DIShGo

I had no idea it was so brief. He said so much in so few words. It is the perfect example of the power of few well chosen words.

It is nice that you pre-screen all of these episodes so I don't have to suffer through the clunkers. Are there some that are SO bad, they're good? If so, they may be worth a look. Of the handful of episodes I have watched so far, a few stand out. The episode I watched today, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," from Season 5, was amazing. It was like a well made feature film condensed into 30 minutes. I never would have guessed it was a Twilight Zone episode. Beautifully shot, with minimal dialogue, it was packed with emotion. I loved the contrast between the calm beauty of nature and the tension he felt as a hunted man. If I could only watch one episode, I think this would be the one. --- Of the more traditional Twilight Zone episodes, my favorites so far are: "The Chaser," from Season One. Fluffy and fun. One scene in particular made me laugh out loud. "Two," from Season Three. An untraditional love story. It was fun seeing a young Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Bronson together. "The Hunt," from Season Three. A sweet story about a man and his dog. Proof positive that dogs go to heaven, despite what that mean nun told me when I was in second grade and my sweet Missy was hit by a car. "Nothing in the Dark," from Season Three. A great performance by Robert Redford in a moving story. "The Trade-Ins," also from Season Three. The best older couple since Carl and Ellie from "Up." "The Changing of the Guard," Season Three. A touching tale that reminded me of "It's A Wonderful Life" meets "Dead Poets Society." Extremely well acted. "On Thursday We Leave for Home," Season Four. An incredible performance by James Whitmore. "Ring a Ding Girl," Season Five. A captivating story about a charming actress who truly is a hometown heroine. So far, it looks like Season Three is winning for me.

Since it was delivered on November 19, I am going to make myself a note to read it next Wednesday.

The email I received was from StubHub, and it looks like they still have tickets. They are in the upper tiers and they aren't cheap, however.

Thank you for starting this post. I am enjoying these shows, although I am not as methodical as you, and I am watching them in a very random order. I am impressed with the acting, and with how relevant many of these episodes are 50 or more years later. It also is fun to see so many big stars when they were young and not yet famous. I wish there were a television series of this quality on the air now. If there is one, I can't think of it.

I prefer his peppier version. Love the harmonica.

That video is very cool, and it is the first thing I think of when I think of Bob Dylan. I heard "I Want You" from Blonde on Blonde for the first time tonight, and I liked it.

I just received an email notifying me of his concert tour. It appears he will be performing at the D.A.R. Constitution Hall on Nov. 25. I've never been a fan, although I don't dislike him, either. I think he is a wonderful songwriter. He wrote two of my favorite songs, and I didn't even realize that until recently. This post has made me want to listen to more of his music.

I went looking for "It" tonight online, but the film was unavailable to stream. I did, however, find this interesting documentary about Clara Bow. She truly was a woman born before her time. The documentary made me think of the 2011 Academy Award winning film, "The Artist." I wouldn't be at all surprised if that film was inspired by her story.

Congratulations, Giants! What a series. The Royals were formidable opponents, as were the Nationals in the playoffs. This postseason was baseball at its finest.

The San Francisco Giants!

I think there are multiple layers to these stories that we did not touch. This book gets richer with each reading. That is what makes it exceptional. I will keep it on my shelf and read it again, only to discover gems that I missed the first, and in some cases second, time around. To answer your earlier questions about Wilf's marginalization, this is Tessa's story, being told through Nancy, so it makes perfect sense. I don't think Munro puts an undue burden on her readers with her symbolism because the stories are enjoyable whether you understand it all or not. Yes, it is greatly enhanced when you do "get" it, but the raw beauty and simplicity of her words make it a worthwhile read on a number of levels. There are several passages throughout the book that I know must be significant, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why. The part where Tessa is baking seemed important to me for a number of reasons, but I didn't pick up the blind mice connection until I was re-reading that passage this morning. Often, Munro will give you clues that say, "Pay attention, this is important!" She uses capitalization, italics and the placement of certain passages within the text to say, "This is worth noticing." I feel like she wants us to figure it out, but she doesn't want to make it too easy. It's always more rewarding when you have to work for something, after all. I am satisfied with my understanding of this book because reading it gave me a great deal of pleasure. Ultimately, that is why I read fiction. I connected with the stories on a personal level, and that, for me, is more important than the author's intent. Yes, it troubles me that there are things Munro intended for me to comprehend and I did not. That is why I will read it again at some point. But, as in all things, we don't have to fully understand something to love it. Sometimes trying to understand something is more than enough.

