Petite Maman is Touching and Enigmatic

 

 

 

PETITE MAMAN  (2021)

Directed by Céline Sciamma

Pyramide Distribution, 72 minutes (not rated)

In French (with English subtitles)

* * * *  

 

Petite Maman (“Little Mum”) is an enigmatic film. It’s clearly a meditation on grief, but everything else is up for debate. I would call it a work of magical realism, but I suppose it could be a deep dream, a fantasy, or a hallucination. However you interpret it, it’s unusual.

 

Perhaps the name Céline Sciamma sounds familiar. She directed Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), a celebrated and steamy lesbian romance. Because of that and other works such as Tomboy (2011), some analysts expect everything Sciama does to have lesbian subtexts. Petite Maman was actually up for gay film awards, though it would take someone with an agenda and a college sophomore’s misunderstanding of Freudian symbolism to find anything sapphic in Petite Maman. It doesn’t get any more sensual than a pair of 9-year-old girls hugging, and the actors happen to be twin sisters in real life. Were it rated for U.S. audiences, it would be PG-13, and only because it deals with death.

 

It begins innocently enough. As is her custom, 9-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) goes room to room bidding “au revoir” to everyone she sees in an assisted-living facility. When she reaches the room in which her namesake grandmother Nelly was housed, it’s empty; she has died from an unnamed hereditary condition. Nelly’s father (Stéphane Varupenne) and her mother, 31-year-old Marion (Nina Meurisse), are left with the grim task of clearing out the home in the woods where Marion grew up. Marion is shattered by her mother’s death and not even her daughter can cheer her. Marion flees and Nelly and her dad take care of the packing.

 

So far, so sad. Here’s where things get weird. Marion has told Nelly of how she built a fort in the woods when she was young. Nelly goes off to see if anything is left, and encounters a little girl in the act of hauling tree branches to a site and building a skeletal lean-to. Nelly is surprised to learn that the girl’s name is Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) and that her mother’s name is Nelly. When they depart from their daily building project, Nelly returns to her grandmother’s house and Marion goes the opposite direction. Nelly is also surprised on a deeper level by how much small Marion looks like her. As their friendship deepens and a cloudburst soaks them, Nelly accepts Marion’s offer to play at her home. A path leads them to a house that’s identical to the one Nelly’s grandmother lived in, except it’s not overgrown or rundown. When she reciprocates and invites Nelly over, Marion is similarly startled to see a house that looks like the one where she lives with her mother (Margo Abascal).

 

In a scene that some have found hard to fathom, small Marion scarcely registers disbelief when Nelly tells Marion she is Nelly's mother and that Marion’s disabled mother is Nelly’s grandmother. Somehow, time has come unfixed in a way in which the present and the past of 22 years ago coexist. In the short time the two girls are together, Nelly learns a lot about her mother, such as her unrealized desire to be an actress and the deeper roots of her melancholia. In this context, the abrupt and surprising ending makes complete sense.

 

At 72 minutes, Petite Maman is a very short film, yet it is punctuated with still moments that tell us just enough for us to feel the film’s weight. How did either girl get caught in the disruption of chronological time that led to their meeting? Sciamma does not tell us, and that’s a good thing. The point of the film isn’t the particulars of whatever sci-fi or magical explanation is at play, it’s about how a 9-year-old connects with her mother.

 

The Sanz twins are, in a word, sensational. That’s because they are 9 and act 9. (Watch them make pancakes!) They reminded me of my nieces when they were 9, by which I mean they were old enough to question, but not old enough to be cynical about things adults say make no logical sense. As the 17^th-century French moral philosopher Jean de La Bruyère put it, “Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present, which very few of us do.”

 

Rob Weir

 

This Poetic Realism Film Rewards the Patient Viewer

 

 

Port of Shadows (1938)

Directed by Marcel Carné

Osso/Film Alliance of the United States, 91minutes, not-rated

French (with English subtitles)

★★★ ½

 

For a modern viewer, Port of Shadows is an odd film to watch. Though it’s only 91 minutes, it seems longer because of its casual pacing, it’s comparative lack of dialogue, and its drab tones. It helps to know that director Marcel Carné was interested in a film-making style popular in the 1930s and 1940s known as poetic realism. Despite its name, it was more associated with film than poetry. The poetic part is that directors often used symbols as metaphors for realistic details. In this one, for instance, we know that its central character of Jean (Jean Gabin) has rough edges bordering on uncouthness because he eats with his knife rather than customary tableware.

 

The look of Port of Shadows is so much like film noir that it is sometimes viewed as one. Perhaps, but you would need to replace many of the blacks with dull gray. The namesake port is Le Havre in Normandy, a major industrial and trade center. It is socked in by fog when Jean arrives, though talking about the fog is a forbidden subject. Allegedly that’s because it hurts the tourist trade, though this could be a joke within a joke as it’s hard to imagine 1930s Le Havre, whose waterfront and factories were too grimy and the city too run down to pass as an outing destination. Plus, it’s on the English Channel, whose chilly waters have seldom been associated with beach culture. Jean is there because he plans to catch a freighter and escape from France. An overnight at Panama’s throws a kink in that plan.

 

Panama (Édouard Delmont) runs a bar and flop house on the edge of the city. He asks no questions and volunteers no information. He is content to play his Spanish guitar and  offer hospitality to anyone who ventures through the door. On the night Jean arrives, it’s the town drunk, a cynical and depressed painter (Robert Le Vigan), and Nelly (Michèle Mogan). At some point during the night gunshots ring out, but apparently no one is injured, though a man named Zabel (Michel Simon) cuts his hand on a splinter. Jean and Nelly are immediately drawn to each other, though they first play a game of tough guy and vulnerable young girl. Nelly is just 17 and has run away from her godfather, Zabel. She insists she’s trying to find out about the fate of her boyfriend, Maurice, who several people have asked about.

 

When it seems clear that Maurice has been killed, Nelly turns her full attention to Jean. Those gunshots outside Panama’s were fired by hoods posing as dangerous mobsters, but Jean recognizes their leader, Lucien (Pierre Brasseur) as a common street punk with a big mouth and the courage of a kitten. (When Lucien, who also yearns for Nelly, tries to confront Jean, Lucien is slapped on two occasions and can hardly contain his tears.) After a date, Jean and Nelly spend a concupiscent night in Jean’s room at Panama’s in the arms of Cupid.

