tell him I said so

RESUME BARTHA, MRS. BARTHA AND SIDNEY

The THREE SHOT favoring Bartha and Sidney.  Both Sidney and Bartha are now aware of Mrs. Bartha's curiosity.

SIDNEY (pointedly):  Neither does Hunsecker.
(fractional pause) -- He likes to use the real names...

A moment of chill silence.  Then Bartha gets to his feet, signals for a waiter.  As Sidney rises also:

WIFE:  Where are we running?  What am I missing here?

BARTHA:  Waiter, the check.
(to wife):  This man is trying to hold a gun to my head!

WIFE (abruptly):  That's the horse!  Shotgun -- Shotgun in the fifth!

She quickly studies her newspaper again.  As quickly, Bartha leans across the table and snatches it out of her hands.  In doing so, he upsets the glass of champagne, which contains only a few drops.

SIDNEY AND BARTHA

Bartha turns challengingly to Sidney.

BARTHA (sternly):  What do you want to tell my wife, Sidney...?

WIFE

She is brushing her lap with her napkin.

WIFE (indignantly):  He wants to tell me that you poured champagne all over my lap.

RESUME BARTHA AND SIDNEY

Bartha ignores her, again challenges Sidney.

BARTHA:  Go on, tell her, I'm waiting!

SIDNEY (flustered):  What are you talking about?  Are you nuts or what?

The Waiter arrives in picture beside them, puts the check on the table and goes.  Bartha picks it up.

RESUME WIFE

Still mopping her dress with her napkin, she waits for her husband to speak.

BARTHA 

He glances unhappily at his wife.

BARTHA:  Lorry, I can't let this man blackmail me...

MRS. BARTHA, BARTHA AND SIDNEY

A THREE SHOT favoring Mrs. Bartha, her husband and Sidney in foreground.

WIFE:  blackmail...?

Sidney decides to retreat.  He turns, starts to go.  But Bartha blocks his way, holding Sidney and explaining to the Wife.

BARTHA:  He wants me to print a dirty smear item for keeping his mouth shut.

A momentary pause.  Then:

WIFE:  About what?

RESUME BARTHA

He is uneasy, ashamed of himself.

BARTHA:  Foolishly, Lorry, and I hope you'll understand... this cigarette girl...I was kidding around with her...this girl, I mean...I was kidding around and she took it seriously.  It was a case of bad judgment, Lorry, bad taste...and I'm just sorry, Lorry, that's all...

RESUME WIFE

She says nothing.

RESUME BARTHA, SIDNEY AND MRS. BARTHA

The ANGLE favoring Bartha and Sidney, Mrs. Bartha in foreground.  Bartha now turns on Sidney.

BARTHA:  Your friend Hunsecker -- you can tell him for me -- he's a disgrace to his profession.  Never mind my bilious private life -- I print a decent, responsible column -- that's the way it stays!  Your man -- there's nothing he won't print if it satisfies his vanity or his spite!  He'll use any spice to pepper up his daily garbage!  Tell him I said so and that, like yourself, he's got the morals of a guinea pig and the scruples of a gangster!

Sidney tries to brazen it out, sneering:

SIDNEY:  What do I do now?  Whistle "The Stars and Stripes Forever?"

Mrs. Bartha slides along the seat, reaching for her fur.

MRS. BARTHA

CAMERA PULLS BACK with her as she collects her belongings, slides out between the tables and comes forward, passing Sidney to her husband.

WIFE (lightly):  What you do now, Mr. Falco, is crow like a hen -- you have just laid an egg.

She presents her fur to her husband, and turns her back, inviting him to put it around her shoulders.

BARTHA AND WIFE

ANOTHER ANGLE, favoring Bartha.  He has not fully understood the significance of his wife's gesture.  He studies her.  She confirms his hopes as she adds:

WIFE:  Leo, this is one of the cleanest things I've seen you do in years...

With the fur around her shoulders, she turns and takes her husband's arm with some pride.  They walk away.  CAMERA EASES BACK to include Sidney.  He is angry at himself --

 more for the failure of his efforts at blackmail than any sense of shame at the attempt.

-----------------------------
{excerpt, shooting script for Sweet Smell of Success -- released, 1957, director -- Alexander Mackendrick, screenplay written by Ernest Lehman (who also wrote "The Sound of Music" and a bunch of other good ones) and Clifford Odets (acclaimed playwright)}

Nickel-and-dime P.R. desperado "Sidney Falco" is portrayed by Tony Curtis.
After the above encounter, the next hapless New York City newspaper columnist he buttonholes is played by David White, the actor who played Larry Tate, Darrin's boss in "Bewitched." ...

(First time I saw this, in a second-run theater in either Boston or Cambridge, this "columnist" looks up at Sidney Falco from a nightclub booth & inside my head I was like, "It's Larry Tate!  That's Larry Tate!")

