listening to rain

Humphrey Bogart in the 1946 film version of Chandler's novel



     What critics say about Raymond Chandler's writing is that he took detective fiction and elevated it to literature.


     [a quote from The Thrilling Detective Web Site] --

"Chandler relished mystery writing because it seemed to lack pretension, and the pulps' restrictions on length and subject matter compelled him to improve and polish his storytelling skill.  

Never a master of plotting, Chandler found his own strengths instead in creating emotion through description and dialogue, and in presenting a prose idiom that melded the precision of his prep-school English with the vigor of American vernacular speech."



     The expression "the big sleep" means death.
     I like the writing in that book; I can always find something in it to write out or type out and study and share.

     A winding driveway dropped down between retaining walls to the open iron gates.  Beyond the fence the hill sloped for several miles.

     The reader gets the feeling of open space and height.  Open air.

     The word "faint" was used in both excerpts entered here last week:

On this lower level faint and far off I could just barely see...


A faint knowing smile curved his lips when I turned...

------------------------ On this lower level faint and far off I could just barely see some of the old wooden derricks of the oilfield from which the Sternwoods had made their money.

     The author is describing the visual space, the location -- and at the same time he gives us some backstory -- the Sternwood family has money, and this is how they made it.

     He does this again in last Friday's excerpt --

-------------------- There was a lot of oriental junk in the windows.  I didn't know whether it was any good, not being a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills.

     Visual description -- and the reader also receives the information that, unlike his Sternwood client, the private eye is not rolling in cash.   Unpaid bills are the only "antiques" he knows much about....


     Why does the jeweler next door to Geiger's shop smile a "faint knowing smile" when our detective goes in there?...

[excerpt, The Big Sleep]------------------ The book was not new.  Dates were stamped on the front endpaper, in and out dates.  A rent book.  A lending library of elaborate smut.

     I rewrapped the book and locked it up behind the seat.  A racket like that, out in the open on the boulevard, seemed to mean plenty of protection.  I sat there and poisoned myself with cigarette smoke and listened to the rain and thought about it.


SIX

Rain filled the gutters and splashed knee-high off the sidewalk.  Big cops in slickers that shone like gun barrels had a lot of fun carrying giggling girls across the bad places.  The rain drummed hard on the roof of the car and the burbank top began to leak.  

A pool of water formed on the floorboards for me to keep my feet in.  

It was too early in the fall for that kind of rain.  I struggled into a trench coat and made a dash for the nearest drugstore and bought myself a pint of whiskey.  Back in the car I used enough of it to keep warm and interested.


______________________
The Big Sleep
by Raymond Chandler
published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1939

-30-

a faint knowing smile

-------------------- [excerpt, The Big Sleep]


FOUR

A.G. Geiger's place was a store frontage on the north side of the boulevard near Las Palmas.  

The entrance door was set far back in the middle and there was a copper trim on the windows, which were backed with Chinese screens, so I couldn't see into the store.  

There was a lot of oriental junk in the windows.  

I didn't know whether it was any good, not being a collector of antiques, except unpaid bills.  The entrance door was plate glass, but I couldn't see much through that either, because the store was very dim.  A building entrance adjoined it on one side and on the other was a glittering credit jewelry establishment.  


The jeweler stood in his entrance, teetering on his heels and looking bored, a tall handsome white-haired Jew in lean dark clothes, with about nine carats of diamond on his right hand.  A faint knowing smile curved his lips when I turned into Geiger's store.  

I let the door close softly behind me and walked on a thick blue rug that paved the floor from wall to wall.  

There were blue leather easy chairs with smoke stands beside them.  A few sets of tooled leather bindings were set out on narrow polished tables, between book ends.  There were more tooled bindings in glass cases on the walls.  Nice-looking merchandise, the kind a rich promoter would buy by the yard and have somebody paste his bookplate in.  

At the back there was a grained wood partition with a door in the middle of it, shut.  In the corner made by the partition and one wall a woman sat behind a small desk with a carved wooden lantern on it.



