Friday, April 30, 2010

Della Street Dreaming Ennui


I'm suffering from perhaps Blog Ennui.
I don't want to call it 'Della Street Dreaming' anymore.
And I've never even bothered to tell you who the hell Della Street is & why I called my blog after her in the first place.
And, while we're at it, what's with the 'Dreaming'?

Let me explain.....
Once upon a time, I was a child who was Addicted to TV.
My favourite show between the ages of 8-10, maybe older, was 'Perry Mason', starring Raymond Burr as the brilliant lawyer who resembled a Fridge with Gravitas. His incredibly efficient, gorgeous & empathetic secretary was Della Street, played magnificently by Barbara Hale, who was an expert in Eyebrow Acting.
I never missed an episode & as a result became v. well-schooled on how a murder investigation & subsequent trial should be properly conducted.

The show stopped in 1966. Poor Raymond became 'Ironside', a name that really suited him because of his Fridgeness. I stopped watching TV & retreated to my bedroom where I picked my pimples & attempted to apply Mink False Eyelashes whilst endlessly listening to The Troggs singing 'Love is All Around' on my portable record player. Once I listened to it continuously for four hours which was Quite a Feat considering it only went for two minutes, thirty-three seconds.
But that's a whole other story.

Years passed. I forgot about Perry, Della & Paul Drake, Perry's private detective who I didn't bother to mention earlier.
More years passed. And finally, like everything else, they turned up on late nite TV.
Even though it was on v. late, way past My Official Bedtime, which I didn't have then, I stayed up & watched them.
I became hooked all over again. It didn't bother me that I noticed that there was a distinct lack of a Jury in any of the Court scenes. Or that the sets looked like Carboard Cubicles & all the Nite Scenes were obviously filmed in the daytime. Or that the plots were a little thin or not quite believable.
I just loved all the regular characters. Even the unnecessarily Smug district attorney Hamilton Burger, played by an actor who looked like A Human Cigarette. Burger lost every single case against Perry, but doggedly continued his Unfailing Smugness through the entire nine seasons.

But my favourites were Perry & Della. I imagined myself getting into some kind of Serious Trouble & ending up inside Perry's wood-grained cardboard office with Perry looking at me with his Penetrating Gaze & Della comforting me with her Eyebrows.
In fact, I became so enamored with the show that I began painting it. That's the top picture. I made up a v. lame schoolgirl story called 'The Case of the Bulging Locker' about the theft of cakes from a girl's locker with Perry & Paul promptly bringing the culprit to justice.
Please, I beg you, click on the image if you can be bothered . I promise it won't disappoint.

So, when it came to give my blog a name, the first one that popped out at me was Della's.
Which is of course ridiculous because it has nothing whatsoever to do with her, although I often mention my Eyebrow Maintenance Schedule. But I've never mentioned Della's.

Perhaps there are other bloggers who have Rashly & Foolishly named their blog in a rush & then lived to regret it.

This is what I want to call it.
But I can't change the name. At least I don't think that I can.
Oh dear.



5 comments:

Unknown said...

I wouldn't change the name. It evokes part of your childhood (and part of mine) and it also says a lot about your sensitivity towards appearance, gestures (eyebrow gestures in particular). So no, stick with it.

Anonymous said...

You can do anything you want MiddleAgedTeacher. Your body AND your blog is your playground. Just start another blog with the name you want and put a linky on this one to direct people to it.

Darla said...

Your illustrated story is great. I happen to like Della myself but as zizzi says you can change to a new name and still keep this as an archive.

Darla

ReaderRita said...

As a fellow Perry Mason lover, I implore you, don't change it! The reason I found your blog, and read you (almost) every day, is because of the name Della Street Dreaming.
It differentiated you from thousands of other blogs with hollow, cheerless "trying-too-hard-to-be-clever-clothing- industry-insider" names.
Della Street Dreaming gave me an insight to the fact that you were a kindred soul, and I simply had to read what you had to say. (Which I find endlessly refreshing and delightful, by the way...) So perhaps you could keep the blog title, but subtitle it every day, or week, or month. (That is, in addition to your already intriguing post titles...)
I understand your frustration, and you must stay true to yourself; but what is old hat to you may just be the right spark for someone new...

Rebecca said...

I, too, a fellow Perry/Della fan, implore you to honor your Past and Higher Affinities and remain true to this name. After all, there are already so many MiddleAgedTeachers out there, but the Della Streets of the World are Few and Far Between.

Your Apt and Astute observations --such as Fridgeness, Human Cigarette, and Jury-less-ness-- took my Memories to Territories previously Glossed Over.