Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
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BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: MOVIES # 7
GRACIE ALLEN “The well-known radio, TV, and movie star one year ago was voted Hollywood’s most intelligent actress by Southern California psychology students. She ran for President of the United States n 1940 on the Surprise Ticket. As a painter she exhibited her paintings at a Manhattan gallery (one of her paintings is called – Eyes Adrift as Sardines Wrench at Your Heartstrings. ” Current Biography 1940 ** ON THE CASTING FOR BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S It’s hard to imagine any other actress besides Hepburn bringing Holly Golightly to life on the silver screen. But her casting faced some strong opposition from the book’s author. Capote had envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the role. He later stated, "Paramount double-crossed me in every way and cast Audrey. She was just wrong for that part.
CARY GRANT ON FILM ACTING
"He talked about a simple thing like mixing
a drink in a scene. You had to mix the drink
correctly or someone in the audience would
be sure to notice and complain, but at the
same time you also had to make sure to hit
your marks and remember the dialogue. If you
dipped ice cubes in the glass 'you had to do
it gently,so the sounds of the ice hitting
the glass wouldn't make a distracting sound.
He made it sound like a six ball juggle."
Scott Exman. Cary Grant: A Brilliant
Disguise {New York: Simon and Schuster,
2020)
**
CRUEL REVIEWER AT WORK
When the film Smash-Up, starring Susan Hayward and
Lee Bowman, was released in 1947, Life magazine
said he played his part with all the enthusiasm of
a stuffed moose.”
Beverly Linet. Susan Hayward: Portrait of a
Survivor (New York: Atheneum, 1980)
**
THE UNA MERKEL TRILOGY
UNA MERKEL
Merkel, Una –
Did you ever see her on a
Bucking horse?
(The 3rd line came close to being extremely coarse!)
**
UNA MERKEL (2)
Una Merkel,
Decided not to audition for Dr.Jekyll
& Mr. Hyde.” She sighed. “I’m done
When they want me to play 2 roles for the price of one.”
*
UNA MERKEL (3)
Una Merkel –
Almost any cinema-loving jerk’ll
Tell you that Una was in DESTRY RIDES AGAIN.
In Greek terms, she was involved in the Agon.
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOY OF READING #3
“The 75th anniversary of the publication of Le
Petit Prince in France is commemorated by a single 1.08 e stamp available in a sheet of 15. First available in the United States in 1943, it was banned by Vichy France and not published until after the liberation. The novella was written by writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery and is the story of a young prince who visits various planets and learns about ‘loneliness, friendship, friendship, love, and loss.’ “
William Silvester. “New World Issues” in The
American Philatelist (September 2021)
**
ON THE BEST SELLING NOVEL --THE DOGS OF WAR --AND A SUCCESSFUL INVASION TO OVER THROW A REPUBLIC
‘There need only be five rules, Strike hard, strike
fast, and strike by night. Come unexpected and come
by sea. Parenthetically, the eventual book was
imitated twice. In 1975, the French mercenary,
Bob Denard attacked and took over the Comoro Islands,
at the top of the Mozambique Channel.
“He was acting with the knowledge, assistance,
and on behalf of the French government. Amusingly,
as the French mercenaries came up the beach in the
predawn darkness, they all carried a paperback edition
of Les Chiens de Guerre (The Dogs of War) so that they
could constantly find out what they were supposed to
do next. Denard succeeded because he came by sea.”
Frederick Forsyth. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue.
(New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2015)
**
ON DISCOVERING WHAT YOU WANT TO DO IN LIFE
“I discovered poetry as a soldier during World War II.
In 1943, my unit, having finished Basic Training in
Miami Beach, was boarding a troop train for a slow journey of several days across the country to an unknown destination, when a Red Cross worker handed us a bag of necessities for the trip, a toothbrush, comb, candy bar – and a paperback. My book was, fatefully, a Louis Untermeyer anthology of a great poems of the English Language, which I devoured on the tree. Three days later when I got off that train I knew what I wanted to be – a poet – in spite of, at the age of eighteen, never having written a line.”
Edward Field. The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin, 2005)
**
SHOULD YOU BECOME A PUBLISHER?
On December 21, 1950 in a letter to Burroughs Mitchell of Scribner’s , Norman Mailer declared that
The title to James Jones’ great war novel –From Here to
Eternity –was an “awful title.” If you agree or disagree with Mailer’s assessment give yourself 150 points. If, however, you are asking: Who is James Jones? Who is Norman Mailer? What was Scribner's? What war is being referred to? – then perhaps publishing is not the best choice for a profession for you.
