What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962.)
I watched this movie the same day I watched Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, on a lazy Saturday when I was about seven and my mother was out of town. I don’t know what the hell my dad was thinking renting those two videos, but I’ve never forgotten either one.
Capped by me.
Scream (Wes Carpenter, 1996). Ghostface Killer: Pussy Magnet. Everyone loves games!
This was the first slasher movie I ever saw. I watched this film sitting at the theater between my father and my boyfriend at the time, the Cappy, and I got all teary and horrified when (SPOILER) Drew Barrymore bit it in the first three minutes, and wanted desperately to go home. Thankfully, they didn’t let me. I was paranoid and jumpy and squirmy for days. Then I got hooked on the paranoia and jumps and squirms and eventually over the next few years watched every cheesey horror movie I could get my hot little virgin hands on, which lead to Troma, which lead to giallo, which lead to wanting a degree in film, which didn’t go the way I expected but lead me to where I am now, which I wouldn’t trade for anything. All because of Scream.
See? Everyone loves games!
Special thanks to my wonderful Miss D for helping me make all my Scream-screencap dreams come true with the gracious loan of her DVD.
Promised a Movie Moment yesterday on Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), and here it is. The night that I first saw this film is one of those instances that really stands, clear, head and shoulders above others in my mind. I was a sophomore in high school and my father and I had got takeout Chinese food and rented Bonnie and Clyde some weekend when my mother was doing some church lady thing (now I’m a church lady, too … time marches on). As an already solid gold Daddy’s Girl, when my father told me it was “a very important movie,” and that “you will love it,” I was set with anticipation. Also, I really like Chinese food.
I had already read, a few years earlier, a good-sized, detailed book about Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker that I’d picked up at a thrift store. Lots of pictures, reprints of Bonnie’s poems, the whole nine. But what I saw was not what I remembered reading. I was surprised at the many deviations in the screenplay from the true accounts of their partnership and crimes that I’d read, yet I found the movie so absorbing and excellent, such a blend of glamour and grit, that I didn’t mind the liberties at all. I was totally taken with it — especially Faye Dunaway and her costumes and styling. Dad warned me to look away at the end, but of course I didn’t, and I gaped at the dancing corpses. This, I knew, was accurate, but to see it on the screen brought the unbelievably vivid violence of it to a shocking level that my imagination had not reached when I only read about their deaths. I thought then, and think now, that it’s one of the best movies ever made.
But not everyone shares my view. Especially initially, some critics outspokenly hated Bonnie and Clyde:
It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie.
(“Movie Review: Bonnie and Clyde.” Crowther, Bosley. The New York Times. 14 April 1967.)
Such ridiculous, camp-tinctured travesties of the kind of people these desperados were and of the way people lived in the dusty Southwest back in those barren years might be passed off as candidly commercial movie comedy, nothing more, if the film weren’t reddened with blotches of violence of the most grisly sort.
(Ibid.)
Oh, noes. Violence. That has no place in a movie.
Arthur Penn, the aggressive director, has evidently gone out of his way to splash the comedy holdups with smears of vivid blood as astonished people are machine-gunned. And he has staged the terminal scene of the ambuscading and killing of Barrow and Bonnie by a posse of policemen with as much noise and gore as is in the climax of The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
This blending of farce with brutal killings is as pointless as it is lacking in taste, since it makes no valid commentary upon the already travestied truth.
(Ibid.)
“As pointless as it is lacking in taste because it makes no valid commentary on the already travestied truth.” Let’s explore that criticism, shall we?According to statements made by [posse members] Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn:
“Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle and pistols. We opened fire with the automatic rifles. They were emptied before the car got even with us. Then we used shotguns … There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire. After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road. It almost turned over. We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped. We weren’t taking any chances.”
(the wiki.)
The lawmen then opened fire, killing Barrow and Parker while shooting a combined total of approximately 130 rounds. Barrow was killed instantly by [an] initial head shot, but Parker had a moment to reflect; Hinton reported hearing her scream as she realized Barrow was dead before the shooting at her began in earnest. The officers emptied the specially ordered automatic rifles, as well as other rifles, shotguns and pistols at the car, and any one of many wounds would have been fatal to either of the fugitives.
(Ibid.)
