From a Bruce Bawer review of the 49 Up documentary series

Indeed, as I re-viewed the series, I found myself thinking not of Big Brother but of Proust, who sought to capture all of life in one comprehensive work. And I found certain lines of poetry running over and over through my mind, especially these two: "The bell tolls for thee" (Donne) and "It is Margaret you mourn for" (Hopkins). Why these lines? Because to watch the Up Series is, ultimately, to gaze into a mirror—especially, perhaps, if the subjects are are one's own age. At age seven, even the they're British and you're American, they look very much like kids who might have been your second-grade classmates. You recognize the way their parents dress them and cut their hair; there even seems to be something indefinitely period-bound about the way they move and talk and gesture. To watch them live through the same decades you've lived through, their clothing and haircuts and language adjusting to the passing fashions, may be as close as you'll ever come to watching a film tracking you through your own life. To re-view the whole thing in the space of a few evenings, moreover, is to see the period in which you were first conscious of the world withdraw with terrifying speed into the mists of history.

—From the Autumn 2007 Hudson Review, "The Way of All Flesh," by Bruce Bawer.

Added later:

Feeling lucky link to Up Series.

Link to whole review.

The Wrong God crossing

In today's easy Tuesday NYT crossword, for Greek war god (4) and fill _ _ _ S, I wrote in MARS.

For Couples' destinations (6) [crossing MARS at the A] I wrote in ALTARS, only to get wedged when finishing things off in that general area, later.

But they were

ARES and ARARAT, instead.

I think this is at least the third time I've had to reink a MARS into an ARES (or the reverse).