Saturday, March 31, 2007
HMMMMMMM
U.S. March toll nearly twice Iraq forcesBAGHDAD - The U.S. military death toll in March, the first full month of the security crackdown, was nearly twice that of the Iraqi army, which American and Iraqi officials say is taking the leading role in the latest attempt to curb violence in the capital, surrounding cities and Anbar province, according to figures compiled on Saturday..............AP
ESTEEM
I am a long time skeptic of the 'self esteem' movement.
I do not subscribe to the fact that low self esteem can be remedied by false praise or 'positive reinforcement'. I am not even sure that it should be.
When I was a trainer, the concepts flowed into the rooms where I taught.
I wasn't too sympathetic with the excuse (as I heard it) of low self esteem. I still am not.
There is no doubt that there are many kids and adults who have low self esteem. Nor, is there any doubt that a lot of kids and people have too much.
My observations support my hypothesis that it is a lot easier to deal with low self esteem than the high.
Arrogance, entitlement, selfishness, ego-drive; all seem to go with a strong positive sense of self. In fact undue, unearned praise creates this condition.
But, I lost the battle and quit talking about it although, one on one, I will still take on any one who I hear whining and complaining, usually blaming someone else, for how bad they feel about themselves.
This article is interesting as it breaks some of the sacred icons of the esteem movement (and yes, it is a movement and a profitable industry).
I can identify with their contention about 'smart' kids.
I was a smart kid and was labeled as such.
I invested in it. It became my identity.
They even told me (against the rules and conventions) my IQ (mensa) and what it meant.
It froze me.
I began to fear failure.
The kids in this study are me.
Maybe that is why I am so sensitive to this cockeyed notion that you should pump everybody up. There should be no differences. All that.
Interesting.
Labels: kidtime, Self Absorption
STANDING ALONE II
Yet another sign of bush' isolation.
Ex-Aide Details a Loss of Faith in the President
It is sad.
It is worrisome.
We know how bad he was when people were around him moderating. Without any credible advisor and surrounded my hacks and yes-men, we should all be a bit freaked out.
Labels: bush
ZERO TIME
Today's film in the Zero Mostel Film Fest was Elia Kazan's
Here, Mostel plays it straight as a killer partnered with Jack Palance. They kill a guy over a gambling debt. The guy is off a ship and has pneumonic plague. So they have it too.
It sounds like a stretch but it is not. The film is very good and has great acting by Richard Widmark (an old flame), Paul Douglas, and Barbara Bel Geddes.
It rates at least a 4 out of Netflix5.
One of the amazing things is to see Mostel move in the final chase scenes. There are no stunt men or doubles. There is running, jumping, sliding, falling. He could always make the moves. Like a lot of fat men.
He and Palance (another maverick) are great together.
Another aside.
Kazan disgraced himself by naming names at the HUAC hearings.
Remember we saw The Front the other day?
Mostel and Bel Geddes were on the blacklist.
This film was made right before the naming. I don't know if they were on Kazan's list but it makes you wonder.
Decades later, when Kazan got a lifetime Oscar, some people remained seated or turned their backs on his acceptance speech. It was very controversial. He is still not forgiven by many in the business.
Mostel didn't work for a few years and then got back into the theater which was not as badly hit by the purge.
Ten years later he was a star in Something Happened on the Way to The Forum both on stage and in the film—that was in the festival too.
This is just another side of this man that makes him so interesting.
We have one more Mostel film to see but it has not arrived yet; Rhinoceros which is actually a filmed theater piece.
They had to send it from someplace in NY State. I guess we don't have much call for filmed theater out here. At least not starring Zero Mostel.
So we will be back to the NYTimes Best Films tomorrow. Then back to Zero.
Labels: blacklist, films, Zero Mostel
JEWS
I mention below that the only thing I like about Jimmy Carter is his new book and his stance toward Israel.
This is a good example of the kind of shit that we support when we send them weapons and money.
They have perverted their cause through this kind of stuff.
Olmert Rejects Right of Return for Palestinians
Talk about your basic racist hatred. It is the reverse of anti-semitism.
The hypocrisy of it just makes my head explode!
Labels: criminal morons, Israel, Palestine
PARTING COMPANY
You know how I feel about 'the big dog'.
I miss him a lot.
I don't mean in the 'bush' sense.
Compared to bush I miss Jimmy Carter a lot and you know how I felt/feel about him—a sanctimonious prick who is probably right about the Israeli mess. I even like Nixon compared to bushie.
I mean that Bill Clinton is one of my heroes. Period.
He looks better and better as President and he is the best Ex-President I have ever seen.
Few Exes actually did the kind of work and made the sort of initiatives that he has.
But now, we part company for awhile.
He is supporting his wife for President and I cannot.
Too bad.
I suppose he really believes that she is the best candidate. I beg to differ.
He is going on the campaign trail big time for her:
Clinton Camp Turns to a Star in Money Race.
This money fixation thing has always been his weak spot with me so I am hiding my eyes and won't look at him much until early 2008.
Not unless he gets back on the AIDS project or carries out other initiatives than seeing Hill into the White House.
If she is the nominee, then I am back in business.
I would have to be unless there is a third party by that time.
But, we are not there yet.
I won't go after him though.
Although, I couldn't resist this picture.
Labels: Bill Clinton
ROSES
Have I mentioned that the rose garden we put in last year is gloriously blossomed? Every color you can have; even the purple!
All the plants, save one, are blooming full tilt.
Some have as many as 8 blooms and a dozen buds ready to burst.
It is quite spectacular and after a cold season of loss—ficus, bougainvillea and hibiscus—they more than compensate.
We have had the orchid tree going since the middle of January but it is now fading and will get pruned radically this weekend.
So the roses are just in time.
I did notice that, out back, there are iris about to raise their blooms up. Maybe we will get a double slam of blossoms.
And there are the 7 Bird of Paradise flowers in the front garden.
It is spring! Well, summer.
Labels: garden
Friday, March 30, 2007
MIDEAST CRISIS
Today's Zero Mostel film (festival, remember?) was
with Humphrey Bogart and Lee J. Cobb,
Mostel does his obsequious guy routine. He is pretty good.
But not good enough to overlook the quality of the film which is pretty low.
It is pulp for the eyes.
Bogart plays an anti-hero.
It is OK.
I wanted to see the range of Mostel's career and he was in some stinkers.
This is one.
I got a great photo out of it though. Unaccountably, Wikipedia had this one in his profile.
Labels: films, noir, Zero Mostel
BLOGGER DOWN MOST OF AFTERNOON
I'm just sayin'.
Blogger is the sometimes inhospitable host of my blog.
Labels: blog
Thursday, March 29, 2007
ONE PER BED
Gay couple turned away from S.C. hotel
Two guys were turned away because the hotel does not rent a room with a single bed for two people of the same sex.
This is not too far fetched.
It was the law in the UK only a few years ago. Well, 15 or 20.
John and I got turned away in some hotels and in others were told that we would have to enter the establishment separately so 'no one' would figure it out. Or, more simply, had to take a more expensive double bedded room.
Those were the days.
Of course, you can have those days now in SC!
Labels: gay rights
BUSY
Today has been one of those nice end to end busy days.
Up to do the bike, off to the hardware store (grass killer, new brooms—push and pull—and bungee cords—the rats eat them), home to work with the annual termite inspection guy (we have termite insurance—so far we have collected 3-5ooo dollars for repairs and had our house tented free—now, this year, we are clean), and back and forth to do some needed home chores—spray some renegade bermuda grass with the killer I bought, clean the outdoors tables and chairs, fertilize all around in all gardens and planters—stuff like that.Nap, lunch, off to have a meet with a close friend and now home to catch up on the routine shit that didn't get done in the midst.
Little time for blogging but I will be back.
Did you see that Sampson guy (certified weasle) put some more nails in gonzo's coffin?
The senate passed a more stringent timeline for outta Iraq than the House.
What is going on? All this stuff!
Great.
Labels: garden, Iraq, termites
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
APPROACHING ZERO
Today's film in the Zero Mostel Fest was
wherein he plays a shyster lawyer whose son is part of a gem robbery team.
He manages to steal every scene and is the only player that keeps the film moving along.
It is a caper film and not all that good but it was good to see Mostel do his stuff.
The highlight is where he turns the tables on the boys twice. The first time is very exciting.
In the second, he slips them another one and carries on in high gloat.
The rest of the cast is OK. Robert Redford is Robert Redford. George Segal, also typecast, walks through his stuff.
Only Ron Liebman, as the driver, offers the equal energy of our Zero. The scene where they are together is something to see a few times.
The film gets 3 Zero gets 5.
This was the hardest work of all the Mostel films so far.
Labels: films, Zero Mostel
TAKING CARE
We had some weird weather here.
Cold. Wind. Rain. And temps in the 40s this morning.
There is snow on the mountains. Low snow. Maybe 3000 feet at the Gorgonio pass.
I was all ice conscious this morning.
A friend drove by me on Toledo and we talked side by side (me on the bike) and she asked about the leg.
Hmmm. Warning one.
Then Lisa called while I was still riding. I stopped and we chatted a bit. She said to be careful.
Warning two.
And today was across the same ground where I had my accident. Ice.
So I went around the spot and took the long way.
I stopped once when I thought I saw a glaze.
I did not but still.
