Sunday, October 31, 2010
HALLOWEEN HOUSE
Ellen DeGeneres Show writer Amy Rhodes goes on assignment to the Universal Studios haunted Halloween maze.
Horrorlarity ensues.
From The Daily What.
Labels: fun
SPOOKS
The last time we had a trick or treater at the house was about 1994 when our neighborhood in Boston organized the night so that people wishing little visitors would put a lit pumpkin outside.
After that, no more. The following year we were out of town and so on.
When we lived in the apartment for the year between houses we had no one.
Then in Palm Springs, at the house, no one at all. Partly because there were no kids right in the neighborhood and also because we lived on a private lane between two streets. Dark and creepy.
When we moved here, we didn't know. There are kids. Not many.
So I bought candy.
Today I asked the neighbor if there were kids who came to the door. He said no.
I could have asked someone before I bought the candy.
I will take it to a meeting.
Or maybe one kid will come. There is still time.
When I was a kid I lived in the country. There were houses around, a little village in the middle of nowhere. We would go around the same route year after year. Limited to what was there.
We knew who got it and had real candy and who didn't who had home made donuts instead. Or fucking apples. Mrs. Price made donuts and had candy. We made her place the last stop. Also cider. The whole megillah.
When I had little kids, I liked Halloween best. We lived in a town and so there were lots of places to go. Sooner or later the kids wanted to go out with their friends. No Dads. And that was it.
After I moved to Boston, Halloween took on a different kind of life. It is the gay new year so there were lots of parties and partying. The same is true out here. Adults have a lot more fun than the kids.
Booker and I passed a Haunted House and Candy Carnival in the City Pavilion. For little kids.
Nice to see them from afar. We didn't get too close. Booker is a bit spooked, gentle spooked, by little kids. They can pet him and all. But not for long. Then he is away.
I thought costumes and masks were a bit more of a challenge than we were up to.
Labels: holidays
DRAWING A BLANK
I had a second film on deck for today. John Cassavete's The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 1976) with Ben Gazzara. This is part of a Criterion Box.
I have always had trouble with Cassavette's work.
Yet, I know it is seminal.
I simply cannot watch much of his stuff. It is rough cut and interminable.
I bailed out of this one after 15 minutes of hard to hear or get cinema verité in a NYC sidewalk cafe, shots in a dark bar, man on man bar ragtime. Tough talk.
No sign of a plot or even a pulse.
It all looks improvised but, they say, was not. Even harder to take.
On the other hand, I can see his influence in many films that I like.
I hated his (1968), loud obnoxious macho posing. It had to be improvised.
Anyway, I quit. That makes it a Netflix 1.
Here is an appreciation of Cassavetes which, actually, I mostly agree with. I just can't watch it. Him.
John Cassavetes, Laughing Last
Labels: films
SUNDAY GOSPEL HOUR
Today's film was the documentary
Chilling.
The makers let the believers speak for themselves. The only people who counter the assertions of the Rapturians are other evangelicals or jewish conservatives. Well, one liberal Jew.
Here is my take. I knew a lot of this stuff but viewed it as emotional and irrational. I did not know that there is an entire literature which rationalizes the whole thing and renders the literal gospel as scientific.
And other delusions.
The other thing I had not realized is how widespread this is. The makers say 50 million in the USA but are careful to say a "portion" of that believe in The Rapture. Their upper case not mine.
One of the very skillful aspects of this film is that the makers present these people in such a way that, at the beginning, one almost begins to want to believe or is scared into thinking that his or her's opposite beliefs are wrong. I had this come over me. I don't know how they did it.
So it is not a hatchet job. We hear them giving their case over and over. Oppo positions only come in the latter part of the film.
I am not going to go into what all this sums up to.
My cousin Bernice believed in The Rapture once. It is the first time I heard of it. This would be about 1995 or 6. She had a date when it would happen. December something. The date came and there was no rapture. Or, if there was very few people, including Bernice, were allowed to go. She got left behind.
I think, after that, she forgot about it. I did not.
She was a smart person. A good person. Yet she was able to be convinced that she and others who believed as she did would rise up to the sky and the rest of us would have terrible, shitty things happen to us.
Some of the people in this film relish the thought of seeing the sinful destroyed. "God is going to trash the planet" says one smug bastard very happily.
And so on.
I know this is ad hominem but most of these people are obese.
I wanted to see this highly rated film because I wanted to see this stuff way up close and the film does that.
If we dismiss this out of hand and mind then we underestimate the power the movement has. Think a lot of the tea bags and much of the GOP base along with many people in business and other influential positions.
The film opens with two people who are instrumental in the design of combat aircraft.
And so on.
This is a very good piece of work. Give it a 5 as a documentary. It is very disturbing that these people are around and that they have the influence that they do.
On the other hand, there is an exaggeration here wherein the makers conflate all evangelicals as part of this thing and this is deceptive. Yes, they let the people tell their own story but it is so grizzly that we need some counterweight. In a way, the fight is fixed but in a way that makes us almost as mindless as this bunch of heathens. They do not believe in God, they believe in magic.
I don't want to see this again. Ever. It is like watching a PETA film that highlights the worst that can be done to animals. Once is enough. Or, maybe too much.
Labels: films
Saturday, October 30, 2010
CARDED
I am using my alone situation to address and stamp our Thanksgiving cards.
This will be our holiday effort this year.
The cards have a short short message about our move and the new address.
This is a blatant attempt to stoke the annual holiday card exchange.
I have mixed feelings about the annual rite but find myself reluctant to stop it with about 40-50 people.
We only send to out of towners and it is a way, perhaps the final way, to stay in touch however lightly.
Besides, it is fun, each year, to consider the ones who did not return a card the previous year and whether they are another drop off. We never drop anyone. They have to pull the "flush" handle.
But we do take the message once given.
On the other hand, we seldom add anyone. Since we don't send locally and all our new acquaintances are local, well, that pretty much determines the downward trend.
At one time we had 150 and more cards to send.
A lot of flushing over the years.
Happy Thanksgiving.
CANVASS
Today, a small delegation came to the front door. They had handouts and clipboards.
An older couple and a younger woman.
I asked if they were there for a candidate.
They said no, they were from the HOA board and had the quarterly newsletter. There was the treasurer (the older woman I think) and a board member younger woman.
Wanting to validate my first impression I asked if any of them were running for election.
They looked at me as though I was talking a foreign language.
The younger woman said that she was running and as an aside mentioned that she had to get nominated. Good that I had asked, eh?
