Never see any morning glories
I took my camera out this afternoon and located two cherry trees not on our street.
On our street: a Bradford pear. Tonight I learned that's a cultivar of the Callery pear, under which name it is listed in the City of Somerville's Tree Inventory.
The magnolia has not yet achieved its leafy sea dragon phase.
I must have noticed this cherry tree down one of our side streets before, but I was so glad to see its cloud of blossom from the end of the block.
Tumbling against the sky.
And then another block over, another cherry tree!
I was so afraid I would miss their season.
The snowfield of plastic behind the high school. I'm pretty sure I read that eco-dystopia in the '80's.
I liked the brick rosette. A slight air of optical illusion.
At home, there were cats, little and big.
The blur of Autolycus.
Having bailed on April in Paris (1952) when the point of the comedy switched entirely to enforcing chastity until marriage, I went looking to see what else on TCM starred Doris Day and discovered Calamity Jane (1953). Is that movie a mess of gender trouble. It's not, like, Johnny Guitar (1954), but it may feature the single least convincing heterosexual endgame I have seen from its decade and its decade was rife with het pasted on yay. As the female leads were fixing up a cabin together, I yelled to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch, "You can tell it's a lesbian romance! They're using tools!" I assumed I recognized the exuberant "The Windy City" from Standing Room Only until my mother informed me that I had of course seen the film as a child, when I was exposed to a wide range of movie musicals, some of which I remember better than others. I could have done without the casual frontier racism, but otherwise, of all the things to forget.
On our street: a Bradford pear. Tonight I learned that's a cultivar of the Callery pear, under which name it is listed in the City of Somerville's Tree Inventory.
The magnolia has not yet achieved its leafy sea dragon phase.
I must have noticed this cherry tree down one of our side streets before, but I was so glad to see its cloud of blossom from the end of the block.
Tumbling against the sky.
And then another block over, another cherry tree!
I was so afraid I would miss their season.
The snowfield of plastic behind the high school. I'm pretty sure I read that eco-dystopia in the '80's.
I liked the brick rosette. A slight air of optical illusion.
At home, there were cats, little and big.
The blur of Autolycus.
Having bailed on April in Paris (1952) when the point of the comedy switched entirely to enforcing chastity until marriage, I went looking to see what else on TCM starred Doris Day and discovered Calamity Jane (1953). Is that movie a mess of gender trouble. It's not, like, Johnny Guitar (1954), but it may feature the single least convincing heterosexual endgame I have seen from its decade and its decade was rife with het pasted on yay. As the female leads were fixing up a cabin together, I yelled to
spatch, "You can tell it's a lesbian romance! They're using tools!" I assumed I recognized the exuberant "The Windy City" from Standing Room Only until my mother informed me that I had of course seen the film as a child, when I was exposed to a wide range of movie musicals, some of which I remember better than others. I could have done without the casual frontier racism, but otherwise, of all the things to forget.
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Agreed. There is A DUET BETWEEN TWO WOMEN CALLED 'A WOMAN'S TOUCH'.
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I have no evidence that this is true, but in my heart I believe that the makers of Calamity Jane were merry pranksters, determined to see just how gay they could make their lesbian romance. It turned out the answer was that the girls could fix up a cabin together while singing about "A Woman's Touch" and everyone nodded happily and said "This is fine, so straight."
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Thank you!
I still miss the trees that used to be on our street. There are daffodils in the yard, but it's not the same thing.
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You're welcome. He is a year-round photogenic cat.
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"Secret Love" wasn't the subtlest set of metaphors, either.
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Good! May it prosper.
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I was really pleased to find them!
I have no evidence that this is true, but in my heart I believe that the makers of Calamity Jane were merry pranksters, determined to see just how gay they could make their lesbian romance.
I genuinely want to know how this movie happened. It has the ostensible plot of every tame-the-tomboy lesson in compulsory heterosexuality and then it just . . . doesn't.
It turned out the answer was that the girls could fix up a cabin together while singing about "A Woman's Touch" and everyone nodded happily and said "This is fine, so straight."
The emotional climax is Calam riding hell-for-leather after the stage to reconcile with Katie, swinging in through the coach window like Errol Flynn! (Or Douglas Fairbanks, if you prefer.) It's nice that we have a reprise to finish off the musical, but it just underlines how profoundly pasted on the dudes are.
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*gasp* Okay, now I HAVE TO watch that movie.
(I also liked the cherry tree pictures very much! We have some cherry trees near my house - I walk past them every time I go to work or shopping on the main street and it's lovely to be greeted by their merry blossom explosion. This is giving me a strange feeling of connection, that we both have blooming cherry trees nearby.)
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Somehow, flowers became important to me.
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Thank you! I'm so happy to have found them.
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Nine
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Thank you! I have good models.
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It does try very hard to be heterosexual, but it does not persuade.
This is giving me a strange feeling of connection, that we both have blooming cherry trees nearby.
I'm glad you have them! I took a lot of spring for granted until the last couple of years. Now I pay attention.
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Sexist as hell, but with a fantastic opening and some wonderful songs.
I like to imagine a sequel where Calamity and Bill go shooting things together.
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I would have been a lot more put off by the sexism if the film had at all seemed to succeed in its argument that marrying a man is more naturally satisfying than being a shotgun messenger or a burlesque performer or any kind of gender transgression; I can't deal with Annie Get Your Gun, for example, but the queerness here never really fit back into its Production Code box.
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We have Norway maples on the boulevards of our block, and even though they are not native, they are beautiful, and much engaged with the block. If the weather is right and they have time to turn color, they used to make a tunnel of gold that transformed everything. But we keep losing them. There was a major storm in, I think, 2015, and the damage it did is still being worked out by the trees, and then the city sees it and has to take them down.
The replacement trees are exciting -- homeowners can choose from a list of ten or twelve, so we have two little catalpas and a red oak and a gingko and a hackberry where the maples were. But it will be a long time before they get large.
P.