Oh me oh my, I am feeling at loose ends tonight. Todd is out fishing with a co-worker when he should be home with me watching "Buffy" Season 4. Being in recovery mode for a few weeks means that I have watched almost every DVD in the house and done more crossword puzzles than any human should ever have to do. My "mousing" hand is sore from Internet usage. I've dipped into at least five different books in the past two weeks, and none have been able to hold my interest. I hate to say I'm bored, but I am.
Thus a ramble here.
It is odd that director John Hughes died yesterday, because Todd and I were talking about "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" just the night before that. Todd was sitting at my desk, and I have a painting by Georges Seurat as my desktop image, "A Sunday in the Park on the Island of La Grand Jatte."
Todd mentioned something about that being the painting that Cameron looks at. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He said, "Yes, that's the one where Cameron looks at the little girl in the middle, and then it cuts to his face, and then back to her face, and then a close-up of his face, and then a close-up of her face...you know, in 'Ferris Bueller.'"
Well, I've seen "Ferris Bueller" any number of times, but the main thing I always remember about it is the parade where he sings "Twist and Shout." I didn't remember that scene at all. So we found it on YouTube:
The girl's face dissolves, of course, because it's composed of tiny dots of paint in Seurat's style of "pointillism," which is an awesome word as well as a cool way to paint.
It's strange that I (the English-major) forgot all about that scene, because it's a key moment in the film, and one that still moves people to pondering, if my Google search on "painting cameron ferris" reveals anything. I loved what this blogger had to say:
"In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Cameron stands in an art museum in front of a pointillist painting by George Seurat, and as he stares at the image of a little girl, the camera cuts back and forth, jumping closer and closer to each shot. As we get closer to his eyes, it seems as if Cameron is having an existential crisis. As if he is facing the realization that we are all just little dots.
"In an industry where anything that seems superfluous ends up on the cutting room floor, it is to Hughes' credit that his film allows for the moment, one that continues to move me to this day. That is the gift of John Hughes."
Maybe I should pop in "Ferris Bueller" to ward off my boredom tonight, eh? I hate to watch it without Todd, though. I don't know about Todd, but for me that is THE high school movie of my high school years. Seems a shame to watch it without my high school buddy along.
I haven't seen all of John Hughes' movies and people my age are always shocked when I reveal that I've never seen "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink," or "Some Kind of Wonderful." My favorite of his movies I have seen is "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." The first 2 1/2 minutes of this scene literally make me cry with laughter every time:
Man, I wish John Candy was still around. What a funny, funny man.
As long as I'm talking Hughes films, I also have a soft spot for "Home Alone." I took my cousins Alan and Michael to see that movie over Thanksgiving break in 1990 when they were 11 years old and I was 20 years old and I was baby-sitting for them. I had such a great time that I called Todd (my then-boyfriend) right afterward and said, "We have to go see this kiddie movie tonight."
Here's a montage of my favorite moments from that movie...it's like watching a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon...awesome.
They left out my favorite line, though ("Why are you dressed like a chicken?") and my favorite bit where Marv screams like a little girl when Kevin puts the tarantula on his face. Good times.
Maybe a Christmas movie in August would be a fun way to kill the rest of the evening...
I'm holed up in the study while Todd has a big poker party downstairs with his buds, so I thought I'd throw down a few more pictures, from Thanksgiving this time.
So we didn't have any travel plans for the holiday, because it's too far to go to Ohio for a four-day weekend. We often go to my brother's family for part of the weekend, but they decided to make the trip home to Ohio. So we weren't sure what to do, but I didn't want to sit home and stare at the walls.
So Todd suggested we go up to Washington, DC for the weekend. And we had a terrific time. We got there about 10 AM Thanksgiving morning, and headed for what I mistakenly thought was the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but which turned out to be the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, a different place entirely. This gallery exhibits American crafts of the 19th-21st centuries. The building dates from 1859, and was the site of America's first art museum, and it's named after James Renwick, the architect who designed it and who also designed the Smithsonian Castle. Just a little tidbit!