She is an incumbent of course and the subject of a recent petition and email hoo-hah about landscaping and shit.
So I asked her what her platform is. Again, the puzzled, "am I dealing with a madman?" look.
She said no. I said that it was hard for a new resident to know how to vote without a platform, what with the petitions and emails running around.
Another look but more comprehension. She said "I want to control costs". I said "Yes, but how"? Another puzzled look.
I helped. I said that the dues were the dues. What would she cut back on or not spend any more money on.
I mentioned the over-trimmed almost Alice in Wonderland shaped ficus trees. They said that was part of the original design! Oh well.
This is like the GOoPer/ tea bag guys. Cut costs. No more than that. No specifics. Also, don't touch the icons.
By this time, we all knew that I had her by the short ones, not that I had the intention of doing that. Cornered. Without a clue.
So I stopped.
She said, wisely, I think, that maybe I could help her with the platform. I said that she was welcome to call me for suggestions about making one but the content would be up to her.
Smiles all around.
They couldn't get out of there fast enough and neither could I.
I tried to be kind but please! You can't run on your incumbency. Times change. Priorities have to be shifted. What's up?
I was nice. It was OK. They got it. She got it. It was enough and we parted happily.
Labels: condo
ALONE
Well, not really alone. Booker is here.
John went to Long Beach overnight. He is visiting our friend Randy there.
Booker and I are having a pretty good time together.
So far, we have had lunch together. He gets a little of everything. Turkey, swiss, pickle and melon. Melon is the best part.
Later, he guarded the house while I went for my daily pool trip. Three laps modified back stroke, ten minutes in the sun front, a dive (no diving--I fell in, sorry) a fast swim to the other side, out and then ten minutes on the other side. Back. I read during this exposure. Then fall in again and make it to other side and go home.
When I got back, Booker was there and happy to show me all the rooms and how he had kept them free of intruders.
Then we did supper. His. Kibbles, dog biscuits (of the same composition as the kibbles) for dessert and carrots, two big or three small, for salad. Dessert before salad. The Airedale way.
We will do my supper later.
He follows every move. He is learning to cook. And he is my food taster.
There won't be a lot to learn or cook tonight as I will be having frozen dinner. Someone else's. Stouffers. Lean cuisine. Some of them are very good. Tonight is beans and rice with cheese topping. I will add mixed green salad and sliced tomatoes. Booker loves tomatoes.
Then our walk.
This is a rather full agenda. We might even have to go to bed a little early to catch enough shuteye for tomorrow when we will take the BIG WALK without the other partner. Of course, the same meals although my lunch tomorrow will probably be ham and cheddar and pears with Booker helping out.
He helps with breakfast too. Tomorrow we are learning to cook mixed berries and yogurt as well as the difficult Cheerios with blueberries.
John will be home for dinner. I don't know what we are having. Perhaps me chili and him soup. He has given up on the indigenous cuisine.
Booker will be happy as this will involve real cooking and the requisite sampling. For the chili. The soup will come out of a can.
Labels: life
Friday, October 29, 2010
MODERATES
When I get all stoked up about the wing nuts who are campaigning, I forget that there are a group of what I consider moderate Republicans in the classical mold. They have a desire to work across the aisle. Often, leadership has not let them speak up or paid attention to them. In this election, it is likely that many of these experienced moderates will win their elections while the firebrands who make the most noise will not.
The New Face of the G.O.P.? Grizzled Veterans
If I have to have more Republicans, I will be happy to have this bunch, thanks.
I also have to remember that the know-nothings who do make it will be junior first timers and pushed to the margins until they earn their chops and pay their institutional dues.
Of course, at this point it would seem that many of them are not going to make it. Only Angle and Paul are doing well in the polls. And Paul is flailing.
Do I sound resigned? I am.
We all knew this was coming. It is the net result of the usual midterm rebound that all presidents have as well as the "anger" which the pundits tell us is out there.
A lot of this anger is ginned up by the loudmouths and the half term governor and failed VP candidate who is still as dumb as a post or as wily as a fox or both.
I am sure that the Obamas are not surprised either and have a plan. After all, it was their desire from the get-go to work with those who lean toward bipartisan solutions.
As I am sure that the Republicans, or some of them, know that the best time they will have with a split Congress wil be the few lame duck months. After they are sworn in, they will have to deal or be seen as not governing.
As usual, I am the eternal optimist even when faced with mounting evidence that the GOoPers are on a death wish chase to the do-nothing bottom of the barrel. But time will tell. Mitch McConnell has only a desire to make Obama a one-term President, he said so, no other priorities. What a shit.
Labels: Administration Obama, Congress
PETE SOUZA
I am a great fan and follower of the Flicker site for the White House.
Almost every photo shown here is done by Pete Souza who has just done a sit-down on-line interview about his work.
He is a fascinating guy. His photos show it.
He invariably has a set of photos that illustrate the people around the President. His composition is refreshingly different. He seems to be the master of the candid shot.
Here is the The White House Photostream
Here is the interview with Pete Souza.
Labels: Administration Obama
BELOW BOTTOM
Today's film was
with Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall
Down and out alcoholic country singer gets a girlfriend, a little help from his biddies and the gift of a really, really bad bottom. Sub basement bottom.
And............
Well that is the story. A cliché until you see this film. The standard story gets turned around here and there. Tweaked into real character interest.
And the acting is sublime. As clear as the rain. Odd, there is no rain in the film.
Bridges is, as usual, in pure form. Just right. He uses everything he has which means you cannot see any of the moves that make him this poor sad man.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is in perfect pitch as the woman who comes to interview but stays to love and support.
Colin Farrell in a smallish role is critical to the enterprise. He is loyal to his mentor when he does not have to be. He struggles to be there for real. The scenes between Bridges and Farrell are awkward and tough as both men patch up their lost relationship.
Robert Duvall, who played a similar character in another movie stands in the background as a sober friend who is there for Bridges when he is ready.
Other cast members are superb.
There are a few laughs in this film. Some fear. And not a dry eye in the house.
But, it is does not fall into the pit of sentimentality or easy answers to the traditional questions.
Its depiction of alcoholism is right on the mark. Gyllenhal does not belong in the sad enabler category either. She offers love which is tough and honest.
I liked this movie very much and will be sure to see it again. As a lifer in the Jeff Bridges fan club I will have to give it a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Thursday, October 28, 2010
YOU CAN'T SERVE TWO MASTERS OR RIDE TWO HORSES OR BE A TURNCOAT AND EXPECT TO WIN EITHER SIDE
I predicted this.
