Zoned Out on Time, Or You Can Go Home Again (and Possibly Downton Part Three)

Time is strange at airports.

It doesn’t merely become compressed- it disappears almost entirely, at least for brief spells. The process can take some time though, and at times can be excruciatingly slow. Along the way there may be moments of timelessness and also some timely surprises.

When finally buckled in, waiting optimistically for the long line of take offs to actually move forward on the runway an inch or two- amid the weary, half hearted apologies from the captain- each second becomes insufferable, a fidgeting at the edge of your seat kind of time lapse. Later on, as the engines noisily begin the ascent to a timeless place, the hours become suspended. You board in one time zone, “deplane” in another, and the airport setting into which you land is extremely similar to the one from where you just left, minus or plus a few palm trees as now seen through yet another window wall. Where did the time go?

Upon first checking in there were the usual indignities that take so much time (waiting on line, watching irritated TSA agents shouting boisterously at you to move along and go this way- no that way!- seeing your bags slammed all over the place during the pat down and full body x-ray, then running through the checkpoint shoeless to catch up with your luggage). But finally I was allowed to drag my wheelie the mile or so to what seemed like the furthest gate, and in no time at all I was sitting, barely awake while still dark out. 

My seat in the above ground lounge overlooking the tarmac was practically nose to nose with a huge aircraft as seen through the floor-to-ceiling glass window wall, a small cadre of cleaners with armfuls of newly plastic-encased pillows and a variety of mops and shmatahs scurrying around its base. In and out of the cabin they marched, giving hope, helping to mark time. A pinkish bluish sunrise at the horizon threatened to start blazing chrome yellow at any second and time out my corneas, and so I looked away and tried to change seats, but not in time alas to land a spot safely away from the glare, as with the passage of time most of the seats had already been filled. And so I avoided looking at the sun as best I could and continued to count the minutes. Eventually, we were good to go, carry-on stashed high above, and in a word, it was time!

                                  . . . . . . . . . .

I know why people tempt time, tease the minutes and hours of their lives and fly; I just don’t know why I am sitting here at the moment watching a silent movie about some art experts on a dangerous mission during WWII, one of whom happens to be Lord Grantham!!! How could this have happened? This surely has got to be the anachronism of all anachronisms! Did "Robert" unknowingly get trapped in some sort of weird time machine situation? The other incognito experts, his cohorts, also are dressed as soldiers because they are trying to recover some stolen art loot from the Nazis. As always, this is a soundless experience for me, the dialog muted by my refusal to don headphones as I prefer to occasionally peer at the action from the side, glancing at my neighbor’s screen now and again while writing. It makes the time fly.

But back to the question of the hour: what on earth is Lord Grantham doing in war torn Europe during the 1940’s, and on such a risky mission no less??? Edith is settled, finally, the grandkids all are grown, and for cryin’ out loud, by this time- even if still alive- he’d have morphed into a rather ancient- though still stately- old, old codger! Worse yet, doesn’t he even know he will be shot momentarily by some dastardly, fascistic art thief??? These guys don’t mess around! They’re in a rush. . . . It may be time to high tale it back to Highclere!

This particular time passing activity of watching the art-expert-fatality-movie from time to time surreptitiously and soundlessly was preceded by another similar, small screen experience earlier in the flight, that one about the legendary editor Max Perkins. Happily I already had spent considerable time delving into the actual words of Thomas Wolfe and musing on the notion of time and the river, among other things. You know, reading. A time tested occupation that beats both flying and watching infinitely, endlessly bad movies without the sound that seem to go on forever.

So now that I am earthbound again I still am in the process of trying to forgive Hugh Bonneville for that shocking and most unsightly travesty of pointless Hollywood time travel. The healing of course will entail spending much time reading books, not dwelling on the past, thinking hopefully of the future and its promise of more Downton reruns yet to come, and renewing my vow never to waste time again, ever, by getting ahead of myself and ultimately winding up losing time flying back during the onset of Daylight Savings. O, lost. . . .

