Documentaries and Murder, What’s Not to Like?

It’s either Wrist to Forehead Sunday or Sunday Cinema, and I choose the latter.

We started out with A North Woods Elegy: Incident at Big Moose Lake, a documentary about the murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gilette in 1906.  Steven got it for me at the Herkimer County Historical Society a couple of years ago.  I love local history.

The fellow that wrote this was one of the commentators.

I could not find a photo from the actual DVD, so I include one of some of the source material. I have this plus a couple other books about the case.  I am hoping to acquire Chester Gilette’s diary sometime.  I checked it out of Basloe Library in Hekimer once and read it, but I think it would be a good addition to my collection.

After Elegy, I was in the mood for another documentary, so I suggested the only other one we have on DVD, Curse of the Blair Witch (1999), which is one of the extra features on the Blair Witch Project DVD.  We did not go on to watch The Blair Witch Project, as we usually do, because Steven was not in the Halloween mood (as I almost always am).

I’m going to start saving sticks that fall off the trees in my yard and tie them together in figures for Halloween decorations.

Yes, every time I watch The Blair Witch Project, I say, “Why don’t they just follow the stream?”  I still find it entertaining, and I admire the alternate narrative technique.

We continued the documentary theme of the day with a couple episodes of Snapped, which Steven fixed us some yummy BLTs on Heidelberg Bread, made right here in Herkimer, NY.  I do loves me some Snapped on a Sunday.

 

 

It wouldn’t be Sunday without at least one episode.

Steven was more in the mood for a movie, so I suggested Laura (1944), one of my perennial favorites.  It is a break from documentaries, but I felt in the mood to see it again.  Vincent Price as a suave leading man type, Judith Anderson as one of my favorite characters, a stylish noir.  I’m enjoying it.

One of my favorite couples.

And now I have missed a portion of the movie while making this blog post.  No matter.  It is one we pop in often, and blog posts must be made.  Happy Sunday, everyone.

 

Putter, Post, Repeat

I pause in my Sunday gyrations to make a blog post, or at least to begin a blog post.  I may do other things between paragraphs and make no apology for doing so.  We’ll see.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it in this space before, but I often have what I call a putter and post kind of a day.  I putter around the house, I post a status on Facebook, I putter some more, go back to Facebook, etc. It is a pleasant way to spend a day off, and sometimes I even get a few things done.

Today I have gotten a few things done.  I grocery shopped.  I stopped at Honey Brook Hobbies and Sweet Temptations in hopes of writing an article about them for Mohawk Valley Living magazine.  I did the dishes. I made a pepperoni and cream cheese roll-up, just because.  I chopped up radishes and carrots for this week’s lunches.  I am in the midst of making a batch of Chex Party Mix (in the oven with real butter, as God intended).  And I paused to check up on my Facebook friends.  I like Facebook.

And that was when I stopped composing this post and did a few other things, as threatened in the first paragraph.  I did not accomplish anything more of note, but I am anxious to get on to the sweats on, bra off, movie watching portion of the day.  That is, get back to it, since in fact my sweats are on, my bra is off and A Place in the Sun is playing on the DVD player.

Last night we watched A North Woods Elegy: Incident at Big Moose Lake, a DVD Steven got for me from the Herkimer County Historical Society.  It is about the real life case that inspired the novel that A Place in the Sun is based on,  An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.  The case was, as local readers no doubt know, the murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gilette.  Gilette stayed in the 1834 Jail here in Herkimer, while he was tried and convicted in the Herkimer County Court House; both of those buildings are located on the Herkimer’s Historic Four Corners, which I have mentioned numerous times in this blog.

I would like to write a longer blog post about A North Woods Elegy.  Perhaps in a subsequent blog post, because if I don’t get this posted soon, today might turn into Wrist to Forehead Sunday.  And we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?