Tinsel, Grace and True Confessions

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Carolyn,

Sorry that you’re hanging them up. Clearly you got a great deal of gratification from that activity, but to continue would be irrationally dangerous. Completely good choice, all things considered.

  Hey , what about ballroom dancing ? Seriously, Carolyn, it can be quite a workout and I can’t think of anything more potentially gratifying that can be done in plain view with a significant other . We went to a weekly big band concert, under the stars of course, at a local Church one Tuesday evening in Merida . One of the most pleasurable parts was the myriad of couples dancing . One unassuming Mr. and Mrs. in particular stuck in our minds. They were quiet, shabby and almost without expression… until the band began. Then, what an absolute study in fluidity and grace they became when they danced. It was as if they were one being. It was, as Van the Man would say “ … a marvellous night for a moondance “




　

I completely appreciate the reasoning behind your decision, though. No matter how robust our favorite activities are,  it sucks to realize that our bodily standard equipment is slipping off warranty. I’m reminded too often now of how shop-worn the carcass is becoming .  I wish I could fully empathise, Carolyn, but I am as athletic as a soap dish - my sport CV lists recreational sailing, motorcycling and billiards. Not a conspicuously athletic activity in the lot.


Plus - I have an abiding love of smoked, dried or pickled stuff, and many of those nefarious edibles that taste so sinfully good because they‘re so egregiously bad for you. I read Fast Food Nation and even incorporated parts of it into my Media Studies course for a few years but it didn’t put me off culinary slumming. I just made some pickled sausages with Mexican spices brought back from our Yucatan adventure. And they are muy fino! I try to  limit myself to two sausages a week, though.

  

Although, about 3 decades ago , as part of the giving up smoking thing, I traded nicotine for endorphins for about a year and got into running. I was up to 10km per run 3 times weekly but I got so frickin’ skinny that I had to buy new clothes . I wasn't a doughboy initially, so it was just an unwelcome expense.  Plus, the shoes cost more than the first two cars I ever owned combined.

　

True Confession Corner

 From the “ I can’t believe I watched the whole thing “ files.  

 

 I stumbled across the A-Team remake movie on the small screen a bit ago and in a fit of random mindlessness watched it through. I hadn’t intended to do so. Initially I was just going to spend a few minutes there to confirm that it was just haphazardly assembled pop-culture pandering of the worst kind. Well, it is and it isn’t. It’s candy floss, to be sure, but it's  five-star Olympic calibre candy-floss.

  This movie is unequivocally  A-List Vegas  stuff. Like Vegas, it's vulgar, spectacular and overblown.  But,  it’s platinum-plated vulgarity and spectacle, and that's the kicker! 

One of the reasons Diamonds Are Forever remains my all time favorite Bond flick is because of the minor odyssey into the glitzy, glittery smarm of Vegas that it takes us on (  it's vintage late 60's Vegas, when Howard Hughes lurked in ostentatious seclusion on the penthouse floor of the Desert Inn and the Rat-Pack ruled. ) The Bond movie, like Vegas itself, is  mental tapioca, but with the very best of production values and so is this flick. It’s not a frowsy bimbo trying to be a jewelled baroness, it’s a splendidly tailored, coiffed and manicured showgirl strutting unabashedly onstage in the best sequins and rhinestones money can buy.

Would I watch the A-Team movie again?? 

 Only if I was stuck inside, couldn’t sleep and had just it  or the 24-hour Televangelism channel to choose from.


Okay, to the Riddle cave, Robin! Your last one was tough, Carolyn. I'm gonna guess it's bifocals. I know that completely ignores the hearing aspect but there's been a ripple in the riddle force lately and that's the best I can do. I offer the following in rebuttal:



Round and sure-footed

Fashion surrenders to function

Mandatory in some places for some months

Essential for slippery progress

 

  

Don

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