A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I read the Yarn Harlot blog, which is written by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She also writes books on knitting humor and I’ve enjoyed her writing since, I don’t know when — I guess since she was on the Knitlist and posted short items there. She’s always seemed to be to be a person who thinks a lot about life, the universe, and everything, and finds the absurd and the joyful in it.

So, when the tour for her new book was listed and I checked and saw that she’d be giving a talk at Borders at the Annapolis, Maryland mall, I marked my calendar and waited patiently. Last night was the night. I figured they’d be a crowd but my husband worked late and we only got there thirty minutes before the event started. We purchased the books and got signing number 173. One of the women there said that she’d heard that when the phone calls confirming the event started to come in Borders realized that they’d better do numbers for the signing. Since I was 173 and more than a few came in after I did there was a large crowd.

The crowd filled practically all of the space available on the second floor of the bookstore. But the wait was pleasant as we all oogled each others knitting projects and shared tips and hints on various patterns and yarns. There was a pretty good mix of young, old, and all in between as well as a mix of sexes and racial backgrounds. In other words the usual non-demographically defined crowd of knitters.

The talk was very interesting. First, she spoke more on the inability of anyone to define knitters as in ending the phrase, “Knitters are ____” with a word or phrase that would work for every knitter. She then went on to talk about how knitting and its repetitive nature allows us to enter a theta state that is good for reducing stress, giving us access to our creative side, and many other good side effects. Some of this information on brain wave states was from a study done with Buddhist Monks before, during, and after mediation. The researchers specifically mentioned knitting as a way to achieve this theta state but also stated that it was unreasonable to expect people to carry around emergency knitting in order to reduce stress. This got a big laugh from the audience as most of us had brought our knitting with us to avoid the stress of waiting for the event to begin.

As you can see, I managed to get my copy of my book signed and a photo of Stephanie and myself holding each other’s sock-in-progress. I can’t believe she was still friendly and approachable after signing for nearly three hours.

If you get a chance to go to a talk by Stephanie, make the effort, it’s well worth it. I’m certainly glad we went. It was a great evening with wonderful people — they were all knitters — what more can be said.

Charlton Heston died. I got to thinking about him as the obituaries were rolling out in the news. I think have to thank him for spurring me to read. I remember seeing The Ten Commandments at the drive in. My mother and her friend and all us kids would go. We get in our pjs and have brown paper bags full of popcorn and cups for sodas (we had the big bottles not individual cans or bottles so cups were required). I remember not falling asleep. As the oldest child in our family, I lived in fear of those plagues of Eqypt for a long time.

After The Ten Commandments, I went on a reading binge of all the biblical novels I could find. I think I probably read just about anything by Thomas B. Costain that I could find either at home or on the library shelves. There were other authors and other books. When I hit on The Eqyptian, I side-tracked into a lot of books on Egypt, the pyramids, the legends and the Pharaohs.

Later after watching Ben Hur, I began reading all I could find about Romans, the Legions, the famous and infamous of the period. My grandfather had a copy of Quo Vadis. He always encouraged me to read and when he saw that I actually got through it, he let me borrow other books from his shelves. I remember he had a set of Shakespeare, sort of small with red covers. I read through a lot of those and he talked to me about them and the plays and the history that went into them. (It was through him and his copies of Shakespeare’s works that allowed me to continue to love the work of the Bard after high school and college English classes did their best to kill all interest in the stories.

So, while Charlton Heston is not directly related to my life long love of reading, the movies he acted in played a big part in getting me to open books. That in turn, opening the covers of other books, led me to find explore new worlds, times, eras, lives, and alternate realities. So, I thank him — for his part in my own life history. While I can not laud him for his later political stances, I can not forget the part he played in opening up my mind with movies and the printed word.

Tonight we dug out The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain. We hadn’t seen it in a while and thought we take another look. It’s one of those movies that just make you feel better about being a part of the human race.

Based on the novel of the same name written by Christopher Monger, it tells the story of the mountain Ffynnon Garw in Wales. The townspeople took pride in having the first mountain in Wales (as you move west from England). World War I is raging in Europe and the people work hard to supply coal for the war effort. Then into town come two Englishmen to measure the mountain for the survey maps. Lo and behold the mountain is only a hill. The villagers band together to keep the Englishmen in town long enough for them to build a mound on the mountain, to have it remeasured, and return it to its status as a mountain.

It’s really the story of the indomitable will of people to not give up, to continue in the face of incredible odds in order to save what is important to them. To give them pride, to do something important, something that they can feel and see and touch. By maintaining the mountain status of Ffynnon Garw, they can forget the war and the men who may never make it back — they will maintain the home that they left behind — they will keep their mountain and the village intact.

