The GOLDEN GIRLS Revisited

 One of the perks to being retired is that you have the time to do things you didn't when you were younger and working. I have been haunting the Palm Springs Library's vast DVD selection and watching many of the shows shown here on PBS but were created for England's BBC. I find that many of their shows are vastly superior to what is produced here. I highly recommend FOYLE''S WAR and GEORGE GENTLY.

However, pursuing the stacks a week ago I happened upon Season One of THE GOLDEN GIRLS, a show I often missed. It came on TV in September of 1985. I had a daughter born in July of 1985 and a hell on wheels son of 4 at the time. I didn't see many of the shows even though it had a seven year run and won many, many deserved awards.

While the show is now 38 years old I first noticed that clips of funny scenes from GIRLS have been shown on Facebook, scenes so funny you got a good belly laugh now, all these years later.

So, I picked up Season One and was prepared to be disappointed. While some shows, like I LOVE LUCY have stood the tests of time, many others haven't. What is more important, having no commercials to break up the story line, you get a very different perspective on a show's flow.

I remember the first time I watched a season of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND sans commercials and realized the mother really was a pain in the ass. She meddled in everything, coddling her sons more like a wife than mother.  Deborah was right.

But I digress. Watching GIRLS I realized that this was the first time on public television that women were allowed to express their feelings regarding sex ... sexual feelings they have, sexual feelings towards men and voice that they don't always (the toilet repair episode) need a man to get something done. That was heady stuff back then and paved the way for shows like SEX IN THE CITY. All these years later this is heady stuff today! Witness how men are telling women how they should control their bodies!!! I think we thought we were past all that. Apparently not.

Each of the characters in their own way voiced their feelings. Sex starved Blanche, played by Rue
McClanahan, now a widow whom all felt would like take on the fleet during fleet week in Florida and not the least shamed to admit it as a Southern Belle. Dorothy, the amazing Bea Arther, whose husband left her for a stewardess the age of their daughter still willing to date and find a man who treats her with respect. Ditsy Rose played by funny funny Betty White whose memories of St. Olaf drives everyone crazy.While she still adores her deceased husband's memory, she too is willing to date men. And the character Sophie, the Italian mother of Dorothy is both pithy, summing up all their travails, even she gets her chances to date as well. No other show even came close to this in 1985.

It also shows us that while times change, things also remain the same. That women today are still battling many of these same issues all these years later shows that vigilance of past successes is never as secure as we may think. The battles women had in the 60's, 70's and 80's for work, sports, careers, sexual freedom, even military careers, were all the children of mother's who during the war years provided the backbone work force of the US Arsenal that won World War II. While many look fondly at the 50's as the Golden Age, there were many women who did not. They were still feeding on the freedom they had and proved they could do just about anything a man could do.

GOLDEN GIRLS fed on that line of reasoning in a comedic way that still had a heart of steel beneath. They were not afraid to address the concerns of these women,  women everywhere, and while we laughed they often had a point. For me, as a man, I only truly see the point now.

I urge you to watch these shows, again if need be! As for me, I plan on getting Season 2 the next time I'm at the library! I find that I still have much to learn.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

TALKING TO STRANGERS: Unburdening Our Regrets

A few weeks ago I finally picked up and read Malcolm Gladwell's book TALKING TO STRANGERS. Like his other books such as BLINK that talks about how we make decisions often in the blink of an eye or OUTLIERS that discusses if you put 10,000 hours into something you become a master. Master? Yes, a Mozart or Bill Gates. I entered the world of a trifecta of strangers in books and movies and the nightly news that seem to only talk to strangers. 

 Gladwell's books seem simplistic until you scratch a bit below the surface. STRANGERS attempts to address how we talk to each other, friend or foe and create a society that we try to live in, lies and all. I might add that today, as opposed to my youth, we both DON'T talk to each other today OR listen! In fact, that we won't talk to each other directly, face to face could be the biggest problem this nation faces. The book makes you think and I think hopes that before your open your mouth, consider carefully what you are about to say! 

