Friday, October 19, 2012

Weekend choices


Home and ready to begin the weekend. I've listened to my daily voice mail, a telemarketing call from some outfit wanting to know who in my house suffers from back pain. Next, I read that the young royal set is planning a big evening out, which is certainly a load off my mind. Actually, they could try something different and plan a big evening in and get started reading the next issue of The Economist. I don't get my copy until Saturday, but since they live in the UK, I'll bet theirs has already been delivered. Or, if they still want to go nightclubbing, I suppose they could read it in their cell phones, as I sometimes do during lunch.

If they were visiting my apartment, they could look at the issue of AARP Magazine that I got just today and check one of the headline stories, in which Bette Midler promises to reflect on "What I know now." What I know now is what I've known for months: that if Romney wins, this country will eventually turn into Guatemala, as noted in The New Republic just the other day.

As to the rest of AARP Magazine, the next big article is "Make the Most of Your Fifties: Energize Your Brain, Your Body, and Your Sex Life!" I'd say I've got a pretty good plan of attack on the first two; the third is perhaps best expressed by the title of the old hymn, Precious Memories.

Anyway, my big night out will consist of getting off my energized backside, walking 3 miles down Poplar Avenue to the Paradiso, and catching Argo, followed by a walk back home and a chance to take off some of the calories I absorbed when I ate that banana nut muffin at work today. But speaking of memories and the carnal side of life, I'll spare a thought for lovely Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, the star of the long-ago Emmanuelle, who has died at 60 of cancer. Her film, considered incredibly daring in its day, was rather coolly antiseptic for something purporting to celebrate the pleasures of the flesh, but Kristel gamely played along, and her pretty face and quiet intelligence perhaps lent the picture more than its subject matter deserved.

© Michael Huggins, 2012. All rights reserved.

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