you keep on telling me

 

John DeLorean's car

On Netflix now:

a documentary about John Wayne Gacy

a documentary about John DeLorean

a documentary about death of Marilyn Monroe

Taxi Driver (Scorsese)

The DeLorean story and the Gacy story are both crazy, in different ways.

During the Gacy doc, a juror said that when they were picking the jury one of the questions asked was, 'Would you have a problem with finding someone guilty if you knew they could get the death penalty?'

        The realization came to me abruptly when I heard that:  if I were the potential juror being questioned, I would have to answer "yes."  I don't think about the death penalty very much but if I do think about it -- yeah, it is barbaric and probably un-Christian.  Hugh Hefner said it's used disproportionately against people who are non-rich.

A two-tiered justice system is wrong; a two-tiered justice system is what we have right now; and I would not support it by voting to "torch" random idiots who did horrible things.  Lock them up so they can't do any more bad things.

I agree with Hugh Hefner.

(Now, there's a sentence I don't say every day.)

__________________________________

Gaslit is a streaming series on an app called Starz.  It's about Martha Mitchell, the wife of John Mitchell, who was attorney general in Nixon administration, & the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

        (I remember her name being in the news, and she had things to say, and people were trying to silence her.)

I can't watch it -- don't have Starz or Hulu or whatever it is... a streaming platform?  An app?  An ear-flapping elephant?  What - ever....

The Washington Post had a review of Gaslit:  a reader comment said, "This review fails because it tells me zero about the mini-series ...and is mostly just disjointed whining."

        This observation is similar to something I find myself thinking frequently these days, when I read reviews:  Complaining about the movie is not the same as reviewing it.

Another reader comment said --

"I was 8 when Nixon was elected, so I don't have the same perspectives, but I think it's good to remind folks that we have been struggling with anti-democratic forces for decades.  In fact, maybe that's what it is, an eternal struggle."

It's like -- in recent days News has reported Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter, and some people suggest that he wants to own that company so that he can take over the world, or America, or something.

Twitter is not the world.  (Besides, I thought the Kardashians owned twitter...)

-30-

liberté, égalité, fraternité

 

two American presidents:  Dwight Eisenhower; John Kennedy

headline today

Ukraine War Impact Widens:  Russia Cuts Gas Flow and Vows More Reprisals

(NYT)

It kinds of seems like Putin wants to fight the whole world.

Lesson for humanity:  do not let psychopaths be in charge of countries.

Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." 

(ahsk)

Do we now have to "ahsk," instead, what we can do for the world?

________________________________

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

U.S. President, 1952 - 1960

-30-

story

 

Something I was thinking lately, about stories, is that the same ones are told over again.  There are You Tube channels -- true crime -- where the person recounts the timeline of a murder or a mystery or whatever and it's one you've heard before on another You Tube channel, or on Dateline or 48 Hours, and you listen anyway, even though you know how it ends, and the reasons why, etc.

The radio presenter Paul Harvey used to say, "It ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it."  So maybe we will listen to, or watch, a story that we already know, just to find out how it is told this time -- and maybe for the atmosphere.  We don't watch to find out the answer, we watch to experience the story -- and the thoughts and emotions that go with it.

Several years ago, someone recommended that maybe I should get Netflix because there are lots of movies and series on there to watch, and he knew I was kind of "studying" stories.

        After doing a little "research" (asking someone at work what it's like having Netflix) I went ahead and got it.  I credit the original recommender for giving me a good suggestion.  

I like having it -- just today I found a documentary about questions and mysteries surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe.  It was well done, and very good.  (Although this and other "mysteries" / stories / competing accounts, involving famous and fascinating people, are possibly all made up and perpetuated for the purpose of giving us -- stories....)

And maybe it isn't even for us, perhaps the people telling the stories just need to tell them.

The flip side of finding something on Netflix that you enjoy watching, is that sometimes you click on show after show and have that frustrating feeling of there being -- "nothing to watch!"

They are putting out a lot of what we now call "content".  When I start watching a show and find that it isn't very good, I think, 'somebody, somewhere, is just throwin' stuff against the wall, in a mixture of desperation and exhaustion.'

