Consortium of Seven

Film is my fellow blogger Mike's forte. He does an excellent job of movie and TV series analysis on his Friday blog here on the Consortium of Seven. I hope he'll forgive me for lightly stepping on his toes on this particular movie, Auntie Mame. I'm just going to talk about how it made me feel and leave in-depth film reviews to Mike. It's a movie that holds a lot of memories for me and has always left me feeling uplifted after every viewing. Being a book, play and movie would also place it in the realm of interest of our blog founder Garbo. She seems to focus on 1940s movies, however, and often writes about literature that makes the leap to both stage and film. I highly recommend them. Her submissions are posted on Tuesdays. My friend Art first introduced me to the film Auntie Mame back in 1994 during the dark days of the AIDS Crisis. I fell in love from the first scene where Mame's newly orphaned nephew Patrick, is accompanied by his former nanny Norah Muldoon ...

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Likes lying around thinking Actually pretty lazy helpful at heart, really but believes resources are limited low energy has made her cautious Wants no trouble with you happy to skedaddle Wonders what you are thinking thinks you probably won't tell maybe you're afraid tightened up over all that stuff but maybe your head is as empty as hers But what fun it would be if we did, if we could. This little trick we play conditioned as it certainly is equals wasted time and life that much math she knows wouldn't you rather blaze and flow until you reach your element acceptability finally arrives She would and furthermore if you show her something beautiful or funny or true, and you both know it when we see it, you're her kind what are those things people think say and do those things that allow us a little puff-up here and there those things that put the walls in place so we can say we are separate and know who we are those things she want...

Quote by J.D. Sedding It’s nice to be able to say that you remember positive things from your childhood, particularly when they still connect with you as an adult. Charles Rennie Mackintosh was the first artist name I ever knew. His whole name seemed to run together like one word. My parents were (& remain) fans; Dad in particular who as an architecture student was allowed as he puts it “to climb all over” Glasgow School of Art in order to make a full set of architectural drawings of the building for his final year’s study (1971?). Mother was a crafter & she made clothes & drew for us. They both had a taste for the mildly esoteric at the time. There were some art monographs on the bookshelves. My godparents were an artist & architect respectively.   My photos alongside examples of CRM's works, illustrating the colours & shapes of spring In this way, I grew up learning to look for & respect the art in all objects as well as ...

Where has this week gone? Oh, that's right.  A trying week that has tightened its grip on me since Wednesday morning, as if the universe sensed it was my birthday, then continued to thwart any notion that I was just putting off a day off for later in the week. Work items continued to suddenly mount, as things here in covid-19 lock-down Pennsylvania are being pushed to change.   Anyway, this hasn't left me much time to watch new things, much less write about them. So, this will be an anemic post for me, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the concentration of errors is higher than usual.   I'll start with a couple timely reminders from pieces from earlier in the month.   If you have Fios , starting today remember that you have a stretch of free access to HBO and Cinemax through Monday, and Starz through next Thursday. This is on top of the free Epix all month. Check the channels (including the On Demand, which is unlocked for these periods, to...

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I went close to dying, looked over into the Other Side and came back. I’m here to tell you it’s all good. We’re all afraid these days, me too. I don’t like losing the ones I love and I don’t want to leave them. But it is also true that there is nothing to be afraid of in dying. Here’s my story. When the Consortium of Seven blog series began, Garbo, our esteemed leader, asked me to be the non-fiction contributor. What follows is not fiction. I have questioned the experience many times, as have others, I might add. But I keep coming back to the truth of it and when I share it with someone who is dying or grieving, it helps. I see the relief in their bodies, their faces, their smiles. So, please take what you like and leave the rest. I hope this is helpful. At the Michigan Women’s Music Festival in 1988, we were, as I recall, two weeks out from the day our gates would open and almost 10,000 women would gather. It was another world. We all camped in tents on land with out...