     She got up slowly and swayed towards me in a tight black dress that didn't reflect any light.  She had long thighs and she walked with a certain something I hadn't often seen in bookstores.  She was an ash blonde with greenish eyes, beaded lashes, hair waved smoothly back from ears in which large jet buttons glittered.  Her fingernails were silvered.  In spite of her get-up she looked as if she would have a hall bedroom accent.


     She approached me with enough sex appeal to stampede a businessmen's lunch and tilted her head to finger a stray, but not very stray, tendril of softly glowing hair.  Her smile was tentative, but could be persuaded to be nice.

     "Was it something?" she enquired.

     I had my horn-rimmed sunglasses on.  I put my voice high and let a bird twitter in it.  "Would you happen to have a Ben Hur 1860?"

     She didn't say:  "Huh?" but she wanted to.  She smiled bleakly.  "A first edition?"

_______________________________

-30-

the big sleep

------------------- [excerpt, Raymond Chandler]

     I stood on the step breathing my cigarette smoke and looking down a succession of terraces with flowerbeds and trimmed trees to the high iron fence with gilt spears that hemmed in the estate.  

A winding driveway dropped down between retaining walls to the open iron gates.  Beyond the fence the hill sloped for several miles.  

On this lower level faint and far off I could just barely see some of the old wooden derricks of the oilfield from which the Sternwoods had made their money.  

Most of the field was public park now, cleaned up and donated to the city by General Sternwood.  But a little of it was still producing in groups of wells pumping five or six barrels a day.  

The Sternwoods, having moved up the hill, could no longer smell the stale sump water or the oil, but they could still look out of their front windows and see what had made them rich.  If they wanted to.  I didn't suppose they would want to.



     I walked down a brick path from terrace to terrace, followed along inside the fence and so out of the gates to where I had left my car under a pepper tree on the street.  Thunder was crackling in the foothills now and the sky above them was purple-black.  It was going to rain hard.  The air had the damp foretaste of rain.  

I put the top up on my convertible before I started downtown.



     She had lovely legs.  I would say that for her.  They were a couple of pretty smooth citizens, she and her father.  He was probably just trying me out; the job he had given me was a lawyer's job.  

Even if Mr. Arthur Gwynn Geiger, Rare Books and De Luxe Editions, turned out to be a blackmailer, it was still a lawyer's job.  


Unless there was a lot more to it than met the eye.  At a casual glance I thought I might have a lot of fun finding out.

____________________________

The Big Sleep
novel written by Raymond Chandler
published 1939, Alfred A. Knopf

-30-

calling for justice

THE ATHLETIC

Bucks stage walkout, all of Wednesday NBA playoff games postponed


Prepared statement read by George Hill and Sterling Brown:

     "We are calling for justice for Jacob Blake and demand officers be held accountable.  

For this to occur, it is imperative for the Wisconsin state legislature to reconvene after months of inaction and take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform.  

We encourage all citizens to educate themselves, take peaceful and responsible action and remember to vote on Nov. 3."


              ------------------------ Meanwhile, I had read, and posted here on Monday, a SLATE reader comment - "It's all part of that warrior cop training (lucrative work for Dave Grossman).  The fear is pounded into their brains in training...."

     I  You-Tubed the name Dave Grossman.  There are videos:  some profoundly strange shtick.


     The Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile took one of Mr. Grossman's courses. ...

-30-

sleepy London Town

[guitar sound] -- MANG-ANG!!!!


Everywhere I hear the sound
   of marching, charging feet, boy

Because summer's here and the time is right
   for fighting in the street, boy

But what can a poor boy do --
'Cept to sing for a rock and roll band
'Cause in sleepy London Town
There's just no place for --
A street fighting man!  No!


Hey!  Think the time is right
   for a Palace Revolution
But where I live the game to play 
   is Compromise Solution!

Well then, what can a poor boy do --
Except to sing for a rock and roll band

     'Cause in sleepy London Town
     There's just no place for a street fightin' man!  No!