Dem Blue Dogs obstructionists set to bear brunt of losses
If it has to happen it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. We didn't have their vote half the time anyway and they were always in the way.
Labels: Democrats, election, polls
MEAN JEAN REDUX
Way back in 2007 and 2008, I made a lot of fun out of the harridan Jean Schmidt.
She is one of the chief wing nuts. She represents someone I know. She beat a wonderful guy, who had a lot to offer, by being, well, mean Jean.
She has been quiet for awhile. More, meaner women and men have overshadowed her.
But shit floats and you can't keep it down. Here she is again. Off on a rant.
Republican Congresswoman talks to 6-year-olds about abortion, principal apologizes to parents
I suppose I shouldn't be mean back. After all, when people are clearly crazy there should be some tempered reaction and a soft walled room for them somewhere.
Labels: republican whack jobs
FLAT LIINE IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Well, this chart bears it out.
I do not text. I don't want to be texted and I have no intention of ever texting.
And neither does my cohort. The "over 65" crowd.
I do not pay for text on my mobile phone service. I pay 25 cents for each text that I get and tell the texter to cut it out.
Currently, the only violator of this request is Barack Obama and his supporters and I am not willing to write and ask him to call instead.
Kevin Drum Chart of the Day: Texting
Labels: coming of age, internet
AGITPROP
Today's film was the Israeli documentary
directed by Yoav Shamir, an Israeli who became interested in the issue of contemporary anti- and anti-anti semitism.
In a serious but light hearted manner, he explores the various sides of the issue.
On one side we have the anti-defamation bureaucracy in the form of the Jewisn Anti Defamation League.
On the other Norman Finkelstein and others who have written about the use of anti-semitism as a propaganda device for Israel.
They point out how there is a difference between world Jewry and the Israeli state. Others fail to see the difference and conflate the two.
I am interested in all this and, to his credit, Shamir give voice to both sides.
I have actually felt as though I might be anti-semitic for hating what the Israeli state is doing to Palestinians and to the Middle East in general. Well, not really. I know that I am not anti-semitic.
It is interesting that the Israeli establishment uses the issue of self hatred against their Jewish critics. This defuses the rational argument and, ironically, uses a kind of anti-semitic attitude to picture the other as less-than.
And so on.
The film is not all serious. It is filled with wry humor and the documentarian does, actually, introspect with us as he films.
A good clue as to where Shamir comes out is that he is, eventually, accused of self hatred. Bong! And this film has been wildly deplored and vindictively lobbied against by the ADL.
I enjoyed the film and, since it reinforced my own prejudices and beliefs found it reaffirming.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
AIR WAR
I may have mentioned that there is a guy at the gym who comes in on Tuesday and Thursday and turns all the fans on in the second floor cardio area.
Actually, he and his wife. He is a big bullet headed guy, bull neck. Small ass and skinny legs. He is like a cartoon figure. The wife is a mousy, but good looking woman who travels in his wake.
We know this guy over a long time. He has a gravel voice, a red face and has "bully" written all over him. At one time he brought his adult son with him and kept on the guys ass the whole time. It was very sad to watch. The guy was a nebbish.
I have stayed away from him and other similar types for all of the 13 years I have been going there. I do not even acknowledge that he/they are there.
This air raid on the second floor is new. He and the wife show up about 415 AM, a little before I do, turn on all the fans and then give their all to the orbitals.
Now, there is nothing wrong with fans. Or air. But it is about 65 in that place. It is early morning. Many of us are not happy with having a wind on our backs.
The bully and the wife know that we disapprove. The second they are off their machines a few of us will go and turn the fan closest to them off.
Some of us are more pissed than others about this. I know that it is an affront and a fuck you to the rest of us as much as it is a cooler for him although he is obviously really really hot. I put this down, incidentally, to booze. But that is not for me to say. And I don't. Not to anyone.
Anyway. Today one of the more pissed ones went and shut both fans off while the guy and the wife were still working out.
The bully was off his machine and it was all "fuckyouturnthatbackonyouassholeanddoitnow". Then the turn off guy retaliated verbally.
I saw none of this but when I arrived my friend the pissed off guy was walking the treadmill on the first floor near the door. I asked what was up. He told me a bit of it and said that he had complained and had "red ticketed" the guy.
I didn't know what that meant.
But ten minutes later two cops arrived and had a quiet talk with the bully.
In a way it was very scary.
This is escalation! In another way it was funny.
We who have remained quiet but with attitude couldn't imagine taking this to the level the pissed off guy had let alone call the cops.
Is this what the "red ticket" meant? I can't shake anything out of the Google tree.
The bully was talking it up to some of his cohorts on the first floor.
This is new stuff for our staid old gym.
Me? I am staying in my air raid shelter.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
DELAYED REACTION
When I wrote about I Am Curious--Yellow (1964) below, I mentioned the film I saw in 1955 or so that had the first on-screen nudity in a feature to be shown in the US.
I remember it now.
Hon dansade en sommar / One Summer of Happiness (1951)
It has one nude scene, a couple swimming. And then there is some sex but not very explicit. The man over the woman then fadeout. Moon, grass, water.
The film is a classic "the parents don't understand" love story between two young lovers who do not match socially. Or something.
This film was obviously not the first film to have a nude scene but it was the first to be imported for the purpose of exhibition and, thus, became a test case.
I saw it in 1954 or 55 after it had cleared its hurdles. Like most films of this type, it was only shown in art film houses. A limited audience. Somehow that kept the local censors off the theater's back but still, it caused a furor in each city in which it appeared.
In those days, there was no rating system such as there is today. Each jurisdiction could set up its own rules and regulations and, in some cases, a censorship office.
In Boston, there was a lot of censorship because of the Roman Catholic predominance. But this was the first sign of slippage in their tight control of society there. Numerous colleges and universities as well as a much more liberal electorate and the end of RC dominated mayors helped break the embargo.
There is a DVD but Netflix does not carry it. The only review on IMDb is in greek. End of an era. I guess it has been superseded by more satisfying fare,
The geezer thinking process.
It is funny. My memory is pretty good if I give it some time and have the motivation.
24 hours isn't bad. The trouble is that, by this time, everyone I was talking to went home.
But here, you are stuck. You can't go home.
Labels: films
SCIENCE PROJECT
I didn't do too well with science projects when I was in high school.
I could never think of anything to do and when I did there was the building part of it.
One year I built the solar system with balls of plaster of paris. I mounted the balls on bent coat hangers. The coat hangers were sort of nailed to a square of plywood.
