Saturday, March 17, 2018

Tea and Records

Began a bright, sunny St. Patrick's Day with some holiday reading. The Colliers Harvest of Holidays anthology Linda Young sent me a few years ago only has one piece for St. Patrick's Day, but it's a lengthy and interesting biography of Patrick himself. Did a short story from the Disney Storybookland based around Darby O'Gill and the Little People (about how Darby escaped from the King of the Leprechauns) and a few chapters of Nellie's Promise, about the problems Samantha's Irish-American friend has after she and her sisters move in with Sam's wealthy family.

Moved to two animated shorts about mischievous wee folk during breakfast. In "Wearin' of the Grin," two leprechauns think Porky Pig is after their pot of gold and sentence him to the wearing of the green shoes. Porky doesn't think much of it, until the shoes want to dance forever. He finds himself trapped in a surreal Irish nightmare as he tries to dodge the prancing footwear. Even after he wakes up, things aren't quite as they seem...

"His Better Elf" finds Woody Woodpecker getting three wishes from a slightly more benign leprechaun. He wishes for gold...but it comes from a bank. Now he outrun an Irish cop who is convinced he's a thief.

Ran an episode of Moonlighting from its second season while preparing a stew of cubed chicken, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage for dinner. "Somewhere Under the Rainbow" gives us an even stranger leprechaun. Kathleen is a perfectly normal-looking young Irish woman who comes to David and Maddie for protection. Only problem is, she insists she's a leprechaun. Neither partner believes her, but David takes her case because they need money. Turns out that, while her powers may not be real, the men who are chasing her are...and so is the pot of gold her father has hidden.

Headed out as soon as the episode ended. I really had no plans for today, so I thought I'd go for a stroll in Collingswood. The day was actually quite nice, sunny and relatively warm when you were out of the wind. I saw a sign for an estate sale on Fern when I was heading up to the corner of Collings and Haddon Avenue. Strolled a few blocks down to make that my first stop.

The estate sale was incredibly busy when I arrived. You were supposed to take a number to get in, but by the time I got there, they were out of numbers. It was so full, they shooed people up to the second and third level because they couldn't fit anyone else on the first! Disappointingly, there wasn't much there. Usual glassware and random books on England and old movie stars. I saw a lovely old vintage Effanbee doll, but while I might have been able to afford her, I couldn't carry her or some fine Art Deco furniture home on the bike.

As I strolled down Haddon Avenue, I noticed a nice little tea shop in the same building that once housed the book store. I'd never had afternoon tea before. Evidently, I wasn't the only one in the mood for tea. They were very busy, with several friends and large groups enjoying their lunch. I had a pot of chocolate mint tea in a real flower-painted porcelain tea set and a thick, hearty sandwich filled with a cream cheese-apple salad and walnuts on thick slices of cinnamon swirl bread. It was accompanied by grapes and a slice of orange. The sandwich was so thick, I ate it with a fork. The chocolate mint tea was very strong - it did taste heavily of chocolate and mint. The waitresses were really nice, too. I had a thoroughly elegant and enjoyable lunch.

The Nutty Duchess Tea Shop is right across the street from InnerGroove Records. Spent over an hour checking out their wares. I love that place. I never fail to walk out with at least one or two interesting Broadway cast albums and soundtracks I never thought I'd find. I finally came up with the original casts of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and the 1962 off-Broadway revival of Anything Goes, the soundtrack for Scrooged, and The Who: Live at Leeds concert album. I've had Live at Leeds for a while, but my copy came from a yard sale and was a scratched mess. This one was in near-perfect shape.

My next stops were much faster. I didn't see anything at Frugli Consignment I couldn't live without. Grabbed a soft pretzel and a berry Propel water at a crowded WaWa before heading home. Took the short way this time down Collings Avenue, across the White Horse Pike, and past Newton Lake Park and CVS to Newton Avenue.

Worked on writing for about an hour and a half when I got in. Leia leads the unicorn to get a drink of water by the stream in the woods. As the moonlight hits it's horn, it transforms into her brother Luke. Palpatine turned the innocent youth into a unicorn to make it easier to remove his magic. When Luke is in his unicorn form, all his magic is concentrated in his horn. He can only be human at night, when the moon shines on his horn.

Broke at quarter of 7 to enjoy my dinner. Yum. It came out quite flavorful, despite having to use chicken instead of the fattier and more expensive beef or corned beef. After I ate, I made Stir n' Drop Oatmeal Cookies from The Betty Crocker Cooky Book, with dried cranberries instead of the peanuts called for in the book. It's a very simple one-bowl recipe, and fairly low-fat compared to some others in the book. They came out soft and chewy, but a little too sweet. (Next time, I think I'll cut the sugar down to 3/4 of a cup, instead of the full cup called for.)

Watched The Quiet Man during dinner, finishing it after a shower. Sean Thompson (John Wayne) is a former boxer who has returned to his mother's former cottage in Inisfree, Ireland to settle down. He falls for Katie Danaher (Maureen O'Hara), the fiery sister of landowner Will Danaher (Victor MacLaglan), but Will is upset because he couldn't buy the farm and won't let them court. It takes a trick from the local matchmaker (Barry Fitgerald) and priest (Ward Bond) that makes Will think the Widow Tillane (Mildred Natwick) wants to court him to relent and allow Sean to marry his sister. When the widow says she's not interested, he refuses to give up Katie's things, and then her dowry. Sean doesn't get why the money is so important, but Katie wants her things and her money with her. For her, it means finally being free of her brother. Sean only knows he loves her no matter what. It comes to a head when Will finally starts a brawl with Sean that gets so wild, most of the town (and half of Ireland) comes to see them duke it out!

Director John Ford's love letter to Ireland is an affectionate culture-clash tale with some of the most gorgeous Technicolor cinematography I've ever seen. Ireland has never glowed like this before, in colors that would make Oz turn pale. Ford and the cinematography both one deserved Oscars. Wayne and O'Hara are fine as the lovers, backed by a terrific cast of Ford regulars and beloved Irish comedians. If you're a fan of Wayne and O'Hara or Ford's work, this is one trip to Ireland worth checking out.

Finished the night online after the cookies came out of the oven with Finian's Rainbow. This time, the Irish head to America as Finian (Fred Astaire) comes to Rainbow Valley in the south with his daughter Sharon (Petula Clark). Knowing that Fort Knox and it's gold is nearby, he's hoping to bury his gold and let it grow like the Americans' seems to have. The gold originally belonged to a leprechaun named Og (Tommy Steele) who is becoming more and more mortal without it...and more and more horny. They end up in a little sharecropper's union, where blacks and whites live in harmony. Their leader, Woody (Don Francks) is trying to grow a new metholated tobacco to make them all rich. He and Sharon fall for each other, but their relationship is threatened when Sharon, not realizing the pot of gold is nearby, accidentally wishes that racist Senator Rawkins (Keenan Wynn) was black. Now Finian and Og have to find that gold and the senator, with the help of Woody's sister Susan the Silent (Barbara Hancock), or Sharon will be burned as a witch!

This has always been a strange show, even in it's 1947 original Broadway cast, and updating it didn't make the fantasy any less odd. Then-newcomer Francis Ford Coppola couldn't figure out what to do with it. Fred Astaire didn't get it, either, though his solo routine for "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" is a highlight of the film. Clark comes off even better as his exasperated but loving daughter. Steele, on the other hand, is annoying and way too over the top, even for a leprechaun. He's more tolerable in his charming duet with Clark "Something Sort of Grandish."

If you're a fan of the leads or the original show, this is worth a look (it's currently available on DVD and Blu-Ray on the Warner Archives).

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