This evening I went to a Joyce Murray campaign event at Scallywag's. She's the Vancouver MP running in the federal Liberal leadership race, who supports creating an electoral alliance with the NDP and the Greens.
Joyce Murray appeared and talked a lot about the importance of a non-Conservative alliance. Most of the people there were grits, but there were also some New Democrats like me and at least one Green. (Some of those attending emphasized fighting climate change, which is also a big concern for me.) Thomas Mulcair says working with the other opposition parties isn't a priority with him, but he's party leader, not king! I just hope this grassroots movement gets critical mass in the next two years, before the next federal election.
Afterward I went to Book City and found some more discounted books. (Most of them had a list price of $25 to $30, but were being sold for less than $10.) I bought Gore Vidal's BURR (sure, he was glib, but I've heard very good things about his historical novels); Mark Kurlansky's THE LAST FISH TALE, about the fishing town at Gloucester, Massachusetts; LATIN LOVE LESSONS, about Rome's amorous poetry; MUTINY ON THE _GLOBE_, a first-person account about a deadly 1824 mutiny on a Pacific whaler (led by the author's brother); Daniel Boorstin's THE SEEKERS, a history of world philosophy (I've read his the DISCOVERERS and THE CREATORS); Dava Sobel's THE PLANETS; a history of Australia; an illustrated book about modern art, and another of fairy tales. I'd like to read some of them, and even if I don't we can sell them online.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Reagan the "moderate"
Something that bugs me these days is American liberals using the "Reagan the moderate" talking point. They think they're being clever when they say that today's Republicans are so extreme that they'd reject Ronald Reagan. Actually, they're being weak. I won't deny that the Republican party has been getting disturbingly extreme, yet this extremism is Ronald Reagan's legacy more than any other man's.
Don't get me started on Reagan. The Iran-Contra scandals showed what crimes a US president can get away with when Congress and the Washington press don't do their job. Congress made a crucial mistake in 1987 when they spared Reagan impeachment, guaranteeing that his crimes would be repeated. But it's too convenient to put all the blame on a safe target like Congress.
Back in the spring of 1987 the US news media responded to Iran-Contra by launching a big attack on the Democratic candidates in the 1988 presidential race, labelling them "the Seven Dwarfs" a year before the primaries! (Actually, it was one of the more interesting Democratic races, because one of the dwarfs was Jesse Jackson, but I digress.) The Republican candidates didn't experience the same pile-on, despite not being so much better than their Democratic rivals. In some cases this one-sidedness resulted from straightforward pro-Republican bias, but more often it reflected a contemptible phenomenon that I call safetargetism. Your typical Washington reporter clearly calculated that attacking Democrats would put his own position at less risk than attacking Republicans like Reagan.
The continuing conservative praise of Reagan is ignorant, but it's what I expect. What really bothers me is the cowardly deference that too many liberals still pay to this monster. It used to be that Washington would have a big White House scandal every fifty years: the Grant administration in the 1870s, Harding in the 1920s, Nixon in the 1970s. Now it's happening every ten years: Nixon and Watergate in the 1970s, Reagan and Iran-Contra in the 1980s, Clinton and Whitewater-Monicagate in the 1990s, Bush Jr.'s war crimes in the 2000s. This is what happens when presidents are allowed to escape legal accountability for their actions, as in Nixon being pardoned by his successor, Reagan being "pardoned" by Congress, and Obama sparing his predecessor legal action in the name of "looking forward, not back." Such cowardice means that future crimes will be worse.
Don't get me started on Reagan. The Iran-Contra scandals showed what crimes a US president can get away with when Congress and the Washington press don't do their job. Congress made a crucial mistake in 1987 when they spared Reagan impeachment, guaranteeing that his crimes would be repeated. But it's too convenient to put all the blame on a safe target like Congress.
Back in the spring of 1987 the US news media responded to Iran-Contra by launching a big attack on the Democratic candidates in the 1988 presidential race, labelling them "the Seven Dwarfs" a year before the primaries! (Actually, it was one of the more interesting Democratic races, because one of the dwarfs was Jesse Jackson, but I digress.) The Republican candidates didn't experience the same pile-on, despite not being so much better than their Democratic rivals. In some cases this one-sidedness resulted from straightforward pro-Republican bias, but more often it reflected a contemptible phenomenon that I call safetargetism. Your typical Washington reporter clearly calculated that attacking Democrats would put his own position at less risk than attacking Republicans like Reagan.
The continuing conservative praise of Reagan is ignorant, but it's what I expect. What really bothers me is the cowardly deference that too many liberals still pay to this monster. It used to be that Washington would have a big White House scandal every fifty years: the Grant administration in the 1870s, Harding in the 1920s, Nixon in the 1970s. Now it's happening every ten years: Nixon and Watergate in the 1970s, Reagan and Iran-Contra in the 1980s, Clinton and Whitewater-Monicagate in the 1990s, Bush Jr.'s war crimes in the 2000s. This is what happens when presidents are allowed to escape legal accountability for their actions, as in Nixon being pardoned by his successor, Reagan being "pardoned" by Congress, and Obama sparing his predecessor legal action in the name of "looking forward, not back." Such cowardice means that future crimes will be worse.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
DICKENS IN AMERICA
I've started watching a fascinating 2005 BBC series called DICKENS IN AMERICA. (Moira borrowed it from the library so we'll have to see all twelve half-hour episodes in a week. Myself, I've already seen four!) It's about British actress Miriam Margolyes, who's played Dickensian characters in stuff like the 1988 adaptation of LITTLE DORRIT, retracing the route Dickens took in his famous 1842 tour of the United States.
That tour, of course, was the subject of Dickens' book AMERICAN NOTES. (His criticisms of some things in the US caused resentment among Americans, but he reserved his real vitriol for his satirical novel MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.) Not quite thirty, his early books had already made Boz famous as far away as the US: when the new steamships arrived in America carrying the magazine serializing THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, people onshore called out "Is Little Nell dead yet?" MM compares him to the Beatles arriving in the US in 1964. His attitude toward the US is remarkably ambivalent: he admired the idea of a republic free of Britain's class consciousness and open to new ways, but he didn't always admire the actual results. British people today still feel some of that ambivalence.
In this series, MM goes through the same places as Dickens one at a time. Dickens crossed the Atlantic on the Cunard steamer BRITANNIA, while MM takes the humongous QUEEN MARY 2 in the first episode. (The latter ship's captain pointed out that the earlier ship could have fit inside his craft's biggest dining hall.) In the next episodes she travels through Boston, New England and New York City. Later on, she's going to follow him through Canada!
Some American should make a PBS documentary series following Mark Twain's route on the 1860s tour of the Old World that led to his book THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.
That tour, of course, was the subject of Dickens' book AMERICAN NOTES. (His criticisms of some things in the US caused resentment among Americans, but he reserved his real vitriol for his satirical novel MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.) Not quite thirty, his early books had already made Boz famous as far away as the US: when the new steamships arrived in America carrying the magazine serializing THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, people onshore called out "Is Little Nell dead yet?" MM compares him to the Beatles arriving in the US in 1964. His attitude toward the US is remarkably ambivalent: he admired the idea of a republic free of Britain's class consciousness and open to new ways, but he didn't always admire the actual results. British people today still feel some of that ambivalence.
In this series, MM goes through the same places as Dickens one at a time. Dickens crossed the Atlantic on the Cunard steamer BRITANNIA, while MM takes the humongous QUEEN MARY 2 in the first episode. (The latter ship's captain pointed out that the earlier ship could have fit inside his craft's biggest dining hall.) In the next episodes she travels through Boston, New England and New York City. Later on, she's going to follow him through Canada!
Some American should make a PBS documentary series following Mark Twain's route on the 1860s tour of the Old World that led to his book THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT
Today I saw the DVD of the Donizetti opera DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. That's the one where Marie, a foundling adopted by a whole French army regiment, gets her live saved by a foreign peasant called Tonio and they fall in love, but she turns out to be the long-lost niece of a Marquise (actually her daughter, it later turns out), who takes her off to her castle to turn her into a lady of quality...
This version, translated into English, is a 1974 production, staged outdoors in a Virginia state park part of a summer festival and videotaped by the PBS station in Washington, DC. The costumes were from Malabar in Toronto, which also provides the TOR costumes! (The closing credits misspelled it as "Malabor," and omitted the "c" from the publisher Schirmer's name.)
Most importantly, Marie was played by Beverley Sills in her first televised opera performance. (Sills describes Marie as "Lucille Ball with high notes.") When she came out the audience broke into wild applause like when Henry Winkler's Fonzie made his entrance on HAPPY DAYS.
