Archive for March, 2010

Next Entries »

An education from An Education

Published March 7, 2010 local , movies 7 Comments
Tags: , ,

Yesterday was the first day of 2010 that I could really believe spring would come once again.  While there was this,

there was also this,


Spring may come afterall!  It was just a sunny, beautiful day and we left the windows open to air out the condo while we walked downtown to the Orpheum to finally see An Education.  I admit that I was not totally in love with the idea of seeing this movie.  I had believed (mistakenly) that it was going to be yet another tale about an older man obsessed with his Lolita and that the movie would feel tired and exploitative.  I could not have been more wrong.  First, a word on the Orpheum.  It is simply the most fun place to see a movie in Madison.  It is old, beautiful and you can sit in the balcony.  You can have a drink during the movie and get real butter on your popcorn.  While it lacks the amenities of Sundance (say, drink holders for one), it makes up for it in charm.  Frankly, unless there is something that I really want to see on the Imax at Star Cinemas, I almost never venture out of the Sundance-Orpheum world.  The problem with the theater?  Well, there are several.  First of all, it’s FREEZING in there.  I don’t think anyone took off their coats.  Second, the film reel started and stopped several times before we finally got a real go with sound and all.  Third, it went out of focus a couple of times during the middle of the movie.  Despite all that, I still love that theater.

Now, onto the star attraction.  An Education is, without a doubt, the best movie I have seen this year.  Maybe even the past few years.  It is a quietly perfect coming-of-age tale set in 1961 England.  Jenny is a 16-year-old girl who wants to lose her virginity on her 17th birthday, loves all things French, plays the cello and has her eyes set on Oxford.  She meets David who is much older, worldly and a smooth, smooth talker.  He introduces her to his world, which is the world she has studied but never seen.  This all may sound trite, but it is so far from it.  This is the first movie I can think of that deals honestly with a young girl’s sexuality and hopes and dreams.  Jenny thinks she knows more than she does.  She thinks she is more clever than her parents, and maybe she is, but they still have a thing or two to teach her.  She thinks David is the world, but he’s not.  He’s just a man who has more faults than most and who loves to see himself through his ingenue’s eyes.  She thinks her teachers are tired and boring and have given up on life, but finds herself wrong again.  They teach because of girls like her, who have the whole world in front of them and talents to offer us all. 

I think what I found most heartbreaking and lovely about an An Education, if I had to pick one thing, would be Jenny’s relationship with her father.  He believes so strongly in Jenny getting an education, even though he himself barely understands what that means.  He insists she play the cello, but not that she practice and certainly not that she expose herself to concerts and culture.  His character is summed up in his hilarious line to Jenny, when she tells him her friend Graham may become a famous author one day, “Being a famous author is not the same as knowing one.”  Jenny’s dad prefers to know what one “should” be but not to actually be that.  But he is more than just the comic figure in the story.  He is her father and he loves her and delights in her successes and blames himself for her biggest mistake.  He believes in her and he forgives her her lies and errors in judgment.  The scene in which he brings her tea and biscuits will probably forever be with me. 

This story is a memoir, which explains, I suppose, why it feels so very real and true.  The ditzy blonde may have been a bit of a stretch (can anyone be that clueless?), but she was a decent foil and quite sweet and funny.  Really funny, actually. 

I know the movie has no chance of winning tonight, and in a year when there are 10 nominees it’s not really an honor to be nominated, but I am grateful for its existence and already want to see it again.  Oh!  And Carey Mulligan’s performance?  Well, I don’t think it would have been the same film with anyone else.  She was simply divine.  She was the perfect, perfect embodiment of Jenny.  I am eager to see her in future roles, but I suspect I will never love her more than I do as Jenny.

A love of movies, a love of words

Published March 5, 2010 movies Leave a Comment
Tags:

This piece is a real heartbreaker.  I highly recommend it and thank Kristin for sending it to me.  It made me laugh and cry.

