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peeping tom club The day started out with Hitchcock, Rear Window to be exact. I hadn't seen it in years, but I still love it. The story is simple enough, but the dialogue and the performances are great. Stewart, Kelly and Ritter are very human. Okay, maybe Kelly is idealized to a degree, but some of what they say is so true to me. For me the film touches on a number of issues that still exist today even though it was made nearly fifty years ago. Foremost would be the way that men and women relate. Some of the conversations that Stewart and Kelly have are priceless. To sum it up he does not want to get married and she has a hard time of convincing him. Central to the argument is the whole idea of which one of them has to sacrifice the most to keep them together. Mixed in with that debate is the idea that opposites attract which is also very understandable. As to whether or not I could refuse Grace Kelly is another matter. Then there are the conversations that Stewart and Ritter have that also speak volumes about men and women. According to her men and women should talk less about being together and let nature take its course. I have a feeling that that kind of thinking would put all of the afternoon talk shows out of business. Besides people love to give advice to others so that they can feel better about themselves, but what do I know about people. Putting aside the men and women dynamics, there is the other issue of people watching other people. I am certain that people watching has to be the number one leisure activity of people even though they might not admit it. Why else do so many people go to shopping malls and parks. They can't all be there to shop and relax. Maybe I'm wrong, but now with the beauty of technology we go one step further than peering through windows, we have people with cameras broadcasting on the web. I have to wonder what Hitchcock would have said about such a movement. Of course I have also read somewhere that some women see Hitchcock as being a misogynist which for them would make all of his work invalid. Phrases like the male gaze and inability to communicate would probably be bantered about until the film would lose all of its charm. Dial M for Murder and Vertigo are the other two films of his that come under attack the most often. Sigh. Maybe things haven't gotten better in fifty years. Part of me wonders what the pseudo intellectual word for man hating might be, besides empowerment. There has to be one, but I have yet to hear it being used on any of the afternoon talk shows. Maybe Oprah melts if someone says it outloud. ... Speaking of views that aren't sexist, I finally have one where I live. I may not have a Miss Torso living across a courtyard from me, but I do have a lovely view of the horizon to the north. Finally there is sky outside my window instead of the rooftop of the house across the street. Location is truly everything for me here. Oh, I may have lived in the city for five years, but it never had that much appeal to me. Yes, things are slightly more convenient, but I'd rather have to drive somewhere then have a house twenty feet from mine. Open spaces make me happy, not rows of houses. ... I have to correct myself. The Night of the Iguana was released in 1964, not in the 1950's. ... I want to be sexist again for a moment. If I had to choose a real life princess to fawn over then I would definitely take Grace Kelly over Princess Diana. There isn't any real logic behind my choice, but Kelly looked the part better than Diana ever did. Yes, both of them are dead which makes my decision moot, but I still wanted to say it. I mean people still love to talk about and compare them, because at the most basic level they were average girls thrust into another world all for the sake of marrying royalty. ... Being the homemaker that I am, most of the afternoon was spent giving the appliances a test drive. Since up until last month I was a serf, also known as a renter, this is the first time that I have had a washer and dryer of my own. They both work fine, but it is still odd to have them right next to my bathroom. Years ago when I was living with my parents the washer and dryer were always in the basement. I imagine that if we had ever lived in a ranch style house it would have been different, but we never did. The third and final appliance that I tried today was the electric stove. Oh, I've used one before, but for the past decade or so I always had a gas stove where I lived. Yet another small adjustment to the new home. ... My parents keep asking me if I have everything unpacked yet. The simple answer is that I don't, but that will change soon. Today for example I managed to open most of the boxes that were full of my books. Last week all that I opened were the boxes that had either my clothes or food in them. That was all that I needed then, everything else could and did wait. Besides there was the small issue of time. Work and school took most of my energy last week and when I wasn't at either of those places, I needed to eat and sleep. Opening those boxes and seeing the books was fun. I hadn't realized how much they meant to me and seeing them on the shelves makes this feel place more and more like my home. I want this place to feel different than where I used to live. Of course that might involve buying some new furniture. ... Ann impressed me this Sunday. For the past week or so she has been teaching herself Norwegian. I guess that I could do the same thing before I go to Denmark and Sweden next year. When I went to Europe last year there was no way that I was going to cram French, German, Italian and a few other languages in my head. One language or maybe even two is much more within reason.
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