Also, I saw a DVD of some early episodes of THAT GIRL, the sitcom with Marlo Thomas as an aspiring actress in New York City. (At the start of the episode some character, asked whom he'd chosen, would point at MT and say "That girl!" then the show's title would appear below her gaping face.) It's pretty dated, the kind of show where she gets scared by a mouse and when she first arrives in NYC her agent finds her a part right away. It's only a tiny role on a kiddie show where she plays a mop that gets pushed around a floor, but still!
This version, translated into English, is a 1974 production, staged outdoors in a Virginia state park part of a summer festival and videotaped by the PBS station in Washington, DC. The costumes were from Malabar in Toronto, which also provides the TOR costumes! (The closing credits misspelled it as "Malabor," and omitted the "c" from the publisher Schirmer's name.)
Most importantly, Marie was played by Beverley Sills in her first televised opera performance. (Sills describes Marie as "Lucille Ball with high notes.") When she came out the audience broke into wild applause like when Henry Winkler's Fonzie made his entrance on HAPPY DAYS.
Also, I saw a DVD of some early episodes of THAT GIRL, the sitcom with Marlo Thomas as an aspiring actress in New York City. (At the start of the episode some character, asked whom he'd chosen, would point at MT and say "That girl!" then the show's title would appear below her gaping face.) It's pretty dated, the kind of show where she gets scared by a mouse and when she first arrives in NYC her agent finds her a part right away. It's only a tiny role on a kiddie show where she plays a mop that gets pushed around a floor, but still!
Saturday, January 26, 2013
FREAKS AND GEEKS
"Your butt was calling to me"--Seth Rogen, FREAKS AND GEEKS
My latest Netflix TV series is the one-season wonder FREAKS AND GEEKS which I've seen before on DVD. It's a classic high school show about a geeky freshman brother trying to fit in, and his older sister who's determined not to, set around 1980. (The show appeared in the 1999-2000 season.) James Franco and Seth Rogen got their start as two of the sister's only friends.
I like Joe Flaherty as their Father, who says things like "When I was in high school I had a friend who smoked. Do you know what he's doing now? He's dead!" (It's a shame that Flaherty didn't have as big a career as most of the other SCTV performers: in my book he was the funniest of all.) But my favorite character is the anti-social Kim (Busy Phillips). I recall that "Kim Kelly Is My Friend" and the Halloween episode were masterpieces.
Meanwhile, I got started on a new online game called DYNASTY. It's about an heir restoring his father's ruined business empire in the 1930s. But so far I'm just a farmer buying up properties in a nearby suburb.
I also looked at a DVD of Bollywood music videos from India. Some of them were pretty strange!
My latest Netflix TV series is the one-season wonder FREAKS AND GEEKS which I've seen before on DVD. It's a classic high school show about a geeky freshman brother trying to fit in, and his older sister who's determined not to, set around 1980. (The show appeared in the 1999-2000 season.) James Franco and Seth Rogen got their start as two of the sister's only friends.
I like Joe Flaherty as their Father, who says things like "When I was in high school I had a friend who smoked. Do you know what he's doing now? He's dead!" (It's a shame that Flaherty didn't have as big a career as most of the other SCTV performers: in my book he was the funniest of all.) But my favorite character is the anti-social Kim (Busy Phillips). I recall that "Kim Kelly Is My Friend" and the Halloween episode were masterpieces.
Meanwhile, I got started on a new online game called DYNASTY. It's about an heir restoring his father's ruined business empire in the 1930s. But so far I'm just a farmer buying up properties in a nearby suburb.
I also looked at a DVD of Bollywood music videos from India. Some of them were pretty strange!
Statues of TV characters
I travelled to New York City by bus once. (It wasn't very comfortable, but on the way in through New Jersey I spotted some of the locations where they filmed THE SOPRANOS.) Outside the city's big bus depot they had a statue of Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden with the inscription "Bus driver. Raccoon lodge treasurer. Dreamer." Quite appealing.
They've erected several statues of TV characters around the US. (I think some company that airs classic shows has been sponsoring them.) There's Mary Richards waving her cap in Minneapolis, Fonzie in Milwaukee, Bob Newhart in Chicago, and Samantha in BEWITCHED in Salem, Massachusetts. The last one, making a connection between a real-life tragedy and a TV comedy, strikes me as tasteless. Even Canada has a statue of Al Waxman in KING OF KENSINGTON in Toronto's Kensington Park.
I've been thinking about all the other TV characters who could use statues. The ones best suited are those identified with a particular city or neighborhood. I can see J.J. in GOOD TIMES in Chicago's housing projects area, Freddy Prinze in CHICO AND THE MAN in a Hispanic section of Los Angeles, Archie Bunker (in his chair, with a cigar and can of beer) in New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Kotter and the Sweathogs in Bensonhurst, Crockett and Tubbs of MIAMI VICE in Miami, Sam Malone of CHEERS in Boston, Frasier in Seattle, WKRP's Dr. Johnny Fever in Cincinnati, even Dabney Coleman in BUFFALO BILL (with his distinctive hand wave) in Buffalo. Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in LONESOME DOVE could be erected anywhere on the Great Plains, perhaps at the National Cowboy Museum.
But why stop at TV? I can see statues of movie characters too. There could be Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade of THE MALTESE FALCON in San Francisco, Judy Garland (with the posture of a trolley car passenger) in St. Louis, Marlon Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT on the Hoboken shore (I see him twenty feet tall, holding a longshoreman's hook), Al Pacino as Serpico in New York (perhaps in the neighborhood where Serpico was shot in the face?), Blanche Dubois in New Orleans, Gregory Peck in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD somewhere in Alabama...
They've erected several statues of TV characters around the US. (I think some company that airs classic shows has been sponsoring them.) There's Mary Richards waving her cap in Minneapolis, Fonzie in Milwaukee, Bob Newhart in Chicago, and Samantha in BEWITCHED in Salem, Massachusetts. The last one, making a connection between a real-life tragedy and a TV comedy, strikes me as tasteless. Even Canada has a statue of Al Waxman in KING OF KENSINGTON in Toronto's Kensington Park.
I've been thinking about all the other TV characters who could use statues. The ones best suited are those identified with a particular city or neighborhood. I can see J.J. in GOOD TIMES in Chicago's housing projects area, Freddy Prinze in CHICO AND THE MAN in a Hispanic section of Los Angeles, Archie Bunker (in his chair, with a cigar and can of beer) in New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Kotter and the Sweathogs in Bensonhurst, Crockett and Tubbs of MIAMI VICE in Miami, Sam Malone of CHEERS in Boston, Frasier in Seattle, WKRP's Dr. Johnny Fever in Cincinnati, even Dabney Coleman in BUFFALO BILL (with his distinctive hand wave) in Buffalo. Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in LONESOME DOVE could be erected anywhere on the Great Plains, perhaps at the National Cowboy Museum.
But why stop at TV? I can see statues of movie characters too. There could be Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade of THE MALTESE FALCON in San Francisco, Judy Garland (with the posture of a trolley car passenger) in St. Louis, Marlon Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT on the Hoboken shore (I see him twenty feet tall, holding a longshoreman's hook), Al Pacino as Serpico in New York (perhaps in the neighborhood where Serpico was shot in the face?), Blanche Dubois in New Orleans, Gregory Peck in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD somewhere in Alabama...
Friday, January 25, 2013
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
Today I saw the DVD of Michael Hoffman's 1999 film of Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, with a cast including Rupert Everett as Oberon the fairy king. Everett is an actor who interests me: I've been seeing a lot of his films on DVD, even the trashy 1983 miniseries PRINCESS DAISY where he was the heroine's evil stepbrother.
This version has an interesting cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline as Bottom. (James Cagney's Bottom was the best thing in Max Reinhardt's rather slow 1935 version, which I saw last year.) Stanley Tucci's Puck is counter-intuitive but witty. Personally, I find Calista Flockhart goofy.
This version has a handsome, original look--it's set in Italy toward 1900, with the lovers riding bicycles--and some nice opera music. No doubt they were inspired by Kenneth Branagh's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But at times it tried too hard to make Shakespeare "accessible," with a mud-wrestling scene and some not very necessary nudity. (Back in the 1990s it was the fashion to insert nudity in Shakespeare movies: see also OTHELLO and RICHARD III.)
Of course, maybe I was ill-disposed to it because I was feeling sick. (Hope I feel better tomorrow.)
This version has an interesting cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline as Bottom. (James Cagney's Bottom was the best thing in Max Reinhardt's rather slow 1935 version, which I saw last year.) Stanley Tucci's Puck is counter-intuitive but witty. Personally, I find Calista Flockhart goofy.
This version has a handsome, original look--it's set in Italy toward 1900, with the lovers riding bicycles--and some nice opera music. No doubt they were inspired by Kenneth Branagh's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. But at times it tried too hard to make Shakespeare "accessible," with a mud-wrestling scene and some not very necessary nudity. (Back in the 1990s it was the fashion to insert nudity in Shakespeare movies: see also OTHELLO and RICHARD III.)
