Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Long Live the Queen - April 2010

There are a few things that I have retained since retirement. I still have many of my old suits, though I either can’t or don’t wear them. I have my old go-to-work jewelry – things like pins for my lapels – that sit in the drawer, unworn and forgotten.

And I still retain the tile of “Comma Queen.”

It’s not a title I mind, and it is certainly one that I earned over many years of whipping out the red pen and marking up all sorts of documents. One of my old bosses, Jim Murray, theorized that man’s basic needs were food, water, shelter and editing someone else’s copy. I have to agree.

The joke at the office was always, “Put a comma in, take a comma out.” I’d try to soften the blow of all that red ink on the paper by explaining that I had a comma quota and my compensation was tied to how many errant ones I found.

My comma queendom represents more than the mere comma. It encompasses all grammar, punctuation and spelling, and it is a responsibility that I take to heart – maybe too much to heart. Recently I was at the Met with my dear friend Katherine. I was reading dutifully (note that the adverb “dutifully” appears after the verb “was reading”) all the plaques explaining the paintings on the wall when I found one where a line of text was indented by a single extra character. Did no one else spot this egregious error? Why is this travesty allowed to endure? Did it ruin my day? Well, not exactly, but I’m still thinking about it, aren’t I?

In fact, I am still thinking of the typos I found in on the plaques in Monument Park at the old Yankee Stadium many years ago. I wrote to George Steinbrenner himself to let him know that there were spelling errors on the plaques of Elston Howard (called a “genteleman”) and the “courageaous” Roger Maris. Several years later I saw an item in Sports Illustrated noting the same mistakes, about which the Yankees claimed they never knew. Hmmm, I thought. Did George not even read my letter? Did the erroneous plaques make the trip across the street to the new Yankee Stadium? One of these days I’ll go to a game and visit Monument Park to see for myself.

Even now, I still get calls from people who have a grammar question or who need help with a little piece of text. As I revise the website for the Community Visiting Nurse Association as part of my volunteer work, I correct text and punctuation all the time. The nurses are amazed at the breadth of knowledge I possess on this somewhat arcane subject, while I am equally impressed with their expertise in caring for people. I think they win that contest, since I doubt a comma ever saved someone’s life.

My sister already has volunteered me to review college essays for friends of my nephew. Wait until next year, when he and the majority of his friends begin the dreaded application process. I might as well hang out a shingle, because I can see a line of teenagers accustomed to communicating only via text message vying for much-needed help. I can imagine their college interviews, picturing them whipping out their cell phones to text responses to questions from the interviewer right in front of them.

My grammar expertise no longer includes the ability to diagram a sentence (although listening to Rutgers Coach C. Vivian Stringer’s endless sentences, I am tempted to try), but just coming across a dangling participle makes my day. (For those of you wondering, here is a dangling participle, where the noun and verb do not match properly: “Walking down the street, my eyeballs spotted the red car.” Your eyeballs cannot walk down the street.) I delight in putting a possessive before a gerund, as in: Tina’s knowing the rules of grammar is a good thing.

And it is a good thing, except that I cannot read a newspaper or magazine without finding errors. Books? Don’t even get me started on the typos I find in nearly every book I read.

These days I am on a mission to stamp out the misuse of the single quote. Unless the quote is within a quote, you always must use a double quote. This abomination is my latest pet peeve, as I see it proliferating. A related issue is putting the punctuation inside the quotes, where it belongs, a practice that has been abandoned by many writers. The third pet in the pet peeve triumvirate is the possessive vs. contraction or plural debate, as in “It’s a nice day” and “Its wingspan is 25 feet.”

Yes, I occasionally end a sentence with a preposition, as in: What’s up? And my self-diagnosed finger dyslexia means that I make more typos than I should. I’ll even confess to occasionally splitting an infinitive. Oh, the horror! But, thankfully, I’ve never accepted any sentence that ends with multiple exclamation points, dammit!!!

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but, for the most part, I wear it with pride. It’s good to be Queen.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Tina's March Movies

Despite an abundance of basketball during March Madness, I managed to watch quite a few movies. The best ones of the month were two I have seen previously – "Gran Torino" and "Apollo 13" – and the documentary "The Art of the Steal." I am way ahead of schedule to meet my 100 movie quota this year and am still mad about the movies. Here's what I saw in March (numbering picks up from previous months):

