The Eddie Vedder Theory

Oh, my baby, my baby she don't want me no more
Ever since she saw his poster in that record store
She says the way he grinds his molars is really sexy
She thinks he's so darn dysfunctional and "Generation X"y
She likes his brooding angst and his wild-eyed stare
Yeah, he's her very favorite slacker multi-millionaire

Well, my baby's in love with Eddie Vedder
She's all crazy 'bout that Eddie Vedder
Once she was mine, but now I better just forget her
'Cause my baby's in love with Eddie Vedder

-Weird Al Yankovic

Sorry, Sirius, my unattainable literary crush. You’ve toppled from first place on The List. I’m in love with unattainable rock star Eddie Vedder. And it seems I’m not alone, if Weird Al’s song is any indication. Luckily for me, though, my husband looks far more like Eddie than Al so peace still reigns in our home.

A crush on EV is difficult to sustain and quite exhausting. Intelligence constantly battles with shallow desire, creating a personal war zone.

Despite eyes that can melt the ice caps, a voice fashioned from caramel at Willy Wonka’s factory, that surfer body and rock star cool, EV seems like a decent chap, a regular guy. He’s a doting father, champion of kindness and decency, hard-working professional, presumably faithful boyfriend, warrior for the downtrodden. He exemplifies anti-celebrity and all the shallow behavior that accompanies such state.

Lusting after EV is an insult to the man, really, and I don’t think he’d approve of me wasting time and energy plotting ways to capture his attention at his upcoming show at the Opera House. So far, the best I have is to remove my shirt and bra during a quiet moment in the concert and letting out a long wolf howl complete with three short yips at the end. This is sure to raise his hackles, but once he sees me, he’ll drop to his knees and exclaim, “Holy cow! Look at those saggers! What on earth have I been doing with a supermodel all this time?”

However, since removing my bra in public could be considered an act of terrorism, I need to rethink this idea.

A theme in George Eliot’s books is how romantic love can help better one’s character or, alternatively, if one chooses poorly, love can ruin one’s life. Now, a person of substance will find inner strength and wisdom to perfect his or her character. Some find inspiration and guidance through religion. I am not such a person.

Falling in love inspires me to be a better person. Since I can’t sustain a crush on my true love (aka husband) ALL the time, I have crushes on unattainables. And when in love with said unattainable, I am kinder, courteous, charitable, inspired, energetic and joy filled. Perhaps this is shallow, but it works. I’ve tried religion, but it doesn’t click for me and while I do not believe you can find a better man’s example to follow than Jesus's, somehow, having a crush on Jesus just seems wrong. Although it did work for Mary Magdalene.

Hence Eddie Vedder. A crush on EV will not only inspire you to wait outside his Boston hotel for hours until he walks out via the back entrance so that he's missed entirely, but you will no doubt volunteer at a soup kitchen to balance out the day. Pick Brett Michaels, on the other hand and all you will end up with is leathery skin and a lifelong supply of cheaply made push-up bras. And possibly lung cancer.

So Eddie, thank you for allowing me to justify my insanity. I’ll see you on August 1. I’ll be in the Dress Circle, first row, dead center. If you say hello, I won’t have to remove my bra.

How Loving EV Improves My Character: It’s so easy to be kind to strangers. Don’t need the man for that. I am, currently, more patient and compassionate to those that are close to me at those times when they most get on my nerves. Now, I don’t pull my hair out when my toddler asks the same why question for two hours straight. I can laugh and shake my head fondly at my husband for wearing that ridiculous red bandana. And my father’s whistling ceases to…well, that still drives me to snarl at him. I’m working on it.

Charity of Choice: There are too many people in need – war veterans, firefighters, disaster casualties, disease victims, battered children…for awhile, I was giving little bits here and little bits there, which only left me more depressed and hopeless, similar as to how one feels after watching Gone, Baby, Gone. Now, I pick one charity and donate to that once a year. It’s not enough, but financially, it’s the best I can do.

I chose The Smile Train. Those poor children, born into pain and ridicule, and there’s an easy and inexpensive fix.

Song of the Day: We’ve All Been Beat Up Enough (Bow Thayer, not Eddie Vedder. Really.)

Bittersweet Symphony

So it’s been a bittersweet month in my personal world of arts and entertainment. I’m not complaining because I feel pretty lucky that artistic and literary pangs are my biggest concern in this day and age. What’s the line from Pearl Jam’s “Wishlist?" -- something like: “I wish I were as fortunate, as fortunate as me.”