I still hardly know what time it is. . . .

Winter Wednesdays, Part Two

The Great War has come and gone, as expected it was not so great, and at its onset suddenly we find Lord Grantham in fancy officer fatigues that look more like party scivvies, what with all the charms, accessories, medals and ribbons dangling from it. Nonetheless, he still will be presiding over the castle for the duration, his desire to kill and maim notwithstanding.

What I love most about this chief resident of Downton Abbey may be the actor’s actual name. It’s funny I think, that the name even closely matches his fictional importance- Hugh Bonneville.

To the best of my knowledge there are no Hugh Bonnevilles in the Bronx. Which is why among other reasons I am addicted to this image laden narration of upper class fantasia. Honestly, watching it is like a weekly session in Freudian analysis and wish fulfillment with gorgeous sets in the background. You know, dreamlike.

But I digress.

During the war the palace has been turned into a rather posh recuperative barracks of sorts for wounded officers and the like. Edith is running around like mad, hither and thither, to and fro, carrying books for the soldiers, writing heartfelt letters to their moms. Oh dear! So much to do all of a sudden!

The bedeviled and now quasi-soldierly Thomas is for the duration of the conflict “no longer under Carson’s command,” but back at Highclere nonetheless due to some self-injuring funny business in the trenches.

Then there is the episode where the whole mess briefly and almost embarrassingly turns into an operetta! “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Crawley sisters” it is announced, as the three lovelies burst into morale-building song at some family festivity, presaging the surprise arrival of Captain Matthew!

But, as we are soon to learn, the course of war never does run smooth, and Matthew winds up in a wheel chair. Apparently a shell lands a tad too near to his personage and when he arrives back at the makeshift hospital in tatters,Dr. Clarkson thinks there may be trouble brewing with his legs and then some. . . .

Lord Grantham: “You mean there will be no children???”

Dr. C: “No anything I’m afraid.”

Such delicacy!

And there is so much more, so very much more on these happy, reprised Wednesdays, but I’m afraid I have to leave it there. This is becoming an obsession. I will however share just a few more random nuggets of elation before I go:

-Bates revealing he was once “a drunkard and a thief”- oh, for shame!

-Branson lamenting after his return, “They’re forcing me into a morning coat!"
-“Ladies' maids love intrigue” reminds the ineffable dowager, who herself consorts with an old love, a Russian prince for godsake!!!

And on it goes. Edith stiffed at the altar, then finding out her next suitor Michael Gregson to be a married man, finally being consoled by hearing him confess plaintively, "I'm tied for the rest of my life to a mad woman. . . "  (this precious diamond of dialogue topping my list of all time favorites); Lord G. succumbing to the quietly tarty maid. . . . Anna being overcome with emotion in the courtroom during Bates' horrid sentencing!!!

Before closing however, I must shamefacedly admit to one moment of pure insanity which I experienced while swooning over the reruns.

At some point during the shameless pledge pleas inter-dispersed between scenes, I fell victim to the pitch and realized I so badly wanted- nay, needed, to own the Downton Abbey Limited Edition Collectors Set- one of the several treasured items for addicts that PBS was hawking during these reruns, seducing us with promises of priceless souvenirs. The set apparently features six(!) “elegant cork backed coasters” with the family crest, all the complete seasons needless to say, and a working replica of the Downton Abbey pull bell- it was this last carrot of course that drove to me near insanity as I began wondering if I could indeed spring for the three hundred bucks, and if so, would I ever wear it?

In the end, I managed to regain a modicum of rationality, but now that the reruns are ending (will they ever end???), I somehow feel I may never be the same. There always will be this ineffable, nameless longing. . . .

Winter Wednesdays, Part One, or Why Love (of Downton) is Better the Second Time Around

I don’t want my daughter to be married to a man who threatens to ruin her. . . . I want a good man, a brave man. . .  find a cowboy in the Middle West!

