Easter Parade

These days, there are many things can lasso and tie me up me that would never even have caused me to twitch back in my twenties or thirties. Take Irving Berlin for instance. Back in the day, I wouldn’t have thanked you for any mention of him. I knew some of his songs, as everybody does (whether they know it or not) but, beyond that his name evoked ‘old stuff’ and ‘out of date stuff’ and thus held no interest for a young Turk like me.

Times change. We change.

These days, I’m not an Irving Berlin fanatic or anything close to that. But his songwriting talent amazes me, his songs grab me periodically, and I find a large measure truth and authenticity in his work.

It’s Easter and that means that the film 'Easter Parade' is doing the rounds of the TV channels. Oddly enough, I don’t think you’ll find it easily on your television today but I’ve seen it appear three times in the last week and if we still had TCM I’m sure there would have been a couple more. Like ‘White Christmas’ before it, ‘Easter Parade’ seems to have now slipped into my consciousness. It is a part of my Easter weekend and if I don’t see at least some of it, I feel that I have missed out.

With ‘Easter Parade’ it is certain elements of the film that grab me, rather than the overall thing. Certain moments and set pieces make it special. For me, the musical number ‘A Couple of Swells’ is quite close to perfection. ‘A Fella with an Umbrella’ is one of those myriads of songs that Mum used to sing so it holds a place. ‘Drum Crazy’ is great showcase for Astaire and for how effortlessly wonderful he was. Steppin’ Out is iconic and jaw dropping in places. And ‘The Girl on the Magazine Cover’ seems naughty no matter how you dress it up.

But the part that gets me the most comes right at the end. Judy Garland decides to go and get Fred on her own terms. She sends him chocolates and an easter bunny and a hat. Then she calls and serenades him as he tries on his now garlanded top hat. The song she sings swells and sway and then easily grows into being Easter Parade. “With your Easter bonnet with all the ribbons on it, you’ll be the grandest fella in the Easter Parade…” Why is it a magical moment, for me at least? I can’t really say. But it is. It’s a bit clunky and old-fashioned and kitsch but I just think it’s great.

I think it’s best not to overthink why it is that something hits home in a nice way. Best just to go with the flow and find that something sweet and charming. To lay it out on a steel table and cut into it too deep might mean that the magic might drain away and be lost. There’s no question that it is largely due to sentimentality. These songs that were old when I was young still prevail. My Mum sang them as a young woman, just as Judy and Fred sang them in their time. And their times are all past now. Add to that that this year’s 5^th Avenue Easter Parade will happen later this morning and my younger son now lives there. Will he walk the Avenue? I doubt it. But it was unthinkable even last year that such a level of proximity could ever occur.

The world is a surprising and a fragile place and I guess we’d best take warmth and nostalgia from wherever we may happen upon it. Even if it is only a dated musical film on a late night channel or a clip on a YouTube link.

Have a Happy Easter.

Bleagh

Patricia and I went off on holidays for a bit more than a week and a bit less than two weeks. We’re back now. You may notice that I never tell you when I’m actually on holidays in case you come round and burgle my house. Nothing personal, just basic home security.

We went off to the sun. I won’t tell you where exactly in case you come and burgle my house. It was lovely for the first 90% of the time and it was considerably less so for the final 10%.

We were flying back on Sunday afternoon so, by Friday, there was a sense of things coming to an end. For lunch, I set out the usual mix of fresh rolls, cut price charcuterie, biccies and chocolate. It all looked very appetising so it was a little surprise when I sat down in front of it and immediately decided that, no, I didn’t want any of it at all. Not one bite.

By dinner time, it was clear that something I had eaten had violently disagreed with me. Less said the better except to allude gently to the fact that the traffic was all in one, gravity-assisted direction. I hung around the place and consoled myself that I had a full day to get over it before I had to fly home.

In the evening, feeling indigested, I took two Rennie and crunched them up. The unexpected result was practically immediate. Let me just say that once, in around 1993, I drank an entire bottle of red wine without any food at a little social do and that was the last time that I had ever thrown up. Until, that is, the moment I ate those two Rennie. After that, I couldn’t seem to remember how to stop.

The next day there was a feeling that the storm had passed but the ghost that remained bore little resemblance to yours truly. I ate nothing and tried to stay hydrated. On Saturday afternoon, I sat on the couch and watched Summer Holiday and Hello Dolly back-to-back without moving an inch. At least I would be shipshape to get on the plane the day after. At least we would get home.

That theory about it being something I ate? The sort of went out of the window at about nine pm of Saturday evening, fourteen hours before the plane, when Patricia came down with the exact same thing that I was grappling with. A bug then, I guess, not food. By ten pm on Saturday evening the reason why seemed largely irrelevant. Patricia was twice as bad as I had been and I had been pretty bad.

At this point a veil is drawn over the last night of our holiday. Suffice it to say it wasn’t very edifying.