The Renwick sits at Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th St...if you scootched the building about half a block to the right, it would be sitting in Lafayette Park looking at the White House. We got there a bit before the doors opened, so we took a stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue and admired the White House from the street. It was a very warm sunny morning--but that would change.
I couldn't get any pictures inside the Renwick, but by far the best thing we saw there was an exhibit of late 19th-century quilts from the Plains states. Many of them were civic quilts, with stitched names of businesses or prominent citizens, or redwork-style stitched pictures of town buildings. And there were two crazy quilts that I just wanted to cry that I couldn't take pictures of--one was worked by a milliner who incorporated all her scrap bits of velvet, lace, flowers, silk, feathers, you name it, into a quilt that just glowed with color and texture. The other crazy quilt was worked by a girl in her late teens or early twenties around the turn of the century, and she stitched words into many of the patches, like slang phrases that her crowd used, or a few words about an event, like ice skating on the river, or a particular dance she'd gone to. It was one of the most memorable, fascinating things I've ever seen--like a scrapbook made of fabric.
On the way back to our car, we stopped at a hot dog vendor and ate at the sidewalk tables of a cafe that was closed for the holiday. Note the sunshine and Todd's shirtsleeves. It was so nice out, and the city was so quiet. There were some people out and about, but not many.
Then we headed to the actual Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, which are in the same mammoth building several blocks away. I didn't get a picture of it, but just picture your standard marble temple with steps and big columns and you've got it.
I adore looking at art, but this museum had lots of furniture sprinkled in with the art pieces--lovely, old, historic furniture to be sure--but kind of boring. However, they were running an exhibit of American propaganda posters from World War I, and how wonderful that was! The artwork on them was amazing, and the colors still glowed, after almost 100 years.
We also strolled quickly through the Presidents' portrait gallery, and that was terrific, too.
Todd is such a good sport about going to all these museums and looking at stuff. I'm so lucky that he enjoys it, too, because it's one of my favorite things to do, and so much more fun with him along.
By the time we came out of the American Art Museum around 2:30 or 3:00, the weather had drastically changed!
Look at that sky behind the Capitol. The temperature had dropped about 30 degrees, and the wind was howling. We drove to the Capitol because I never seem to make it down to that end of the Mall on any of my trips to DC.
Here are some of the windows along the front of the National Botanical Gardens, which sits right next-door to the Capitol building.
Indoors was a conservatory decorated gorgeously for Christmas:
We strolled up to the bottom of the Capitol steps, and turned to look out over the Mall:
As we'd driven toward the Capitol earlier, I'd noticed an Edward Hopper exhibit at the annexe of the National Gallery of Art. The annexe is just a modern smaller addition that's accessible to the Gallery by strolling across the street or crossing to it underground. They do special exhibits there, and the high ceilings are all decorated with fantastic Calder mobiles.
Well, I have always loved Edward Hopper, so that was our last stop before heading out to Woodbridge to find our hotel and some Thanksgiving dinner. And the exhibit was WONDERFUL. Again, no pictures allowed, but I'll never forget the beauty of those paintings--and they had dozens!--and the way the colors glowed. You can look at paintings in books, and that's nice, but there is no way, NO way, to reproduce the detail and the hues and the just pure glowing beauty of a painting viewed close up in real life. It makes my heart pound.
Some of the people I mentioned this exhibit to had never heard of Edward Hopper, so here are two of his best-known pieces, Chop Suey:
and Night-Hawks:
It was awesome, and I'll never forget seeing his gorgeous work up close.
More pictures later, but I want to add that I had this moment tonight, reading the CNN website about Obama's South Carolina primary win, where I looked at his picture and just marveled in a way that almost made me teary-eyed, that we have a black man and a white woman running for President--and each actually has a better-than-good shot at it. Not that I didn't know that before, but the realization came over me very strongly tonight. It's just so wonderful. High time, and wonderful.
Todd mentioned something about that being the painting that Cameron looks at. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He said, "Yes, that's the one where Cameron looks at the little girl in the middle, and then it cuts to his face, and then back to her face, and then a close-up of his face, and then a close-up of her face...you know, in 'Ferris Bueller.'"