Hey!  Said my name is called Disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the King,
I'll rail at all his servants

     Well then what can a poor boy do
     Except to sing for a rock and roll band,
     Because in sleepy London Town
There's just no place for Street Fightin' Man!  No!

________________________________

"Street Fighting Man" - the Rolling Stones 
written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
producer:  Jimmy Miller
album:  Beggars Banquet

     Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song 301 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

     In an interview with Marc Myers, Keith Richards said that he wrote most of the music for the song in late 1966 or early 1967, and got the "dry, crisp" sound that he wanted by strumming an acoustic guitar with an open tuning in front of a portable Philips cassette recorder microphone.  The melody was influenced by the sound of police sirens.


Rolling Stones US singles chronology:
"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
"Street Fighting Man"
"Honky Tonk Women"

-30-

police hysteria?

The New York Times
Wisconsin Reels after Police Shooting and Night of Protest


SLATE Reader Comments

--------------- I'd like to see cops be required to carry liability insurance, paid for out of their own pocket.  That way they can be sued six ways to Sunday when something like this happens, and taxpayers won't be on the hook.  Eventually they won't be able to get insurance anymore, and then bye bye shooty cop.


----------- Cops must be getting trained to shoot first and ask questions later.  It's the simplest explanation that makes sense as to why every one of these cops aren't immediately fired, charged and thrown in jail.


--------------- Are there any good cops?  Rhetorical question - the answer is no.  It's a toxic culture and to oppose it from within is to put your life at risk.  Even the "good cops" tolerate cops that murder citizens.

----------- Folks, you should know, even if you're white, you're still a potential perp, a skell, a bad guy, to the police in this country.

The police are taught to see every civilian as somebody who is only a second away from drawing a gun and shooting them down.

In their eyes, they're justified in shooting each and every one of us down, even if we prove wholly innocent, simply because they feel threatened.


---------- One can only assume that we recruit from a pool of people who make the Cowardly Lion look like John Wayne.  

If I were in body armor and had three different "less lethal" tools AND a gun hanging from my belt, I wouldn't be peeing my pants in terror every few minutes like these fine gentlemen.


------------ My van was hit by a car in a parking lot last year, and one of the responding officers just about had a conniption fit about the middle-aged lady driver walking over to us from behind his back.  

The hypervigilance is real and, while I didn't say anything at the time, he clearly shouldn't have been out interacting with the public until he'd had some therapy.

------------------ The thing that truly smacks my gob about all this is just how often these blatant issues continue to happen right now.  Do they not freaking know what's going on in the country after every one of these incidents?  

Shoot, even the damn criminals know to lay low right after something major has gone down, because everyone is on high alert.

     How do they not go into every situation like this thinking, "I really need to avoid shooting people unnecessarily right now"


-------------- Because it'll take a generation of cops to undo the training these knuckleheads receive.


-------------------- It's all part of that warrior cop training (lucrative work for Dave Grossman).  The fear is pounded into their brains in training.
     Between the War on Drugs, Gulf War, COPS (the TV show), and the constant wars after that... We have a toxic mix in this country.


---------------- Yes.  Let's focus the conversation on what the real problem is here.  It's guns.  It's too many freaking guns.  In the hands of too many stupid people.

------------ Dumb gun laws, dumb drug laws, and pathetic social services.


------------- I think the "real problem" is lack of police accountability.
     They do whatever they feel like doing because they'll never be held responsible for their actions.


------------ Sort-of-on-topic:  when recording, please hold your phone sideways.  It captures much more of the scene.

------------ Everyone needs to know this.  Vertical videos are so annoying.

-30-

a bootstrap story

Robert and Kris Kardashian - back in the day...


     Okay, so I learned that the Kardashian children -- Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, and Rob -- inherited $100 million when their father died in 2003.  

     $25 million per person.

     Uhm, yeah, I don't know what changed, but for some reason the bottom sort of dropped out of the story, for me, upon learning this.

