At a panel at Saints and Sinners which I intend to post about later, the moderator had the writers read first lines from one of their works. On the Colorado trip, as we rode through small towns of the Texas Panhandle, I kept telling Tim I was looking for the last picture show. Later, when David Puterbaugh saw some of my photos from the trip, he, too, brought up the movie The Last Picture Show, which is a favorite of mine, along with Larry McMurtry’s novel. I also like the sequels to both the book (Texasville and Duane’s Depressed) and the movie (Texasville).
I’ve always been an avid McMurtry reader and once considered writing my Masters thesis on his works. Regarding this particular novel, I appreciate how McMurtry’s opening immediately puts me in the setting and inside Sonny’s head, and how the novel remains with me, so that I’m still looking for that old theater and Sonny, Duane, and Jacy in every small town.
Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town. It was a bad feeling, and it usually came on him in the mornings early, when the streets were completely empty, the way they were one Saturday morning in late November. The night before Sonny had played his last game of football for Thalia High School, but it wasn’t that that made him feel so strange and alone. It was just the look of the town.
Continuing with an earlier theme of songwriters, JJ Cale’s songs have been covered by such artists as Eric Clapton, Waylon Jennings, Lynyrd Skynyrd, John Mayer, Phish, and Jerry Garcia. Cale died nearly a year ago at age seventy-four. I thought of him when I photographed a transport dog this past week, Magnolia.
I first heard Cale’s song “Magnolia” as covered by a favorite Seventies band, Poco. Cale’s version is shorter and good listening for a mellow Sunday. Here’s to you, sweet Magnolia. May you find a wonderful forever home.
One of my favorite bands who I never hear anyone talk about anymore is Little Feat. I especially liked Little Feat founder Lowell George’s songwriting. He was a huge influence on some of my favorite music of the 1970s and early 1980s, and he died too young. I thought of him when I saw this sign in New Mexico.
And I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the backroads so I wouldn’t get weighed
from the song “Willin’,” written by Lowell George
Like many of my favorite songwriters, I found Lowell George thanks to Linda Ronstadt. Here’s her cover of “Willin’.” You can always listen to it just to see how the Comanche, Kawaiisu, and Shoshone place names are pronounced. =)
“I don’t get it. I’ve been on this adventure for over a year in Earth Time. I’ve been to galaxies far, far away, Wonderland, Middle Earth, the Firefly ‘verse, and who knows where else as I’ve defied all I know of the space/time continuum. I’ve picked up a sidekick and a sidekick’s best friend. I’ve fallen into the pages of literary masterpieces, popular fiction, Mad Magazine, and even the funny papers. I’ve had conversations with oversized crabs, sharks, dragons, and an octopus along the way. I still don’t know what the Giant Rabbit’s note meant: ‘The first part of your journey will be complete when you find Lil Eddy.’ I’ve been to water eddies and snow eddies and found nothing to explain what journey I’m on or what happens next.”
Cuddle: “Maybe you should turn around?”
John Riley: “Yup, Bright Eyes, I’m thinking you’re about to experience a total eclipse of the heart.”
The usual characters have company in wishing you all a happy Fat Tuesday! A special shout-out to Timmy, too: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! As you know, Timmy, you share this birth date with yet another character, my late mother.
In honor of my Pisces loves, everybody party like a fish! (I don’t know what that even means.)
The Adventures of Katnip: 57. Thanks, Greg, for the Mardi Gras props, and Mary for the backdrop.
Who says two different fandoms can’t coexist? Not Marika, that’s who.
Star Trek’s Uhura, Scott, McCoy, Spock, Chekov, Kirk, and Sulu cross-stitched for Tom by Marika.
Twilight’s Edward, Bella, and Jacob cross-stitched for me by Marika.
Thank you again, Marika. Thought you’d like to see them clean, pressed, and framed.
When Mother was a little girl in Tupelo, Mississippi, the local theater, converted from its original use as an opera house, was named The Strand. I don’t know how old she was when she started going to movies there with her brother Gerald, but she remembered that the two of them could see a Saturday matinee for a nickel. They’d get their money from their father or an older sibling (they were the two youngest of twelve), and spend the afternoon transported to other lives, other places.
By the Depression years, the theater had been bought by a regional company and renamed The Lyric. As my mother recalled, her father and older brothers worked during those years, plus they grew so much of their own food, that they weren’t as impacted by poverty as many others were. They were certainly poor, but they weren’t hungry, and there were still nickels available so they could escape the grimmer realities of the time by walking through the doors of The Lyric. For her nickel, she’d get a newsreel, a cartoon, and at least one, sometimes two, features.