The first time I read "Powers, I thought, "What just happened?" I felt bewildered by the story, not understanding what I had just read or even why it was included in this book. The second time, not only did I have a better understanding of the story, I felt a very strong conviction that it was the perfect ending to "Runaway." Yes, it is the most complicated story in the book. It is more of a novella, spanning 50 years with subsections and varying points of view. It also is the only story set in an earlier time frame, a period that would have been before Munro's personal recollections. There is a lot of symbolism in this story that is lost on me: the dead flies, the titles of the subsections, the woman baking blind mice. Tessa is telling Nancy Ollie is dead while the blind mice are being made. Does this symbolize her blindness to the truth? She can see the future, but she doesn't know her husband is alive? Is this a defense mechanism that allows her to go on? I wish I could understand it better, and I feel like Munro had a field day writing this one. However, on a larger scale, particularly in relation to its place in the book, I have an understanding and an appreciation for "Powers." First, there is the Biblical perspective. Tessa, to me, is the perfect Christ figure. Word spreads of her powers, and people from all around are drawn to her and seek her out for help. Ollie is Judas, who sells her out for gold. Nancy is Peter who repeatedly denies Tessa. She thinks she is her friend and ally, yet every chance she gets to help her, she does not. There are religious themes throughout this book, and it is interesting to note that it begins with the Old Testament sacrificial lamb, Carla and/or Flora, in "Runaway," explores Greek mythology throughout the trilogy, and touches on New Testament themes in "Trespasses" and "Passion." It culminates with "Powers," a story that brings to mind the story of Christ. For me, "Powers" sums up what Munro is trying to say throughout the entire book. She reveals her characters' lives but doesn't try to fix or change them. Even the clairvoyant Tessa can't stop her life from taking terrible turns. Can she see into the future or not? Does it matter? Would it change anything? It is significant that "Powers" is written from Nancy's point of view instead of Tessa's. It leaves the question in the readers mind as to whether or not Tessa really had supernatural powers, and if, in the end, that really mattered. There is a lot of foreshadowing in this passage from a letter Nancy wrote to Tessa, as well as a strong message from Munro about the importance of simply living each day to the fullest: "Getting and spending, we lay waste to our powers. Why do we let ourselves be so busy and miss doing things we should have, or would have, liked to do?" No one can predict the future, Munro is reminding us. Life has twists and turns, and these are the things that make it beautiful, and often heart-wrenching. Munro's characters look back on their lives, realizing the pivotal moments that took them where they are now. These decisions and events--some within their control, and others not--shape their lives. Many of these women realized too late they had special "powers" all along that they did not put to use. Nancy's diary reveals a young girl caught up in her vanities and trivial concerns. She longs to be unusual and special, but feels hopelessly average. Ollie has similar thoughts, which is probably why they were both drawn to Tessa. It turns out, Nancy had the most "power" all along, and could have done something to save her friend. When she comes to this realization, sadly, it is too late. Nancy is getting older, Wilf has died and people are worried about her. "Her children say that they hope she has not taken to Living in the Past." The next paragraph, to me, sums up "Runaway" and Munro's purpose in writing it: "But what she believes she is doing, what she wants to do if she can get the time to do it, is not so much to live in the past as to open it up and get one good look at it." This is exactly what Munro, and each of her characters, do throughout this book. Nancy realizes too late she had the power to help a friend in need. She tries in vain to correct her past mistake, but it is too late. Her dream briefly consoles her, but when she is fully awake she knows it was just a dream and not reality. Reality, for Nancy, is facing her aging self and the realization that her life, like the book, is coming to an imperfect close. The Bible tells us, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' reminding us that our time on earth is finite. At the end of Runaway, Munro does the same. Nancy is led by a force outside herself from the dream back to reality. "Gently, inexorably leading her away from what begins to crumble behind her, to crumble and darken tenderly into something like soot and soft ash."

Today I am going to start One Hundred Years of Solitude again. I began reading it on a plane several months ago, came home, put it down and forgot about it. I'm going to give it another go. For those of you thinking about reading "Unbroken," I highly recommend that you do before the movie comes out this December. I just read that the Coen brothers wrote the screenplay. I hope the movie lives up to the hype. This is an incredible story of an inspiring man that deserves to be well told.

