Thoroughly Modern Balance

Did Yogawood this morning. Eric traded classes with Karin today, as the latter had to attend a funeral. There were 9 people there, including Eric, not bad for the still-sparsely-attended Thursday class. The emphasis today, as it often is with Eric, was on standing poses and inversions. I can more-or-less do standing poses now like the tree pose. I still cannot stand on my head. I don't know if my shoulders aren't up to it or I just don't trust myself.

Stopped at the Dollar General store on my way to the library. I was hoping they'd have Christmas DVDs or videos, like they did last October. No luck this time. Unlike last year, they just had out their Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations, which is really as it should be at this time of the year. I bought ground cloves from there and garlic powder from the CVS next door and moved on.

My next stop was the Haddon Township Library for this week's volunteer session. I just returned DVDs today, childrens' and adult's. Didn't take out any books, but I did rent the odd musical based around the Beatles catalogue Across the Universe and the newest Barbie direct-to-video special, Barbie as the Three Musketeers.

Stopped quickly at Super Fresh, then headed to the White Horse Pike for lunch. I wanted to try somewhere I hadn't been before. I opted for Capitol Pizza, two blocks down from my usual PNC Bank branch. Capitol Pizza is a small, basic local pizzeria that probably hasn't changed much since the early 80s. Two arcade machines, one a collection of classic 80s video games like Pac Man and Galaxian, another the usual touch-game console seen in semi-fine bars and diners everywhere, stood in the back. A tile mural along the counter depicted the Capitol building. I ordered a delicious turkey-bacon wrap and enjoyed the greasy ambiance (and ignored the wails of Fox News over the video consoles).

The sun had come out even before I hit the library. I rode home in absolutely gorgeous weather. It was too nice to stay inside all afternoon. I did some job research on the computer, then watched Barbie as the Three Musketeers and headed outside for a walk. Walked down Manor Avenue and around to the Oaklyn Lions Park and the playground behind the Oaklyn Public School. It was a gorgeous day for a long walk. There were lots of other people around. Adults chatted with their neighbors, raked their yards, rode bikes with their children, and walked their dogs. Young kids hopped on bikes or scooters, wrestled or chased each other in the playground, or ran around their yards; teenagers walked home from school together, many dressed for fall sports like field hockey or soccer.

I don't normally bother with the Barbie spring and fall DVD-only CGI specials. I did rent Barbie and the Nutcracker after it came out, but I wasn't impressed. I never tried another one...until today. Barbie and the Three Musketeers starts off fairly well with a surprisingly accurate condensed version of the first few chapters of the book. (Even the antics of the cat, dog, and horse aren't that far removed from the original - they're probably the kid-ized replacements for the book's comic-relief lackeys.) It veers off-course half-way through, but the story is still fairly interesting and a very nice change from Barbie's perpetual princesses. The modern music doesn't really fit the swashbuckling story, but it's fairly well-written for this sort of thing.

Swapped Barbie for Thoroughly Modern Millie as I made Beef and Cranberry Bean Soup for dinner. Millie is one strange musical. A spoof of all things Roaring 20s, Millie is the tale of the title character, a lass from the English countryside who has come to New York to become a stenographer and marry her handsome but rather stiff boss. She runs afoul of a naive fellow "working girl" who wants to become an actress, a goofy paper clip salesman who likes her and won't take "no" for an answer, a nutty millionairess who's crazy about parties and dancing teachers, and the owner of her boarding house who is carting off girls for a white slave ring.

Yes, it's all as daffy as it sounds, but if you can get all the way through, it's great fun with some sensational music. Julie Andrews is the very modern Millie, Mary Tyler Moore is her sweet feminine best friend, Carol Channing is the loony rich lady, and Beatrice Lille (in one of her last roles) is the slave ring operator with a thing for Asians.

Two warnings - first of all, like many musicals of the 60s and early 70s, this movie is really long. Frankly, it's much longer than it should be, and the middle and end do drag. Second, there's some rather goofy Asian stereotypes shown off here (though Asians are seen in both heroic and villainous roles). Explain to your kids that they would have been commonplace in the 20s and a little obnoxious but part of the fun of the era in the 60s.