Follow Up on JFK "Love Letters"

Interested to know what the letters I blogged about in my post Worth a Read sold for?
Here is what the price of young "love" was worth. Sigh...

Worth a Read?

Up for sale at a Chicago auction house are letters and telegrams between John F. Kennedy and his Swedish lover Gunilla von Post dated from 1953 to 1955. They are intimate, private and ironically for sale. How sad that such personal correspondence should be on the auction block. It's no longer a secret that JFK was a dog with an unquenchable taste for the ladies. His lovers have been coming out of the dark for my entire adult life and after so many books, movies and articles, I remember little about what I learned in history class of his presidency and instead think of his lusty and shameful affairs.

Like a train wreck I couldn't look away from, I perused the letters and read every word that JFK wrote to his European lover. Surprisingly instead of being disgusted by this obvious affair while married to Jackie, I found myself sympathetic. "Tell em what they want to hear" is what I've heard men say. JFK certainly said the right things to Gunilla. He wrote to her after meeting briefly at a party and stayed in touch through an extended stay in hospital and his first years of marriage. She believed their connection was real and who's to say it wasn't. Two years after their first brief encounter they met up at a castle in Europe and spend an entire week together. Like so many teary stolen moment romances (Bridges of Madison County anyone?) JFK's is now immortalized in print.

His lover Gunilla eventually wrote a book about their "relationship" and now their private letters are up for sale. Like Gunilla, who bought every word he wrote her, now anyone can buy his words too. Sad, but worth a read?

Stop Ron Howard Please!

I had the unfortunate experience of watching Angels and Demons as directed by Ron Howard. Since I rented the movie for free from my library I am trying to figure out how to contact Ron Howard and ask him to reimburse me for those 2 hours of my life that I will never get back. Ya the movie was that bad.

Now you would HOPE that when a movie team is working with an excellent book, the process of translating it to the screen would be easier than say...rewriting it and having it end completely different! Uh huh, cause that's what happened and it totally pissed me off. Now I gave Ron (yes we are on a first name basis after a lifetime of watching him on and behind screen) the benefit of the doubt after the crap that was his big screen version of The Da Vinci Code. I like Ron, I do, I loved A Beautiful Mind and that Tom Cruise Ireland movie. And he was a first crush when I grew up watching Happy Days, the motorcycle crash episode made me cry. So I had faith that THIS time he would get it right. And for the first few minutes I was OK and then I spent the remainder of the movie confused.

So here is what I think. Ron Howard needs to stop making movies based on books, especially fiction as loved and equally as hated as the Dan Brown books. Ron, Tom Hanks was too old to play Robert Langdon and I have more fun looking for your family members in your films than actually paying attention to the action. Yes, it was easy to tell which Cardinal was played by your Dad, the American twang gave him away. Seriously when you are given material like Dan Brown writes, how hard is it to just follow along? Sure cut out a bit, but really, changing too much just made me want to throw firewood at you. And no I'm not taking back the bird I flipped at the credits, you made a bad movie.

Goodbye to Ireland, Hello to Reality

My home away from home, Adare Manor, County Limerick, Ireland
After saying a sad goodbye to one of my favorite travel destinations, it was a harsh reality to get back into the routine of work, grocery shopping, laundry and everything that comes with real life. In a small way it was also comforting to be back to the grind. After sleeping in 4 different beds in 1 week (Ireland, Home, Cottage in Michigan, Family beach house) which was not unlike a boisterous week during my years in college... I am still happy to be back to the familiarity of my life.
Honestly I really enjoyed stepping away from all communication. I didn't miss the instant contact of email and cell phones and definitely didn't miss turning on my computer or television to crappy sensationalist news or pictures of Brad and Angelina's twins (seriously does ANYONE care? Is this really important!)
Now if I can just figure out how to support myself in a little seaside Irish cottage...with Internet access of course for those slow rainy afternoons.