The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on March 30, 2017, 04:05:43 pm ---Yes, you mentioned that somewhere around here.
--- End quote ---
Did I already? Sorry! Geez, he only got it a few days ago! But I tell the same stories to so many people in so many places -- at work, among my various friends, to my sons, to my ex-husband, on Facebook, on Twitter, here -- that I can never reminder what I've told to whom. I'm constantly in fear of people being too polite to tell me they've already heard it, listening with an uncomfortable frozen smile and thinking, "Yep, the Alzheimer's is kicking in all right."
However, this particular one I don't think I told anywhere else BUT here and to my ex. I figure most people have no idea who Mary Pickford was, but here I know I'm conversing with a more erudite group.
--- Quote ---After seeing the road company of The King and I last night, today I was doing some reading on the history of the play. Although it ended up making a star of Yul Brynner, I already knew it was written to be a star vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence. She was a big star in the Forties, but how many people today have even heard of Gertrude Lawrence? (Julie Andrews played her in the movie Star, which was a huge flop.)
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The name's familiar but I can't picture a face or anything else. The '40s were never of much interest to me compared to the '20s or even '30s. I know most of my early stars, but I'm lost when it comes to the '40s and even the '50s are pretty vague.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 30, 2017, 07:23:17 pm ---Did I already? Sorry! Geez, he only got it a few days ago! But I tell the same stories to so many people in so many places -- at work, among my various friends, to my sons, to my ex-husband, on Facebook, on Twitter, here -- that I can never reminder what I've told to whom. I'm constantly in fear of people being too polite to tell me they've already heard it, listening with an uncomfortable frozen smile and thinking, "Yep, the Alzheimer's is kicking in all right."
--- End quote ---
Happens to me, too, all the time.
--- Quote ---The name's familiar but I can't picture a face or anything else. The '40s were never of much interest to me compared to the '20s or even '30s. I know most of my early stars, but I'm lost when it comes to the '40s and even the '50s are pretty vague.
--- End quote ---
I found the Wikipedia article about Gertrude Lawrence to be interesting reading. She was quite a character. Absolutely no sense of money. Apparently she could be quite a diva but without a diva's voice. In the early '40s Danny Kaye was with her in a musical called Lady in the Dark. He had to sing a "patter song," where he named 50 Russian composers in less than a minute. On opening night this number brought the house down, and that terrified him because the next number in the show was Lawrence's big number, and, he said, "Nobody upstages Gertrude Lawrence." He was sure she would demand that the song be cut from the show. Fortunately she was apparently OK with the reaction to his song.
Front-Ranger:
This discussion about the New Yorker is more interesting than some of the issues I've read over the years!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 30, 2017, 07:23:17 pm ---I tell the same stories to so many people in so many places -- at work, among my various friends, to my sons, to my ex-husband, on Facebook, on Twitter, here -- that I can never reminder what I've told to whom. I'm constantly in fear of people being too polite to tell me they've already heard it, listening with an uncomfortable frozen smile and thinking, "Yep, the Alzheimer's is kicking in all right."
--- End quote ---
Yep, the Alzheimer's is kicking in, all right. I've found myself doing that lately, too -- miswriting words not just by making typos or regular misspellings but by substituting whole different words that are kind of like the word I want to write, and then not noticing either as I do it or after when I'm proofreading it. What's up with that??
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on March 30, 2017, 11:18:56 pm ---Yep, the Alzheimer's is kicking in, all right. I've found myself doing that lately, too -- miswriting words not just by making typos or regular misspellings but by substituting whole different words that are kind of like the word I want to write, and then not noticing either as I do it or after when I'm proofreading it. What's up with that??
--- End quote ---
I don't know, but--I'm not kidding--the same thing is happening to me. Frequently. :(
I've been chalking it up to a combination of two things, normal aging (at least, I hope) and also the effect of so much typing on a computer keyboard. I can type so much faster on a computer keyboard than I ever could on a typewriter, and it appears that I can type faster than I can think. :(
But I can't tell you how many times lately I've looked back over something I've just typed (especially here on Bettermost) and noticed words missing from the sentence, or, worse an entirely wrong word. I have noticed, however, that often when I type the wrong word, the wrong word begins with the same letter as the correct word. I don't know if that means anything, but I've noticed it.
There is some comfort in knowing I'm not the only one to whom this is happening. Thank you for having the courage to bring up the subject.
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