So. I took the warnings. And lived to ride another day.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
IMMIGRATION
I had not been a supporter of tough immigration laws until I saw this video.
Don't miss the crawl along the bottom of the screen.
Labels: immigration, macmansion
HEARINGS
We are still slogging through hearings on this macmansion that they want to build just over our southern wall.
Two stories high.
Right where we jump into the pool bare-assed. I don't mind people looking but there is a limit.
There are a lot of other things wrong with it. Too fucking big for a minimum lot. All that.
The neighbors are in an uproar.
We have managed to get the Planning Commission to refer it back to the Architectural Advisory group and now they have put in on hold for further study.
This is a good thing for us.
The developer is understandably pissed.
John is at the forefront of all this effort. I am the background man. proofreader, commenter.
Actually there is a better, more energetic partner—the other abutter—who has been great help for John.
We are going to keep on going.
Part of it is the principle of the thing.
The city absolutely supports developers at the expense of the people who live here.
There are a lot of reasons for this, some good actually. But there should be a middle of the road between the two interests.
The tax base is in jeopardy. The City has staggering entitlements. Police and Fire and other benefits and pensions that will eventually break the City unless they keep growing the tax base.
California is a Prop 2 1/2 state. They invented it here.
So we pay taxes on what we paid for our house and land plus 2 1/2 percent over ten years (compounded of course).
But, as we all know, property has inflated way beyond that rate of increase.
If someone bought our house today or developed a new house the same size, they would immediately pay about three times as much tax as we do.
It is an interesting exercise.
In the meantime, I have conferred with our gardener Paul and we have selected a row of sumac trees to be planted outside the wall.
The macmansion will not see us and we will not see it.
But, we will know it is there. And, our neighborhood of mixed quality homes will be the poorer for it.
Labels: garden, macmansion
BLOWOUT
We are having high winds.
I passed on biking and took Franklin for his morning walk instead.
It is nice to do the morning, usually John's time, because he is more spirited and frolics through it. I mean Franklin, not John. He went back to bed, I think.
One morning dog frolic; a walk run thing we did before I got hurt on the ice with the bike.
We have not done it since.
Franklin started it this morning. He just lights out with this funny gait; a skip and a jump and a look to see if I am coming.
I found myself running.
Just like the 'old days'. Well, 10 weeks ago 'old days'.
I stayed with it.
I guess this is why they say it is good for 'old people' to have animals.
He keeps me young.
ALONE
Now, he has lost his own people.
Washington Post: Unwilling to do the White House's heavy lifting on Iraq, Senate Republicans are prepared to step aside to allow language requiring troop withdrawals to pass in a $122 billion war-spending package that includes a target date of March 31, 2008, for ending most U.S. combat operations in Iraq. Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he will no longer block the bill from reaching President Bush, forcing him to face down Democratic adversaries with his veto pen..........From the WSJ on-line
Another milestone on the downward spiral.
Where will it end?
Labels: bushie
Monday, March 26, 2007
END OF LIFE
Today, Time publishing pulled the plug on
I know. A lot of people thought that it was dead already.
Not so.
It would appear in a vaporous, feeble version as a supplement in many newspapers. The LATimes carried it.
When I was a kid, we got LIFE every week. You never used the lower case, incidentally.
It was a picture magazine. Remember. This was before television.
Photographers became famous through their pages.
I haven't read it in years; not even our supplement.
But it still feels like a loss. As though a childhood friend who you have not seen in years died.
Well, that is exactly what it is.
We used to look and look at those pages.
As a matter of fact, its major competitor LOOK, never quite made it to LIFE'S level.
Photojournalism is not dead. It still lives on the net and in some magazines.
But there will never be another LIFE.
This is a photo of the baby when it was born.
Labels: nostalgia
NAMING NAMES
Today's Zero Mostel Film Festival Film was Martin Ritt's
which is about the blacklisting scandals of the 1950's.
The film was made with 7 or 8 people who were blacklisted themselves.
The credits roll with each name and their blacklisted date. A fine payback for the McCarthy and HUAC bastards.
A lot of this will seem familiar; Kafka-esque investigations that sort of crawl up their own assholes but still scare and intimidate people and actually destroy some people's lives.
Zero Mostel plays the comic Hecky Brown who is unable and unwilling to name names. His friendship with Woody Allen (the star) is what turns Woody, the front for blacklisted writers, into a rebellious witness.
It is all very good preserving a delicate balance between comedy and tragedy.
Mostel's role capitalizes on his ability to maintain this balance in all his career. He is hilariously funny and has this underlay of tragic awareness.
I saw this when it came out and was excited about seeing it again.
He is a 5 and the film is a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: blacklist, criminal morons, films, Zero Mostel
Sunday, March 25, 2007
MAHER
This Bill Maher rant is worth listening to:
Traitors Don't Get to Question My Patriotism
Hard as nails.
He 'proves' my contention that the bushies are criminal morons.
Labels: criminal morons, maher
ROMAN FARCE
Today's entry in the Zero Mostel Film Festival was Richard Lester's
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
In this one, Mostel recreates his stage role.
He is the star.
Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford and Buster Keaton add to the stew.
We see the patented, full bore comic actor Mostel; the rolling eyes, the wild gestures, the 'sounds' that only his voice can make.
Type casting.
The film itself is quite enjoyable. Funny. Fast paced.
A Keystone Cops kind of chariot race near the end drags the film down. Bad decision.
Zero could really sing well. He went on to star in the original Fiddler on the Roof. Sadly, they decided not to use him in the film.
I am sorry that I never saw him on the stage.
Nevertheless, I have this film to watch and listen to for his musical self.
This was Mostel's big return from his blacklisted appearance.
We will see more on this when we watch The Front.
Labels: blacklist, films, Zero Mostel
OFF LIMITS
We live on a hill. Actually, a mesa.
They call our neighborhood 'the mesa'.
The mesa has two sides.
There is a connecting road from one side of the hill to the other.
You go up and you come down in a 'U' shape.
At the base of the 'U' at the very top, the road is actually on private property and is not a public right of way.
We have never observed this. The owner of most of the property never objected when we walked there.
But she has died and the property has been sold and we are no longer welcome to walk through the new man's property.
Now this is perfectly understandable.
If I lived up there I wouldn't want a parade of dog walkers and all going by 10 feet away from my front door either.
So I understand why he has closed the gates (and written a few terse notes to some people who went around them).
And yet, there is a feeling of loss; an entitlement (not) has been taken away.
It doesn't make sense and it will only last a few days.
If you get anything out of being 70, you get a handle on dealing with loss.
And I don't say that in a self-pitying way. Life is gain and loss. The loss is almost always replaced. Well, until the very end. Then you don't know that it happened anyway.
The costs of this one are few.
It will be a bit difficult explaining to Franklin why we can't make the U.
I will miss seeing the houses on the other side.
But there are solutions.
The magnificent view is not lost. There are many other vantage points. We will go there and stand and look and look and look.
And we can walk up the both sides separately and come back down again.
It is just that when we have a routine we don't want it to change even if it is the right thing.
Labels: neighborhood, routine
CULTIST
I don't know how I feel about Mac "coming out of the cult category".
I guess I never thought that's where it was.
I have never felt that I belonged to a cult.
Nor do I intend to belong to a religion.
I am just happy to say that I have never had to deal with all the shit that Microsoft dishes up in both its design and vulnerabilities.
It just seems to make sense to be using Mac and I am always astonished to find people who are in the MS dark ages.
It would seem that there are less of those; troglodytes, masochists, and slaves to an inferior master.
Apple Cult Becoming a Religion.
Yeh.
We say novenas every night to St. Steve.
It is interesting that even the positive press has to have a jibe in it.
Cult. D'oh. It is just being sensible.
Labels: computer, cults, macintosh
Saturday, March 24, 2007
THE KID
Yesterday when I was shopping I noticed a boy about 12 years old walking the aisles.
He looked tough. Through the mill. Streetwise.
He had a limp and, close up, I could see that he was shivering.
Well, I was shivering too but not that way. It was cold in the store.
It looked like some kind of trauma to me.
What to do?
Then he disappeared.
An aisle or two later, he appeared again. I got the idea that he wanted to be inconspicuous but he was doing a poor job of it.
We were in the soda aisle and he went and took one of the most esoteric designer sodas (cream flavored-four glass bottles in a cute carrier) and went around the aisle corner again.
He was dressed sort of like other kids are. Big big 'satin' shorts and a thin jacket.
He wasn't clean.
I had the idea to ask him if everything was all right but then I could not do it.
I don't think that it was a matter of 'not getting involved'. After all, there wasn't much to get involved in.
I just wanted to ask him.
I told the checker, who I know pretty well, about it.
He said that they come in there all the time.
They.
Kids hiding out, Kids shoplifting. Kids on the loose. Kids.
The store people don't do anything unless there is trouble. In fact, they are told not to do anything as it could be construed as 'an approach'.
I thought about that awhile. Reluctance to act for fear of getting involved in some kind of 'molesting' charge or something.
The checker friend said to leave it alone. He would look out for the kid and see if he was one of the regulars.
I take it from his comments that he would not really do that unless there was 'trouble'.
When I left the store, the kid was just outside the doors and came in the exit door as I went out. Shit. Another opportunity to say something.
It bothered me most of the day.
Should I have said or done something?
