Elsa Anne Ekenstierna came to Marietta in September of 1952, a blue-eyed and bushytailed native of Roselle, New Jersey, prepared to start her college education.

Her high school guidance counselor convinced her that Marietta College would be the perfect choice. Nine students from her high school had attended or were currently attending Marietta College. Her mother drove her out – an entire day’s drive in those days before interstate highways.

Immediately, she fell in love with Marietta’s small town charm.  She studied English and drama at Marietta College and pledged Chi Omega. It was there that her life changed forever when she met my grandfather, William H. (Bill) Thompson, Jr.  I’ve heard the story more times than I can count, but it never gets old, so of course, for the purpose of this very professional and detailed interview, once more wouldn’t hurt.

 “I was in the midst my senior year. I was a singer, and he was a musician, a jazz pianist. We’d never been introduced, but someone said to him “you oughta get to know Elsa.” As it turned out, we were in the same 16th century English class together. One day after class, he introduced himself and asked to hear me sing.

We walked to the college music room and I sang “Lover Man,” (a Billie Holliday tune) for him, as he accompanied me on piano.

He asked me to join his band for a telethon on WTAP, which I agreed to. So, a couple of days later – must have been a Saturday -the Chi Omegas were having a rush party, and someone called me to the phone. I heard a voice on the other line say “Elsa, this is Bill, can I come out to pick you up and we can rehearse at my house?”

Well, you’re never supposed to leave a rush party, but I didn’t care. I left. We practiced, and I met his mother, out in their old farm house, which sat where today’s Exit 1 off I-77 is located. We were driving on the way back when suddenly he said “I don’t suppose you’d go out with me?”

I was pinned to someone else at the time (essentially, engaged), to someone who was away from school. Besides, all of my sorority sisters were always going out on dates, so I agreed. He picked me up the following night. We went to the American Legion, since he was a veteran, having played in the Second Army Band. We drank some beer, danced, talked, and after he drove me back, he parked in the President’s driveway across from the Chi Omega house. All of a sudden, he takes off his glasses, leans over, and kisses me. He says “Elsa, I think we should get married.” I said, “I think we should, too!”

The wedding was the following June, and the rest is history. These days, my granny can  be hard to get ahold of – she’s always at it, whether “it” refers to working nearly full time at Bird Watcher’s Digest (BWD), volunteering at Campus Martius Museum, serving on church council at St. Luke’s Lutheran (where she often organizes fellowship events), participating in Morning Rotary, and on the House Corporation for Chi Omega Sorority (National). She’s also a former trustee of Marietta College, one of the founders of the Marietta Natural History Society and the Marietta Farmer’s Market, and she just got invited to be a board member of the Salvation Army.

The woman is busy. Call her home phone, and either she’ll pick up (accompanied by the background hum of law and order SVU, steam releasing from the iron, and the occasional dog bark), or you’ll be treated to her self-recorded singing voicemail. The voicemail chimes, in typical Elsa fashion, “What’ll you do when I am far away, and can’t speak to you, what’ll you do? Huh? Leave a message? What a GREAT idea!” CLICK. Believe it or not, I got ahold of her on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

“HELLLOOOOO!  I heard on the other line.

“This is Annalea.”

“WHO??” she replied, accompanied by a cackle of laughter.

She’d just gotten back from helping plan the German Faschnacht dinner at church; a yearly event full of joyous music, congregation members dancing, and homemade soups (even take-out!).

I wanted to know about our family business. My first question for Granny was an obvious one: How did BWD come to be? She had her answer ready. “Well, Bill had a degree and Master’s in journalism, he’d worked with the college as the VP of Development, while I had taken up an interest in bird watching. A friend and professor at the college, Bill Sheppard had previously launched Pro Football Digest, and was willing to help us by editing the first issue. We hired a clipping service to clip any newspaper articles about birds, bird watching, etc. Before you knew it, we’d identified hundreds of writers and columns. There seemed to be a lot written about birds, and many astute birdwatchers. We wanted to put something together to form a compelling and informative publication about bird watching. We started the business out of our house – we went to a local printer with the articles and decided to have it be digest size. Richardson Printing did it for us, and they had a perfect binder we needed for our digest-sized publication.