I recently finished Endurance. It was an amazing story and well told, but I agree with porcupine, the characters weren't fleshed out enough for me. With one or two exceptions, the men in the story seemed interchangeable and I had difficulty keeping them straight. I also agree that had it been fiction, I would have found it unbelievable. It seems improbable to me that people living in those conditions could maintain such a positive attitude for that long a period. I wonder if the men who recounted the tale to the author didn't put a more positive spin on the events. Sometimes when people look back on things, this happens. Nevertheless, it was a well-written account of an incredible story, and I am glad I read it. I just finished reading The Royal Game and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig. Wow. This book is phenomenal. "The Royal Game" is without question the best short story I have ever read. The other stories in this book are noteworthy, too, especially "Letter from an Unknown Woman." Zweig studied philosophy and this is apparent in his work. He has an uncanny way of presenting the inner workings of the minds of his characters. You don't just read about what they are experiencing, you feel it.

Yes, I agree with you. Both should be celebrated, and it is significant that they were honored together.

To Malala Yousafzai, for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The more I think about "Passion," the more I remember why I liked it so much. To me, the story of Neil isn't about Neil at all. He and Mavis were unlikeable people that the reader does not give a hoot about. Neil is a representation of the dark, daring side of Grace. The side of her that was always there, but she was trying to suppress. She felt physically attracted to Neil, but in fact, she was drawn to his reckless abandon. His selfishness. The way he did whatever he wanted and didn't worry about the consequences. She wanted to be like that. She wanted to get out of that sleepy town and discover the world. Mrs. Travers saw that in Grace, and that is why she was given the money in the end. Although Mr. Travers delivers the check, he says, "We both hope you'll make good use of this." In the end, Grace gets what she wanted all along, a way out.

There is one other thing worth noting about "Passion" ( I realize this is long, but I am trying to get you to understand why I liked this story so much). The story, to me, is more about the relationship between Mrs. Travers and Grace than Grace and any of the men. Mrs. Travers is very much like Grace. She loves books and learning for learning's sake. Mr. Travers is her Maury. He came along and provided stability and security for her after the death of her first husband, but there isn't much passion there. Mr. Travers speaks about Mrs. Travers' life before him as if it were an awful time. Mrs. Travers does not remember it that way. Also, the movie Maury took Grace to when they first started dating is significant. He took her to see "Father of the Bride" and she hated it. He thought she hated it because she was a poor girl who couldn't afford to go to college, much less pay for a lavish wedding, and he admired her for that. But that really wasn't the case. Grace hated the movie because it represented what society expected her to be, not because it was financially out of her reach. "She could not explain or quite understand that it wasn't altogether jealously she felt, it was rage. And not because she couldn't shop like that or dress like that. It was because that was what girls were supposed to be like. That was what men--people, everybody--thought they should be like. Beautiful, treasured. spoiled, selfish, pea-brained. That was what a girl should be, to be fallen in love with. Then she would become a mother and she'd be all mushily devoted to her babies. Not selfish anymore, but just as pea-brained. Forever."