My insights, then, or lack thereof:

The big show. Pearl Jam. I haven’t seen them since the early nineties when Lollapalooza and Great Woods were both cool and I was able to traipse from lawn to mosh pit just in time to help pass Eddie Vedder over the crowd. I didn’t wash my hands for two days.

Same place fifteen years later. Great Woods is now the Comcast Center and there is barely a lawn to speak of and certainly no mosh pit. My tickets were smack in the middle – too far away to see anything and as the Comcast Center probably has the worst sound stage in history, the music was blurred. Generally, it was an unpleasant experience, surrounded by very drunk ex-frat boys (and one sixty year old, brown leather skinned vodka pickled Vineyard fashion clad woman). And my husband, who wore an I-told-you-so-smirk the entire time.

And he’s right. We are spoiled here in Boston. So many clubs, so many really talented bands who go on to fame and fortune. And we just walk in and fully experience the music. Sure there are drunk guys ambling around making general nuisances of themselves somehow believing that you are there to see them and not the band, but these are mere gnats, easy to tune out. Instead, you can see and feel the passion of the music, the synergy of bands, the intricacies of fingers dancing along guitar strings.

So stadium shows just don’t cut it at all unless you are of the mentality that you are one with the crowd, one with your idol up there on stage, voices mimicking, arms waving. Blech. This is mob mentality, not creativity, not community. It feels dangerous and creepy.

Community is sitting in a circle at my son’s toddler playgroup singing songs and dancing. It is humbling and bonding and promises burgeoning creativity. A beginning. I can’t explain it. The Pearl Jam crowd felt like mass failure – armchair athletes. An end. We left early.

That said, here’s the sweet. Pearl Jam was incredible. The performance, the music, the energy – they give the audience back what they paid in tickets and gas and then some. And no-one can create a feeling of community like Eddie Vedder. In fact, in those fleeting moments between songs, when he spoke to the crowd, I felt truly part of a community of hope, as if we were sitting around the fire taking turns telling stories.

Now, the members of Pearl Jam are heavy on the activism and support many charities. This is easy to do when you have power and money, right? Many fans won’t argue what their rock gods utter, never bothering to reason to discover their own opinions. And charity? The rest of us can barely afford tickets to their shows so how are we supposed to give money or time to charity, right?

Wrong.

You don’t need money to be kind, to train yourself to think outside of yourself, to find ways to improve the lot of those around you, even if it’s just bestowing a smile. And hurray! Pearl Jam exemplifies this, which was evident by its frontman’s converstion. He wished us well – not the “Hey, how y’all doing in [fill in city of choice]?” banter that most bands spout in an attempt to show that they care about their fans, and if you ask me how Mr. Vedder was any different, I can’t pinpoint it. He just was.

Part of it was his choice of topics such as the one about the little local boy who, learning to play guitar, had just figured out his first chords to a Pearl Jam tune. The band dedicated a song to him, even bothered to remember his name. They took the time to give hope to one kid. An average kid, not a gifted one, not one dying of cancer. Just a plain ole kid. Doesn’t take money or time to do that. Just kindness.

The Big Screen. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Left the theater with a smile on my face, mainly because I wanted to like the movie so I did, even though it boasted some lazy writing: a clichéd plot that seemed to steal from a plethora of other movies, including its own ancestors. But Harrison Ford slips into Indiana as if no time has passed, the glimpses of old characters and quarry pleased the palate, and Marion is front and center in Indy’s life, as she should be. Best is Mutt, Indy’s son in every way, but not yet quite ready to fill the old man’s shoes. Don’t expect the high quality of writing that distinguished Raiders and you’ll leave with more sweets on your brain than bitters.

The book. Alice Hoffman’s Third Angel. I borrowed this from the library on a speed-read loan so I caught the gist but really didn’t take the time to delve into symbolism and themes as the book deserves. So I might be wrong in my interpretation.

As usual, Hoffman doesn’t disappoint, although this novel drags the reader into hopelessness most of the way through, leaving one melancholy at the close of each chapter. There are no villians or heroes – just humans.

The characters, despite their privileged social standing, suffer so much sadness, especially Lucy, who, at the start of the novel, is the mother of two daughters. Lucy’s cancer left them motherless for a time and the repercussions of her disease infect their adult lives.

