Thursday, January 23, 2014

Again, not much to say. 47 scallops done – I should get around that third corner today. You're right about possible changes of sheep, Weavinfool – so I took your advice and ordered the rest of the yarn for the Unst Shawl from Jamieson & Smith, not without a bit of a struggle. There was a slot where I could enter the current Lot Number, in the hopes that they still have it.

I wish you'd do some more blogging.

I'm still having trouble with pop-up ads. For the moment, I'm just suffering them. Jamieson & Smith was dreadful, but you may be sure that the government web site was entirely ad-free, when I was filing our income tax the other day. So it's not entirely my fault. Worst is when I click on something and get something entirely different – that keeps happening.

Hellie wrote to thank me yesterday for my contribution to her Paris marathon effort (link yesterday). She said that she and lovely Matt are buying a flat. I boldly suggested that they get married, and promised to finish the shawl this year. She didn't seem to take offence.

Dep't of King Midas and his Asses' Ears – next Wednesday is the big day. And I learned last night from a phone call that one of us has a second interview that day for a distinctly desirable job. Wholly separate issue, same day. I had better say no more just now.

I won't be here tomorrow. My dr's appt is early, 8:20. I've put the cleaner off until Saturday. I am worried about parking – normally when we go to the GP, all I have to do is drop my husband at the door and then devote myself to finding somewhere to park. That won't work tomorrow. Here in Drummond Place, the traffic wardens don't start duty until 8:30 – which means that the paying places are full, until then, of the overnight freeloaders. Maybe they start earlier in the West End. Maybe I should take a taxi.

If the Good Lord had meant us to worry, He'd have given us things to worry about. (An immortal line from Fawlty Towers)

A Serious Man

I don't remember a grocery store scene, do I? Please remind, Mary Lou. Every moment counted in that film, so I should remember.

Does anyone remember the scene in an otherwise, I believe, utterly forgettable thriller-type thing where Donald Sutherland goes to a late-night grocer but can only find a kind of cat food which his cat doesn't like, so when he gets home he shuts the cat out of the kitchen and transfers the contents of the tin to an empty tin of the kind the cat does like? I don't think we even see the scene where the cat rejects it.


The new Coen Bros film is about to open here in GB. I think perhaps we have seen them all, and I wonder if there is any other director of whom that could be said. I would welcome advice from GB readers about how to get it to view at home. What is “Netflix”? We used to subscribe to LoveFilm but couldn't keep up with them.  

10 comments:

  1. Netflix is a subscription film/television service. I use it on my ipad. You pay £6.99 (or something around that) a month and it gives you unlimited access to its library of films and tv shows. I find it has more stuff I like than Lovefilm does. To use on an iPad you would sign up through the Netflix website and then download the app from the App Store and sign in. You can use the same account to watch on different devices if necessary.

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  2. Jean, it's very brief - the store is called Red Owl Groceries (they even got out the old signs, since the store is no longer called Red Owl.) I can't quite remember, but it might be one of the signs from God - phone number in teeth? Good luck at the Doctor tomorrow. Take a taxi!

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    1. Ellen3:14 PM

      Red Owl was a very ubiquitous grocery chain in Minnesota, and that Red Owl sign was everywhere. It was not a very good store, and it didn't keep pace with any food trend, or stock any ethnic groceries. As much as anything, I think it represents a time when Minnesota was not worldly and didn't see any reason to change. It was a kind of smug insularity that we have long left behind, but it certainly present when we moved here in the 70's. But it certainly could have other, more metaphysical meanings as well.

      A Serious Man, and Fargo, both made here, are filled with a lot of these little injokes that only Minnesotans get because they are so very local. Some of them are probably totems of their own childhood (they grew up in one of those cookie cutter postwar suburbs), and some of them are a little sneering or affectionately condescending. I think that my daughters, who are younger than the Coen brothers, but not by that much, would certainly view Red Owl with affectionate condescension.

      You can also watch Netflix through your television which is easier, but how you make that happen depends upon the age of your TV...ask one of your grandchildren. We often use it to watch British television series that never made it to American TV.

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    2. Anonymous5:22 PM

      I've never seen A Serious Man, but I'll have to watch it on Netflix to see the Minnesota injokes. I remember the Red Owl grocery stores from my early childhood in mid-1940s Minnesota, and I have a vivid image of that Red Owl sign in my mind now.

      Mary G. in Texas

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  3. Take a taxi. It will save you a lot of unnecessary fretting and hunting. Job mojo for the interviewee!!

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  4. Haha, I laughed at your instruction to Hellie. Grandmothers are allowed to say that! My mother said the same thing to me a bit less than 30 years ago. She still called it living-in-sin. Whatever I said to her seemed to lay the topic to rest, wish I could remember what it was!
    Also good luck for the issues that were *not* mentioned and the Dr appt (yes, get a taxi!)
    Dawn

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  5. I don't suppose the Donald Sutherland thriller was Klute? Pretty far back, but memorable.

    Netflix is a good service, but you won't be able to stream a new film for quite a while -- six months or so.

    I vote with everyone else: take a taxi, it's so much less trouble!

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  6. I also thought maybe that was Klute.

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  7. I wonder if the movie you are thinking of is The Long Goodbye? It stars Elliot Gould, not Donald Sutherland, but there is definitely a scene where he buys late night catfood, and transfers it into a different can to try to trick the cat. And I would say it is easy to confuse those two actors because they are both in MASH.

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  8. I think it is The Long Goodbye, too. One of Robert Altman's best.

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