Then the other day I watched, over two days, the Japanese film DRIVE MY CAR. Directed by Ryûsake Hanaguchi it won an Oscar for Best International Film in 2022. A long 3 hour movie (best watched over two days as I did) it tells the story of an actor/director who loses his wife at a young age to a cerebral hemorrhage. He feels guilt because he never knew what she wanted to talk to him about before she dies. A year later he is hired to direct UNCLE VANYA at a theatre in Hiroshima and is told that he is not allowed to drive but must allow a driver to drive his car. For car buffs this is a cherry red Saab Turbo  in mint condition. Hesitant, he allows the young woman to drive him after a trial run. Things get iffy when the young man Kafuku saw having sex with his wife applies for the play. While a young actor he is given the part of Vanya much to his surprise. Kafuku never lets on he knows the young man's past history. However, the young man in an aside after a dinner, beats up a man taking photos of him and during the dress rehearsal is arrested for the man's death. Confronted by the committee on continuing the play with Kafuku as Vanya, who knows all the lines, or his refusal to act and shutting down the play he pleads to think about it. 

He gets in the car and orders the driver to take him where she grew up. Then secrets are revealed. He tells her of his day spent not going home even though he knew his wife wanted to talk to him and when he arrives finds her almost dead. If he had returned earlier he might have saved her. The driver, on her part, tells of her childhood, being raised by a single abusive mother whom she let die when their home was buried in an avalanche. Going to the house he sees the destruction and feels her hurt and anguish on full display. They both grieve for what was never done.

Then my book club picked Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize book of short stories, INTERPRETER OF MALADIES. Reading the chapter with the books title it tells the story of an American, East Indian heritage family on a trip to India. They hire a driver to take them to a famous temple a few hours away and while they go they begin to talk. The driver, who gives tours only on weekends, has a week job his wife calls "medical assistant" but in reality is a translator to a doctor whose patients often speak different Indian dialects. The American wife, who appears either unhappy or bored becomes interested. The driver, Mr. Kapasi. takes an interest in her and has hopes to remaining in contact even giving her his address. This hope is soon shattered when at a last stop, before reaching their hotel, the wife reveals to Kapasi as they watch husband and children walk away that she has a terrible secret, even worse than not loving either husband or children. One of the children is not even her husband's but the child of her husbands best friend who spent a night visiting them. Kapasi is taken aback and asks if this was so secret and no one else knows why she is telling him? "Because you are an interpreter!" she says." The reader and Kapasi both wonder, interpreter of what? What advise could we give? In despair, he has none.

I found this an interesting dilemma. Why would I find three items that discuss the same thing? It certainly isn't a design of finding out why we tell secrets. I do know however, that many of us do. Who hasn't on a train, plane or bus told another things you would never tell your partner, spouse, friend or parent? There is a kind of anonymous pleasure in revealing something, taking it off your chest. Clearly the wife in INTERPRETER feels that the burden of her eight year old secret is relieved when she passes the burden on to another.

Is that why we do it? By giving a secret away we relieve ourselves of it's burden? It reminds me of the scapegoat where ancient Hebrews would pin secrets on a sheep or goat and drive into the wilderness. The animal was thought to take away all the guilt and shame of the past year. I wonder if the secrets we reveal have any impact on those we give it to? Clearly in these stories it did. And, I get the feeling it relieved them of their guilt! However, while you feel relieved, do we pass it on? What do you think?

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed!

Thank you for visiting my store! Please be sure to visit on a regular basis or contact me at KrugsStudio.etsy.com. New birdhouses, craft items, photography and canvas paintings are added all the time. Please tell your friends, artists or anyone who appreciates local handcrafted items about my store.

If you have the time and are interested about how art and design affect our lives, PLEASE check out my blog, KrugsStudio.blogspot.com. I discuss how art and design effects our lives, often in more ways than we can ever imagine. It covers a wide range of topics, not just art but does look at design and how we design our lives each and every day. Comments and ideas for future articles are always welcome.