**
A QUESTION TO WHICH I RARELY RECEIVE A REPLY
if John Keats
ONE OF THE STRANGEST BOOK DEDICATIONS
Dedicated
to all the
skeletons
in your
Closet and mine.
Walter Winchell. Winchell Exclusive: “Things That Happened to Me – and Me to Them” (Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. , 1975)
**
ON ALTERNATE HISTORY
I purchased Wings – The Spirit of St. Louis
By Lindberg, Charles.
As I read I wonder what if
Lindberg flew not to Paris but to Arles?
*&*
If John Keats
Had sailed with Geats,
Wd he have written Beowulf?
Hey!I thought of this question all by myself!
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FILM #6
EVELYN KEYES ON DETAILS IN GONE WITH THE WIND " It was certainly a super-production. But I wasn't impressed by Selznick's attention to each stitch, design, color, shoe buckle, down to using thorns for fastening clothing during the Civil War period (when buttons would have disappeared) and importing Georgia red dust to stain our shoes and skirts. " Evelyn Keyes. Scarlet O'Hara's Younger Sister (Secaucus, N.J Lyle Stuart, 1977) ** GONE WITH THE WIND BANNED IN IRELAND ...Gone With the Wind, which, you remember was banned in Ireland because, it is said, Rhett Butler carried his own wife, Scarlett, up the stairs and into bed, which upset the film censors in Dublin and caused them to ban the film entirely." Frank McCourt. Teacher Man (New York: Scribner, 2005) ** DENMARK'S ANSWER TO LAUREL & HARDY FROM AL JAFFE "To this day, my favorite comedians are one of the world's first film comedy duos, the tall and short slapstick Danish team of Pat and Patachon, the models for Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello." Mary-Lou Weisman. Al Jaffe's Mad Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2010) Pat & Patachon The comedian duo "Pat & Patachon" was the most famous couple in the silent movie era and created a kind of couple like Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello in later years. In contrast to Laurel & Hardy, who appeared in suits and bowlers, the outfit of Pat & Patachon reminded to vagabonds, who run around in torn clothes or used an old rope as a belt. Pat was the tall guy, Patachon the small one. Together they presented the Danish stronghold of the international movie in those days (together with the legendary Asta Nielsen, who established the movie as art). The two celebrated huge successes in whole Europe and became famous in countless countries - in Germany and Austria as "Pat & Patachon", in Scandinavia as "Fy og Bi", in the Netherlands as "Watt en 1/2 Watt", in France as "Doublepatte et Patachon", in Great Britain as "Long & Short", in Hungary as "Zoro & Huru", in the USA as "Ole & Axel", in Italy as "X & Y" or "Pan & Patan", in Finland as "Majakka & Perävauna and in Sweden as "Telegrafstopen och Tilhengern." The film history doesn't pay enough attention to this duo..." by Thomas Stadeli (see his site, Pat & Patachon) Carl Schenstrom (1881 - 1942) PAT Harald Madsen (1890 - 1949) PATACHON ** MUSSOLINI & SHIRLEY TEMPLE "When Benito Mussolini watched the first screening of Little Miss Marker in all of Europe, the first thing he noticed was Shirley Temple's legs. "She has legs like one of the lions," he said. Four lion cubs slept outside on his terrace. Mussolini watched a movie every night and had become' fanatical over Greta Garbo. Upon learning that Shirley Temple had replaced Garbo as America's top box office draw, he told his cultural minister that he absolutely had to see this new little girl star." Jimmy Breslin. Damon Runyon (New York: Ticknor & Fields. 1991) **
PLAYING THE MUG'S GAME "Choosing the greatest movie ever made is a mug's game, but still the choice reveals a critic's tastes. For me two films are tied for first place, and they couldn't be more different: 200l: A Space Odyssey and The Rules of the Game. Renoir's film is humane, funny, and grandly touching, reassuring in its dignity and ease. Kubrick's 2001, static and sublime, is none of these things: it goes beyond the ' human and courts uncharted spaces." David Mikics. Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020) ** MY! HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED "Fellini was no stranger to controversy. When 'La Dolce Vita' hit the screens in 1960, it caused a national scandal,including a parliamentary debate and the scathing reaction of the Vatican's official newspaper, The Osservatore Romano,which called that film 'disgusting.'(Times have changed. In August The Osservatore Romano published a glowing review of the (FELLINI) Museum. Elizabeth Povoledo. "A Fellini Museum as Lavish as His Films" in The New York Times (Sept.1, 2021)
THE FIRST MAJOR AMERICAN COMPOSER TO WRITE
PRIMARILY FOR FILM
Harry Warren (born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna,
December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981) was an
American composer and lyricist. Warren was the
first major American songwriter to write primarily
for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award
for Best Original Song eleven times and won three
Oscars for composing "Lullaby of Broadway", "You'll
Never Know" and "On the Atchison, Topeka and the
Santa Fe". He wrote the music for the first
blockbuster film musical, 42nd Street, choreographed
by Busby Berkeley, with whom he would collaborate
on many musical films.