Maybe I should have called a cop. In their store? Not likely.
How about social services? Oh man; come on.
What was going on with the kid?
He was the age of my oldest grandson. Like that.
I suppose that it is possible that he was in the store with his affluent mother who was just around the corner and paid for the cream soda and all.
I don't think so.
I was a country kid.
When I moved to the city for college, I remember being astonished to see so many loose kids all over. The veterans called them 'urchins'.
They were all over Cambridge. You ignored them. Dirty, unkempt and delinquent and all in need of attention, love, protection. But they were treated more or less like stray dogs. Keep outta my way!
When we lived in the South End of Boston, we didn't see kids that age. Teenagers on the loose, yes. Not the 12's.
I never see any of that here, I am so sheltered.
When I was a kid, we ran loose all the time. If you behaved and people knew your parents you were pretty much ignored.
If your family had a 'reputation', perhaps lower class, then it was different.
I would like to think that older people looked out for kids then but I am not sure that is the case.
Mr. Vernoy, down the street, made my friend David blow him for almost a year before anyone on the street knew it was on.
There are no 'good old days' in this department.
I thought more about this kid last night and I realized that it was not school time. Almost but not. That is really the time that loose kids get noticed.
I don't know. It has just freaked me out. All my parent stuff has risen to the top.
It bothers me that today older people are afraid to get involved with kids because there is the danger of being seen as messing with them. Or somehow be accused by the kid himself.
Teachers and priests tell me that it is a problem even in their line of work.
That sure is different than the old days.
I don't know.
I just thought I would write about it.
I can't do anything about my lack of action. Or even know if it was appropriate.
I am repeating myself.
ZERO SUM GAME
I am holding a
Film Festival.
I first saw Mostel as a kid. It would have been around the early fifties. Maybe earlier.
It is possible that I saw Dubarry Was a Lady because my first recollection is that he was funny.
That film is not on disc.
We will never know.
From the minute I saw him I thought of him as very special. In my heart.
His history (at the link) is really fascinating. I love the story of his painting in the museum.
All this was brought about by seeing him again in The Producers. Mesmerizing.
So I am going back through some of the films.
Today's film was
This is a Humphrey Bogart noir police procedural. It is pretty good, actually. It is one of those that you could have figured out the answer to the riddle yourself because the clues we see are the same as the ones Bogart sees.
The film also has some other favorite character actors; Everett Sloane and Ted Di Corsia.
Mostel plays a nebbish thug. He is apprehended inside a church and we see him being brought out forcefully; a cop at each arm and leg with him roaring his unique roar.
He soon quiets down and becomes a bit of a sad sack. Somehow he tugs at our hearts even as he talks about his willingness to off someone (with an ice pick). He is a key witness.
He holds all his scenes. Bogart has to push him around and yell to stay on top.
The Mostel imp is inside the character and you can see it.
In a way he is using his nebbishness as protection. I had no doubt but what he would have used the ice pick if given a chance.
The photo above is at about the same time as this film.
It is a good look at the kind of yoeman's work Mostel used in the movies before he got blacklisted and well before his return as a major theatrical star.
I am not going to bother rating these films as there is no point. I am watching Zero not the movie.
Labels: films, noir, Zero Mostel
Friday, March 23, 2007
WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP
Kevin Drum expands on the Pew Survey that shows the resurrection of the Democratic Party.
Thje Myth of the Permanent Majority
Remember how we have been wringing our hands since Reagan and Gingrich made the new republican majority?
Labels: politics
SZPILMAN
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Roman Polansky's
I imagine this to be a near perfect film. I am not sure because I was so engaged in it that I had little time to step back and see the structure and techniques of it all.
Adrian Brody plays the part that was made for him.
Polansky tells his own story through the biography of the real pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman. As a boy he experienced nearly the same escape from the concentration camps and lived through the war in Warsaw.
We know the end of the story. After all, Szpilman wrote a book and lived to be 88. And it does not matter.
Szpilman's trials and tribulations are told against the historic backdrop of Poland's occupation and annihilation of its Jews and nothing prepares us for the horror of it all.
Polansky films the events against bright light and beautiful weather as well as 'normal life' going on all around the occupation and expulsions.
The final chapter of the story stretches credibility but the acting holds it together as well, obviously, as Polansky's restraining hand.
This is a 5 out of Netflix5 for sure.
Labels: best films
WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN AND HIGH TIME TOO
Fewer pledge allegiance to the GOP
"A poll says 35% of those surveyed identify with Republicans. Public attitudes seem to be drifting toward Democrats' values".
What amazes me is that hard core 35% that do not move from the gop or bush.
But there have always been troglodytes and barbarians.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
SHOT II
We went out for lunch today.
For me, that is unprecedented.
But, some friends from Boston were in town and a mutual friend wanted us all to get together for the day and we did.
We took Franklin.
We had a nice time.
And it shot the afternoon.
It was worth it in this case but it seldom is.
By 'shot' I mean that it takes time to get dressed and to drive and to be there and to come home and to change again and before you know it you have cut 3 hours or more out of the day.
It is good practice to go once in awhile and set a standard.
Unless it is as worthwhile as today's investment was, it is a waste of time to go out for lunch.
At home, I can get it all done in 30 minutes and I can do some reading while it happens.
Nonetheless, thanks Bob for a nice time.
GALBRAITH FACTOR
I don't know if this is a 3 of a 4 on the scale.
Video: Gonzales: 'I will not resign'
He has to say it 4 times before we know he will.
Labels: bushies, gonzales, gonzo
SHOT I
We took Franklin in for some immunization today.
We go to a very high tech, multi-vet animal hospital.
They are great with the animals.
Our doc is the medical director and he is a study in dog control.
Of course, Franklin knows the routine now and likes the place. It is one of his 18 favorite places to go.
He does not relish the rectal temp but who among us does?
For the exam they get him so calm. It is just amazing.
Relaxed.
Focused.
And that is Franklin!
He is a little overweight. New food. Less exercise because I was benched.
We will fix that.
A little tartar on the teeth. We will try going back to some home brushing.
The tartar removal 'treats' and so on really don't do the job on the tough areas.
Otherwise he is a healthy dog.
We knew that but it is nice to know that others more qualified than we agree with us.
Labels: Franklin
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
PURE INGMAR
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Ingmar Bergman's
Here is what kind of film this is. It is a tale of repression; of memory, emotions, thoughts, desires. It is a challenge to show this kind of feeling plane.
To elucidate, each of the actors come on and tell you about what is behind their character at various times during the story.
So theatrical. Addressing the audience. Hardly ever seen in films. It actually works.
There is also a parallel story which rages in violence while the slow, smoldering protagonists only inch towards their catharsis.
Wow. I haven't used that word since college.
There are no wasted scenes, so you have to make a lot of 'bridges' for yourself to navigate the territory of this bleak foursome made up of a brilliant Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullman, Bibi Andersson and Erland Josephson; the core Bergman repertory company.
I liked it a lot even though I was often reaching to get to the next point before I got the last one.
It is not accessible in one gulp. You will need a high tolerance for ambiguity.
I have plenty of that.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5. I like to be stretched.
Labels: bergman, best films
THE ROVE SHOW
WSJ on line Evening Edition:
Before today's vote, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said the administration was attempting to avoid the media circus likely to result from Mr. Rove being seated for a public hearing.
Well, of course.
He is the ringmaster and has been.
I know. There is Cheney but he doesn't have an act in this show.
It is amusing to watch these bastards squirm.
The most active conspirator in the whole deal and we cannot hear what he has to say.
These guys are beyond belief.
I would think that Snow's career, if any, in the media is over.
Well, there is always Fox.
Labels: bushies, criminal morons, gonzales, gonzo
EQUINOX
Today is the Vernal. At 00:07 UTC (Greenwich).
So it already happened.
Spring. The first day.
We are having a downturn in the temps and last night there was a lot of wind so it is time-appropriate weather here.
Are we supposed to go out to Stonehenge today? Or is that later?
Oh, let's go anyhow.
See what the druids are up to.
Labels: weather
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
EDITING
Larry Kramer says that his own original title for the LATimes article was "A Letter to America's Heterosexuals".
I'm just saying.
There are reactions to this piece 'everywhere'.
Typically, some think Kramer goes overboard and others cheer.
The one thing he is good at is stirring the pot.
Stir away, Larry.
Labels: gay rights
REACTION
A reader of Andrew Sullivan responds to Larry Kramer's op-ed:
Thanks, whoever you are.
Labels: gay rights
GALBRAITH/ESROSE FACTORS
J. Kenneth Galbraith, the wit, statesman and economist, developed the theory that says, in part, that four statements of "I will not resign" by any public figure means that he will.
By my count Gonzo is up to three.
Today's call from the President, wherein bushie stated his support, complicates the calculation.
I have a parallel theory.
The esrose formulation is that four public statements of support by the president to his troubled henchmen means that they will be replaced within the week.
Rumsfeld is a prime example as is the scandal-ubiquitous Harriet Miers.
I read that they are already trying to find a replacement from a very thin field of volunteers.
This lack of prospects for the job might, indeed, be just what Alberto needs to save his sorry ass.
Labels: bushie, criminal morons, gonzales
LARRY
Larry Kramer has always been our angry young man.
Even though he is now 72, he still holds the place of honor.
He says out-loud the things that many of us think but do not say because we do not want to rock the boat.
