The Notorious Daily Page

I took my mum to see The Notorious Bettie Page last night, directed by Mary Harron and starring the amazing Gretchen Mol. It is a beautifully and artfully shot film, and I would very much like to see more of Harron's work. The film left me fascinated with Bettie Page herself, though a little unsatisfied that the film hadn't helped me to know her better. I wonder if that was what Mary Harron and Gretchen Mol were intending: that we only view Bettie from the outside, as mere spectator, as all those who 'enjoyed' her work did.

Certainly I felt the film was ambiguous in many ways and Gretchen Mol's Bettie seemed to me highly vulnerable and explicitly young in every scene. Go see it, for Gretchen Mol alone if nothing else, and I would love to know what you thought.

For readers in or around Portsmouth, it's on at No. 6 Cinema in the Historic Dockyard, and if you didn't know such a place existed, you should check out the website at: http://www.no6cinema.co.uk/

My eagerly awaited copy of Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes mystery (younger sister of Sherlock) has arrived and I am just under halfway through. Thanks again to Colleen Mondor for this recommendation, because I am loving it. I took it to dinner with some friends today and their daughter wants to borrow it as soon as I've finished. I love reading chains. This one should be extra long, too, because we're going to donate it to the library service as soon as we're both through, so if you've got a library card it should be on the catalogue in a month, and if you can't wait that long....there's always Amazon!

Chloe, my friends' daughter has also managed to solicit a promise from me to buy her a copy of Lisa Clark's Pinkworld upon its release next year. In fact, we made a 'Pinky Promise' that was faithfully turned into a contract by the savvy young Chloe, which reads:

4 Chloe,

Iwill buy you a copy of Pinkworld by Lisa Clark, signed by her.

Pinky Promised by Sarah Cheverton

What ever happened to youthful trust?

Today's 3 beautiful things:

1) Getting enough work done (on all three of my jobs - yay!) to feel virtuous but not enough to take up too much of my day.

2) The smell of my freshly washed patchwork blanket as I throw it over the bed

3) The anticipation of a glass of wine and an evening spent with music and a close friend

Thanks to Kitty Kat for posting her top 3, keep em coming.

Also, thanks to anonymous, who pointed out that there is another e e cummings poem featured in 'In Her Shoes', the film that also quotes the Bishop poem from a few nights ago. I had completely forgotten that this was in the movie too, but I love drawing the threads together, so another e e cummings to close the blog tonight.

i carry your heart e e cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)