Raves for "The Queen" - The Movie and The Person

I gave myself a Christmas present this weekend. I stayed in Burlington on Friday while Woolfoot Kid 1 and Woolfoot Kid 2 were up in the country with Woolfoot Husband. This gave me a clear evening to have dinner out with a colleague, shop a bit (Borders for the Charlie Brown Christmas CD) and go see The Queen.

Everytime I say "brilliant" now I hear those cut-out cartoon characters from the Guinness ads. But, the movie is brilliant. I recently wrote here that, based on the recent John Lahr profile of Helen Mirren in the New Yorker she came off as a lightweight. I'll have to pin that on Lahr and my own faulty judgment. I knew Mirren was great even when I wrote that. We've all been witnesses to her brilliance before - but her performance as Elizabeth II in this move was - well, words fail. Plus royaliste que le roy? If the Queen is not as portrayed by Helen Mirren, she should be.

This brings me to a point I have been thinking of and wanting to write about for a long time. Given my general and somewhat unaccountable anglophilia, I have been a distant and somewhat vague admirer of ER for years. Part of what impressed me so much about this movie is that Stephen Frears (director) and the writer (Stephen Morgan?)and all these wonderful actors (there are no throw-aways) managed to dramatize the dilemma of Queen of England in the modern world. A Queen from the "greatest generation" (like my own grandmother) who is now stuck now in the Oprah generation and having to cope. A Queen alone - in an institution whose venerability is matched perhaps only by the Vatican. Singular and nearly ridiculous. In the public mind, esp. in the yobbish untutored mind, nothing but ridiculous. The movie does not seek to praise her, only to represent her. In doing so, in what feels like such an honest depiction, the truth comes out. She is worthy to be Queen.

Despite my general sense of admiration for her, I have the American distaste for hereditary privilege. (I read the rules once for who gets titles in Englahd and how and why, and could see why our founding fathers wisely tossed the whole invidious mischievous business). And yet, it seems to me that ER has justified herself and her position to the world.

The movie also reminds us that Elizabeth 2 can't go on forever. It got me thinking about how the world will react when she goes. Even the Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello and Morrisey and others who have trashed the whole show and HRH may feel a twinge when she goes. For us general admirers, I think there will be a genuine sense of loss. She has been like an oak tree on the horizon for our whole lives (most of us). All that documentary footage we have seen - the girl Elizabeth playing blind man's bluff on the deck of a ship, the young woman pledging her service upon the death of her father; sitting on a throne at coronation; standing outside Windsor Castle as it burned during that annus horribilis; the hat, the handbag, the queenly wave; we have assimilated them all. With this movie, Mirren has fooled me into thinking I actually know her, and it will make the loss more real. For the great mass of British people, I expect millions will be devastated. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal some years ago about how it is a common phenomenon for English people to have ER show up in their dreams. One woman told about a dream she had of finding the Queen in her bathroom washing the dreamer's underwear and scolding her. She is theirs, they are hers. Whatever constitutional limitations there may be on her, the Queen has power.

It was bold to make this movie. All the real life principals are still here - false notes and false moves would be easy to spot. It also seemed to me like a stupid idea for one, frankly. But here I am Mirren and Frears and all involved should take their bows. I bow to them and, with all due respect, to their subject.

My Next Album Cover

Happy Thanksgiving! The weather up here was beautiful today. This pretentious shot was taken on the golf course at Jay a couple of weeks ago.

Je ne golf pas. But I like the new golf course. I feel like I am strolling through some Scottish country club. I was there again this morning and saw the sun rise on the back nine. Golf is done for the year, which is how I like things. I don't like to run into any other people or feel like I am getting in anyone's way.

Thanksgiving in the Woolfoot home was pleasantly past with Woolfoot Pere and Woolfoot Step Mom alond with Kid 1 and Kid 2 and one of the dogs of the senior generation. A Glen of Imaal terrier named Zoe (photo to follow).

