Monday, January 25, 2010

Strange and delightful

Starting late Saturday evening, after watching--or should I say watching and sleeping through and puzzling about -The Saddest Music in the World (by Guy Maddin, this film is certainly one of the most surreal movies we've seen, although others see it as an overlooked gem, preposterous, yes, but strange and delightful), my sisters and I noticed that heavy snow was clearly on its way to cover the dirty melting snow of the last few mild days. It took my sisters quite awhile to clear the snow off the car before heading back to my mom's place in the dark.
By Sunday afternoon, when I went to my mother's house with some family members, where we ate pizza and salad and two kinds of cake and my sisters and I did yoga together--giving our mom some lessons on becoming a yogini, too--the towering trees in our mother's backyard were struggling under the weight of heavy snow. When I returned home late in the evening (others had left earlier), it took me quite awhile to clear off the snow from the car. Nary a soul on the roads.
Guess we will stay in today. The roads are dangerous and quite a few schools are closed. People are staying off the roads as much as possible. I have not seen the squirrel yet.


The glass legs of the beer baron, that we didn't get. Are they a surreal intertextual reference to cinderella's glass slippers? My son said, actually, Cinderella's glass slippers were made of squirrel, of squirrel skin. It was a mis-translation from the French. Cinderella was French, we asked? So, this provoked some discussion on the traveling of stories and how they change form place to place, teller by teller. My son explained that the word glass and the word squirrel in French were mistranslated into English. Cinderella's slippers were more like mocassins, he said.

One of my sisters said, that doesn't make sense. Cinderella was going to the ball with her mocassins on?

I kept imagining a woman with 2 squirrels on her feet.

3 comments:

tasteofbeirut said...

I am not sure if I would like the change of season with the snow or not. Your pics are beautiful. I guess it would all depend on how long that snow would stick around!

Merche Pallarés said...

My, you were brave to go out in that weather! Lovely pictures. I also saw the first link "The saddest song" (not very, to say the least...) but don't have time to see the squirrel one. I'll come back later. Hugs, M.

northshorewoman said...

The snow is always desired here as it warms the landscape, protects the roots of flowers, and ....I just couldn't imagine winter with cold but no snow. Of course, the problem of digging out. And the icy paths and roads. The dangerous road and sidewalk conditions. Today, it's so icy on the sidewalks I cannot go for a walk. I guess I have to jump on the rebounder!