I painted the balls the way they were supposed to look, sort of. I painted the base board with some old blue paint my dad had around.
The blue board was sticky when I put on the hangers. Finger prints.
The plaster of paris balls didn't sit on the hangers very well. The rotated and when you picked the thing up they moved around.
The whole thing was heavy. Too heavy.
It was an embarrassment but it was the best I could do.
I always fell apart on the handiwork. I wasn't handy.
I still am not.
Great on concept. Lousy on execution.
These kids are light years ahead of where I was.
Labels: Administration Obama
WAR IS HELL
Today's film was Oren Moverman's
Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster with Samantha Morton.
This is not a war movie and not an antiwar movie. No one gets all post traumatic stress on us.
It is a character study. It savors simple situations. It looks deeply at relationships between men and men and women. It explores tough life and death situations.
The focus is on Foster who, on temporary assignment to Harrelson, becomes one of the two soldiers who visit the families of the war dead. Actually the one designated family survivor. They announce their news and then leave. But, of course, they take all the situations that they experience with them.
This is a very very good movie. It is moving. It is skillfully acted and told.
Some of it is rough and deeply emotional. Some of it is funny. Some of it is a little whacky.
There is no sentimentality in this picture. It is about people facing life on life's terms.
This is ripe for multiple viewings. I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
TWENTY FIVE
If you can stand the chit chat, this is a nice reunion for the BTTF gang.
Labels: nostalgia, television
TRIX
I have seen some of these before but, somehow, all together is, well, awesome.
Turn down the volume.
Labels: fun
TIME BOMB
Today's film was the Swedish film
Jag är nyfiken - en film i gult / I Am Curious (Yellow) (1967)
This and its partner, a similar/sister film (Blue) have just been restored by Criterion. I wanted to see at least one of them again. I got through Yellow and abandoned Blue.
It is hard to get through the outside issues around these films. They were held at customs for obscenity and the appeals ran all the way to the Supreme Court which OK'd their release (actually found for free speech).
There was a lot for the censors to object to. Full frontal nudity over and over, oral sex, sex in public, sex in arguments, makeup sex and even some anal sex. There is no gay or lesbian action although it is suggested here and there.
In actual fact, sexuality is not what the films are about. Most of the film's energy is political. In this out take, they are schtupping each other on the royal palace balcony while a group is singing the national anthem below. Clearly not just a sex scene but a lot of political mockery is involved. It is also funny as much of the film is.
Here is an interview with the director, Vilgot Sjøman by John Lahr.
They are a multilayered docu/drama film within a film experimental work of art which, at least in this day, is rather unremarkable in the sexual or mockery departments. Still, there are few "legit" films with as much full frontal nudity and sex that have been made since then.
It is sort of over the top really and, I think, a part of the director's desire to defuse the sexuality.
Obviously, he had underestimated the American blue nosed capacity for sexual panic and repression. Still alive and well in the new millenium.
The Swedes were famous for this at this time. The first nude sex in an art film that I saw was in 1955. I forget the name. It was pretty sexy. It might still be but there is an extra charge for novelty and that surely was going on then as it was going on in this film.
When I saw Yellow, there was a kind of explosive effect on me. I am sure that it contributed to my coming out. The freedom and casual nature of the sexual contacts between the two lovers was mind blowing. I could do the same and did.
There is a lot of clever political commentary in this film as well. Real interview responses by famous political and religious figures of the time are intercut with the heroine's interviewing. She is "curious" after all.
It is all admirable in a kind of boring way. But I think that this may have had an impact on my thinking at the time as well. It is hard to remember. I do not think that it radicalized me but it surely didn't detract from such a process.
I am glad that I took this look backward. It was a bomb that went off in my life and I can now see the effects.
Great.
I am still curious myself but not enough to see the second film which I hear and read is not that great.
So I will stick with the "gult".
A 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
DRAWN Out
Leo Cullum, New Yorker Cartoonist, Dies at 68
This guy was really funny.
He had a very interesting life.
Combat pilot, career pilot for TWA and American Airlines.
And one of the most prolific and published (not the same thing) gag cartoonists. Particularly at The New Yorker where he had an item in the last issue.
His people had googly eyes that he enhanced with an undrawn circle. You could see the whites of their eyes and no eyeliner.
He was very good with business people, animals and doctors. Go figure.
I laughed a lot at his work and admired its depth. It is pretty hard to be funny and deep at the same time.
Monday, October 25, 2010
I LOVE THIS KIND OF SHIT
This is a couple of Russian dudes setting off fireworks in the bathtub.
There are idiots world wide. But there is a certain wonderfulness to the idiocy.
ARE YOU SITTING DOWN?
We put money down for a new living room "suite" today. Furniture. Do they still call it that? A suite?
The cream colored leather set we bought when we came out here has worn considerably. It is a dyed leather that has a thin layer on top and it has cracked some and worn off.
And, I joked to a friend, now that Booker is allowed to lie on the furniture, he needs something where his ass doesn't slip off.
That Booker, he has expensive tastes.
Well, John has been shopping. We like what we have very much and thought about re-upholstery. But that is like buying a house to rehab. You don't know what it involves until you get into it. A money sink.
Also there is a lot of foam on this stuff and it has probably deteriorated with the uv and the dry air. Most everything does. I sat under the skylight for 13 years.
So, more shopping.
Today, he found the stuff. A local store. Higher quality. Springs. Not leather. A tough cloth "hide". Easy to clean. Won't hold hair.
A gun metal gray that matches a design in the blue rug as well as the dining area rug and the blinds (which are actually pulled back all the time).
Two love seats and a chair along with a rolling bench that has a lid. It will go under our glass table. Pillows that match.
And so on.
The price came in at expectations. Not bad there.
This will be a nice addition and complement to the condo.
I don't know when we will get it. It is ordered. All the rest is up to them.
SHAVE AND A HAIR CUT TWO BITS
I went and got a professional haircut yesterday.
Somehow, I didn't feel like doing it myself.
It was a good experience.
I have been doing my own or having John do it for several years. I don't know how long. Once or twice I went back to the barber's chair but I didn't like it.
Too much talking, arguing about what I wanted him to do, stuff like that.
This was smooth as silk. I went to a place that is open seven days a week. Pure barbering. No styling. No hair washing.
You can get on the queue with a call up to 45 minutes ahead but generally it is walk in, first come first served. They open at nine and I was first. Two barbers on Sunday. Another guy was right behind me.