Later in the book, we read about Lucy’s childhood. Life really should not have thrown her cancer in her adult life. It’s really not fair at all. But isn’t that the nature of earthly living?

Yet Hoffman, at the last, saves her reader from despair. She gives us hope via a character that has no hope (although, he too, later finds it), Lucy’s third angel. Hoffman, as the author, is ours.

THE book. Finally finished the Harry Potter series and I’m bummed that it’s over, but what a perfect little symphony JK Rowling has created. I cheered (Mrs. Weasley, Luna, Neville, and, what ho, Kreacher!), was bummed by all the losses, and was surprised by the lasting sadness for Severus Snape. He was cheated. He did not get his due.

The last book completed the first, and proves that character is fate. Upon further reflection of Snape, he probably did get the justice he deserved. His character certainly wasn’t stellar, despite his bravery and loyalty.

I do agree, however, with some critics who believe the epilogue was not necessary. The last sentence of the last chapter was as good as it gets. Still, the epilogue offered the romance novel ending that’s packed with peanuts and more shows that Harry paid public homage to one of the truest heroes of the tales.

On the horizon: The entertainment gods have heard my woes. Eddie Vedder, solo, small stage (so the Opera House isn’t exactly Toad, but it far beats the Comcast Center), providing an intimate evening with banjos, mandolin, and his lovely baritone. I'm selling my husband for tickets. He's pretty hot and he cooks. Anyone, anyone?

On the iPod: Do you really need a hint?

The Hippies Are Right

So I had a dream about Viggo Mortensen last night and no, unfortunately, he was not naked.

In it, I was at work and he showed up at the office. Star struck, I stared for a bit before I mustered the courage to greet him. Instead of asking about his considerable artistic talents, his activism, or how he manages to look so hot at age fifty, I desperately wanted to know the answer to one question: how, as a father, does he keep from going insane from worry in this decaying world?

I didn’t have to explain what I meant. He knew. And he answered as I suppose the real Viggo would. He said, “You have to teach them to love and be kind so they grow and teach others to love and be kind. That’s the best you can do.”

Actually, in real life, my mother said those words to me after I lamented the constant fear that engulfs me now that I’m a parent. There are the normal, simmering fears that come with parenthood one has to swallow and try to forget or else smother the poor child: choking, freak accidents, illness, and rabid bats.

Then there are the added modern worries of the present age and they are legion: kidnapping and molestation, cyber-bullying, youth violence, crystal meth, nuclear war, video games, the uselessness of world religions and politics where even the best-intentioned go awry, plastic surgery, plastic food, plastic lifestyles, boy bands, crystal meth, flesh eating bacteria, identity theft…the list goes on.

All around, there is a sense of impending doom. Food shortages, global warming, killer storms, dying bees, dying bats (even rabid bats is a better alternative than a world over-run by blood-sucking insects), and the end of the Mayan calendar.

The title of Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, is a brilliant phrase because it truly does seem bold to entertain a glimmer of sunshine in a world where the conditions described in The Road don’t seem too far off.

The alternative, though, worrying until one’s stomach acids turn one into a sizzling puddle of madness on the kitchen floor, isn’t an option. One must continue and strive to be the best one can be and, to quote that hippy song whose title and singer I cannot recall, “teach your children well.”

Listen to my mother. But if it helps, picture Viggo saying it. Naked.

On My iPod: The Sisters of Mercy’s “Nine While Nine” and Jabe’s “Goddam Train.”

In My Belly: Johnny D’s Cajun mussels and Coleman burger and fries. It’s worth the airfare into Boston just for this one meal.

Quote of the Day: “Margaret the Churchwoman her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.” Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South.

A Sirius Point

Now that my mother (the only person that reads this blog) has finally finished Order of the Phoenix, I can finally post the article I wrote for my local RWA chapter's newsletter.

SPOILER ALERT: I hereby give fair warning on the rare chance that someone else is reading this blog who 1) is not my mother and 2) hasn't yet finished the fifth installment of the Harry Potter series. Here it is:

Crushes are an integral ingredient to a happy marriage. Flirtations, fantasies, hopeless pining, in small doses, keep the neurons jumping, the senses hopping, the blood singing, the pelvis…well, you get my drift.