Officially, the tally in Parish coroner Dr. J. L. Wade’s 1934 report listed seventeen separate entrance wounds on Barrow’s body and twenty-six on Parker’s, including several headshots on each, and one that had snapped Barrow’s spinal column. So numerous were the bullet holes that undertaker C. F. “Boots” Bailey would have difficulty embalming the bodies because they wouldn’t contain the embalming fluid.
(Ibid.)
So … maybe that outburst of unthinkable retributive violence on the side of the law had a little something to do with the film’s objectionably grisly ending? Just a very, very belated thought for the late Mr. Crowther, who I must add with real respect was an esteemed and important critic in his time — pretty much until this review. All the cool kids stopped listening to him and assumed he was part of the stuffy establishment, and his reputation suffered. I think he really was not ready for this picture, is all.
Contrary to how he comes off in the review owing to our modern hindsight, Bosley Crowther had a very open mind, wrote against HUAC as curtailing art and freethinking, a brave and dangerous thing to do in the 1950s, and praised films with strong social content while disdaining jingoism and oversimplification of political ideas. Mr. Crowther insisted on the relevancy of foreign film to English-speaking audiences and did great things for the careers of some of my favorite overseas directors, including Fellini, Bergman, and Roberto Rossellini. That — to me — pitch-perfect mix of braggadocio and embellishment, expositorily satirical idealism, and vérité in Bonnie and Clyde, together with the innovative cinematic discourse which has been cited as ushering in a new era in Hollywood, just seems to have put him over the edge.
In any case, Bosley Crowther was not the only reviewer who found himself initially less than thrilled by Bonnie and Clyde.
Beatty, playing the lead, does a capable job, within the limits of his familiar, insolent, couldn’t-care-less manner, of making Barrow the amiable varmint he thought himself to be. Barrow fancied himself something of a latterday Robin Hood, robbing only banks that were foreclosing on poor farmers and eventually turning into a kind of folk hero. But Faye Dunaway’s Sunday-social prettiness is at variance with any known information about Bonnie Parker.
(“Cinema: Low-Down Hoedown.” Time. 25 August 1967.)
Variety disagreed with Time‘s slight of Faye Dunaway, sayingLike the film itself, the performances are mostly erratic. Beatty is believable at times, but his characterization lacks any consistency. Miss Dunaway is a knockout as Bonnie Parker, registers with deep sensitivity in the love scenes, and conveys believability to her role.
(“Film: Bonnie and Clyde.” Kaufman, David. Variety. 9 Aug 1967.)
Overall, however, Mr. Kaufman pans the film, saying,Warren Beatty’s initial effort as a producer incongruously couples comedy with crime … Conceptually, the film leaves much to be desired, because killings and the backdrop of the Depression are scarcely material for a bundle of laughs. … This inconsistency of direction is the most obvious fault of Bonnie and Clyde, which has some good ingredients, although they are not meshed together well. … Arthur Penn’s direction is uneven, at times catching a brooding, arresting quality, but often changing pace at a tempo that is jarring.
(Ibid.)
Fortunately, not everyone agreed, and more and more people began to “get” the picture. By the time Oscar season rolled around, Bonnie and Clyde received an impressive ten Academy Award nominations and secured two wins. Burnett Guffey received the Oscar for Best Cinematography and Estelle Parsons won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Blanche, Clyde’s sister-in-law. The other nominations included Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Dunaway), Best Actor (Beatty), Best Supprting Actor (both Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard), Best Original Story and Screenplay, and Best Costume Design.
1967 was a banner year for films — some of the movies to which Bonnie and Clyde lost the Oscar were Coolhand Luke, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, The Graduate, and In the Heat of the Night. I said goddamn; what a year.
Modern critical reception of Bonnie and Clyde places it in the category of top films in Hollywood history, a landmark picture not only in the business and art of making movies, but also in the career of director Arthur Penn, whose death yesterday prompted this Movie Moment.
Bonnie and Clyde developed the aesthetic that marked Penn’s high-visibility period: slyly accented, harmonica-hootin’, harvest-gold-patchwork Americana; ever-poised violence; and an open invitation to apply the story as a flexible allegory for the issues of the day.
(“Anthology takes a tour of the Bonnie and Clyde director’s America.” Pinkerton, Nick. The Village Voice. 12 Nov 2008.)
Going back to my own reflections at the beginning of this entry, when I saw the film again in college (after which I regularly re-watch it now), I was able to crystallize exactly why the changes in the screenplay from how the real-life story played out so imperturbed me.
