8:16
By Geoffrey Nutter
The tree is at a fixed point.
The chair is fixed.
But the two become a helix with the cardinal there.
And when the sun moves and the shadows lengthen like a dream, they are a helix.
The chair sits in the shadow of the tree.
The cardinal, first cause, moves into a shadow.
The sun, gamma, climbs.
Gamma, climbing, glares.
The glare is fixed into the trilogy.
Then the three subtract themselves: evening.
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Younger son was recovered enough to get up very early for his field trip to Mount Vernon (and to eat historical peppermint candy there), so it was a quieter day at home than yesterday.
No new Smallville tonight meant that we picked tonight to start cleaning the kids' rooms. Older son's room is nearly under control; younger son's room is an unmitigated disaster area and considering he won't even let me give away a sweater that is two sizes too small for him and itches, is just going to get worse. We were going to watch Edward Scissorhands but since we were still working, we were going to record it at midnight, except it turned out to be on at 11 instead of 12 and we missed it, sigh.
Watched "The Naked Now" so I can review it and discovered that, yep, first season Next Gen is as awful as we remembered. Ironically, my favorite thing in the entire episode is the much-maligned Wesley Crusher. (Well, and Data describing how fully functional he is, but it's really pretty gratuitous, not even titillating.) Then watched Shark because I had forgotten that Russell Crowe was supposed to be on Oprah Winfrey's Oscar special...waaah! I am sure someone will have caps and comments posted eventually, though. Trying to decide whether to rent Babel or The Departed before the awards...think Brad and Cate are going to win my personal vote, since I like them (yes, even Brad) and the storyline sounds so much more interesting to me! Anyway, Shark had my full attention...as usual, acting better than script but Gary Cole is a great guest star and there are a lot of ambiguities I enjoy.
I found it really interesting that, after Stark agreed to cover for his slimy rich friend who was very obviously guilty (though I don't understand why claim the dead girl was related to mob members if that card wasn't going to be played...maybe they're holding it for later), white boy Casey is totally behind him, both Madeleine and especially Raina are angry at him and Isaac, his (other) old friend, is quietly seething and hurt but thinks they should back him up because whatever else Stark may be, he isn't someone who would let a murderer get away with it. Stark seems to believe this about himself as well, and convinces Jessica of it so thoroughly that she lies to the judge to prevent him from being disbarred. Again, he's sleazy and arrogant even as he's ostensibly taking his lumps, and again what makes him tolerable is that he can't get his own house in order. Without Julie, I doubt this show would be holding my interest the way it does.
So in a lot of ways the pivotal scene of the episode is the one where Julie's friend uses money swiped from her mother to get Julie's car out of lockdown, saying that her relationship with her mom is based on denial -- if mom doesn't know what her daughter is doing, she doesn't have to deal with it -- and telling Julie that she should give it a try. That Julie accepts this advice as sound is very sad. She must have some idea that Isaac might tell her father -- is she hoping he tells her father and spares her having to disappoint him? Isaac's in a funny position -- he could tell Julie much more dirt on her father than he could tell Stark about Julie, and one gets the impression that Julie didn't hear on the news how close her father came to getting disbarred, or maybe she was more focused on her godfather going to jail for murder. She sees much too much ugliness up close because it touches her family.
I also like the way the other relationships break down. Raina and Isaac are obviously interested in one another but it's not clear to me whether they think anything can come of it while they're working together; Madeleine and Casey are, as he explains, having sex but not dating, and he implies that she's as into female strippers as he is. If they'll cover for Stark when they know he's flagrantly violating the law for a friend, are any of them any better than the friend Stark berates for what he believes at first is covering up a murder? It's pretty much the same ethical equation...worse, perhaps, because they are his employees and in the job of prosecuting crime, whereas Stark's friend is someone he has known and trusted for years and his job is PR-related. Not sure I wholly believe that Stark believes himself when he proclaims that finally the job is not about him and his ego, though I do believe that when he talks to his daughter about work he's proud of it. "Sometimes people disappoint you" is the theme of the episode and he takes his lumps where Julie is concerned.
And this is the graveyard at the shrine. One of Elizabeth Seton's children is buried here.
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How can fandom get itself so worked up over a couple of blurry images from an upcoming movie based on how someone's hair looks in the sun? And I just don't get the Saturn Awards: how come Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett are eligible for nominations for trophies specifically given for genre performances for Notes on a Scandal, which is not remotely a genre movie, whereas Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker are either not eligible or overlooked by the self-important folk who do the nominations?
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