Sept 1978 was the first issue – we sent out about 34,000 copies to every name we could identify. We got a small response, about a 7-8% return, which wasn’t amazing, but it was encouraging enough that we decided we would continue. One of the first issues happened to go to Roger Tory Peterson, probably one of the most respected bird watchers of all time. He sent us a very detailed critique of the issue, including what we should and should not include. It was very good advice. We were in our house with the business for five years, and it was tough on the children (Billy, Andy, Laura).

The whole first floor of our home was an office. Your grandfather used to joke that I’d open the mail in the kitchen and get mayonnaise on the new subscriptions. After five years, we realized we needed to have a more professional setting, more business-like. We went out to the Norwood area, to a building that was owned by a cousin of Bill’s – he’d rented out the top floor to an oil and gas company (which was in sort of a slump) so they’d moved out. We rented out the upstairs, but eventually, grew to a place where we needed more room. We had a great big computer that took up an entire room on its own (can you believe that?). We looked all over town, but couldn’t find much. Bill came back to his cousin and asked for the 1st floor as well, and the cousin offered to sell the building.

The next day, we had Chinese food, but Bill was unsure about our big purchase. I opened a fortune cookie, and wrote “CONFUCIUS SAYS: BUY THE BUILDING!” I glued it back together and Bill happened to open it. After that, we bought the building. We’ve been in that building since 1983.”

Of course, I wanted to know the stats now. “What are the stats these days?” I asked.

Counting family, she answered, we have 11 employees, over 40,000 readers, 6 bi-monthly issues, and an alternate publication (Watching Backyard Birds). We have subscribers all over the world.

And what about the nature of a family business, as compared to other businesses, I inquired. “It can be a struggle to keep a professional attitude toward one another, and when you’re at work, everybody has to be treated as an employee who does a particular job, and has certain responsibilities. And I think that there are businesses where family members are employed and don’t necessarily take their responsibilities seriously, but in our family, we do, and we definitely don’t treat the non-family employees as if we’re the inside and they’re the out. That’s very important.”

She mentioned that what truly makes it special is the personal touch they’re able to provide as a family-owned business. As an example, Elsa has established relationships with many subscribers, who recognize her voice as soon as she answers the phone with: “Bird Watcher’s Digest… Elsa speaking.” As we were on the phone, her kitten, Willie Nelson, came in with a big beetle in his mouth. “What is that in your mouth? What is that?” I heard, along with some rustling. “You little monkey, you caught a beetle? Give me that,” she said, but he scampered away and she gave up.

Back to the interview. Now, I had a few more laid back questions for her.

I asked, what are your three favorite things about Marietta? Her reply: “The rivers, the lovely, thriving downtown, and the campus of Marietta College, of course.”

Death row meal? “Oh boy. Well first of all, I’ll have a Manhattan. And then, I think I’ll have a nice, rare, filet mignon, a stuffed baked potato, a nice salad. And, for dessert? I offer my own strawberry-rhubarb pie.” I have to agree on that one, the pie is damn good, and she can make a mean Manhattan.

I thought I should include some of her favorite childhood stories, as well. So I asked her, what’s the first story you remember? “Well, lived in Bayonne, New Jersey, before we moved to Roselle. We were on the third floor, in an apartment house. One floor was stacked on top of another – you went on a stairway past the first and second floor doors up to ours on the third. And my mother would wash clothes, then open the kitchen window, and hang the clothes on a clothesline that she could pull in and out. In the wintertime, she opened the window and pulled in my pajamas (footie pajamas) and they were frozen solid, and it stood up in the middle of the kitchen floor. I was just a baby, probably three years old.”

