Overwhelmed

[poliphilo]

I don't recognise the Bowie references in Life On Mars because when Bowie first appeared I was looking the other way (career, kids, the usual) and I missed him.

And yesterday idahoswede  made a joke about Three Coins In a Fountain and I looked it up on Amazon and realised I hadn't see it and I'd like to

And Amazon were offering it in a package deal with Roman Holiday which- in spite of adoring Audrey Hepburn- I haven't seen either

And- oh sweet Jesus on a barmcake - the world is so full of books and movies and albums I've never read or seen or listened to

And I'm just so ignorant...

So maybe I'll use my "golden years" (ha-bloody-ha) to play catch-up.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

What is the nearest Philadelphia equivalent to a barmcake? Hamburger roll? Kaiser roll? other?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know what a Kaiser roll is but a hamburger roll wouldn't be far off.

I just asked Ailz to define barmcake for me and she said, "a soft, floury bread roll."

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Hamburger roll has a soft crust. Kaiser roll has a soft inside but a crustier crust, like a round hoagie or cheesesteak roll if you remember them. What we call "Italian rolls" or "torpedo rolls" but round.

Does Ailz mean that the outside of the barmcake is dusted with flour?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a complicating factor. These things have different names according to the part of the country you're in. Barmcake is specifically Northern English. Ask for a barmcake in a London bakery and you'd be met with a blank stare.

I think your Kaiser roll would correspond to our (Northern English) "crusty cob".

Yes, Ailz means that the outside of the barmcake is dusted with flour.

[shullie.livejournal.com]

we call it a bread cake.....

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I've taken it the other way--I've decided that I just don't care about a lot of things. I'm never really going to care about most music, so a lot of it has passed me by, and I'm okay with that. I feel the same way about a lot of literature. I just can't care about it all.

But I *loved* Roman Holiday and Three Coins in a Fountain.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

For several things, I decided that I've been on top of them for long enough in my life -- and now I'm happy just to stop keeping up. Popular music is one. Video games is another (I dropped out after playing a couple games of Space Invaders). I suspect there will come a time that I really don't want to be on top of technology, although a lot of Web 2.0 applications are keeping the geeky bits safely behind the hood.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I dropped out of video games at about the same time as you. I mastered Space Invaders and that was it. Now I confine myself to ladylike games of solitaire.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

It would never even occur to me to keep up with video games.

As for keeping up with technology, that's an inevitable part of my work, not something I think about. But I do understand what you mean--my knowledge of web design kind of stopped with CSS.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I feel I've fallen behind. I want to be able to have an intelligent conversation about David Bowie.

But, yes, there are things I don't care about. I'm pretty certain I'm never going to bother to educate myself in the works of Norman Mailer.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Until my 50's, I'd never admit that I didn't care about particular areas, and I'd try to educate myself as broadly as possible. Now, in my mid-50's, I have realized the finiteness of a) my brain and b) my life.

I don't care about either Norman Mailer OR David Bowie, and it feels freeing to say so. One of the things that crystallized this for me was that I finally stopped reading British murder mysteries. By and large, I found that I couldn't relate to them, and that I was better off with Americans. This was a difficult admission, and I was ashamed to say in public that I dislike PD James, that I prefer her early mysteries about the women's detective agency to most of her Dalgliesh books. I find Anne Perry's Cadfael books boring.

However, there are other things I care about deeply and pursue like a hound dog.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read one or two of P.D. James's books and found them stuffy and old-fashioned.

I'm inclined to prefer contemporary American crime fiction too. I like Kathy Reichs and Sara Paretsky.

[momof2girls.livejournal.com]

Audrey Hepburn is wonderful in Roman Holiday, and Frank Sinatra (three coins in a fountain) is wonderful too!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Audrey Hepburn is wonderful in everything, I think. No other star before or since has had anything like her combination of physical beauty and inner radiance.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

Roman Holiday is a sweet, lovely film.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I must see it.

[shullie.livejournal.com]

can you get series two of Life on Mars yet?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Not yet.

I'm not sure what the logic of View on Demand is. They show new things, old things, very old things- but I expect Series Two will turn up soon.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this stuff recently too. 'Keeping Up' seems kind of like a mugs game, in that if you REALLY mean to do it, and be on top of everything, then you'll just have no time for real life.

Back in the days of 4 channels and a few good movies it would have been easier. But now there's so much choice, and so much of it good quality.

But also- as you get older, I guess a lot of things start to look like things you've already seen more than once.

I'm correspondingly cutting back on TV and wasted Internet surfing hours. If something's really cool it'll filter down to me, I won't need to seek it out. And I'm probably only going to pursue a few shows further, LOST, the new Battlestar Galactica, possibly Heroes.

Books are better anyway.

Also documentaries I think are fine. Anything where you're learning something 'new' is pretty cool. So tech is in, then, as that's always new. At least the broad strokes of tech, anyway.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"as you get older, I guess a lot of things start to look like things you've already seen more than once."

You've hit on something there. Like with rock music. I was listening yesterday to Snow Patrol. They're fine, they've got some nice toonz, but they're not doing anything new, are they? If you grew up with the Beatles and the Stones it's hard to get excited- forty years on- by bands that are merely playing variations on a theme.

By the way, can I recommend Life on Mars? It's the sharpest Brit TV show in ages and it's filmed in Manchester. What's not to like?

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

Life on Mars, I actually caught the first season via download around the time it first came out. I quite enjoyed it. Perhaps I'll look into the second season some time- though I am admittedly trying to cut down on how much TV I watch. Maybe I can watch it on weekends, even with Yuka, would give her (and me- ha!) a better idea of the place I come from. Especially now LOST is done for the year.