A certain type of series will make me feel impatient -- when things keep happening and they're supposed to be shocking, or scary, interesting or suspenseful, but they don't add up to anything.  (Where is this going??)  

        I could not put my finger on it, or express it precisely, and then I heard someone with a British accent in a You Tube video say -- "the story lurches from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, plot twist to plot twist..." and my brain went, "THAT'S IT!"  

That describes the bored, frustrated feeling I get with some shows.  That the story is -- lurching.  Something new happens, or shows up, and the viewer just thinks, "Oh for heaven's sake, NOW what?..."

-30-

change for Jamaica Plain

 

        If you're wondering where you heard that "never returned" song highlighted here yesterday, it might have been on the TV show, "Malcolm in the Middle."  The Gentleman Callers sang it.

        Sometimes it's called "The Man Who Never Returned" and some people know it by the title, "Charlie on the MTA."

        MTA stood for Metropolitan Transit Authority.  By the time I lived in Boston during school, it had been changed to MBTA -- Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.  They operate trains on tracks that run through underground tunnels in some places, and above ground in other parts of the city.  They have buses, too.

On You Tube, there are covers of the song -- play this one for yourself, it's good.

video title:  Carolina Rebels - The Man Who Never Returned

uploader:  TheCarolinaRebels

        They're singing it with their Southern accents -- and certainly having fun!  In the second verse where it says,

Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square station

And he changed for Jamaica Plain,

the Carolina vocalist articulates clearly,

"and he changed for Jamaica Train"...

It's a natural mistake -- they are singing a song about a guy riding on a train.  Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood in Boston.

____________________________________

According to the online Encyclopedia,

----------------- [excerpt] ---------------- The song has become so entrenched in Boston lore that the Boston-area transit authority named its electronic card-based fare collection system the "CharlieCard" as a tribute to this song.

-30-

the man who never returned

 

On m.youtube, type in

The Kingston Trio - MTA

uploader:  John1948SevenE

and - Play!

[spoken introduction -- it is less than 30 seconds, then music starts]

♪ ♫ ♫

Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Charlie

On a tragic and fateful day

He put ten cents in his pocket, kissed his wife and family

Went to ride on the MTA

Well, did he ever return?

No, he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned

(What a pity)

He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man who never returned

Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square station

And he changed for Jamaica Plain

When he got there the conductor told him, "One more nickel"

Charlie couldn't get off of that train!

But did he ever return?

No, he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned

(Poor old Charlie)

He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man who never returned

Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station

Crying, "What will become of me?

How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea

Or my cousin in Roxbury?"

But did he ever return?

No, he never returned and his fate is still unlearned

(Shame and scandal)

He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man who never returned

Charlie's wife goes down to the Scollay Square station

Every day at quarter past two

And through the open window she hands

Charlie a sandwich

As the train comes rumblin' through!

But did he ever return?

No, he never returned and his fate is still unlearned

(He may ride forever)

He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man who never returned

[Banjo solo]

Now, you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's a scandal

How the people have to pay and pay?

Fight the fare increase, vote for George O'Brien!

Get poor Charlie off the MTA!

Or else he'll never return

No, he'll never return, and his fate is still unlearned

He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston

He's the man who never returned

He's the man who never returned...

_________________________________

{"M.T.A." - written by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes, in 1949.  Recorded by The Kingston Trio, 1959}

-30-

hello life, goodbye Columbus

 

Ali MacGraw in Goodbye, Columbus

Goodbye, Columbus is on Amazon Prime now.  It is a good movie.  The soundtrack features four songs by The Association.

Cinematography is pretty:  every frame -- every scene, view -- is worth looking at.

---------------------- [excerpt / Philip Roth novella from which the film was adapted] ------------------ Once I'd driven out of Newark, past Irvington and the packed-in tangle of railroad crossings, switchmen shacks, lumberyards, Dairy Queens, and used-car lots, the night grew cooler. 

