Jane Lapotaire

Every once in a while, there's a scene in some film or other program where an actor just shines. Jane Lapotaire is the actress that just knocked me off my chair. She plays Princess Alice (Battenberg), the mother of HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in The Crown. She has been staying at Buckingham Palace after a coup made the situation in Greece precarious. Her brother, Lord Mountbatten, has just gotten a dressing down from Queen Elizabeth for conspiring (QE II's word) with others against Harold Wilson's government.

Lord Mountbatten goes to see Princess Alice in her room and their conversation resonated for me as I think about what to do about more Trump presidency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT6yUlDzkfs 

As I was watching that scene in The Crown, I realized that Jane Lapotaire also played Princess Kuragin in Downton Abbey.

I was wearing my t-shirt yesterday with a quote from Moira Rose of Schitt's Creek. "When one of us shines, all of us shine."

separated at birth: person as poem

The Sunday Times had an article on Grete Wiesenthal and the influence of the Viennese waltz on modern dance. Wiesenthal moved off the vertical axis of the ballet dancer and added curves and extensions. She toured with her sisters Elsa and Berta. (I have a sister Berta, short for Roberta.) After the sisters performed in London, the Dancing Times is quoted as saying the sisters "were not mere performers; they were poems."

Photographs by Rudolf Jobst, Östrreichisches Theatermuseum

(from the NY Times article)

When Alexis Rose meets Mutt's new girlfriend Tallahassee, er, Tennessee, Alexis says she is like a poem, like a pretty poem. Totally Alexis.

oops, continuity issues in Schitt's Creek

 When you've watched a television series a gazillion times, you notice some funny things like ...

• When Moira gets the proposed contract for the Crows movie and David is reading the terms, he mentions that her pay will be in Baltic money. Make that Balkan since they're filming in Bosnia. I do forgive them because I really have to think about Baltic/Balkan. Moira does later correctly say Balkan Peninsula or some such thing when she's referring to the filming.
• When the family is at the Amish family's house, Alexis is sitting at a picnic table. The conversation continues and, all of a sudden, she's on the other side of the table.
• Bob's got raw milk for his coffee. Johnny "borrows" some. When they're talking about it, the lid is on the bottle and then off the bottle and then back on the bottle.
• In the "Bachelor Party" episode, Alexis's pen jumps around on her journal/calendar. She is pretty agitated and the jumpiness may be contagious.
• Stevie sets her glass down twice on the table at the "Surprise Party" before she and David dance together.
• Roland's name tag wiggles around on his jacket when he and Moira are at the RAMC conference.
• Sebastien Raine says Room 5 would be just fine. Stevie gives him the key. When Moira comes to the door to challenge Sebastien, the door has the number 4.
• Johnny and Moira are arguing in "The Motel Guest" about the little quirks that might drive each other crazy. There's a white bottle cap or something next to Moira's teacup after a while.
• Ken borrows a pen and paper from David to write down Patrick's number. When he leaves and Patrick comes over to David and Alexis, Patrick has the paper but the pen has disappeared.
• I think the only time anybody is in Room 8 at the motel is during the "Moira Rosé" episode when Patrick is watching the game with David before David runs off with his mother.
• In the episode about Ted's coded booty call from Heather, Alexis says that Lisa called about stopping over after work. It's confusing whether the name is confused or both a Lisa and a Heather live at the farm.

None of this is a problem for me. It's more fun than disappointment that these things happen. It's a little like LC cataloging copy or the New York times. There used to be layers of proofreading of such things as cataloging copy or newspapers. Now, the cataloger or journalist writes and types the copy and mistakes are more likely to happen without an extra pair of eyes looking over the copy. No more layer of typesetter eyes.

Since I've been known to draw parallels between Schitt's Creek and Downton Abbey, I probably should mention that Thomas's collar escapes for part of the episode wherein he hides Lord Grantham's dog Isis. The flyaway collar happens when he meets Lord Grantham on the front walk after the dog has been found.

When I ordered my rosy peach t-shirt from Etsy, it came with a Rose Apothecary shopping bag.

Moira Rose is now working for Eli Lilly

Fake Eli Lilly advertisement at the end of Stephen Colbert's monologue

10 November 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WhQjgy96hE

(the last minute or so)

Moira Rose for Herb Ervelfingerlicking Fruit Wines

Schitt's Creek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVojhvifruk

Indonesian scarf, caught in the wind

"Last week, she told me to dance like an Indonesian scarf caught in the wind. I don't even know that that looks like."