Over a career spanning four decades, Warren wrote
more than 800 songs. Other well known Warren hits
included "I Only Have Eyes for You", "You Must Have
Been a Beautiful Baby", "Jeepers Creepers", "The
Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)", "That's
Amore", "There Will Never Be Another You", "The
More I See You", "At Last" and "Chattanooga Choo
Choo" (the last of which was the first gold record
in history). Warren was one of America's most
prolific film composers, and his songs have been
featured in over 300 films.
from WIKIPEDIA
**
TWO CLERIHEWS
IRENE DUNNE
Irene Dunne,
Reading the film script of Dune,
Sd: “I’d much rather
Star in Life With Father.”
**
MICHAEL RENNIE
Michael Rennie –
I wonder if there are any
Other poems about him. If not.
Then this is the only one he’s got.
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: WORDS,WORDS, WORDS #3
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS I do not believe in words, no matter if strung together by the most skillful man; I believe in language, which is something beyond words, something which words give only an inadequate illusion of. Words do not exist separately, except in the minds of scholars, etymologists, philologists, etc. Words divorced from language are dead things and yield no secrets. A man is revealed in his style, the language which he has created for himself. Henry Miller. “Reflections on Writing” in The Creative Process, edited by Brewster Ghiselin (NY: A Mentor Book, 1955). *** NOT EXACTLY ACCURATE ETYMOLOGY “Looking ‘spiffy,’ then, is quite a compliment, and one whom does is liable go be dressed ‘to beat the band,’ a turn-of-the-century expression that originated from the custom of attacking with clubs any symphony orchestra whose conductor smiled during Berlioz. Woody Allen. “Slang origins” in The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose of Woody Allen (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2007). ** CIRCUS SLANG: FIRST OF MAY "Now a 'First-of-May' is what circus people call a new trouper. The name comes from the fact that all the shows except the ones wintering in the Deep South or the warm states of the West begin their touring season on or about that date.' Emmett Kelly. Clown by Emmett Kelly with F. Beverly Kelley (New York: Prentice Hall, 1954) **
WHAT IS ANAPHORA?
As a rhetorical device, anaphora is the repetition of a word of phrase.
But the same word is used in grammar circles to describe AVOIDING repetition.
To avoid using the same proper name over and overt, you can use a pronoun,
such as he, she, it, or they, to avoid repetition.
AMORAL –Without morals
AMOREL – Without mushrooms
**
THE COMFORT OF WORDS IN A CHEKHOV SHORT STORY
***
GESUNDHEIT –The height of a sneeze
THE COMFORT OF WORDS IN A CHEKHOV SHORT STORY
” It seemed to her that she had been in the lumber business for ages,
that lumber was the most important, the most essential thing in
The world, and she something intimate and touching in the very sound
of such words as Beam, log, batten, plank, box board, lath, scathing, slab….
Anton Chekhov. “
The Daring” translated by Avrahm Yarmolindsky in The Portable Chekhov.
SPEECH & THE UNSPOKEN CLASS SYSTEM "The line "What we've got here is failure to communicate" was voted as the number eleven movie quote by the American Film Institute. When Frank Pierson wrote that dialogue to be delivered by an uneducated, redneck prison guard, he worried that people wouldn't find it authentic. So he wrote a biography of the guard, explaining that in order to advance to a higher grade in the system, he had been required to take criminology courses, thus exposing him to the kind of academic vocabulary that would justify him using the "communicate" phrase. But as it turned out, no one questioned the line, nor needed to read the fictional account." See ImbD "Cool Hand Luke" Trivia ** THE DICTIONARY ON STAGE
"I had a duet with Rose Marie, our comedienne
titled "A Word a Day." We filled in each other's
gaps by defining long-tailed words, with the aid
of a dictionary.
Example:
Rose Marie: "What's a proselyte?"
Me (singing) "Has to give the madame most
of the dough."
In the Philadelphia opening, that little song
stopped the show."
Phil Silvers on the show "Top Banana" in The
Laugh's on Me: The Phil Silvers Story, with
Robert Saffron (Englewood Cliffs,NJ: Prentice-
Hall, 1973)
**
LINGO
In carny lingo
the tunnel of love
is a wet dark ride.
Whatever love is
that definition will do
for a long long time.
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:THE JOYS OF READING
UPRISINGS
I saw a book titled UPRISINGS and, thinking it was a
nonfiction account of revolutions and rebellions, I
purchased it. It was only after I got the book home
did I realize it was a book about baking with yeast.