It was funny, maybe a routine, but my barber and the other one started our cuts at the same time. Mine said "let's have a race" or something like that.
We laughed.
The other guy finished 30 seconds after mine.
I had the number two clipper all over, tapered on the side, no razor cut around the ears. 15 minutes.
Perfect.
$14 plus a tip. $17.
Not counting travel, it took less time than if I had done it.
I came home, showered and admired my do for the rest of the day. I still like it.
Very good.
Oh! The name of the barber is Snip Snip Buzz. Love it.
Labels: life
REVENGE FANTASY
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Today's film was the Canadian
Les Felurettes / Lilies (1997)
Our Toronto friend gave us this film a few years ago. It survived the cut when we moved and so I figured that I would bring it "out" again. So to speak.
This is a high powered drama set in a prison. An RC Bishop thinking he is to hear a confession is duped into witnessing a play put on by the prisoners. The play is about a critical period in the bishop's life, a period he would rather forget.
The play by the prisoners in an amateur setting gives way to a film. It opens up before our eyes. Very clever.
From time to time we are brought back into the "real" situation. The prisoners are prisoners, the bishop is the bishop, we are in the prison chapel.
Levels. Film-play-real-play-film.
The characters are all men so there is cross dressing. Don't run away. It works very well. Think Greek drama. Not Hasty Pudding.
The incident involves a love affair between the confessee and another young man. The bishop, as a young man, basically deceives and betrays the other two with dire consequences.
It may sound over wrought and, to an extent, it is. Drag, homos, fantastic representations from the turn of the century. The last one.
Amazingly it all works. Not much of it rings false. Because it is fantastic, it enfolds the entire presentation into a dramatic whole that is quite unique.
The young men are beautiful, idealized in the telling. The story of young love is universal not specifically "gay".
I am reminded that there was no such thing as "gay" then and the word "homosexual" had just been invented. Love was love. Men did it as well as men and women. Sex was not always involved. In a weird way, it seems a much freer time but, of course, it was not.
This film is a thought piece. Its memory lingers.
I obviously liked it enough to keep it and to see it again. I have to admit that it got into the viewing mix from my standby DVDs because of a bump in the Netflix mailing queue so it doesn't really get a 5. But it is a healthy 4. If I was to rent it.
Labels: films
Sunday, October 24, 2010
CINEMA VERI-KIDS
Today's film was the classic by Ray Ashley, Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin
Just on DVD.
Truffaut claimed that this film inspired The New Wave in France.
Made on a shoestring by two people, three with the editor, with "real people" in real locations in real time with real backgrounds in large crowds and simple one shots, this transfixing comedy/drama gained early acclaim, prizes and a wide international audience after people "in the business" told Ashley it was DOA.
I do not know quite what the magic is but it is there. Certainly it is the cinema verité angle. You are in the action.
But it is also the story. You can't get out.
I lost myself in it.
It is simple enough. Another asset.
A little kid who is being taken care of his brother is teased into believing that he has killed his brother, babysitter.
He runs away.
This being Brooklyn, NY, he heads for the elevated train which dumps him out at the end of the line in Coney Island.
He has taken some money and learns how to earn some. Deposit bottles. Makes friends. Rides the rides and so on. He wanders around and looks at stuff.
He is found.
End of story.
What is so appealing about this film is the editing and the lack of sentimentality. The story runs on quickly and believably to its conclusion. What it has is LIFE!
The kid who plays the lost kid is perfect. He is annoying and appealing. He is brave and fearful. He is a kid. I think, perhaps, the kid in all of us.
Coney Island, as seen through his eyes is a fairy land. Which, in a way, it was.
This is another level, now, in this picture.
This is all from a lost world. There is nothing like this now.
Kids are not left alone. Kids do not get to ride alone or be alone in crowds unquestioned. Most of the time.
There is no Coney Island. Well, there is the location.
My Coney Island was Asbury Park, NJ. I did get to be alone at his age (7) or a little more. I did wander around. played under the boardwalk and watched the shadows of the boards and the walkers. A movie of its own.
There was little danger.
The boardwalk attractions were a wonderland. This lived with me for years, in dreams, a kind of Shangrila.
So, all of this is there for me in this film.
It is also a look into history. The small family's apartment. Mom is a widow who works in a department store.
The streets where kids play. A nostalgia dunk.
I will give this film a 5 out of Netflix 5. I would like to play it with The 400 Blows with which it has so much in common.
Labels: films
WINTER!!!
There is snow!
On the top of San Gorgonio out to the northwest. This photo is the other side seen from Joshua Tree National Park.
It is a lovely mountain and is the first and last with the snowcap.
This week was very rainy and, up there, cold. So it has left winter's traces.
There is a find dusting all down the slope that is visible in the early light but that will be gone soon.
The cap, all things considered, will probably be there until May.
No sign of snow on the other big one, San Jacinto, (both near two miles high) but it's probably on the side away from us.
We went climbing San Jacinto one year, in late May, and the snow was 6-8 feet deep in drifts. You could crawl up and slide down. A lot easier than rock scrambling.
It is a nice crumbly snow. Probably the longest lasting of any we have ever seen. It has been there for 6 months. This snow is different. Crystallized with the, near daily, small melt on the surface from the sun, refrozen at night.
It is not drifty or wet like snowball snow. The crystals are big and won't compact.
This snow capping will probably be the only white stuffd we will see this winter. It may come down to about a thousand feet above the desert floor but that will be the limit.
I saw a wet and foggy snow for a few hours five or six years ago. It was a mess but pretty nonetheless.
Labels: environment, weather
COMING IN FROM THE COLD
This is a very good history of the bagger roots.
Confounding Fathers
The Tea Party’s Cold War roots.I have talked about my own experience with the right wingers.
When I was on active duty in the Army at Fort Lee VA, there was an active cell of the John Birch Party. Birch was an ex-CIA agent missionary who was killed by the Chinese Reds. The first casualty of the Third World War.
I remember going to an evening lecture on base by a captain who was a member. He was a little too rabid for me and I never went back but, over the years, I kept in touch with the activities of this outfit.
A General was discharged because he was the leader of these illegal military cells. Walker. It was similar to the recent coercion of military to listen to evangelical christian rants.
The Birch founder, the candy guy Welch, was very active in New England and they had groups set up where we lived.
I knew a few people who went. They were all of the same emotional pitch as the stereotypical tea partyist. Older with a lot of resentments, often ex-military and prone to see conspiracies everywhere.