Of course, maybe I was ill-disposed to it because I was feeling sick. (Hope I feel better tomorrow.)
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Back at the TOR
The TOR resumed rehearsals a couple of weeks ago. The first two weeks were only Tuesday, but with the performances approaching we're now rehearsing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. (Next week will be Thursday instead of Wednesday.)
We're now not just learning the singing but going on the stage and getting our movements straight. For the tavern scenes at the beginning and end of TALES OF HOFFMAN, we get long pipes and metal mugs for props. In THE BARBER OF SEVILLE the chorus only sings a few times, so Beatrice has us onstage without singing in a couple more scenes. For one, the men are pretending to be musicians accompanying the Count's serenade. I pretend to play a violin, and the half-kneeling is a bit of a challenge for me. (I half-kneeled last year during the Vilja song in THE MERRY WIDOW and the year before during the "Bruderlein und Schwesterlein" number in DIE FLEDERMAUS.) I may need a single kneepad.
When we were rehearsing the HOFFMANN scene with Olympia the dancing doll, she was wearing a fancy wig but Giuseppe decided that she looked like Bette Davis in the Grand Guignol film WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? Which reminded me of the NEW YORK TIMES capsule description of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? which said "Plenty."
Back when I occasionally read parts of the TIMES other than the crosswords, I liked some of their movie capsules. (I think some were written by Howard Thompson.) On THE DIRTY DOZEN: "Entertaining as a blow-torch." TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT: "Swell first chapter, the rest not bad." GUNGA DIN: "Plenty of both." STAR WARS: "All aboard." The three-story movie YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW: "The first and third parts are wonderful, it's number two that's the clunker." FLUFFY: "Dweadful." THE GODFATHER: "Minestrone and dynamite." MY FAIR LADY: "Not to be rude, but what was all the shouting about?" MOMMIE DEAREST: "You won't be bored."
We're now not just learning the singing but going on the stage and getting our movements straight. For the tavern scenes at the beginning and end of TALES OF HOFFMAN, we get long pipes and metal mugs for props. In THE BARBER OF SEVILLE the chorus only sings a few times, so Beatrice has us onstage without singing in a couple more scenes. For one, the men are pretending to be musicians accompanying the Count's serenade. I pretend to play a violin, and the half-kneeling is a bit of a challenge for me. (I half-kneeled last year during the Vilja song in THE MERRY WIDOW and the year before during the "Bruderlein und Schwesterlein" number in DIE FLEDERMAUS.) I may need a single kneepad.
When we were rehearsing the HOFFMANN scene with Olympia the dancing doll, she was wearing a fancy wig but Giuseppe decided that she looked like Bette Davis in the Grand Guignol film WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? Which reminded me of the NEW YORK TIMES capsule description of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? which said "Plenty."
Back when I occasionally read parts of the TIMES other than the crosswords, I liked some of their movie capsules. (I think some were written by Howard Thompson.) On THE DIRTY DOZEN: "Entertaining as a blow-torch." TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT: "Swell first chapter, the rest not bad." GUNGA DIN: "Plenty of both." STAR WARS: "All aboard." The three-story movie YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW: "The first and third parts are wonderful, it's number two that's the clunker." FLUFFY: "Dweadful." THE GODFATHER: "Minestrone and dynamite." MY FAIR LADY: "Not to be rude, but what was all the shouting about?" MOMMIE DEAREST: "You won't be bored."
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Coasterland
I've started another of those cute kid-sized Zynga games whose apps you can get on Facebook. This one's called Coasterville. It's a bit like Cityville, but it involves building an amusement park. You earn money, ship goods and collect thrills to build attractions and outfit food-selling carts. I'm seeing how far I can get without spending real money to get special bucks. And if I do spend real money, we'll see how long that lasts and whether I end up acquiring more. (When you buy those bucks the first time, they give you a special deal, but it costs more when you buy more.)
I've got up to level 20 in the game Pet Rescue Saga. As I play that game, I keep thinking of the movie NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE, maybe because the pets are like animals stuck in a house. (I also keep thinking of the book LITTLE WOMEN, which I've never read.) I have a feeling that John Landis sold his soul to the Devil when he made ANIMAL HOUSE: some directors just give me that vibe. Another example would be Roman Polanski.
Lately, I've been getting the feeling that some of the things I'm now writing in this blog are things I've written earlier. (There are now too many entries for me to go back through to prove or disprove it.) I'm starting to wonder if I only have a finite number of things to say. Maybe there's a way to put tags on entries to categorize them so I can check more easily, but I'm still too lazy to figure it out.
I've got up to level 20 in the game Pet Rescue Saga. As I play that game, I keep thinking of the movie NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE, maybe because the pets are like animals stuck in a house. (I also keep thinking of the book LITTLE WOMEN, which I've never read.) I have a feeling that John Landis sold his soul to the Devil when he made ANIMAL HOUSE: some directors just give me that vibe. Another example would be Roman Polanski.
Lately, I've been getting the feeling that some of the things I'm now writing in this blog are things I've written earlier. (There are now too many entries for me to go back through to prove or disprove it.) I'm starting to wonder if I only have a finite number of things to say. Maybe there's a way to put tags on entries to categorize them so I can check more easily, but I'm still too lazy to figure it out.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
New York City
I've visited New York City a few times, and I'd like to do so again sometime, notwithstanding ROSEMARY'S BABY. (Moira says her only reason for visiting would be to have a big New York breakfast, and there are places where she can get that in Toronto.) But I always feel like I've only scratched the surface: I'd like to find the non-touristy places that aren't so well known.
Of course, there are well-known sights that I'll keep coming to, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My favorite part is the section with the American art: some of it I've recognized from Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. I enjoy the footpath on the Brooklyn Bridge, and I like Central Park too. But there must be a lot of interesting stuff in the outer boroughs like Brooklyn. (I'm curious about the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood because I think ALL IN THE FAMILY was set around there.) I guess I should read something like the Lonely Planet guide.
I suppose you'd have to live there a while to really know the place, like when I was lucky enough to live in London in 1995. (But would it be worth the hassle of living in New York City? Fran Leibowitz points out that when New York newspapers ask people on the street "What would you do if you won the lottery?" they answer "Leave New York!")
And I'd like to visit Los Angeles someday, just to see Disneyland (especially Main Street USA).
BTW, the other night I dreamed of meeting the actress Laura Dern at the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown, PEI. I said to her, "Any day when I meet Laura Dern is a good day!" Which it would be.
Of course, there are well-known sights that I'll keep coming to, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My favorite part is the section with the American art: some of it I've recognized from Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. I enjoy the footpath on the Brooklyn Bridge, and I like Central Park too. But there must be a lot of interesting stuff in the outer boroughs like Brooklyn. (I'm curious about the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood because I think ALL IN THE FAMILY was set around there.) I guess I should read something like the Lonely Planet guide.
I suppose you'd have to live there a while to really know the place, like when I was lucky enough to live in London in 1995. (But would it be worth the hassle of living in New York City? Fran Leibowitz points out that when New York newspapers ask people on the street "What would you do if you won the lottery?" they answer "Leave New York!")
And I'd like to visit Los Angeles someday, just to see Disneyland (especially Main Street USA).
BTW, the other night I dreamed of meeting the actress Laura Dern at the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown, PEI. I said to her, "Any day when I meet Laura Dern is a good day!" Which it would be.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
ROSEMARY'S BABY
"This isn't a dream! It's really happening!"--an unsubtle Mia Farrow line in ROSEMARY'S BABY
This afternoon I saw Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY, for the second time, at the Bloor. (I considered seeing an earlier showing of the Maysles brothers' classic documentary SALESMAN, but decided it was a bit too downbeat for me.)
I didn't much care for the movie the first time I saw it and I still don't. It's very much of its time (1968), about big-city paranoia and a creepy New York apartment building, not unlike all those horror movies involving a creepy haunted house. I'm not attracted to movies about satanism: THE EXORCIST left me cold. I guess I'm more afraid of the evil within us.
I'll admit that Mia Farrow's performance is rather stunning of its kind. But I didn't care for her costar John Cassavetes: he was another of those actors whom I can see acting. And Polanski's the kind of director who can make a bouquet of roses look sinister!
True fact: Mia was married to Frank Sinatra, who wanted him to costar with him in THE DETECTIVE. But the ROSEMARY'S BABY production got behind schedule and Mia had to choose between walking off the movie and bowing out of her husband's vehicle. Sinatra gave her an ultimatum: Make my movie or I'll divorce you! (Nice guy, huh?) But Paramount production executive Robert Evans showed her footage of her scenes that had already been filmed, and she finished it and sacrificed her marriage. (Evans tells the story in his memoir THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE.)
The movie was so long that I was late getting home. John and Kathrine had brought over dinner and they'd already eaten, so I went out to KFC. Though to tell the truth, they always bring vegan food and I'd probably have sneaked out to KFC afterward anyhow.
