Rain

I like misty rain.  And I like spotting rainbows:  if you're lucky you can spot a second one outside the first. I've also managed to make a rainbow with a garden hose. (You need a nozzle that can turn the outflow into a mist.) I was on a plane once and outside the window I saw the plane's shadow on a cloud bank, surrounded by half a dozen concentric rainbows.

W. Somerset Maugham wrote the story "Rain," set on a Pacific Island, where fugitive whore Sadie Thompson gets confronted by judgmental missionary Alfred Davidson. When I was researching my Ph.D. thesis about the western Chinese treaty port of Chongqing, I read a bit about Maugham, who visited the place and included a famous description of the city in his story collection On a Chinese Screen.  Someone pointed out that Chongqing had a Quaker missionary called Alfred Davidson! (Coincidence?)

There's a classic movie of Rain, directed by Lewis Milestone, with Joan Crawford as Sadie and the great Walter Huston as Davidson!  There's also a silent version with Gloria Swanson and a '50s remake with Rita Hayworth.  And Sonny and Cher had a running spoof of Rain on their '70s variety show.  Cher played Sadie in Mae West style, with her backside making a bass drum noise. (You had to be there...) Does anyone else remember this?