Stevie Budd, in "The Roast" episode, Season 5

Schitt's Creek (2015-2020)

Yinka Shonibare MBE

"Wind Sculpture (SG) I"

Central Park, New York City

(photo: Jason Wyche)

separated at birth: baseball players

Jason at the bat, with Whizzer

Falsettos, Live from Lincoln Center, 2017

(BroadwayHD)

David, Johnny, and Patrick, before the game

"The M.V.P." episode of Schitt's Creek, 2015-2020

(CBC / Pop TV / Netflix)

It's hard to believe that Dan Levy was unaware of the Falsettos precursor of his ball game in "The M.V.P." but he doesn't mention it in any of the YouTube videos about the episode. Of course he also doesn't footnote every costume. Karen Robinson does mention that, growing up, she was always the last person selected for the team. I'd hang out with her any time when the ball players want to play ball. We could sit in the stands and drink coffee and scoff, and cheer occasionally.

here and there

Here and there are concepts (words) that especially resonate during a pandemic with social distancing. You spend a lot of time here but wish you could be there. The headline of the lead article in today's Sunday Styles section of the New York Times is "It's hard when you can't go anywhere." It's a story about six people in an assisted living facility in Colorado who received cameras to document life during the coronavirus crisis. It's hard to see pictures of places that you've visited, imagine how empty they may be now, and how much you wish you could go there again.

Vittoria, Sicily, Italy: Piazza del Popolo

Lily had sent me a message about a virtual toast via Zoom for Milan who received this year's ARLIS/NA Distinguished Service Award. In my response to Lily, I said I intended to be there for the virtual toast but, in reality, I'll be here for the toast, seeing Milan and the others on a screen.

I was listening to Weekend Edition as I drove to Wegmans in Hornell to get my Sunday Times and some groceries. One of the stories was "Author Elizabeth Acevedo on her new novel 'Clap when you land'" (published by HarperCollins). The novel-in-verse revolves around two girls whose father dies in a plane crash. He had maintained two families, one in New York City and one in the Dominican Republic, and neither knew about the other. The girls deal with "the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives" (from publisher's description) as they try to balance the particular here and there of their newly shared reality.

In a short sequence in the "Carl's Funeral" episode of Schitt's Creek, Bob is talking to Twyla at the Café Tropical. Carl was his brother and Twyla asks Bob how he's doing and says "Death is just life except you're not here. You're somewhere else. You know, but that's ok because at least you're somewhere. You know, when does somewhere become there, and when does there become here. And I ..." Bob cuts in to say "Just a coffee, please." Twyla asks "For here?"

showcase or sanctuary, probably both and neither

A simple sentence can resonate now in the time of coronavirus in ways that it would not have a year ago. This morning's indexing included a book review by Emily Guthrie of Get out of my room!: a history of teen bedrooms in America by Jason Reid (University of Chicago Press, 2017). The review is published in Winterthur portfolio, summer/autumn 2019. The sentence that especially grabbed me was "Others might describe the feeling that the room instilled, from the pride of a carefully curated showcase to the solace of a private sanctuary."

There is also a bit about the Princess telephone designed by Henry Dreyfuss in 1959. The phone was an icon of being with it, marketed to women and girls. I remember that Bill Murphy had one in Scotia, Nebraska. Imagine how different my life might have been if I had come to terms with my nascent homosexuality then, rather than sitting there near his Princess phone with a gaggle of giggling girlfriends. Sadly, I've never been able to learn out how Bill's life turned out but he was a careful curator before his time.

Coronavirus isolation also brings bingeing and, for me, that has mostly meant Schitt's Creek. The whole idea of children sharing a bedroom is fundamental to the series, not that the Rose kids are teenagers but being together in their motel room brings on teenage behavior. "Ew, burn, David!" The actor who plays the role of Patrick is Noah Reid which brings us around to the book whose author is Jason Reid.

general special

If you are new to applying LCC Class N, the Library of Congress classification schedule for fine arts, you may trip over a number that is captioned as "General special." For example, NA2540 is captioned "General special. Including hints for architects, orientation, etc." and appears under "General works" on "Architecture." Books in this class number in the LC catalog have titles such as

• 5 codes: architecture, paranoia and risk in times of terror
• Iconografie van de honingbij in de Lage Landen
• Architecture, culture, and spirituality
• Corporate architecture: building a brand

Or NA7125 which is captioned "General special" under "Domestic architecture. Houses. Dwellings"

• 36 propositions for a home
• House and home: cultural contexts, ontological roles
• House rules: an architect's guide to modern life
• Abitazione ed i maestri dell'architettura contemporanea

These are general because they don't deal with a topical, geographic, chronological, or other area that is enumerated in the classification schedule. At the same time, they are not general in that they only deal with one or more aspects of the more general topic. That is, they're special. A library patron probably would not want only one of these books if they wanted a general book on architecture or houses respectively. Also they probably would not want only these if they were looking broadly for building security, art nouveau ornament in Belgium, church architecture, corporate office buildings, etc.