 

Poetic realism films are usually more fatalistic than romantic. Is this one of them? I shall say just these things: a change of clothing, face-shaming, a threat that borders on incest, suicide, mistaken identity, a murder, and another on the streets of Le Havre. Think of Port of Shadows as a film that slowly establishes deep atmosphere as a prelude to several bursts of action. The musical score by the masterful Maurice Jaubert greatly enhances moods without resorting to cliché. The film is in French, but if you’re a person who hates subtitles, no worries; there isn’t much in the way of substantive dialogue.

 

I liked it quite a lot, but my rating is lower because I’m not sure it’s a film for everyone. Much of the plot and relationships between characters is doled out in asides and inference. Although it’s widely available online and on DVD, some prints of Port of Shadows are not well-preserved. Poke around online to find a good one and, by all means, avoid a colorized version. In this case, color is neither poetic nor dramatic. Be patient; the slow roll out of the drama is worth it.

 

Rob Weir

 

Sylvia Scarlet: Great Moive? No!!! Great Camp? Maybe.

 

 

 

 

SYLVIA SCARLETT (1935)

Directed by George Cukor

RKO, 91 minutes

★  (add stars if you like camp)

 

I watched the 1935 movie Sylvia Scarlett with the intent of writing about actors breaking gender roles. Who could resist seeing a movie with Katharine Hepburn in drag? Pretty much everyone! It was a bomb in 1935 and has aged about as well as an apple rotting in an orchard. When famed director George Cukor saw the rushes he begged RKO not to release it. It was so bad that he (unsuccessfully) promised to direct another film for free if they’d trash Sylvia Scarlett.

 

Nonetheless, there are reasons to review it. You may have heard that Katharine Hepburn–now considered a Hollywood legend–once had trouble getting roles. She was pegged as “box office poison and this was the picture that earned that baggage. If  you’ve ever heard the phrase so bad I couldn’t look away, that sums up Sylvia Scarlett. My wife and I constantly remarked, “This is incredibly bad. Should we turn it off?” I even interjected, “Good heavens! Why are we watching this?” Yet, both of us stayed to the putrid end. Without intending to be so, it’s the very definition of camp.

 

It was the first time Hepburn and Cary Grant were in the same movie. Neither could blame it on youth; Grant was 31 at the time and Hepburn 28. The putative story is distilled from two 1918 novels from Compton MacKenzie. Sylvia (Hepburn) is the pigtailed daughter of widower Henry Scarlett (Edmund Gwenn), a gambler. His profligacy bankrupted him to the point where he is being pursued by thugs poised to relieve his debt mob-style. Henry throws clothing into a bag with the intention of hightailing it to France with money and 30 yards of lace he stole from his firm. Sylvia intends to go with him. When Henry insists he’d be an easy mark if traveling with his daughter, she offers money her mother left her and impetuously chops off her pigtails and announces she will be “Sylvester.” A little tidying up and she passes as a teenage boy (sort of like a shaved cocoanut could conceivably pass as an ostrich egg).

 

On the voyage they meet Jimmy Monkley (Grant), a Cockney (ahem!) gentleman. Sylvania/Sylvester smells a rat, but Henry tells Jimmy of his plan for the lace. Henry learns the hard way that Monkley is a grifter in fancy duds. When the boat lands and Monkley fingers Henry so he can get off the boat without being searched for the jewels he stole. Once ashore via unlikely circumstances, the trio decide to work cons as a team. Sylvester blows the first attempt, but Monkley leads them to a mansion whose owners are on a trip. Jimmy, though, knows Maudie (Dennie Moore) the maid. At this point, abandon all logic. After several hours of guzzling the owners’ booze and playing dress-up with their finery and valuables, Sylvester makes Jimmy leave the pearls he stole lest Maudie risk arrest and they vamoose.  

 

Henry is besotted with Maudie, so the trio becomes a quartet. They set off as a traveling troupe of entertainers to bilk country bumpkins. Where did they get the truck and stage? Don’t ask. Likewise forget about Grant’s variable accent. Or whether Hepburn convinces as a snooty teen. “Sylvester” catches the eye of playboy artist, Michael Fane (Brien Aherne) who wants to paint his/her face. Fane invites her to pose at his villa after an odd encounter that implies Fane swings both ways. But she takes the guesswork away by showing up the next day in a dress and bonnet she stole from a beach bather.

 

Sylvia is smitten but is crushed when Lily (Natalie Paley) shows up. Lily is Fane’s sort of girlfriend, but is basically a mean-spirited sot who tells Henry that his love, Maudie, has run off with another man. A distraught Henry drowns himself, though Maudie is rescued from the ocean and from the film. After we play a game of who’s with whom–Jimmy is attracted to Lily–this mess plops into the sickness bucket and ends. It is so bad that the actors playing Maudie and Lily were uncredited. Lucky them.

 

Three years later the Hepburn/Grant combo made Bringing Up Baby, one of the greatest comedies of all time. Who says there are no second chances? It’s just possible, though, that you’ll laugh harder at Sylvia Scarlett.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

The Black Wolf: Thriller or Bummer?

 

 

 

THE BLACK WOLF  (2025)

By Louise Penny

Minotaur Books, 370 pages.

★★★

 

 I have a dilemma. I’m a huge Louise Penny fan who devours her work like a starving man at a banquet table. That said, objectively her work has taken a darker turn in the past few years that makes it less satisfying as it once was. I say this not as one of those rabid fans who wants every book to frolic on the green in Three Pines and whilst uttering witticisms with friends and enjoying wholesome moments in the village. I still find Penny a compelling writer, but I’m not fond of the transformation of her central character: Armand Gamache.

 

Penny’s mysteries are character-centered, but recent works have been more action-driven and violent. Gamache has become harder and cynical about most things that don’t relate to the residents of Three Pines and his immediate family. In addition, though Penny’s plots have grown more complex, the tone of her books has drifted further from the mystery category and into thriller territory. This may make them enormously popular, but I find them less likable.

 

The Black Wolf is the sequel to The Grey Wolf, which definitely should be read first. As was discovered at the end of The Grey Wolf, Gamache, his son-in-law Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Isabelle Lacoste, Gamache’s post-retirement successor as head of the Sûreté du Québec, thought they had jailed the “Black” Wolf by breaking a plot to kill hundreds of thousands by poisoning Montreal’s water supply. They did so based on their reading of a notebook and piecing together evidence that allowed the investing team to stop the massacre. Upon further reflection, though, Gamache realized that the “wolf,” Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Marcus Lauzon, was not the Black Wolf at all. In the Cree legend that names both books, the Black Wolf is evil and the Grey Wolf is one of kindness and compassion. Lauzon insisted he was framed and Gamache considers it a possibility. He even secures Lauzon’s temporary release from prison and brings him into his home to celebrate Christmas, though Reine-Marie is appalled for reasons beyond the fact that Lauzon is more an arrogant prig than grateful.

