Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Will, Edgar, Jim, Ray, Andy
It was a busy weekend for this week's rather exclusive gathering, so early conversation explored what everyone had been up to.
Most had been to the Vitaphone Varieties at the Billy Wilder theater on Wilshire on Saturday night, which seems to have been a fascinating show. There are apparently hundreds of 1920s variety acts recorded on film, in one take just as if in performance, leaving an amazing record of a bygone era. The lassoist who kept the rope spinning for ten minutes seemed to impress most. Mary Mallory says he was Tex McLeod, a Texan with a Scottish father and a Brazilian mother. I expect he was fond of a shot of whisky in his coffee...
Lynne, Will and I went with Nancy to her condo in the Colorado mountains, which involved 36 hours' driving but the reward was spectacular scenery and two trips to Peggy Sue's 50s diner in Yermo CA. The purpose was to attend an amateur melodrama in the 1890s village of Silver Plume, to help raise funds to keep the original buildings standing. In between we managed a stroll round the delightful ski town of Frisco and took turns to stand in the one-time jail.
Jim and Mary Katherine went to the UCLA book fair, which I think Mary Mallory was intending to go to as well (let me know if you did, Mary). Gore Vidal told one hopeful "If you have to ask how to write you're not a writer", but Jim got Joe Wambaugh to autograph his latest crime novel with the message "Give Ian my best wishes".
While I was wishing I could have been in three places at once over the weekend, Barbara led calls for a Conrads wish list - things we'd like to see on the menu, like caffeine-free diet coke, sprite and root beer (Barbara) and veggie curry, chilli and moussaca (Edgar, Will, Lynne).
Meanwhile, Edgar and I quietly speculated on how a Mexican-run diner like Conrads will survive the swine flu epidemic, if it really takes hold. Monday nights might even have to move. Let's hope not.
Last week I ran a 'Caught on the Breeze' about not hugging except during sex - which, not entirely coincidentally, chimes with a remark Ian made to Barbara about not having to hug during his recent theatrical run (on the contrary, he was complaining that the actors snubbed him and the rest of the band).
But that got Barbara asking everyone whether they liked being hugged. The answers were varied, and not entirely enthusiastic. Maybe no one wanted to advertise - as it was I said I didn't mind and suddenly found Ray grasping me from behind warmly by the throat. It's all right, Ray, don't feel obliged to hug me, I won't hold it against you - or at least, I'll try not to.
We decided it was a class thing, with people from humble backgrounds and/or from the north of their homelands being less likely to hug than affluent southerners. All theories on a postcard, please.
Jim has not yet been able to see Phil Spector in jail yet, as visits are strictly rationed, but he has heard from Rachelle that he is being treated well and his 23 hours a day solitary confinement are regularly broken up by visits from his lawyers. Hate to think how he'll feel if he gets an 18 stretch and the appeal fails, though.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I'm thinking of doing a popup version of Fart Book 3
Did you know that Dietrich = diet rich?
Yes, and Therapist = the rapist
I know Howdy Doody's birthday
They didn't have to wear a whole lot of make up in those days - men or women
The magic period lasted only that long
Rock Hudson had all these wild parties up from where I lived, then I realized everyone there were men
Cliff can't be gay - he tours with Helen Shapiro!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Book signing
Will, Bobb, Barbara, Edgar, Bill, Lynne, Libby, Jim, Ian, Mary, Bob, Ray, Glenn, Joan, Andy
We are now in that limbo, film-festwise, between the noir season (yes, I do literally have the t-shirt) and the glorious prospect of Cinecon.
While Bob becomes more taciturn than ever at the prospect of being buttonholed for free tickets, we punters can look back on a noir season that was more eccentric than ever. But it was so successful that plans are afoot to stage two seasons a year. Presumably that means that the definition of 'film noir' will be stretched even further than it was this time in an effort to fill screen space. About all that linked the latest crop was that they were in monochrome, although the last night was possibly fit to stand comparison with any: a Paul Stewart double bill of Walk Softly, Stranger and Chicago Syndicate. In the first Stewart supports Joseph Cotten as a thinking thief whose perfect crime is foiled by the Stewart character's, well, character weakness.
One idea for future noir seasons: a feature of that era is that nearly everyone smokes, so why not get a license to let the audience smoke. Then we'd seen the films through the sort of haze the directors go to such lengths to create.
Lynne, Ian and I were still feeling the after-effects of a visit to the Academy last Friday to see Fellini 8-1/2 (clever chap that Fellini: no one talks about Lean's Lawrence of Arabia or Hitchcock's Psycho as if they were the titles of those films).
We watched it in true Fellini style. After a mishap (leaving my keys in the car door) I got separated from the other two and consequently saw what seems to have been an entirely different movie. They nearly walked out. I thought it was about 40 minutes too long, but enjoyed seeing which bits every other director had subsequently pinched. I'm sure Danny Boyle (Susan's secret son?) is indebted to Fellini for having the Slumdog boy drop into the latrine. It seems Fellini-ish somehow, just as every other line in Hamlet is now a cliche.
