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I just watched the most amazing movie: Get Low, starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, and Sissy Spacek.

First of all, how can you go wrong with those three in the cast? I especially loved Duvall and Murray’s performances–probably my favorite “serious” performance by Murray.

On top of that, it’s built from the nugget of a true story (and one of my favorite things in life is the prickle of excitement I get when hearing a true story that’s just as good as, if not better than, fiction.)

And to top it off, it turns out this is one of those underdog movies that took years to secure funding for, etc. –and the director who got it off the ground, Aaron Schneider, just happens to be from a small town in central Illinois.

I remember reading in the Peoria Journal-Star several years ago that a Peoria-area native was nominated for an Oscar for a short film he’d made. This story obviously stayed in my mind, but…yeah, short film. I didn’t see it.

Then, a year or so ago I saw another story in the PJ Star that the same guy had made a feature film, and I seemed to remember Duvall and Spacek being attached. But I had forgotten all about this when I went to the video store last night.

So it was pretty cool when I watched the DVD extras at the end, (still feeling spellbound by the beautiful movie I’d just watched, and Duvall’s performance especially), and there was a clip of a press junket with Duvall teasingly saying something to the director about “being from Peoria, Illinois.”

So I went a Googlin’ this morning to find that PJ Star article about Schneider making Get Low: here ya go. (Gotta love that picture of Schneider “teaching” Duvall how to shoot! (And oh…btw, Dunlap “counts” as Peoria, right?)

Even better, here’s a longer feature on Schneider’s getting the film off the ground, including the fact that he got the lead investment with the help of his high school prom date.

If you haven’t seen Get Low, which is part folk tale, part mystery, part love-story, part small-town rural-life tale, I honestly don’t think you can be disappointed if you check it out.

And it only adds to the film to know the back story about Schneider–yet another example of a wonderfully creative mind coming from a place known for bein’ backwards and stodgy.

If you’ve already seen Get Low, please leave my your thoughts below.

As I mentioned quite awhile ago, I have a fondness for this place, especially knowing that my grandparents had their first date there so many years ago. (That in addition to my general fondness for all things vintage and endangered.) It’s just off the downtown square in Macomb, and as with the Standard Oil building a few doors down, it’s one last little bit of a time gone by that you pass on your way to the Wal-Mart.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I received a comment on my post from a former Macombie Homie who says he’d like to look into buying the building to see that it gets restored. How cool would that be?

I seemed to remember, from when I first noticed that the building was for sale, that some person or company I’d never heard of was the seller–someone who’d made a handmade For Sale sign (i.e., no Remax hot air balloon here). So, to try to help, I swung by the former diner on Monday and took this (snazzy) photo with my cellphone. And I have to say, from a marketing perspective, I’m a bit concerned with the, er, presentation. I couldn’t find a web site for said realtor, either.

But hey, at least I sent this former Homie the phone number. Let’s hope he’s got some extra funds sitting around!

Have you heard about the new play on Broadway that was written by the South Park dudes (and the writer of Avenue Q?)

If you haven’t, you should catch up here:

‘Book of Mormon’ opens on Broadway
(from CNN ‘Belief’ Blog)

That’s right; the South Park writers (who already took on Mormonism in an episode) have now written a Broadway musical about the religion. The article linked above summarizes the plot of the new production, as well as some of the thinking behind the writers’ motivations. And I have to say, I utterly and completely relate to this line of thinking:

Mormonism originated with Joseph Smith in upstate New York in the early 1800s. This not-so-distant past was attractive to the writers, [Avenue Q writer] Lopez told CNN, because they thought it added to the far-fetchedness of the religion’s claims that God had anointed Smith as an American prophet.

“A prophet who lived thousands and thousands of years ago in the Middle East is veiled in antiquity,” said Lopez. “But a prophet finding God’s word on golden plates just a few hours drive from New York City is ripe for satire.”

Also, if you’re curious about how the church feels about having its sacred beliefs turned into satirical song and dance, the article includes the LDS official statement—and I have to say, it sounds calm and rational.(However, one wonders if the church’s feathers will get increasingly ruffled as the play’s run continues, especially considering that one of the main characters, according to the article above, “succumbs to his doubts about faith and God after having the Book of Mormon stuck in a very uncomfortable part of his anatomy.” Ouch.)

But the real question, of course, is whether my beloved home stomping grounds—the tiny town with one blinking red light at the four-way stop—is mentioned anywhere in the script? For it was in Carthage, of course, that in 1844 a mob stormed the jail where Mormon leader Joseph Smith was incarcerated, and where he was shot and fell to his death.

With this high-profile production making headlines and perhaps becoming a legendary moment in the history of the Great White Way, stop to think about how funny and fascinating it is that the entire Mormon saga—the migration out west, the settling of Salt Lake City, in fact the very foundation of one of the world’s fastest-growing religions—wouldn’t exist as we know it without the chapter that took place in Carthage and Hancock County.

If I had been a co-writer with Matt Parker and Trey Stone, I would have tried to work in a line—or a whole song—about the holy site being located just catercorner from the DQ. (Feel free to help provide rhymes.)

Or who knows, maybe Carthage and Nauvoo are mentioned in the musical? I hope to find out five or six years from now, when an off-, off-, off-Broadway production plays in Peoria.

Hey there, did you notice I added a new feature? Over to the top-right of the sidebar, under my mug and bio, you can see what others have been saying. This is partially to clue you in when people leave a comment on a post from several months ago (which is fairly common), and partially to encourage you to leave some feedback of your own. Hint, hint.