 

The first revelation is that another notebook exists that details an evil far worse the one Gamache, et. al. first found. That notebook, an ambiguous map, and a cryptic semi-warning of “a dry and parched land where there is no water…” leads Gamache on a mission to delay a plan that some believe is inevitable. In fact, there are those who would implement it in the name of preventing an even greater catastrophe. Herein lies a paradox; in the Cree belief system, the grey and black are equally necessary to keep the world in balance; in Gamache’s world view, the black wolf must be destroyed.

 

There is a sense in which what Penny is dealing with is more in line with a Star Trek scenario than something appropriate for a retired chief of the Sûreté. Who is the black wolf? Crime investigators are trained to pursue individuals. The Black Wolf is filled with bad actors, but who are they? Organized crime? Crooked cops? Governments? International villains? All of the preceding? The black wolf has the characteristics of a massive conspiracy that is beyond borders and beyond individuals. Who gets taken down and how does one decide? The parched land reference is from Psalm 63, but what does it mean nearly 4,000 years later?

 

Had The Black Wolf been written decades earlier, it would have been dismissed as preposterous. The “ouch” moment of the novel in 2025 is that it’s distressingly easy to imagine the events described in the novel as feasible. One hopes that they aren’t, but the immediate question is whether Ms. Penny has written one big bummer of a novel that takes Armand Gamache too far from the determined optimism of previous works. Saying more would risk spoilers, but I will note that a key moment in the book rests upon Gamache deliberately telling a lie. This violates one of his four paths to obtaining wisdom, admitting “I was wrong.”

 

A final note is that in the last two novels Canada’s Liberal Party has taken it on the chin. Does that mean anything?

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

Black Angel: Second Look

 

 

 

 

BLACK ANGEL (1946)

Directed by Roy William Neil

Universal Pictures, 81 minutes, Not Rated.

★★★★

 

I keep a careful list of movies I’ve seen. Or so I thought until I borrowed Black Angel again on Monday. Because I was an idiot, I thought I’d watch it again and I liked it better this time. Here’s a slightly altered review from an earlier post.

 

Black Angel was considered a second-tier film noir, though its reputation has trended upward and is now viewed an underappreciated classic. “Classic” might be a tad grandiose, but it’s worth 81 minutes of your time.

 

It’s one of those did-he-or-didn’t-he movies that will leave you guessing until the very end. Catherine Bennett (June Vincent) is married to Kirk (John Phillips). He’ burning the candle at both ends with such heat that he is being blackmailed by his blonde bombshell mistress, nightclub singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling). Marlowe is two- or three-timing her estranged alcoholic husband, songwriter Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) who mopes outside of her apartment.

 

Things go considerably more than wrong when Kirk shows up and finds Marlow dead in her bedroom. Like the sap he is, he touches things in her swanky apartment, including a gun on Marlowe’s bed. Kirk is arrested for the slaying and the evidence is airtight. Catharine knows that her hubby done her wrong (as thugs might say), but she doesn’t believe him capable of homicide. Because justice moved faster in those days, Kirk is quickly convicted, and if Catharine she doesn’t clear his name, Kirk ‘s last breath will be in the gas chamber.

 

So, who else would you enlist to help you find the “real” killer other than Martin, a hopeless boozer so pathetic that he needs a keeper/friend Joe (Wallace Ford) to pick him up off the street and tuck him into his flop house bed. Marty’s cynical about most things, but he has a soft spot for Cathy’s sob story. Or is it the shapeliness of her legs and her décolletage? The cops don’t want to help, as they have Kirk dead to rights. Captain Flood (Broderick Crawford) tells Cathy that, though sympathetic, he’s heard sob stories like hers before.  

 

Martin, though, saw another man coming out of Marlowe’s building. The more he and Cathy investigate, the more they believe that Marko (Peter Lorre), a former thug turned nightclub owner, killed Marlowe. Marty doesn’t stick his neck out for anybody, but he doesn’t have much to lose and the more time he spends with Cathy the more he finds himself falling for her. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse story that hinges on a brooch. 

 

Both June Vincent and Constance Dowling–both successful models– were knockouts. Then we have two guys born for the roles they played. Crawford as a flatfoot? The man made his future living playing one (TV’s Highway Patrol) and was always convincing in doing so. Of course, there’s Peter Lorre, who is like a ferret-come-to-life and as furtive as one. (Would you trust Peter Lorre?) Dan Duryea is also superb. He was a malleable actor who excelled at playing world-weary losers as he does in this film. He was equally adroit as a chiseler, a cowboy, a romantic lead, and a dancer.

 

Now for the head-scratching stuff. If you were trying to prove that a wise guy was guilty of a murder, would you form a lounge act? Marty can tickle the ivories and Cathy can pass as a sultry torch singer. Now all Cathy has to do is get the act booked at Marko’s club, catch Marko’s eye, gain his confidence, and find evidence without being fingered herself. Her motive is odd. We can sympathize with her desire not to see an innocent man die–if Kirk is indeed innocent–but what’s with her professions of love for the man who jilted her? At some point, we also wonder about Marty’s dangerous subterfuge. He’s physically attracted to Cathy, but all he can foresee is that he’ll be left in the lurch if Kirk is sprung.

 

Some 81-minute films are taut. In this case, more background into the evolving relationship between Catharine and Martin would help the ending make more sense. Blame the film’s shortcomings on holes in Roy Chanslor’s script, not Roy Wiliam Neill’s direction. Black Angel is often stylish and it holds together, but not brilliantly so. Call Black Angel a B-level noir with lead performances that make it a B+.

 

Rob Weir

 

Lascaux: Amazing and Frustrating

 

 

 

Perhaps you’ve heard this story before. In 1940, 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat was walking his dog near the village of Montignac, France. The pooch found an uprooted tree that proved to be the entrance to a cave. Ravidat returned with three teen-aged
friends and scrambled some fifty feet underground into a chamber filled with ancient art.  That alone wasn’t all that remarkable; the Dordogne Valley was filled with caves and quite a few of them have prehistoric paintings on their walls and ceilings. We explored such a remarkable small cave in Cougnac the previous week. But the cave in Lascaux surpassed anything found before. There were more than 600 paintings and etchings made 17,000-22,000 years ago. Most were of animals–aurochs, bison, bovines, large cats, deer, horses, rhinos–plus several mysterious figures, including indecipherable geometric designs and a human figure with a bird-like head and an erect phallus.

