Monday, June 08, 2009

An update

Well I've gotten out of the habit recently of doing a weekly update. In hindsight the ended up being mostly filler. If something interesting happened I'd post about it, not wait to do an end of week review. So I'm deep sixing that and just going with periodic posts about anything that I think might be interesting.

Reading a new author, at least to me. Susan Howatch is an author I've heard a lot of fellow Episcopalians/Anglicans talk about usually in glowing terms. (There's always a grump or two). I've been taking to wandering the stacks of the library looking for something new to read and stumbled on "Glittering Images" the first book in what's called the Starbridge series. It's the story of an Anglican priest in the 1930's and his spiritual, physical and familial struggles. To be honest the first couple hundred pages I kept thinking "Why am I reading this?" But the writing was good and the characters interesting so I kept on and now I'm hooked. I was almost late getting out the door this morning because I was engrossed in the reading.

I find it interesting as well because the main character is struggling with some of the same issues I am at roughly the same age (he's a few years younger). So the story is speaking very strongly to me. I'll be interested to see how the rest of her work goes.

Starting exploring a new movie thread too. Got a series of Harold Lloyd films from Netflix. I've never seen any of his work, which is highly regarded by film buffs. What surprised me was how long the first one was, 1928's "Speedy", 86 minutes. I know I went in with the mindset of movies from 5-10 years earlier that only ran a couple reels but I was still surprised. This is also a very high quality movie, great photography and action scenes. But the really amazing moment is when Lloyd "flips off" his image in a mirror! It's unmistakable that he offers the classic one finger salute quite clearly. Apparently this slid through because it was before the hated Hays Office was created. I ran it back just to make sure I had seen it. Oh yes, to yearn for more innocent days!

Not much else going on 'round here.

Peace

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