 

It was, in fact, as though the hundred and eighty feet that the suburbs rose in altitude above Newark brought one closer to heaven, for the sun itself became bigger, lower, and rounder, and soon I was driving past long lawns which seemed to be twirling water on themselves, and past houses where no one sat on stoops, where lights were on but no windows open, for those inside, refusing to share the very texture of life with those of us outside, regulated with a dial the amounts of moisture that were allowed access to their skin.  

It was only eight o'clock, and I did not want to be early, so I drove up and down the streets whose names were those of eastern colleges, as though the township, years ago, when things were named, had planned the destinies of the sons of its citizens.  

I thought of my Aunt Gladys and Uncle Max sharing a Mounds bar in the cindery darkness of their alley, on beach chairs, each cool breeze sweet to them as the promise of afterlife, and after a while I rolled onto the gravel roads of the small park where Brenda was playing tennis.  

        Inside my glove compartment it was as though the map of The City Streets of Newark had metamorphosed into crickets, for those mile-long tarry streets did not exist for me any longer, and the night noises sounded loud as the blood whacking at my temples.

        I parked the car under the black-green canopy of three oaks, and walked towards the sound of the tennis balls.  I heard an exasperated voice say, "Deuce again."  It was Brenda....  I crackled slowly up the gravel and heard her once more.  "My ad," and then just as I rounded the path, catching a cuff full of burrs, I heard, "Game!"  Her racket went spinning up in the air and she caught it neatly as I came into sight. ------------------------- [end, excerpt]

-30-

ancient time

 

Audrey Hepburn

"Timeless" is a word that keeps coming up lately.

Reader Comments in The Guardian call Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album timeless.

A customer review calls The Mary Tyler Moore Show timeless.

Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, and Marilyn Monroe are called "timeless style icons" in Internet articles and posts.

Dictionary definition of the word, timeless:

not affected by the passage of time or changes in fashion

___________________________

"Time out of mind" is an expression that means

a time in the past that was so long ago that people have no knowledge or memory of it.

There is a 2014 movie titled, Time Out of Mind.

There's a Steely Dan song called "Time Out of Mind."

And a Bob Dylan album, Time Out of Mind (1997).

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

Jerusalem ["And did those feet in ancient time"]

     by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon Englands mountains green:

And was the holy Lamb of God,

On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear:  O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:

Till we have built Jerusalem,

In Englands green & pleasant Land.

-30-

goodness strikes

 

Looking back on experiences with the "Get-up-and-dance!" politician, I remember it was fun to interview him "live" on the air.  It was a new thing -- a challenge to learn how, and pleasurable to "worry" ahead of time about what questions to ask him.

I remember I took pen and legal pad out to a friend's house in the country, on a bright sunny day, to make a list of his Question Suggestions.  He was a WWII veteran, similar age to my dad, and he had served in the state legislature, so to me, he was a valuable resource.

I had my piece of paper with interview questions ready when the politician arrived at the radio station.  When we were done, I had him introduce the next song.  Before exiting the Control Room, he rumbled over and hugged me, saying happily, "This was great."  I think it was fun for him -- the interview, I mean -- because it was something he didn't do every day.

After he had left, someone fussed, "I can't believe he hugged you!"

        I thought everyone knew that some people hug, on a casual and frequent basis, because they feel exhilarated at the moment -- particularly people in Politics or Entertainment.  It isn't so unusual.

♪ ♫

So I'm back to the velvet underground

Back to the floor that I love

To a room with some lace and paper flowers

Back to the gypsy that I was

To the gypsy that I was

And it all comes down to you

Well, you know that it does, well --

Lightning strikes -- maybe once, maybe twice

Oh and it lights up the night

And you see you're a gypsy

You see you're a gypsy

To the gypsy

That remains

Her face says freedom

With a little fear

I have no fear

I have only love

And if I was a child

And the child was enough

Enough for me to love

Enough to love

She is dancing away from you now

She was just a wish

She was just a wish

And her memory -- is all that is left for you now

You see you're a gypsy, oh

You see you're a gypsy

Ooh ooh, oh oh, oh oh oh

Goodness strikes

Maybe once, maybe twice

And it all comes down to you

Ooh oh, and it all comes down to you

Lightning strikes

Maybe once, maybe twice (oh)

I still see your bright eyes, bright eyes

(And it all comes down to you)

________________________________

{"Gypsy" -- written by Stevie Nicks; recorded by Fleetwood Mac -- 1982, Mirage album.}

on Internet:  Play and Enjoy.