The Lyric, Tupelo, Mississippi, photo from Ronnie Harris
It’s easy to see that the era’s musical films and comedies provided escapism. Certainly the lives of the affluent were portrayed. But there was also a theme running through them: the belief that a person, no matter the circumstances, could get through hard times. A blend of luck, hard work, and right behavior: These might not make you wealthy, but they could help you make a good life. Hope was important to adults and children of the 1930s, and Mother’s favorite movies exemplifying that theme were those starring Shirley Temple. To her, Shirley Temple was a shining example of all that could be good and funny and creative in a girl.
One thing she wanted and couldn’t have was a Shirley Temple doll. She always said it was probably for the best, since it undoubtedly would have come to great harm at the hands of her rambunctious brothers. As the economy began improving for most Americans, Mother’s family experienced misfortune. Her mother became bedridden. Her father’s work situation changed. By the time she was barely into her teens, she had to leave school and become a caregiver to anyone who was sick or to newborn and toddler nieces and nephews.
Mother did eventually, with my father, use those values she learned as a child to build a good life. From the time I reached about the age she was when she had to leave school, I became her movie watching partner. We’d stay up late on weekends to see old movies, or spend Saturday mornings and Sunday afternoons watching, on TV, all the films that she’d loved in childhood. We both preferred screwball comedies, and I also loved Shirley Temple along with her.
The Lyric still exists today, restored, preserved, and used for live community theater. And though Mother and I often found Shirley Temple dolls when we’d go antiquing, the thrift she’d learned by living through the Depression was too entrenched in her. She would never have paid the collector prices for a doll in good condition. And she’d have been furious with me if I had bought one to give her.
After all her kids were gone, and after my father died, she bought her first VCR. The first VHS tapes she purchased were Shirley Temple movies. Up until she died, we’d still turn on the TV and find old movies to enjoy together. In fact, the day she died, we had an old Western playing with the sound off in her hospice room. David, Debby, Lynne, Tom and I cracked ourselves up as we invented crazy dialogue for it. I’ll always be glad that whatever awareness she had in those hours included the sounds of her children laughing.
Two years younger than my mother, Shirley Temple outlived her by almost six years. As Shirley Temple Black, she had an amazing life. Rather than trying to hold on to a career that began to fade after her childhood years, she retired from films. She sometimes worked in television. She married and had children. She was politically active. A lifelong Republican, she once ran for office and lost. She was appointed Representative to the Twenty-fourth U.N. General Assembly by President Nixon and U.S. Ambassador to Ghana by President Ford. As the first female Chief of Protocol of the U.S. from 1976 to 1977, she was in charge of arranging President Carter’s inauguration and inaugural ball. Her last official position was as U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992, appointed by President George H. W. Bush.
And thanks to the movies, she will always be that bubbly child of the 1930s. Growing up, my favorite Shirley Temple movie was The Littlest Rebel, but really, I liked them all. More than anything in the world, I wish I could curl up once more in the den with my mother–both of us drinking iced tea, maybe sharing a bowl of popcorn, laughing and shedding a few sentimental tears over whatever hardships Shirley’s character has to face and whatever happy ending is in store for her. Since I can’t do that, I am going to watch the movie I seem to recall was my mother’s favorite, Curly Top. And I’ll probably eat a few of these as I sing along.
Once Mother said My little pet
You ought to learn your alphabet
So in my soup I used to get
All the letters of the alphabet
I learned them all from A to Z
And now my mother’s giving me
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop
Gosh oh gee but I have fun
Swallowing animals one by one
When they’re inside me where it’s dark
I walk around like Noah’s Ark
I stuff my tummy like a goop
With animal crackers in my soup
Lyrics to “Animal Crackers in My Soup” from the movie Curly Top by T.Koehler & I.Caesar/R.Henderson.
Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town. It was a bad feeling, and it usually came on him in the mornings early, when the streets were completely empty, the way they were one Saturday morning in late November. The night before Sonny had played his last game of football for Thalia High School, but it wasn’t that that made him feel so strange and alone. It was just the look of the town.
When Mother was a little girl in Tupelo, Mississippi, the local theater, converted from its original use as an opera house, was named The Strand. I don’t know how old she was when she started going to movies there with her brother Gerald, but she remembered that the two of them could see a Saturday matinee for a nickel. They’d get their money from their father or an older sibling (they were the two youngest of twelve), and spend the afternoon transported to other lives, other places.
One thing she wanted and couldn’t have was a Shirley Temple doll. She always said it was probably for the best, since it undoubtedly would have come to great harm at the hands of her rambunctious brothers. As the economy began improving for most Americans, Mother’s family experienced misfortune. Her mother became bedridden. Her father’s work situation changed. By the time she was barely into her teens, she had to leave school and become a caregiver to anyone who was sick or to newborn and toddler nieces and nephews.
Once Mother said My little pet