Of course, there’s a fine line between an invigorating crush and donning the scarlet A. Fortunately for me, I don’t find other men, aside from my True Love and Reformed Rake (code name: husband), all that enticing. Other real men, that is.

No. I have the tendency to pine for fictional characters, usually from books. The lust fires are fanned if a character comes to life in a movie version of the book. Jude Law portraying Inman from Cold Mountain is positively delicious. Jude Law the man? Eh. And Wolverine from comic book fame gets my heart pumping. Add Hugh Jackman to the mix and you may see drool dribble down my chin.

To the average person, this may seem a tad abnormal, but I’m a romance author. Falling in love is what we do.

A couple of months ago I revisited an old lover. Mr. Darcy. I re-read Pride and Prejudice, watched the Colin Firth movie version, pressing the slow motion button during the oh-so-not-Jane-Austen lake scene, conversed in the Queen’s English and pretended my four-room condo was Pemberley. A week later, the courtship ended.

Of course, my husband has crushes, too. In fact, we have a List. Some of you will know what I’m talking about. This wish list contains names of people with whom one hopes to spend time naked, ideally before one starts to sag. Should the opportunity for such a liaison arise, one’s spouse will turn a blind eye to the shenanigans. It’s a one-time deal with only one person on the List. In our marriage, I have to cheat first. This rule, I am sure, is a remnant of our early religious educations about Eve in the Garden, but that is another story.

Last month, the top three names on my list were: 1) Jemmy from Moll Flanders (it helps that Daniel Craig plays him in the movie), 2) Kisten Felps from the Dead Witch Walking series and 3) The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

My husband won’t tell me the names on his list. He says he doesn’t want me to worry.

My latest crush, however, has moved beyond the bounds of propriety and into that dangerous Scarlett O’Hara brand of adultery. I believe it’s called delusional obsession. I’m not sure why this shift in my brain has occurred. Perhaps it’s the Seven Year Itch. Or sleep deprivation. Then again, there’s always a chance I’m just plain crazy.

All I know is that this crush trumps all others on the List and were it possible, I’d be right up there with ole’ Hester herself. But it’s not possible. You see, I’ve fallen madly in love with Sirius Black, recently escaped from Azkaban Prison.

He’s the perfect romance hero – a man on the run, accused of a crime he did not commit, reckless, loyal, broken and in need of a woman to save him. The trouble is, there is no woman. No romance. Would it have killed J.K. Rowling to give Sirius a little nookie between his imprisonment and ultimate fate?

I’ve read Order of the Phoenix three times hoping that the story will change. It hasn’t. I brood, I moan, I sigh. Sadly, I haven’t given up ice cream yet so my waistline is not at all benefiting from this pining.

I re-write Sirius’s tale while I’m washing dishes, vacuuming, and in lieu of sleep. In my version, Sirius and an unnamed Muggle woman from Somerville fall madly in love and defeat the evil Voldemort before making wild wizard love and walking into the sunset together. “Dina,” my husband says with a bemused yet worried frown, “He’s dead. And hello? NOT REAL.”

I knew my infatuation had become a problem when my husband emerged from the bathroom on Saturday night wearing a black and white striped jumpsuit, Azkaban scrawled across his chest, and a hopeful expression on his face.

Clearly, something needs to change. So before I start psychotherapy, I’m making time on my schedule to write again in hopes that a creative outlet will solve the problem. After all, lust fades. Until then, Sirius stays at the top of the List and maybe I can convince my husband to don the Azkaban costume again until I move onto the next crush.

That Mr. Darcy!

Just got back from a business trip in Virginia to take a course on how to torture your direct reports by making them set SMART goals. It was actually a great course (look out, Cindy!), but I can’t abide spending an entire day locked in a conference facility only to go to dinner at a chain restaurant and stay at a chain hotel near a concrete airport, so I opted to take the Metro to Old Town Alexandria each night, surrounding myself with gas lights, cobble stone streets, Federalist homes, blooming trees laden with moss, and the scent of English boxwood everywhere.

It poured for three days straight, but I walked for two hours a day, happy under a giant umbrella and although I was too wound up to sleep, I’ve never been more at ease in my insomnia than in that Kimpton bed at the Morrison House Hotel.

Plus I had a great book. The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Mary Street.

As a rule, I’ve learned to avoid sequels, prequels, other character’s point-of-view remakes of classics. They are generally poorly written, plot-driven nightmares that foul the reader’s brain and sully the original work.