 

Lascaux was open to the public from 1948 to 1963, when it was closed to the public because the breath of visitors caused mold and other visible damage to the paintings. UNESCO listed it as a world heritage site in 1979, which prompted the French government to display a travelling replica of one hall, which was dubbed Lascaux II. Lascaux III expanded upon Lascaux II, but in 2016 Lascaux IV opened on site, a full 3-D recreation of the entire cave. No, you can’t see exactly what Ravidat and his friends saw in 1940, but the recreation is so well done that you can imagine their amazement. It looks and feels like a cave, unless you accidentally brush a stalagmite and feel its synthetic surface. It’s a great way to preserve the original cave from further damage and is better lighted than “authentic” caves.

 

That’s the good news; now for the bad. Lascaux is a guided tour that is designed to give visitors information in their native languages. It’s also designed to shuffle as many people as possible through the cave as quickly as possible. Read: No dawdling. You are then ushered into a corridor with four theaters spotlighting various aspects of Lascaux from discovery to preservation to ongoing scientific studies. The films are well done, but chances are that if you are with a tour group you won’t get to see more than ¾ of one of them before your guide hustles you into a gift shop selling all manner of tchotchkes such as horse stuffies and coloring books to keychains, picture books, postcards, and garish t-shirts. Frankly, I found the touring experience so frustrating and distasteful that I began to identify with cave paintings of herds of buffalo.

 

At the end of the proverbial day you will come away with more appreciation for the skill of ancient artists, but probably no wiser on what it all meant. For instance, one theory that is mostly discredited by the visual evidence is that the ancients used the images as a form of imitative magic; that is, hunters threw spears at them in hopes that a magic force (called mana) would inhabit those spears in a real hunt. A relative lack of chipping on the rocks makes that less likely. Those figures strongly suggest that the art is the point. But the why is left up in the air. Why Lascaux? Was it a ritual or religious center? What’s the current theory on who made these images? Explanations of “early man” tell us little. Does that mean homo sapiens or Neanderthal sapiens? (The latter is probably more likely, but not a particularly strong marketing piece!) Could Lascaux have been little more than an ancient art gallery? A school for making art?

 

I suppose that, for me, I wondered why there was so much effort to effort to convince us of the quality of the art. We can see that it is expertly done given the imprecision of available tools. What’s wrong with admitting that Lascaux remains cloaked in mystery? Or at least highlighting competing theories. There are other ancient sites–Skara Brae and Stonehenge come to mind–where ambiguity and uncertainty are embraced. I think also of the pyramids of Giza, where periodic new finds put the sites back in the news. In short, Lascaux IV is a nice job of re-creation, but falls short in presentation. If I ever return to the Périgord, I shall seek out smaller caves to avoid both the crowds and what feels perilously close to Disneyfication of ancient history.

 

Rob Weir

The Coast Road a Fine Gift Idea

 

 

 

The Coast Road (2014)

By Alan Murrin

Harper Via, 305 pages.

★★★★

 

If you have someone of Irish ancestry on your Christmas list who is a reader, The Coast Road is a quiet powerhouse that explores changing mores in Donegal. First, though, a few things need to be cleared up. This debut work from by Alan Murrin was shortlisted for a Queer Fiction prize in Ireland. This will strike many North Americans as odd, as there are no gay characters. The designation comes from the manner in which the three women at its heart violate the patriarchal norms of 1994. That date is significant as the very next year, voters went to the polls and overwhelmingly approved a referendum that legalized divorce. That vote began to loosen the iron grip upon morality held by the Roman Catholic Church in the Republic of Ireland.

 

A second confusing oddity is that the novel is set in a small fishing village named Ardglas. There is no such coastal town in Donegal, though there is one in County Down in neighboring Northern Ireland named Ardglass!

 

At the novel’s core are three women trapped by tradition. It is a matter for debate if the book’s tragic character, Colette Crowley, is the catalyst for discontent, or merely the leading edge of a coming tidal wave of social change. Collette is married to Shaun with whom she has three sons. Shaun is an abusive lout, but and Collette retains enough allure and self-respect that she takes up with a married man. When that relationship dissolves, Shaun denies Collette access to her children or any financial support–all within his legal rights. This sends Collette skedaddling back to her native village in Donegal. There she rents a cottage from Dolores and Donal Mullen. They have three children and another on the way, quite a burden on stay-at-home housewife Dolores, who feels they need the extra income. Donal, though, is as traditional as Shaun and thinks Collette is trouble (though he notes that she’s quite a looker).

 

Collette has been away for many years and fancies herself a poet; most villagers see her as a free-spirited bohemian who has led a scandalous life. When Collette offers writing lessons at the community centre, those few who sign up are baffled by what a writer actually does. That is, all but bored housewife Izzy Keaveney, a mother of two. She once owned a flower shop in the village but her husband James sold it out from under her when he decided to become a politician and gave priority to appearances rather than his wife’s happiness. James views Collette as a whore and forbids Izzy from associating with her, though the two haven’t communicated much in several decades. She ignores his command. Prior to Collette’s arrival, Father Brian Dempsey was Izzy’s only real friend.

 

To cut to the chase, we have three unhappy women married to men who believe that toxic masculinity is their birthright. From the standpoint of the hidebound culture of 1994 Ireland, they’re not entirely wrong. Male alcoholism and a mistress on the side are commonplace, with women expected to take care of children and perform domestic duties. Ardglas, though, is a village where people gossip about things they know and think they know. It is, however, true that a steady stream of “visitors” call upon Collette, including James and Donal. It is likewise true that women are beginning to push back, albeit in sneaky ways. Izzy, for example, takes Collette on out-of-town “shopping” excursions where she clandestinely sees one or more of her sons.

 

The problem with secrets is that they have a distressing tendency to become known. Ardglas is about to become a battleground for the battle of the sexes. Even if you think you know how that turned out, it’s always a good idea to remember that battles produce casualties of all sorts: literal, emotional, social, and psychological. Murrin perhaps telegraphs the damages more than he should, but The Coast Road is remarkably mature as a first novel. Murrin does a first-rate job in getting inside the logic of his main characters and of spinning a strongly plotted tale. Perhaps best of all, though his prose isn’t showy, it is evocative and emotive. The Coast Road makes a fine gift to be sure, to be sure.