It really is a heart-warming story of a community pulling together. I love happy endings. There’s a letter about the book, movie, and the mountain written by Ed Sullivan of Visalia, California for Professional Surveyor, Nov./ Dec. 1998. The story is really about Garth Mountain and the town of Taff’s Well. So there is some basis in fact for the novel and movie.

Simply done with no big fight scenes or special effects, it’s a simple film of hope and the spirit. A feel good movie that make one feel that maybe the human race sometimes gets it right.

Today, we did our weekly shopping. Normally, we do the shopping on Saturday so we can hit the the recycle center along the way (you can’t recycle on Sunday around here — big chained gates forbid it). Anyway, shopping means the warehouse grocery store, the regular grocery store, Home Depot or Lowe’s (depending on what the house needs now), and any other errands. But we usually end the day with a stop at Border’s for coffee (me) and hot chocolate (hubby). Sometimes we get a book or two. You’d think since I review books and have huge stacks waiting to be read that I wouldn’t pick up any more. What can I say? Hi, my name is Gayle and I’m a bookaholic (but I have no intention of kicking my habit).

I’ve been on a big Jane Austen kick lately. Partly, because PBS is running The Complete Jane Austen series on Masterpiece Theater. However, they are taking a break so my Sunday nights from 9pm to 11pm are now open until March 23 when Emma will be showing. What to do…what to do? Naturally, I need my Jane Austen fix. It’s been Jane Austen on Sunday nights for weeks now.

I’ve been eyeing Jane Austen: The Complete Novels (Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler) for a while now. So…today…I bought it. It contains: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. The Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler is 7 pages long and I’ve only read the first 3 so far. As expected from Fowler, it’s witty, thoughtful, erudite, funny, and thought provoking and I’ve still got 4 pages to go. I expect that I’ll be posting reviews of the books as I read them or reread them as the case may be.

Every now and then there’s one of those moments when you have to go hmmm. I was reading a CNN article about a bowling ball sized frog that lived contemporaneously with dinosaurs and had teeth. But it wasn’t until I saw a photo with the article that I thought I’ve seen that frog before. So, I thought about it a while and then went to the Leakey Cauldron site to find the picture of the chorus that sang in Prisoner of Azkaban. Sure enough there was the frog looking like the picture of the ancient one in the news article.

Of course, it might be hard to see the similarity from the two pictures but if you go and rewatch the movie, I’m sure you’ll see that they are very similar.
What this brings up for me is how often FX people get things right when they are told to do something. They didn’t get the teeth, but they sure made the size and shape just about right for our ancient frog ancestor.
I remember going to a talk by a planetary geologist who was saying he’d hired a science fiction artist to do a picture of Venus based on some information he gave him on the climate and other geological information. When the picture was done, the scientist wasn’t really happy with the flat mountains but the artist insisted that it was what would happen under that pressure. Next survey of Venus sent back pictures and lo and behold there were the artist’s pancake mountains.

Maybe artists and FX people should have an active part in scientific inquiry because they seem to think outside the box in interesting ways.

Last night Masterpiece Theater showed the second part of Pride and Prejudice based on the novel by Jane Austen. The version being shown is the A&E version staring Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle, David Bamber, and Crispin Bonham-Carter among others. It’s my favorite version of the ones I’ve seen so far.

Part 2 (the episodes shown last night) dealt with: Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins; Elizabeth’s visit to Charlotte and meeting Lady Catherine, Col. Fitzwilliam, and Mr. Darcy; Darcy’s proposal; Elizabeth’s rejection; finding out that Wickham is not a nice person; traveling with the Gardners; visiting Pemberly; meeting Darcy again (can you say embarrassed to the max).

Again it follows the book quite well. I’m re-reading the book as this series continues mainly because I want the book to be the version that sticks in my mind, not the movies. I’m slowly moving through, not because it isn’t interesting — I could linger over some of the phrases for minutes they are so well stated — but because my reading slate is full for this month and I’m slipping P&P into what little free time I have.

That covers the events in the movie, but even while watching it, what you can miss is that there is a reason that sensible Charlotte Lucas would accept the idiotic Mr. Collins. Charlotte is in her late twenties. She’s not a beauty. She’s one of several children and luckily for her– she has brothers. Her choices are limited, she can marry or she can live with one of her brothers after her parents are gone. Limited choices that were not, unfortunately, unusual for a woman of Austen’s time. The Bennet sisters’ choices are even more restricted — the estate is entailed away and there are no brothers. When Mr. Bennet dies they might be able to live with one of their uncles but if not, they have no choices except to become lady’s maids or governesses. The two oldest might manage governess, but the younger could never pull that off and don’t have the temperament to become maids or companions. They must marry at the very least.

