For some reason, TCM chose today for a wham-blam of serious, intense, ne plus ultra romance films, which made for very interesting viewing during a hazy early-morning, err...recouperation from, errr...annual social events that may or may not be connected to the Christmas 'oliday and / or certain cliches about the ability of newspaper personages to embrace the pursuit of pleasure with greater avidity stemming from perhaps the greater vocational challenges, um....we had a departmental Christmas party. I don't drink often. Anyhow -

TCM is showing these in this order today: The Kissing Bandit, Love Affair (1939 version), Brief Encounter, The Clock, The Enchanted Cottage, Penny Serenade, The Last Time I Saw Paris and The Way We Were. ! I wish I had time today today to do the whole cycle (I love heroic thematic movie-watching, although I might be so awash in seductive Western romantic ideals from this lot that I'd never recover), but I did see part of Brief Encounter, one of me all-time favs, which was on when I woke up. That was strange. It's The Clock, though, that I watched most of, that I'm really in love with these days. That is one astonishing heart-rending movie. Really coming to love it, especially for the things around the romance: the complete snapshot of how war-based urgency was affecting things then, all the details of everyday life, its meandering quality, Judy's naked performance, crowded New York, the look in Robert Walker's eyes... Combined with the TCM year-end film about those who died in 2006 (they have an amazing graphics department) it was all very weepy. But satisfying.

- I was listening to somebody snark in the usual way about Penn Jillette naming his new kid Zoltan (other child is named CrimeFighter)--saying that he's going to have a hard time on the playground, other kids will make fun of him. And I thought--I'm not so sure that's true anymore. That argument doesn't seem so convincing. Some huge sea change there. Linguistic dams/dykes broken.