He expresses anger that we did not even know we had.
It is a good question, actually.
I understand all the theories from the religious (shaky premises) to threatened masculinity (maybe).
I think that it is the depth of it that is astonishing.
When Obama and Clinton take one day to say that 'no' they do not think that homosexuals are immoral, it is clear that they have been plotting the political calculus and not thinking or speaking from the heart.
I have personally reached the point where I do not expect 'love' from heterosexuals except for those who I meet in my daily life and who accept and love me personally.
Put a bunch of straights together into institutional life and the next thing you know, we are getting hate. It feeds on itself.
OK dear hetero-reader. I know that you do not hate me.
But what about all your compatriots?
Labels: criminal morons, gay rights, weasels
TWO FACED
This is the old game of condemning US interests while still taking the money.
Money Looms in Episcopalian Rift With Anglicans
It is just amazing.
How do you spell hypocrisy?
Whited sepulchers.
Labels: christist watch, hypocrites
BIRD WATCHING
Our 'bird of paradise' has five 'blossoms' which is a record for this plant.
Up until now, the birds have often been born in hot summer and dried out.
Still others were still-born; kinda half out of the pod then dried up.
This is an early crop which certainly helps the heat problem.
I have started to help them bloom by working the folds along the side with my fingernail. A sort of caesarian section.
They pop right out after that.
They are pretty spectacular.
After ten years, we can still get all excited about stuff we never saw or had before we moved to California.
The birds are on the list.
Labels: garden
Monday, March 19, 2007
SHAW
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was the film version of Bernard Shaw's
It is impossible to view this film without instant mental comparison to the stage and film musical of another name.
Many of the lines are so familiar that, at first, one expects the principals to break into song. Blessedly, they do not.
One soon forgets the musical—pretty much.
The play and the stars of this Shaw-written film stand out on their own.
Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller are the Professor and Eliza.
Another wonderful Criterion digital restoration.
It is a highly enjoyable film and gets a 5 out of Netflix5 and no one had to walk on anyone's street where they live or, on the other hand, could have danced all night.
At all.
Labels: best films
Sunday, March 18, 2007
REEL LIFE
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Woody Allen's
with Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels.
This ode to depression movies uses the movie within a movie idea in unique and clever way.
Daniels steps out of the screen to meet movie addict Farrow and court her.
Farrow who has an abusive husband at home is taken up with the romance and then, in turn, falls for the real star of the film who comes from Hollywood to help resolve the confusion created by his character's leaving the film being shown.
We see the movie cast dealing with his departure from their story twice. The confusion and comedy created makes for an enjoyable film.
All the stock character of those films are present; the playboys, the rich dowager (countess), the black maid. There is even the token fag.
It isn't very deep which is OK.
The black and white film pieces that we see are wonderfully recreated. They look very much like the real thing.
Have you noticed how often I am using the word 'real'.
Well, we are also watching an unrealistic film about reality that evolves from a story where the unreal becomes real.
Go see it and figure it out for yourself and savor the magic of Allen's exquisitely careful recreation of the places and times.
There are some sets and business (including the film within the film) that are real/reel gaspers.
At the end, Farrow gives us a resolution that is not a resolution. It is certainly not the one we want.
But she is brilliant as she .................well, see it for yourself.
A 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films, Woody
Saturday, March 17, 2007
THE TALK
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Quentin Tarantino's
I read a lot of pulp and mostly enjoy the talk that goes with it.
That is the main thing here.
There are the three intertwining stories and all with some great performances but it is the talk that counts.
I almost want to read the script.
I suppose that somewhere there is a book made of it.
I have not always liked this film. When I first saw it, I felt assaulted and kind of withdrew.
The second time, I bailed out.
This time, I stayed and tried to create a greater sense of humor for myself and that worked.
I can finally give it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
99
Today is my father's birthday.
We would be 99.
A nice round number.
I miss him.
He is here every day. I know that I have some of his stuff.
I can see it in my kids.
He influenced a lot of people.
When he was a kid he had to quit school in the 8th grade and go to work.
That is what most boys did then.
He made up for his lack of education in many ways.
He learned his math and writing and eventually became a manager of a food market for A&P.
He joined the Navy in WWII when he was 'too old' and didn't have to and learned about the world and life and death and the horrors of war on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as a radar man on a destroyer-escort.
He got wounded.
He came home and brought the War with him for awhile but eventually he and it calmed down.
He had the wisdom of living.
He took every bit of experience and distilled it into the moment when he needed to say or do any particular thing.
He was a member of the school board. He gave me my diploma when I graduated from High School.
He was on the volunteer ambulance crew. He had some great and grisly stories to tell about that.
You would be amazed what people will call an ambulance for!
Well, maybe not.
We struggled the father-son thing like everyone else and eventually love won.
A good ending to any contest.
I was able to be with him at the end, to let him go and to say goodbye.
Well, I thought it was goodbye. But it was not.
Like I said. He is still here. I have a few pictures of him near my desk. I get to say hello on a regular basis.
It was a family joke that he was born on St. Patrick's Day.
We are all krauts. German to the core.
I would always try to find the one or two St. Patrick's Day birthday cards in the drug store.
So, today it isn't just hello. It is "top o' the mornin' to ya'" and "Begorrah" whatever that means and "Happy Birthday"!
Labels: birthdays, family, fathers
Friday, March 16, 2007
MORE
Today's film was about someone who left.
I have been interested in this dynamic for a long time since I was one who left too.
John and I saw a painting in the Museum of Modern Art. I think it was actually two paintings.
It was titled "Those who stay" and "Those who go away" or something.
The bottom dropped out when I saw it.
There was never any question about me staying around where I grew up. It was understood from the beginning (at least to me) that there was nothing there for me.
The hero of today's movie leaves because so much happens in his life that he cannot bear to stay any longer. He is deeply alienated.
He stays away for 15-20 years.
Then he comes back.
It is explosive.
Perhaps that is why I so appreciated the film.
The last words are about how he has left them but they have never left him; not for one day.
They are his 'saints'.
The toughest kid, the battered Antonio has gone to prison and we see him as the hero visits.
He looks to be a saint. He is beautifully realized. All the mean is gone.
He even looks a bit christ figurish; long hair and all. Beatific.
Wonderful.
Labels: coming of age, films
FAMILY
I wanted to see
A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints (2006)
because of the reviews that I saw and also the profiles that I read about the writer-director Dito Montiel.
The film made a big stir at Sundance.
This is a big little picture. By focusing on the small group of family and friends we see a coming of age event that we can all identify with and care about.
Odd that we don't care as much for the specific characters as for the process of it all.
Robert Downey Jr. is wonderful as the adult Dito who has not seen any of the group for 15 years even though he has made a successful book about them all. They are the saints; the kids and grown ups he left behind who influenced him so much.
Downey's acting style is so clean and crisp. Intense. He has lived a lot of life and projects that into his role.
The film alternates between the adult world and the kid world. We see many of the living grown up kids.
The filming is noisy and choppy and moves back and forth in time. It captures New York life as most of it is. The Queens; the part you go through to get to the airports.
There are many surprises.
I liked it a lot and was touched by much of the film.
Dianne Weist as the mother and Chazz Palminteri as the Dad are the only actors to play their younger and older selves. Stunning.
Wiest opens the film and grabs you by the collar.
Among the kids, Shia LaBeouf as the young Dito is rivetting. He and Downey had to work together a lot to get the same moves and all.
Channing Tatum as Dito's cousin (?) and best friend is an abused boy who dishes all his pent up anger out at others. Stud.
It will be a 5 out of Netflix5 even though it has some slack parts and I couldn't get all the dialog—NYC accent and all the noise.
Labels: coming of age, films, indies
WHAT YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU HIT A CERTAIN AGE
Recently, I thought of someone who I probably have not had one single synapse close in 50 years.
A bolt out of the blue.
This is one of the effects of being a geezer.
Flashbacks.
Not dissimilar to those associated with the use of dope.
I have had a note to write about him for days.
He was a pioneer on television.
I hate to admit that when we first had our teevee set I watched everything including Howdy Doody and Pinky Lee was on just before HD.
I think that I was at least 12, maybe 13, at the time.
Hey. I was a latch key kid and I was on my own. I did what I wanted to.
It does occur to me that the early teevee watching led to my overdosing on it and quitting it some 40 years later.
Pinky Lee was like Paul Reuben's Pee Wee Herman.
Both were fey to the camp extreme. Both sort of lisped. Both wore funny clothes and pranced. Both set kids as their target audience (although Lee had been a burlesque star).
I remember the same arguments raging over his sexuality as we heard about Herman or, at the same time, Liberace.
They were ambiguous.
They both had more than their share of the outer child in their repertoire. Prepubescent actually.
Pinky wore a plaid suit and matching hat in his early years. He traded that in for a much more flamboyant suit and hat along with the fruitiest bow tie you could imagine.
Take a look at Pinky at this web site and if you want a taste of his schtick take a look at the musical instruments clip. It is pretty small which is probably a good thing.
I laughed and got all into it when I saw the clip.
I know. There is no explaining things like this.
Wait until you are 70. You will understand.
BACK STORIES
This has so many subtexts that it boggles the mind:
Homosexuality May Be Based on Biology, Baptist Says
First, the admission that the 'gay lifestyle' is not an option, this bible thumper has turned a rhetorical corner he may never get back around.