The Coopers Tavern

Published March 3, 2010 local 7 Comments
Tags: ,

Yesterday, after Aaron’s Wisconsin Supreme Court argument — at which he did a great job fielding difficult, and sometimes aggressive, questions — we went out for lunch.  We decided to try the new place on the block (Square), The Coopers Tavern.  I’ve been confused about the name, likening it to The Ohio State University.  When I asked Aaron for his thoughts on the name, he said he didn’t think it was at all odd and informed me a cooper is a person who makes barrels.  Well.  I was already learning from this place, and we hadn’t even stepped through the door.  I still don’t understand why there is no apostrophe to make it either Cooper’s or Coopers’, but I suspect it’s a choice of aesthetics over grammar.  And this place definitely has thought about asthetics. 

The place is really nice-looking.  It’s got lots of light but warm wood and despite having only a small window area, feels bright and clean.  The menu is small and features the ever-popular and trendy, upscale bar food cuisine.  There are a few appetizers, including poutine and Belgian frites, pictured below.  These frites seem to have taken over Madison in the last few years.

We started with these frites, which were served with a side of malt vinegar aioli, which just looked like mayo to me so I obviously stayed away.  I should have asked for another condiment to complement the fries, but they were quite tasty on their own.  I prefer Sardine’s version, which are thinner and crispier, but these were really quite flavorful and — probably because they are twice-fried — a very pretty amber brown. 

I ordered the Amy’s salad, which is spinach, cranberries, walnuts, pear, apple and “crisped goat cheese.”  The salad is also served with what they are calling a “rustic baguette” from Madison Sourdough.  I heart Madison Sourdough so I was particularly excited about the baguette, which I know is a tad lame.

The salad arrived and I was confused.  What are these two medallion things on either side of the plate?  Aaron said, “Croutons?”  I furrowed my brow, smiled and said, “I think it’s the goat cheese!”  And I was right.  This brilliant way of serving goat cheese — simply one of my favorite foods — had me smiling throughout my meal.  It was warm inside, crispy outside and great for spreading on the bread.  The bread, though, did not taste like the Madison Sourdough baguette I’m used to.  It tasted dry and not like sourdough.  I wonder if it’s a different type of the baguette than I usually buy or if it was an off day.  In any event, the salad was quite good.  I wish I had gotten the dressing on the side because, well, I’m me.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  The dressing is a balsamic vinaigrette but, like the Old Fashioned’s, it is white and creamy.  And, as a rule, I don’t do white and creamy.  So, I would get the salad again, but with dressing on the side and maybe use lemons as a dressing instead, which I think would go nicely with the spinach and fruit.  Aaron got the brisket sandwich, which he seemed to love.  Sandwiches come with either a side of greens or hand-made chips.  He opted for the greens, because we started with the fries.  The bill, with tip (and a diet Coke) was $28, which is a bit steep for lunch for two, but I’m not complaining.

I should also add that service was great and the place started getting packed a little after 1 pm, which was a little surprising.  We walked back to work and I said how much I liked the place, but how I suspected that it will ultimately be a little like the Old Fashioned for me — I like the space and the idea of the place better than I like the food itself.  But I know that I will return to this nice, welcoming spot.

[Also of note is that this space used to be a McDonald’s that closed several years ago.  I am relieved to have a new, sweet, locally-owned restaurant using what was a vacant spot for too long.]

Snail mail

Published March 2, 2010 bling blog 3 Comments
Tags: ,

I think the term snail mail is cute, though I often feel bad using it.  I’m uncomfortable insulting the United States Post Office.  As many of you know, I have long been fascinated by the post office.  I just think mail delivery is amazing — so reliable and so cheap and also a little romantic.  I love looking at little tiny post offices in postage stamp-sized towns.  The idea that I can send a note to friends and family in New York, California, northern Wisconsin, or across town for the same couple of cents is just so great.  It was particularly warming to me when I lived in Charleston and then Miami, when I was a kid at camp, or when I studied in Italy.  But more recently, I’ve been turned off a bit by the USPS.  I am uncomfortable criticzing them in the way that I’m uncomfortable criticizing a good friend or family.  But, the prices of stamps continue to rise and they’ve closed several mailboxes around town that I used to use regularly.  I know that times are tough and there are more competitors to their services, including, of course, email.   In response to their latest budgetary challenges, they’re now proposing dropping Saturday mail service, which I can probably live with, but I’d still like to take a look at their books.  They apparently have debt at around $10 billion.      

