...being the observations and navigational extracts
from the ongoing expeditions of San Francisco Piano Pop trio
True Margrit

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Julia & Meryl

Coincidences are funny. Do they prove some connectedness that hovers above and below and around us? Are they like faces, giraffes, sailboats, and boots that we see in the clouds, in other words, just the power of suggestivesness? Do they mean something? Are we doing something right when they happen? Something wrong? Do I need to consult a physician/ astrologer/ lawyer/ pope/ rabbi/ zoologist...?

Who knows.

I am currently in the midst of reading "Julie and Julia"-- Julie Powell's account of taking one year to cook all the 500+ recipes in Julia Child's, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". It's pretty fantastic--hilarious, irreverent, earthy. It's the most madcap account of cooking/ food ever.

Meanwhile, we watched "The Hours" last night. Now that is one amazing film. Incredible script, insanely intense perfomances. Quite devastating. Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris all got Oscars to take home for that one, as well they shoulda (but why not Meryl?!). As we were watching it, though, I was thinking perversely that it is so very intense & heavy in tone & could be spoofed rather nicely by SNL or MADTV. In paricular, I thought the scene where Meryl Streep is in the kitchen and she's separating eggs with a certain gritty tragic gravitas could be exaggerated--even further--with slo mo and an extreme closeup on an egg yolk and a swelling orchestral diminished chord...or... well you get the idea. But my irreverence notwithstanding, "The Hours" got me. I cried-- a lot. I cry at movies, what can I say? But this one merits tears.

So, after the movie I settle into bed to read a bit of "Julie and Julia" and in the first paragraph, Julie Powell is dismissing her own egg separation skills and waxing mildly rhapsodic (if there is such a thing as mild rhapsody) about Meryl Streep's fancy & gentle yolk-handling style of white/ yolk disenfranchisement as seen in "The Hours".

Whoa. I JUST watched that movie--and now I am reading a reference to it a moment later. That's one helluva coincidence. I think I know what it means, though: this is Julia Child's world & we gotta get used to it. More butter for all!

Bon appetit.

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