Vince Gilligan cited “The Twilight Zone” as the pinnacle of good storytelling. Peggi and I reach for old Hitchcock shows when we’re in a storytelling mood and have been working our way through the midfifties via Netflix. I have a red envelope in our mailbox this morning with “Rear Window” in it. I love movies that don’t go anywhere, that unfold in one location on one set. “Rear Window” is like an Advent calendar with all the windows open at once. It’s like a live video feed version of Facebook.
We watched the classic last night because we can’t make the Wednesday night Hitchcock series at the Little. Our band plays in the café on Wednesdays and last week we played to “39 Steps” goers as well as the regulars. Years before digital binging the Dryden Theater hosted a Hitchcock festival on the big screen and that cemented our reverence.
We drove by my aunt and uncle’s old farm last week. They downsized this year and sold the place. The house, just to the right of the photo above, was built in 1819 and was the only house they ever lived in. My aunt, also my godmother, cooked on a wood burning stove in the kitchen and we loved visiting their place as kids. My uncle called us “city slickers” even though we showed up with cowboy hats and jeans on. He’d set aside his chores and take us for a hayride through the back pastures that overlooked Seneca Lake. Feeding cows, collecting eggs, sheering sheep, this was the coolest place on earth.
We had lunch yesterday with my aunt and uncle in their new digs, a small complex outside Clifton Springs and it was a delight to hear her reminisce about their life in Starkey’s Corner. On the way home we stopped in the town itself, coordinates: 42°57′44″N 77°8′15″W, to see the “covered sidewalks” on Main Street that my uncle talked about. The sulfur springs appear to have kept this town, with interesting restaurants and shops and even an art gallery, eternally young.
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“Rear Window” is like an Advent calendar with all the windows open at once.
I like that