Oh girls, if only we knew that gemstone of sagacity way back when!!! C’mon you Downton addicts, need we even discuss exactly when, why, where and by whom this pearl was said??? You know these lines better than all the info you once crammed into your head during a college all-nighter right before an important final. You've practically memorized the episodes verbatim during the repeat airings of the show. Except this stuff you never forget because you loved it from the first and can see it again and again. And you ruminate on the wisdom of the words whilst wishing Lord Grantham were your dad, right? Castle of course included, gratis, a perk.

But Robert lord-of-the-manor in jolly ol’ Edwardian England isn’t always so soft on us rebels across the pond, like when he exhorts the indomitable dowager countess at one point: Are you afraid that someone will think you’re American if you speak openly?

Oh heaven forbid, not the specter of another noisy American!!!  Banish the thought. On this same, recurring theme, in a later episode we also learn from the ineffable, adorable Mrs. Patmore- as she contemplates the devising of yet another menu of pudding and soufflé like dishes- that we yanks are known to eat things like steak with gobs of ketchup. It seems, alas, that we simply are there for cultural contrast and in the end the Brits still rule, but who cares? How better to pass wintry Wednesday evenings than to immerse oneself in the cozy comfort of an all seasons rerun fest! It’s like a velvety, warm quilt with a silver tray of bon bons within easy hand’s reach.

So thank, you thank you whatever gods of Brit TV may exist for this wonderful gift that keeps on giving!!! And to PBS for offering it yet again from beginning to end on various Wednesdays throughout the winter!

In truth, not all the episodes were equally sumptuous, uplifting, impeccably furnished and gloriously costumed. Remember watching early on in the series as the doc informs a dying patient that his “periocardial sac” was “filled with fluid” (uh oh!) and then jabbing the poor sod with some crazy fluid-removing, suctioning needle thingamajig smack in the chest, at the behest of the ever enthusiastic Mrs. Crawley? Remember wanting to change the channel? But then again, clearly the brewing conflict between  a feisty Flo Nightingale and the ever frisky Dowager was worth hanging in for!

In these early days we also are treated once again to the spectacle of Bates and Anna getting warm and fuzzy together, making the watcher feel that perhaps all is occasionally right with the world. Yet as we get to know the staff better and begin to regard them as family, this good feeling is speedily tempered by our repressed rage at witnessing the ever malevolent O’Brien revealing Gwen’s typewriter to the entire downstairs crew in an effort to “secretary shame” the poor girl. Ugh!

It grabs you from the first we are reminded, and from the second, third and fourth time around as we begin watching all the seasons of Downton Abbey from the start. Amid Napier and Pamuk flying along with the hunt in cute hunting outfits on their majestic steeds, and then the handsome Turkish lover’s corpse being gingerly toted by the Crawley ladies through the dim hallways of the mansion after a wild night with Lady Mary, clearly all sorts of mischief are afoot here. And even though no one watching this believes for one second that Carson ever indeed was/could/want to be a song and dance man, we still accept that Lord G. must make short shrift of a would be blackmailer by throwing the threatening miscreant twenty pounds and essentially telling him to get lost. It seems Lord G. ain’t sayin’ adieu to the head butler anytime soon, so there. Put that in your after dinner cigar and brandy.

Oh yeah, you think you can do this ‘cause you’re a lord? Carson’s former vaudeville cohort spits out in anger as he grabs the dough.

You betcha he can!!!

The winter can be a tad dreary, can it not? But between the holiday marathon at Highclere, and now these heavenly Wednesdays, suddenly I am feeling young and ebullient again- comfortably immersed in a charmed life of delicious melodrama, plush cushions, impeccable manners, perfectly enunciated, aristocratic speech patterns that command, and gorgeous clothes over which to drool with envy and desire (to own, to wear, to be there)!                          

                                      (cont'd on March 17th)