The accuracy of the facts being related is not as important as the yarn being spun, and that yarn needs to be by turns a little soft-focus with family, a little jump the crick in a jalopy while banjos play, a little sexy and simultaneously innocent, teeming with tinfoil chicken and mishaps and stolen laughs besides stolen money, in order for the juxtaposition with the sharp reality of the consequences of that story’s heroes’ actions. Not just at the end, but throughout the film there are these jarring standoffs and murders that shoot the child’s balloon of the idea of what’s happening right out of the sky and back in to the reality of what is happening — and its inevitable conclusion.
Besides that most of the changes between the real story and the script make the tale tighter and better solidify characterization, the embellishments and inflated sense of ego in the main characters and in the cinematic discourse with which we are presented are important to the overall type of story being told. The grand Depression-era myth of the infamous lovers, robbers, and murderers Bonnie and Clyde, as Beatty and Penn have conceived and shot it, is more like the story that Clyde Barrow would have told to cellmates in prison. This is Bonnie and Clyde, so far as we can tell, as they saw themselves, something like folk heroes flying by the seat of their pants, living a ruthless dream and getting real scars from it. This version is a compelling and archetypal campfire story, like the epic outlaw poem that Bonnie Parker wrote about them while they were on the road, “The Trail’s End” (later renamed “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde” by the press), excerpts from which I’d like to use to end this very long — but I think justly so — entry.
They don’t think they’re too smart or desperate,
They know that the law always wins;
They’ve been shot at before,
But they do not ignore
That death is the wages of sin.
Some day they'll go down together;
They'll bury them side by side;
To few it'll be grief —
To the law a relief —
But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.
(“The Trail’s End.” Parker, Bonnie. April 1933.)
R.I.P. again to Arthur Penn, who had the courage to make this fantastic piece of cinema his way and received just due for it within his lifetime. May we all be so brave, visionary, and fortunate.
All screencaps via the wonderful screenmusings collection.
William Blake Month ends today (unless I change my mind), and I’d promised that America: A Prophecy would be continued, so here are excerpts from the rising action and “Finis.”
The terror like a comet,
or more like the planet red
That once inclos’d the terrible wandering
comets in its sphere.
Then Mars thou wast our center,
& the planets three flew round
Thy crimson disk; so e’er the Sun
was rent from thy red sphere;
The Spectre glowd his horrid length
staining the temple long
With beams of blood; &
thus a voice came forth, and shook the temple
That stony law I stamp to dust:
and scatter religion abroad
To the four winds as a torn book,
& none shall gather the leaves;
But they shall rot on desert sands,
& consume in bottomless deeps;
To make the deserts blossom,
& the deeps shrink to their fountains,
And to renew the fiery joy,
and burst the stony roof.
That pale religious lechery,
seeking Virginity,
May find it in a harlot,
and in coarse-clad honesty
The undefil’d tho’ ravish’d
in her cradle night and morn:
For every thing that lives is holy,
life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight
can never be defil’d.
Fires inwrap the earthly globe,
yet man is not consumd;
“Laura” by Ryan McGinley, 2010.
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets
& alarm my Thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal Wolf!
the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
America is darkned;
and my punishing Demons terrified
Crouch howling before their caverns
deep like skins dry’d in the wind.
They cannot smite the wheat,
nor quench the fatness of the earth.
They cannot smite with sorrows,
nor subdue the plow and spade.
They cannot wall the city,
nor moat round the castle of princes.
They cannot bring the stubbed oak
to overgrow the hills.
“Wrath” by culcha on the d.a.
Who commanded this?
what God? what Angel!
To keep the gen’rous from experience
till the ungenerous
Are unrestraind performers
of the energies of nature;
Till pity is become a trade,
and generosity a science,
That men get rich by,
& the sandy desert is giv’n to the strong
What God is he, writes laws of peace,
& clothes him in a tempest
What pitying Angel lusts for tears,
and fans himself with sighs
What crawling villain preaches abstinence
& wraps himself
In fat of lambs? no more I follow,
no more obedience pay.
“Blood falls” by Ryan McGinley.