-30-

and the night got deathly quiet

On a warm summer's evenin'
on a train bound for nowhere,
I met up with a gambler; we were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a-starin'
out the window at the darkness
'Til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.

He said, "Son, I've made my life
out of readin' people's faces,
And knowin' what their cards were -- by the way they held their eyes.
So if you don't mind my sayin'
I can see you're out of aces.
For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice."

So I handed him my bottle
and he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light.
And the night got deathly quiet,
and his face lost all expression.
He said, "If you're gonna play the game boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.

You got to know when to hold 'em,
know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away, and know when to run.
You never count your money
when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' -- when the dealin's done.

Now ev'ry gambler knows
the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
'Cause ev'ry hand's a winner
and ev'ry hand's a loser,
And the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep."

So when he'd finished speakin'
he turned back towards the window,
Crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness
the gambler, he broke even.
but in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.

You got to know when to hold 'em,
know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away, know when to run.
You never count your money
when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

-----------------------
{written - Don Schlitz.  recorded - Kenny Rogers.  released - November 1978}

I had not thought of that song in a long time.
Beguiling melody.  Seductive story-telling.
..."the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep"...
..."in his final words I found
an ace that I could keep."
..."I can see you're out of aces"...
"...if you don't mind my sayin'..."
"...on a train bound for nowhere..."
"...the gambler, he broke even..."
..."know when to walk away"

There's not a wasted word -- not an extra syllable -- in that composition; it all belongs, all gold....Don Schlitz be happening.

"...know when to run..."

-30-

you wouldn't know it by me

Time, stretching out like desert
only to snap tight
repetitive stuff from last week
short on significance
and realizations from decades back
stand silent relevant, unmoving
--[blogger]

Meet me in the morning,
56th and Wabasha
Meet me in the morning,
56th and Wabasha
Honey, we could be in Kansas
By time the snow begins to thaw

They say the darkest hour
is right before the dawn
They say the darkest hour
is right begfore the dawn
But you wouldn't know it by me
Every day's been darkness since you been gone
--[Bob Dylan]

-30-

he didn't get far

A Watertown, Massachusetts homeowner checked his boat in the backyard, tonight, and found the second Boston Marathon bombing suspect.

Tsarnaev in custody; seriously injured.  (Injury from late Thur. night / early Fri. a.m. shootout.)

From info available, to me it sounds like --

1.  this wasn't instigated or planned by some international "jihad"

2.  the older brother, the one who was killed last night, was one of those young people who couldn't find his path, get his bearings, as an adult, & he turned to his own, sort of created idea of his religion, Islam -- you know, he had a You Tube page -- ... one of those people trying to find an identity, and be "powerful" but without having any substantive talents or worthy goals that could, with honest work, lead him to become powerful, naturally -- powerful for positive things

3.  like that school shooter in Connecticut, he probably played too many of those violent games, like Call of the wild, or Call of duty, or whatever it is, that type of thing could be addictive, and affect the way a kid's brain develops....

4.  he dropped out of college

5.  he hit his girlfriend

6.  a guy with whom he practiced boxing said that the older brother's personality sort of changed suddenly -- this older brother was one of those people searching for himself, and feeling frustrated

7.  he came up with a plan to do something radical and destructive, to make himself feel powerful, and he pulled his younger brother into the plan with him

...is the way it looks to me.

And unfortunately it seems like these incidents of public destruction -- shootings, explosions -- have in recent years become "the thing that's in style" for people whose minds and emotions are on that track....Low self-esteem...lack of a self-image...wanting to do something "powerful" (destructive) to make for themselves a place in the world, if only in the moment.  It's a trend -- copy-cats -- they copy each other's actions....one offers an idea -- even a plan, or a blueprint -- to the next one.

Sometime in the future, it'll be something else....

When we feel upset by things like this, and we're moved to say, "What is the world coming to?  Society is going down-hill....!" we probably have to remember that murderous misanthropes have been part of mankind's experience from the beginning of time.

-30-

one New Yorker and a Rolling Stone

The finish-line area for the Boston Marathon is in a neighborhood where I lived during my sophomore year at Boston University.  Also I worked in that neighborhood during two summers -- the first 9-5 typing job after freshman year was in a little office on Boylston Street, somewhere in there near the second explosion.

On a Friday after school (or after work if it was summer-time), I could get off the subway at Copley station and go up the concrete steps, emerge out onto the sidewalk, crowded with other commuters, and right outside the subway opening in the street was a news-stand thick with papers, magazines, and miscellaneous stuff, & I could buy the latest New Yorker magazine and Rolling Stone (on newsprint, then, not slick) and take them home to my "apartment" (room) at 357 Beacon Street.

