Something Sort of Grandish

Happy St. Patrick's Day to ye! The sun was beaming softly through my bedroom window when I awoke this morning. The clouds were gone, and it was getting into the upper 50s and climbing. I began with the second half of this week's American Top 40. This week, the Top 40 hit March 1983, with hits including "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran, "Back on the Chain Gang" by the Pretenders, "One on One" by Hall & Oates, and "Shame on the Moon" by Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band. The #1 song that week would be one of that year's top songs, from one of the decade's biggest albums - "Billie Jean," from the smash Michael Jackson record Thriller.

I didn't really have any major plans for today, other than running a few errands in the Oaklyn and Audubon area. I hit the bank first, dodging some sidewalk repairs on the White Horse Pike, then headed over to the Oaklyn Library. They were having a special St. Patrick's Day Storybook Hour with Darby the Cat. "Darby" turned out to be a sweet-natured, gray-striped tabby owned by a woman who takes him to local nursing homes and schools. It might have been just as well that there were only a few families. Darby wasn't overwhelmed, and all of the kids got a chance to pet him and have their pictures taken.

I hadn't had a nice walk to Audubon in a while, so I went there next. I bought a couple of Irish Potatoes from Desserts By Design and explained my business situation to her. She was very sweet and supportive. She's a nice customer at the Audubon Acme, too, and her desserts are popular with local restaurants.

Went across the street to have lunch at TreeHouse Cafe. I'd had a brainstorm. Coffee houses were the only other places I could think of local creative types congregating besides libraries. I know the TreeHouse Cafe has seminars and open-mic nights, for poetry and for music. I asked the owners if they knew any local writers who could help me break into the market. One recommended a woman named Cassandra Ulrich who had just published a young adult novel and had apparently gone through some of the same problems I had. I gave them my phone number and e-mail address to give to her.

Feeling a bit better, I went back across the street to Abbie Road. Said "hi" to Bob, then went through his record collection. He'd put a lot out since I was last there, including a whole pile that were only a dollar each. I ended up with four titles:

The original 1966 Carol Channing cast album for Hello Dolly! and the soundtrack to the 1970s movie musical version of Tom Sawyer with music by the Sherman Brothers

The Best of the Spinners

England Dan & John Ford Cooley - Nights are Forever

It was getting warmer by the minute. I was too warm in my green v-neck sweater and heavy dark flared jeans. Time to go home. I made one more quick stop at the WaWa on the White Horse Pike for skim milk before heading back to the apartment.

Just a few minutes after I got in, my phone rang. Much to my delight and surprise, it was Cassandra Ulrich, the woman I'd heard about at the TreeHouse Cafe, on the other end of the line! I hadn't expected her to get back to me so soon, but I was very glad she did. We had a nice, long chat about writing. She said that she hadn't written anything in years...but once she'd switched to a job she liked better, her ideas seemed to flow. She just got her first young adult novel published last year. She also seconded what Mom said that I'm still on the "discovery" phase of my journey - finding what I like and don't like, what I want and don't want.  She didn't really have any suggestions on what to do about the business class; I have the feeling I'm on my own there.

Here's her blog, with the link to her novel: Cassandra's Journey

Spent the next hour working on goals and what to do next. It's hard to have goals when you're never sure what you're going to be doing at work next week. I at least know I want to hit the other local coffee shop in Collingswood, GrooveGround, and see if they can recommend anyone as well. I also need to finally e-mail the teacher and see if he has any ideas of what I can do now, because I feel bad, but I don't think I'll be able to complete the course.

After I got bored with that, I decided to have some fun. I rounded up Molly, Jessa, Tiana, and Cinderella (the latter three are the only dolls in green!) for a St. Patrick's Day/spring photo-taking session in Miss Ellie's garden. I got some shots of them among the daffodils, then cut a few daffodils to bring upstairs to my own apartment.

Spent the rest of the evening indoors. I'd run St. Patrick's Day and Irish-themed TV shows and cartoons all day. Porky Pig has a surreal close encounter with leprechauns who think he's after their pot of gold in the classic Looney Tunes short "Wearin' of the Grin." Woody Woodpecker actually gets a visit from one of the wee folk in "His Better Elf," but learns a lesson in earning his bread when he wishes for money that belongs to a bank. Wonder Woman has her own odd encounter with a human version of the wee folk when gangsters steal his pot of gold to buy printing plates for counterfeit money in "Pot 'o Gold," from the third season of the 70s show. And in the second season Moonlighting episode "Somewhere Under the Rainbow," David and Maddie argue over magic and the things we can't see when a female leprechaun asks them to protect her and her pot of gold.

I ran Finian's Rainbow as I baked Irish Soda Bread and made a small spiral ham with sauteed collard greens, carrots, and celery and mashed sweet potatoes for dinner. This adaptation of the 1947 Broadway musical is a very strange but oddly charming fantasy about an Irishman (Fred Astaire) who plants his stolen pot of gold in the ground near Fort Knox, hoping it'll grow the way the gold in the famous vault seems to have. His daughter Sharon (Petula Clark)  is more interested in the handsome sharecropper who is in charge of a tobacco cooperative that's trying to grow a new kind of mint-flavored tobacco. Trouble is, the leprechaun who owns the stolen gold (Tommy Steele) has followed Finian to reclaim it, before he becomes fully human...and he's more interested in chasing Sharon and anything female that gets in his view. And then, there's the bigoted local senator (Keenan Wynn), who isn't happy that the cooperative is equally owned by whites and blacks, but Sharon's about to teach him a lesson in equality, thanks to the pot of gold...

The music and the cast are the saving graces in this fairly dated but still fun cult musical. Songs like "How are Things In Glocca Morra," "Old Devil Moon," "Look to the Rainbow," and "Something Sort of Grandish" were already often-recorded hits by the time the movie finally came out in 1967. Steele can be annoying, but he does have a couple of good numbers, notably the adorable "Grandish" with Clark. "Old Devil Moon" smolders with a sexual energy that wouldn't have been possible if this movie had been made in the 40s. And Fred Astaire gets several chances to show off his still-nimble feet, notably in his solo during "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich."

The script is the problem. The bigotry subplot comes off as well-meaning but overly politically correct today (long before the phrase was coined), and the idea of magic changing skin color may not sit well with a lot of people. (It doesn't help that the makeup used to transform Wynn is terrible and obvious.) There's also the fact that the plot revolves around selling tobacco, which would have been far more acceptable in the 60s - today, Woody wouldn't get past Rainbow Valley with that tobacco, no matter how minty it smelled.

In a weird way, it reminds me a little of Xanadu - a musical about an old dance master and a young English-accented woman that revolves around misfits and magic, with a score that's more beloved than the plot and a plot that doesn't make a lot of sense, that was a flop on first release. Like Xanadu, it's not for everyone, but if you're a fan of Steele, Clark, Astaire, the original Broadway show, or director Francis Ford Coppola, it's worth a look.