the groundhog day project

It was Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini that reminded me of the movie Somewhere in Time a while back in relation to Groundhog Day . But, even more appropriately, there is a sort of time loop at the heart of Somewhere in Time , based on the novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson, as well. I am watching it right now. The premise is simple enough. A playwright--Christopher Reeve as Richard Collier--wills himself back in time through hypnosis to meet an actress--Jane Seymour as Elise McKenna--who, as an old woman, approached him out of nowhere, gave him a pocket watch and told him, "Come back to me." Okay, maybe it's not that simple. But, anyway, they fall in love, yada yada yada, tragic ending. Rachmaninov's musical piece, which Phil learns in Punxsutawney and plays at the Groundhog Banquet and quite memorably jazzes up, recurs throughout Somewhere in Time . The past section in the film is set in 1912 but the music would not actually be composed until 1934. R...

This is from yesterday : [Benesh] writes about references to eating the groundhog--Phil says he "had groundhog for lunch" and he reports about how the people of Punxsutawney "used to take the hog out and they used to eat it"--and she adds one more: "In another reference to ingesting the Other, Phil Connors once proposes toasting [to] the groundhog" (Benesh, 2011, p. 88). I don't know how it works in Benesh's circles, but whenever I have been present for a toast, we have not then eaten the person (or thing) being toasted. Still, there's a pink tab here labeled "eating groundhog." She continues: Phil Connors' desire to ingest the groundhog seems a parallel to his early hostile come-ons toward Rita, the allusion to his pelvic tilt, and to her sleeping alone and missing him, followed by his attempts to seduce her. (p. 88) Because, clearly, Phil wants to eat Rita... and I'm using "eat" in the literal sense. This is ...

Continuing from yesterday , like I have done twice before , it's impromptu quotation tie-in night. I meant to do all 21 quotations from round 2 of impromptu from yesterday's tournament, but I was apparently quite tired. I actually don't usually get so exhausted from a tournament as a coach as I used to get as a competitor, but it was a long three days. I've got a few weekends off now before another 3-day tournament. In the meantime, The Groundhog Day Project continues. "What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers." - Logan Pearsall Smith. To tie this to Groundhog Day the first step is to broaden it a bit so it isn't all about authors--our quiet actions are more genuine than our louder actions, I might say. Our best actions are not the ones about which we take the time to boast. Pre-loop Phil Connors is the kind of guy who would boast about most anything he could. Rita calls him incredible--and just did this as the movie play...