-30-

fun is elusive like a moonbeam

 

"Do anything, but let it produce joy."

~ Walt Whitman

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

        That Mary Tyler Moore Show episode described here yesterday:  only in the past few days did it dawn on me that an occurrence in my real life was kind of like that episode.

        Instead of in a bar, it was outdoors at a street dance in a tiny little prairie town.  This state politician was playing records (it was 1990) and some people had danced, but not a lot were dancing.  And kind of in the middle of the event he spoke into the microphone and firmly, seriously commanded the people to get up and dance.

        I thought it was pretty funny at the time.  I had seen that Mary Tyler Moore Show episode in 1973 when it first aired, but I did not recall it right then, in 1990, and make the connection.  

        I can connect it now, though!

You Tube serves to refresh memories and collapse time -- or -- rearrange time so we can revisit events and perceptions.  Internet Time Travel.

That record-spinning politician had come to the radio station I worked at a few years prior to that street dance.  We did an interview live on the air -- I had questions all ready and organized.  

        I remember afterwards he said to me, "I have always wanted to do what you do:  play records and be a D.J."  Later when I heard he was going to play records at the street dance, I thought, "He got his wish!  He gets to play records for the people.  This will be fun."

When he was playing the records, however, he seemed kind of over-serious, or even depressive.  And then grouchy, when he told the audience they had to get up and dance.

Lou Grant:  "Sit down and sing along!"

midwestern state politician:  "Get up and dance!"

both of them:  "Have fun, dammit!"

-30-

sit down! - this is the happy hour!

 

Valerie Harper as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show

        I think a lot of people can relate to the idea of having your own business.  A person can start a business, or buy an established business.  The reality may be different from the dream, and everyone probably knows that, too.  

There's an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show that illustrates the journey of one such enterprise --

Season 3, Episode 16, "Lou's Place"

(available to watch on You Tube).

        Lou Grant is head of the WJM newsroom where Mary Richards works.  When the owner of Lou's favorite bar, McCluskey's, passes away Lou buys the place.  He thinks because he enjoys being a customer there, he's going to enjoy running it.  "It's a goldmine!" he says.

        Customers stop coming in, it gets real quiet in the bar, and Lou is dismayed.  'What's wrong?' he wonders.  And he figures it out pretty quickly.

        One evening Mary and Rhoda are hanging out in Rhoda's studio apartment (those beads in the doorway...) and Lou Grant stops by unexpectedly.  He says he's been out walking in the city, thinking about what's going wrong at the bar, why he's losing customers.  He says the thing that's missing at McCluskey's is McCluskey.  He says, "McCluskey was lovable -- I'm not lovable."  

        "Oh Mr. Grant, that's not true," says Mary automatically.

        Lou says, "Yes it is, Mary, I've never worked at being lovable.  It was always enough that people were afraid of me.  McCluskey -- he had a gift for people.  He'd tell them jokes; he'd get them to sing.  He remembered everyone's name who ever came in there."

Resolving to try a new approach, Mr. Grant leaves. Next scene, on another evening:  he's in his bar, two customers walk in, he greets them with enthusiastic friendliness (almost too enthusiastic - a little overwhelming).  He introduces himself and asks their names.  Al, and Tim.

        Pretty soon a group of 4 -- two men and two women -- walk in, Lou greets them with high energy and gets their names and introduces them to Al and Tim -- except it costs him some effort to remember the names, he gets three of them right and one wrong.  (LOL - already it isn't easy for him, at all!)  

The two couples at their table are trying to have conversation together, but Lou Grant sort of claims their attention and drowns out their talk by telling a joke, aiming it at the table of four and Al and Tim who are seated at the bar.

Then Mary and Rhoda walk in -- they want to support Lou's enterprise.  Lou greets them and says, loud and jolly, "You're just in time for the Sing-along!" after, of course, introducing everybody and stumbling over a couple of the names -- "wait a minute - wait a minute...".

