In the Footsteps of the Great

The other day I went to watch "Julie and Julia." I should say that the part about Julia Child was a sheer delight to watch due to the personality of the character and the superb acting of Meryl Streep; and the part about Julie was cute but totally unremarkable. I thought that the part about Julie did not add anything - whatsoever - valuable to the movie. I wish they would have spent all the time on Julia Child - original, passionate, creative, authentic. I still am struggling to understand what makes Julie's tour de force effort in cooking every single recipe from Julia Child's book so appealing. Would we be equally engaged in a journal of an amateur artist who decided to copy every single work by Gauguin in one year and documented his progress online? Someone who decided to learn every sonnet by Shakespeare? So why does cooking appeal to us so much? Because unlike fine art and poetry we can actually enjoy it? What does Julie's understanding of Julia through cooking add to our own perception of the same person had we been afforded more opportunity to observe her without diluting the picture with Julie's trite observations? I don't even think that Julie's personality is big enough to really offer a prism through which we watch Julia - she provides a mere bland sideline comment. So even though I was not mightily annoyed by her presence in the movie, I still find it unnecessary.

Anyway, this is not the point of this post. The point is that I remembered about this movie just now when my son told me that today at school he looked through the guide on "How to Tick People Off" which a friend of his was secretly reading in class. First of all, I did not know that teenagers need GUIDES for that! I thought that knowledge comes naturally. But I suppose, some extremely conscientious teens who take the art of annoying people seriously enough look for additional opportunities and suggestions on how to hone their skills of ticking off people. My son said that from what he had a chance to read, his favorite ideas were to sing along at an opera, and to ask people which gender they were. I am wondering if I should suggest to my son's friend to set a goal, like practice all the tricks in the book in - say - a month, and to track his progress in a blog. You never know, he may become famous just like Julie Powell. Only funnier, I would think.