This afternoon I saw Roman Polanski's ROSEMARY'S BABY, for the second time, at the Bloor. (I considered seeing an earlier showing of the Maysles brothers' classic documentary SALESMAN, but decided it was a bit too downbeat for me.)
I didn't much care for the movie the first time I saw it and I still don't. It's very much of its time (1968), about big-city paranoia and a creepy New York apartment building, not unlike all those horror movies involving a creepy haunted house. I'm not attracted to movies about satanism: THE EXORCIST left me cold. I guess I'm more afraid of the evil within us.
I'll admit that Mia Farrow's performance is rather stunning of its kind. But I didn't care for her costar John Cassavetes: he was another of those actors whom I can see acting. And Polanski's the kind of director who can make a bouquet of roses look sinister!
True fact: Mia was married to Frank Sinatra, who wanted him to costar with him in THE DETECTIVE. But the ROSEMARY'S BABY production got behind schedule and Mia had to choose between walking off the movie and bowing out of her husband's vehicle. Sinatra gave her an ultimatum: Make my movie or I'll divorce you! (Nice guy, huh?) But Paramount production executive Robert Evans showed her footage of her scenes that had already been filmed, and she finished it and sacrificed her marriage. (Evans tells the story in his memoir THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE.)
The movie was so long that I was late getting home. John and Kathrine had brought over dinner and they'd already eaten, so I went out to KFC. Though to tell the truth, they always bring vegan food and I'd probably have sneaked out to KFC afterward anyhow.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
BEWARE OF MR. BAKER
To his interviewer: "Don't be an 'intelligent' dickhead!"--Ginger Baker
Baker is the kind of guy who made millions from a recent reunion tour of his 1960s group Cream then squandered it on polo ponies! And he's still pugnacious after all these years. (He socked the documentary director on the nose with his cane.) But in his time he was a musical genius, inventing the drum solo and discovering Afro-western fusion music years before anyone else. If I could magically get the talent to play one musical instrument at genius level, I think I'd choose drums.
The documentary interviews a lot of musicians, including his '60s bandmate Eric Clapton. (If Clapton is God, Baker must be Lucifer.) If they're still friends it's because Clapton's stayed away from him. And they also interviewed Johnny Rotten of Sex Pistols fame: when I was a teenager, he was one of my few heroes.
Last night I had another night of extreme dreams and slept around the clock. Among other things, I dreamed of being up on a roof and not knowing how I got there.
THE HOBBIT
"It's his excessive consumption of mushrooms. They've addled his brains..."--THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
Today I saw AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, the first movie in Peter Jackson's prequel trilogy of Tolkien's ersatz folktale THE HOBBIT. It was mild, conventional fun despite the rather slow pace, especially in the early scenes. I kind of enjoyed their LORD OF THE RINGS movies, though some parts I liked more than others. (I felt the same way about the books.) One quibble I have is that the goblins had too great a visual resemblance to the orcs, causing confusion. Also, was the Shire modern enough for MAILBOXES?
There are some curious parallels between Tolkien and TH White's Arthurian series THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. THE HOBBIT and THE SWORD IN THE STONE were both published in the 1930s and have the feel of British boy's adventures from an era when the Empire was still largely unquestioned. But LORD OF THE RINGS and White's three later books were both published in the 1950s and their greater complexity in some ways reflects the grim idealism of the postwar era.
Another curious thing is that Tolkien was Catholic. I couldn't help noticing that many prominent British authors in the 20th century were in that nation's Catholic minority. (Other examples: Hilaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess.)
Once again, I was in such a hurry that I forgot my house key. But this time the door was left unlocked.
Today I saw AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, the first movie in Peter Jackson's prequel trilogy of Tolkien's ersatz folktale THE HOBBIT. It was mild, conventional fun despite the rather slow pace, especially in the early scenes. I kind of enjoyed their LORD OF THE RINGS movies, though some parts I liked more than others. (I felt the same way about the books.) One quibble I have is that the goblins had too great a visual resemblance to the orcs, causing confusion. Also, was the Shire modern enough for MAILBOXES?
There are some curious parallels between Tolkien and TH White's Arthurian series THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. THE HOBBIT and THE SWORD IN THE STONE were both published in the 1930s and have the feel of British boy's adventures from an era when the Empire was still largely unquestioned. But LORD OF THE RINGS and White's three later books were both published in the 1950s and their greater complexity in some ways reflects the grim idealism of the postwar era.
Another curious thing is that Tolkien was Catholic. I couldn't help noticing that many prominent British authors in the 20th century were in that nation's Catholic minority. (Other examples: Hilaire Belloc, GK Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Anthony Burgess.)
Once again, I was in such a hurry that I forgot my house key. But this time the door was left unlocked.
Friday, January 18, 2013
THE GREAT GATSBY
On Tom Buchanan: "'Now don't think my opinion on these matters is final,' he seemed to say, 'just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you'"--THE GREAT GATSBY
After finishing WHAT A YEAR! I decided to read THE GREAT GATSBY again. (I read it twice, when I was 19 and 24 respectively.) I guess I'm still interested in the 1920s. And a new movie of this oddly unfilmable novel is coming out soon, and Matthew may make it the subject of a book club event in his Meetup group. And I want to recite part of it when ROLT has an event involving love-related writing.
We've sold our copy online, so I found a cheap Penguin edition at Book City near the Bathurst station. I also picked up some well-discounted books: an issue of GRANTA about the American view of foreign countries, an illustrated guide to the history of ancient Greece, and Studs Terkel's survey WORKING. (I enjoyed HARD TIMES and 'THE GOOD WAR', his oral histories of the Great Depression and World War II.)
Fitzgerald's writing is delicate and sharply observed. Yet in a self-pitying moment he wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives." Yet all the most remarkable American lives are distinguished by their second acts: even his own life and writing had an interesting second act in the 1930s. (I may have posted that before, but it would take forever to confirm.)
After finishing WHAT A YEAR! I decided to read THE GREAT GATSBY again. (I read it twice, when I was 19 and 24 respectively.) I guess I'm still interested in the 1920s. And a new movie of this oddly unfilmable novel is coming out soon, and Matthew may make it the subject of a book club event in his Meetup group. And I want to recite part of it when ROLT has an event involving love-related writing.
We've sold our copy online, so I found a cheap Penguin edition at Book City near the Bathurst station. I also picked up some well-discounted books: an issue of GRANTA about the American view of foreign countries, an illustrated guide to the history of ancient Greece, and Studs Terkel's survey WORKING. (I enjoyed HARD TIMES and 'THE GOOD WAR', his oral histories of the Great Depression and World War II.)
Fitzgerald's writing is delicate and sharply observed. Yet in a self-pitying moment he wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives." Yet all the most remarkable American lives are distinguished by their second acts: even his own life and writing had an interesting second act in the 1930s. (I may have posted that before, but it would take forever to confirm.)
Thursday, January 17, 2013
THE HOUSE I LIVE IN
"If you're a casual drug user, you're an accomplice to murder"--Nancy Reagan
Today I saw Eugene Jarecki's documentary THE HOUSE I LIVE IN at the Bloor. (The title comes from a Paul Robeson song performed over the closing credits, in which the "house" is the US.) It's about the War on Drugs and all its human casualties, including some in the family of a maid who worked for Jarecki's family.
Jarecki's made some fine documentaries before, like CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (about a child-abuse witch hunt--the clown brother was the most interesting character) and WHY WE FIGHT (about the military-industrial complex), and this is another good one. It made me feel both sad and angry. There's intelligent commentary by people like David Simon, creator of THE WIRE, an HBO series about drug cops in Baltimore. As I know from reading WHAT A YEAR!, the questions now being raised about the War on Drugs were also being raised about Prohibition back in 1929.
I also saw a DVD (for the second time) of a PBS documentary about the country-music pioneers the Carter Family. What haunting melancholy music they made!
Today I saw Eugene Jarecki's documentary THE HOUSE I LIVE IN at the Bloor. (The title comes from a Paul Robeson song performed over the closing credits, in which the "house" is the US.) It's about the War on Drugs and all its human casualties, including some in the family of a maid who worked for Jarecki's family.
Jarecki's made some fine documentaries before, like CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS (about a child-abuse witch hunt--the clown brother was the most interesting character) and WHY WE FIGHT (about the military-industrial complex), and this is another good one. It made me feel both sad and angry. There's intelligent commentary by people like David Simon, creator of THE WIRE, an HBO series about drug cops in Baltimore. As I know from reading WHAT A YEAR!, the questions now being raised about the War on Drugs were also being raised about Prohibition back in 1929.
I also saw a DVD (for the second time) of a PBS documentary about the country-music pioneers the Carter Family. What haunting melancholy music they made!