Then, to talk about gene manipulation, he is getting on board the same bus as the stem cell folks.
Underneath that is the idea that god's will might extend to human diddling with what god made in the first place.
It is loaded with contradiction and confusion.
These guys are endlessly fascinating.
How many twists and turns does it take to shove your head up your ass.
Labels: christist watch, criminal morons
HERE WE GO
I am going to be the first in line.
California Joins Move to Earlier Primaries
Hell, we are going to be the earlier primary.
There will be others but we are the biggest!
And so on. Drum thumping and bugles blaring into the distance. Boosterism.
Labels: California, civic pride, election
LIKE I SAID
In the 'old days', military aircraft would release 'chaff' into the air to confuse radar observation. Chaff was made of aluminum foil in small pieces that would show an image on the radar confusing the location of the actual aircraft.
This is chaff.
I told you.
Confession at Guantánamo by 9/11 Mastermind May Aid Other Qaeda Defendants
This guy is smart. He knows he is a goner.
He has a chance to pull one last big one.
He knows that the US Military have painted themselves into a corner; so obsessed with secrecy that he can say anything he wants and they can say nothing.
We are such fools.
Labels: criminal morons, Idiots, terrorism
Thursday, March 15, 2007
HILL TURNS
Whew. What a sigh of relief that is.
The point, of course, isn't whether she believed it was immoral but, rather, if she was willing to say so.
No word from Obama yet.
Labels: gay military, gay rights, hillary
NACL
Pardon me if I take the many confessions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with a grain of salt.
First, he has obviously been coerced.
Second, he is taking the blame off others, This is clear in his statement. A martyr for the cause. The last best act of 'terrorism'. Scare the pants off your enemy by standing tall.
And three, like he was everywhere. Zelig.
I just read that he confesses to personally beheading Daniel Pearl.
We know that this happens to every hardly treated and interviewed captive sooner or later; the Stockholm Syndrome or something like it.
Then add a dash of more salt; megalomania. One of those guys who had a hand in everything.
And isn't it interesting that, if you read the small print, almost 75 % of this news has been reported before. It is just the tribunal thing that is new.
Amazing how they have this stuff on the shelf to whip out when there is some other scandal brewing.
It doesn't seem to be holding the news cycle though.
It is not on Yahoo news or Reuters at all this afternoon but Gonzo and the gang are there still.
And I won't use the picture where they rousted him out of bed either.
Don't get me wrong. I figure that he is a nasty piece of work and deserves whatever he gets. I would just like whatever it is to be legal and according to the Geneva Convention and in an open hearing.
It is what we believe(d) in.
Labels: criminal morons, spin, terrorism
RECOVERY
The warm days and increased sunlight are having their effect.
Almost all the frost-burned plants have a definite green cast and are beginning to recover just as predicted.
Some neighbors cut a lot of their shrubs down.
We stuck with the gardeners' conventional wisdom that they would return.
Our Paul is in charge anyway and we do what he says but I did ask around. Very few pros did cutting except where there was obvious kill.
Now, we are being rewarded.
We have not seen a 'spring' since we moved out here. No leaf-less trees. No spring greens.
Now, we have it all again. It is just like the old back east days.
CURTAINS
I went out back and saw that John had pulled our 'sun curtains' closed.
We are mostly glass across the back of the house. We see desert and mountains. The pool and our yard.
But in summer we black them out for part of the day to keep it cool.
When we moved here we laughed at some of the houses that had outside drapes; heavy canvas things.
Pulled back from the windows on the outside.
It didn't take us long to laugh on the other side of our faces.
The radiation heat on the back of the house was intense. Vertical blinds did not begin to do the trick because they were inside the house. The glass was as hot as a stove top.
So we got the outdoor drapes! Heavy canvas ones. Vertical awnings.
They are now 9 years old and look as good as they did the first day. Almost.
So today they are drawn; first time since October maybe.
It has been in the 90s all week and that is part of it but the most of it is that the sun is now up to the Spring level (next week) and it is hitting us longer each day.
The drapes are only up for a few hours in the afternoon.
They are doing their job. It is famously cool in the bedroom.
THURSDAY OPEN END
I suppose that being retired and all, people would figure that there are endless unstructured days with nothing really laid out to do.
Serious retirees (as opposed to dabblers) and regular readers of this blog will know this is not the case.
I am all structure. Someone once told me that I live like a monk. Order.
I get up and get to it every day. My plate is nicely full. Not too full but full.
There is biking and blogging every day. There is cooking. There is the afternoon dogwalking.
Most afternoons there is a movie.
There are two days for shopping; Tuesday and Friday. There are three days for Meetings. And so on.
We even structure the weekend. Saturday is just another day and Sunday has the family threesome walk with, of course, the Sunday LATimes to read when we get back from the open road.
Now I know that this does not sound like work but it really is. Really.
The exception is Thursday.
Thursday is not booked for anything regular. It is my open day.
The 'order' even provides this treat.
I use it for the occasional appointment; dentist, doc, vet, the like.
Once a month or so we all three go to PetSmart to get dog necessities on Thursday.
But mostly I leave it wide open to let the air in. Anything might come up and does.
Why Thursday? Well, It is disrupted anyway.
Mari comes to clean the house.
Yes, I know. If I cleaned the house I could be fucking busy all the time and even lose some sleep.
Not me.
She takes over the house so even my regular shit gets rearranged.
Nice.
I am in the front of the house in the AM and then get moved to the rear.
I read. I nap. I look into space.
Thursday where the order is no order.
Today I had a pretty clear time and it just flew as I read my new Ward Just novel, his first.
A Soldier of the Revolution; just back in print.
It is great. Good thing. He was wiped out as a journalist after Viet Nam and this was the life turning step. It was a great success.
He has all the moves that I recognize in his writing; the 13 novels afterward. Many, many essays and short stories.
I will also take a swim.
Something.
Thursday.
Labels: retirement, Ward Just
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
BIDEN—HIS TIME
Listen to this. He comes alive.
I have never taken him seriously.
I do now.
KEILLOR GETS SAVAGED
Fuck Garrison Keillor
Also found by Andrew Sullivan, this wonderful teardown of the tiresome old bore, and now hypocrite, Garrison Keillor
Well put. Succinctly stated.
Today is homophobia day, aint?
Dan Savage is a nationally syndicated advice columnist and a gay parent.
Labels: gay marriage, hypocrites
EQUAL TIME
So Hillary is not alone.
From Andrew Sullivan to Politico to here!
Another Profile in CourageLike Hillary, Obama today took an, er, clear stance on General Pace's remark that homosexuality is immoral.
From Glenn Thrush on Newsday's blog:
Newsday caught Obama as he was leaving the firefighters convention and asked him three times if he thought homsexuality is immoral.
Answer 1: "I think traditionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has restricted his public comments to military matters. That's probably a good tradition to follow."
Answer 2: "I think the question here is whether somebody is willing to sacrifice for their country, should they be able to if they're doing all the things that should be done."
Answer 3: Signed autograph, posed for snapshot, jumped athletically into town car.
Labels: gay rights, obama, politics
HILL THE PILL
Here is why I do not like Hillary Clinton.
She is continuously ambiguous on key issues.
Sure, gay military is a hot button with me but this is a sharp illustration of her inability to be straight with us, so to speak. Not just 'the gays'. Any of us.
And I am not ambiguous about my dislike for her as a result.
Hillary unable to say homosexuality isn't "immoral".
She is one of the original rail sitters; eating her cake and having it too.
The trouble is that you cannot do that. You have to hold the rail or the cake and neither works.
Block those metaphors.
Labels: gay military, gay rights, hillary, politics
NOW YOU SEE IT NOW YOU DON'T
I wanted to rent The Prestige (2006)
because it got good reviews, was written by the Nolan Brothers and has Christian Bale.
Get ready for a Christian Bale film festival.
It is not a 'best' film and probably will not ever be.
I liked a some of it and got annoyed at some pieces as well as the ending.
It seems that is not enough now to just tell a story well.
There have to be whoof whoom sound effects in an echo chamber and loud music.
This is not an action film; not outer space. It is fucking 19th Century England.
It is hard to hear the dialogue.
It is also annoying to have to be queued for one's emotional reactions.
We also have Hugh Jackman, who I can take or leave alone, and Michael Caine, who I like very much.
Scarlett Johanssen (two t's, two s's) rolls her eyes and purses her lips and delivers her lines like a valley girl.
It is all too much. Or, rather, not enough.
The ending is preposterous.
Just as we were getting into hand made, 'real' illusions, they pop us into a gimmick that is way out there in fantasy land.
And so on.
A 3 out of Netflix5 and maybe a 2 if I get any more sore about it.
Labels: films
GO GONZO
The WSJ Question of the Day was: Should Attorney General Gonzales remain in office?
So far 71 % say NO!
This is a tough rightish sort of audience.
Maybe he will have to say he will 'not resign' again, raising his Galbraith Index.
Remember?
Anyone who says he will not resign four times, will.
Labels: criminal morons, gonzo, politics
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
BETTY HUTTON
Betty Hutton, Film Star of ’40s and ’50s, Dies at 86
Hutton was a local but virtually a recluse. I never saw her here.
When I was a kid I saw every picture she made. She was full of energy and relentlessly 'happy'.