When David Rose goes to file papers for his new store in the "General Store" episode of Season 3 of Schitt's Creek, he starts the overall description of his new business with "It's a general store, but it's also a very specific store." I don't know if David Rose or Dan Levy would ever want to work as a cataloger in a library but the script sure has the general special concept down. 

separated at birth: Sebastien Borgia

Cesare Borgia

The Borgias (SHOWTIME, 2011-2013)

Sebastien Raine

Schitt's Creek (Pop TV, 2015-2020)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Arnaud_(actor)

Jasper Johns in the snow

It's not like I was hoping for another round of snow in the middle of April but that's what we got overnight. It was glorious in the early morning sun under a nearly cloudless sky. The sun was beginning to melt the snow on utility wires and the snow was falling to the ground in random patterns of stripes a few inches long. I was reminded of works by Jasper Johns from the 1970s and 1980s.

Jasper Johns: Usuyuki (1981)

(screenprint, Simca Print Artists)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

As it happens, "usuyuki" means "light snow" in Japanese.

"Random patterns" may be an oxymoron. Lest you think that yesterday's obsession with Schitt's Creek has passed, "random" is a favorite adjective of Alexis Rose. She uses it to describe just about anything. The Met's page on this print uses "cross-hatching motif" in describing the work.

merrily we roll along

This time of in-person social isolation takes us down some quirky paths. I had heard of the television show Schitt's Creek but hadn't watched any of it until Mark posted the clip of "I'm Jake. Oh, of course you are" on his Facebook page. That caught my fancy and now, just a few weeks later, I've been around the first five seasons three times. That's all that is currently on Netflix and I don't have cable so no Pop TV for Season 6. The characters are deep in my thoughts and being with them is considerable distraction and solace in my alone time. Who knows (or cares) if it's a healthy diversion?

One manifestation of the S.C. penetration into my quotidian life (that use of a $10 word is for Moira and Roland) is its resonance as I'm reading about something else entirely. I was reading The New York Times Book Review for last Sunday (12 April 2020) as I ate lunch. In the review of Lady in Waiting: my extraordinary life in the shadow of the Crown, a memoir by Anne Glenconner, the reviewer Alida Becker quotes the first post-coma words of Glenconner's son who had been in a motorcycle accident: Lamborghini. The reviewer then says "Truly, the rich are different." Lamborghini also plays out in Schitt's Creek: in the words of "A little bit Alexis" and in the Christmas medley that Moira and David sing.

Another review in the same issue of NYTBR is on a book entitled The undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. The author relates a story about a trip through a wealthy Miami subdivision on the way to a club. One of her friends says the big houses stress her "because it makes her think about having to clean them." The opening moment of episode 1 of Schitt's Creek is of a Latina in servant uniform answering the doorbell. It's not immigration but revenue agents to dispossess the family of most of their possessions. "Mrs. Rose, there are people here from the government."

But the most amusing resonance (sometimes, at least) is imagining the chapters of my dissertation in comparative literature "Downton Abbey and Schitt's Creek: a comparative study of the daily life of the rich in late Victorian and Edwardian England and in contemporary America." There will be chapters on raising children (spending an hour or two with the children when it's possible), Christmas specials, inter-class commingling, the power of language, and of course the predictable stuff like fashion. Some folks have said that Schitt's Creek works because its stereotypes aren't mean and I think that may be part of why Downton Abbey also worked in that even the villains like Thomas and O'Brien were sympathetic. Or maybe it's the script, in both cases.

There will also be a chapter on place. Though Downton Abbey was mostly shot on location in southern England, the fictional setting is Yorkshire and local information comes up pretty regularly. Also, some outside scenes are actually shot in York, like when the Dowager goes to visit Kuragin. Or maybe it's CGI. According to the creators of Schitt's Creek in various interviews on YouTube, the location of Schitt's Creek is intentionally ambiguous, not specifically U.S. or Canada. The Roses did apparently live before in downstate New York or Long Island. The bicycles were discarded in the Hamptons. David asks if it looks like he shops on Canal Street. The aerial view of the house is not Manhattan but could be outer Queens. The only time that there is anything remotely specific about the location of Schitt's Creek is when Mutt and Tennessee are going on a trip "up the coast" to look for pine cones.

That said, it's probably more likely that I'll go around Schitt's Creek again unless I break down and somehow get access to Season 6 so I can have the resolution of all the situations and close the book.

separated at birth: everyone knows how to make tea and fold in cheese