Remember those days when you were applying for a job and there was the “write a resumé” requirement? Yuck. I’m glad my next job is to retire, resumé not required.
If that turned out to be an actual thing and I had to apply to retire, then I’d have to rewrite my entire resumé, the whole thing except for the last line where you have to list your interests. Mine haven’t changed in all these years. Now, as then, my interests are reading, theater and music.
By theater, I mean watching movies (in the theater), and by music, I mean listening to music. And reading, well, that’s reading. (It occurs to me that while these interests might be good ones when you’re 21 and can touch your toes, they’re the kiss of death for a retiree. They’re the kind where the doctor insists I get some new ones, the kind that require me to stand up at least periodically.
All duly noted, and I will touch up my resumé and rewrite my interests. But as long as I’m still working off the 21-year-old touch-your-toes resumé, here’s how I fulfilled my interests this week.
Reading I finished “The Champagne Letters” by Kate MacIntosh. The story is actually two stories in one, where one is historical and the other is current. They call it a dual timeline — which is all the rage these days and a boat I sadly failed to sail on when I was thinking of writing my story. The historical story is that of Mme. Clicquot, as in Veuve Cliquot, the champagne, and is a captivating story of her struggles running a winery during the Napoleonic Wars. The other book I finished this week was “The Next Ship Home” by Heather Webb, this one about two young women, one an Italian immigrant just arrived, the other a German American “matron” at the immigration processing center on Ellis Island. When I put that book down, I picked up “Before Dorothy” by Hazel Gaynor. It’s the story of Dorothy’s Auntie Em, and since I loved the Oz books, this story jumped out as a must-read. For the author to pluck a marginal character from fiction and give her life is a clever idea. I am sure to enjoy.
Music This past week I listened to a Joe Cocker compilation, a Patsy Cline compilation, and a random selection of Van on Apple Music.
Theater I watched three movies this past week. The first was “Red Joan” starring Judy Dench, based on the true story of Joan, a Russian spy. I’d watch anything with Judy Dench, and she was terrific in this. On Netflix. The second movie was “Pompeii,” set in 67 AD. This is not the kind of movie I’d normally watch, but watch it I did. It’s like “Ben Hur” on steroids, with an erupting Mt Vesuvius blowing up in the background. The volcano is the best part, but for a movie about gladiators, it was as good as any of the others. Then last night, I watched Jean Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” which came out in 1960. Jeez, it’s old enough to apply for Medicare. I am pretty sure this is my first Godard movie and my first movie starring Jean Paul Belmondo. This is the kind of film where after you see it in the theater, you go to a coffeeshop with your deeply intellectual friends, and over cups of espresso and many cigarettes, you dissect the movie. Yuck. Add it to the list of things I didn’t like to do: resumé writing and movie dissecting. But speaking of cigarettes, back in the 60s, actors knew how to smoke, not like today when nonsmoking actors pretend to smoke. So just for that, I give the movie a 10.
My song this week is from Joe Cocker …
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