Scarlett is one such example. And I’ve learned to absolutely avoid all – and there are way too many – renditions of Pride and Prejudice. Even the latest movie version with Keira Knightley was a disaster. Why mess with the Colin Firth one (which I enjoyed even more than the original BBC rendition with David Rintoul, mainly because it was just a little less bookish)?

Speaking of botches, did any one see Masterpiece’s A Room With a View last Sunday night? I couldn’t sit through five minutes. How can one top the Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott version (not to mention the glorious soundtrack)? It just isn’t possible.

Then, again, there are some re-knits of classics that are done very well. The movie update of Emma in the form of Clueless is a perfect modern translation of the original.

Alice Hoffman's version of Wuthering Heights captures the themes, mood and basic plot of Bronte's classic but is all Hoffman, rife with dark magic and beauty. Even the title, Here on Earth, pays homage to Cathy's dream of Heaven but clearly stakes its independence from the classic. And H, The Return to Wuthering Heights, is a well-written tale from Heathcliff’s point of view about the three years in which he spent away from the moors.

Then there’s The Wide Sargasso Sea, a prequel to Jane Eyre featuring Bertha Mason’s point-of-view and deftly capturing her descent into madness while stirring the reader’s pity for both Rochester and the mad woman that she becomes.

But I have no interest in reading Rhett Butler’s People. Mitchell destroyed her sequel and clearly wanted no sequels, spin-offs, or other such nonsense. I learned my lesson from Scarlett and the other spin-off, And the Wind Done Gone, which was so far removed from the original that it was insulting (or laughable, if you tend toward humorous worldview). I’m not sure what if the author’s intent was to parody the classic or to make a social statement about the evils of slavery and Mitchells’s view of the Old South through rose-colored glasses, but it didn’t work. She would have done better to write a non-fiction critique or better yet, an original novel to de-romanticize the past.

Back to Pride and Prejudice. Never again, I once swore, would I read another Pride sequel. The last two I’d attempted gave me nightmares and it took many re-readings of the original to wash the taint from my mind.

Yet something about Street’s book tempted me. Couldn’t get its review out of my head. Hard earned money spent, it was with great trepidation that I opened that book on the plane. I finished it in a day and closed it, well-satisfied with the experience and light of heart as a result.

I still won’t read any other Pride and Prejudice embroidery, but I will re-read Confessions. The author succeeds because she does not digress from Austen’s intent. In fact, she uses direct quotes of dialogue from the original, then works Mr. Darcy’s point of view around Austen’s words so that the reader is always rooted in Jane’s world.

For a lesser author, this would be plagiarism, but Street knows what she is about, almost as if Jane whispered the book to her as she typed. It is a pleasure to watch Darcy fall in love with Elizabeth and more importantly, grow as an individual, and the read is riveting and wholesome, much like the original.

On the Nightstand: Reading J.D. Robb’s Strangers in Death to be followed by a re-read of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (just watched the outstanding BBC miniseries and am anxious to revisit this darker pride and prejudice tale)

On the iPod: Lots of Pearl Jam in anticipation of their June concert in Mansfield.

Recently viewed: Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story. I’m pretty sure I lost a few brain cells watching that one, but Eddie Vedder was in it so that’s my excuse for wasting two hours of life.

The Folly of Free Will

We were so angry when Man was given free will, but why, when they all hold the belief their lives are determined by anything other than their free will? And the right to vote.
(Darin Morgan, “Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me”)

As Hesse states in Steppenwolf, “Enough with death-dealing!” No more depressing reads. There have been a slew of them – Atonement, On Chesnil Beach, The Road, Boys and Girls Together, the short story "Bridges of Eden Park" (sob! Kisten!)…

Instead, I went to see Juno, the perfect antidote to a depressed worldview, and read Loretta Chase’s Lord Perfect, a book that almost makes me want to start writing again.

I haven’t worked on a book in two years. Unprofessional to admit, true, but with work and child I have no energy to gather the will and put paper to pen. Nora Roberts, I am not. Luckily, I have mostly stopped caring and have shed the mantle of guilt that has hounded me.

Should I feel guilty about wasting my God-given talent? Probably. Maybe it’s a phase. Maybe not. All I know is that I’m nearly content to let other authors entertain me for a while.

