| Nyn: |
Hey, there, Jilly? You in? Ready for us? |
| jmkw: |
Ready for some coffee? |
| Jilly: |
You betcha! It’s a long way from Down Under. To say
nothing of standing on your head all the time. |
| mecedeme: |
Must be hard in the classroom? And at home? |
| Jilly: |
Oh, we Aussies turn the maps the other way around. Leaves
us a bit light-headed, no doubt, but a bit of frivolity with
Senior High students doesn’t go amiss. It’s an all-girls’
school. They understand such things. So do my three children
– two girls and a boy – and the four grandchildren
are learning the skill, but they’re all under 5 and think
the world revolves around them anyway. |
| Eirish: |
But it hasn’t stopped you from becoming a CJ fan. No
upside down stuff in that. |
| Jilly: |
It has been a bit chaotic, actually. I feel a bit like Danny
Kaye’s “This is a film that begins in the middle,
for the benefit of those people who came in in the middle …”.
Watching current episodes on a local network, starting somewhere
in Season 4, and reruns on Foxtel (twice a day – different
series each session) played havoc with recording and was certainly
chronologically challenging. Thank goodness for the Crossing
Jordan Encyclopedia, I say. |
| nccjfan: |
And once you sorted it all out …? |
| Jilly: |
Oh, even before then, I was hooked. You know, I actually went
looking for “Crossing Jordan”. I’d
been a fan of “Silent Witness” in the Sam
Ryan days and read somewhere that part of the inspiration for
CJ was “Silent Witness”. What I found,
of course, was something quite different but absolutely engaging. |
| Nyn: |
Ah, Jilly, some of your posts to Coffeerooms have a certain
… |
| Jilly: |
…Jane Austen flavour? Did my Masters research on Jane
Austen. Hated her at school, loved all that wicked wit as an
adult. Learnt to love a character despite his or her flaws –
helps with Jordan, don’t you think – |
| Emma: |
- so it’s Jordan who attracts you to the show? |
| Jilly: |
Partly. I like the way she learns not to crawl away into a
corner even when she does make a mistake. And I like the idea
that your friends are your friends even when those mistakes
are made. |
| Ace: |
Only partly? |
| Jilly: |
Oh, yes. I’m a sucker for a good romance, whether it’s
“Twelfth Night” or “Much Ado
About Nothing” or “Emma”. Even
when it’s thwarted. I love Edith Wharton’s “The
Age of Innocence”, Henry James rocks …. Every
time I see “Romeo and Juliet” I’m
screaming out inside “Get it right this time!” It
heightens the sense of tragedy every time. |
| mecedeme: |
So, you’d accept a sad ending to the WoJo saga? |
| Jilly: |
No way! Don’t get me started on that … |
| madambeth: |
I think she just has … |
| Jilly: |
What is it with writers? Can they only handle sexual tension?
Aren’t they good enough to give us substantial resolution? |
| madambeth: |
Some of CJ’s good moments are moments of near resolution,
aren’t they? |
| Jilly: |
Indeed they are. Look at “You Really Got Me”.
Now, this is the quintessential Jane Austen moment. Think Emma
... |
| nccjfan: |
She disappoints, she lets down – talk about a trail
of broken limbs. And when she starts to ask, “What is
it with me?”… |
| Jilly: |
That’s her great moment – she’s ready to
be with Mr. Knightley right then. “He took her hand; -
whether she had not herself made the first motion, she could
not say – she might, perhaps, have rather offered it –
but he took her hand, pressed it , and certainly was on the
point of carrying it to his lips, when -”, |
| Nyn: |
-when the damn cell phone rang! |
| Jilly: |
Strong stuff. And Austen’s not scared to give us “the
small band of friends who witnessed the perfect happiness of
the union” at the end. Now, that’s what you lot
are going to do with Jordan and Woody, aren’t you? |
| |
mecedeme rolls her eyes; Nyn looks away; jmkw coughs;
madambeth wrings her hands, eirish whistles to herself; Bourbon
raises her eyebrows, nccjfan drums her fingers on the coffee
table. |
| Jilly: |
You are going to get it right, aren’t you. This isn’t
a tragedy is it? You wouldn’t …? You couldn’t! |
| Nyn: |
Just hold that thought, Jilly. Hold that Thought. |
| |
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