One book title I never got right was Willy
Sutton's Memoirs of a Bank Robber. When Willy was
asked why he robbed banks, he repli4d "Because
that's where the money is.' Thus, I assumed
the title of his memoir was Where the Money is.
The actual title is Where the Money Was. That
makes much more sense, since once Willie Sutton
left the bank he took the money with him.
A very strange title is MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY by
Charlie Chaplin. What other person's autobiography
was he planning to write?
But then there is
My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland| Tin Househttps://tinhouse.com › book › was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award in Nonfiction, and was long listed for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal.
**
SEAN CONNERY TELLS ABOUT THE BIG BREAK HE RECEIVED
WHEN HE WAS 5 YEARS OLD
See the AFI honors Sean Connery.
About 5 minutes into his speech.
MICHAEL HERR & STANLEY KUBRICK Lately he (Kubrick) had been thinking of making a movie about the Holocaust. Kubrick bugged Herr every few weeks to read Hilberg, until finally Herr said, "I guess right now I just don't want to read a book called The Destruction of the European Jews." "No, Michael," Kubrick replied, "The book you don't want to read right now is The Destruction of the European Jews, Part Two." David Mikics. Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020) ** POP QUIZ !.Who was the first American author to earn a million dollars through his writings? 2. Henry David Thoreau called this poet the greatest Democrat who ever lived. To whom was he referring? 3. Only two presidents of the United States published books of poetry. Who were they? 4.what great American novelist received a patent in 1873 for a self-pasting scrapbook? 5. What Nobel Prize winning author wrote for his high school newspaper under the byline Ring Lardner, Jr? (Answers below) ** EDMUND SPENSER Edmund Spenser Was not much of a fencer. Hence, sir, He wd with pen & ink prefer to toil, Dispensing with epee, saber & foil. LJP **
THE ACT OF READING
(The characters in Flaubert are like recipes in Escoffier, we are surprised to see how much is left out.) We read about Carbourg in Proust, and are unprepared for what we find when we actually get there. The act of reading is always a matter of a task begun as much as of a message understood, something that begins on a flat surface, counter or page, and then gets stirred and chopped and blended until what we make, in the end, is a dish, or story, all our own. Adam Gopnik. "Cooked Books" in The New Yorker (April 9, 2007) ** THE LOVE OF READING " I was a voracious reader. I loved the library. I loved bookstores. My mom had to kind of limit on it because I was flying through books so quickly. I love, love, love books." Gabrielle Union, author of the memoir You Got' Anything Stronger, quoted in "By the Book" (The New York Times Book Review (September 12, 2021) ** ANSWERS TO THE POP QUIZ L. JACK LONDON 2. WALT WHITMAN 3. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS and JIMMY CARTER. A reviewer in The New York Times wrote of President Carter that"...the very qualities that helped cripple him as a politician are also the qualities that make him a mediocre poet." 4.MARK TWAIN 5.ERNEST HEMINGWAY *** THOMAS HARDY Thomas Hardy— When he laughed wd go har-dee Har-hah, followed by a sorrow-filled sigh. Deep down he was a very serious guy. Louis Phillips
BITS &a PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:NATURE
THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE SPAN OF THE BOWHEAD WHALE The extraordinary life span of the Bowhead whale is in excess of 230 years! “Bowhead whales have perhaps the world’s strongest immune system. Cardio vascular disease, cancer, diabetes, inflammation, are unheard of in these exceptionally long lived creatures. Bowhead whales are enormous, second only, but not by much, to the blue whale, the largest animal that has ever lived. Bowhead whales don’t migrate. They live in the Arctic seas. " THE JOURNAL OF ALTERNATE THERAPIES (August 2021) ** BEES GET BUZZ FROM CAFFEINE
"It's not just humans who get a jolt from their morning coffee --bees also perform better after a dose of caffeine. That's the conclusion of a new study aimed at improving rates of pollination, reports The Guardian (.U.K.) Previous research had shown that bees will regularly return to flowers laced with caffeine, but it was unclear whether the caffeine had boosted the insects' ability to remember a food-rich site or they were simply craving the stimulant." The Week (August 20, 2021) ** SAFFRON IS EXPENSIVE “Harvesting saffron is extremely laborious hence its high cost. Saffron comes from the Crocus sativus plant, which produces two flowers, each one with three stigmas (saffron threads) . The delicate flowers are harvested by hand in the fall and must be picked in a matter of hours each morning before they wilt. The stigmas are then hand-plucked and dried,. It takes about 200 flowers to produce one gram of saffron." Naz Deravian. “Just a Little Saffron Can Go a Long Way” in The New York Times (August 18, 2021) **
LANGUAGE OF WEAVER ANTS Scientists have likened weaver ant communication to a type of language with primitive syntax. Urban planners examine the organization of ant societies. Mathematicians draw upon analyses of ant behavior to devise parallel computing formulas (where multiple problems are solved simultaneously). Ants serve as models in all kinds of studies aimed at figuring out how big, complex jobs get done with small parts and a minimum of instruction." Mark Moffett. “Sisterhood of Weavers” in National Geographic (May 2011). **
U.S. STATES HONORING MICROBES “ I thought we have a state bird,” (NCAUR biochemist Neil) Price says. “Why not a state microbe?” Illinois is only the third state to take this step, joining the ranks of Oregon (which similarly honors Saccharomyces erevisiae, or brewer’s yeast) and New Jersey , whose state microbe, Streptomyces griseus also produces an antibiotic. Some efforts to designate official microbes have faltered: Wisconsin failed to pass legislation honoring Lactococcus lactis in 2010….” Jim Daley. “Bacterial Bi partisanship” in Scientific American (September 2021) **
THE ANTARCTIC ICE BLANKET
" The Antarctic ice blanket is on average about
a mile and a half thick -- at its thickest it is
more than two and a half miles, about twelve
Empire State Buildings stacked atop one another.