Not so in her personal life. She disappeared in the 50s and never came back.
We recently saw her in Preston Sturgess' Miracle at Morgan's Creek', a daring comedy for its time as it took on the virgin birth and put it in the present day.
It is amazing that it was ever made.
It is a NYTimes Best Film.
Labels: best films, obituary
GONZO TAKES A HIT
J. Kenneth Galbraith, applying the principles of economics to all affairs, famously said that anyone who says they 'will not resign' four times, will.
Gonzo now has a score of 1 and almost certainly will hit a 2 tomorrow as reporters comb through the data dump today at the White House.
Gonzales Says ‘Mistakes Were Made’ in Firing of Prosecutors
What irks me about Gonzales is his shit-eating grin.
He can and has said the most outrageous stuff and always, always, always, has that little smile going. Even when they are after him hard.
I didn't see the tape of today's presser (which he walked out on after the fourth question) but I bet he wasn't grinning.
Labels: criminal morons, gonzo
DANCING MAN
I am so interested in this guy.
Where the Hell is Matt--Out takes.
He has produced two wonderful dancing tapes which I have featured before.
Now, he is planning a new trip with more people in them; less tourist sights.
You can see the other tapes on his links.
He has a sponsor. Great.
What I want to know is who is taking the pictures?
Labels: dancing
WORSE
We all think about it. These guys are talking about it.
Leaving Iraq: The Grim Truth: Beyond Quagmire
It is all pretty scary but succinctly told.
That way, your heart doesn't have to stay in your throat very long.
Labels: Iraq
WHO DONE IT?
Today's film was not a best film but it was a nice vacation from the serious and important.
It was recommended in the NYTimes DVD review a few weeks ago.
with Alastair Sim as a detective in a suspenseful police procedural which is rather conventional until it isn't.
Sim is a great comic actor on a par with Alec Guiness and his whimsical inspector, who knows it all, is beautifully drawn.
One suspense and plot element is the buzz bomb which has everyone, including us, on edge whenever they buzz near. The silent end of the buzz is the sign that they are falling.
We meet Sim in a foreshadowing scene where he hears the buzz and takes numerous near balletic evasion movements. All full of vain hope. Great.
The end gets tables turned as they should be.
Great fun.
A 4 out of Netflix5 but it should really not be rated. Simply enjoy it.
Labels: films
Monday, March 12, 2007
TOO LITTLE TO BE SAVED
There isn't enough light to go around let alone be saved.
We have the clocks set ahead and it is not an improvement.
I had to wait a half hour to start my 6AM bike ride today. It was pitch black at 6. Even I am not going to risk going out in that little light.
Now we are turning to the dog-walk after dinner rather than before.
We will have to hustle to get back before the sun is too far down to see our way home.
Well, not that bad.
But it is still annoying.
I don't know what they were thinking. Probably not.
There are arguments on both sides of the energy saving question.
We will adjust.
In two weeks this won't even be a blip on the curve.
But right now, I am in the middle of explaining to an Airedale why we are waiting for his walk, when we will go and what happens to his routine 'bone' after we have dinner.
But we go through this one every year.
There is no trouble in the fall when we take our walk earlier and get the bone right after dinner.
Supper is always the same time. No problem there.
He is not buying it.
I don't either.
Would someone explain it for me?
Labels: bicycle, daylight, environment
FRONT RUNNERS
I love this photo. I got it off Andrew Sullivan's site.
(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty.)
Labels: politics
FIRST DAY
When I was a kid backeast, we all waited for the first day that we could swim.
There was Seguine's artificial lake in the early years. It featured water snakes and a wide variety of local types with whom we would not normally mix.
But we are all one on the first swimming day.
I don't know how we were able to know when it arrived but I think that it was these same unsavory types who blazed the wet trail.
We would drive by on the way to somewhere else and there were cars parked along the woods that led to the lake.
You did have to be careful as the place was also a good site for snoggering. You needed to see a wet person in a bathing suit through the trees or else you might wander into someone's love nest. And I don't mean the water snakes.
There was a spillway so you didn't have to dunk entirely. You could wade your way in and then dive if you were so inclined.
I do remember that it was fucking cold.
Later, they re-opened the community pool and the starting day was determined by the authorities who opened up when they were damned good and ready.
Later still, I got to swim in the pools of local resorts. All you had to do was snag a friend who stayed there or had pull to get in; usually an employee of the hotel.
My Uncle Hank worked for the Onawa Lodge and my cousin Phil and I spent many happy days at their 'natural' pool. A mudhole lined with drywall rocks. Also snakes. I don't know if the lodgers saw them or not.
The Onawa had a social director and so each week there were water shows with games and clowns and all.
We often got to help. We greased the watermelon for the contest of the same name. We hid the confetti pail so when the 'water' got thrown into the crowd no one got wet.
I had my first homosexual experience there with one of the social directors. Maybe it was molestation but I don't think it is if you kinda liked it.
My cousin Phil and I were doing it anyway but an older man; well!
Maybe we were doing the proverbial 'asking for it'.
A whole separate life.
Where was I?
Oh. First Day. Pools.
When I went to MIT, seasonality vanished and the first day sort of disappeared. The clean olympic plus sized pool was indoors.
After that, the first day would move to the sea side. I don't know how we could tell when it was time to go into the icy waters of Cape Cod Bay. But we did.
All of this adds up to the news that today was our first day in our very own pool. The first for 2007.
John was first.
I was inside and heard him calling me. He was naked and wet out by the edge; just out.
It didn't take me long to be just in. Second but still.
The water is 83 degrees. Cool and crispy for us but very refreshing.
We had our first day.
Summer is here.
Our air temp is in the 90s and the humidity is down into the single digits.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
HOW GAY IS IT?
The critics have lambasted the film but, to a man and woman, they have had something to say about the possible homoerotic content.
Here is the word from some horses' mouths.
Funny.
I saw some trailers and out takes and I can say that it rang all the bells on my gaydar.
It will be interesting to see if all the targeted teen age and young adult straight males who see it go home with boners and blue balls.
Hope so.
'300' Becomes 2007's First Blockbuster
Labels: films, pansexualism
HAPPY DISASTER
I seized victory out of the mouth of defeat today.
My printer has been on its last legs. It barely made it on to the new Mac System X.
We had to offer incense and prayer to the HP customer service gods to download a program that would work.
But today, mid project, it gave up the ghost.
We had taken pictures up and down the street to show why the MacMansion is out of sync with the neighborhood.
I got good pictures and was printing 8 or 9 of them when the machine faltered, gave a death rattle (really) and expired.
I tried, gods know I tried, to resuscitate but no dice.
Off to Staples and with a call to Dave and some help from a customer service guy I got me a new printer.
The HP 6940. Without the wireless.
It installed without any problem at all!
It has gotten where even four thumb intuitionists like me can install a new device.
I finished the photo job (due to be presented tomorrow) and all is well in printer land.
It is a beautiful machine. Sturdy too. Brushed chrome.
How can they sell them so cheap? 150 dollars?
OH! The cartridges, silly. Two combo packs cost almost as much as the printer.
Caught again.
Labels: computer, macmansion, photos
ODORAMA
The hot weather has gotten us quickly into citrus blossom time.
The air is redolent.
It brings back old memories--a mock orange bush in the back yard of the first house I lived in.
I used to stick my little head into the bush and 'dream' of being someplace where the real oranges grow.
Well, a boyhood dream is realized.
I have to say that, while it is wonderful, there are two downsides. The first is that the air is also filled with pollen. Sniff.
The second is that the air is also filled with bees! A dangerous time.
Every gift horse has its mouth.
Labels: citrus, flowers, nature
Saturday, March 10, 2007
IN THE DARK
There is no consensus that daylight savings saves anything including fuel, electric, or people's sanity.
Moving it ahead is just plain stupid.
I have made the first hurdle. I was able to get up at the 'correct time'—330 AM. But I will pay later on.
We lost the hour but had company so I was up late and then had to spring forward.
As it happens, it will be too dark for me to ride the bike at 6 AM. I will have to dance for 30-45 minutes.
I have lights on the bike but there are limits. Total darkness is too dangerous. Can't see the roadway.
Then there are the dog-walks to work around.
The sun won't go behind the mountain (our walking signal as we don't do direct sun) until 515 so do I make dinner then walk before we eat or do we eat early and then walk.
There is simply not enough daylight to save!.
It is too fucking early for the whole thing.
Incidentally, my Mac flipped right over to the right time this morning. How did your PC do?
Heh heh.
Labels: daylight
IT IS EASIER TO APOLOGIZE THAN TO ASK PERMISSION (SOMETIMES)
F.B.I. Head Admits Mistakes in Use of Security Act
These assholes are rampant.
Incompetence mixed with evil intent.
Gonzo came in on this too with the usual smarm on his face.
He grins through everything.
Gonzales. Gonzo.
Labels: bushie, criminal morons, gonzales
SUMMER
We are heading to summer with temperatures in the 90s this next week. We had spring; the last couple of weeks.
It has been a long tough winter.
You know we had ice.
The ice and I became intimately connected.
We had severe frost for two nights. We lost the banana trees and all the hibiscus and bougainvillea leaves (not the plants).
He had wind. But that was more the spring part.
It has been tough all around for us here in the desert.
