By Charlotte Smith
Oh, Hope! thou soother sweet of human woes!
How shall I lure thee to my haunts forlorn!
For me wilt thou renew the wither’d rose,
And clear my painful path of pointed thorn?
Ah come, sweet nymph! in smiles and softness drest,
Like the young hours that lead the tender year,
Enchantress! come, and charm my cares to rest:—
Alas! the flatterer flies, and will not hear!
A prey to fear, anxiety, and pain,
Must I a sad existence still deplore?
Lo!—the flowers fade, but all the thorns remain,
“For me the vernal garland blooms no more.”
Come then, “pale Misery’s love!” be thou my cure,
And I will bless thee, who, tho’ slow, art sure.
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Cheryl and I had a slacker day, sleeping late after the Tonys and the news on Sunday night, then eating breakfast while watching Jurassic World because we were in the mood after Dinosaur Land. The news was so stressful and upsetting that we then watched a ridiculous artificial attempt to be stressful and upsetting, London Has Fallen, in which Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart play out a fantasy of macho white boy American power fighting off mostly people of color and useless Europeans -- even if you love one of the actors, I cannot recommend it.
I am more apt to recommend Now You See Me 2, which we went to see with Paul late in the afternoon. The movie has about as many plot holes and magic tricks that can only be done with a movie camera as the original, and Lizzy Caplan doesn't get a better role than Isla Fisher did, but it's great fun to see Daniel Radcliffe play a bad guy, always fun to see Michael Caine play a bad guy, and everyone else (Ruffalo, Harrelson, Freeman, Eisenberg, et al) get plenty of amusing moments. After the movie we went out for Indian food in the mall before Cheryl went home.
Our evening involved some cleanup around watching this week's Houdini and Doyle, which I liked apart from my ongoing dislike of the storyline involving the latter's wife -- it really annoys me to have a major female character with absolutely no agency, not even thus far much in flashback -- and the new Braindead, which can't decide whether it's a comedy about how politics is for morons or a horror movie about how we'd be better off with zombies than Donald Trump in charge, which is way too mixed a tone; I think it should stick to comedy and drop all pretense at horror or realism.
I had very little time to post last night after a lovely day near the Blue Ridge Mountains, so let me note that the Mucha exhibit at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, which allows no photos, is delightful -- many enormous prints and lithos, Sarah Bernhardt posters from several countries, Czech nationalistic art, collectible coloring cards -- and Dinosaur Land, which has one of the biggest tacky gift stores east of Wall Drug and north of South of the Border, is simply a joy, with educational signs around gigantic models of battling dinosaurs. Here are photos of us being happy on a very sad day:
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