I know this is a little crazy, but I’m actually a tiny bit relieved that we’re getting another cold snap before spring is ready to have officially sprung. Every year at this time, I get a little panicky that winter is officially over.

When I see the flowers coming up in my front yard (planted by a previous tenant, I should note), I find myself thinking things like:

But I’ve only used my crock pot twice!

I never wore those cream-colored tights!

I never used the fireplace! And I still need to burn that sugar-cookie-scented candle I got for Christmas!

Yeah, I know. Crazy. I may be the one person in the entire Midwest who is actually chagrined when it turns nice outside. (Then again, T.S. Eliot did say April was the cruelest month. I think it’s because, like me, he was pale.)

The real cause of my angst is that whenever I drive to work or go to the rec center, I pass by what feels like a parade of college girls who’ve apparently spent every free minute of their winter solstices simmering in a tanning bed. The first day it’s a few degrees over 50? Flip-flops and short-shorts everywhere, and everyone is so tan.

Yes, I know these girls will look like burnt ‘taters by the time they’re my age, and I should feel virtuous and lofty for keepin’ it pale and abstaining from the coffin-shaped-cancer-causers. But still. I can covet the color of a caramel thigh, can’t I?

One day as I was walking down the hall at work, I noticed that the echo of my steps sounded funny. There was a tinny,  hollow sound whenever my right foot hit the floor. So, once I was back at my desk, I sat down and crossed my right leg over my other knee and found the culprit: the bottom had broken off the heel of my nearly brand-new boot.

Later that day my boss gave me a tip:  a local store, Brown’s Shoes, employs  Amish who will pick up broken shoes and work on them. Plus, my boss added, the repairs cost next to nothing.  There was just one catch: “I’ve dropped off shoes that took so long,” she said, “that when they finally called to tell me they were ready, I’d actually forgotten all about them.”

Still, I decided it was worth a shot.  I could be patient, I told myself.

So, one chilly fall day when I was running other errands, I stopped into Browne’s and asked the young man at the counter if it I could leave my busted boot for an Amish repairman.  “Just so you know,” he said, “it takes a long time.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “I’m not getting to wear them, anyway, just sitting there broken, so it’s no problem.”

“Okay,” he said, with a discernible note of “suit yourself.”

I left the store feeling proud of my resourcefulness. Virtuous, even, for saving one more thing from going into a landfill, for providing work for a local sustainable community. Or something like that.

Perhaps now is the time to mention that I dropped the boot off sometime before Thanksgiving.

Today, it’s March 24, and it’s almost time to swap boots and socks for sandals.

In my tiny, cluttered bedroom, the lone in-tact black boot sits atop the window air conditioner that I’ve been meaning to move down to the basement since September (guess I might as well leave it there now.)  I scurry around in the mornings, searching for the right earrings or scarf or sweater, and I’ll notice that black boot just sitting there, taunting me.

Every time I see it, I think, “I need to call the store and ask if there’s any chance they have it ready for me.” I even rationalize: “Maybe they lost my phone number.”

But just when I’ve decided that five months is plenty of time to have capped the bottom of one measly heel (let alone kill a cow and cure the leather for a new pair), I picture a bearded man in suspenders shaking his finger at me. “Ah, patience, ye worldly woman, patience.”

Sometimes I picture the broken boot lying on the Amish man’s work table, or maybe even in plain site on the middle of the dining room table, where, each time his wife walks by,  she makes a point to titter with her fellow butter-churning sisters, scoffing at my vain concerns.

Maybe I’ll get a call from Browne’s around the fourth of July. Or a year from when I dropped it off. This is all a passive-aggressive test from the Amish, you see, to make me realize how shallow is my definition of  a “long time.”

The Best American Short Stories 2007 by Stephen King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been boycotting short stories for the last couple of years. It’s hard to explain why. I actually prefer semi-ambiguous endings, and I prefer the literary and lyrical over the straight-up entertainment type of reading. But I began to feel that every short story I read was "too writer-ly," that the author was being weird just to be weird, or that the ambiguity of the larger meaning of the story was dissatisfying rather than stirring or thought-provoking. Oh, and not to mention, too many of them were dark and depressing–and again, I *like* the darker fair most of the time.



So it was probably good timing that, when I found this series entry on a clearance table, I picked up the 2007 year, with Stephen King as edition editor. Not only were all of the stories in this edition accessible and straightforward, but also, King’s intro essay actually addresses the "too writerly" trend (my words, not his. Read his essay to see what he’s really trying to say. I’m doing a quick and dirty stab at this here.) Anyway, it’s hard to explain how this edition is different, but I’ve been reading this Best Of series on and off since the mid 90s, and this book definitely had a different feel than all the others I’ve read–and yet the stories are still literary, and still feature some of the biggest names in contemporary literature, like Alice Munro, T.C. Boyle and Richard Russo.



That said, I didn’t find many of them to be as memorable or as moving as I have with "Best Of" stories in the past. With one exception:



The story "Findings & Impressions" by Stellar Kim almost literally took my breath away. I found myself sobbing at the end, which is not something that happens often. (I might tear up fairly frequently at movies, but short stores? No.) Perhaps this one just caused me to "project" too much, since the main character is stricken with terminal cancer at my exact current age. It was so stirring I felt compelled to keep reading and yet had to stop and set it down every few minutes– I wanted to savor it and yet was "afraid" (not in the typical sense associated with Stephen King) to know what was going to happen.



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