 

Rob Weir  

 

 

Domme: Small Village with a Big View

 

 

 

Domme, France

More Photos on my Facebook Page

 

Among the numerous eye-opening lessons learned when traveling is that places that are mere dots on a detailed map were once the center of very big historical events. This was certainly a takeaway from a visit to Domme. I suspect that most tours don’t even stop there, as its population is a mere 901. We were there to say goodbye to our tour guide, Bruno, who is among the few who live in the village.

 

Domme was founded by the French king Philip the Bold in1281 because of its defensive possibilities. It sits more than 800 feet above sea level and lords several hundred feet higher than the Dordogne River. It’s spectacular location earned Domme its title as “the Acropolis of the Périgord.” The village is perched atop a limestone cliff and even today the route to the top is so winding that most visitors take a special shuttle that fits through the narrow city gates. As I’ve emphasized in previous posts, the fate of many Périgord settlements were shaped by the loyalties of its strongest nobles. When Eleanor of Aquitaine’s marriage to the French king was annulled in 1152, the region came under the control of England. Battles took place between the two kingdoms during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) but Domme, though, briefly occupied by English troops, was unscathed.

 

Actually, Domme’s major upheaval was sealed a century before it was built! During the Crusades (1085-1291) to liberate the Holy Lands from “infidels” (Muslims), Christian soldiers actually did gain control of the Levant (today’s Israel, Palestine Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria). But how were Christian pilgrims to get there safely? A series of Christian military orders were founded, the most famous being the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, better known as the Knights Templar.* They became the guardians of lands captured by Christian Crusaders and the protector of travelers. 

 

An important history lesson is that over time, many things that were once popular fall out of fashion and into revilement. By the late 13^th century, the Crusaders lost control of the Holy Lands; Saladin was such a brilliant leader that Richard the Lionhearted befriended his erstwhile Muslim enemy. Several popes, the most important being Clement V, wearied of the unconventional beliefs of the Templars (such as their support for the poor and renunciation of riches at a time in which the Vatican was becoming rich), accused the order of idolatry and corruption, and tried to merge them with the Knights Hospitallers. When the Templars balked, many were arrested. Domme went from strategic outpost to a prison whose graffiti persists as symbols etched onto stone walls. Clement V dissolved the Knights Templar in 1312, and numerous recalcitrant Templars were burned at the stake in Domme and elsewhere.

 

You’d never know about all of this hullaballoo and tragedy as you walk through Domme today. It is the quintessential “quiet village.” The reason to visit is that it has the proverbial million dollar (okay, Euro) view. It has a terrace that bespeaks its original intention of being able to see up and down the Dordogne River Valley. No raiders were in sight, unless distant cows grow disgruntled. Of course, being that it’s the Périgord, there are distant chateaux, tidy farmlands, and a vineyard or two. You can walk Domme’s main street in a New York minute and the main square has the townhall, an ice cream shop, a retailer of fois gras, and a statue of the valiant geese who gave their livers in the service of gastronomy. But what a view! It’s imprinted upon my brain.

 

As we left on the small shuttle that fits through the gates, I looked carefully. There were no Templars in plain view, but you never know. Most of the Templars shaved their telltale long beards and faded into the countryside. No one expects the Knights Templar!

 

Rob Weir  

 

* The Templars are gone but the name persists. London’s Temple Bar refers to the “bar(red)” gates into the City of London, and Temple Bank tube stations will take you to what is literally a major banking district, though the name probably comes from where an ancient temple to Mithras once stood.

Cell Phones, Hipsters, and Hollywood Have Killed the Movie Theater

 

 

Several years ago a Smith student told me she watched “Lawrence of Arabia” on her cell phone. “That’s too bad,” I replied. “You missed a film many consider one of the greatest films ever made.” I hasten to add that I don’t entirely agree with that; I find parts of “Lawrence of Arabia” ponderous. There is, however, no denying that it is a cinematic feast for the eyes. Or not, if you view it on a 2 ¾”  x  5 ½ ” screen.

 

The next blow came when “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won the Oscar as the Best Picture of 2023. Ugh! Hollywood honored a project I consider one of the worst movies of the entire 21^st century!  

 

Move the clock forward. Critics are currently trying to beat the holiday rush by listing their choices for the best films of 2025. Not only have I not seen a single one of them; I haven’t even heard of most of them. How could I? My town of 30,000 doesn’t have a movie theater anymore. The closest “art” theater is in Amherst, which is just 7 miles distant, but driving there when all five colleges are in session can easily take an hour in each direction. Plus, most of the films I might wish to see are tucked into smaller rooms that are sold out by the time I get there. Yeah, I could reserve tickets online, but that might mean having to arc my head upward from the front row.

 

The only other screens are at the bloody mall and I can assure you there is seldom anything of interest among its Marvel Comics, horror, military action, and comedies made for fourth grade education offerings. The less said about endless junk food, military recruiting, and local business ads, the better. These commercials–and that’s what they are–run 25-30 minutes before the feature starts. The previews of coming distractions are even worse; theaters pump up the volume to make the insipid sound more dramatic. Lately, if I see a Hollywood movie it’s several years later on a streaming service. From the little I’ve seen, there’s not much to entice me to subscribe to every bloody streaming service under the sun as if there’s virtue in seeing something on a 36” screen as opposed to my phone.

Movie theaters are a dying breed in part because they don’t show many films.  Films intend some sort of artistic and/or political statement, whereas movies are simply a way to anesthetize you for 90 minutes and have little enduring educational or redeeming value. There have always been scads of movies, but films that generally win awards. Of course, sometimes a trite movie like “Rocky” gets mistaken for a film, but overall merit used to be an award factor. Internet sites will tell you there are more cinema screens now than there were in the 1970s, but if you inquire about art houses or independent theaters, you get a different picture. Yes, there are more screens, but most of them are showing the same movies that every other American mall is showing. In the 1940s, often considered part of the golden age of cinema, there were 18,000 independent theaters. By the 1970s it was down to 4,000 and today it is half of that. In 1940, the U.S. population was about 132.2 million. It is now 342 million. Scale matters; today there are more than 200 million more Americans but your chance of seeing a serious film have decreased by over 60 percent.