And even though the surface temperature averages
-50 to -60 degrees Fahrenheit over the year, at
the base of this ice pile, the temperature is warm
enough to melt the ice. The heat comes from deeper
within Earth, and although it is only a trickle of
heat compared to what the Sun supplies, over time
it has been enough to melt the base of the ice."
Henry Pollack. "On Thin Ice" (2010) in Lapham's
Quarterly , XI (Summer 2018).
**
THE SEASONS
Winter is getting ready to drop
One more gut-bucket-honky-tonk cruel oil
On somebody's lid.
Let roots freeze
& the small crib of the moon
Hold delicate shadows
Of long ago sorrows.
I've got enough summer in me
To last a long time.
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: PROFESSIONS
PROFESSIONS I DID NOT CHOOSE
LION TAMER
Isaac Van Amburgh --
The first lion tamer to make it big
in the UK was Isaac Van Amburgh. Born in
Fishkill, New York State, Van Amburgh
toured Europe between 1838 and 1845 and
achieved notoriety for his performances
with big cats.
**
"Methods of training wild animals vary,
although there are certain basic principles
that all trainers observe. I now use jungle-bred
animals almost exclusively. Having trained beasts
born in captivity, I am cured of any further
desire to make performers of such specimens.
In an emergency I sometimes have to fall back on
cage-born ‘raw material,’ but if possible I avoid
doing so.
I am taking up the point early in this
chapter because one of the popular fallacies
concerning my profession is that the trainer
can make his job easier by using animals born
in captivity.
Clyde Beatty, with Edward Anthony. The Big Cage.
(New York: The Century Company, 1933)
**
WALKING TOWELS
Flashback: Minsky occasionally would book into the
Gaiety legit dance acts known as ‘walking towels.’
They cooled off the heated men between the strip
acts. One of them was a tall, engaging,loose-limbed
tap and softshoe man, Dan Dailey.
Phil Silvers. This Laugh Is On Me, with Robert
Saffron (Englewood, N.J. Prentice Hall, 1973.
**
FILM PROJECTIONIST
Cinemactor Ronald Reagan gave from the heart
in introducing a reel of excerpts from Oscar
winning films of yesteryear: “This film embodies
the glories of our past, the memories of our
present and the inspiration for our future.”
When the film came on, it was running backwards.’
TIME (March 24, 1947)
**
PIRATE
“Contrary to the popular usage,which was
originally promoted by European governments
actively seeking to cast pirates unfavorably,
they were actually, often surprisingly good dudes.
They’d attack slave ships and offer a life of
freedom on the seas to captured Africans. They
disrupted the very nature of colonialism.
and people liked it. The pirates had a lot of
fans, especially in the colonies, where they
were viewed as exciting and liberating heroes
of the common people. Which makes sense, especially
when you know that these mariners were much more
about stealing from the rich (slave owners,
colonialists) and giving to the poor (themselves)
than about causing senseless chaos.
Sam Maggs. Girl Squad: 20 Female Friendships
That Changed History (Philadelphia: Quick Books,
2018)
***
SPY
Mildred Harnack was an American spy during
World War II. Along with her husband, Arvid Harnack,
she led a resistance organization in
Berlin, risking her life to leak information
from Germany’s Ministry of Economics, where he worked,
in hopes of defeating the Nazis. Despite nearly
escaping she was executed by guillotine in 1943
on Hitler’s direct order.