Something that we both share is a love of Halloween. Truly, I’ve had many nightmares of missing the entire night of Trick-or-Treat, as a child. To this day, she dresses up as a witch, every single year. She has a silver cauldron (sometimes used for making spiced apple cider and whiskey) but around this time of year, specifically for pounds of candy for miniature ghosts, goblins, vampires, and the like. She gets great joy from Trick-or-Treat night. When my grandfather was alive, he’d play spooky music on the piano, just on the other side of the porch window, and crack it open, with orange, glowing candles as his only light to see. “I always loved Halloween. One Halloween, I was 5 years old. This was after we moved to Roselle. I loved to get dressed up in costume. Back then you just went to your neighborhood, not two towns over, the way you do now. I’d so look forward to it. One day and night of Halloween it was pouring, and I cried and cried, “Mama, I’m going to miss Halloween.” My mother said, “Oh no you’re not!” and dressed me in a raincoat, and gave me a fishing pole and a bucket. So I was a fisherman, and people threw treats in my bucket. It was great.” Of course, I’ve heard most of these stories, bits and pieces over the years, told by my grandfather, my father, my uncle and aunt, usually at family dinners, or during cocktail hour, as a fire crackles behind us in the fireplace.

“Why do you do all that you do?” I asked her. She paused,

Well, I’ve made up my mind a long time ago to be a happy, satisfied, contributing person, in my community and my life in general. I guess my rationale is that you can consciously make up your mind to be fulfilled and fulfill the lives of others, or always be looking for something or someone to make you happy. And if you look at life that way, happiness may never come. You make yourself happy.

And what would she change about her life, if she was able to? “I love everything I’ve been, and there’s a reason for everything I’ve seen. I can’t think of anything that I’d change. I’ve had an incredibly wonderful, blessed life, and I can’t think of a single thing I’d like to be different.” To Elsa, the legacy she leaves includes many things – the family business, of course; but above all, her children and her grandchildren. Of course, I had to ask the question of all questions. But what would you want people to know after you’re gone? “That I loved every moment I was alive.” What about to the ones you love? “I’ll see you later.”

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Blue Ruin begins the way it eventually ends – with quiet, panning shots around an empty house. At least you think it’s empty. Then the camera falls on the shoulder of a man in mid-bath, the steam still rising, the water still running. He thinks he hears a sound so he shuts off the water to listen. No one. It was nothing. He turns the faucet back on and leans back, then bolts upright as he hears another sound, his ears perking up. When he hears the front door start to twist open he jumps up and we see him kick out a screen window and jump out, still soaking wet and with nothing but a towel and a handful of wet clothing. He darts across the backyard as a young family enters through the front door, home from getting ice cream on a summer night. This man precedes to do a series of other questionable things, including digging through garbage for his dinner and heading back to sleep in his car, not before using a piece of garbage as a bookmark for his novel.

From what we can see, the main character, Dwight (Macon Blair) is a homeless loner, who combs the beach for trash and aluminum cans. He has little to no human contact. He observes others with a glassy-eyed expression. In the next scene, he’s being woken by a police officer as he sleeps. It’s late morning in his rusty, bullet-ridden 90’s Pontiac. The officer addresses him by name and asks him to come down to the station where she breaks some apparently big news to him – the man convicted of a horrible crime that wreaked havoc on his family is about to be released from prison in a matter of days.

As the audience learns more about Dwight, it becomes apparent that he is a broken, haunted, shell of a human being. A prisoner of his own mind since the murders, he has retreated into a solitary existence. He exists far from a world that would allow such a thing to happen – at the beach, where his family formerly spent summers as he grew up; a fleeting memory for the now bearded, unkempt man in stale clothing. Dwight has abandoned family and friends, for, from what we understand, could be a matter of years. But now a single purpose propels him forward – the release of the person who did his family wrong.