 

Art films do exist, but very few are made in America and even fewer are screened here. I, of course, exaggerate to suggest that theaters are dead, but for much of the USA that’s only mild hyperbole. One-third of all US movie theaters are concentrated in just three markets: Los Angeles, New York, and Dallas-Fort Worth. To add perspective,  Massachusetts is the most-educated state in America. In the Pioneer Valley where I live, if  you combine Amherst and Northampton, a whopping 70 percent of residents have graduate degrees. I wonder how few Heartland and Rocky Mountain towns have access to serious cinema.

 

As hipsters age and start paying their own bills, expect theaters to take a big hit. A generation hypnotized by their phones is one culprit, but Hollywood tripe is another. Cities such as London, Montreal, and Paris still have cinemas, a further indication that film has migrated. For the record, the nations with the highest numbers of movie tickets sold are (in order): India, China, and Singapore. When Hollywood celebrates itself at Oscar time, it is also talking to itself.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

  

The Old Fire (Release date 1/13/2026)

By Elisa Shua Dusapin

Simon & Schuster, 192 pages.

★★★★

 

The Old Fire comes out in a few weeks. I really liked this work by award-winning Swiss/French author Elisa Shua Dusapin, but unless I miss my guess it is a work that will prove polarizing.

 

It is set in the French countryside and involves two sisters who have had minimal contact in more than a decade. Agathe is now 30 and left home at 15 to study and ultimately live in New York where she now writes dialogue for adapted scripts. When she left, her younger sister Véra had stopped talking. It is not entirely clear is she has aphasia or has voluntarily chosen to be mute. I suspect Dusapin wanted this to be ambiguous because the very crux of The Old Fire is about what is said and what is unsaid, explained and unexplained, and what should be saved and what should be discarded.

 

Agathe returns to France in the autumn to help Véra clear out their father’s home several years after his actual death. The book’s title, like many things in it, carries several potential meanings, but the most immediate is that their childhood home sat on the edge of a chateau-like estate in the Périgord that was ravaged by fire. By happenstance, I visited the Périgord just two months ago. It is a beautiful part of France with a storied past but its economy now relies heavily on tourism, wine, and agricultural products, the latter two of which are weather-dependent. There are many chateaux, all of which are enormously expensive to maintain. Neither Agathe nor Véra have the money it would take to restore their home, though one of the many disagreements among the sisters is that Véra loves nature and would stay if she could, whereas Agathe is urbanized and plans to leave as soon as she can, even though her life in New York has been anything other than a bed of roses.

 

The book opens with Agathe’s observation that her childhood home and immediate surroundings look at once familiar, but are a tatterdemalion version of what she remembers. In any event, the die has been cast. The house has been sold and will be demolished as the value of land exceeds that of renovating the building. Agathe’s desire not to linger is bolstered by the fact that everything they want must be taken away within nine days before the bulldozers level everything. Agathe wants nothing from the house, but Véra is bent on saving way too many things.

 

It is a classic push-pull between a pragmatist and a sentimentalist. Try resolving that dispute via gestures, hastily scribbled notes, and messages Véra types on her phone. In essence, Agathe and Véra are sorting, but not sorting out. Among the things they can’t sort out are why their mother ran off when they were both girls, why Agathe promised to protect her sister but then abandoned her, and what will happen to Véra in nine days, though the latter bothers Agathe more than it does Véra. In the hands of a less confident and competent author, The Old Fire would have a Hallmark ending in which all disagreements melt in the face of an unearthed mutual love. Without resorting to spoilers, I will simply note that Dusapin seldom resorts to sentimentalism. Some “old fires” can’t be rekindled. Not to mention that Véra’s brain works better than Agathe thinks.

 

Dusapin has written an unusual work of fiction that has very little plot, a surfeit of action, no primary narrator, and contains more internalized thought than dialogue. It is a quiet book that is often sad, but is also a study in resiliency (or stubbornness–take your pick). Courtesy of her translator Aneesa Abbas Higgins, the book’s prose is clear and unadorned, yet evocative and poetic. It leaves us with questions such as those I’ve raised, plus one of how two people can see the same things differently. Some early readers have yearned for a longer book to resolve numerous issues; at 192 pages, The Old Fire is either a short novel or a long novella. In my mind, though, concision was a virtue. What can be said when there’s nothing left to say?

 

A trigger warning: One of the characters is asleep and awakes to find she is being penetrated. She finds this semi-romantic. Ouch! Romance or rape?

 

Rob Weir   

 

 

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

 

 

Cruising the River and Meandering in the Garden

 

(More pictures will appear on my Saturday Facebook page.)

 

I’m getting down to the last few sites from my October trip to France. I was happy we signed onto a National Trust tour to get such expert specialists to enlighten us. Towards the end of any tour, though, companies usually scale back the activities. Those days usually involve something that most people will like plus something that appeals to some but not others.

 

Our something-for-all activity was a cruise down the Dordogne River at Beynac. Why there? The Dordogne is a demarcation river for the region, much the same way that towns near me identify as being in the Connecticut River Valley even if they are miles from the river. As rivers go, the Dordogne falls into the category of being more scenic than mighty. There are parts of it that are shallow or narrow or rocky, or some combination thereof. There is also a vast difference between a river such as the wide Garonne and the more humble Dordogne. The vessel used to transport Eleanor of Aquitaine to Beynac, coal, wood, food, and other agricultural products, would have been a flat-bottomed  gabare. Fishermen used it as well, and not coincidentally, that’s what still used to take goods downriver and the show tourists around. Flat-bottomed boats, of course, have very little draft, perfect for unpredictable water flows.

 

There were wide sections on our cruise, but the main attraction is that is a good way to appreciate how towns, shops, and homes hug the river. The castle at Beynac literally looms over the villages. It is not, however, the only seat of power in the region. We floated past several chateaux of those friendly to or bitterly against Eleanor and Richard, especially after Eleanor’s marriage to the Capetian French king was annulled and she became a member of the English Plantagenet family. Luckily for Eleanor’s opponents, not many had the moxie to take up arms against her or her son Richard lest they pay with their heads on a chopping block.

 

I enjoyed the cruise quite a lot. Large fish (catfish, pike, and varieties of zander) leapt from the stream or could be viewed swimming in the clear Dordogne waters. The sun felt so warm that most of us shed our jackets. The wise ones used thin scarves to prevent the sun from burning our necks.

 

Speaking entirely for myself, I could have done without the visit to the gardens of Eyrignac. Some people love to wander through formal gardens, but I find they raise my working-class hackles. The only thing remotely French about Eyrignac was Sophie, our very enthusiastic expert guide. Sophie is 30, but she’s a teen in temperament. That gal loves plants and her favorite phrase was “ooo-la-la.” She made things more fun than they otherwise would have been. After all, we were there in October, so it wasn’t like we were bombarded by color. We were shown a formal Italian garden that dates from  the 18^th century. The manor house was also 18^th century, though it was made of the ubiquitous gold stone of the region. There were a handful of water features, but the big draw was a saw-tooth arrangement of boxwood hedges.