"Passion" is a coming of age story about a young, poor girl from a small town trying to fit in where she clearly doesn't. It is about a young woman discovering who she wants to be versus what she is expected to be. Maybe its because I am female, or maybe its because I grew up in a small, sleepy town that I desperately wanted to get out of, but there was a lot in "Passion" that resonated with me. The "meat" of the story is about Grace and her discovery of herself. Neil was just a dark, doomed individual with whom she spent an afternoon of self discovery. There was no Grace and Neil, except for the imagined passion between them that existed only in her mind. I loved the beginning of the story, when she is older and goes back to the house, wishing it had stayed the same, but also hoping it had changed. I get that feeling when I go back to my hometown. Parts of it exist in a vacuum (we have had the same mayor for 51 years) and other things have changed so much I can hardly recognize the place. Grace was an outsider who didn't fit in. She was raised by her aunt and uncle who caned chairs for a living. She was smart, but her family didn't have the money to finance a higher education for her. She even stayed in high school longer than she had to, so she could learn. "The principal of the school had a talk with her, telling her this was getting her nowhere since she was not going to be able to go to college, and anyway no college course required such a full plate. Why was she doing this? Did she have any plans?" "No, said Grace, she just wanted to learn everything you could learn for free. Before she started her career of caning." She met Maury and she fell in love with his family. That is the significance of all of those additional characters. She loved the Sunday family dinners together, talking and playing games. She loved hanging out in their library, sitting in a rich leather chair, losing herself in one of their books. She loved Mrs. Travers as much as Maury loved her. But she didn't love Maury. She wanted to love Maury. She threw herself physically at Maury, but deep down, felt no passion for him. I don't think she intentionally mistreated him. She liked him as a person, but she was more passionate about his family than she was about him. Deciding to go with Neil that afternoon sealed Grace's fate that there would be no marriage to Maury, which was something, deep down, she dreaded anyway. There would be no more Sunday afternoons with the family; no sure ticket out of her less than promising future. Driving around aimlessly with a despondent man whom she found physically attractive, but who was passionate about alcohol and not her, opened Grace's eyes to the possibility that there were other choices for her besides Maury or caning chairs. She could do anything she wanted, but it needed to be something she felt passionate about, a feeling that, until that day, she had only faked. I enjoyed how Munro played with the many meanings of the word passion. I particularly liked the reference to Anna Karenina, and Mrs. Travers' observation that, "I suppose that's how sympathies change as you get older. Passion gets pushed behind the washtubs." This quote is one of favorite in the entire book. It sums up Grace's conviction that day, as well as the hazy way we remember things when looking back: "Describing this passage, this change in her life, later on, Grace might say--she did say--that it was as if a gate had clanged shut behind her. But at the time there was no clang--acquiescence simply rippled through her, the rights of those left behind were smoothly cancelled." "Her memory of this day remained clear and detailed, though there was a variation in the parts of it she dwelt on." "And even in some of those details she must have been wrong."

Yes, I recommend reading it carefully and without allowing too much time to pass before finishing it. A lot happens, and nothing is as it seems.

It is interesting to note the ages of the main characters in each of the stories. Most of the drama occurs when the women are quite young, and again when they are much older, looking back. Carla met Clark at 18, and was likely in her early 20s when she ran away. Sylvia, most likely, was in her 60s. Juliet is 21 at the beginning of the Trilogy. At the end of the story, she is considered too old to be on TV, gray, and her daughter has children who are school-aged. So Juliet is probably 50 or older at the end of the third story. Grace is 20 in "Passion." When she returns, it is so many years later that everything has changed. Munro doesn't say how many years have passed, but again, I assume she was 50 at least. Lauren is 10 in "Trespasses." She is the only one who doesn't age and look back. In "Tricks," Robin Is 26. She appears to be around 66 when she learns what really happened. In "Powers," Nancy and Tessa are the same age, being classmates. It begins in 1927 and Nancy is anxious to get engaged, so I assume she wasn't any older than her early 20s. At the end of the story, it is the early 70s, which would probably put her in her 60s. Since most of the characters were smart young women who didn't quite fit into the boxes of their era, I imagine the book was somewhat autobiographical for Munro. She would have been in her early 70s when she wrote it.

I re-read "Powers" this morning, and I am so glad I did. My impression of the story changed completely. It is one of the strongest stories in the book, written primarily from the perspective of one character while actually being about another one. Elements found throughout the other stories--dream sequences, beautiful turns of phrase, and people whose lives are not as they seem--are beautifully presented in this tale. The theme of wanting to run away also is prevalent throughout "Powers," making it the perfect ending to this wonderful book. The strength of "Powers" is revealed in the stark contrast between the main characters. There are ordinary people longing to be extraordinary, and extraordinary people wishing for ordinary lives. There are conflicts and compromises, outright lies and lies of omission. I could read this story (and to be honest, the entire book) several times over, and each time something new would be revealed. That, to me, is the power of Munro's storytelling.

I am glad you liked "Tricks," too. I would recommend this book to anyone based on that story alone. I loved the way the story played out, and the way the reader, too, was tricked. The brevity of language when the discovery was made heightened the poignancy of the moment. Here are two of my favorite passages from this story, beautifully written as only Munro can: "Nothing faded for her, however repetitive this program might be. Her memories, and the embroidery on her memories, just kept wearing a deeper groove." "It was all spoiled in one day, in a couple of minutes, not by fits and starts, struggles, hopes and losses, in the long-drawn-out way that such things are more often spoiled. And if it's true that things are usually spoiled, isn't the quick way the easier way to bear? But you don't really take that view, not for yourself." I am going to read "Powers" again before attempting to discuss it. It was long and difficult, and I am not sure I gave it the time and attention it deserved the first time around.

The elastic of today is stronger than celery, thank goodness.