Blog 36 – Empty Nest Syndrome, Menopause and other Myths …Ms Paige Turner tells a porkie pie on each blog. Be the first to spot it and this week three handout sheets of your choice will be yours. Rush …
I’ve spent the day with Miss Tea Tree Oil, waxing hysterical and watching my toe nails dry. I’ve deserved it; been working hard but loved it. Thursday ‘Get that Book out of You’ for the summer is full with a waiting list and Tuesdays ‘Get Inspired’ has two places left as of today. So do email me if you’d like to take one up. I’m getting to grips with E-publishing at present and hoping Mr Red Hat who manages my website will point the way.
I spent a wonderful last Sunday with Mr Red Hat and his lovely husband who have been organising the gay film festival at the Riverside Studios www.riversidestudios.co.uk Mr Justin Case, Miss Trial, Master Mind and I went to see Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer. According to Mr Red Hat, Williams was so appalled by this splendid film starring the stunning Elizabeth Taylor in a swim hat that must have sold trillions that he spat at the director at the end of filming. I said maybe it was the intrusive comma in the billed title Suddenly, Last Summer which may have enflamed the playwright’s anger for what was that comma doing there but everyone was just too busy talking about weddings. Mr Red Hat and his Guy had the most superlative wedding in the Easterkerk Church, Amsterdam and I said the next time they would see my daughter would be in a wedding dress.
Thus on that instant suddenly was I seized with the notion of the passage of time and a hot flush in the Riverside Studios’ restaurant over some salami. No-one noticed. No-one ever does. But here is what I want to say about the myth of the Empty Nest Syndrome and The Menopause. They are supposed to pass. But let me tell you – they don’t. They are both as intrusive as that erring comma in the billed title Suddenly, Last Summer. And they never go away. The waves of nostalgia and flush flow and ebb but never fade away. Both are with you for good, as if you haven’t had children you must have had a hamster or something. Suddenly Last Summer is full of birds and this one is getting older.
But strangely, as I do grow older, and yes, indeed, I am, just as even the stunning Liz Taylor did, I’m having the time of my life …
There was no porkie pie in last St. Valentine’s Day posting as stated.
Westerkerk instead of Esterkerk??
Dear Jan
The film was inspired by Tennessee Williams but not by him – so it is perhaps a porkie to say that it is by him. ie to quote wikipeida ”
Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 American Southern Gothic mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams. The film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Sam Spiegel from a screenplay by Gore Vidal (Williams officially received credit). The music score was by Buxton Orr using themes by Malcolm Arnold and the cinematography by Jack Hildyard. The production was designed by Oliver Messel.
The plot centers on a young woman who, at the insistence of her wealthy New Orleans aunt, is being evaluated by a psychiatric doctor to receive a lobotomy after witnessing the death of her cousin, Sebastian Venable, while traveling with him in Spain the previous summer.
The film stars Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift with Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge, and Gary Raymond.
Best wishes
Di
wasn’t it the Westekerk Church that Anne Frank could see from one of the windows (or could she just hear the bells?) during her hiding out in Amsterdam? Or is there an Easterkerk as well?
In any case, I can’t see how either of them could have a,”most superlative wedding” but then they do alot of strange things in Amsterdam.