1. When Debbie took out a packet of chicken from the freezer, she thought it contained chicken thighs. She was ready to follow her palate and cook up these thighs in some creative way.
It turned out, though, that it was a packet of party wings.
Disappointed, Debbie asked me to take over fixing dinner because for years now I've been the chicken wings cook in our house.
I was happy to take on this task and, after poking around a bit on the World Wide Web, I decided to make Garlic Parmesan wings.
It was simple. I simply melted a stick of butter and added a half a cup of grated Parmigiana-Reggiano along with a teaspoon or so of garlic powder.
I fried the wings in butter, put them in a bowl, and tossed them with the garlic, cheese, and butter sauce.
I roasted Yukon Gold potato slices and slices on onion and sautéed mushrooms to accompany the chicken wings.
Dinner was a success!
2. Debbie and I are always trying to keep the number of things we have in our house to a minimum. Usually this approach to how we like to live works superbly, but once in great while it backfires.
It backfired for me. Quite a while back, I needed to purchase a new Amazon Fire Stick and I thought the remote control device that came with it did everything the Vizio remote did.
So, in the spirit of minimalist living, I tossed the Vizio remote control.
That inane decision backfired on me today.
I hooked up our Blu-ray player today, but to return the television to the channel that plays the content on the Fire Stick, I needed the Vizio remote device.
I searched the Vizio room on the off chance that I'd misplaced, not tossed, the remote, but when I couldn't find it, I was left with that sinking feeling that I'd blundered.
I stayed cool.
I went online and explored options -- I could buy another remote or I could load an app on my cell phone that would work as a remote.
After one failed attempt with one particular app, I found an app that worked and restored the Vizio to its former glory.
I am pretty sure I'll buy a new remote.
I'm grateful for the app, but I will like holding a hard copy of the remote in my hand.
3. Debbie and I watched A Thousand Clowns (1965), one of my favorite of all movies. For several years my searches for this movie online or as a disc hadn't panned out, but last summer I discovered that it was available on Blu-ray and I bought it.
It sat unopened in the Vizio room until tonight. I wanted to watch it with Debbie, primarily because we both enjoy Jason Robards so much, and, lo and behold, I suggested we put Columbo aside tonight and we instead we watched this movie.
I can't remember the last time I watched A Thousand Clowns, but I vividly remember the first time. I don't remember why Leonard Oakland was screening this movie at Cowles Auditorium one evening at Whitworth, but he did and I went.
I remember Leonard being absolutely in love with A Thousand Clowns. I don't remember the substance of his introduction to the movie, only his unbridled enthusiasm.
And tonight, as I thought I would, I discovered that my enthusiasm for this movie is as unbridled today as it was back in 1975 or 1976 or whenever it was Leonard Oakland turned me on to A Thousand Clowns.
I don't want to give away much of the movie's plot. The story centers on Murray Burns (Jason Robards) and his twelve year old nephew, Nick (Barry Gordon). Murray and Nick have lived in Murray's apartment together for several years -- the movie explains why Nick lives with Murray.
The movie's central conflict develops between Murray and the local child welfare board. The board wants to remove Nick from Murray's home.
I'll leave it at that.
If you've been reading this blog over the years, you might remember that for me the genre of comedy is primarily concerned with vitality. Comedies affirm those things that give life its vitality, those things that invigorate us, make us feel more fully alive.
Murray Burns is, much like Maude Chardin in Harold and Maude, the embodiment of vitality. He, like Maude, seeks experiences day to day that make each day vibrant, that rebel against routine, planning, conformity, repetition.
It's his non-conformity that has attracted the attention of the child welfare bureau and that kicks this movie into action.
For the first time ever in watching this movie, tonight I noticed how much its editing and story-telling methods had been influenced by the French New Wave and, I thought, the movie's making was also influenced by the comic energy of Frederico Fellini. I can't really support these observations without giving away plot details I prefer not to reveal, but if you are familiar with the New Wave's use of montage, jump cuts, moments of cinema verite, and radical juxtaposition of images and of past and present moments in the story, you'll see that much of the economy of the way the story of A Thousand Clowns gets told is a result of this inventive editing.
The disc I purchased of A Thousand Clowns features, as a bonus track, an interview with Barry Gordon. I'm not sure when the interview took place, but Gordon looks to be in his 60s.
I enjoyed listening to Gordon reminisce about how he broke into television and movie acting as a child and his insights into the stage version and the movie version of A Thousand Clowns expanded my knowledge and understanding of Herb Gardner's writing and Fred Coe's work as the movie's director.
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