32. The Blind Side (in Hartford with Rose and Sally) – Although I saw this movie last year, I took two older women who hadn’t seen it to see it, so it was a movie and a mitzvah. Besides, who could resist seeing Sandra Bullock’s performance the day after she won her Oscar? The ladies loved it, and even the second time I enjoyed it, too. A heartwarming, true story, appealing cast and sports? How could I pass it up? 4 cans.
33. Mr. Mom (TV) – Why didn’t Michael Keaton have more of a career? Was it that he turned away from lighthearted movies like this one to seek more serious roles? For whatever reason, it is too bad he didn’t make more movies like Mr. Mom, which is funny, timely in its day (the scene where stay-at-home father Jack plays cards with the neighborhood ladies using coupons and rebates is hilarious) and very watchable. It also reminds me of how much I like Teri Garr and how Martin Mull always plays the same guy. 3½ cans.
34. All the President’s Men (TCM) – Time and technology have changed the newspaper business tremendously since the ‘70s, but newspapers had considerable clout back then and the work of Woodward and Bernstein at The Washington Post as they unraveled the story of Watergate helped lead to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. Dogged and somewhat unconventional reporting by low-level reporters, played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, revealed dirty deeds that preceded Watergate and included a cover-up at the highest levels of government. With the appearance of “Deep Throat” and countless twists and turns, this movie plays more like a mystery than a depiction of actual events, but I commend a movie that is suspenseful even when I already know the ending. 4½ cans.
35. Tootsie (TCM) – It appears I am having my own Dustin Hoffman and Teri Garr film festivals this year (see #24, 33 and 34 above). Although it is difficult for me to suspend my sense of reality for practically anything (including “Some Like It Hot,” with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as women), even I can’t resist impossible actor Michael Dorsey as he becomes successful actress and person Dorothy Michaels. Michael admits he was a better man as a woman than he was as a man. Confusing but true. I love the scenes when Hoffman and pal Bill Murrary debate what Dorothy should wear. She sure is not “Pretty Woman.” 4 cans.
36. Fried Green Tomatoes (TV) – Funny woman turned author Fannie Flagg creates memorable characters in this look back at growing up in the South. The Idgie, Ruth and co. stories are told by Jessica Tandy to Kathy Bates. The acting is superb throughout this tale and you feel like you know these people by the time the story ends. Or do you? All I know is that fried green tomatoes look pretty tasty, but, if the secret is in the sauce, I’ll skip it. 4 cans.
37. Nothing In Common (TV) – Before he turned serious and started doing projects about the earth, space and war, a very young Tom Hanks starred in this comedy/drama as David Basner, dedicated ad man and skirt chaser. Separated from his newly-separated parents, David is drawn into their increasingly needy lives, but as they depend on him more, he begins to understand them and himself much better. There is a lot of charm in this movie, which includes one of my favorite movies scenes early on as David briskly walks through the office and has something for everyone he encounters. 4 cans.
38. The Vanishing (TV) –I couldn’t resist watching this movie because of its Oscar-winning cast: Sandra Bullock and Jeff Bridges. Bullock is Keifer Sutherland’s girlfriend, and when she is abducted by a very strange man played by Bridges, Keifer is obsessed with knowing what happened to her. He’s also dumb enough to get into a car with the man he knows kidnapped her. All I know is that the movie couldn’t vanish fast enough. 2 cans.
39. Apollo 13 (HBO) – Ron Howard has made a lot of terrific films, but none better than this account of the ill-fated flight of Apollo 13. Even though we know the ending, Howard manages to keep the suspense level high. Tom Hanks is outstanding as Commander Jim Lovell, as we see the egos, the home life and the routine chores that take place in the space program until a malfunction threatens the lives of the three would-be moon men. I still hold my breath until the parachutes are visible as the capsule splashes down. 5 cans.
40. Vantage Point (TV) – I really wanted this movie to be better than it was, having seen the previews long ago. I’m not much for action-adventure films, and this one reminded me why – too much suspense and blood, ridiculous car chases (why do people in movies always seem to know where they are going even in a strange city?), bad guys (and girls) and unlikely heroes. Dennis Quaid looked intense enough to burst into flames and Matthew Fox seemed a miscast turncoat. 3 cans.
41. Gran Torino (HBO) – I’ve never been much of a Clint Eastwood fan, but this movie (as well as “The Bridges of Madison County”) is enough to change my views on the taciturn Mr. Eastwood. Here he is a tough old bird whose wife has recently died. Having no real relationship with his grown sons and their families, he is content to sit on the front porch of his well-maintained home and glare at the changing community around him. He develops an unlikely friendship with the Hmong family next door whose son tried to steal his beloved Gran Torino as his initiation into a gang. He becomes a reluctant mentor and protector of the son and daughter next door and even learns to tolerate the young priest his late wife urged to keep an eye on him. Eastwood directed the movie and even co-wrote the “Gran Torino” title track that plays over the credits, and he should get plenty of credit for his achievements here. I first saw this movie last year and enjoyed it yet again. 4½ cans.
42. The Art of the Steal (TV on demand) – Dr. Albert Barnes was strictly an outsider to the Philadelphia establishment and art community that once scorned his collection of post-Impressionist and Modern art on display at the Barnes Foundation he built outside the city. The animosity was so real that Barnes stipulated in his will that the experience of seeing these masterpieces be done only in the building he built and designed for that purpose. Following his death and realizing the value of the collection – today estimated to be more than $25 billion – the power brokers tried for years to pry the collection away from its home and bring it downtown, where it could boost tourism and the coffers of the city. This enthralling tale is the best documentary I have seen since “The Rape of Europa,” an account of how the Nazis stole art from private collections and museums during World War II. The movies have a lot in common, except I think the Nazis actually appreciated the art in much the way Barnes did. 4½ cans.