     I was under the impression that Kris Jenner's six children -- four Kardashians and two Jenners --  "earned their living," so to speak, from their reality show(s) and selling products with -- their -- names on them...whatever... I don't know.

     I mean, I guess I didn't have the idea that they began as low-income, but I did think they were in "normal" range, income-wise until their mother came up with this brilliant reality-show idea...

     The one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance changes the story-arc totally.  LOL.

     Ryan Seacrest and Kris Jenner tell it both ways -- he came to her, she came to him -- with the Idea.  Whatever, whatever.

     The fact that they were already incredibly rich means that any deal they come up with, they will be listened to even in Hollywood where it's notoriously hard to get a break -- people want to please rich people, and if they want a reality show. ...


     I had thought of it as a story of Merit Being Rewarded.

     Now, it's like finding out there's no Santa Claus.

     Haha -- I'll have to try to dial down my naiveté....
          (Maybe I can have it removed...)

-30-

empty your cups of negativity

     I listened to a video on You Tube about how to shoot a movie -- they had a guy on who started with a camera he bought on E-bay for $27.  Looking at some of the Comments under the video -- there were some people attacking the speakers in the video, writing mean and crazy things.


     Then other Comments had appeared after them, criticizing the criticizers.  One comment from someone whose last name was Singh urged the hostile commenters to "empty your cups of negativity"...I liked that.

     I think if you listen to the way people express an idea in a language that is not their "First" language, you come up with some very interesting phrases.

-30-

"build something out of nothing"

     When I was writing recently about "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" I made a list of components which help them gather a fan base:  I forgot to add Beauty.

     I had "God and country" on my list -- that might sound funny at first, but if you observe the show closely -- at least in the first couple of seasons in that original house with column-fence around it, they make the point of showing an American flag outside the house.  And they mention being "Christian."  Not that often, but it's there.

     Someone on their Creativity team knows that mentioning -- 

God
country
family

is kind of a "magic potion" for one or two demographics in a potential audience.


It's like -- the dad can turn into a woman, but --

God 
country 
family.


------------------- In the middle of the 20th Century people used to say, "Yes, every politician says he's 'for' motherhood and apple pie."

     "Motherhood and apple pie" was a stand-in for "God, country, family."

_____________________________

Other aspects of the Kardashians' winning formula --

SHARING -- here's how I feel; everything has to go perfectly; I'm very upset; I might be pregnant; if you try, maybe he'll try....

Performance events where they pose, and talk about it to the Camera


The building blocks were

attention

and

fame -- building, one upon the other, until the audience felt like they knew the Kardashians, and wanted to receive more news of them -- wanted to "keep up with" them....


     The premise of "fame" has mostly been that you have a talent which you bring to the viewers -- you are a model, an actor, a dancer, singer, player of an instrument...  
     However, "reality" actors, or stars, create their own genre....  You can become famous by showing up....with attention-grabbing style, in strategic settings, and being photographed.

     Instead of hiding from, or complaining about, the "paparazzi," the Kardashians and Jenners put them to use, for their own benefit.

-30-

planning for icebergs

Internet Comment under an article on the 1997 movie, Titanic:


Moonlight Tiger

Captain Trump of the RMS Titanic --

"There isn't any iceberg.

There was an iceberg, but it's in a totally different ocean.

The iceberg is in this ocean, but it will melt very soon.

There is an iceberg, but we didn't hit the iceberg.

We hit the iceberg, but the damage will be repaired very shortly.

The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg.


We are taking on water, but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat, and they are beautiful lifeboats.

Look, passengers need to ask nicely for the lifeboats if they want them.

We don't have any lifeboats, we're not lifeboat distributors.

Passengers should have planned for icebergs and brought their own lifeboats.

I really don't think we need that many lifeboats.

We have lifeboats and they're supposed to be our lifeboats, not the passengers' lifeboats.

The lifeboats were left onshore by the last captain of this ship.

Nobody could have foreseen the iceberg."


