9: The 2nd Sunday in Advent Hitchcock Shock

After four years up here nothing should shock me....

BUT.......

When I stopped at a crosswalk this afternoon for an elderly couple to cross the street, the guy behind me flipped me off and drove around me, almost hitting the couple.

Both of the elderly people flipped him off with not one but both of their fingers-so five birds were in the air.

I in turn roll down my window and asked everyone to remember my kids were in the car and we were coming home from church, so please knock off the rude hand gestures......I figured while everybody was doing what they wanted I should express my desires too.


Anway, I was shocked.  But probably not nearly as much as the audience was in 1960 when they went to see Psycho.

I didn't get to see Psycho for the first time in a theater.  I saw it during an Alfred Hitchcock snow day marathon in 1999 back when I taught in the North Carolina school systems.  You just didn't leave your house until all the snow was gone, so by the fifth day I was catching up on classics: Rear Window, North by Northwest, The Birds, Vertigo, and Psycho.

I grew up knowing Norman Bates was the bad guy- the psycho. I wish I could have been twenty in 1960, thinking it was his mother and then being "Shocked" with the twist ending.  Of course, my children's father had to lean over and whisper Bruce Willis is dead in my ear when we went to see The Sixth Sense, so maybe I wouldn't have understood the mental hospital ending anyway.

The cool thing right now seems to be to make a movie about how quirky it was to make a movie.  This started with My Week with Marilyn.  This movie focused on Hitchcock making Psycho and his  relationship with his wife.

It isn't easy being married to a genius-that doesn't shock me.  It isn't easy when the people funding your projects want you to tweak what you are doing- that doesn't shock me either. 

I sure am glad he listened to his wife Alma when she said the shower scene needed music and please Darling, just listen to this score just once.......

The God gave in to the Godess-now that did shock me a little.

OK...so, the second Sunday in Advent is for Peace.  I went to the movies and wanted to find a way to bring it all together, despite the fact that the movie was about the making of Psycho.  The Hitchcocks were able to work together and turn a horror story into a pop culutre canon classic-does that count as peace?

 And while I am at it, there is one thing I am glad my children are learning in the north. Sometimes, when someone is being rude, you let them know they were rude.  Even if I was raised to always be polite....

I hope I didn't shock you.