Kid 1, Kid 2 and I spent the night in the condo being rented by Pere and Stepmom up at Trillum Woods. We enjoyed playing foosball in the basement and this AM (after my walk on the golf course) I took a sauna in the quite excellent facility.

Today we accomplished snowtires (at Sumner Tire damages $409) and grocery shopping. Leg of Lamb is cooking now. The table must be set. Children entertained. Etc.

Skiing started at Jay today, by the way, but only one run - far beyond my abilities

Banner by Gladys (1918)

One Aunt - Now Gone

This is a true essay, though the names have been thinly disguised ..

My Aunt Madge died two weeks ago. Heavy all her adult life, she had melted down to just over 100 pounds. Kidney failure was the big problem, but there had been a litany of health disasters near the end. I didn’t see her during her final illness; our only contact these last few years had been Christmas greetings. Probably because I had not witnessed her decline, the news hit me hard. My Aunt Madge had never been the sick old lady type.

She and her husband, Uncle Harry, lived in a small city in central New York. I’ll call it Boster. They had two sons, Rod and Will.

My Aunt always had the brassy manner of a career fifth-grade teacher and sometime-performer in light opera theatricals. For instance, if she called your name and you responded “yeah” she would pretend she didn’t hear you. You could keep saying “yeah? yeah?” until the cows came home. Until you said “yes” she would just keep calling your name.

In his working days, Uncle Harry owned the furniture store in Boster. They lived in Boster’s best neighborhood in a sprawling flat-roofed house, ‘50s chic, derivative of Frank Lloyd Wright. One could easily imagine Gregory Peck wandering around the living room, mixing martinis. Of course, as owners of a furniture store, they had nice furniture. I saw the first VCR of my experience in their den. It was the size of a microwave and heavy as a cinder block. They had a little cloth doll labled “the flasher”. He wore a trench coat that opened to reveal he was anatomically correct.

Aunt Madge and Uncle Harry had a boat called the Globus. They had a pool table in their finished basement. They had a refrigerator with a built-in beer tap on the way to the pool table. They had parties. They had a van. They had a good time.

Aunt Madge was also prone to immodesty which I, something of a natural prude, found slightly alarming (witness, “the flasher”). I remember my aunt commenting my cousin Rod’s inability to waterski: “He’s like Crisco, too much fat in the can!” and letting out one of her braying laughs.

As kids, we got Christmas gifts from Aunt Madge year in and year out with the names of local banks on them and things recognizably used.

For a period after her retirement from school teaching Aunt Madge was the mayor of Boster. Her supporters put “Madge for Mayor” bumper stickers on their cars. She always wore a skirt and came to City Hall on a moped, with the skirt flying all around her. She conducted business on the City Hall steps.
My cousin Will once told me that Aunt Madge never once admitted to being wrong about anything, including things like dates of battles or state capitals.

I last saw Aunt Madge at a cousin’s wedding back in 1999. She looked the same as ever then, though slightly grayer. Uncle Harry, however, looked like he might fall over dead at any second. That “kegerator” had done its damage. He was enormously fat riding around on a scooter. I saw him again at her funeral. No change. That she departed this life before him is a source of family amazement.

The loss of my Aunt Madge brings home to me how long gone are the days of gathering round the Betamax and eight-ball versus the cousins in the basement. God only knows what happened to “the flasher”. I have been busy for years now with my own little children. In these last few preoccupied decades I haven’t taken much notice of those people and places of years gone by and now, too late, I am suddenly sorry.

Today at the Last House

A perfect fall day in perfect Vermont. Took Kid 1 and Kid 2 to the craft fair at my holy Mountain - Jay Peak. I cheaped out on them and expended a total of two Canadian dollars so they could each have a piece of fudge. Then it was off to the leafy country town of Knowlton, Quebec where we attended a block party in the neighborhood of our Canadian friends. If Martha Stewart were Canadian, she would concoct a town like Knowlton.

Barn and the View into Canada from the Last House (Yesterday)

  

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