Meet Me in St. Louis
Slept in today - Matt did likewise. I think he was pretty tired from his trip, and he said that he and his friend Adam had gone camping a few days earlier, and he hadn't gotten much sleep out in the wild. I was up and showered and puttering away on the computer by the time he woke up.
He also wanted to do some laundry this morning, so it was well after noon before we were ready to go out and do anything. But that was okay; I think we were both happy for the lazy morning.
Last year when I visited John, my first morning here we drove out to Half Moon Bay to see the tide pools at Moss Beach. I haven't been back since, but had terrific memories of it. So I suggested we do that, and see some of the sights along the way, and Matt said that sounded fine. He didn't have many 'agenda items' for his trip, he just wanted to see the Bay Area and get a feel for what it's like.
Matt also volunteered the use of his rental car, since he'd paid for unlimited miles on it, and didn't mind driving. We did in fact drive up Page Mill Drive to Skyline Boulevard, which is a steep and twisty route, and Matt handled it like a pro (if there is such a thing). More to the point, the Ford Escort he'd rented did fine, too. We saw a few nice views on the drive up, and then stopped at the open space preserves at the top to take a look at Silicon Valley and hike around just a little to see some scenery. It's really quite lovely up there. Almost as nice as going to the ocean (and generally much sunnier).
We drove up a long stretch of Skyline until we got to Half Moon Bay Road, and then drove down that to the ocean. As usual, the sky clouded over as soon as we were heading down the hills. But it was a little brighter than it often is, and we had a fine view of the ocean as we drove up Route 1 through Half Moon Bay.
I'd figured out where the tide pools were from one of the books I've bought, and was delighted to find the exact beach where we'd been the year before. The only drawback was that this time it was high tide, so we didn't get to see much in the tide pools. We did spot a few small anemones, and a few neat rocks on the shore, and we had a fine time walking along the water and checking out the bluffs above the beach. So it was pretty cool, all-in-all. Must get back there at low tide sometime soon.
We also stopped at a roadside stand and bought some cherries, strawberries, and pistachios. Yum!
Matt, by the way, is a graduate student in architecture, so he's interested in checking out buildings. Well, Stanford has some pretty interesting ones at the main entrance: Real old-style buildings (I thought they seemed very Spanish in style; Matt felt they were rather Italian) with a church and a courtyard surrounded by covered walkways, as well as an entrance court with casts of some Rodin statues. I must admit it felt a little oppressive, like walking into an old building which has been turned into a museum. It didn't feel much like a college campus at all.
Behind these front buildings, though, it feels more like a campus (although some of the architecture is still pretty intense - whether Spanish or Italian). What struck me most about Stanford, though, is how much land it has. The buildings are all spaced a fair distance from one another (not many narrow alleys between two buildings, for instance), and there's a lot of green space and paved walkways. Not much "useable" quad space, though; no large rectangles which people could play frisbee or volleyball on. It's all carefully landscaped, and even the more modern buildings seem a little oppressive.
A friend of mine who I met all the way back in nursery school apparently went to Stanford for college. I haven't heard from him since high school, though my Mom says she's bumped into his Mom from time-to-time and he's apparently married now. It was a little strange to realize that I was walking on land that he'd probably walked on a decade ago.
The nicest part of Stanford that I was was the "Oval", the large ovular green in front of the main entrance, which is nice and flat, and though it has a few gardens on it, people were out playing frisbee and volleyball on it. It felt more alive than anything else we saw on the campus, although I should remember that it is summer. I suspect many of the people we saw were high school seniors on their first visit to the college they'd be attending next month.
Perhaps in the fall I'll go back to get a different perspective on the place.
Garland plays Esther Smith, a teenaged girl in St. Louis in 1903, the second of four daughters. It's supposed to be (I think) a slice-of-life story of a family of the time, although it is downright amazing the degree to which it's Hollywoodized in this film. All the adult women sport bright red lipstick (which is something, for Garland, given that she has such full lips anyway), and Garland has this extravagant auburn hairdo. And the sets were about as elaborate as any I can recall seeing in a film. It was all flamboyant enough that it was sometimes hard to get past that to enjoy the film.
It's not a particularly strong film, anyway. The story involves Esther and her older sister, Rose, romancing various boys, the antics of their younger sisters, and the possibility that the family might move to New York on the eve of the World's Fair. Although Matt said he thought that Garland pretty much saved the film, I felt that her heart didn't seem in it at times, including a rather emotionless performance of the song about "The Boy Next Door". The story seemed to jump around with characters making snap decisions because it seemed like the romantic thing to do, or because it was time to inject some tension into the story. It was all pretty fluffy stuff.
The high point of the film was a Hallowe'en scene in which the youngest sister, Tootie (in what I guess was a pretty famous performance by Margaret O'Brien), goes off to 'scare' some particularly intimidating neighbors. The rather bizarre 'ceremony' the kids perform - throwing flour at the adults and throwing junk on a bonfire - was intriguing, and I wonder how much of it is grounded in reality.
Overall, though, Meet Me in St. Louis isn't a particularly good film. It's not really dull, but it seems like it was filmed with the intention of being a blockbuster of the time, and it just feels too manufactured and simplistic.
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