You can see the six original customers are reluctant to -- sing, right at the moment.  Lou Grant starts singing "Alexander's Ragtime Band."  Mary tries to tell him, gently, "Mr. Grant you don't have to do this.  It isn't you!"  But he plunges in, sings a verse, and Mary and Rhoda join him, to try and be supportive.  

Some of the other customers sing along, half-heartedly.  (Maybe they don't know the words.  Or maybe they would like to be left alone. ...)

When they get into the second verse, they are several voices strong, but throughout the first five lines the number of voices is dwindling and so the sound is getting thinner and weaker.  Everyone is embarrassed and uncomfortable.  It's just awkward.

Come on along, come on along

Let me take you by the hand

Up to the man, up to the man

Who's the leader of the band

And if you want to hear the Swanee River

-- played in ragtime --

Come on and hear, come on and hear

Alexander's Ragtime Band

        When it gets to the Swanee River part, all the voices have stopped except for Mary and Rhoda, then Mary gives up, and Rhoda, left singing by herself, sitting on a barstool, snaps her fingers and sways a little as she finishes --

Come on and hear, come on and hear

Alexander's Ragtime Band! - with a flourish.

        Rhoda has a Bronx New York accent, so it's

Come on and hee-ah, come on and hee-ah...

Rhoda is valiant.

Then Lou Grant addresses his six customers:  "What the hell is wrong with you?!"  (LOL) - "We asked you nicely..."

Al and Tim are heading for the door.

Lou Grant:  "Siddown!!" 

(They go back to their bar-stools.)

"Now, this is the Happy Hour!  [emphatically] - Is it too much to ask for you to have fun?  Al, Tim..." and he proceeds to address the two couples at the table by name, getting each name wrong -- "We're all gonna sit here -- and sing along.  All right! -- Let's Go."

(and he adds, in a surly Voice Of Doom) --

        "...and this time -- I REALLY. WANNA. HEAR-IT."

-30-

where do you hide a 500-foot yacht

 

a Russian oligarch's yacht

Ukraine

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

three New York Times reader comments this week --

Chris Lawrence

Ottawa

I never understand why discussion of not allowing the Ukraine to join NATO seems so acceptable when talking about a peaceful resolution to this conflict.  

        NATO is an alliance literally created to prevent Russia from unprovoked aggression against its smaller neighbors, why shouldn't the Ukraine be allowed to join, and more to the point who is Putin to think he can decide this?

Bevan Davies

Kennebunk, Maine

It is worrying that Ukraine might win the battle but the country will be destroyed in the process by the Russians.  A negotiated peace agreement must include reparations, otherwise Putin will just get away with pulverizing the country.

Frank

Albuquerque

The unpalatable truth is that a Russian defeat -- especially a humiliating one -- is arguably the most dangerous outcome of all for the world as a whole.  

We are already seeing subtle enthusiasm for conventional war against Russia from US and NATO generals who believe, likely correctly, that NATO would make short work of the Russian army.  

        Yet we are also apparently dealing with a delusional tyrant who equates his own personal fate with that of Russia itself, and has thousands of nuclear weapons at his disposal.  

It's hard to overstate the danger here, and arguments in favor of increased confrontation, no matter their emotional appeal, should frighten everyone.  Cooler heads have rarely been more important.

_______________________________

Today in the Washington Post, they had an Opinion article headlined,

Vladimir Kara-Murza from jail:  Russia will be free.  I've never been so sure.

some Reader Comments

||   Russia will go Nuclear before it is free.

||   Unfortunately it will take a near miracle to dislodge Putin from power, as he has an iron grip on the armed forces.  A group of generals could carry out a coup and remove him.  The oligarchs would probably be happy to be rid of him...and get funds released and yachts liberated.

||   I've seen a few Russian You Tubers' video blogs lately who have recently left Russia, and they are not at all optimistic about Russia's future and think it's headed down a dark path to a Soviet-style life which could last a few decades.  

