Monday, February 28, 2011

Poem for Monday, Longwood Gardens, Oscar Joy

Listening To Jazz Now
By Jimmy Santiago Baca


Listening to jazz now, I'm happy
     sun shining outside like it was my lifetime achievement award.
                I'm happy,
with my friend and her dog up in Durango, her emailing
     me this morning
no coon hound ailing yowls
vibrant I love yous.
        I'm happy,
        my smile a big Monarch butterfly
        after having juiced up some carrots, garlic, seaweed,
        I stroll the riverbank, lazy as a deep cello
in a basement bar--

                   smoke, cagney'd out patrons
                   caramel and chocolate women in black
                             shoulder strap satin dresses,
                   and red high heels.

--------

I spent most of a lovely Sunday in the Brandywine Valley with my family and the lovely Dementordelta, where we went to the Brandywine River Museum to see N.C. Wyeth's Civil War paintings, then to Longwood Gardens to see the orchids in the conservatory and the grounds (not many plantings yet but the weather was magnificent), but you will have to wait until tomorrow for most of the pics because we had a busy evening of sitting in each other's laps with our triangle of man-love (though here we are looking adorable in the greenhouse):



Really, I do not have a single complaint. This is because the major award The Social Network won was in a category The King's Speech wasn't eligible in -- adapted screenplay, which the overrated Sorkin can have -- and as much as I adore Geoffrey Rush and would have loved for him to win a second Oscar, I think Christian Bale is one of the best actors alive and he was certainly due. I'm sorry Helena didn't win, too, but she really could not lose this evening -- her face was everywhere, she was in three of the films up for art direction (Alice in Wonderland, which won, plus HP and TKS). I am still irritated that Nolan was overlooked so I am really glad Inception won cinematography, visual effects, sound mixing and editing.

I was not expecting to love the show, though, so what a completely delightful surprise Franco and Hathaway turned out to be -- my favorite moment probably being Hathaway insulting Jackman via "On My Own" followed by Franco coming out on stage in drag, with the Year of the Musical (HP and Twilight mixes utterly hilarious) but the presentations, too -- hahaha Russell Brand translating Helen Mirren's French as saying that Dame Helen claimed her performance as a queen was more realistic than Colin Firth's as a king, then rejecting her alleged proposition on the grounds that he's married, after she called him an idiot in French And Melissa Leo forgetting herself and dropping the F-bomb after being all flustered by Kirk Douglas, then David Seidler (YAY) accepting his King's Speech screenplay award by thanking the Queen for not throwing him in the Tower for "using the Melissa Leo F-word."

You all could probably hear us shrieking when Tom Hooper won Best Director, which was the first time I really felt sure the movie was going to take home the top trophy -- especially after he didn't win the BAFTA, I was nervous -- and then you probably heard us again when Colin won and yet again when Colin threatened to go indulge his impulses backstage (please please send pictures). My kids fortunately stayed up to see what won (interestingly younger son was as opposed to The Social Network winning as I was, though he hasn't seen it), so we did not wake them shrieking in joy, and I love that the producers brought Colin, Geoffrey and Helena up on stage with them. Now we are hoping for the backstage speeches to surface before we go collapse!

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