Dwight is not an epic action hero or avenging vigilante; in fact, his efforts reveal the opposite – a clumsy, yet painstakingly determined man digging a deeper and bloodier hole by the minute. Blair is the heart and soul of the film. He goes above and beyond in the lengthy dialogue-free scenes, just as he does in conversation with those he loves and those he abhors. The camera gets lost in the sadness pouring from his glossy, animated eyes on several occasions. The spiral of anger, confusion and aching loneliness pulls viewers headfirst into a world few would enter willingly.  Blue Ruin is somewhere between a thriller and a horror movie – it walks the fine line between a Hitchcock film and a Tarantino movie. It shocks you and forces your hands over your mouth in preparation for the next brutal scene. It peels the blinds back to reveal things you would never, ever want to see in real life. Scenes that are very difficult to watch, yet in the next, you may have some comedic relief. Of course, these moments are fairly dark in nature.

Alas, there is a lack of detail that I will only allude to, a handful of moments that make this worth watching – and if I were to divulge them to you now, those 90 minutes would not affect you to the extent that they should. I will say this, however: The stark simplicity is what makes the film. A Hollywood version would over-complicate things with unnecessary subplots, excessive juxtaposition, and scene after scene spent highlighting just how bad the villain really is. The soundtrack would over-compensate and distract you. The scenes, the music, the characters – all would be spoon-fed to the audience. And there would be a disappointing lack of authenticity. Yet, in this film, we only hear one song. One haunting, eerily appropriate song – “No Regrets”, by Little Willie John. As Dwight drives away from a brutal scene, his shirt soaked in blood, you hear the 50’s era singer proclaiming the lyrics joyfully, the contrast between the song and the scene makes your stomach drop, your knees weak, and you prepare for it to haunt your dreams. “i’ve no regrets, no regrets, no regrets, i’m living the life of a king. i’ve been a lot of places, oh, and i’ve seen a lot of things.”

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Wes Anderson‘s films have always both impressed and inspired me. Although with the offbeat humor and often times dark subject matter, you could say they aren’t for everyone. However, I would certainly say they have always been for me. Anderson’s newest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, has what you would call an all-star cast. Although my personal favorites were the performances of Edward Norton and Adrian Brody, the highly impressive cast also includes Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Willem Dafoe, Ralph Fiennes, Jeff Goldblum, and Sarosie Ronan, just to name a few. Possibly the most intriguing part of the film is the way it was shot – breathtaking scenery, sharp, colorful images, and intricate costumes. The film is brimming with visual humor, including deliberately fake (yet exquisitely detailed) miniatures and, of course, Anderson’s trademark gift for making the most mundane activities look ridiculous.  The simple action of riding in an elevator, decorating a pastry, or placing a telephone call is enough to have the audience laughing uncontrollably.

The setting is Europe, in the fictional ‘Republic of Zubrowka’ within a once flourishing hotel, now sparsely populated, ambiguous, and muted. In true Wes Anderson form, there is a story within a story….within a story. The author of a new book entitled ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ (Tom Wilkinson) begins the tale in 1985, and peddles back to 1968, when his younger self (played by Jude Law) meets Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), owner of the now-defunct Grand Budapest Hotel.  Moustafa agrees, over dinner, to tell the curious young author about how he came to preside over this odd establishment.

Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel, is the protagonist of the film, which is narrated by Zero (Tony Revolori), his apprentice and the lobby boy of the hotel.  M. Gustave glides through the hotel like he owns the place, complete with perfect posture and a distinct cologne known as eau de panache. His only capital incudes “a set of ivory-backed hair brushes and my library of romantic poetry,” whose contents he can quote extensively at any given opportunity. According to Gustave, his good looks may have fossilized somewhere in middle age — while ruefully glancing at his passport photo, he remarks, “I was once considered a great beauty”. Gustave remains irresistible to the hotel’s endless retinue of “rich, old, insecure, vain, superficial, blond, needy”, and as he explains, “I go to bed with all my friends.” One of these is the 84-year-old Madame Celine  (Tilda Swinton), who, Gustave contends, “was dynamite in the sack.” When he learns of her sudden death, he leaves immediately for her castle. When he sees her lying inside her decadent casket, he delivers my favorite line of the film – “You’re looking so well, darling! I don’t know what sort of cream they put on you down at the morgue, but I want some.”

