Off Camera with Sam Jones



I’ve been watching “Off Camera with Sam Jones” on HBO.  Sam Jones interviews mostly artistic people; musicians, actors, directors, comedians, (although there is one show in my queue with a skateboarder, but I have ADD when it comes to watching any sports so probably won’t see that one.  Ah, will these words come back to haunt me?)

These people are established in their professions and have interesting things to say, a wonderful departure from the common “it” girl, boy, band or Kardashian touted so often.  To date I’ve watched interviews with Sarah Silverman, Will Forte, Judd Apatow, Dave Grohl, Robert Downey Jr., John Krasinski, and Aimee Mann.  A refreshing trait among this group is they’re all skilled grown-ups. 

Aimee Mann was asked if she saw herself as a musician when she was a child.  Which raised the question about how I saw myself as a child (because this is all about me) and some memories surfaced.  I’ve been thinking about this topic and I often run ideas past Terry to get his take because I'm intrigued with how his mind works, but I’m unsure how this subject was raised.  One minute we were talking about geography and WW2, then we launched into one of those “what if” conversations about what career paths we might have chosen with alternate outside influences.   

I might have had a future as a cartographer as I was obsessed with maps in grade school.  I had a corner of the living room set up as my office, the wall perfect for displaying the maps. I tried to entice my brothers into this study but they soon tired of it.  Or me.  I’d peruse the legends and use my pointer to fantasize my way along the rivers and mountains and roads for untold hours.   Somewhere along the way I got distracted to the degree that I flunked Geography 101.  Probably boys.  Hrmmph. 

My next major fascination was oil painting.  Not to actually paint however.  I was 12 or so when we moved into the suburbs and I had a recurring fantasy of me standing out in the front yard, clad in a smock, canvas on easel before me, brush in hand, gazing off into the distance.  Yes, a vision of a child prodigy whose remarkable talent captured the spirit of mid-century American suburbia, all without brushing an actual stroke. 

Or how about a career in opera?  I practiced singing scales in the car in the garage (for optimum acoustics) for months, a skinny little string-bean of a girl with no sense of rhythm.  These days I’ve got the bosom to fill out Brune Hilda’s costume, if not the diaphragm but still no sense of rhythm.   

I’m most happy to have a rich fantasy life. 

Back to Sam Jones.  Entertaining show.  Grown-ups.  Conversation.  Watch it if you get a chance. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tastes like Chicken

Image
  Jim visited brother Dan in Palau mid 70s and came back with some wild stories of these gloriously beautiful tropical islands.  The ones that stuck with me are pretty much food related, go figure.  There was an open-air movie theatre in Peleliu filled with wooden benches for seating.  Rats were bold enough to scavenge food whenever, so movie viewers kept their feet up on the forward bench.   Hamburgers were served with a cabbage leaf for greenery, there being no iceberg lettuce on the island.  He met our friend Virginia there, she was maybe 13.  That girl took down fruit bats with a sling shot, a treat for her grandmother. They are a large bat species with a two-foot wingspan. She’d spot a roosting fruit bat hanging upside down from a tree branch, pop a small rock into the slingshot, eyeball the angle and let loose.  She had incredible aim.  She’d  nonchalantly balance in a squat to  husk a coconut wit...
Read more

Ethel strikes back

Image
  Grandma was a teacher and she drove the 18 miles from Powers to Myrtle Point every school day.  It’s a pretty drive on a narrow road that hugs the hillside high above the snaking south fork of the Coquille River, past high pastures and a few scattered houses. One day there went Ethel on her morning commute when she noticed “Howard Post” boldly painted on a large rock embedded in the hillside.  She kept going and there was another one.  Then another one. For a stretch of several miles young master Howard took it into his adolescent brain to spray paint his name on many, many exposed boulders in the hillside.   My grandmother’s solution to this embarrassment was to buy her own can of spray paint and on the way home that day, wearing a dress, (she wore only dresses then,) she stopped the car and over-painted every “Howard Post” she could reach.   It took many years for that paint to fade.  
Read more

Pasta ala Norcina from America's Test Kitchen

Image
I’m a fan of America’s Test Kitchen on PBS.   Any recipe from their site that I’ve cooked has turned out beautifully.   The great thing is they do all the testing and tweaking so all I have to do is follow the recipe.   At least the first time. A recipe for sausage and pasta recently aired.   I limit pasta in my diet these days, but every once in a while I’ll indulge.   And this recipe looked so good I made a mental note to cook if for Terry, being certain he’d love it. Then a friend who’d suffered a serious illness was released from the hospital, and here was my opportunity to give this a try.    I doubled the recipe, filled a large casserole for my friend, then one for Terry, and had enough left just for me, me, me.   And it is superb! Four fork review from all who were treated to this dish. It's not real pretty but the rosemary spiced sausage makes me forget that. Serves 6 White mushrooms may be substituted f...
Read more