They're scared about their futures, sad at what could have been, sympathetic about Ukraine, dismayed at how popular Putin is and how people believe the Kremlin's propaganda, etc.

||   Vladimir Kara-Murza:  a man of extreme courage and moral ethics who is a giant when compared to the evil Putin.  Russians should look for leadership, to this man instead of a tinpot dictator.

||   Russia and Russians have never been "free" and the majority of Russians are fine with that and always have been.  They are not Americans.  They do not think like Americans.  They do not have the same opinions or ideals or beliefs as Americans.

The above is why Putin's approval ratings soared after he took the Crimea and have now again after he invaded Ukraine.

||   The only way Russians might be "free" one day is if the survivors of some nuclear holocaust, precipitated by their leaders, crawled out of the ground and found their entire government had been destroyed.  But even in that case they would probably start over again in the same manner.

||   True; for nearly over 1000 years Russians have had a king or czar or dictator running their country, abusing and terrorizing the citizens and using hunger and misery as a weapon to keep the population in check and subservient.

||   Россия! Вы позволяете маленькому бывшему офицеру КГБ ходить по вам!

 Россия без Путина!

||   В России полно маленьких Путиных!

||   Есть и Кара-Мурзы.

||   Russia will always be despotic, no matter who rules.  

It's in the Russian DNA.  

When I visited the Hermitage Museum many years ago, I asked the guide why there were so many empty spaces on the walls where it was obvious that something had been there before.  

        She said "This is Russia."  That seems to be the general attitude of Russians to any problem or issue, no matter how small.  "This is Russia.  We live with it and don't ask why."

__________________________

        A little bit like, "Forget it, Jake.  It's Chinatown."

-30-

every day for 40 years

 

Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro

on the set of Taxi Driver, 1975

"In America, anybody can become president.  That's one of the risks we take."

~ Adlai Stevenson

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

        You Tube videos discussing the 1976 Martin Scorsese film, Taxi Driver, all say it's "about loneliness."  I tend to think it is about insanity.

"You talkin' to me?"

I used to think this line was from The Godfather (which I have not seen).  Then I thought it was from The Sopranos.  But it is not even a "Mafia quote" at all.  The taxi driver in Taxi Driver says, "You talkin' to me?" several times, alone in his NYC apartment, posing with a gun in front of a mirror, imagining himself saying this, threateningly, to someone out there on the streets.

        Robert De Niro, the actor portraying this character, told an interviewer, "Every day for 40 years someone has said:  You talkin' to me?"

reader comments from The Guardian

--------------- Masterpiece from the 70s, my favourite decade for films and music.

---------- ...It was a very European film....

------------ I think you're right.  There are plenty of equally grimy sleazy New York-based films from the same period, but for me the aesthetic in Taxi Driver harks back to film noir....

_______________________

___________________

________________ Taxi Driver -- not for children, and don't watch with anybody who might be sensitive to sleaze.  There's some famous violence in it, and some very violent, offensive, crazy talk.

(On Netflix or Amazon Prime, or maybe both, a show you are going to stream will have warnings in upper-left corner:  nudity; sex; violence; foul language; smoking...

        If I were in charge of this, I would take out "smoking" and replace it with gross talk and racial epithets.  Those, to me, are more offensive.  Smoking?  Seriously?  [Someone had to have lobbied for that to be in there.])

I was thinking, people who know me might question what I am even doing watching Taxi Driver.  Let's face it, Woody Allen or Katharine Hepburn are nowhere to be found in this menacing milieu, right?

        But I watched it the first time about 16 years ago, because I had seen a program  about how it was written and the themes, etc.  Paul Schrader the writer, and Martin Scorsese the director.  And I knew it was considered a classic, etc. -- I wanted to see it so that I would know about it.

        And I think it is a brilliant film.  I need to sit down and watch it, now, seeing all the visual communication and expression of it.  I've played it several times recently while doing other things, at home.  One can get the mood of it, doing that, but there's a lot of visual value that I'm missing.  I need to do this with Psycho, as well.  Just actually watch it.  Alfred Hitchcock was totally all about the visual.

-30-

suspicious characters

 

It's fantastic! -- we can experience the music written by Bernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) for three great films, by going on You Tube and typing in the name of the film, followed by the words "opening credits."