Lol
—------------------------

-30-

dashing through the culture...

     I watch "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" now and then, to get a different perspective.

     It's an interesting phenomenon.  I realize it is not the first "reality show," but it seems to occupy a unique niche, presenting "content" that's strikingly popular.

     I think maybe a key element in the success of the whole package is Kris Jenner's ability, honed on-the-job, to build one success on top of another.  One success grows out of another, just like one storyline grows out of another.


What are the elements?

God and country
glamour
sex
family
wealth / vacations, fashion, etc.

California lifestyle
cartoon and clown-type aspects (body parts exaggerated by plastic surgery)

conflicts that are unserious and solvable
variety of settings
health issues with doctor visits
having babies
weddings
relationships -- interpersonal intrigue and consensus-building

show business
retailing business
problem-solving
social media -- use and leadership
atmosphere of play -- joking and having fun

...and last but not least, expanding everything from Commonplace or Routine, to "Drama."


     When I said "retailing business" I was thinking of the early seasons where they had a store called "Dash."  Since social media kicked in as a space in which to operate, the Kardashians and Jenners have left the storefront type of business and they instead concentrate on "individual brands."  (Like their "lines" of clothing, and make-up, etc.)


     I was noticing the preponderance of chandeliers in Kardashian interiors.  There's just -- a lot of chandeliers.  And the people walk around under the chandeliers, mispronouncing words and using incorrect grammar....

-30-

chilling events

   

Thought maybe I could write haiku about some favorite films.
(The word "haiku" is like the word "deer" -- the plural is the same as singular, apparently....)


Hitchcock haiku

------------------------

     International Intrigue

European train
in "The Lady Vanishes"
begins the action



     Rebecca - 1940

"Last night I dreamt I
went to Manderley" - the past
insinuates gloom...



     Strangers on a Train - 1951

taut uneasiness
infiltrates lovely lives met
by desire and rage



     suspense in the aftermath

"Notorious" haunts,
by mood and method - secrets
of hearts and nations

-30-

going undercover

Grace Kelly in Dial 'M' for Murder
1954



a haiku:  

I wish I were inside an igloo


can't think visually!

moving into a haiku --

a Hiding Haiku

_______________________________

I was trying to think more visually -- it's hard!

Maybe it would help if I binge-watched my favorite Hitchcock movies:

The Lady Vanishes

Rebecca

Strangers on a Train

Notorious
Shadow of a Doubt
To Catch a Thief

Dial "M" for Murder
Rear Window
North by Northwest

-------------------- Visual.  Visual.  Cinema.  Cinematic.  Not "photographs of people talking."


Then I could binge-watch Woody Allen movies:

Play It Again Sam
Annie Hall
Manhattan

Hannah and Her Sisters

--------------------- (photographs of people kvetching)...


The Lady Vanishes,
Rebecca,
Strangers on a Train,
Notorious, and

Shadow of a Doubt
                                 are in black-and-white, because most movies were still being made in black-and-white in that era (1930s and '40s).

     To Catch a Thief, Dial "M" for Murder, Rear Window, and North by Northwest are in color.  These films were made in the 1950s and color was becoming more prevalent.


     By the time Woody Allen was making movies, in the 1970s, movies were almost all made in color.  Annie Hall, Play It Again Sam, and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) are in color.  Allen chose to shoot 1979's Manhattan in black and white.

     There! -- Visual thinking.

     (Now I am going into an igloo to write a haiku....)

-30-

the high life

     Yesterday's passage from Detour:  Hollywood reminded me of something.
     Emphasizing the importance of being open to ideas from the people you're working with, the author wrote, "It doesn't matter how many hours, days, weeks, months, or years you've spent prepping your film, you will not have thought of everything."


You will not have thought of -- everything.


     When I was working as a lobbyist, the board of directors requested a meeting with a certain state official to share ideas about education and school funding.  When I phoned him about it he said, with an air of weariness, "Whatever ideas they have, we've already thought of them."

     Aahh.

