Category: Arts & Culture

This brief tale is a summary of the motion picture called “Vanity Fair,” which made its debut last year. First, I should like to set the scene, so that you may know the circumstances under which it was viewed. I should think that other reviews would benefit by providing such knowledge to readers; it does violence to the truth unless a writer reveals, exemplo gratia, that he traveled to the motion picture theatre after a bitter dispute with his wife, or, in Roger Ebert’s case, if his gout was acting up that evening.
On the way home from my place of employment last Friday, I had decided to cleanse my soul by participating in the sacrament of reconciliation. One of the parishes near my home, named for Saint Louis of France, distributes God’s merciful grace at half-past five in the evening. To my chagrin, when I arrived at thirty-four minutes past the hour, there were already a dozen people ahead of me. My own parish is known for its strict approach to the Holy Faith, but Saint Louis makes it look like Unitarians of the Loose Observance. Judging that I would not be able to return home for another hour, and knowing that my expectant wife would want me home sooner, I prayed before the exposed sacrament, and left the church, resolving to return in the next day or two.
I stopped at a pastry shop down the road from my home, which closes at the hour of six, several minutes before I journey past it in the evenings. The shop is known for its fine sweet confections, and most of the persons behind the counter are young ladies who live in that locality. Its sole detraction is that male youths are attracted to the ladies, like vultures to carrion. I enquired if they had any chocolate desserts, which my wife regards with great delight. The handsome shop-maiden guided me through my selections, which later turned out to be exquisite. As she helped me, the young lady was quite pleasant, and as I completed the transaction she smiled and bade me goodbye in such a way as to suggest that my presence was not entirely disagreeable to her. For a man of my advancing years, this was indeed flattering.
I will not detail the portion of the evening devoted to cajoling and issuing threats unto the Johnson children, at least the three that are not in utero, as those events are unedifying. At last, when the children were in their bedrooms, I piled high the logs and set a gloriously bright, warm fire in our hearth. I poured a cup of fresh coffee for myself, and steeped a cheerful cup of Earl Grey for my wife, and we began to eat and drink and (you were wondering if this was ever going to come) watch “Vanity Fair.”
The first difficulty with the motion picture was apparent, for you see, the heroine, Becky Sharp, is played by Mrs. Reese Witherspoon, whose personal charms are apparent, her skills in drama well-honed, but her countenance is that of a twenty-first-century woman, not of one who lived two centuries prior to our day.
Even more seriously, the pace of the drama was like that of an addled sufferer of heart disease. The film is based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, who besides having a name that is most unusual and enjoyable to pronounce (I urge you to try it), wrote works of great complexity and density of plot. I have viewed but one other filmed version of a Thackeray novel, entitled “Barry Lyndon,” crafted by the misanthropic genius Stanley Kubrick, and its length is an hour longer than “Vanity Fair.” That length seems more suitable to the scope of Thackeray’s intent.
The actors made very little impression upon me, save for Romola Garai, whose performance I enjoyed, and whose face suited the time and place of the film, but I cannot in good conscience praise anyone who knowingly agreed to be in “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” which I have not, in point of fact, actually seen, but the idea of which is as risible as “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” The men were mostly nonentities; only Gabriel Byrne elevated himself. Mrs. Witherspoon gave her customary zeal, and the countless hours she doubtless spent with dialogue coaches paid off with her accent, which was plausible at the very least.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the moment when the film, to use a phrase that is foreign to the faux-Victorian idiom that I have adopted for this post, “jumped the shark.” Becky organises a dance number for the king of Britain, and persuades aristocratic ladies to participate. The result looks much like a Madonna video, circa 1987, and it was enough to transform my hitherto ambivalent opinion about the film into mild dislike.

I was 20 years old when Johnny Carson left the “Tonight Show,” and I felt like the world was ending. To be specific, it was after he left, and Jay Leno took over. Instead of the big-band intro and the curtain parting for Johnny, it was a nebulous, tuneless modern jazz composition and about 500 computer-animated curtains before Mr. Big Face came out. The universe had shifted out of balance.
Until then, I hadn’t realized how good Carson was. Truth be told, he was an average stand-up comic, and many of his jokes were downright lame. When it came to interviews, though, he was peerless. He had a way of reassuring nervous guests, even if it was their first time in front of a national audience. He never was nasty, or attempted to put himself front and center. Instead, he coaxed them into presenting themselves as well as they could. You always came away with a sense of the subject’s personality, instead of Carson’s.
The same year that Carson left, Governor Bill Clinton was elected president. Although I considered him a dishonest braggart, it didn’t surprise me when he won. The Baby Boomers, having burned and pillaged their way through American society, were bound to have one of their own in the White House. But there was something about the “Tonight Show” transition that was unexpectedly jarring.
In retrospect, my discomfort probably sprang from a real generational shift. When I was growing up, I blamed the Boomers for screwing up a lot of things, but I comforted myself by thinking of the previous generation, which was still very much with us. Presidents Reagan and Bush were from that generation, as were my grandparents, all four of whom were alive then. Being young, I thought the Boomer takeover was always someday in the future. But when Johnny disappeared behind the curtain, that day had arrived, at least to me.

Check out “Manolo for the Men,” a men’s fashion blog that somehow I came across last week. I would have thought a fashion blog might bore me to death (I am usually well-dressed, but never fashionable), but this proves again that compelling writing makes just about anything readable, even if it’s written in (probably fake) broken English. To wit:

…The Vivienne Westwood, she has long specialized in the fashion for the adolescent who cries out for the attention. The perfect look for the angst-ridden, rebellious teenager, but not the look for the serious adult. The grown up peoples they require the grown up clothes.
Do not denigrate the importance of looking “normal”. Fashion it is about looking good, not seeking out the look of the abnormal, or the outre, or the purposely ridiculous.
Manolo says, the true radical in the serious well-cut, well-tailored clothes is the one whose thoughts, talents, and actions will change the world. The attention-seeking adolescent in the motley clothes of the fool, this person is merely the comedic sideshow.

Those words apply to many areas of human life: in theology, politics, the arts, and family life, the challenge isn’t to make something new, but rather to guide that which exists to something higher.
In this, the Manolo he has expressed the truth!

For better or worse, it goes everywhere.

Robert H. Bork remembers his ambivalence in 1989 as the Berlin Wall came down and dungarees and rock music poured into the former East Germany.
“You almost began to want to put the wall back up,” says the former Supreme Court nominee, a tart critic of American popular culture.
If there is one proposition on which Western European elites and radical Islamists, American social conservatives and snobby latte town aesthetes all seem to agree, it is this: American popular culture is a subversive thing.

The WashTimes’ Scott Galupo looks at a complaint that brings Judge Bork, Jacques Chirac, and even Mullah Omar down on the same side.

…of Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal on Of Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal on Allison Woo’s photoblog. I would link the image here but I don’t want to run afoul of copyright laws. Click away – it’s stunning! A strange thing I noticed, a sanctuary lamp is in the foreground but there is no candle in it.