. We chose the latter, but it was a cold choice. The viewing platform was shut due to a meeting. I felt rather conned, which is my default emotion when it comes to the Olympics.
I think the SAD feelings I get in September and October are less to do with lack of light and more my failure to adjust from one season to another. Last Wednesday evening, I was tidying away bags of veg and Danish trolleys in a t-shirt, Sunday I couldn't even bear to leave the house. Stayed in all day watching Some Kind of Wonderful, the only John Hughes movie I haven't seen (of the teen genre; I'm not interested in the Macauley Culkin years) which this book said was the best of its type. I put it fourth behind Pretty in Pink, Ferris, and the Breakfast Club (but before the awful Sixteen Candles). It's basically a reverse Pretty in Pink with an Andrew McCarthy-esque Eric Stoltz playing the blue collar boy after the also-poor-but-running-with-the-rich Lea Thomspon, whose career faltered there. His Duckie is the tomboy drummer Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Hughes seems to have made this film just so he can get Duckie and Andie together at last (Eric and Mary end up with each other). The nasty rich boy is not half as suave and menacing as James Spader playing Steff and the alt-life of Chigaco teens is not as interesting as the record shop and club in the Pretty in Pink world.
I also watched the first 6 episodes of 1960 Coronation St which are, wonderfully, available on youtube. It's strange comparing 1960 with 2010; there are far far less characters (only Ken, Elsie and Ena stick in my mind, the rest are flotsam) and much longer scenes. Most of the episodes were filmed live and it shows:with actors fluffing their lines and directors filming characters having a row without seeing either of their faces. There's no outside broadcasting and no establishing shots, just the two or three people in the scene filmed very close up, very claustrophobically, perhaps to emphasise the tight insular lives the characters lead. It's far more kitchen sink than soap opera-esque. There's very little drama, it's all character and dialogue led. Needless to say, Ena has filled the Blanche shaped hole in my life:
"That feather duster is mine on account o' the fact I won it at a beetle drive."
"If yer thinking of moving inter my bed, you better move out sharpish because I'm coming 'ome to die on it!"
I forget that it becomes unpleasant to sit outdoors, rather than the norm. On Saturday, we cycled down the Greenway to the View Tube to look at the Olympic site and have a drink in the Container cafe. The cafe was full of screaming kids and it was a choice between that and sitting outside and shivering. We chose the latter, but it was a cold choice. The viewing platform was shut due to a meeting. I felt rather conned, which is my default emotion when it comes to the Olympics.
I think the SAD feelings I get in September and October are less to do with lack of light and more my failure to adjust from one season to another. Last Wednesday evening, I was tidying away bags of veg and Danish trolleys in a t-shirt, Sunday I couldn't even bear to leave the house. Stayed in all day watching Some Kind of Wonderful, the only John Hughes movie I haven't seen (of the teen genre; I'm not interested in the Macauley Culkin years) which this book said was the best of its type. I put it fourth behind Pretty in Pink, Ferris, and the Breakfast Club (but before the awful Sixteen Candles). It's basically a reverse Pretty in Pink with an Andrew McCarthy-esque Eric Stoltz playing the blue collar boy after the also-poor-but-running-with-the-rich Lea Thomspon, whose career faltered there. His Duckie is the tomboy drummer Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Hughes seems to have made this film just so he can get Duckie and Andie together at last (Eric and Mary end up with each other). The nasty rich boy is not half as suave and menacing as James Spader playing Steff and the alt-life of Chigaco teens is not as interesting as the record shop and club in the Pretty in Pink world.
I also watched the first 6 episodes of 1960 Coronation St which are, wonderfully, available on youtube. It's strange comparing 1960 with 2010; there are far far less characters (only Ken, Elsie and Ena stick in my mind, the rest are flotsam) and much longer scenes. Most of the episodes were filmed live and it shows:with actors fluffing their lines and directors filming characters having a row without seeing either of their faces. There's no outside broadcasting and no establishing shots, just the two or three people in the scene filmed very close up, very claustrophobically, perhaps to emphasise the tight insular lives the characters lead. It's far more kitchen sink than soap opera-esque. There's very little drama, it's all character and dialogue led. Needless to say, Ena has filled the Blanche shaped hole in my life:
"That feather duster is mine on account o' the fact I won it at a beetle drive."
"If yer thinking of moving inter my bed, you better move out sharpish because I'm coming 'ome to die on it!"
