Sudoku and Shane

OK, I finally was able to finish my first Sudoku puzzle, and it wasn't even a 9x9, it was 9x6, although it did have 3 out of 5 stars. I had to go through putting in the possible numbers in each little square and then work backward by elimination. Once I got one number correct, the rest fell into place, but it took awhile to get that. It didn't feel like fun, it felt like the left side of my brain hurt.

So... what's the secret here? More importantly, why is this such a big fad? And most importantly, how do you pronounce it?

In other news more suited to us visual learners, the Movies as Literature class met for the first time yesterday. It's a high school English class I'm teaching here at home this year. We discussed Shane and watched The Quiet Man. How fun is that? It's a great fit for someone who loves old movies and can't wait to share them with the CGI generation. I did notice something in this movie that I'm going to keep an eye out for: it seemed to me that the actors played their roles as 1950s era people playing 1860s characters. They didn't disappear into the role; I was acutely aware that Jean Arthur had apparently just gotten a perm and set before filming, not to mention her histrionics. I don't think pioneer women chewed the scenery quite that much. Her pants were probably authentic, though, according to Wikipedia. They struck me as anachronistic at first.

The next movie is The Quiet Man, and I only got to see most of it yesterday. Delightful movie, and I'm going to sit down and rewatch it from the beginning. It's one of those that wants English subtitles, since it's mostly in Irish. You can cut the brogue with a knife, but you can't understand it. John Wayne is in top form, and Maureen O'Hara is sublime, as usual. And it's not a Western or a war movie, so I don't have to think about his politics.