The problem is that I do get two hours to myself each night, which is way more time than most professional women with children, job, spouse, house, dogs, possess. Sometimes I watch a movie (Little Miss Sunshine is up next), sometimes I watch “Lost,” but mostly I just read and end up putting away three or four books a week. I feel this is wrong.

C.S. Lewis would agree. In one of his essays, he states that reading, his passion as well as mine, is a sin because it steals one’s will from focusing on God’s will. I suspect that this is true. Reading too much leaves one with a nasty taste in one’s mouth. As discussed in a previous blog, it’s an addiction, really, much like heroin. Or cigarettes. Or Haagen-Das.

Speaking of old C.S., if you haven’t read the Screwtape Letters, do pick it up. It’s a hilarious account of the demon Screwtape’s lessons to his nephew on how to lure humans from God. Yes, it’s a religious theme, but I promise it is not preachy. It’s funny and offers insight on human behavior. Whether you’re an atheist or a thumper of the Good Book, if you want to better your own human condition, you’d best pay attention to Screwtape’s lesons and avoid becoming a victim.

I just Netflixed a few episodes of the 1990’s television series, Millennium. One episode, called "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me", features four demons in a coffee shop discussing their personal methods of corrupting humans. The show’s hero, Frank Black, is the sole human who can see through their human disguise and know them for the demons that they really are. Whether Darin Morgan wrote this episode as a tribute to Screwtape, I do not know, but it’s a poignant and humorous spin on the book.

Back to my confessions. As you can see, I could be utilizing my free time in a much better fashion. I could work on my marriage, summon the willpower to write a novel, lose excess belly fat, help my fellow human sufferer, practice my banjo so I can learn something other than Pearl Jam’s “Black.” Volunteer my time to help better the human condition. Become a Big Sister. Maybe take my neighbor’s children for an evening so that she can have a date with her husband.

Okay, already, so I’m feeling guilty. Admission is half the battle, right?

Blogs of Note: Devshirme. Who knew a priest could be so cool?

On the iPod: Minor Threat, White Stripes, Cathode, Remy Zero, Fergie MacDonald, Kitchens of Distinction

After Little Miss Sunshine: Whether its my upcoming trip to historic Alexandria, Virginia or the fact that Patrick Swayze is in the news, I woke up with the theme music to North and South in my head and have the yen to watch, for the tenth time, Books One and Two of John Jake’s brilliant North and South. (I choose to forget the abysmal Book Three. The book was good; the movie detestable.)

And isn’t it an easy world in which most of us Americans live? Every ridiculous whim is fulfilled by a click of the mouse. I want to waste a dozen hours watching a miniseries from my high school era and voila! There it is. Blessings are wasted on such as me. I scorn Paris Hilton but really, I’m not any better.

Waiting on the Nightstand: Yes, it is time for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Last night, I put The Bug to bed, hopped into my PJs and got a big bowl of Haagen-Dazs Reserved Sweet Cream with Hawaiian Honey. (I admit that I went to the store today and bought all the pints I could, just in case the limited edition disappears before our next shopping trip. It’s always best to be prepared for disaster.)

Then, turning on the television an hour prior to show time to set the ambience, I sat down with my scrapbooking project in anticipation of Masterpiece’s Pride and Prejudice, which I already own on DVD, and yes, I am happily married and no, I don’t own any cats. I just enjoy the spinster lifestyle.

But I didn’t scrapbook. And my ice cream melted. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir just happened to be on. It’s not brilliant movie-making and the story has no gripping twists or deep characterization but every time I see it, I get a pang deep within my chest and end up crying buckets. Wuthering Heights, on-screen, has the same effect (the one with Laurence Olivier and the BBC Masterpiece one – the others just made me nauseous).

But the Ghost and Mrs. Muir is so melancholy. The lonely, moody sea, the music, the bitterness of life, which, to her misfortune, the elegant, kind Mrs. Muir chooses over her dead sea captain. All those lonely years spent with her aging housekeeper until finally, finally, she dies and the Captain returns for her. The movie ends with a stormy sea and happy ending, but it’s still bittersweet and hurts to watch.

On my bookshelf: Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Volume 6.

On the iPod: Mazzy Star "Into Dust"; Tom Waits "Cold Cold Ground"; Jabe "Both Hands on the Wheel"; Edith Piaf "La Vie en Rose"