Monthly Archives: August 2025

DATING

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I’m in a writing group where I got the prompt: Write about two characters who like each other but don’t get a happily ever after.

Dating came to mind, and within a week The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times published articles on the hopelessness of dating scenes. The Journal highlighted the use of rejection notes after the first date. The Times went though the particulars of dates and what creeped the women about one table-mate.

The approach to dating and romance is off, unlike Shakespeare’s day when love was fixed. Today it is fluid and adjusting because information is always available instantly. Friendship, not acquaintance, is  a good start, but dating between generations is suspect. In the movie, Network, William Holden admits to an uncontrollable infatuation with Faye Dunaway, a woman a generation younger. The wife screams, “Does she love you?” Holden answers, “I don’t know. She grew up watching Bugs Bunny.”

Americans have become a visual people. Let’s see what you look like on the Internet before my heart throbs. Use a checklist: Morning lark/night owl; Sports/no sports; Reader/no books in sight; Homebody/wanderer; Drugs/no drugs; Talker/thinker; No rhyme to poetry/weaving gold; This is a problem/how to help; Separate bed(room)/sheet music; Irritable/easy going; Adamant/sense of the ridiculous; Appearance/dignity & integrity; Dressed to attend upcoming Kennedy Center Awards/slob.

I’m no good at any of this. In Call of the Dead John LeCarre described George Smiley at his work: “It provided him with what he…loved best in life; academic excursions into the mysteries of human behavior; disciplined by the practical application of his own deductions.” (Chapter One) Of course from those pages George Smiley was Alex Guinness who had the great fortune to play opposite Grace Kelly during her last movie. I can think of no better launchpad than that, carrying out the mantle of George into the future.

That’s where I’m at, in getting to-know-you. But a question from Socrates arises and must be addressed: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” Avoid the old, poisoned Greek teacher and be forlorn forever. Remember no examination should be private. Your chosen mate is supposed to help.

DEVIL SEQUEL

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They’re doing a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. Prada Two.is a much different movie from ONE. Anne Hathaway stars as the rising egghead of journalism.

The old magazine is struggling and is in an atrocious state. like fashion in the USA. No one wants to tell Meryl that the publication is in the dumps. It has had trouble shifting to an on-line world. There are no more scenes of delivering the book to the house; no one has time to read. Fashion’s creative side today has taken inspiration from the alley behind the New York Police Department.

The magazine needs fresh blood. Meryl, entrenched and wrinkled, trying on clothes to hide her belly is tiring. No one has the capacity to anticipate each whim. Of course, Anne is Meryl’s favorite despite less-fat Emily’s attempts to stab her in the back all the time.

The story has to go somewhere, so Stanley Tucci has been demoted to the kitchen, the chef of the business. Who cares about shoes when risotto con cream de aspirate rovennoti is in the offing. The food portions of DEVIL TWO  are fantastic. Super secret spoiler alert. In One Anne has a spoiled boyfriend who goes to Boston to be a sou-chef. He’s no longer on the scene, but Anne has always liked Stanley and romance over the food makes for an interesting counterpoint. 

They’ve brought in Meryl’s husband (which number) played by Kenneth Branagh. There’s no way to make DEVIL TWO a family film: The audience won’t watch an old white couple having to remind one another to tie shoe laces. With additional writing, someone might be able to make DEVIL TWO, an Alzheimer’s comedy.