Beck, the new voice of the fringe has taken it all a step back and goes to the perfidy of Woodrow Wilson, the master of deceit who started all this socialist takeover stuff. In this light Woody predates the Marxists in Russia.
Anyway. More tea. No matter how you smoke it there is the same blend of craziness and just a tad of history thrown in to make it seem credible to the disaffected.
Labels: republican whack jobs
SAME LINE OF THINKING
In Losing the Midterms, There May Be Winning
If it goes against the Demos it will fit the pattern of other biennial elections. Clinton had the same. Truman before that.
Both sailed with it. Tacking. Against the wind.
I said below that Obama is a canny politician. He can do a lot with a bi-partisan government. Well, we have to say that it would be tri-partisan with the creeping politicization of the Supreme Court.
Running the whole thing is no picnic as we have seen since 2008. Political success requires conflict.
We have had plenty of that but the difference between governing and running will become very clear to the GOopers if, as seems likely, they will take control of the House.
First, they will not have a huge majority. Second, they will have to be in synch with a probable Demo-Senate.
And the Presidential veto to say nothing of the bully pulpit.
I don't think that things will change with the conditions of majorities and minorities. It is all too fluid.
I don't like it. I would appreciate a period of amity and congeniality. But then what? No issues, no decisions, no active electorate.
And then there is 2012. What a great thing for Obama to run against. A "do nothing Republican" Congress in the mode of Harry Truman and Bill Clinton.
Remember, Clinton humiliated Newt and Obama can do the same to Orange John who is not very canny about much of anything and is already embroiled in a tussle for leadership with the likes of Eric Cantor. Easy targets.
Labels: Administration Obama, politics
Saturday, October 23, 2010
KNOW IT ALL
The overexamined life is not worth living. That is my motto.
I say this knowing that I have spent too much of my life trying to figure it out.
I gave up this fruitless search some time ago so that I could live in each day as though that is all there was and to relate to the people, places and things around me as though their meaning was implicit.
I don't always achieve this goal but, when I do, I seem to have a much better day than when I am questioning everything.
I see that Luis and I are in the same ballpark.
And he made some terrific films.
Labels: films
QUIET OPTIMISM
I know. It is all over. The GOoPers are going to sweep Congress. The Demos are in deep shit.
Obama's ratings are so low that.................
Wait a minute.
The scale began tipping last week. I read all this stuff and more and more things are looking like this.
Abandon All Hope? Not Quite Yet.
Of course, I have been following all of this closely. I know about peaking too early. The Repubs may just have been doing that.
The races all across the country have been tightening up. There is a lot less air between any front runner of any party than there was, were. That can only be good for the party that was behind.
There is also the GOTV. Get Out The Vote.
There is an enormous Democrat effort being made in the Howard Dean fifty state strategy approach. That coupled with the Obama machine. I get the mail day after day.
I send money.
Now. What if it does turn around. Good. I expect the same shit we have had from the Republicans and a lot of conflict.
What if it doesn't? What if it turns out the Ol' Orange John Boehner runs the House?
Then I expect the same shit we had from the Republicans and a lot of conflict.
The same.
Don't forget. Obama is a canny scrapper. Don't forget he he is President and has the veto.
With all the talk about what they are going to do, the fact is that the GOP can't run Congress to suit its own agenda. They have to have the override ability of a Prexy veto. And so on.
I have voted already. So have an awful lot of people and the Demo registered ballots currently outweigh the GOP. The enthusiasm gap on their side has dwindled and ours is on the rise.
Obama had 35,000 people in a frenzy in LA yesterday.
He is fired up and ready to go and so are they.
Labels: Democrats, polls, Republicans
LOPSIDED
This from Kevin Drum today. Actually, Thoreau, another blogger.
This is about how companies or governments that we deal with make mistakes for which we are always responsible.
A billing error costs us a fee or something like that.
With me, currently, it is that I am getting the run-around from the IRS. Their first assumption is that I do not deserve an adjustment on my taxes and, not only that, I probably owe them something. So they send me a bill which is not only redundant but shifts the blame completely. Actually, I am not interested in the blame as much as the money but, hell, if they are looking for an argument then I am the man for it.
I have the documents that they do not want to read or understand and they are IRS docs and one day there will be a reckoning. But there will be no apology. Which is OK. Just send the check.
I also was just in possession of a letter from our tax assessor telling me that a form which they had sent and was redundant (I had filled the same form out at the closing and have the copy) and that they would charge me a $100 fee if I didn't submit it (fucking) now.
Well, why go on? We all have such examples.
Just complaining here. Nothing going on folks. Just the regular thing. Break it up and move on.So, I say that we should be able to put large companies on hold when they want something, send them through phone trees, and ask them to re-submit paperwork that we may or may not lose track of.
Labels: criminal morons
SOULMATES
Today's film was the Korean
Wonangsori / Old Partner (2008)
I am wary of animal pictures and even more so about a bonding between man and beast. I know that somewhere in it there is going to be sadness or, worse, sentimentality.
There is not a speck of that in this film, sentimentality, I mean. There is an almost documentary kind of look at an old man and his ox who have been together for 40 years. The man is the boss. The beast is for burden. It is part of the bargain.
The film is also also about aging, modernization, history, nature, and marriage.
And in each category, contrasts.
The ox and man have lived and worked together so long that their relationship is palpable. The comparisons obvious. Both are old. Both are primitives. Both are dying.
Next to the peasant farm, we see a modern operation. Mechanization, pesticides, all of it.
The old man clings to his old ways.
There is a history lesson here as well, more for Koreans, I suppose. It is their culture after all. But the story is universal as well. The ox and the man are inside us. The primitive struggle between animal and the elements is inside all of us.
Nature. Ongoing. Unchanging. Momentum. Life. Death. This film is immersed in nature and its dominion. Plants, insects.
The marriage between the ox and the man is in parallel with the marriage between man and wife. An old harridan who bitches and moans throughout the entire film. A pain in the ass. A counterpoint to the acceptance and flow of the man and his animal friend.
This is a beautiful film.
If you love animals it will have special meaning.
I could feel the bond between my Booker and me as I watched the man and his ox.
There is sadness in this because we are near the end. But so am I. I can also feel, behind the sadness, the sweetness of life and relationship.
Wow. I got a fuck lot more out of this film than I thought.
I would not mind watching it again. Not at all.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
THE BIG GUY
I have written that Orion is the only constellation I know.
That is because the first session of the Astronomy Club had only three kids in it and they folded the group.
But we did see Orion.
I still look at him every morning, now. In the spring he will re-emerge at sunset.