        Then you get just the two minutes or so of music that introduces the movie and sets a mood for it.

North By Northwest, opening credits

Psycho, opening credits

Taxi Driver, opening credits.

        Sometimes they say "opening titles" instead of credits -- it's OK, the videos will come up.

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

If you watch these in the order suggested above, you're seeing them in chronological order, according to the year each film came out:

1959

1960

1976.

2 Hitchcock films, followed by a Martin Scorsese film.

The two Hitchcock ones, North By Northwest, and Psycho, have similar music, promising suspense and action -- (Watch out!)

Herrmann's music for Taxi Driver is different -- more like the beguiling invitation of nightclub jazz -- meandering and ambivalent, curling like a cat's tail.  (It reminds me of the music for Body Heat, which was done by British composer John Barry.)

______________________________

Besides sound, the visuals are interesting to study here, too.

Again, we would probably separate Taxi Driver from the other two.  Taxi Driver's opening-credits visuals are streets of New York City in the '70s, cars driving at night, steam, smoke, rain.  It's strictly a mood.  Film footage, no graphics.

Psycho and North By Northwest both have insistent, riveting graphics behind the opening credits -- racing, working in tandem with the music, establishing the atmosphere before the story has even started.

        The graphic designer responsible for both of these title sequences is Saul Bass (1920 - 1996).

_______________________________

_______________________

~~ on Google, type in

how to help Ukraine

...they list organizations to which we can donate ~~

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our vines have tender grapes

 

The Reckless Moment

Movies (and documentaries), lately:

Flightplan    (Amazon Prime Video)

The Reckless Moment    (You Tube)

The Little Foxes    (Amazon Prime Video)

In A Lonely Place    (APV)

Taxi Driver    (Netflix)

Downfall:  The Case Against Boeing    (Netflix)

The China Hustle    (APV)

Psycho    (Amazon / stream)

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        Recently I was kind of enraptured, knowing that Bernard Herrmann did the powerful and effective music in North By Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959) and Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976).  Come to find out:  when I put on Hitchcock's Psycho, the music over the opening credits was so assertive, urgent, and riveting, I thought Wow that almost sounds like Bernard Herrmann, too.

        And it was!!

In A Lonely Place is considered a film noir.  Humphrey Bogart has a unique gravitas, as an actor.  You can't not watch him and listen to him when he is on-screen.  They could have also titled this movie Anger Management, if they had that term back in 1950.  Bogart's character would erupt in rage and fury:  modern mental health professionals would have a field day analyzing this movie.

        I would tend to file his case under "T" for This guy is crazy.

        Or under "W" for What the heck, this guy is crazy.

The Reckless Moment stars Joan Bennett (1910 - 1990).  At one point they are finding (or hiding) a clue near a boat house.  I hear the words "boat house" and think of Body Heat.  (Note to self:  watch out around boat houses....)

I remember my father referring to the 1941 movie, The Little Foxes, starring Bette Davis.  He thought she was a great actress -- he spoke her name with a touch of awe.

        I always wanted to see The Little Foxes, but missed it when it was on TCM back in the day.  At first my imagination idly pictured a movie with actual foxes, but I didn't really think so.  Then I thought the family's last name was Fox, but it turns out that was not it, either.  The title takes a phrase from the Bible in the Song of Solomon, 2:15 --

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines:  for our vines have tender grapes.

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sapphire-tinted skies

 

Jennifer Lopez

I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train...  ♪   ♫

        At the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony, in 2001, Bob Dylan won the Oscar for best original song (in a movie).

There's a wonderful video on You Tube with seven minutes of that show:  it has three segments --

1st, there's Bob Dylan performing the song, live, at the awards show -- he is in Sydney, Australia, so it's via satellite.

2nd, the presenter of the award, Jennifer Lopez, announces each of the nominees, the name of their song, and the movie it was in.  Then she announces the winner -- she opens the envelope and says his name, "Bob Dylan."

3rd - Dylan gives a nice, brief, and unique acceptance speech -- more like an Acceptance Sound-Bite, maybe.

