Day: June 20, 2011

Requiem: Popcorn Bowl

Very early in the morning I head a crash from the kitchen. In my half-awake state, I thought “I’m not going to investigate that right now because it will probably just make me mad.”

This turned out to be one of the smartest half-awake thoughts I’ve had as what was smashed into pieces too many to repair was my popcorn bowl.

My Great-Aunt Bea (known as Auntie Bea) was very crafty and one Christmas our family received a set of hand painted personalized popcorn bowls. Mine was a cheery yellow, and proudly stated that this was Patty’s Popcorn Bowl. This was back when I was still called Patty.

There were even cute happy popcorns painted around the bowl. I’ve used the popcorn bowl a lot in the last few years, as it is the perfect size for a salad for dinner. Now, thanks to the cats the popcorn bowl has been swept off into the trash can. Auntie Bea died shortly after I moved to Portland, so there will be no replacement.

Three sentence movie reviews: Gone, Baby, Gone


This was the movie that launched the Kenzie/Gennaro reading obsession–an obsession I have managed to spread to several people, Matt included. Matt has finished this book and so we got to watch the movie together and I must say that I was quite disappointed. One of the more interesting female characters I’ve read in years was chopped down to a wide-eyed smiling specter whose only reason for being in this film was to stare adoringly at her man; she didn’t even carry a gun, for chrissakes and in the book, she is the much better shot and saves Patrick Kenzie’s bacon on many an occasion.*

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2007/gone_baby_gone.html

*I can’t rightfully be surprised. As I’ve observed more than once: the main thrust of the movie making industry seems to be assuring men that they are very manly, cool, interesting and women need them. This is at the same time that stories about women’s lives are incredibly interesting (I think) and women deserve to watch movies where the women (or mostly woman, singular) do something besides stand by her man. I watch movie after movie focusing on men and I enjoy many of them, but when will my self throw up her hands in despair and stop attending such–which means the vast majority of–movies? The movie machine could save me from this fate by rapidly increasing the percentage of movies that pass the Bechdel test. What will it take to make that happen?