Felicitations Felicity Kendal

The secret to sitcom success is in the ensemble, which is what makes The Good Life (better known as Good Neighbors in North America) the classic that it is. Stuffy Jerry, self-righteous Tom, snobbish Margo, and sweet Barbara appeared together, amazingly enough, in only 30 episodes. Yet they are thirty very rich episodes indeed, and to watch them in their entirety on DVD (as I've recently done) is to feel fed in some way as well as entertained...

Though she performed Shakespeare throughout India with her family as a child (later the subject of Merchant Ivory's first major film Shakespeare Wallah, written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), and despite playing herself in that film, Felicity Kendal - born on this day in 1946 - struggled to find a footing in her career. The Good Life made both a star and a sex symbol out of her; she was known as 'the thinking man's crumpet' in the 1970s, and throughout the 1980s and 90s she appeared in the West End's glittering London in the plays of Tom Stoppard.

Having completed Rosemary & Thyme (which finished its own three-year run in 2007), Kendal next appeared in an episode for an obscure little show nobody's ever heard of called Doctor Who entitled The Unicorn and the Wasp opposite David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and then spent her springtime on the West End stage, appearing in Noel Coward's play The Vortex, which wrapped in June 2008.  She then undertook roles in the plays The Last Cigarette and Mrs Warren's Profession before switching it up by agreeing to appear in Strictly Come Dancing*.

*As part of the show's new series, which began 14 days ago.
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In Memoriam: William Faulkner

After a lifetime of reading well above my grade level, I'm only just now able to follow the works of William Faulkner. It's not just that the writing is so showy - 'look how smart I am' is proclaimed on every page - it's that the subject matter is also heavy.

There isn't a Faulkner novel that isn't fraught with taboo themes; as shocking as these would have been to audiences of the 1930s and 1940s, they still contain the power to startle today. If you feel sex, religion, and politics are no suitable topics for civilized discussion then by no means should you read anything by William Faulkner.

Of course, most writers try to make sense of the world by forcing its people and events into some kind of linear form, by pulling a single strand from the weave of life and by studying it gleaning some insight into the whole; Faulkner seemingly took what little linearity he could find in the world around him and shattered it back into chaos through his work.

These days, a journey into Yoknapatawpha County isn't fraught with nearly as much fear as it was when first I visited there in Grade Ten. It's still not my favourite place to visit, but nor do I find myself going out of my way to avoid the place any more either. Of his novels, 1929's The Sound and the Fury, 1930's As I Lay Dying, 1931's Sanctuary, and 1932's Light in August represent both the pinnacle of his career and a gargantuan effort of creation.

Born on this day in 1897, William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, aged only 52; he died in July 1962 after years of serious alcoholism.
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Now Showing: "The Magdalene Laundries" by Joni Mitchell

Recorded live in Japan in 1994, here Joni Mitchell sings the Hell out of one of her newest songs, from that same year's album Turbulent Indigo.

The story of Ireland's Magdalene Asylums is a sad and shameful one, born of the kind of misogyny for which the Catholic Church has become famous the world over; Mitchell's song was the first I'd ever heard of these combination orphanage/workhouses, but in the years since artists of other stripes have enjoined to tell the story as well. In 2002 Peter Mullan wrote and directed the film The Magdalene Sisters about the poor women doomed to servitude because men have been blaming women for enflaming their lust for so long now they're unable to take responsibility for their own actions - all with the official sanction of the so-called Holy Mother Church.


Pointedly, though, Mitchell's song was released nearly two years before the last Magdalene Asylum closed, on this day in 1996. How much longer would they have stayed open, I wonder, if she hadn't?
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Gratuitous Brunette: Catherine Zeta-Jones

Birthday girl Catherine Zeta-Jones burst into the North American collective consciousness with her appearance in 1998's The Mask of Zorro, in which she costarred with Antonio Banderas and Sir Anthony Hopkins. The UK, on the other hand, had known about her since she appeared in The Darling Buds of May from 1991 to 1993.

The real accolades, however, came from her appearance in Chicago (2002) in which she sang and danced, in addition to acting and looking fabulous; she won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Velma Kelly, the murderous vamp undone by Renée Zellweger's squinty, stick-thin Roxie Hart. Even more impressive was her performance at that year's Oscars while so great with child the fetus was practically eligible for an appearance credit.

Although her 2000 marriage to Michael Douglas (coincidentally also born this day, albeit a quarter of a century earlier) enlivened many a late-night monologue, here it is already at the ten-year mark with nary an itch in sight. Maybe all those comedians were wrong and she was right...
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

Either the Dutch are entirely too respectful towards their royals, the Dutch press are Internet-phobes, or Dutch royalty are hermits... Amazingly, this is the best picture of Prince Friso on the web.

Of course, after a scandalous marriage to a gangster's moll (for which he had to relinquish his claim to the throne), and a wee bit of tampering with her Wikipedia profile - as previously reported on the Pop Culture Institute - perhaps His High Royalness thought it best to avoid the spotlight for a few years.

Born on this day in 1968, the Prince made a Princess out of Mabel Wisse Smit in April 2004, despite her shady past with Klaas Bruinsma; their children, Countess Luana and Countess Zaria, were born in March 2005 and June 2006 respectively.
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Remembering... Christopher Reeve

Following the horseback riding accident that made him a quadriplegic many commentators remarked on the irony* of the man who played Superman having to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Yet, to my way of thinking, the irony was apt.

He confessed after his accident that prior to it he'd never given spinal cord injuries a second thought; once he suffered from one himself, though, he seemingly devoted the rest of his life to the cause, which made him a far more super man than he might have been had he remained merely an able-bodied actor.

It was a cruel twist of Fate that gave Christopher Reeve his greatest role ever, and an even crueler one which ensured he would never live to see it realized. Born this day in 1952, when Reeve died suddenly in October 2004 his passing was mourned around the world.

*The so-called 'Curse of Superman' notwithstanding...
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