Vargas feels pretty mum today which is better than feeling pretty dumb or pretty numb but not better than feeling just plain pretty. Or it is? It is important to be mute sometimes. Well, mute by choice. But mute as in Helen Keller, that's just tough. Hers was an important and monumental struggle. When I was a little girl I got to order a book through my school and I chose her autobiography. A book in the mail with a pale blue cover, what a thrill, what a read.

Arthur Penn and his crew did a bang up job on The Miracle Worker. Of course, the one person who's opinion we would like to have known could neither watch nor hear the movie. I would also have loved to hear Anne Sullivan's review but she was long gone by the time Anne Bancroft played her on Broadway then on the screen.

Anne Bancroft did some wonderful silver screen roles: Inga, the woman on the line at the crisis call centre in The Slender Thread. Sidney Poitier is just a volunteering student when he gets her call. What a voice! The kicker is she has already swallowed a lethal dose of pills. Sidney has to keep her talking till the call can be traced. It was 1962 and the film is noted for its physical tracing of the call.

And I really liked her portrayal of Miss Haversham (whom they renamed) in the modern day version of Great Expectations. Alfonso Cuaron is a good director but this flick didn't really pan out. Only La Bancroft is left untarnished as the tarnished Miss H. in this overwrought remake.

Her best role (neck in neck with Anne Sullivan) was, of course, Mrs Robinson.

What a mum. Truly does leave me mum.