Kate Dwyer. “One Writer’s Obligation of Blood”
in The New York Times (August 13, 2021)
**
ATOMIC BOMB TESTER
“Shortly after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Maj. Leslie R. Grove of the U.S. Army,who
directed the making of weapons, told congress that
succumbing to their radiation was ‘a very pleasant
way to die.”
William J. Broad. “The Truth Behind the
News” in The New York Times (August 10, 2021)
**
GYMNAST
“The Wolf Turn has been around for decades,
but recently it’s become a favorite in balance
beam and floor routines. A gymnast will get
into a squat position with one stretched out.
She’ll then stretch out her arms and wind them
up.Once she finds her balance, she’ll start
spinning. Finally, she’ll stop and return to her
original stance."
Antonella Crescimber. “Why the Wolf Turn is such a
big deal’ on VOX (August 9, 2021)
**
JOURNALIST
NEW YORK NEWSPAPERS IN THE 1920s
The newspapers, the Journal and American, later
combined,were dedicated to ”noise in the news”
and had an editorial view of the world from
inside a bedroom, or at the rail of a police desk
at night. These tales were printed in newspapers
that practiced bribery, extortion, calumny, also
known as slander, and two kinds of lies, bald-
faced and by omission. Anybody on the staff
who performed an act without malice was
regarded as a dreadful amateur. There was
great confusion in the office, for sometimes
the sins being committed at typewriters
were greater than the ones being written about.
There was no situation so bad that a fresh
edition of the morning American or evening
Journal couldn’t make it worse. Yet the working
conditions were the best in the history of the
business, for nobody died at an
early age of the worse of maladies, seriousness.
Jimmy Breslin. A Life of DamonRunyon
(NY: Ticknor & Fields, 1991)
**
THE PROFESSION I CHOSE
Stuttering & studying
Luminous poets
As if they were chums,
Better than coin-changers,
Money pushers &
Entire universes
Of 9 to 5 drizzle
Soaking into souls
That so thoroughly
Absorb the dead & dying,
To skylark
With freewheeling melodies
Of human hearts
Keening with mysteries
That keep all of us alert
& on edge.
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: MOVIES #5
from The "The Latin Lover" and His Enemies by Gilbert King Smithsonian Magazine (June 13,2012) Born in Castellaneta, Italy, in 1895, Valentino arrived at Ellis Island in 1913, at the age of 18. He lived on the streets and in Central Park until he picked up work as a taxi dancer at Maxim’s Restaurant-Caberet, becoming a “tango pirate” and spending time on the dance floor with wealthy women who were willing to pay for the company of exotic young men. Valentino quickly befriended a Chilean heiress, which might have seemed like a good idea, but she was unhappily married to a well-connected businessman named John de Saulles. When Blanca de Saulles divorced her husband in 1915, Valentino testified that he had evidence that John de Saulles had been having multiple affairs, including one with a dance partner of Valentino’s. But his refined, European and youthful appearance at the trial had some reporters questioning his masculinity in print, and John de Saulles used his clout to have the young dancer jailed for a few days on a trumped-up vice charge. Not long after the trial, Blanca de Saulles shot her husband to death over custody of their son, and Valentino, unwilling to stick around for another round of testimony and unfavorable press, fled for the West Coast, shedding the name Rodolpho Guglielmi forever. *** WATCHING MOVIES (Circa 1915) IN SOME SMALL FARM TOWNS IN THE UNITED STATES Sometimes we would go to the Airdrome,which was nothing but some benches facing a big white screen inside a galvanized iron enclosure and, at the back, a motion-picture machine that an operator turned with a hand crank. In the wintertime, there were movies in the D.A.R. Hall, but it was too hot there in the summer months. The heat in the hall wouldn't have been as bad the mosquitoes in the Airdrome, but we were too thrilled by The Perils of Pauline, The Trey of Hearts and The Girl and the Game to notice the bugs. I even enjoyed the lantern-slide advertisements. Emmett Kelly. Clown (New York: Prentice Hall, 1954) MOVIE SLANG=-Circa 1940s Footlight Serenade, My Gal Sal, Coney Island, Diamond Horsehoe, Where Do We Go From Here? among others. They symbolized a whole decade: beautiful women, healthy men, clean love and just enough sex to Make it look real (a ‘touch of the muff’ they called it. Phil Silvers. This Laugh Is On Me, with Robert Saffron (Englewood, N.J. Prentice Hall, 1973.