From Boylston -- a block to Newbury Street, another block to Commonwealth Avenue ("Comm Avv"), another to Marlborough, and then you're at Beacon Street, turn left, and my ("my") building was on the left, couple of doors in.

When I first got to Boston, in the fall of my freshman year, a grad student took me to my first "foreign movie" where you read the dialogue in the sub-titles, at the Exeter Street Theatre, which was also in that neighborhood. 

Several years later, saw the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at that same theater....

A Paperback Booksmith was on Boylston Street, and a Strawberries (record albums), a few nice restaurants, the Lenox Hotel which had an atmospheric lounge -- think I was in it once....  Baskin Robbins -- a scoop on the pointy, old-fashioned sugar cone, the John Hancock building -- all glass, and the other buildings were reflected in it -- very modern and beautiful, while the other buildings were very old and traditional and beautiful.

It was a big, merry mix:  the BPL (Boston Public Library), right there.

Another movie theater -- a regular, modern one, with new movies (in English) -- was on, I think, Boylston Street, right on the corner, maybe, where I would turn to walk down to where I lived.  The movie Manhattan came out and was to play at that theater, and I went to it with two guys who lived in the same rooming house ("apartment building") as me:  Phil, and Rob, and some of their other friends. 

We stood in a separate line before the first show, to buy tickets for the second show, then went and had a beer, and came back for second show & did not, then, have to stand in the long line because we already had tickets.

After Annie Hall, Woody Allen had made a film called Interiors.  It was serious, and kind of sad -- dissatisfied people trying to find their way.  And it wasn't funny.  (That's when Allen fans started referring to his movies before and including Annie Hall as "the early, funny ones."  Though plenty of them after that were funny, too....)

We all wanted to see Manhattan because we'd heard it was funny.  He was back to doing funny ones.  (Whew!)

-------------- Chapter one.

He adored New York City.
He idolized it all out of proportion.
Uh, no.  Make that "He romanticized it all out of proportion."
To him, no matter what the season was,
this was still a town that existed in black and white
and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.
Uh...no.  Let me start this over.
Chapter one.
He was too romantic aobut Manhattan,
as he was about everything else....----------------------------

We all liked that movie!

Rob and I liked it so much, we agreed to go back and see it again, while it was still running in that theater.

In one scene, where the character played by Woody Allen has moved to a different NYC apartment and he has issues with it:  "I've got -- these noises -- I don't know, rats with bongos, brown water ["brown waht-uh"] and that noise -- what is that, it's like a trumpet -- like, sawing -- like a man sawing a trumpet in half...."

We took the subway to the Park Street stop, after the movie, and had Italian food at the Marliave, and talked about the movie and our jobs and the city of Boston and stuff.  After that we walked back to 357 Beacon Street.  It was summer, so no coats.  I would not have walked that stretch by myself after dark, in the city -- women were always advised to not do that -- but I wasn't alone, so we walked.

A few days later Rob and I were talking in the hallway -- he asked me if I had heard strange noises coming from the large apartment on the second floor.  I said I didn't know, maybe.  He said, "It was -- like -- someone sawing a trumpet in half...."

(...Uh -- wait.  Let me start this over....)

-30-

and the moonlight flowing over all

...By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church...

{excerpt, "Paul Revere's Ride" -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow}

-30-

the world's oldest marathon

Day of the Boston Marathon

In a moment of information-seeking,

on one major television network internet site,
and on one Name cable-tv internet site,

commenter / contributors are, in large part,
ranting against "the left" or "the right" (with, evidently, little-to-no idea what those mean, just parroting insults they've heard someone else say) and proposing to break one another's [computer] keyboards over one another's heads

then, checking a site called "reddit" -- found commenters offering notes such as the following:

BobsCandyCanes
Reminders from the previous thread:
-Don't use emergency sites unless you need them, you'll clog them up
-Speculation will only make the chaos worse
-The NY Post article is full of misinformation
-The Red Cross has enough blood for now
-Don't donate to unofficial sites

--------------------------------------
Another Reddit post reads,
"In other tragedies, the Red Cross has been forced to throw away blood because they get too much.  Instead of everyone rushing in on the same day, pick some random days spread over the next year to donate."

=====================================
[Free Encyclopedia]: 

The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon hosted by several cities in Greater Boston

it is always held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April

began, 1897 -- inspired by the success of the first modern-day marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics

the Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon

amateur and professional runners from all over the world compete in the Boston Marathon each year, braving the hilly New England terrain and varying weather, to take part in the race

attracts half-a-million spectators each year

the first Boston Marathon in 1897 had 18 participants

the event now attracts an average of 20,000 registered participants each year

The Centennial Boston Marathon in 1996 established a record as the world's largest marathon, with
38,708 entrants,
36,748 starters, and
35,868 finishers.

{Thanks, "Wikipedia," the Free Encyclopedia}

-30-