When I lived in Berea, Kentucky the summer between my first and second year in law school, I lived with an older woman named Leta.  Leta was fantastic.  She was also an extern in the same program that I was in, but she was a student at the University of Tennessee.  One weekend, she invited me to go to her niece’s wedding in Knoxville.  Well, everyone knew that I had no car and nothing to do in Berea on weekends but ride my bike around the neighborhood cul-de-sacs and check out Pat Conroy books from the library, so I accepted.  Of course it seems weird to go to someone’s wedding uninvited but, weirdly, it was the second time that summer I had done so.  [My boss had a friend whose daughter was getting married in eastern Kentucky, by the West Virginia border, and he and his wife insisted I go to that wedding with them.  I ended up sleeping on some stranger’s couch and being nearly molested by some old Kentucky man who lived with his even older mother.  I digress.]  Ok, back to the Tennessee wedding.  Leta wasn’t exactly thrilled with this wedding because her niece had previously been engaged and gone through all the rigamarole associated with weddings — showers, planning, buying, buying, buying — and then called it off at the last minute.  This wedding was supposed to be smaller, I think, and all I really remember of the ceremony was that it was at a church on a very pretty lake and when the officiant declared the couple husband and wife, they turned around and screamed, “We did it!” at the audience and ran down the aisle.  They both worked at a Lee Greenwood musical theater place in Pigeon Forge, TN.  After the ceremony, we all went to some condo-type place in the Smoky Mountains where there was a keg of beer and some cheetos and a black velvet groom’s cake with a replica of Kiss on it.  Lee Greenwood called for directions as he had gotten lost on the windy roads.  Anyway, Leta’s sister-in-law whose name I am now blanking on worked for the post office.  I was fascinated and bombarded her with tons and tons of questions.  The next morning at an ungodly hour, while I was sleeping, she drove up to Leta’s mom’s house, where we were staying, and started honking her horn as she delivered the mail.  Apparently, she thought that if I loved the post office so much, I should be up at that ungodly hour to accept delivery of Leta’s mom’s mail.  I slept through the whole thing.   

Some interesting facts (courtesy of the omniscient and ever-reliable Wikipedia, as well as my own research) about the USPS:

  • The post office is authorized in the Constituion in Article I, s. 8, granting Congress the power to establish “Post Offices and post Roads.”  [Sidenote, I’m fascinated by weird, old capitalization.]
  • It is the second largest civilian employer in the US, after Wal-Mart, employing 656,000 people.
  • Its first incarnation was as the United States Post Office (USPO) in 1775, followed by the United States Post Office Department (USPOD) in 1792.  It was not until Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act into law in 1970 that we got the USPS as we currently know it.
  • Prior to 1970, the post office was part of the presidential cabinet and the Postmaster  General was the last person in the presidential line of succession.
  • After 1970, or 1971, the USPS was no longer part of the cabinet and instead became an independent federal agency, like the CIA or the EPA.
  • UPS and FedEx and DHL and anyone else who is not the USPS cannot deliver packages to PO boxes because the USPS has the exclusive right to deliver mail to those boxes.  I always thought it was maybe because the private companies didn’t think their packages would fit in those boxes.  Hee hee.  Dumb Kate. 

These are just a few of the interesting tidbits I learned today.  Oh, Post Office, please turn yourself around without raising costs, cutting services or reducing pensions (the latter of which it seems the Postmaster General himself has suggested).  How this would work, I’m not exactly sure.  I’d need to get a look at those books.    

March 2010
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  

Join 78 other subscribers