The plot twist is when Gustave learns that Madame Celine has left him her most prized possession, a treasured work of art titled “Boy with Apple”, which is explained to be worth incredible riches; and, in seeing the outrage of Madame’s family members, is assumedly worth more than the entire estate. What follows is a highly dramatic fight to the death for this painting, which Gustave and Zero steal from the home of Madame Celine, and stow away in the Grand Budapest Hotel. The film continues on, peppered with irony, playful cynicism, and whimsical cameos from the likes of Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and Owen Wilson. I hesitate to give more away, even though I do believe that no matter how many reviews or summaries you’ll read about this film, nothing compares to the big screen.Wes Anderson movies are all about the little quirks, the understated moments that we all experience in everyday life, only Anderson exaggerates them perfectly.

By the end of the film, as an audience member you’re not particularly incredibly happy nor supremely sad. You don’t cry, crack, or shake – this film isn’t meant to be emotionally overwhelming or cause you to be fabulously happy, as many today do. No, I found that the feeling is much different. You leave the theater, perhaps a little melancholy, and slowly begin the readjustment to a world in which the characters are less exuberant and the colors more muted. The composition of the world is not what you had adjusted yourself to for the last few hours. But that’s what’s truly beautiful about Wes Anderson’s work – it is always an escape that makes you reconsider your own reality.

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Late one evening, restless and unable to get to sleep (this happens more often than I’d like, particularly when there’s a full moon), I thought to myself, “I need to watch a good movie.” In all honesty, sometimes that’s all it takes to help me settle down – in a bizarre way, the racing thoughts that often prevent me from sleep may be calmed by seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. Being in somewhat of a melancholy mood, I decided to go for a Noah Baumbach film – his latest, Frances Ha.

Written by Greta Gerwig and Baumbach (who have been romantically linked since 2011), the film is shot entirely in black and white, and Gerwig plays the title role of Frances. The beginning scenes introduce Frances and her best friend, Sofie (played by Mickey Sumner), who share an apartment in New York City. Frances is a dancer, while Sofie is a writer.  Frances is at a bit of a standstill in her life; that familiar post-college phase where part of her wants to recoil and hide from reality, while another part wants to forge assertively into the life of an independent adult. At the moment, Frances is hanging in the balance. She is somewhat child-like – I imagine her lying on her back on a carousel, spinning in circles and dizzy, unsure whether to get up and make a jump. Frances is attempting to get some career traction in a dance company, but throughout most of this film, it is unsuccessful – to a disheartening degree. She dreams of a career as a dancer, but her moves are only barely sufficient – they are good-natured, yet klutzy. She runs and frolics, spinning, almost the human-version of a tornado touching down on the smooth wooden dance floor. She “can’t account for her bruises” and makes wry comments about herself: “I’m so embarrassed. I’m not a real person yet”. In the meantime, Frances and Sofie act like teenagers, playing all sorts of youthful games, such as play-fighting, singing and twirling in circles across busy intersections, without regard for traffic, passersby, or time. They joke and compare their relationship to that of an old lesbian couple who’ve stopped having sex. Their bond can only be described as capricious, reality-escaping, youthful, and quirky.

Frances’s world comes to a bit of a halt, however, when Sofie decides to loosen the ties by moving out to live with another friend. Frances is left to figure out things for herself – which she is undeniably ill-equipped for. She moves in with two male friends in Chinatown, Lev (played by GIRLS’ Adam Driver) and Benji (Michael Zegen), two dry-witted artist-writers who aren’t a far cry from male versions of Frances herself. Although the main difference between the three is money – Frances is, no doubt, struggling, while Lev and Benji lend more of an ear to the trust-fund crowd.  Benji jokes that Frances is “undatable”. Frances stumbles through life, alternating between avoiding reconciliation with Sofie, and feeling desperately aware of the need for one. She makes foolish decisions, such as a two-day trip to Paris, which she funds with a credit card she receives in the mail. I, myself, was not sure how or where Frances would end up next – but in a way, that’s really what made the film so fun to watch. Some of the things Frances says and does are beautiful, but they are, rightfully so, in an off-balance, idiosyncratic way:

It’s that thing when you’re with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people, and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes… but – but not because you’re possessive, or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life. And it’s funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it’s this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It’s sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don’t have the ability to perceive them. That’s – That’s what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess.