Slipping back to old technology, our gathering is turning out to be extraordinarily fecund, if Jim will pardon the lack of pun. First there was his definitive account of Angel's Flight, set to be a smash hit if only they'll get the tiny railroad running again. Now he has followed that with Motherfucker, another tome after which there is nothing left to say.
Meanwhile, Ian struggles with the production and design difficulties of giving his collection of Lotusland musings the literary environment they so richly deserve. Our very own James Joyce seems determined to turn Altadena into Dublin with himself as Leopold Bloom. Rollo is on his guard. It will, I'm sure, be the toast of LA well before my maiden attempt at fiction bursts on the west coast literary scene. But that's another story for another Monday night.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I don't think I'm going to risk Fellini again
This book is my last gasp
The back of my legs still hurt from all that walking
Susan Boyle should be banned
We are now in that limbo, film-festwise, between the noir season (yes, I do literally have the t-shirt) and the glorious prospect of Cinecon.
While Bob becomes more taciturn than ever at the prospect of being buttonholed for free tickets, we punters can look back on a noir season that was more eccentric than ever. But it was so successful that plans are afoot to stage two seasons a year. Presumably that means that the definition of 'film noir' will be stretched even further than it was this time in an effort to fill screen space. About all that linked the latest crop was that they were in monochrome, although the last night was possibly fit to stand comparison with any: a Paul Stewart double bill of Walk Softly, Stranger and Chicago Syndicate. In the first Stewart supports Joseph Cotten as a thinking thief whose perfect crime is foiled by the Stewart character's, well, character weakness.
One idea for future noir seasons: a feature of that era is that nearly everyone smokes, so why not get a license to let the audience smoke. Then we'd seen the films through the sort of haze the directors go to such lengths to create.
Lynne, Ian and I were still feeling the after-effects of a visit to the Academy last Friday to see Fellini 8-1/2 (clever chap that Fellini: no one talks about Lean's Lawrence of Arabia or Hitchcock's Psycho as if they were the titles of those films).
We watched it in true Fellini style. After a mishap (leaving my keys in the car door) I got separated from the other two and consequently saw what seems to have been an entirely different movie. They nearly walked out. I thought it was about 40 minutes too long, but enjoyed seeing which bits every other director had subsequently pinched. I'm sure Danny Boyle (Susan's secret son?) is indebted to Fellini for having the Slumdog boy drop into the latrine. It seems Fellini-ish somehow, just as every other line in Hamlet is now a cliche.
Slipping back to old technology, our gathering is turning out to be extraordinarily fecund, if Jim will pardon the lack of pun. First there was his definitive account of Angel's Flight, set to be a smash hit if only they'll get the tiny railroad running again. Now he has followed that with Motherfucker, another tome after which there is nothing left to say.
Meanwhile, Ian struggles with the production and design difficulties of giving his collection of Lotusland musings the literary environment they so richly deserve. Our very own James Joyce seems determined to turn Altadena into Dublin with himself as Leopold Bloom. Rollo is on his guard. It will, I'm sure, be the toast of LA well before my maiden attempt at fiction bursts on the west coast literary scene. But that's another story for another Monday night.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
I don't think I'm going to risk Fellini again
This book is my last gasp
The back of my legs still hurt from all that walking
Susan Boyle should be banned
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Film noir and female anger
April 6
Ian, Will, Bill, Lynne, Jim, Big Jay McNeely, Steve L, Jeanette, Andy, Bob, Steve
A rare appearance from Big Jay McNeely who, as ever, sat there Sphinx-like surveying the regular chatter and lending an air of mystery and distinction to the evening.
Most of us had been to the first weekend of the current Film Noir season at the Egyptian, so plenty of opinions bounced around the table. Everyone seemed to enjoy the offerings but no one was overwhelmingly impressed. Jim wondered whether the organizers were beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel after 11 years, reflecting an email debate involving Bill, Mary and Will over whether some of this season's films really are noir.
That of course depends on how you define the genre. The Foundation leaves it to Eddie Muller's "vivid co-mingling of lost innocence, doomed romanticism, hard-edged cynicism, desperate desire, and shadowy sexuality" to express its view. Whether the enjoyable Fly-By-Night, shown last Friday, fits all those requirements is doubtful. Will and Jim certainly didn't think that Ray Milland's devilish title role in Alias Nick Beal was more than an accomplished decoration to what was essentially a study of how a politician can be corrupted by the prospect of power, rather than true noir.
It would be interesting, though, so see whether contemporary audiences saw as many inconsistencies in plot and continuity as our group did, Maybe in the 1940s and 1950s they were more grateful and therefore more willing to make allowances. But Will pointed out that his parents thought when it was released that West Side Story went too far in straining credulity with its dancing, prancing gangsters. So they weren't all saps.