The whole thing is fantastic.  The song -- and Jennifer Lopez does everything perfectly, respectfully, with elegance, poise, and perfect diction.  "And the winner is -- [envelope] -- Bob - Dylan."  No bumbling, no crying, no messing about, no assault and battery.  She is so perfect, in everything she does.

On You Tube --

video title:

Bob Dylan 73rd Academy Awards Performance "Things Have Changed"

uploader:

Bob James

658,000 views

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do the jitterbug rag

 

David Niven

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but -- things have changed

I really love that Bob Dylan song.  He wrote it for a movie called Wonder Boys (2000) and it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.  (Same honor at the Golden Globes, too.)

In Rolling Stone magazine Brian Hiatt wrote about "the effortless feel of the playful-yet-ominous, hard-grooving, utterly dazzling 'Things Have Changed'..."

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Even though I didn't watch this year's Academy Awards, I was thinking about the Oscars tradition in general, because of ongoing reports and controversy over Will Smith hitting Chris Rock.

And it wasn't just hitting him -- it was walking up out of the audience, to the stage and hitting him up there.  That was weird.  It broke boundaries of audience and host, civilized behavior on a regular day, and the elegant and gentlemanly behavior expected at a public event that was being televised around the globe.  Wrong -- and shocking -- on a multitude of levels.

It got me thinking about past Oscars ceremonies where something was either controversial or -- just not up to what it ought to have been.  In the latter category I would include Halle Berry's Best Actress win and also Gwyneth Paltrow's -- instead of a coherent (and please, brief) acceptance speech, both of these ladies just got up there and cried.  And cried.  

I was distressed.  I wished someone had coached them on how to behave -- both if they won, or if they did not win.  Either way, you gotta have a plan and stick to it.  Live up to the occasion.

        In the Controversy category, I remember some people used to be critical of the dreamy Richard Gere because he would use his moment on the Oscars' stage to bring awareness to the predicament of Tibet, where people were being badgered by the Chinese.  

        I don't think Gere's critics were pro-communist dictatorship, but they were kind of kvetching because the Academy Awards is to celebrate movies, not to bring your political causes.  (I do not know whether they checked with the people of Tibet before running their mouths....)

        I didn't have a problem with it.  Richard Gere can speak on a cause that's important to him -- if you could bring about some positive change through awareness, without going to war, I think that's a good thing.  And he just said his piece and then was done.  It wasn't as if he was filibustering.

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The craziest thing that ever happened at an Oscars ceremony (up until now, anyway) might have been in 1974 when a streaker ran across the stage behind David Niven, who was addressing the audience.

"Streaking" was a phenomenon for a couple years in the 1970s.  A person would run naked across some public space.

On YOU TUBE, type in

Favorite Oscar Moment - The Streaker

uploader:  Oscars

(2.6 M views)

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people are crazy and times are strange

 

Bob Dylan

photographed by Richard Avedon

A worried man with a worried mind

No one in front of me and nothing behind

There's a woman on my lap and she's -- drinking champagne

Got white skin, blood in my eyes

I'm looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies

I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose

Any minute now I'm expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but -- things have changed

This place ain't doing me any good

I'm in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood

Just for a second there I thought I saw something move

Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag

Ain't no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag

Only a fool in here would think he's got anything to prove

Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too

Don't get up gentlemen, I'm only passing through

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but -- things have changed

I've been walking forty miles of bad road

If the Bible is right, the world will explode

I've been trying to get as far away from myself - as I can

Some things are too hot to touch

The human mind can only stand so much

You can't win -- with a losing hand

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet

Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

I hurt easy, I just don't show it

You can hurt someone and not even know it

The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity

Gonna get low down, gonna fly high

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie

I'm in love with a woman who don't even appeal to me

Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake

I'm not that eager to make a mistake

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but -- things have changed

_________________________

"Things Have Changed," by Bob Dylan.

Copyright 1999 by Special Rider Music.

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on m.youtube, type in

Bob Dylan - Things Have Changed (Official HD Video)

uploader:  Bob Dylan

and                                                  Play!

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