Sunday morning was a complex equation. Should we cancel flights, try to get another few nights’ accommodation? What to do? Patricia rallied in a way I couldn’t have dreamed of doing on the day before. She really is something. Most of the packing had been done before the storm descended so I managed to finish it up. We hauled ourselves into the worst taxi in history, rattled to the airport, got on the plane, and got home without too much incident. The lady in the seat to my right looked over at Patricia in the seat to my left and said, “your wife doesn’t enjoy flying very much, does she?” I nodded and smiled.

Home couldn’t have been more shining and regal if it had been a sprawling palace rather than the slightly under-aired bungalow that it was. The sense of comfort and safe harbour upon getting in the door was almost overwhelming. You know what they say, great to travel, great to come home.

Which all begs the question, was it worth it? That week in the sun, rounded off by two singularly unpleasant days. Was the good part worth the bad?

As with many of these questions, they seem to become a little more profound as years advance. They seem to be a metaphor for bigger questions of life, mortality, and existentialism.

Was it worth it? 100% yes.

The early morning walks on the beach, the swims in the still-cold water. The time together, recharging, without stress or responsibility. The smiles, the companionship, the fun, the food, the drinks, the books, the music. Those initial great days were absolutely worth the less good ones at the end.

So it is with holidays.

So it is with life.

Nothing to Write, Better Get it Done

There are two voices operating in my head this morning. The first says, “You have nothing to write about today.” The second says, “You better get on and do it so.”

Some of the best writing gets done when you don’t know what to write. If that’s the case, I have high hopes for this piece because the empty page stretches below this sentence like a deserted west of Ireland beach, and I have no idea whatsoever what the next paragraph will hold.

Write. Just write. Set something down. Use your brain and well as your fingers. What happened this week? What happened to you? What occurred?

This week was quite a bit about the telly I watched. There was ‘Adolescence’ of course. We all watched that. I thought it was excellent, particularly Episode One, although they were all very good. I am interested in how the series is presented to us. It reminds me, rather incongruously, of how the Mission Impossible movies are presented to us. In both, there is the product, the story, the drama but, quite deliberately, there is also the making of the product. How was that shot done? Where was the camera? Did anyone break a foot? And an emphasis, all the time, that it was real, real time, real action. Real. Real. I’m not being critical of the approach. I reckon ‘Adolescence’ is the best thing I’ve seen on telly in a long time. The drive to talk about the making of the series as much as the issues raised in it is interesting, that’s all.

I also got to the end of Season 2 of Severance. Jump these paragraphs if you’re getting there yourself. I’m not intending to go all spoiler-tastic on it, but I tend to believe that everything is a spoiler when you talk to someone about something they haven’t yet seen. A raised eyebrow, a wry smile, the side you dress on… anything can give your feelings away.

For me. Severance Season 1 was a rather perfect thing. I’ve watched it twice and I think it delivers its premise admirably, with pace and determination. If Severance had ended with Series 1, it would have entered my consciousness as a wonderful thing that I would aspire to revisit from time to time. Rather like Rubicon. Anyone remember that? One series, very good, would like to revisit but never did.

Severance Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger but, now that I’ve seen Season 2, I could have lived with it ending there. Don’t get me wrong, Season 2 has acres of stuff to commend it, and it tied up really well in the last episode but, at times, it struggled to make it to that last episode. It required all of the first two episodes to tidy up the melee left from the end of Season 1. Then it had a number of branches out and back story episodes (expect more of those next season, Milchick… Burt… Ricken, even). Several of the four central characters strayed from their stories and the whole thing became diluted and stretched. The sense was that it would all fall together for another fine frenzy in the final episode and that’s pretty much how it went down, and very good it was too. I’ll be there for Season 3, of course I will, but that Season 1, that was a thing of beauty.

Here we are, 570 words. I haven’t looked back since that “What occurred?” sentence. But I’m back in the world not with nothing to write and my cold…

Oh, yes, I had a cold last week and I’m just crawling out from under it. A medium to bad one, I’d say. I’m a bit of a bugger with colds because I don’t stop and sleep and drink hot drinks. I work on through. I drag myself around with the mistaken belief that the worst thing I could do would be to lie down under it. I know this is wrong. I should be resting, using my meagre resources to battle the lurgy inside instead of wasting them stumbling to work across the town green. Anyway, I’m getting better now. There’s a bit of a cough. Oh, and when I was in the library yesterday, a lady came out of the computer room and walked past me and then when she clocked me, she doubled back and opened the computer room door and held it for me. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s okay,” I said, “I’m not going in there.” I guess that’s how shit I looked. Like an old man with a cold. I didn’t enjoy that experience. I’m nobody’s old man, not for another few short years anyway.

The latest film that Richard Keaney made from one of my scripts got into its seventh film festival this week. So Bedford and Naas, here we come. ‘Joey Had Never Been Out of the City’ came from a little story which originated on this blog so it’s not all been a waste of Sunday mornings. I really love this little film and it’s great to see festival audiences embrace it too.

And here I am. The page is full. Little value to everyone, I know, but the contract has been fulfilled for another week. The promise has been kept. Thank you for coming this far down the page with me. I hope you have a happy and peaceful week.

Au Revoir…