Continuing an informal series in odes to local video stores, count this one as a shoutout to
Vulcan Video. But we’ll get to that.
First: I should have been British. I hold this truth to be as self-evident as the restorative powers of a half-pint of Tamale House hot sauce. Granted, I tried living in England once, a brief summer blip interning for what would eventually be known as the house that built
Harry Potter (the movie), Heyman Films, and what I took away from those few months, aside from the added pub weight, was the realization that I, like Jo from
Little Women, am not fashionable enough for London. And yet, I stand resolved: There’s a tavern in some sleepy burg, where everyone is plumpish and bad-toothed, and in that tavern there is a pint, forever full and frothy, with my name on it.
How do I know this? Let me count the ways. It started with an early, unhealthy obsession with the British royalty and their yen for dismantling a head from a body. Eventually, I maturated to a love affair with Brit film – especially
Winterbottom – and all things BBC. The comedies – like the original, impossibly squirming
Office (as much as I love Pam and Jim, until their affair
plays out to Yaz, they’ll never hold a candle) and
Spaced, which finally gets a DVD release in July (watch this space) – and the dramas: glorious corseted stuff by way of Austen and Trollope. And then the mysteries. I’ll run screaming from any hint of real horror (case in point: I quivered through a mere half-hour of next week’s release
The Strangers before I bolted for the exit), but give me a fuddy-wuddy
Marple Mystery or cool-cat
Inspector Lynley and I’m a happy camper.