And the flame folded roaring fierce
within the pitchy night
Before the Demon red,
who burnt towards America,
In black smoke thunders
& loud winds rejoicing in its terror
Breaking in smoky wreaths from the wild deep,
& gath’ring thick
In flames as of a furnace
on the land from North to South
I think this is the Tacoma Narrows.*
His plagues obedient to his voice
flew forth out of their clouds
Falling upon America,
as a storm to cut them off
Dark is the heaven above, & cold
& hard the earth beneath;
And as a plague wind fill’d with insects
cuts off man & beast;
And as a sea o’erwhelms a land
in the day of an earthquake;
“Extranas formas aerodinamica” by profundorosso on the flickr.
Fury! rage! madness! in a wind
swept through America
And the red flames of Orc
that folded roaring fierce around
The angry shores,
and the fierce rushing of th’inhabitants together:
The citizens of New-York
close their books & lock their chests;
The mariners of Boston
drop their anchors and unlade;
The scribe of Pensylvania
casts his pen upon the earth;
The builder of Virginia
throws his hammer down in fear.
Then had America been lost,
o’erwhelm’d by the Atlantic,
And Earth had lost another portion
of the infinite,
But all rush together in the night
in wrath and raging fire
The red fires rag’d! the plagues recoil’d!
then rolld they back with fury.
(William Blake, excerpts from America: A Prophecy.)
*Along with the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was still a gruesomely hot topic in the overheard adult conversations of my early childhood in the Sound. I didn’t fully understand what happened in either case but my morbid imagination obsessed over the half-described tragic events and I was terrified of taking the car over the spans from island to island. I used to fold my little hands over my eyes as I sat on the couch in our trailer waiting for my dad to come home and pray he would take his car up on the ferry instead of driving over the bridge, and any loud noises from trucks going over the shabbily paved nearby highway were certainly the rumblings of another volcanic eruption which would bury us all in ash. I guess what I’m saying is I’ve always had an acute overawareness and fear of cataclysmic death. I have no idea why.
A personal patron saint, Jane has come up several times on this journal but on review I see it has so far been only in regard to her daughter (yay), the lovely and talented Lou Doillon, and her second husband (boo), Serge Gainsbourg, a personal devil. That is a scandal. Here is an entry in her own right.
CBR’s Kelly Thompson has named Kate Kane, Batwoman, the #1 Female Comic Character of the Decade.
Art by J. H. Williams with color by Dave Stewart. Kind of a Kahlo-influenced Dia de los Muertos sugar skull vibe, somewhere between a prayer card and an xray, gruesomely awesome and totally apropos genre of art especially given her gal is Renee Montoya. This cover art + me = Total. Love.
The rest of the list is singularly amazing as well. It includes Cassie Cain as Batgirl, honorable mention for Det. Renee Montoya as The Question —Kate Kane’s sweetheart— and a shout-out to Detective Deena Pilgrim from the Powers world (I have always favored the idea of Retro Girl better than the actuality of Deena and her unmasked heroism, personally, ever since I shut myself in the bath one day following a fight with my husband and read Who Killed Retro Girl? until the water got cold, and I continually peruse Powers in the hope of seeing Pilgrim take on that intriguing mantle one day, but so far no go).
Renee Montoya, formerly one of Gotham’s Finest, now The Question.
Additionally, Thompson gives a glowing enough account of a “Micchone” heroine from Walking Dead that I’m actually willing to give a zombie comic a spin, so give the article a read if you’ve got some loose bills left over from Christmas folding money and are looking for new things to read.
“Hurt me.” And I thought I had Daddy Issues? Cropped from a scan by scans daily’s gallery from Batgirl 49-50 when Cass done got fired.
Super fat-bat-thanks to Peteski, aka nevver on the tumblr, who is always hooking me up to badass shit that brightens my day.
Paging Dr. Freud.
Welcome to the monkeyhouse, Dick Grayson.
“Batman & Robin # 10,” by Frank Quitely.
And just as I was about to bring the guitar crashing down upon the center of the bed, my father woke up, screaming, “Stop! Wait a minute! Stop it, boy! What do you think you’re doing? That’s no way to treat an expensive musical instrument.”
And I said, “Goddamn it, Daddy! You know I love you. But you’ve got a hell of a lot to learn about rock and roll!”
— Meatloaf, “Wasted Youth,” Bat Out of Hell II.
I would be remiss to leave religion to the boys. Feast your eyes on baked goods and some Latter-Day Saint ladies, ladies, ladies in the “Hot Mormon Muffins” 2010 calendar!