But the orchid tree is in its fourth week of splendid bloom; the new leaves are sprouting on all but the most severely 'burned' tropical plants and even the banana tree 'pups' are beginning to grow the plantation back.
Of course there are roses! The new plants are coming in after their pruning and they are abundant.
The cold, dreary, ice ridden days are over.
The pool water is even up to the high 70s without nighttime cover.
Life is good.
WHATS IN A NAME?
But then, we probably aren't ready for a President named Barack either.
I don't know about 'Hillary'.
I just mention this as, unfortunately, I think that it will be a factor.
It also helps my guy.
Bill Richardson. Now that's a name!
Labels: election, Richardson, Rudy
THE BABE
I found this picture of Gary Cooper and Babe Ruth from the Pride of the Yankees (1942) which was the Best Film yesterday.
Babe Ruth never had a good bio-pic made of his life.
He was the 'bad boy' of the Yankees compared to Gehrig.
There was a horrendous movie made with William Bendix as Ruth but it is easily dismissed. John Goodman took a turn at the role in a more recent film. Thud.
One thing that Pride of the Yankees did show is the culture of baseball at that time. Far different from today.
More respect for the game. More human somehow.
Life was more difficult for the players. It was all train travel. Slow motion.
They didn't earn a whole lot.
Fans were appreciative and reverent for the game. Ego was not rewarded.
Of all the professional sports, baseball holds its traditions together better than any other in the modern world. But it is not the same.
Of course nothing is nor should it be.
I don't want to get into geezerly whining but we have lost a lot.
I hope the gains have been worth the loss.
Labels: best films, nostalgia
WEEKNESS
I have been back to biking for a week now and while I have weakened a bit—the hills are a bit more difficult than they were 8 weeks ago—I am able to do the whole route and not make any detours. My stamina is intact.
What has been best about returning is that a lot of people missed me.
You know. The people one sees every day on the rounds.
The friend who you pass in her car; she stopped and we chatted.
The young man and woman who walk their dogs out near the Andreas Hills. I shouted the 'story' of my ice adventures on several passes.
The woman who I used to ring my bell at when I came up behind her and then it became a joke so she would listen for me and turn around before I could ring the bell.
A few of the kids who wait for the school bus.
Those kind of people.
It is nice to be missed.
I missed them too.
It is good to be back.
How is the leg?
So much better in just a week; almost 100%!
Another trial completed.
Friday, March 09, 2007
ON SECOND THOUGHT
I don't think that we are ready for a President called 'Rudy'.
DOING THE MATH
By now, this outrageous stuff gets repetitive and boring so I just let it pass.
But every once in awhile, a stat hits you in the face.
Fucking look at this!
from Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly.
Keeerist!
Labels: criminal morons, politics
SLUGGER
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was
with Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig and Teresa Wrigh, his wife.
There was not a dry eye in the house. Even Franklin whimpered a bit.
The 'iron man' contracted Lou Gehrig's disease in his 16th year of playing for the Yankees.
Wait a minute. He couldn't have had Lou Gehrig's disease. Everyone since has. We even know someone who does.
He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
It is often said that this is one of the best baseball pictures ever made.
I beg to differ.
There is little here about the game itself. It is mostly about the courting and marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Gehrig.
It is good, no doubt. Just not a lot of baseball.
I will have to think about what is the best baseball picture. Maybe Bull Durham.
One big thing about this is that the real Babe Ruth plays himself!
I have never seen him in a film. He seems to be a buffoon or even an asshole but we do get to see him.
I liked the film and I teared up on queue but that is not a reason for this to be a great film. It is a formula. The Sam Goldwyn machine.
It worked, no doubt. But few of the films were great.
The word 'corny' comes to mind.
I was not immune the ending; Gehrig's speech at his last appearance at Yankee Stadium. It was and is very moving.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Thursday, March 08, 2007
CHECKING IT OUT
Incidentally, I mention
in the HRCF post.
If you give money anywhere you should check the Navigator out.
We give to PetSmart Charities and Nature Conservancy; both highly rated.
We have stopped giving to a few charities that were in the basement of ratings.
Labels: charity, nature, petSmart
MORE RUDY
This attack ad against Giuliani makes me like him a little better.
Will the Real Rudy Show Up at CPAC?
I read a thing today that says he is a 'difficult', ego ridden man. Not a bad recommendation.
He is not a moron.
HRCF
We used to give to the Human Rights Campaign Fund (HRCF).
Years ago.
We went to their annual dinners in black tie and tux and applauded national and local speakers who eventually found the forum to be good campaigning fodder.
It was a way to feel the gay power that was on the ascendant. Pride.
The first dinner we went to was in the top floor of the old Hancock building in Boston. There were probably two hundred people.
Mayor Kevin White spoke and got an award.
How long has it been since Kevin left?
Kevin? No one even remembers that he was mayor!
It was pre-AIDS. So when? 1980?
Over the years the dinners got bigger, the awards started to get less political and more about who would show up with a little star power.
HRCF got bigger and bigger. They sold hats.
We see the bumper stickers out here all the time.
Our last dinner was in a huge 'room' at the Boston Hynes Convention Center.
We quit giving.
It was obvious that the organization had become a self-powered ego machine.
We started giving to the local legal fund GLAD
We gave a lot. Our early seed money grew into the tree that bore the Massachusetts gay marriage decisions.
In the meantime HRCF has not sponsored or seen one piece of legislation that has passed. And that is through the Clinton era.
Andrew Sullivan has HRCF in his sights.
I am the 'reader' who pointed him to the Charity Navigator link.
Labels: gay marriage, gay rights
RUDY
Far be it from me to recommend a GOP candidate but I have to say that Rudy Giuliani is a candidate that a Democrat/Progressive can like.
He is on the angel's side of many social issues and he is not a doctrinaire.
Of course, he has no national or international experience but we have one or two of those as well.
I suppose that I should be looking for them to nominate someone who is way right wing, a bible belter, and so on. Someone sure to lose and divide.
But, I would like a return to the days of the NY Republican; conservative on money and libertarian on social issues.
I mention this because as of today he is whipping that Mr. Straight-talk's ass in the polls.
Labels: election, nominees, Rudy
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
LAFF RIOT
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Mel Brooks (original)
The Producers (1968)Ebert says that it is one of the funniest films ever made and I have to agree.
It is still funny forty years later. Imagine seeing it in 1968.
It broke rules from beginning to end. It was shocking.
There is no equivalent today to Zero Mostel who was a comic actor.
He rules.
Gene Wilder was new then. His neurotics are amazing.
Kenneth Mars is great as Franz Leibkind, the author of the non-hit hit in question.
A surprise. In a scene in a bar where the producers go to savor their victory there is a barfly. He is the same guy who played Godfather Prizzi in Monday's Best Film. William/Bill Hickey. He got nominated for Prizzi.
This kind of thing knocks me out.
If you have not seen it in awhile you should.
I am not, incidentally, much interested in the musical which I hear flops on the screen.
This is a definite 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
PASSION
I thought about this some more.
Don't worry. I will get over it.
This idea that one should have a 'passion' for his or her work is an upper middle class phenomenon.
First, it is for those rich enough to have a guru.
Second, it is for those indolent enough to be disengaged and bored with their work, if any, in the first place.
I don't know if there is a third.
Don't get me wrong. I think that it is great if you can get that timeless, out of body experience in your work or hobby. It is a wonderful feeling. I have had it. I still do.
Sometimes doing the blog is like that. Other times, on the bike. Occasionally while cooking.
But I don't think that it can be induced.
Neither do I believe that people should be encouraged to pursue their passions irrationally.
We used to teach a program based on visioning an ideal future.
I could never really get down with it.
I was one of those who, on the questionnaire, showed up as having 'impoverished success fantasies'. What a great line.
I am OK with this. I am an 'in the present guy. I like doing what is front of me whatever it is.
And if I don't, then I work on my attitude.
This way I can take what life serves up. While I am waiting for my 'passion' to show up of course.
I am 70 now. It better hurry up!
Labels: passion
WHHUUUP!!!
I went to the scene of the crime this morning.
I rode my bike on the same route that I had my accident.
It was OK until I got close to the spot.
First, I obsessed about the condition of the roadway. It was wet.
Could it be frozen?
No. It was about 60 degrees out. I could see water running off the sidewalk into the gutter.
OK.
I still went slowly.
Then I got to the corner just before the spill and as I turned I had this huuuuge sensation of spilling over sideways!
I almost compensated to the other side which would have leaned me way to far away from the 'mental spill'.
Is this post traumatic stress syndrome?
Whatever it was, it was quite realistic.
I really felt in my gut that I was going over.
This all passed, of course.
I had a good ride.
My leg feels fine, incidentally.
This would be the time of trouble. The first day after my first day back.
No problem. And by that I don't mean 'thank you' if you remember my previous post on that subject.
TO COIN A WORD
“Microsoft people are really passionate about search, and we want to compete and to win,” said Dan Liebling, a member of the Microsoft Research staff working on techniques to improve the relevance of results in Microsoft’s Live Search service.......................NYT 030607 in an article on a new search product
It amuses me that business people get caught up in cliché as much, if not more, than anyone. Of course, 'they' are mostly 'us', so why wouldn't they?
There are terms and ideas that gain currency which just won't quit.
Being 'passionate' about something just won't quit.
