Thursday, April 16, 2020

Three Beautiful Things 04/15/20: 150 Crosswords Puzzles, *The Quiet American*, Goren and Eames BONUS A Limerick by Stu

1. A few months back, I bought an omnibus containing 200 Wednesday New York Times crossword puzzles. Today, after completing a couple of them, I passed the 150 puzzle mark.

2. Late this afternoon, Debbie and I watched The Quiet American (2002), a film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel. It's a deft combination of a political-spy-journalism thriller and a love story set in Vietnam while the French were fighting the Communist insurgence there.  In the middle of it all is a British newspaper reporter, played brilliantly by Michael Caine. He befriends a newly arrived American played very effectively by Brandon Frazier. I really don't want to get into the details of the plot because I'd hate to spoil the pleasure of this movie's development. I will say, though, that over the years I've watched and written a bit about movies I think of as "dead man comes to life" stories. To me, The Quiet American fits this genre, while, at the same time, examining through the complexities of a love triangle, the international relations between Vietnam, France, and the USA in the period of time leading up to France's withdrawl from the region in 1954.

3. Instead of reaching back to television programming from our childhoods, tonight we reached back to the early 2000's and watched an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent as Goren and Eames worked to get to the bottom of a murder case involving a group of modern nomads called Irish Travelers.


Here's another limerick that Stu composed:

We all could use a good laugh.
Like mistakes when you're talking's a gaffe.
So imagine some guy,
Thinks he's so cool you will sigh.
Then he trips and his cool's cut in half.


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