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Another Huffpost moderation outrage
THE HUFFINGTON POST recently ran a report on ex-president George Bush Sr. being released from the hospital. The accompanying posts were a gush of sentimental praise for him. But I couldn't help thinking of his most famous quote: "Read my lips--no new taxes!" It's precisely the Republican Party's fidelity to his principle that's produced the US federal government's current fiscal crisis.
But the posts I read were like this one: "Look here! This Lib is wishing President Bush continued health improvement! Why? Because as an American, I wish nothing but the best for Presidents, past and present. I afford the office respect. Speedy Recovery President Bush." Another post had the temerity to respond with the question "Why?" so I wrote one saying: "Because too many Americans treat presidents like kings." And the Huffpost moderators wouldn't publish it! I can confirm that it wasn't an accident because I tried to post it later and it was blocked again.
No wonder the posts were all sentimental praise. (When one poster called him "decent," I did manage to publish the cryptic reply, "Decent is as decent does.") You know, it isn't like I used the expression "shut up" this time. So sad to learn that the Americans who treat presidents like kings include moderators at THE HUFFINGTON POST.
But the posts I read were like this one: "Look here! This Lib is wishing President Bush continued health improvement! Why? Because as an American, I wish nothing but the best for Presidents, past and present. I afford the office respect. Speedy Recovery President Bush." Another post had the temerity to respond with the question "Why?" so I wrote one saying: "Because too many Americans treat presidents like kings." And the Huffpost moderators wouldn't publish it! I can confirm that it wasn't an accident because I tried to post it later and it was blocked again.
No wonder the posts were all sentimental praise. (When one poster called him "decent," I did manage to publish the cryptic reply, "Decent is as decent does.") You know, it isn't like I used the expression "shut up" this time. So sad to learn that the Americans who treat presidents like kings include moderators at THE HUFFINGTON POST.
Back to choir practice
Today Coro Verdi had its first rehearsal in the New Year. With the Christmas concert finished, we've returned to rehearsing Verdi's MACBETH. (We spent a lot of time on the Cutthroats' Chorus.) I don't like to boast, but it's a fact that John George and Giovanni like to sit next to me because I'm a fast learner.
Giuseppe is worrying about not having enough singers, especially sopranos. TOR has lots of sopranos, but as a rule he doesn't lean on the TOR chorus people to join his other group. We're going to move rehearsals to the Villa Colombo building sometime, but not just yet.
Today I also finished WHAT A YEAR! In the last chapter Joe Alex Morris wrote "For better or worse, Americans who died in 1929 had never heard of..." then recited a long list of phenomena that he expected 1956 readers to be familiar with. I knew most of them, though not everyone remembers Gina Lollobrigida or Cinerama. There were a few I had to look up, however.
Dave Garroway: first host of THE TODAY SHOW. (That's one of those names that sound vaguely familiar to me.)
Economic royalists: FDR's 1936 term for robber barons.
Dacron: a brand of polyester.
Indirect lighting: A lighting system where flourescent tubes along the top of a living room's wall reflect their light onto the ceiling.
Fala: FDR's terrier.
Sulfanilamide: a germ-killing elixir that caused mass poisoning in 1937.
I'm still trying to figure out why he included Nashua.
Giuseppe is worrying about not having enough singers, especially sopranos. TOR has lots of sopranos, but as a rule he doesn't lean on the TOR chorus people to join his other group. We're going to move rehearsals to the Villa Colombo building sometime, but not just yet.
Today I also finished WHAT A YEAR! In the last chapter Joe Alex Morris wrote "For better or worse, Americans who died in 1929 had never heard of..." then recited a long list of phenomena that he expected 1956 readers to be familiar with. I knew most of them, though not everyone remembers Gina Lollobrigida or Cinerama. There were a few I had to look up, however.
Dave Garroway: first host of THE TODAY SHOW. (That's one of those names that sound vaguely familiar to me.)
Economic royalists: FDR's 1936 term for robber barons.
Dacron: a brand of polyester.
Indirect lighting: A lighting system where flourescent tubes along the top of a living room's wall reflect their light onto the ceiling.
Fala: FDR's terrier.
Sulfanilamide: a germ-killing elixir that caused mass poisoning in 1937.
I'm still trying to figure out why he included Nashua.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
DJANGO UNCHAINED
"My good man, I'm simply trying to ascertain..." "Speak English, goddammit!"--DJANGO UNCHAINED
Today I saw Quentin Tarantino's slave revenge saga DJANGO UNCHAINED at the Empress Walk. It was pretty fun but way too long. (On top of my sitting through almost three hours, the TTC had a problem so I was an hour getting home!)
Directed in Tarantino's customary Jacobean cartoon style, it borrows from spaghetti westerns and '70s blaxploitation like Fred Williamson in THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY. (Think Tarantino uses the N-word a lot? Back then they put it in TITLES!) Even the dentist's wagon with the giant tooth is borrowed from Erich Von Stroheim's silent classic GREED.
I like many of Tarantino's movies, though they can be off-putting. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS left a rather bad taste in the mouth for all its brilliant elements. (Brad Pitt was a hoot, especially his tin-eared "Bon giorno.") Maybe it's just that some scenes were so real and convincing--especially the beginning-- and others so over the top, that they didn't go together.
On the subject of slavery dramas, I've always thought the '70s miniseries ROOTS to be overrated. It struck me as cheesy and relentlessly obvious, with scene after scene played to the rafters. Sure, several of the black performances were impressive, but Maya Angelou and OJ Simpson gave embarrassing performances even for non-actors, and the white cast was mostly weak. (Edward Asner, normally a superb actor, played the slave ship captain as if he had a severe hangover.) For a truly great miniseries, see Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE.
Today I saw Quentin Tarantino's slave revenge saga DJANGO UNCHAINED at the Empress Walk. It was pretty fun but way too long. (On top of my sitting through almost three hours, the TTC had a problem so I was an hour getting home!)
Directed in Tarantino's customary Jacobean cartoon style, it borrows from spaghetti westerns and '70s blaxploitation like Fred Williamson in THE LEGEND OF NIGGER CHARLEY. (Think Tarantino uses the N-word a lot? Back then they put it in TITLES!) Even the dentist's wagon with the giant tooth is borrowed from Erich Von Stroheim's silent classic GREED.
I like many of Tarantino's movies, though they can be off-putting. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS left a rather bad taste in the mouth for all its brilliant elements. (Brad Pitt was a hoot, especially his tin-eared "Bon giorno.") Maybe it's just that some scenes were so real and convincing--especially the beginning-- and others so over the top, that they didn't go together.
On the subject of slavery dramas, I've always thought the '70s miniseries ROOTS to be overrated. It struck me as cheesy and relentlessly obvious, with scene after scene played to the rafters. Sure, several of the black performances were impressive, but Maya Angelou and OJ Simpson gave embarrassing performances even for non-actors, and the white cast was mostly weak. (Edward Asner, normally a superb actor, played the slave ship captain as if he had a severe hangover.) For a truly great miniseries, see Larry McMurtry's LONESOME DOVE.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
ROLT January
Today was January's ROLT Meetup event. We had a record turnout of nine people. The weather was unusually mild for January so we decided to sit outside, but as the event went on the weather got worse. Someone suggested a different locale but we'll see.
Our topic was Canadian writing. (I titled the event "The Maple Leaf Forever.") I read part of a chapter from Mazo de la Roche's JALNA, with Renny worrying about being in love with his brother's wife, then going out to the stable and trying to save a dying foal. Jane read part of a CODCO script. (That show was the predecessor of THIS HOUR HAS 23 MINUTES.) Someone read part of WO Mitchell's WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND, someone read poems by Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen, and someone read part of the Stephen Leacock sea-story parody "Soaked in Seeweed." (That's the one that ends with "I died. I buried myself.") Moira came and considered reading an Alden Nowlan poem, but decided against it.
I was going to make the February topic writing on love, since that's the time of St. Valentine's Day. But Moira preferred writing on science, so I've decided to combine scientific writing with science fiction. I'm considering future topics like biography & memoirs, travel writing, city life, closing passages, and a second poetry event since the first was so popular.
Our topic was Canadian writing. (I titled the event "The Maple Leaf Forever.") I read part of a chapter from Mazo de la Roche's JALNA, with Renny worrying about being in love with his brother's wife, then going out to the stable and trying to save a dying foal. Jane read part of a CODCO script. (That show was the predecessor of THIS HOUR HAS 23 MINUTES.) Someone read part of WO Mitchell's WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND, someone read poems by Irving Layton and Leonard Cohen, and someone read part of the Stephen Leacock sea-story parody "Soaked in Seeweed." (That's the one that ends with "I died. I buried myself.") Moira came and considered reading an Alden Nowlan poem, but decided against it.
I was going to make the February topic writing on love, since that's the time of St. Valentine's Day. But Moira preferred writing on science, so I've decided to combine scientific writing with science fiction. I'm considering future topics like biography & memoirs, travel writing, city life, closing passages, and a second poetry event since the first was so popular.