THE PRISON SET FOR THE FILM “COOL HAND LUKE”
While passing by the prison camp set, a San Joaquin County
building inspector thought it was a recently constructed migrant
workers’ complex, and posted “condemned” notices on the buildings
for not being up to code.
from Trivia about COOL HAND LUKE (ImdB)
BUSTER KEATON WRITES ABOUT HIS FACE
Down through the years my face has been called
a sour puss, a dead pan, a frozen face, The
Great Stone Face, and, believe it or not, 'a
tragic mask.' On the other hand that kindly
critic, the late James Agee, described my face
as ranking 'almost with Lincoln's as an early
American archetype, it was haunting, handsome,
almost beautiful.' I can't imagine what the
great rail splitter's reaction would have been
to this, though I sure was pleased.
Buster Keaton,with Charles Samuels. My Wonderful
World of Slapstick (Garden City, New York:
Doubleday & Company, 1960)
**
ON THE PERILS OF OVEREATING
“Marco Ferreri’s “La Grande Bouffe” is to gastronomy as “The Exorcist” is to “Song of Bernadette,” which is to say eat before you go, you won’t be hungry afterward.
ROGER EBERT
**
ON THE CREATION OF SAX ROHMER'S DR.FU MANCHU
"The Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the century
had aroused fears of a 'Yellow Peril," and Rohmer
recognized that popular literature was ready for
an Oriental archcriminal. His research for an
article on Limehouse had divulged the existence of
a 'Mr King,' an actual figure if immense power in
the Chinese district of London. His enormous
wealth derived from gambling, drug smuggling, and
the organization of many other criminal activities.
... One foggy night, Rohmer saw him-- or someone
who might have been him -- from a distance: his
face was the embodiment of Satan. This was Fu
Manchu, the Devil Doctor.
Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler. Encyclopedia
of Mystery and Detection (New York: McGraw Hill,
1976)
GARY COOPER IS ASKED IF HE KNOWS YIP
HARBURG, THE MAN WHO COMPOSED THE
SONGS
FOR THE WIZARD OF OZ
Yip?
Yep.
Louis Phillips
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: PHILOSOPHY
For MAC BICA
SPINOZA
Spinoza
Knows a
Thing or two
About separating false from true.
**
Any day above ground is a good day.
Bob Dylan
**
SIMONE WEIL ON RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS
“We should not focus on rights, she (SIMONE WEIL)
argues, but on obligations. Obligations (devoirs)
precede rights; rights are situational and relative,
obligations are metaphysical, absolute, and eternal.
How do I know what my obligations are? An obligation
arises from the very fact of encountering another
human being. If I encounter a starving human being,
I am not in doubt: I offer food. (Food and eating
are the chief metaphors she uses to describe what
it means to respond to a need. For me, these metaphors
become a reminder that the woman who wrote this was
slowly dying from starvation.”
Toril Moi. “I Came With a Sword” (a review of The
Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas by
Robert Zaretsky (Chicago: Chicago University
Press,2021)
***
OPINIONS ARE NOT THE SAME AS IDEAS
“An how terrible it is not to have any opinions!
You see, for instance, a bottle, or the rain,
or a peasant in a cart, but what is the bottle
for, or the rain, or the peasant, what is the
meaning of them, you can’t tell, and you couldn’t,
even if they paid you a thousand rubles.”
Anton Chekhov. “The Daring” translated by
Avrahm Yarmolindsky in The Portable Chekhov.
**
“If God dropped acid, would he see people?”
George Carlin
**
“You’ve gotta love livin’, baby! Because dyin’
is a pain in the ass!”
Frank Sinatra
**
FLIES & THE THINKERS OF ANTIQUITY
To the thinkers of antiquity, a fly’s life had
cryptic origins. With scant knowledge of how
flies metamorphize from larvae into adults, some
classical philosophers reasoned that the insects
emerged through ‘spontaneous generation ‘ out of
fires, rotten meat and organic refuse; life
springing forth from nonliving matter.”
Rebecca Giggs, reviewing Super Fly: The Unsuspected
Lives of the World’s Most Successful Insects
by Jonathan Belcombe. The New York Times Book Review
(Sunday, July 11, 2021)
**
STRANGE THINGS I WONDER ABOUT
I wonder
of a map decided to go somewhere –
Wd it follow itself?
Louis Phillips
***
OCCAM’S RAZOR
The principle of Occam’s razor suggests that
the simplest hypothesis is usually the correct one
- - or as the character Gil Grissom in “CSI:
Crime Scene Investigation” succinctly puts it,
if you hear hoofbeats “think horses, not zebras.”
Michiko Kakutani. New York Times (February 16, 2010)
**
TO BE OR NOT TO BE -- THAT IS THE QUESTION
The 1982 novel “Deadeye Dick” by the popular author
Kurt Vonnegut mentioned the following piece of
graffiti:
“To be is to do”—Socrates.