     Lololol.

     'All thoughts in existence on the planet, I've already thunk 'em...'

     Evidently, our state official had not heard the film director's theory about "suspend your ego" and listen to others.

     And -- actually, he did meet with us.
     (Ha -- funny memories...).

_______________________________
______________________________

     When I imagine stories I am usually thinking of words.  But I love movies as well, and there it's pictures, moving pictures -- images, angles, visual sequences, traveling camera -- that tell the stories.  They call this telling the story "cinematically."

     Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) once observed, "In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema:  they are mostly what I call 'photographs of people talking.'  When we tell a story in cinema we should resort to dialogue only when it's impossible to do otherwise."

     He wants to see the story more than hear it.


     Sometimes I think about how some people are more visually oriented, and others more spoken-word or music centered.  
     
I was thinking of a friend who is very visual in her experience of the world.  I thought if she were given a choice of having to spend a week in a plain bare room with books and music CDs or to spend that week in a beautifully appointed room without books or music but she could bring paints or a craft project, she would choose the beautiful room.

     I would probably choose the plain room with the music and reading material.

     Considering ways to develop my visual appreciation and abilities in that area, I watched a documentary about a photographer, Slim Aarons:  The High Life.
     It's good.

     Mr. Aarons took the picture of Jackie Kennedy that's at the top of this post.

-30-

use android tablet to make a movie?

     There's a movie called Detour which was made in 1945.

     I read some enthusiastic Comments about it, and so became interested, and played it from You Tube -- but I was doing "chores" and the sound wasn't very loud, so I didn't catch all of it, just got a sort of outlined feeling of it.

     [excerpt, Wikipedia] ------------ Detour was well received upon initial release, with positive reviews in the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and Variety.  It was released to television in the early 1950s and ran in syndicated TV markets until the dawn of mass cable systems in the 1980s.  


TV reviewers casually recommended it in the 1960s and 1970s as a worthwhile "B" movie.  Detour began to be seen as a prime example of film noir during the 1970s and critics began writing about it at increasingly great length.  

During the 1980s, revival houses, universities, and film festivals began to honor [the film's director] Edgar G. Ulmer with retrospective tributes to his work....In 1992, Detour was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." -------------------------------------------- [end, excerpt]

______________________________

    I got this book called Detour:  Hollywood, written by William Dickerson and subtitled "How to Direct a Microbudget Film (or any film, for that matter)."

     Reading the description, I had the impression that this author was the person who directed Detour.  Well -- he directed a film called Detour that came out in 2013.  So -- wrong -- whole different person....

     (And it does appear that there are several more movies in existence titled "Detour"...)

     The book Detour: Hollywood was published in 2015. Edgar G. Ulmer was born in Austria-Hungary in 1904, so in 2015 he would have been 111.  

     Anyway -- I have the book by this other director, so we will see what he knows.

------------------------------ [excerpt, Detour:  Hollywood] ------------------------ The buck stops with the producer, but the idea falls under the authority of the director. However, any director worth his or her peers' respect is apt to encourage as many ideas as possible from the heads of the creative departments.  It doesn't matter how many hours, days, weeks, months, or years you've spent prepping your film, you will not have thought of everything.

     I spent the better part of three years prepping my film Detour and I didn't come close to thinking of everything that could facilitate the telling of its story.  However, it's important to remember that every person involved with the project, no matter what his or her specific job is, is there to make the same film you are, and they can help.

     Ideally, the smartest decision that you can make is to suspend your ego and surround yourself with people who are all smarter than you.  The most important job a director has, aside from casting the film properly, is encouraging ideas, being able to recognize when the ideas are good, and then incorporating these good ideas into the film.