A new calendar pokes fun at what its creator [Chad Hardy] calls a stereotype of Mormon mothers as homemakers from another era. “Hot Mormon Muffins: A Taste of Motherhood” features 12 mothers who claim membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and each month has a muffin recipe. (“Hot Mormon Muffin Calendar Debuts.” Dobner, Jennifer. Dec. 21, 2009, AOL.com news.)
Leticia, Hot Mormon Muffin of December
In the words of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “well-behaved women rarely make history.” Historically, change has come from those who have dared to challenge the status quo. These twelve women are doing just that. The Mormon mothers who “bare their testimony” on the pages of the Hot Mormon Muffins calendar are women who are comfortable enough in their own beliefs, and independent and brave enough to take a stand for what they believe in regardless of what others may think. (“Meet The Muffins,” on the calendar’s official site.)
It would appear likely that the 12 moms (ranging in age from 26 to 53) appearing in “Hot Mormon Muffins” will have to watch out.
At least one of the models has already expressed her defiance. Tami Roberts, 35, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, said she did the calendar, in part, because she wants her 3 daughters to “know that everybody is not the same and it’s OK to make your own choices.”
Roberts read about the “Men on a Mission” calendar last year, and decided that she wanted to be a part of the new project after reading about [calendar creator Chad] Hardy’s punishment [of excommunication from the Mormon church].
“That made me mad, I did not agree with that,” the cover model said. “The pictures are tasteful, and it’s fun. I don’t see why people can’t have a sense of humor. I just don’t think it’s a big deal!” (“Hot Mormon Muffins Calendar Features Sexy Mormon Moms, Muffin Recipes,” October 26, 2009. Zimbio.com)
See? Not all LDS people are crazy-go-nuts. It’s just a few standouts that give the rest a bad name! (I’m looking at you, weirdo Twilight-writing crazy cat-lady, whatever your name is — I’m not taking the time to Google you.)
Swing by the Mormons Exposed website to pick up your own copy — I may have spilled some of the “hot mormon” half of the beans, but you don’t see a word of the recipes, so hopefully that will entice you. You can also buy the “Men On A Mission” 2010 calendar, a sort of male counterpart to “Hot Mormon Muffins.” Ai!
Orrrr you can buy this shirt in “Polygamy Pink”:
Yeah, I guess I can see where Chad Hardy got in some trouble, but a sense of humor never killed anyone (except people who die of overdose on ether … as they say in Radioland Murders, it’s a slow, painful, uuugly way to die (then everyone laughs).)
I guess the only compunction of guilt I have for putting this post together is that I wonder what Orson Scott Card thinks of all this … I would hate to picture him shaking his head and saying, “I am so disappointed in you, Elizabeth.”
Oh, man, now I’m super-bummed! You can rock me to sleep tonight.
Paging Dr. Freud. I’m making lasagna right now. Here’s why.
Okay. So. I have a recurring dream that my father is shot and killed by someone wandering on to the campus where he teaches. In the dream, I am always at my parents’ home in their room, taking care of laundry (the curtains are always down in the dream, I get the impression they are being washed as well) when the kitchen phone rings and a call comes to report that he’s died.
Just before the phone rings, I am always thinking two things: first, that once that load of laundry that’s in the washer is done, I’m going to shower, and second, I wonder what the Detwiler twins are doing lately? — these are two girls around five years younger than me that we used to babysit in San Jose, who moved to the Valley around the same time we did. This is very consistent, no matter how many times I dream it: I am always thinking those two things as I fold sheets.
Right when I think the last bit of that thought about the twins, a weird presentiment of dread comes over me, like I am remembering already that I’ve dreamt this, and the phone is about to ring with terrible news. The dream is very vivid, down to the dim light from the overcast sky and the muggy, heavy feeling in the air through the open, uncurtained windows. I look up from my folding and the phone rings. I hear my mother pick up the kitchen extension and I know that she’s being told my father has been killed. I wake up.
All right, I told you that story so I could tell you this one:
After I finished school and moved to Portland with my husband, I figured I was off the hook forever from this dream coming true, as I was a married lady and all grown’z up and would never again be in a position to be home, folding laundry on my parents’ bed, when the kitchen phone would ring and someone would say he’d been killed.
Then I took this lovely nerve-wracking break from marriage and moved home with the kidlet. Things have been pretty good with my folks considering they’ve taken in an adult child and her child, but he and I argued last weekend and things have been “off” since then. I said passionate and unfair things to him like, “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment. I know you think I’m a failure and that my feelings are only an inconvenience to you,” and I even managed to bring up the time that he told me offhandedly that my mom loved me more than he did.