This has more detail to it if you go to the link.
Labels: APOD, astronomy, astropix
Friday, October 22, 2010
LEGAL ISN'T ENOUGH
Today's film was the documentary
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe (2009)
produced and directed by Kunstler's daughters Sarah and Emily.
The daughters examine their dad's life and career and find it wanting in some respects. They study and inquire and talk to people about this controversial man.
In the end, they gain a perspective that is quite extraordinary. As was their Dad.
The sum up at the end, by Kunstler himself, explores about the limits of "legality". What moral limitations lie within its frame.
There are many teary moments as Kunstler's life illustrates the period of civil rights cases that he fought.
In his later years liberals felt abandoned by him as he took controversial cases regardless of their politics. We see how, in some ways, he was right. How his clients were later exonerated.
I liked this film a lot but the structure and viewpoint is a little cramped. The daughters keep getting in the way a bit. I suppose this is inevitable. Like the home movies that show them with their Dad at home and at his work, they are cute but distracting from the main story we came to hear.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
For 7.8 Million Californians, an Earthquake Drill
We failed the basic test.
We didn't even hear about this.
Nothing.
So, we are somewhere wandering the desert just now wondering what hit us.
Somehow, we failed to be communicated with. Or to communicate.
If this had been the 8.0 they said was possible for us the other day, we wouldn't have heard about it either.
So maybe that is a more realistic test. Or ours was. No one knew nothing until it hit.
I am ready. We have three days of water if you count the swimming pool. We have enough food unless the power goes out.
I tried once to put one of those emergency kits together. After about a year they are past date and you have to renew them at 500 bucks a throw.
I have renewed my membership to the old people's center up the street. I guess we will go there. Along with all the other helpless geezers.
Actually, we keep a few thousand in cash in the safe and the car gassed up. We will strike out for the east or north or wherever the traffic jam allows us.
Or not.
Another thing. The "go under the desk or something" thing is useless. Like duck and cover in in the Fifties.
Go under a desk when you see a flash.
Shit, if you see the flash or feel the tremor it takes a second or two to get it and then the desk is going to be on the other side of the house.
This has happened on too numerous occasions for me to feel at all confident I would go the right place in time for "big one".
I don't even make it there for the little ones.
I am usually trying to get to Booker who is having a harder time than me. And if I had listened to his barking and known what it was about, I would have more time to get under the desk if I could find it.
I'm just saying.
Labels: earthquake
Thursday, October 21, 2010
JESUS SAVES
CDC finds stark regional disparities in teen-pregnancy rates
Some women's health advocates say the discrepancies are indication that comprehensive sex-education programs are producing results for states that offer them, while states emphasizing abstinence-only programs aren't faring as well.So is this a surprise?
Labels: christist watch
INCHING ALONG
Court Keeps Military Gay Policy for Now
The Appeals Court allowed the injunction.
Just keeping up to date.
Labels: gay military, gay rights
HONOR VS THE PURSE
Today's Mamet film was
This is a fight film. Mamet has covered all the bases. It is right up there with all the predecessors and more. Mamet more.
Here we have Mixed Martial Arts Fighting. In caps because it is now professionalized which is the theme of the picture. All the same basic characters are still there. The manager, the fixer, the family and so on all with the Mamet twist.
And a cast full of the Mamet stock company. Some who were stars have bits and others more.
The star is Chiwetel Ejiofor who I have seen in Dirty Pretty Things (2002) among others. A British actor of some renown.
This film is a whirlwind. The fights both legit or in a ring or in the street are convincing.
The scale is small, focusing on character. The conflict between making money or maintaining his honor despite many financial setbacks. This being Mamet, there is a con, a setup to make the hero need the money desperately.
This would be a step up from the simple boxer who just wants to win.
This guy doesn't want to win per se. He wants to learn. To be strong and good.
Hard to do when you are kicking the shit out of someone.
It is a little garbled in retrospect but in the film itself there is no question. I got carried away. It took a while to come down from the experience.
I will give this film a 4 out of Netflix5.
And thus endeth the Mamet fest. There is one more film Oleanna (1994) which is still in pending queue. Not yet a DVD. I am waiting. But my guess it will not make it into disc. It is about sexual harassment or not. Not a who done it but more a did it get done.
Labels: films
TAXING SITUATIONS
I paid our real estate taxes this morning. The whole thing. Two periods.
We pay it all at once so that we get the deduction in the year. And also, I suppose, because I don't like to wait to pay for things. Heh heh.
I was disappointed to not find the new assessment based on our purchase in June.
Well, I guess I was expecting too much. They tell us that they are a almost a year behind on updating the assessment records from new property exchanges.
So I had to pay the old amount which, I estimate, is about 35% more than what we will end up paying.
We will get a credit back but we won't get interest on the difference.
On another front, we are in the process of refiling our federal tax returns for three years. It turns out that, according to a new ruling by IRS counsel, since California is a "community property state", the new domestic partner laws effectively make any certified domestic partners' income community property.
If there is a disparity between one partner's income and another's there is a significant advantage here. The higher earner gets reduced in his or her income as the income goes to both partners. Brackets change.
We filed as regular people originally. Now we have refiled as domestic partners in community property.
The problem is that, unlike married couples, there is no mechanism or process at the IRS to handle this. We still file separately.
They have to take both ammended returns, apply the new ruling and make appropriate refunds. They also have to understand that the original tax paid by the one partner was paid for both.
And so on.
Let's put this as kindly as we can. The IRS is not staffed up for this kind of problem solving and the ruling is so new that this is the first example of its application.
We are trailblazers.
Our accountant is good. He is handling the details. We finally have a person to talk to and they have approved (you have to ask) the CPA to be authorized to speak for us.
In the meantime, we have demands for payment of taxes we have already paid and a lot of other nonsense. No answers to our letters of explanation.
It will clear up. Or not.
The worst that can happen is that they will not allow it as it only applies to California couples (as far as we know) and somehow they will retract the ruling.
On the other hand, for most couples, the ruling is beneficial to the federal tax system as it technically requires that all domestic partners file community property and this could actually raise revenue in some cases.
It is surely a bona fide mess for them and we think that, perhaps, the person who made this ruling is now having his own problems with the bureaucracy for doing it in the first place.
But this is all fantasy. They tell us nothing. We tell them everything. They refund or not. It is a closed system.
There is quite a bit of money involved for us. And it is a point of principle. I have always been a no-more-and-no-less-than-owed-guy as far as taxes are concerned.