-30-

gonna be

I'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be
You're gonna give your love to me
I wanna love you night and day
You know my love a-not fade away
A-well, you know my love a-not fade away


My love is bigger than a Cadillac
I try to show it and you drive a-me back
Your love for me a-got to be real
For you to know just how I feel
A love for real, not fade away


I'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be
You're gonna give your love to me
A love to last a-more than one day
A love that's love - not fade away
A-well, a-love that's love - not fade away

------------------------------------- "Not Fade Away" 
written by Buddy Holly

___________________________________

Basic Buddy Holly 101

       "Rave On"
       "That'll Be The Day"
       "Rock Around With Ollie Vee"
       "Everyday"


Listen.
Write an essay.
You graduate.

_____________________________

     There's a lightness and ringing clarity in Buddy Holly-and-Crickets instrumentals that gives them a unique sound:  you don't really mistake them for anyone else.


Buddy Holly was a musical genius.

From Lubbock, Texas.




Only imagine....

-30-

"...I try to show it and you drive me back"

Buddy Holly and the Crickets



     If you have Google, type in

Buddy Holly - Not Fade Away (1957)

and play.

     
     Buddy Holly wrote the song, and recorded it with his band in New Mexico, May 27th, in 1957.  The Rolling Stones loved the music of Buddy Holly, so they learned the song and performed it.  There are videos on You Tube of them performing it in the 1990s -- a 1994 concert in Rio de Janeiro has this song up, as well as several other Stones favorites....

     [excerpt - Wikipedia] --------------- The rhythmic pattern of "Not Fade Away" is a variant of the legendary Bo Diddley beat, with the second stress occurring on the second rather than third beat of the first measure, which was an update of the "hambone" rhythm, or patted juba from West Africa.


     Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Crickets, pounded out the beat on a cardboard box.

-30-

"my love is bigger than a Cadillac..."

     On You Tube, there's a video of the Rolling Stones singing a song called "Not Fade Away" on the Mike Douglas Show in 1964.

     The song has, I think, the "Bo Diddley beat" or a beat that's similar.

     The video is about 5 minutes:  talking at the beginning, then the song is at about 3:00.

     The show's host says, "I'd better let you do the song, before we all get arrested!"


     When you listen to the banter before that, you discover what he's joking that they might "all get arrested" for.

     It's a moment of social history.

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On Google, type in

The Rolling Stones - Not Fade Away (TV 1964)

(uploader:  DoctorSDX)

And -- PLAY!

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"the devil works hard, but Kris Jenner works harder"

  The Kardashians:  A Contemplation

(Or should it be – “kontemplation”?)

-----------------------

        Listening to Keeping Up With The Kardashians, I started to wonder – if I let too much of this into my head, will I start to make my voice go up at the end of almost every sentence, as if it’s a question even when it isn’t, like Kim does?  (What if you started doing that, and you couldn’t stop?)

        It’s odd, to check out that show and clips from it on You Tube – because you’re supposed to think it’s “reality,” but clearly it’s planned and rehearsed.  So then that isn’t reality, but rather a play, of sorts. 

        It’s a funny feeling of – did something really occur, or did they pretend it did?  Like the robbery in Paris.  (A robbery … in Paris??  LOL, Kim would not want to be robbed in any place that had less class and style, beauty and history…only the best…)

        What is real and what is not?  It would be fun to play for the cameras, but what about reality?  What about real life and responsibilities?  How serious are you about your life?  Or, maybe life should be fun, and not serious.  
     Are the Kardashians and Jenners able to have a real real life, away from the cameras?

        And if they set stuff up and pretend it happened, while saying on-camera that it did happen, isn’t that lying?  Would this lifestyle promote mental instability?

     It's a new and interesting phenomenon. 

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diamonds, daisies, snowflakes...

3 Wednesday haikus 
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winter play 

cloudy, cold - - crunch and 
hiss - - sled set to zip, but just 
coasts neighbors' short hill 



That Girl 

Ann Marie and her 
boyfriend Donald problem-solved 
in the Big Apple 



Save Grand Central 


knock down old buildings - - 
no, don't knock down old buildings... 
history inspires 


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a flock of haikus?

---------- A Haiku For Calabasas 

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Kardashian life

What it means is elusive 

But it keeps going 


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