VERTIGO
"Come here!" "No, you'll muss me"--romantic banter in VERTIGO
Saw Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO for the third time, with Matthew's Movie Meetup group at the Yonge & Dundas Event Screen. There was some confusion about when to meet so I ended up getting there an hour early and waiting in the lobby. (Oh well, I got some more of WHAT A YEAR! read and had something more to blog about.)
VERTIGO is one of those movies that improves with repeat viewings. Indeed, you have to see it two or three times to appreciate it. (I can well believe that its initial reviews were not so good.) It's the one where detective James Stewart gets hired to put a tail on Kim Novak, who says she's possessed by the spirit of a girl who died a century before, but all is not what it seems...
It's a disquieting portrait of romantic obsession. Many people consider VERTIGO Hitchcock's masterpiece. (Myself, I'd choose NOTORIOUS.) Stewart and Novak have an eerie chemistry, helped greatly by Bernard Herrmann's haunting music and the San Francisco locations. Has any movie made better use of that city? I ought to see BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE, a romantic comedy with Novak as a witch out to put a spell on Stewart, not unlike in this movie.
In 1976 Brian de Palma, working from a Paul Schrader script, directed a curious reworking of VERTIGO unsubtly titled OBSESSION. That one had Cliff Robertson as a New Orleans businessmen whose wife (Genevieve Bujold) and daughter get kidnapped, then drown in the Mississippi River where their bodies are never found. Twenty years later he meets a young woman the same age as his daughter would have been, also played by Genevieve Bujold...
Saw Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO for the third time, with Matthew's Movie Meetup group at the Yonge & Dundas Event Screen. There was some confusion about when to meet so I ended up getting there an hour early and waiting in the lobby. (Oh well, I got some more of WHAT A YEAR! read and had something more to blog about.)
VERTIGO is one of those movies that improves with repeat viewings. Indeed, you have to see it two or three times to appreciate it. (I can well believe that its initial reviews were not so good.) It's the one where detective James Stewart gets hired to put a tail on Kim Novak, who says she's possessed by the spirit of a girl who died a century before, but all is not what it seems...
It's a disquieting portrait of romantic obsession. Many people consider VERTIGO Hitchcock's masterpiece. (Myself, I'd choose NOTORIOUS.) Stewart and Novak have an eerie chemistry, helped greatly by Bernard Herrmann's haunting music and the San Francisco locations. Has any movie made better use of that city? I ought to see BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE, a romantic comedy with Novak as a witch out to put a spell on Stewart, not unlike in this movie.
In 1976 Brian de Palma, working from a Paul Schrader script, directed a curious reworking of VERTIGO unsubtly titled OBSESSION. That one had Cliff Robertson as a New Orleans businessmen whose wife (Genevieve Bujold) and daughter get kidnapped, then drown in the Mississippi River where their bodies are never found. Twenty years later he meets a young woman the same age as his daughter would have been, also played by Genevieve Bujold...
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Dreams
I sometimes have vivid dreams. Last night I dreamed of pitching a movie script that started with a schoolboy finishing a school essay about predicting the weather, then finding that someone had changed it to talk about raising your hands to create a storm vortex above you. Then he found out about this parallel universe where people had such power over the weather, and met a group of scholars from that world eager to learn from him, including a big expert whom I suggested could be played in a Sacha Baron Cohen cameo. Then I started telling the story to Antonio Banderas, but stopped and apologized, saying "You must hear a lot of movie pitches!"
I also dreamed of roller skating along a long road that ended in a channel being dug down a slope for a waterfall with a lot of streams that would cancel each other out and dissipate, with big flakes of gold visible here and there. And I dreamed of being in the futuristic world of the movie SOYLENT GREEN, except that I was in the area of Seattle while the movie took place in New York City. And I dreamed of a jungle tribesman who came to the big city for the Olympics, didn't fit in and became a fugitive, and of having a girlfriend in the Royal Family, and of bicycling downhill on a slope that got faster and faster, and of ending up in a science fiction movie with Greg from THE BRADY BUNCH, and of going on a tour of the world except that we only spent a short time in China before flying to Vancouver where I was trying to figure out the time back in Toronto.
I dreamed all that last night. Some nights are more vivid than others.
I also dreamed of roller skating along a long road that ended in a channel being dug down a slope for a waterfall with a lot of streams that would cancel each other out and dissipate, with big flakes of gold visible here and there. And I dreamed of being in the futuristic world of the movie SOYLENT GREEN, except that I was in the area of Seattle while the movie took place in New York City. And I dreamed of a jungle tribesman who came to the big city for the Olympics, didn't fit in and became a fugitive, and of having a girlfriend in the Royal Family, and of bicycling downhill on a slope that got faster and faster, and of ending up in a science fiction movie with Greg from THE BRADY BUNCH, and of going on a tour of the world except that we only spent a short time in China before flying to Vancouver where I was trying to figure out the time back in Toronto.
I dreamed all that last night. Some nights are more vivid than others.
Movie trivia contest
Tonight I went to a Movie trivia contest hosted by Sash of the Toronto Friends Social Group Meetup. I was careless with the time and got Father to drive me to the subway station so I'd be there in time, but I should have realized it would start a lot later than scheduled. It isn't the first time I've inconvenienced Father when I didn't have to.
I finished third and chose a serving of cookies & cream cake for my prize. I also met a CBC science reporter who ultimately finished first. I actually finished first in these contests once, and I'm sure I'll do it again one of these months.
I'm pretty good with movie trivia, and even noticed a couple of mistakes in Sash's questions: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK came out in 1982, not 1981; and Rooney in FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF was a vice-principal, not a principal. (I heard someone floated a proposal for a Ferris Bueller sequel, and I'd like to see one where Ferris is a fortysomething unemployed welfare bum who can't read or add and now says, "I shouldn't have skipped school." Rooney, meanwhile, has become Secretary of Education.)
I wish I knew how to quit Candy Crush Saga. I've said that it was addictive, and Pet Rescue Saga is too. (Did I mention I've been careless with time?) I'll just have to find a new game twice as addictive...
I finished third and chose a serving of cookies & cream cake for my prize. I also met a CBC science reporter who ultimately finished first. I actually finished first in these contests once, and I'm sure I'll do it again one of these months.
I'm pretty good with movie trivia, and even noticed a couple of mistakes in Sash's questions: ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK came out in 1982, not 1981; and Rooney in FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF was a vice-principal, not a principal. (I heard someone floated a proposal for a Ferris Bueller sequel, and I'd like to see one where Ferris is a fortysomething unemployed welfare bum who can't read or add and now says, "I shouldn't have skipped school." Rooney, meanwhile, has become Secretary of Education.)
I wish I knew how to quit Candy Crush Saga. I've said that it was addictive, and Pet Rescue Saga is too. (Did I mention I've been careless with time?) I'll just have to find a new game twice as addictive...
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Back to the opera
Today was the first post-New Year's rehearsal for the TOR. Performances start next month, and now we're going on stage! I remembered to bring my checkbook to pay $50 of additional expenses, and my ticket money. (My parents and sister are seeing both shows, so I sold six tickets.) But I forgot to bring indoor shoes, so I went on stage in my sock feet.
We were rehearsing TALES OF HOFFMANN, and did the opening and closing scenes set in a pub. We also did the greater half of the scene with Olympia, but didn't get to the scene with Giulietta. (The chorus isn't in the scene with Antonia.) For the pub scene we get to hold metal mugs and long pipes.
I mentioned before that there were a few cameo roles that I was being considered for. It turns out that they decided not to include them. Part of me felt relieved at not getting the extra responsibility--I was too polite to admit it, of course--but I felt stupid about being the last to find out.
Speaking of Hoffmans, in the afternoon I saw Dustin in the William Goldman-John Schlesinger thriller MARATHON MAN at the Young&Dundas. It's one of the older movies they've been showing on the Event Screen there. That's the one where Nazi Laurence Olivier keeps asking Hoffman "Is it safe?" before torturing him with dentist equipment. I'd read that it was crude, and it was. (Did the book make more sense?) Frankly, I only saw it so I'd have something to write about here.
We were rehearsing TALES OF HOFFMANN, and did the opening and closing scenes set in a pub. We also did the greater half of the scene with Olympia, but didn't get to the scene with Giulietta. (The chorus isn't in the scene with Antonia.) For the pub scene we get to hold metal mugs and long pipes.
I mentioned before that there were a few cameo roles that I was being considered for. It turns out that they decided not to include them. Part of me felt relieved at not getting the extra responsibility--I was too polite to admit it, of course--but I felt stupid about being the last to find out.