 

I would have been more impressed it they had sculpted them into topiary, but to my eye it was little more than parallel hedges where one block of green poked out, the next was indented, and so it goes. I again confess that formal gardens are just my thing and my idea of flower garden is one where seeds or bulbs are stuffed into the ground, somehow resist my ineptitude, and pop up when they’re supposed to. I could but nod and smile when the serious gardeners of the group said something about Eyrignac in English that was the equivalent of ooo-la-la. I snapped some photos, but was happy to get back to Sarlat for dinner and a nighttime stroll through its medieval sector. I guess the moral is never hire a historian as your gardener!

 

Rob Weir

 

Where Are My Choices?

 

 

 

Sometimes capitalism is enough to inspire communists! We’ve been told since were little that, unlike “socialist” countries, our economic system provides choices. The myth of capitalist choice is all around us. Almost every town has a gasoline alley with numerous stations cheek by jowl that are theoretically in competition with each other. Yet each sells gasoline that's a mere penny or two from other stations. Does anyone ponder over whether to pay $3.01 versus $3.02? It hardly matters given that pennies are being pulled from distribution!

 

The lack of personal choice dictates what we wear. The hot colors for 2026 will be teal, green, and blue. What if those colors don't flatter you? Millions of people will wear those colors anyhow, even though they think they look like they were mugged by park rangers. How about skinny jeans? They were hot just a few years ago until someone said you were supposed to wear wide legs that make you look as though you needed extra space to tuck in your peers when you go out. Trash ‘em; skinny jeans are back! For the record, I wear skinny jeans. It’s not because I think people wish to gaze at my physique; it’s because I'm old and my arse has disappeared.

 

Capitalism is supposed to work on a supply and demand principle. In theory, consumers drive the demand bus and suppliers respond by meeting their demand. As supply goes up, price is supposed to drop. In reality, capitalists create their own demand. They make “hot” items hard to obtain so the price skyrockets. It doesn't matter if the item is shoddily made; next year they will create a new demand and the sheeple will dump skinny jeans and wear construction worker pants with a tape measure in the side pocket once they see Kendall Jenner wearing them. Think I’m crazy? Explain why anyone would pay $100 or more for ripped jeans that look as if the wearer was mauled by raccoons. (I'll be wearing my skinny jeans unless I magically grow an arse.)

 

My rave  du jour is the size of automobiles. I need to replace my Prius Prime because disc surgery made me shrink by more than two inches  and I have trouble seeing out of it. I'm now around 5 foot 3 inches height and apparently the only person that short in all of America. My Prius Prime is now called a “compact” car. Dave Berry once joked about the new Ford Land-Grant, the first car to come with its own zip code. Maybe he wasn’t joking!

 

You might think that the answer to my dilemma is to look at subcontract compact cars. What are those? Yeah, I could buy a Smart Car. It should be called an Idiot Car as it gets less than 40 mpg. Who determines what mileage small cars get? In Europe the same vehicle that gets 30 mpg in the U.S. gets 50 or more. Maybe I should buy either an electric car or another plug-in hybrid. Have you seen the design of the new Leaf? Don't call it a Leaf; it’s more of a mature maple. I’ve viewed cars so wide that I need my phone GPS to find the glove box.

 

It's not hard to figure out who is behind big vehicles and low mileage; it's the oil capitalists of course. I'd say they lobby politicians to protect their singular desire to pump petroleum until they sell the last thimbleful to some rich fool who can afford $1000 per half oz. The truth is there’s little need to lobby because much of Congress is made-up of oil investors. They are the ones who answer the question of an old documentary: who killed the electric car? Anyone with more than 17 brain cells knows that large petroleum-consuming vehicles are not sustainable. Who needs big cars in a culture where a swelling tide of the people are taking Ozempic or Wegovy? Never fear; car dealers will regroup to sell us sailboats once the polar ice caps collapse and everything east of the Appalachians is under water. (Big Sale on Sails!)

 

I haven't completely given up. I can still check out Toyotas, Honda, and Kei. If they come through, I’ll  wait for retailers to offer skinny jeans with arse inserts. I'm sure I’ll be tempted to buy those at any price. Who needs choices?

 

Rob Weir

 

PS: Next year’s “hot” auto color is powder blue, if you believe marketers.

 

The Bookshop by Evan Friss

 

  

 

 

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore (2014)

By Evan Friss

Viking, 312 pages + Back Matter

★★★★

 

An unusual aspect of the town where I live is that we have two independent bookstores and a large used bookstore in a place with just 30,000 residents. That didn't used to be odd, but many towns these days have no bookstores beyond a rack of best sellers at Walmart.

 

Evan Friss, a history professor at James Madison University, traces American bookstore evolution, proliferation, and reinvention. His title is slightly deceptive as he devotes much of his study to New York City. Of course, New York City dominates the publishing world, though the first bookstore of note was that of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. You wouldn’t recognize it; in 1742, it held but one novel, Pamela by Samuel Richardson. Franklin sold books at his printing shop, most of which were sermons, philosophical treatises, textbooks, religious tomes, self-help works, and political tracts such as Thomas Paine's Common Sense. But the scale was small; he once boasted of having sold 600 books in a year. As the American Revolution drew near, there were but two bookshops in the entire Chesapeake region.

 

Friss cleverly places interstitial asides between chapters that are devoted to such related topics as the smell of books, the role of buyers, eccentric shopkeepers, oddball customers, devotees, and “The Guy Who Never Buys Anything.”

 

Friss cites Boston as the prototype for modern bookselling, especially the Old Corner Bookshop (Washington and School streets), which opened in 1828. In less than 10 years Boston held 137 booksellers, the bulk situated on Washington Street. They catered to an increasingly literate post-Revolutionary War readership. William Ticknor and James Fields thrived by sprinkling notorious titles among its offerings such as Lydia Maria Child's defense of African Americans. (Racists smashed the window where it was displayed.) Hawthorne was a constant presence at the Corner Bookstore; Whittier, Longfellow, and Thoreau sold well. Still, there were just 1,553 American titles in the 1840s. By way of comparison, Penguin Random House alone publishes 15,000 new books a year.

