On the last day of February, we saw the first harbinger of spring, a robin. Also, we were pleased when a pair of blue jays arrived to steal Squirrelie’s peanuts. During the West Nile epidemic, our jays disappeared, and we missed them. “Jay, jay, jay!” they shrieked when we raised the garage door until we threw out nuts. They reminded us of Pavlov’s experiments where dogs learned to associate the ringing of a bell with food so that they salivated when it was rung. (Squirrelie banged the screen door yesterday to get Bill’s attention.)
Birds sing a gladsome song at the rising of the sun, and I can imagine that the fox lifts its nose and takes pleasure from the scent of springtime. However, we humans are so rich by comparison. Well-crafted books and dramatic productions show us the geography of the human spirit, portray events in which we cannot participate and take us to places and other minds that we shall never visit.
Ben Affleck’s Argo deserved to win the Oscar for best picture. It’s based on the true story of a group of Americans who escaped from our embassy in Teheran, Iran, while it was being invaded after the fall of the Shah. The Canadian Ambassador sheltered them while the most implausible plan one could imagine to achieve their escape was concocted. Impossible as that plan seemed, it was better than one cooked up where they would ride bicycles for several hundred miles through the mountains. The other employees were held captive for 444 days and lived a life of horror, including solitary confinement and being ordered to strip naked and kneel blindfolded while their captors cocked their weapons in a pretend execution.
Argo took me to a place where I never want to be. The cinematography and soundtrack make the mob scenes in the streets so vivid that one feels the terror of the Americans. I whispered to Bill, “This is so exciting that I don’t think I can stand to stay in here and watch it!” I won’t tell you more as detailed plots of books or films are extremely boring. Warning: The language is X rated, but probably an accurate depiction, considering the circumstances.
Silver Linings Playbook for which the Best Actress award was given portrays the difficult lives of those who suffer from bipolar syndrome which we used to call “manic-depressive.” I know people who suffer from this dreadful illness, and at times I found the movie almost unbearable because I kept imagining what their lives must be like — not only the private hell of their minds, but also the one that they inflict on the people around them.
The bad thing about the Oscars is that there can be only one winner in the various categories. Silver Linings Playbook and Lincoln were as deserving as Argo. Unfortunately, the protagonist of Silver Linings Playbook was in competition with Daniel Day Lewis who portrayed Lincoln.
Lewis brought my hero to life. It’s obvious that historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom Steven Spielberg consulted, Spielberg himself, and Lewis fell in love with Lincoln. I’m currently wading through Goodwin’s eight-hundred-page Team of Rivals that Bill has already read, and I have fallen in love with Lincoln all over again as I gain new insights into his triumph over his humble beginnings, his character, his humanity, his genius, and his adroit handling of his fellow politicians in order to end slavery.
Oh, how lucky I am to be alive to be transported by wonderful art, books and films and to see the loveliness outside the window where a heavy snow has coated every branch and twig! I do wonder what that early robin makes of it. P.S. I just heard another Downton Abbey story: A friend who doesn’t have TV at her cabin in the boonies spent the night in a motel in order to watch it. wclarke@comcast.net