This is my symphony

I love Lucy.

No, I mean I really love Lucy. I’m not your run of the mill Vitameatavegamin-candy-factory-grape-stomping kind of fan. My fan creds?  Well, I’ve been to Lucy’s hometown in Jamestown, New York where I toured the Lucy Desi Center for Comedy. My husband and I drove  to nearby Celoron to get a peek (and a pic!) of her childhood home, which, by the way, is cute as a bug’s ear as Lucy might say. My small library of Lucy books runs from reference to coffee table. Of her early Metro Goldwyn Meyer girl films, Stage Door is my favorite and of course I have my very own copy of The Long Long Trailer. (Even my favicon on this blog is even a nod to her in the initial we share.) And on my Bucket List? The annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival held in Jamestown, really as much to see all the Lucy impersonators as anything else.

When our TV situation allowed, I’d watch Lucy episodes with my reference books at the ready, waiting to pick out the gaffs and highlights. The Lucy Book by Geoffrey Fidelman is especially handy because the show’s directors, writers, and editors (as well as some of the actors) comment on each episode of her fifty years in television. It’s a trivia Lucy lover’s dream come true.  But nothing can beat Lucy At the Movies for chronicling her fifty years in film and being just plain gorgeous, like Lucy herself.

Of course if you love Lucy and Desi, you also know the story of their personal lives—how they rose to great power in Hollywood, how Desi chaffed at being “Mr. Ball” then occupied himself with a series of dalliances, how they struggled to continue their legacy with the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour even as their marriage crumbled. We wanted to believe, didn’t we? But love Lucy, Desi did, despite it all. Lucy called Desi on what would have been their 46^th wedding anniversary, just days before he died. Their conversation, apparently, included I love yous.

Lucy was loud, she was pushy. She was naive and open-hearted. She loved her man and boy could she work those fifties fashions with cinched waists and crinolined skirts, or trousers with legs up to here.  My own sweetheart knows just how to woo me—my Valentines gift this year were tickets to see the I Love Lucy Live On Stage show touring the U.S. It’s silly, but oh so fun. (Here is a montage of some of the scenes).  The premise is that the theater audience is the studio audience for the filming of two I Love Lucy episodes, complete with commercials for Halo Shampoo, Chevrolet, and Brylcreem. Nothing too deep here. But I clapped. I laughed.I loved Lucy.