Speaking of Hoffmans, in the afternoon I saw Dustin in the William Goldman-John Schlesinger thriller MARATHON MAN at the Young&Dundas. It's one of the older movies they've been showing on the Event Screen there. That's the one where Nazi Laurence Olivier keeps asking Hoffman "Is it safe?" before torturing him with dentist equipment. I'd read that it was crude, and it was. (Did the book make more sense?) Frankly, I only saw it so I'd have something to write about here.
Monday, January 07, 2013
Recent DVDs
I've been watching some more uncommon DVDs through zip.ca.
The Best of GUNSMOKE: I remember watching some of the later seasons of that "adult western" on Sunday mornings in the '80s. Now I've started a video collection of selected episodes from all over its 20-year run. (THE SIMPSONS has been on for a longer time, but this show made more episodes!) I've only seen the earliest ones, including an episode with Charles Bronson.
THE RED SKELTON SHOW: I got a disc with some early episodes of that show, which I watched faithfully in its last seasons. He was a comic genius, and well do I remember characters like Freddy the Freeloader and Clem Kadiddlehopper. (The disc also has some episodes of Groucho Marx in YOU BET YOUR LIFE.)
OF TIME AND THE CITY: An eloquent Terence Davies memoir of his postwar Liverpool youth, combining narration with archival footage of the city and eclectic music.
CLASSIC EDUCATIONAL SHORTS: The latest disc in a series of classroom films, this one is commercial films for salesmen and clients. The film about the blender was so well made that I wanted to go out and make a blender recipe!
I'll soon be seeing some early avant-garde films, a couple of Luis Bunuel productions, and a documentary about the American West in the 1860s!
The Best of GUNSMOKE: I remember watching some of the later seasons of that "adult western" on Sunday mornings in the '80s. Now I've started a video collection of selected episodes from all over its 20-year run. (THE SIMPSONS has been on for a longer time, but this show made more episodes!) I've only seen the earliest ones, including an episode with Charles Bronson.
THE RED SKELTON SHOW: I got a disc with some early episodes of that show, which I watched faithfully in its last seasons. He was a comic genius, and well do I remember characters like Freddy the Freeloader and Clem Kadiddlehopper. (The disc also has some episodes of Groucho Marx in YOU BET YOUR LIFE.)
OF TIME AND THE CITY: An eloquent Terence Davies memoir of his postwar Liverpool youth, combining narration with archival footage of the city and eclectic music.
CLASSIC EDUCATIONAL SHORTS: The latest disc in a series of classroom films, this one is commercial films for salesmen and clients. The film about the blender was so well made that I wanted to go out and make a blender recipe!
I'll soon be seeing some early avant-garde films, a couple of Luis Bunuel productions, and a documentary about the American West in the 1860s!
New computer games
It looks like I'm finally finished with Evony. I've brought all the non-residential buildings up to level nine and completed the wall defences, and this time I'm not really interested in conquering territory or starting new cities.
Now I've started on the game Megapolis, yet another city-planning game along the lines of Simcity and Cityville. What can I say? I love to plan virtual cities. But I don't know how long I'll last this time.
I've tried bubble-blasting games, but I can't really get into them. On the other hand, I've discovered an addictive strategy game called Candy Crush Saga. It involves an array of candy in different colors: jelly beans are red, lemon drops yellow, lozenges orange, gobstoppers blue, jujubes purple, and the green ones are mints or something like that. You have adjacent candy pieces trade places to get three in a row, then they disappear and some new ones come down. If you manage to arrange four or even five in a row, you get pieces with special powers. The part I don't like is that when you lose a game they show a little girl weeping, and I always feel bad for letting her down.
I also found a strategy game called Pet Rescue Saga--from the same company, of course--which involves dissolving sets of adjacent blocks of the same color. (You can make columns disappear with an occasional pyrotechnic rocket.) If you can dissolve a column all the way down to the bottom, the pet on top will be rescued!
I discover all these games by looking at the game apps my Facebook friends are using.
Now I've started on the game Megapolis, yet another city-planning game along the lines of Simcity and Cityville. What can I say? I love to plan virtual cities. But I don't know how long I'll last this time.
I've tried bubble-blasting games, but I can't really get into them. On the other hand, I've discovered an addictive strategy game called Candy Crush Saga. It involves an array of candy in different colors: jelly beans are red, lemon drops yellow, lozenges orange, gobstoppers blue, jujubes purple, and the green ones are mints or something like that. You have adjacent candy pieces trade places to get three in a row, then they disappear and some new ones come down. If you manage to arrange four or even five in a row, you get pieces with special powers. The part I don't like is that when you lose a game they show a little girl weeping, and I always feel bad for letting her down.
I also found a strategy game called Pet Rescue Saga--from the same company, of course--which involves dissolving sets of adjacent blocks of the same color. (You can make columns disappear with an occasional pyrotechnic rocket.) If you can dissolve a column all the way down to the bottom, the pet on top will be rescued!
I discover all these games by looking at the game apps my Facebook friends are using.
Sunday, January 06, 2013
THE SEARCHERS
"MOUNT! M-O-Y-N-T MOUNT!"--Ward Bond in THE SEARCHERS
Today I went to see the John Ford western THE SEARCHERS with the Classic Movie Meetup at the Fairview Cinema's screening room. (There were seven of us.) That's the one where rootless Confederate veteran Ethan (John Wayne) visits his settled Texas brother and family, who get murdered in a Comanche raid, except for little niece Debbie--what a '50s name!--who gets kidnapped and adopted by the tribe, so he goes off on a long, relentless pursuit...
What a powerful movie THE SEARCHERS is! That's one classic that's everything they say it is. John Wayne is at his antihero best as the obsessive, frightening loner motivated by hate and vengeance. Watch as he holds Debbie up by her armpits at the beginning: he'll do the same at the end. There's a great shot when he sees some other whites-turned captives-turned Indians.
Another character of interest is Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), the part-Indian youth adopted into the brother's family who joins Ethan's search, leaving behind sweetheart Vera Miles, but ends up anxious to prevent Ethan from killing Debbie when he finally finds her. Ethan treats him remarkably badly, never letting him forget his prejudice against half-breeds and even using him as bait in a deathtrap!
THE SEARCHERS is a rare western with a sense of tragedy. (Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN and that AMC series HELL ON WHEELS also come to mind.) Sure, the comic parts are pretty broad, but the total effect is compelling, even beautiful.
I went home with Cecilia from Brazil again. I taught her the word "thief," which is one of those words that foreigners are slow to learn: "stealer" would seem more natural. I'd been telling her about WHAT A YEAR! and how JFK's father was a big investor who sold out before the 1929 crash and later was put in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street, on the principle, "It takes a thief to catch a thief."
Today I went to see the John Ford western THE SEARCHERS with the Classic Movie Meetup at the Fairview Cinema's screening room. (There were seven of us.) That's the one where rootless Confederate veteran Ethan (John Wayne) visits his settled Texas brother and family, who get murdered in a Comanche raid, except for little niece Debbie--what a '50s name!--who gets kidnapped and adopted by the tribe, so he goes off on a long, relentless pursuit...
What a powerful movie THE SEARCHERS is! That's one classic that's everything they say it is. John Wayne is at his antihero best as the obsessive, frightening loner motivated by hate and vengeance. Watch as he holds Debbie up by her armpits at the beginning: he'll do the same at the end. There's a great shot when he sees some other whites-turned captives-turned Indians.
Another character of interest is Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), the part-Indian youth adopted into the brother's family who joins Ethan's search, leaving behind sweetheart Vera Miles, but ends up anxious to prevent Ethan from killing Debbie when he finally finds her. Ethan treats him remarkably badly, never letting him forget his prejudice against half-breeds and even using him as bait in a deathtrap!
THE SEARCHERS is a rare western with a sense of tragedy. (Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN and that AMC series HELL ON WHEELS also come to mind.) Sure, the comic parts are pretty broad, but the total effect is compelling, even beautiful.
I went home with Cecilia from Brazil again. I taught her the word "thief," which is one of those words that foreigners are slow to learn: "stealer" would seem more natural. I'd been telling her about WHAT A YEAR! and how JFK's father was a big investor who sold out before the 1929 crash and later was put in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street, on the principle, "It takes a thief to catch a thief."
Saturday, January 05, 2013
WHAT A YEAR!
Last week I finished the political issue of LAPHAM'S QUARTERLY. Since then I've started reading a book I picked up at a new used-book store a few blocks west of here. It's WHAT A YEAR!, a book about the US in the year 1929, written by Joe Alex Morris in the '50s.
It's an entertaining work of popular history, similar to Frederick Lewis Allen's ONLY YESTERDAY: AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE 1920s, which I read about a decade ago. It was the year of the big stock market crash, of course, but there was lots of other stuff happening. That was the year when Albert Einstein became world-famous with his announcement of a unified theory of physics or something. It was also a time when Prohibition was becoming more and more controversial, Charles Lindbergh was the big hero of the day, Hollywood had just converted to sound films, Herbert Hoover began his ill-fated presidency, and silliness was common. The popular new toy was the yo-yo. (I've also learned that the expression "Oh, yeah?" originated in the 1920s.) Lots of photo illustrations too.