 

As the 19^th century progressed, New York City passed Boston as the leader of the publishing business. No city does big scale as well as Gotham. D. Appleton had an elaborate 6,000 square foot shop in New York that combined publishing, wholesale, and retail. It anticipated a scaling up of the book business. Ironically, many future magnates began as peddlers: Roger Mifflin, Helen McGill, and Frank Collins. A post-Civil War observer could have predicted that department stores would become the future of book sales: Stewart, Wanamaker’s, Marshall Field…. They would be among the innovators for paperbacks, Pocket Books, and outrageous ballyhoo such as Julie the elephant flogging Rand McNally “slotties,” books that came with inserts like elephant puzzle pieces.

 

By the early 20th century, though, books were sold every conceivable way. Writers and readers crammed into the rooms of Gotham Book Mart owner Francis Steloff for fellowship, discussion, and new titles. Steloff introduced a Parisian touch, outdoor book stalls. This paved the way for a constant battle between vendors and NYC officials bent on getting rid of loiterers and unlicensed vendors. The streets and bookstore windows also became battlegrounds between moralists, surrealists, Beats, hippies, black nationalists, and gay activists. Friss also highlights famed and infamous bookstores such as the Oscar Wilde, the rightwing Aryan bookstore, and Drum & Spear.

 

Many will recall that the next stage was a surge of gigantism in the late 20th century. Elegant stores such as Scribner’s gave way to Walden, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. Then came Amazon, whose first venture was selling books and music from storefronts before it became the online retailer that swallowed Walmart.

 

Friss is not a pessimist. He shows us that bookselling has been an ever-changing pursuit. Of late, famous authors have bought bookstores. Ann Patchett started Parnassus in Nashville. Louise Erdrich followed with her own store in Minneapolis, Garrison Keeler in Saint Paul, Judy Blume in Key West, and Emma Straub in Brooklyn. These new ventures make venerable City Lights in San Francisco look like a grey beard, though it is still a vital concern.

 

To return to western Massachusetts, bookstores have reinvented themselves, some by going retro and selling everything from toys and cards to calendars and socks; others by sponsoring author readings and lectures. It is said that Americans don't read anymore. If you believe that, you're hanging around with the wrong people.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Etiquette: Don’t Be a Turkey

 

In movie terms, a “turkey” is a flop; in slang it means a foolish or obnoxious person. Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday because it is the most democratic. It doesn’t overtly involve religion, gift-giving, commercialism, or anguish (beyond properly timing the bird). It’s devoted to food, friends, family, and thankfulness. Yet, a non-edible turkey can ruin the day. Here are some tips for hosts and guests, the common denominator being: Don’t be a turkey.

 

If you are hosting, advise guests in advance that politics are off the table for everyone. It’s not exactly breaking news that Americans are deeply divided, which is true even for those who think they’re on the same side. For instance, many liberals disagree vehemently about the Israel versus Palestine conflict. A metaphorical show of hands if an angry argument over politics ever made wish to emigrate to Mongolia. Hosts should remind everyone to avoid politics and shut down anyone who violates that wish. You don’t have to get huffy about it; just a friendly-but-firm reminder that everyone has agreed to leave political battles for another day.

 

If you’re a guest, remember that you are in someone else’s home and they get to set the house rules. Bringing up contentious topics when asked not to is just as rude as passing gas.

 

Guests should adopt a mind-your-own-business (MYOB) attitude for the day. Chances are good that someone will be gay, lesbian, transgender, an aluminum siding salesperson, have green hair, have ugly tattoos, or possess some other quality that makes you uncomfortable. It is hypercritical to MYOB if it’s a relative or friend of one. Poet Robert Frost once sagaciously observed, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Codicil: That doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk.

 

Whether you are host or guest, if you invite someone to dinner who might stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, stick close to them and sit with them. Every family has the equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, so don’t set up that person for a miserable experience unless that guest is comfortable dealing with cranks. Surprisingly, many people are, but let that be their choice not the product of some anal seating arrangement.

 

Never criticize the food– even if it sucks! If you’re vegetarian, vegan, or subsist on road kill, stay home. There was a recent Boston Globe article about a man who has hosted Thanksgiving for decades and has grown so sick of guests who announce their food preferences as they walk through the door that his invites come with the advice that if you are vegan or vegetarian, “Bring your own disgusting food with you.” That’s harsh, but we’ve all been there, yes?

 

Hosts, be chill; it’s a real bummer when the host collapses with a nervous breakdown. Get a large bunch of people in one room and chances are good something will go wrong–a spilled drink, a broken plate, a gravy spill…. These are trivial things. Don’t try to be Martha Stewart perfect. Even if you pulled it off you’d make your guests uptight. The point of the day is to be grateful for one another’s company.

 

It’s not necessary for a host to make so many dishes that a solid oak table bows in the middle. If you have enough food for all, it’s fine to make just a few side dishes instead of trying to replicate a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Thanksgiving. For the record, the Saturday Evening Post ceased publication in 1969, about the time standards became less formal. It’s also not a good time to experiment with recipes you’ve never made before. Plus, inevitably numerous people will bring a favorite Aunt Edith recipe, even though you’ve said, “Just bring yourself.” Men will bring myrrh, which is actually a bottle of Johnny Walker.    

 

Guests, offer to help, be it carrying items to the groaning board or volunteering to wash the dishes. Chances are approximately 99.43 to 1 your offer will be politely refused, but it’s a nice gesture. 

 

Turn-offs for most: (1) Hogs at the trough. (2) Thinking your young kids are so wonderful that everyone will think so. (3) Young kids preparing food. (4) Discussing medical issues at the table. (5) Using cellphones at the table.

 

Guys, no football until the meal is done, the table cleared, and you are banished to the TV room. Rushing to the TV with your plate in hand makes you an inconsiderate gobbler and a sexist in the eyes of many women. You’re a double turkey if you see everything related to the feast as “women’s work.” 

 

Getting plastered or stoned is an absolute no-no. It’s not a bad idea for the host or a trusted friend to designate someone to deal with such an unfortunate event. Don’t let a loud-mouthed lush or rambling space cadet ruin everyone’s day. You can and should drive that person home, but first separate the person from others, perhaps a room where the turkey can return to the planet. 

 

Non-negotiable: You can have as many kinds of pie as you wish, but one of them must be pumpkin. Not squash. Not sweet potato. Not yam.  P-U-M-P-K-I-N. If you disagree, we can’t talk. Ditto if you think carob is “just as good” as chocolate.