The collaboration of Gerwig and Baumbach is innovative – it is bittersweet, clumsy, yet refreshing.  To a certain extent, this description embodies the story’s protagonist, Frances. It is melancholy, yet stirring; charismatic, yet, at times, cringe-worthy; but never predictable.   The black-and-white scenes are so plush, so rich, that as the viewer, I wanted to reach out and touch them. The stills in the movie could be works of art in themselves. Hanging in a gallery, they’d be the ones to make me pause and wistfully consider the stories behind them. The downcast hopes and anxieties of twenty-something Frances brought rueful acknowledgment of my own disillusioned post-college time. There is a certain sincerity and honesty to this film – in it, humor comes through observation, not through any sort of urgency. This is what makes it not only watchable, but relatable. Frances Ha peels back the blinds to reveal a light that stings the eyes of those that have lived through similar eras of uncertainty – it investigates the frustrations, joys, and ambiguity of being between youth and adulthood. It shines light on a veiled nostalgia – its final message is that accepting your own limitations can bring gratification and ease, and perhaps even wisdom.

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However, Ron Woodruff’s world comes crashing to a halt when he discovers he is HIV positive and has an estimated thirty days to live. At first, he refuses to accept this fact, exclaiming that it is a disease that “only faggots have”, throws his diagnosis papers into the air, and proclaims: “Let me give y’all a little news flash. There ain’t nothin’ out there can kill f*****’ Ron Woodroof in 30 days”. He attempts to continue on with his life the way it has been, but soon he realizes that he is sicker than he imagined. He contemplates suicide, but eventually begins to procure a drug that is being tested by the FDA as a cure for AIDS; AZT. At this crucial time in the AIDS uprisal, doctors were not aware that AZT actually harmed patients and killed white blood cells. Ron Woodruff learns this fact from an American doctor in Mexico, who uses vitamins and alternative treatment plans to aid patients suffering with the disease. Since it is not approved in the United States, Woodruff smuggles the unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas after he finds them to be effective at improving his symptoms.  He meets Rayon (portrayed by Jared Leto), an HIV positive transvestite who, at first, Woodruff, a prominent homophobe, hesitates to make contact with. The two form an unlikely bond, which blossoms into a friendship.

Jared Leto shines as Rayon – his performance moved me to tears.  Woodruff travels the world to find more promising drugs – Japan and Mexico, amongst other places. He establishes a business called the Dallas Buyers Club, which he runs out of a local hotel with Rayon, whose members, mostly homosexuals with HIV or full-blown AIDS, pay Woodrooff and Rayon membership fees for access to the pharmaceuticals that could add length to their lives. As Woodruff becomes more at peace with himself and his disease, he becomes more accepting of those around him. He learns that there is more to a person than something as trivial as sexuality, proven as he defends Rayon to a one of his former friends who spits insults at her in a grocery store and calls her a “freak”. By the end of the movie, you fall in love with Ron Woodruff – he is no longer the selfish, homophobic playboy, only focused on his next high. He becomes not only a hero to those suffering from HIV and AIDS, but a voice. He gives them hope. To me, this role is the role of a lifetime for both Leto and McConaughey. The movie is a must-see; it provides history and insight into the AIDS phenomenon, and it examines the lives of two unlikely friends who connect over an impossible fate.

By all means, do not miss this movie – it will open up your world. And to me, that is the heart of what a great film should do.

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