I have a big headache. I'm running a bit short again, but this time I'll just let it be short.
Friday, January 04, 2013
THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE
Just saw the documentary THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE with a Meetup group at the Bloor. It's pretty disturbing: the NYPD basically grabbed the first suspicious teenagers who turned up and pressured them into false confessions. (It reminded me of the treatment of Omar Khadr.)
We had a discussion about it afterward. I thought it was really contemptible of Ed Koch to refer to "the alleged rapists," then add, "We have to call them 'alleged,' because of the regulation." (I've thought little of Koch since he pushed his support for the death penalty to get elected at the time of the Son of Sam murders.)
It was co-directed by Ken Burns, whose documentaries I've usually liked, though they can be sententious. (I was a bit disappointed by his World War II documentary THE WAR: it started out well, but by the final chapter they'd ended up playing it safe and turning it into a "tribute" to wartime America.) I've seen his THE CIVIL WAR many times over the years. It's very eloquent, though it lets Shelby Foote dominate perhaps too much: I would have liked more of Ed Bearss. I've also enjoyed Burns' documentaries on subjects like Mark Twain and Thomas Hart Benton.
Meanwhile, the parents and I have been downloading movies from Netflix. In the last week we've seen two big, colorful Cinemascope productions from Twentieth Century Fox in the '50s: A MAN CALLED PETER and LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING. (Our big widescreen TV, which we got about a year ago, is suitable for such epics.) Unfortunately, the latter movie starred the terrible actress Jennifer Jones, miscast as a half-Chinese doctor babbling greeting-card profundities. And last week we saw Terence Davies' stunning film of Terence Rattigan's '50s play THE DEEP BLUE SEA: if you can't see it in a theatre, be sure to see it on a widescreen TV.
We had a discussion about it afterward. I thought it was really contemptible of Ed Koch to refer to "the alleged rapists," then add, "We have to call them 'alleged,' because of the regulation." (I've thought little of Koch since he pushed his support for the death penalty to get elected at the time of the Son of Sam murders.)
It was co-directed by Ken Burns, whose documentaries I've usually liked, though they can be sententious. (I was a bit disappointed by his World War II documentary THE WAR: it started out well, but by the final chapter they'd ended up playing it safe and turning it into a "tribute" to wartime America.) I've seen his THE CIVIL WAR many times over the years. It's very eloquent, though it lets Shelby Foote dominate perhaps too much: I would have liked more of Ed Bearss. I've also enjoyed Burns' documentaries on subjects like Mark Twain and Thomas Hart Benton.
Meanwhile, the parents and I have been downloading movies from Netflix. In the last week we've seen two big, colorful Cinemascope productions from Twentieth Century Fox in the '50s: A MAN CALLED PETER and LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING. (Our big widescreen TV, which we got about a year ago, is suitable for such epics.) Unfortunately, the latter movie starred the terrible actress Jennifer Jones, miscast as a half-Chinese doctor babbling greeting-card profundities. And last week we saw Terence Davies' stunning film of Terence Rattigan's '50s play THE DEEP BLUE SEA: if you can't see it in a theatre, be sure to see it on a widescreen TV.
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Emancipation Proclamation
THE HUFFINGTON POST has been a bit slow for me lately. After the deal that averted the US "fiscal cliff," I posted: "Time once again for liberals to present a defeat as a victory..." but I don't feel like saying much about that.
Then last night there was a column about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which became official 150 years ago at New Year's. I know quite a bit about the Civil War and wrote several posts in that column's forum. I think some people were impressed by my perception.
Here's the longest post I wrote:
When Lincoln originally proposed the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet in July, 1862, he encountered less resistance than he feared, but one secretary--William Seward?--warned him that he should delay its announcement until after a Union battlefield victory, or he might be seen as grasping at straws.
Lincoln agreed and waited. In a famous letter to a New York newspaper the following month, he said that he'd be willing to save the union by freeing all of the slaves, by freeing none of them, or by freeing some and not others. In fact, this was his way of preparing the public for the Emancipation Proclamation. (Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation freed almost no slaves immediately, but most of them in the long run.)
In September the Confederate invasion of Maryland--a slave state but still Union territory--culminated in the battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg. In terms of casualties, it was a bloody standoff. But it was followed by a Confederate retreat back into Virginia, and the Northern newspapers did their best to present it as a Union victory. (There were also some minor Union victories around that time.) This was close enough for Lincoln's purposes, and he announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which became official at the end of the year.
***
When a subject like that comes up and I can write a lot about it, I get so excited I can't sleep!
Then last night there was a column about Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which became official 150 years ago at New Year's. I know quite a bit about the Civil War and wrote several posts in that column's forum. I think some people were impressed by my perception.
Here's the longest post I wrote:
When Lincoln originally proposed the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet in July, 1862, he encountered less resistance than he feared, but one secretary--William Seward?--warned him that he should delay its announcement until after a Union battlefield victory, or he might be seen as grasping at straws.
Lincoln agreed and waited. In a famous letter to a New York newspaper the following month, he said that he'd be willing to save the union by freeing all of the slaves, by freeing none of them, or by freeing some and not others. In fact, this was his way of preparing the public for the Emancipation Proclamation. (Of course, the Emancipation Proclamation freed almost no slaves immediately, but most of them in the long run.)
In September the Confederate invasion of Maryland--a slave state but still Union territory--culminated in the battle of Antietam/Sharpsburg. In terms of casualties, it was a bloody standoff. But it was followed by a Confederate retreat back into Virginia, and the Northern newspapers did their best to present it as a Union victory. (There were also some minor Union victories around that time.) This was close enough for Lincoln's purposes, and he announced the Emancipation Proclamation, which became official at the end of the year.
***
When a subject like that comes up and I can write a lot about it, I get so excited I can't sleep!
New Year's
"I blew another year"--Charlie Brown
Last night was New Year's Eve. As is my usual custom, I retired well before midnight, earlier than I usually do. (Noise out on the street wakes me up at midnight.) But in the morning I slept in as late as I usually do. I just don't feel like getting up.
Over the Christmas break, I finished the latest season of MAD MEN--not enough Betty for my taste--and saw the latest season of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, one of my favorite TV comedies ever: I think my favorite character is Jeff's wife Susie, especially when she launches into profane rants. I liked the episode where Susie and Jeff's dog was about to be put down so she sent him and Larry to buy this brand of frozen yogurt for its last meal, but on the way back Larry took a bite from it, then Jeff took a bigger bite, which bugged Larry so he took a second bite, and Jeff did the same, and the pissing match ended with the whole thing eaten!
Sunday of last week I saw 56 UP at the Bloor: it's the latest installment in the British 7 UP documentary series that's been profiling a group of English people every seven years since their childhood. (I've been watching it since 28 UP.) Just today I saw the 3D release of MONSTERS INC., for the first time. Pretty cute.
Last Saturday I had dinner at Golden Thai restaurant with my Aspergers Meetup group. (We went to Spring Rolls nearby for dessert.) I went to another Karaoke Meetup at BarPlus afterward.
Do I have any New Year's resolutions? Well, I quit the jigsaw puzzle app: I enjoy them but I might spend the rest of my life doing them! Maybe I should wake up earlier, but I need to increase my motivation...
Last night was New Year's Eve. As is my usual custom, I retired well before midnight, earlier than I usually do. (Noise out on the street wakes me up at midnight.) But in the morning I slept in as late as I usually do. I just don't feel like getting up.
Over the Christmas break, I finished the latest season of MAD MEN--not enough Betty for my taste--and saw the latest season of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, one of my favorite TV comedies ever: I think my favorite character is Jeff's wife Susie, especially when she launches into profane rants. I liked the episode where Susie and Jeff's dog was about to be put down so she sent him and Larry to buy this brand of frozen yogurt for its last meal, but on the way back Larry took a bite from it, then Jeff took a bigger bite, which bugged Larry so he took a second bite, and Jeff did the same, and the pissing match ended with the whole thing eaten!
Sunday of last week I saw 56 UP at the Bloor: it's the latest installment in the British 7 UP documentary series that's been profiling a group of English people every seven years since their childhood. (I've been watching it since 28 UP.) Just today I saw the 3D release of MONSTERS INC., for the first time. Pretty cute.
Last Saturday I had dinner at Golden Thai restaurant with my Aspergers Meetup group. (We went to Spring Rolls nearby for dessert.) I went to another Karaoke Meetup at BarPlus afterward.
Do I have any New Year's resolutions? Well, I quit the jigsaw puzzle app: I enjoy them but I might spend the rest of my life doing them! Maybe I should wake up earlier, but I need to increase my motivation...
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