The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

My father was a trip.

I mean that in a good way.  He's been dead five or six years and there's hardly a day that doesn't go by that I don't think fondly of the old bird.  But he was surely a little odd.

For example, my friends Dave and Jerry (with whom I went to both high school and college) and I might be sitting downstairs at my house, probably on some college vacation, drinking beer and watching a basketball game.  Dad would wander down around 9:15 and announce that he was going upstairs to check his eyelids for leaks.  Meaning he was going to bed.

The three of us would say goodnight, stare at each other, wait long enough for him to climb both sets of stairs (I lived in a townhouse), then burst into laughter.  Somebody might offer an imitation, but it was done with such genuine fondness that it was all good.

Me?  I always loved the guy, but it wasn't until years later that I really came to fully appreciate him.  Likewise Jane Austen.

Dad loved Jane Austen.  The complete works of JA were what he would choose to have with him were he stranded on a desert island.  If you were allowed two picks, his other one would be P.G. Wodehouse.  Me?  I always loved Wodehouse but didn't figure Austen out til I was in my 40s.  Which was a while ago.

But now I hold her in the highest regard.  Truly, the highest regard.

Which brings us to the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.  Go here to get to the main web site, then click through to the U-tube link.  The idea is a reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice, done as a contemporary vlog by a contemporary version of Elizabeth Bennet.

Caveat:  This stuff might not be for everybody, but what is amazing is that the U-tube series lasted one hundred episodes.  A hundred!  And although the cinematography is exceedingly basic, the scripting was not.  And shitloads of people have watched every single episode.

I only know about it because the Daily Beast ran this article.

I'm now still only a few episodes in, but it is not without it's pleasures.  To judge if you can handle it or not, here's a two minute version of the whole thing ...



Caveat:  This stuff might not be for everybody.  In fact, one could argue it's so precious it makes you want to peel your skin off and roll around in a bunch of salt.  Me?  I kind of like it.