That always stuck with me because I am one of those sick women that believes their father hangs the moon and would never steer me wrong, say something false, or make a wrong decision, so if I perceive that he disapproves of me or thinks I am not living up to my potential, as he is God, that makes him right, which makes me crap. To get mad and yell at him is like throwing rocks at Heaven, for me. (Yes, I am aware that I need to acknowledge his flaws and humanity if I want to have any kind of ordinary relationship with men other than him. Why don’t you suck it? I’m working on it!) Anyway, we dropped a whole strafing series of bombs rife with psychological napalm at one another for a while. We eventually ran out of gas, apologized, and made up. But it’s hung over my head since then.
So, now, I told you that story so I could tell you this one:
I was folding laundry about an hour ago and the phone rang. It was not sheets, the curtains were up, my mother was not home, and I answered the phone; not the kitchen extension, but an extension they have in their room now. It was a robo-call from my father’s school district offices. It was a recording of his principal, reporting that the school had been on lockdown earlier because of an adult intruder, and the lockdown has now been lifted and parents can come get their kids if they want. I know, right?! I freaked out. Apparently, it was necessary because of some jerky vagrant who came on campus, got in a fight with security, and was quickly apprehended by police and never even got the chance to enter a classroom.
I called my father immediately on his cell phone and he didn’t seem too shaken up, but he did ask that I not go out with Panda Eraser tonight, as I’d been planning. I am okay with that; this week has been so-so for me other than going to mall with Miss D, so I’d have been not very upbeat company, anyway, probably. She wouldn’t mind, she’d understand, but I’d have felt bad for being a downer. So I texted Panda to see about making it up to her by treating her to sushi on Monday, which is her day off from the Cosmetology School That Shall Not Be Named.
Finally, I told you that story so I could tell you this last one:
I’m making him lasagna now. I’m much more shaken up than he is. I have a couple scheduled posts that will appear later. That’s it from me today, though. I am way too much of a Daddy’s Girl to do anything but sit around cooking for him and fretting. I feel like if something had happened to him, I would’ve done it somehow via the evil eye, like invited the retribution from the fact of being so rude and ungrateful as to get sucked in to a fight with him this weekend. In general, he’s kind of a grouchy, contentious, loveable curmudgeon and I try to ignore the baiting, which is good-natured more than anything else, but I was on edge and lost my temper, a total lapse in grace. Naturally, that means that fight we had makes this all my fault. You see? Hence the lasagna. That will make it all better.
“Evil eye tree” by Isarao on flickr.
I’m such a superstitious freak, I swar to gar.
Raspberries are my favorite fruit, possibly even my favorite food. They make me think of summer in my grandfather’s garden (my dad’s dad, Mike, never to be confused with the other one, who I call my mother’s father, period).
Don’t get the idea that was some recurrent thing I did in summers or in anytime, spend time with my grandfather in his garden; even though it is a special secret and sacred place in my memory, in actuality it was a place where I scarcely ever got to go, because my parents are vagabonds because they had this awesomely secure childhood in a small town and this strong sense of identity, so they can ramble from place to place, whereas I crave that exact type of feeling of belonging and having roots, and have never had it. I come closest where I live now, where I have chosen to carve out a little cave for myself, but I cannot ignore the fact that I am basically a person without a place I’m “From” when someone asks. If I have a memory of riding my trike, I have to stop and ask myself like, which mobile home park was that? Was that when we lived in the first or the second place in San Jose? There is no permanence, there is no consistency, until I was in my early teens and we moved to the Central Valley.
I get a shade of what it must be like for my parents, what it must be like to have an identity associated with a place, when we do on rare occasions visit family in Priest River. It’s weird to walk through a cemetery and realize how many dead people you’re related to because both sides of your family are from the same remote logging town in Northern Idaho. Honestly? I always buy newspapers from there and even bought a town anniversary book that had a history of it; I love it there. I suppose if I had grown up there I would have hated it, at least, that’s what I try to tell myself. Anyway, today my father sensed I was sick and maybe emotionally a little under the weather as well (awww, love that understatement), and he brought me some raspberries from the Raley’s.
I guess “home” is what you make it be; maybe it is more about people than about places or sights. Either way. Raspberries! Feeling that sparkly pop on my tongue is the best thing to happen to me in several days.
The Thought Experiment 