7. Better Late Than Never
On Saturday I was treated to an early showing of the first hour of the second season, or series if we are to be British about these things, of Downton Abbey. The local PBS station held a donors-only tea and screening.
It was a lovely time with a good friend. And it afforded us both the opportunity to hazard educated guesses as to the composition of our fellow period-piece Anglophiles. Age? Sex? Gay or straight?
In the end there were a lot of women in groups. The average age trembled around 45 or 50. The men there fell roughly into three types: youngish gay couples who posed for pictures with the giant poster of the characters, older men dragged along with their wives/girlfriends grumbling all the way and drowsing during the showing, and older men dragged along with their wives/girlfriends grumbling all the way and sitting rapt during the showing.
I see what you're doing there, sir. I see and I approve.
The episode we saw was strong and it made me think back to Jeffery Eugenides's The Marriage Plot from this summer. What is it that is so appealing about period pieces? Are the stakes that much higher (who married whom, inheritance issues)? Or are the stakes of an earlier time simply more comprehensible than our own?
Of course, it could be the costumes. Those aristocratic Edwardians have some kick ass couture.
I'm sure that's it.
It was a lovely time with a good friend. And it afforded us both the opportunity to hazard educated guesses as to the composition of our fellow period-piece Anglophiles. Age? Sex? Gay or straight?
In the end there were a lot of women in groups. The average age trembled around 45 or 50. The men there fell roughly into three types: youngish gay couples who posed for pictures with the giant poster of the characters, older men dragged along with their wives/girlfriends grumbling all the way and drowsing during the showing, and older men dragged along with their wives/girlfriends grumbling all the way and sitting rapt during the showing.
I see what you're doing there, sir. I see and I approve.
The episode we saw was strong and it made me think back to Jeffery Eugenides's The Marriage Plot from this summer. What is it that is so appealing about period pieces? Are the stakes that much higher (who married whom, inheritance issues)? Or are the stakes of an earlier time simply more comprehensible than our own?
Of course, it could be the costumes. Those aristocratic Edwardians have some kick ass couture.
I'm sure that's it.