The Long and the Short of It
These are a few of my favorite lengths
This week is about things loooooooooong, and short. I was thinking of the seemingly endless wait for something special to happen (Christmas, vacation), and then the breathtakingly rapid duration of that special something. Unfair!! It should be just the opposite, right? Now, this year, the interval between Thanksgiving and Christmas is quite brief; HOWEVER it’s never that long a wait twixt turkey and…turkey? (Note: we do roast beef at Christmas ourselves, but many others have a Butterball redux.)
Onward! Quickly!!
MOVIES (LONG AND SHORT)
LONG:
The longest movie I ever watched was probably Gone With the Wind (4 hours), and I was living in Atlanta, where GWTW was sacred (even though its stance on slavery and the Confederacy have aged horribly). I still admire Vivien Leigh’s bravura performance as Scarlett, and for a time in my tweens I dreamed of being a slender spitfire like Ms. O’Hara (until I pulled out the tape measure and realized I hadn’t had a 16 inch waist since toddlerhood).
Another longie-but-goodie? It has to be a tie between Godfather II and Gandhi. Running over 3 hours each, they are both fabulous films—one a portrait of a Mafia family (rather evil), the other a biography of an inspired spiritual leader (pretty good). Al Pacino as Gandhi and Ben Kingsley as Michael Corleone both excellent! Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound quite right:-)
AND SHORT:
Here’s the shortest Oscar-nominated film ever made. 1 minute 40 seconds of sheer cleverness. I love Fresh Guacamole!!!
BOOKS (long and short):
My “longest book” list is littered with the corpses of volumes abandoned 400-500 pages in—Proust’s A la Recherche duTemps Perdu. Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Richard Scarry’s Big Book of Cars and Trucks and Things that Go.
Here’s a heavyweight tome I did complete and can recommend…and a short take I also loved…
THE THORN BIRDS by Colleen McCullough (700 pages)
I never saw the Richard Chamberlain miniseries, so I probably missed out. But my mental picture of the priest was NOT that of TV’s Dr. Kildare in any event. It’s a sweeping saga of Australian life seen through the lens of the Cleary family (daughter Meggie loves the priest-who-is-not-Richard-Chamberlain). It’s a bit of a potboiler but I couldn’t put it down, back in the day.
FOSTER by Claire Keegan (90 pages)
A young girl (never named) in Ireland is sent to live with childless relatives for the summer, while her mother gives birth yet again. Over the weeks, she blossoms from the love and attention not available to her at home. Lovely, lovely little book.
NUMBERS!
SHORTEST: 1 (surprise!) It ain’t easy being Number One (ask Three Dog Night):
LONGEST: Googolplex (1 followed by 100 zeros)—a number so vast that it is bigger than the observable particles in the known universe. The only bigger number is the amount of glitter your kid spills on the carpet. It (the glitter) is impossible to get out, so you may have to go to the nearest Googolplex and buy a new rug.
and then there’s this…
FIBONACCI SEQUENCING:
A series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. Gets very big, very fast. Occurs frequently in nature (nautilus shell, flower petals, galaxies, etc.)
Here’s a cute Brian Bilston poem on this very subject:
MUSIC: THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF…PIANO MUSIC
Kaikhosru Sorabji wrote “Opus Clavicembalisticum” during one sleepless night in 1930 (just kidding, it must have taken at least two or three). The piece takes 4 1/2 hours to play, and do stay awake for the ending! Sorabji writes of it to a friend: “With a wracking head and literally my whole body shaking as with ague I write this and tell you I have just this afternoon early finished Clavicembalisticum... The closing 4 pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I've ever done—the harmony bites like nitric acid—the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God...” Concertgoer, you’ve been warned…
Chase that Pianomonster with this, possibly the shortest piano piece NOT composed by young Peter Seyfried (whose works tend to clock in at 15 seconds or so before he runs off to play Legos). This prelude is familiar and bouncy Chopin…all 45 seconds of it!
RECIPES:
SHORTEST I’VE EVER ATTEMPTED
The boys’ favorite breakfast. Nutella toast. Take one slice bread, toasted. Spread generously with Nutella. Cut in half (diagonally only, please!!!!) Serve in time for Aiden and Peter to eat three bites before running for the bus.
LONGEST I’VE EVER ATTEMPTED
I once blogged about my sole stab at making Fanesca, a traditional South American Lenten soup. Note: if you ever want to give someone serious penance in a confessional, make them peel lupini beans. They’ll never sin again.
BLOG PREVIEW: THE INTANGIBLES!
Sounds like a team of superheroes, but no! This week I explore the ineffable, the unseeable, the untouchable…the intangible! Join me over at Working Title and finally (maybe not) learn about cryptocurrency!
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Just as I began this newsletter, so John Malkovich will help me conclude. Time IS a peculiar and elastic thing, the experience of it a trick of the mind in many ways. Long or short, though, life is a wonder, and I’m grateful that mine (so far) is going on and on…yours too, I hope! Have a great week!