Sunday, March 15, 2020

Three Beautiful Things 03/14/20: Shopping for Soup, *Cause for Alarm!*, More Draft Prep

1. In preparing to hunker down for some indefinite amount of time, I decided that making soups and freezing quarts of the soups is a good way to both keep myself occupied doing something I enjoy and a pragmatic way to think about eating many meals in. So I went to Yoke's today and bought groceries in support of making, over the next few days, turkey, chicken, and hamburger soup. I have lots of soup stock stored from all the stock I've made over the last several months. I also have some meat left over from when we purchased bulk orders of pork and beef a year and a half ago.

2. The other day, I read a short review in the New Yorker of a 75 minute movie released in 1951 entitled, Cause for Alarm!. The reviewer, Margaret Talbot, came across the movie on Amazon Prime and wrote that it felt to her like a work of "accidental feminism", "a cry for help sent telepathically from the fifties". In brief, it's a story about a bed-ridden husband (Barry Sullivan) undermining his wife's (Loretta Young) sense of reality.  As Talbot points out, it's a suburban version of Gaslight. I'll leave it at that. It would be fun to be living in Eugene right now, back in the company of my feminist friends. If we discussed this movie, I'd ask them if they think this movie is an early 1950's critique of suburban life for housewives similar to what, as I understand it, Betty Friedan was working out in The Feminine Mystique (which I have never read).  I could imagine having a fun time at Billy Mac's with Pam, Lynn, Russell, Kathleen, Michael, Kate, and others or at coffee with Margaret, Jeff, Michael, and Nate or at 16 Tons with Tim or at the Bier Stein with Dan, having my understanding of the world expanded by a discussion of this movie and Margaret Talbot's brief New Yorker review.

By the way, I also spent some time at YouTube after watching this movie reminding myself of what The Loretta Young Show was all about and watching some videos devoted her to her famous entries as she came on to the set of the show. If anyone ever still says, "She walked in the room like she thought she was Loretta Young", at least I now know and remember what that comment means!

3. I spent the remainder of the evening getting myself familiar again with Major League Baseball players in preparation for our two fantasy leagues' March 15th draft. I'll participate in the draft from home.

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