So I want what is coming to me. No more, no less. We will continue to pursue this until it gets too hot or too arduous. Stay tuned.
Labels: money
GYM GAMES
This morning more on the gym music wars.
John, the guy on the desk Tuesday through Thursday, is also a locksmith.
He has been able to breach security on the way over loud, ear plugs required sound system.
Today it was off when I arrived.
Good.
Sooner or later he has to turn it back on. Today when he hit the button it was right at the cue-up of The Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler.
Applause broke out on the cardio floor. I did a prize fighters pose.
A new battle rages now. The battle of the fans.
There is a right old bastard who has begun to use the elliptical. He is a bullet headed guy with a loud gravelly voice who relies on non-verbal intimidation to get through his day.
He and "the wife" turn on all the fans in the place. It is like a fucking wind tunnel.
No one, including me, wants to just go turn them off. It has been discussed. Three of us get up and go flip the switch simultaneously. We do, two of us, go turn them off the second they get off the equipment. They cannot miss that we are up to it. The guy sits on the benches at the top of the stairs, takes his shirt off (prohibited and in his case a real danger) and cools off. To less air. The wife just sits.
Another game to while away the time.
Labels: fun. music, gym
THERE IS NO EASY WAY OUT
This explains why, despite our protestations and angst, Obama cannot withdraw from the DADT suit and must defend the law. The canard that he can just stop defending it has hurt him badly with gays who are basically misinformed about how "it" works. I mean the government. The Constitution.
Do we really want a president, any president say like George Bush, just not enforce or defend laws they don't believe in? I think not.
Walter Dellinger is a long time soldier in the cause. As he points out that there is no simple solution to this by Obama, no mythical stroke of the pen, despite our biased beliefs. But, there is a way out.
How to Really End ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’
Of course, I am not sure that Dellinger is right. It seems like just another version of what he cannot do which is to usurp the powers of Congress and the Judiciary.
But, what do I know? I am just a struggling seeker of human rights.
Labels: Administration Obama, gay military, gay rights
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
TWISTY
Today's Mamet film was the government conspiracy thriller
This is a George W. Bush era presidential thriller but in the Mamet style. Mamet style.
We are plunged into the action from the title frame. No credits. They are running. And they do not stop for the full 104 minutes. Well, there is stopping and some talking but not in the usual international thriller banalities.
Val Kilmer stars as a really special, special forces guy who gets shut out in the cold on a covert operation being run by...........well. That is the problem. Run by whom.
It is Kilmer's POV. We see what he sees and don't see what he does not. No cute asides here. You get what he gets when he gets it.
Double crosses, defections, con games. The usual Mamet machines that make the entire film fun at as many levels as you want to delve into it.
Kilmer is very good which is a plus as he is in every scene. William H. Macy and Ed Oneill (yes) are there for, well what are they there for?
You will have to see this to find out.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5. I never saw it before.
Labels: films
COMING TO A TOWN NEAR ME
The moguls of the GOP and tea baggers are coming to Rancho Mirage in January.
Just down the road a piece.
Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead
They want to get their shit together to continue the war against Obama. Quietly.
Not that there is anything wrong with that now that SCOTUS has given the green light to corporate donors who do not have to reveal their name or the amounts given.
It is free skate for all the moneyed interests. Foreign money too.
But that is a side issue.
The big thing is that these Koch brothers are now into some light. They are going to be hounded by reporters. Exposés.
There is plenty to report.
appeared in The New Yorker in August.
These guys hate sunlight and air.
Labels: evil bastards
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
DADT MUST END TODAY
Judge reaffirms ruling allowing gays into military
And Dan Choi reenlisted.
He said he would.
A West Point graduate, he was thrown out. Since then he has been the most effective and outspoken opponent of Don't Ask Don't Tell.
He even chained himself to the White House gate.
60s activism is alive and well.
Labels: gay military, gay rights
TURN IT OFF!
Booker is having a hard time today.
There has been rumbly thunder off and on since this morning.
And he does not like it.
All the prideful independence is gone, temporarily, and he becomes a daddy's boy.
In a way it is nice and, in another, it is annoying.
I find that I still have a part of me that says "get over it". I suppose I did this with my kids too. And others. And myself.
But it is not likely that he is going to get over it and he needs us now.
He has found that the bathtubs offer some solace. He is not interested in our carpeted closet which is actually the most silent part of the house. Probably because we are not there and also because he is still performing his duties as the watchdog and helper in the kitchen.
We had decided that we will take him away for a road trip the night of fireworks next July. But this is here and now and there is no "away" from thunder.
He is quiet now. The panting and pacing have stopped. The skies are silent.
IN OUR NECK OF THE WOODS
This is one of the best ads I have seen this cycle.
The guy with the accent is our governator.
Labels: California, jerry brown, republican whack jobs
THE WHITE BOARD RETURNS
My man Austan Goolsbee gives the lowdown on unemployment and employment.
The facts.
Seldom heard these days.
Labels: Administration Obama, economy
INSIDE JOB
Today's Mamet film is a caper movie
Of course, it is also about deception, the double cross, the triple cross and then some.
It is a lot of fun.
Gene Hackman. Sam Rockwell. Ummm. Danny DeVito. The villain. Type casting. Funny though.
The Mamet stock company is in evidence.
Seeing all these films back to back is very interesting. I do not respond to the actors as belonging in yesterday's film. They are all right here, right now, in this one.
Of course, around the edges, I am looking for Ricky Jay and the others.
It doesn't get in the way of the suspense of which there is plenty in this one.
I have seen it several times and am still not ready for some of the twists and turns and I am never tired of the dialogue.
This one earns a 5 out of Netflix5 because I have seen it over and over. And may again.
I love Gene Hackman. I guess he is out of the business now. He is 80 years old. 7 years older than me.
He has 99 credits, the last film was 2004.
Labels: films
HEROES
The NYT has a series on centenarians.
These are interviews with people who have made it past the post.
Don't look for any earth shattering suggestions.
One says that the best way to reach 100 is to not die before that.
I plan on 90 myself. If I make it to 100, OK but not as a feeb or vegetable.
This isn't a fear actually. I figure if you are either one of these there is no 100 ahead. You are gone before you reach 80.
The best one is the first one. Hazel Miller.
It is scary that it is mostly women and the women are actually spritelier than the men but I knew that already.
On the other hand Phil Damsky is pretty good too. Listen to his Hooters story. Notice it is all about a free lunch and not a feel in sight. Or at least not that he is talking about it.
Labels: heroes