When I was in the business, one of my guru competitors came up with the term 'passion' to describe how one should feel about the work s/he does.
It was laughable then but I see that it was taken up to cover a wide variety of situations.
Being 'passionate' about your work became the thing to be and say and say and say and say.
I always thought it to be more horseshit than reality.
First, there is a lot of work that is just work. Period.
Why get your undies all twisted because you are not passionate about it; another way to feel bad about your self and your situation. You are not 'passionate'.
Jeebus!
Punch the clock, sit at your desk and grind it out.
I know what 'they' mean of course but I still need to stifle a giggle when I hear it.
Of course, by now it has made it into the lexicon.
Giggle as I might, it ain't going away anytime soon.
Labels: passion
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
LIARS
So they got Libby for being a liar.
They just happened to catch him at it.
They are all serial liars 24/7.
That is why they think nothing of it.
Bushie set it up for a pardon as he grieves for the family.
Horseshit.
Labels: bushie
Monday, March 05, 2007
ONE OF THOSE DAYS
I played catchup all day today and nothing really happened!
I had my hour bike ride for the first time in 7 weeks this morning and it was a success.
I skipped half the big hill on this route but more out of a promise to take it easy than being actually tired or anything.
I am a little stiff now but no other fallout.
I had the usual Tuesday grocery shopping.
Franklin had his grooming today so no movie. By the time we take him and then bring him back it blows any continuous time.
Mostly, I used the time to catchup on magazine reading and other small shit that has accumulated over the last week.
It is OK.
Routine. Quiet. Mundane.
Labels: mundanity
CELEBRATE!!!
I went to pick up my bike this afternoon and rode it home!
My first ride in seven weeks!
I took it into the shop a week ago because I accidentally pulled the valve out of the rear tire and, as the kid took it out of the Jeep, he noted a problem with the rear hub.
So it had to be overhauled.
I figure it happened the ice wreck and am glad they found it.
It never occurred to me that the bike might be damaged.
It was unsafely so.
So I got another week of recuperation with my leg which is now almost totally pain free.
I notice that I have a bit less stamina and the heart rate is just a bit over what it was.
That is good! It will have a great exercise effect.
I am so stoked that I am back on the road.
I will be on the routine tomorrow morning.
Of course, I will take it easy and be very careful!
ALL MOBBED UP
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was John Huston's
This has Jack Nicholson (before he quit being an actor and became Jack Nicholson), Kathleen Turner, Angelica Huston and a great cast of character actors who you have seen over and over again and who basically are the glue that holds the ensemble together.
This is a mob comedy with many twists and turns. It is very good. The work of Richard Condon who did the novel and screenplay. Intricate, unpredictable, and respecting of our intelligence. And there is not one fart joke.
You have probably seen it and if you have not, you should.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
Sunday, March 04, 2007
AT LAST
Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy finally get it together and we have our happy ending to
in the BBC/AE version.
What a great film!
I will be giving it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films
I'VE GOT A LITTLE LIST
Just when I was talking about repairing the damage, the NYTimes was making a list of things that need to be done to fix the bush/cheney damage:
Pretty good. But way incomplete.
There is the environment list, the global warming list, the crony list.
Like I said, a decade. Maybe one hard working term of the first Democratic administration.
PROSECUTORS PERSECUTION
This has been boiling on the blogs for a week or more.
A New Mystery to Prosecutors: Their Lost Jobs
There seems to be no end to the chicanery of the bushers.
The only thing that saves us from the effects of their manipulations is their absolutely consistent ineptitude at execution.
They are not only arrogant, they are bumblers!
This was recently pointed out most particularly about Dick Cheney.
He is, no doubt, an evil menace but he is also a poor manager.
When you run Halliburton you don't need to be skillful as it is all influence.
They are such undiluted bastards. It will take a decade to undo the damage.
Well, at least the first term of the new Democratic administration.
Labels: bushie, criminal morons
Saturday, March 03, 2007
CONTINUING
I saw the second 2 hours or so of
It has one of the highest IMDb ratings that I have ever seen—9.2 out of 10. Even the best films seldom rate in the 8's.
I concur.
I am enjoying its leisurely pace and the wonderful Austen language.
Labels: best films
READY
Mac has issued its software for the new daylight saving times (March 11 to November 4) so my computer, at least, will be ready.
I don't know what other devices I have with DST programmed; perhaps my watch but I don't think so.
Everyone expects a mess
but I suspect something more on the scale of the millennial anticlimax.
We will see.
In the meantime get ready for darker mornings (ugh--we are at the dark end of this time zone) and lighter evenings.
I don't really get the purpose as energy saving as we will keep our morning power on longer and evening shorter but I haven't really thought it through, nor will I.
It is beyond my control.
JANE AGAIN
I am in the midst of viewing all 5 hours of the BBC's version of Jane Austen's
This is not to be confused with the most recent production which is much shorter and, in its own way, I hear quite good.
This one, a NYTimes Best 1176 Film, is faithful to the Austen to the core.
I am watching it in 3 sessions.
So far so good.
This is breaking my vow never to see anything I have read or to read anything that I have seen.
Austen's P and P is so deliciously wonderful that you can have at it many times and not get tired of it.
Especially watching the young Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy.
Smoldering.
It is interesting that the works of Jane Austen resonate particularly in our age and time. It is similar to the way Mozart speaks so clearly to contemporary minds and ears.
I am sure that there are scholarly works on this subject. I will be happy to simply observe it and be grateful for both.
Labels: Austen, best films
Friday, March 02, 2007
VILE
Ann Coulter is beneath contempt and I hardly ever have anything to say about her but I thought I would share this Coulterism for you. Speaking right after Mitt Romney at the big conservative rally today:
"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards."
OK. Even if at first it doesn't seem too, too bad to you, let's try this one.
Suppose the bitch would have said "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, but it turns out you have to go into rehab (Michael Richards) if you use the word 'nigger', so I—so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Obama'.
Does that seem OK?
How about kike or wop or cunt?
Coulter is despicable in all areas of her speech but no one, not even Mitt Romney said a word. Not a peep.
This is what the conservative movement has come to.
Labels: criminal morons, vile
TIPPED
I decided last night and now this article today by David Ignatius in the WaPo
I believe that we have already tipped.
We are sliding down the precipice.
It is pretty clear that all the amelioration that man can figure out will only slow the inevitable rise in world temperatures and the concomitant ecological consequences.
I think the die was cast a long time ago when population data was ignored.
I grew up at a time when there was considerable concern about world hunger, the environment, and all the issues we now are seeing live in living color today.
There was a huge movement to restrain population growth. The malthusian principles were spelled out. The band played on. Between the RC church and the interests of consumerism, we just kept on making more babies. And don't get me started on medical 'advances'.
Today, we have over populated, overused, and overspent our natural legacy.
Will this mean that the end of the world is nigh?
Well, yes. For polar bears. How about bees? How about us?
Not entirely.
I think that there will be catastrophic consequences in future years and that all of these will add up to the decimation of human population.
Nature will do for us what we could or would not do for ourselves.
And then we may get to start over.
The earth will cool, the waters will freeze, some natural order will be restored.
Since I am about to go off the planet, at least in this form, I am not personally threatened by this so it is easy to say.
I don't imagine that anyone will hear it.
It has come to the point where virtually anything I do threatens the world situation. This typing, the next phone call, lunch, dinner, the books I am reading. DVDs? Sure.
We are in the soup along with the polar bears.
I find that I have a great deal more compassion in my heart for the the bears and bees than I do for my own species.
How is that for a little cheer before the weekend?
Try this ray of hope. When things cool off there will be ways to help the polar bears and bees regenerate.
Us? I hope not.
Labels: environment, global warming, malthus, polar bears
STEADY AS SHE GOES
Small Stock Investors Sticking it Out
Yup.
I liked my hard copy headline to the same story better."Dive May Not Upset Small Investors".
Labels: doomsday, market, retirement
Thursday, March 01, 2007
BIG MAC
We went to the second hearing of the Planning Commission yesterday.
This is about the huge house that they want to put across the side lane; the one that will look down on our back yard.
There were as many unanswered questions this time as the last.
I didn't attend the first one; scheduling trouble. But I did go yesterday. I rose to be counted in opposition and then figured, what the hell, I have three minutes. Why not say some more. So I pulled a short speech out of my ass.
I think it went over well. My partner even said so.
The applicant spoke this time. He's a maroon*. Worse, it also became clear that he is a developer. He will not live in the house!
I stage whispered the word as loud as I could to our large neighborhood contingent—"de-vel-o-per!".
There is nothing wrong about developers other than their zero interest in the neighborhood, their goal of making the fast buck and their total irresponsibility.
In any case, a motion was made to deny the application for the house. It did not pass. Commissioners are reluctant to deny because people get litigious and the city is terrified of lawsuits.
Then a motion was made to approve. It did not pass!
Stalemate.
Purgatory.
Nothing worse for the developer who now has four weeks to try again (or go appeal to city council) or quit.
We are not there yet but we are doing well.
I like that it has brought our relatively distant neighbors closer.
There is even talk of a neighborhood association.
I don't know that I would go that far but it is a good sign of cohesiveness.
Maroon: Bugs Bunny's civil wording for Moron but in the greater NYC area also extends to a lack of culture and sensitivity. A jerk.
Labels: developer, macmansion, maroon
