— पांच हजार एक सौ तैंतीस —
I went home via the Capitol Hill branch library yesterday. I didn't feel like walking the entire way, especially adding the distance detouring to the library, so I walked the ~13 minutes to the Monorail at Seattle Center, then took Light Rail—up to that point, same as I often do just going home. It's just that this time, instead of walking home from the Light Rail station, I walked the opposite direction to the library, picked up a movie DVD to check out, and then walked home from there. So, I still got a good 1.8 miles of walking in, cumulatively—75% of the walking I'd have done had I just walked straight home.
The movie I checked out was one I had been waiting for on hold for a few months. It's
Network, the second of only two movies in history to win the award in three of the four acting categories (no movie has ever won in all four). The first is
A Streetcar Named Desire, though, and I wanted to watch them in chronological order of release. So, last night, we watched
A Streetcar Named Desire.
Ivan, who happened to have last night off of work, watched it with us. In the end, he openly agreed with me when I said, "I'm kind of mystified. Why is this regarded as so great?"
Shobhit then spent a particularly excessive amount of time—far more than was necessary—defending the film's, and particularly the Tennessee Williams play script on which it's based, longstanding critical acclaim.
From my perspective, I suspect the issue is just that so many aspects of the film come across as dated, from its themes to even its rather showy performances (particularly Vivien Leigh as Blanche, a character the story fully surrounds, and I found Blanche to be insufferably annoying), because it was released in 1951. When it comes to the kind of nuance this story possessed in 1951, I guess I've been spoiled by the long history of filmed drama productions that are quite a bit more sophisticated. I do think a work should be judged within the context of its time, but given that this was released a year before even my mother was born, it's difficult for me to fully comprehend that context in this case.
I do find it amusingly ironic, though, that Marlon Brando's performance was both easily the best in the film, and widely regarded as one of the most influential performances in cinema history, and
his nomination—the film did get nominations in all four categories—was the only one that did not win. (Who beat him? Humphrey Bogart in
The African Queen, which costarred fellow nominee Katharine Hepburn.)
— पांच हजार एक सौ तैंतीस —
— पांच हजार एक सौ तैंतीस —
Anyway. Shobhit also made a huge volume of a paneer and vegetable dish for dinner last night, so much that he filled two full size stove pots with it. Once the movie ended, because I knew Shobhit would otherwise just let it sit out all night and I did not want it to spoil with paneer in it, I spent quite a lot of time dishing the leftovers into
six quart containers, rearranging the refrigerator to fit them, and then washing the two pots. The washing took some doing too, because Shobhit also added mozzarella and it got all crusted to the bottom of one of the pots.
By the time that was done, it was quite close to time for getting ready for bed.
One more thing, though! Shobhit rather surprised me when I started discussing the proposed trip to visit Barbara in Louisville over Oscars weekend. First, I told him the trip was going to take more time and money than I initially assumed—it turns out Seattle has no (truly zero) direct flights to the Louisville airport, which guarantees an extended travel time due to a guaranteed layover, on top of the day getting stretched by the time difference, as even Louisville is still in Eastern Time and therefore three hours ahead.
Because I do also want to explore Cincinnati at least one day, Shobhit asked about direct flights to that city—which I had already looked into. There is
one direct flight from Seattle to Cincinnati, and it leaves SeaTac at 10 a.m. Even that lands in Cincinnati at 5:30 p.m. local time, which I would then have to follow with a ninety-minute drive to Louisville. There appears to be two nonstop flights from Cincinnati to Seattle (weird), but one is at 6:05 a.m. which is too early, and the other is at 6:35 pm which is too late, as it lands in SeaTac at 8:35 and it would be 10:00 before I got home. Theoretically, I could combine the exploration of Cincinnati with the day traveling home, but I'd still have to be at the airport by 5 p.m. and I would also like to be able to see Cincinnati with Barbara.
And then, Shobhit shocked me by putting it into my head to add Indianapolis to the list of nearby cities to explore! He was sort of like, why not? And I'm just like . . . okay, sure! At first I thought I was extending my initially hopeful two-night stay to three nights because of the aforementioned travel issues; adding Indianapolis extends it to four nights. I'm still good with that though, even though I'd really like to stay at one of the cool hotels I've found in downtown Louisville which would probably run me an average of around $200 a night. But, whatever. I texted Barbara to see if she was up for exploring three cities (including Louisville) with me in as many days, and she was all about it—she doesn't drive so this would probably be the only opportunity for this for her as well. So now the plan I'm leaning toward is to fly to Lousiville via a layover stretching most of the day Thursday, March 24; day trip to Indianapolis (about a two-hour drive one way) on Friday; day trip to Cincinnati (about a ninety minute drive one way) on Saturday; then Louisville and watching the Oscars with Barbara in my hotel room on Sunday, before flying home on Monday, March 28. This feels like a good plan and I'm excited about it.
— पांच हजार एक सौ तैंतीस —
[posted 12:27 pm]
