A couple of unimportant thoughts have occurred to me...

and I've decided I'd share them.

On movies...

All right. After reading a post on one of the sites I regularly peruse, I discovered that the 1970s version of Little Women I usually snobbily eschew was actually an entire mini-series. It starred Meredith Baxter (of Bridget Loves Bernie) , Susan Dey (of the Partridge Family) , Eve Plumb (of The Brady Bunch) and William Shatner (of Star Trek), as well as others. Now, when I had first heard that there had been an adaptation with Baxter and Dey I wasn't impressed. As much I had enjoyed The Partridge Family, there was something unexciting about seeing Laurie portraying characters that had such an essence of their own. It's like I thought that somehow these actresses would carry their sitcom roles into Little Women with them and drown the nineteenth century New England characters in 1970s schmaltz.

But here's the thing: It had occurred to me years and years ago that Little Women should be made into a mini-series. Since I'm partial to British productions I thought, the uniquely American nature of Little Women notwithstanding, that they would ideally be the ones to film it. They do it so well and well is how I wanted to see it done.

I'd love to see a new production of Little Women, despite the fact that I have liked all the previous ones I've seen. But as I doubt that any producers are reading my blog and thinking, This Jemima person really wants a new film so, gee whiz, let's go out and make a movie!, I'm thinking I'll have to settle for the new-to-me 70s version. And you know what? I watched a couple of clips online and it looks good! I'm even getting enthusiastic about the era of the production. It will be fun to see these actors in these roles, like seeing good friends in their old home movies, except the production values look quite nice in this production. And, really, schmaltz or not, those 70s shows were good.


Further on movies...

Just in case any producers are out there reading my blog, I'd like to pitch a film idea. Starving writer with baby in tow writes novel amidst the clattering cafe's of Edinburgh, nervily sends her manuscript in to fledlging publisher, and a literary star is born.

No, of course I didn't just make that up. That's the J.K. Rowling story. But reading a new book called Harry, A History, The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, And Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon by Melissa Anelli, the account of the birth of the Harry books seemed new to me and I thought, What a great story! This is going to be filmed someday when we're all old! So, golly gee, I wanted everyone to know: I THOUGHT OF IT, FIRST! And to the Harry Potter people, two things: (1) You're welcome, and (2) Remember, it's J-E-M-I-M-A at GBBS. (I'm available for screenwriting, as well.)

What are your favorite first lines?

We all know memorable first lines from famous novels. There's, of course:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

And there's also:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Children's lit has its classic lines, too. Like:

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug." - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

But there are very many novels out there. And, while they do not provide modern-day writers with material to manipulate and, in some cases, abuse (I'm thinking, the kick-off to Austen's novel), they do have some pretty good openers. One that I like particularly comes from another kids' book, C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I chuckle whenever I read it and like to fancy that I'll one day have the opportunity to read it aloud at some storytime hour somewhere. It so would make a great spoken sentence. As a matter of fact the whole first paragraph is stellar and with it Lewis paints an enviable character sketch of a main character; you get the feeling you know who you're dealing with when you've read the first page.

"There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

I can just imagine that avuncular Lewis telling this story beginning to the neighborhood kids. And do you ever hear of anyone talking about it? At least the negative answer to that question means that the sentence has survived untainted by the overuse of writers looking for a cutesy, "clever" way to open their own stories. I might mention again poor Jane Austen's first line to end all first lines.

I suppose that my love of this line is unique and explains why no one has pinched it to use it in their own way. Lewis's line is unassuming, it doesn't try too hard. And perhaps it plays to a childlike sense of humor. But how many subtle lines can send a kid into hysterics? Granted I have yet to witness this but I haven't tested the theory yet. And if my inner gauge is correct I am sure that I would have been rolling on the floor as a kid and reading this line out to adults while waiting to see them collapse into fits of laughter. (I used to do this - read from my books, look up after I'd read the good part, and wonder why my family wasn't chortling heartily. But that's a story for another day.)

So this is my nomination for the best first lines list. It's not Austen or Dickens but just think what a great theater-trained actor could do with it, reading the first clause matter-of-factly, raising his head and stating slowly and viciously "and he almost deserved it," with eyes narrowing at the poetic justice implied.

Now, what's your nomination?

26=infinity - explain THAT math majors!

Twenty-six letters in the English alphabet and yet those relatively few symbols can express stories as complex as Middlemarch, Les Miserables, the Bible. Amazing to believe that each book is a combination of carefully placed spaces and members of the same pool of twenty-six letters. From that you get a window into the souls of characters and their authors. That's really quite powerful for these little drawings it takes less than a stroke of a pen to make. There are doodles that are more elaborate than the word 'die' and, yet, when we're reading Little Women and run across this word in reference to Beth, we are delivered a shock that causes that blood-pumping muscle in our chests to skip a beat.

I mean, a punch in the gut can make you lose your breath, so can a well-placed verb. Amazing.

When I'm in a bookstore and can't find something that really interests me, I just think to myself that somewhere here, hiding on a shelf is a collection of letters that one day I'll find fascinating. We just haven't met yet. And each of those books I see on the tables and stands are a different sequence of the same otherwise redundant twenty-six letters.

Which sequence will you choose next?