“To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra
**
EPISTEMIC OPACITY
“Whether or not people actually understand where
their fruits and vegetables come from, Levinovitz
says, we think that we do -–and are disturbed when
that changes. The philosophical term for this is
epistemic opacity. “When you imagine you know how
something works, or where it comes from,
that’s comforting,” he added. “So when you
hear that an apple was genetically modified,
it’s like, What does that mean? It’s alienating.”
Jennifer Kahn. “Learning to Love G.M.O.S “ in
The New York Times Magazine (July 25,2021),
quoting Alan Levinovitz, a professor of
religion and science atJames Madison University.
AND LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, WISDOM PASSED ON FROM
ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT
"...what person over the age of three would want
to wet his pants in public? This is why you will
never forget these words, which were the last words
which were spoken to one of your friends by his
dying father:'Just remember, Charlie,' he said
'never pass up an opportunity to piss.' And so the
wisdom of the ages is handed down from one
generation to the next."
Paul Auster. Winter Journal (New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 2012)
BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: NEW YORK,NEW YORK, #2
ON NOT BEING AFRAID OF THE NUMBER 13 IN NYC
"The idea of a Friday the 13th club, or of a club devoted to all forms of triskaidekaphobia, is not a new one. It seems to have originated in New York City on January 13, 1882, when the thirteen members of the Thirteen Club gathered in room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage at 454 Sixth Avenue (4+5+4=13) from 8;13 P.M. until 1 A.M. (the 13th hour) . The club's initiation fee was $1.13, monthly dues thirteen cents, a lifetime membership thirteen dollars. Members dined on the 13th of every month, toasted the health of Hermes Trismegistus (legendary hermeticist who was said to have been "the thirteenth son of a thirteenth mother") spilt salt, walked under ladders, and broke mirrors."
Jonathan Cott. Thirteen: A Journey Into the Number 13 (New York: Doubleday, 1997)
**
CBS IN GRAND CENTRAL STATION iN 1939
“Hidden away above Grand Central’s main waiting room, CBS
had set up their first television studios in 1939, when a
shift from radio to the new medium was beginning to
look inevitable. Sidney’s studio was a room 40 feet by
60 feet, and its were visible below the statue of Mercury
that stands atop the southern facade of Grand Central.”
Maura Spiegel. Sidney Lumet:A Life (NY: St. Martins Press, 2019)
****
SCOTT JOPLIN IN NYC "In January 1917, he was hospitalized and subsequently transferred to a mental institution, where he died four months later. Joplin was buried in a simple grave at St. Michael's Cemetery in Astoria, New York. As you enter the cemetery his grave is well-marked with a historical plaque on the right-hand side, fifty feet from the road." Scott Stanton. The Tombstone Tourist: Musicians (New York: Pocket Books, 2003)
Broadway had reached uptown to the southeast corner of 41st Street, where a place called the Metropolitan Casino was thrown up to house great concerts and comic operas. The joint busted out and the building at night with gas cans. One of them is dousing the joing with gas and the other is reading the insurance policy. They are about to have a candlelight ceremony when the owner reading the insurance policy clutches his chest. They don't have a dollar's worth of fire insurance. They turned it into a roller rink. Jimmy Breslin. Damon Runyon: A Life (NY: Ticknor & Fields, 1991).
GROWING UP IN THE BROWNSVILLE SECTION OF BROOKLYN
When I was eight I sang at a stag coming-out- of-jail party for a local hoodlum named Little Doggie. In the middle of my number, a man was shot dead at my feet. The Brownsville section of Brooklyn was a tough neighborhood in the 1920's, so I didn't think it was too strange. My first reaction was, is the program going to pay me my $3? Phil Silvers. This Laugh Is On Me: The Phil Silvers Story (with Robert Saffron, Englewood, New Jersey:Prentice-Hall,1973) from "THE TOP 10 SECRETS OF THE NEW YANKEE STADIUM" by BELLA DRUCKMAN in the blog "Untapped New York")
"Gino Castignoli, a devoted Red Sox fan, helped construct the new Yankee Stadium. However, he did so with suspicious intentions. On his only day working on the stadium, Castignoli buried designated hitter David Ortiz’s jersey behind home plate under feet of cement. However, other workers caught him before it was too late. The New York Post published a story about the incident that prompted an “excavation ceremony” to search for the shirt. After employing jackhammers to get the job done, the Yankees administration sent the jersey to Boston. Rather than drive the rivalry further, they turned this fiasco into good by auctioning off the jersey to raise money for the Jimmy Fund, an organization that raises money for cancer. The scandal attracted a lot of attention and the Yankees donated $175,000 to the charity."
**