So, Charlotte wants her own home. She knows Mr. Collins is not vicious, has a steady income and a home, and since he’s dumber than a post, she can easily manipulate him. As we find out when Elizabeth visits, Charlotte has all she wants: a home of her own, and a husband who thinks they are of one mind. Charlotte has Mr. Collins situated so that they spend as little time together in a day as possible — and he’s happy about it. There’s no love, but there is comfort and ease. Charlotte has found a way to have what she wants within the limited choices available to her.

Elizabeth is determined to marry for love and turns down proposals. She’s also very aware of the circumstances in which the Bennet women exist. She knows that if she can’t find love and marriage — she’ll have to forge her own way in life as a governess or if one of her sister’s marry well, as a hanger on at their home–if she slips from society her life could be verey dark indeed.  Hence, her very great concern for Lydia’s wild behavior.

Women did not have an easy life in those times. Things have changed a lot since then and reading or watching women in that time, we might wonder what’s wrong with them and why don’t they just strike out on their own. There are choices we can see from so far in the future, with the gender roles having changed so much. But at ground zero in Austen’s time, women had so few choices available to them, and in many cases no choices at all — the choices might have existed but were so far out of their reach they might just as well not have existed.

While the films placed in this era may appear oh so romantic, the reality of the time that Austen wrote about was not as romantic and kind as we might think — especially for women.

The other day, I decided I’d rewatch Matrix — hadn’t seen it in a while and it was on TV, but that was in the colder part of the house, so I dug out the DVD and put it in the PC to watch. Ended up also watching Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.

The first thing I noticed is the movies haven’t become dated. I found that really surprising even though there’s a acoustic coupler used in the first movie — it’s not intrusive and it is easy to give a pass to where tech and movie have diverged. But the thing is, that they did a great job of creating the matrix-artificial environment so that it holds up today so many years after it was first made.

I think part of that is that the central core of the movies isn’t about the virtual reality of the matrix. It’s really about choice, control, and power. Doubting Thomas (Neo) Anderson is removed from the matrix older than when most people are removed and he has some difficulty in coming to see the reality of the outside vs the control of his life he thought he had inside the matrix. He also has to deal with others looking to him for answers when he doesn’t even know the questions.

A friend hated the films because she felt that once they learned that it was an artificial environment that everyone would just be able to do the things “The One” could do. But to me, it’s not that simple. Even today people can believe so strongly in something that no matter what proof you give them, they will continue to believe as they did. First impressions do count. For an example, we had a rabbit that was a dwarf.  When our second rabbit came into the house as a youngling, the dwarf attacked the young one. The young one wasn’t a dwarf and grew up to be about 5 times bigger, but was forever cowed by the tiny one because of that first impression. When you grow up “knowing” something to be true it’s very hard to unlearn that something — no matter what that something is.

What is reality when it can be changed? Were the citizens of Zion really out of the matrix since in movie 2 Neo stopped the machines with his mind. There’s a lot of ambiguity but also a lot of fodder for long discussions over the nature of reality, choices and their ramifications, the nature of power and its uses, and the man/machine interfaces becoming so prevalent in our society.

It’s nice to occasionally revisit a movie and find it’s still fresh and thought provoking.

Sunday, February 10th, is the first night of the showing of Pride and Prejudice as part of PBS’s The Complete Jane Austen on Masterpiece Theater. This particular version of Pride and Prejudice is the A&E version and will be shown over three Sundays (Feb. 10, 17, and 24.). Luckily, this is one of my favorite versions and I own a copy that I watch at least once a month and sometimes more. I’ve also seen then version starring Keira Knightley, the BBC version, the 1940 version with Greer Garson, and the Bollywood version Bride and Prejudice (who could resist Pride and Prejudice with elephants — I couldn’t).

The only version I own is the A&E one so that may account for why I like it best but it could also be Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy. Somehow of all the Mr. Darcy’s I’ve see in the movies — it’s Colin Firth’s portrayal that plays in my head when I reread the book. He has that haughty, stern, aloof shyness with a hint of passion that appeals to me in a Mr. Darcy.

Tonight’s movie ended after Elizabeth Bennet refuses the proposal of Mr. Collins. So, if you miss tonight’s episode and can’t find it on a repeat, if you read the book up to this point, you’ll be all set for next Sunday’s showing.

Every version of P&P is the director’s and writer’s vision of Austen’s story. Luckily for us, each finds the romance to be a key feature and while the characteristics of the characters may change and in the case of Bride and Prejudice the setting and time period — they each have the core story intact.

So, whether you rent, buy or just watch your own copy of the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, you’ll find because it has five and a bit hours to devote to the novel, it maintains a consistency with the novel that many of the other movies cannot because they are limited coming as close as possible to the standard 90 minute movie length.

Meanwhile, I started to reread the novel because I’ve realized that I often think of this version BEING Pride and Prejudice and as much as I enjoy this film, I’d rather the book represent the true version for me.