The assessment of the weekend was a little chippy, partly because of the relentless boosterising tone of the nightly introductions to the films - even the pair of B movies shown on Saturday. Maybe the noir season format needs rejuvenating - with regular injections of Angel's Flight, if Jim has any say in the matter.
Discussion of the devil took us through Lucifer and the Da Vinci Code to reincarnation, which Steve Lamb dismissed as pointless. That does assume that we know what the point could be, whether there is a God and whether that God ever goes in for pointless pursuits. I can think of plenty of pointless people, but then the poet William Cowper did ask us to accept that God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, adding: 'His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a better taste, But sweet will be the flower.' I suspect though that this is not the sort of sentiment that wins enthusiastic nods of approval in the Coffee Gallery, or even on an Altadena omnibus. What is the man on the Altadena omnibus thinking - now there's a subject.
In saying that, I did not of course intend to demean or disparage in any way the often vociferous views of Altadena's female population, who are nevertheless the living embodiment of Lynne's assertion that women are not allowed to get angry in the same way men are.
'Women's voices rise when they are angry,' said Lynne, 'then men call them hysterical or tell them to calm down. They don't often tell other men to calm down.'
But if homo Altadena has an ounce of sapiens in his head, he instantly falls silent when his mate is launching forth on the many injustices still meted out to women, even after the glorious flowering of no fewer than 77 sunrises under the bountiful and omniscient Obama.
Take snoring. It is a well-known fact, especially to anyone living north of Pasadena, that women simply do not snore. Men, however, do it all the time, particularly after a certain age or after ingesting a certain quantity of alcohol. Penalty: exile, possibly for life.
Then there's housework. Men simply don't do enough of it. However much they do. This is confirmed by the Financial Times, no less, as reported by the fragrant Lucy Kellaway should you be tempted to Google it. Penalty: too many to mention.
At that we left Javier and his male assistant to clear the table.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
There was no jazz in The Jazz Age- I saw to that
A rattlesnake almost got me today
Standards? What standards?
It seems like the 70s were a forgotten decade
If writing isn't consistent, civilization goes
In a previous life I was a carpenter
Everything evens out - in the bed and at the dinner table
Ian, Will, Bill, Lynne, Jim, Big Jay McNeely, Steve L, Jeanette, Andy, Bob, Steve
A rare appearance from Big Jay McNeely who, as ever, sat there Sphinx-like surveying the regular chatter and lending an air of mystery and distinction to the evening.
Most of us had been to the first weekend of the current Film Noir season at the Egyptian, so plenty of opinions bounced around the table. Everyone seemed to enjoy the offerings but no one was overwhelmingly impressed. Jim wondered whether the organizers were beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel after 11 years, reflecting an email debate involving Bill, Mary and Will over whether some of this season's films really are noir.
That of course depends on how you define the genre. The Foundation leaves it to Eddie Muller's "vivid co-mingling of lost innocence, doomed romanticism, hard-edged cynicism, desperate desire, and shadowy sexuality" to express its view. Whether the enjoyable Fly-By-Night, shown last Friday, fits all those requirements is doubtful. Will and Jim certainly didn't think that Ray Milland's devilish title role in Alias Nick Beal was more than an accomplished decoration to what was essentially a study of how a politician can be corrupted by the prospect of power, rather than true noir.
It would be interesting, though, so see whether contemporary audiences saw as many inconsistencies in plot and continuity as our group did, Maybe in the 1940s and 1950s they were more grateful and therefore more willing to make allowances. But Will pointed out that his parents thought when it was released that West Side Story went too far in straining credulity with its dancing, prancing gangsters. So they weren't all saps.
The assessment of the weekend was a little chippy, partly because of the relentless boosterising tone of the nightly introductions to the films - even the pair of B movies shown on Saturday. Maybe the noir season format needs rejuvenating - with regular injections of Angel's Flight, if Jim has any say in the matter.
Discussion of the devil took us through Lucifer and the Da Vinci Code to reincarnation, which Steve Lamb dismissed as pointless. That does assume that we know what the point could be, whether there is a God and whether that God ever goes in for pointless pursuits. I can think of plenty of pointless people, but then the poet William Cowper did ask us to accept that God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, adding: 'His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a better taste, But sweet will be the flower.' I suspect though that this is not the sort of sentiment that wins enthusiastic nods of approval in the Coffee Gallery, or even on an Altadena omnibus. What is the man on the Altadena omnibus thinking - now there's a subject.
In saying that, I did not of course intend to demean or disparage in any way the often vociferous views of Altadena's female population, who are nevertheless the living embodiment of Lynne's assertion that women are not allowed to get angry in the same way men are.
'Women's voices rise when they are angry,' said Lynne, 'then men call them hysterical or tell them to calm down. They don't often tell other men to calm down.'
But if homo Altadena has an ounce of sapiens in his head, he instantly falls silent when his mate is launching forth on the many injustices still meted out to women, even after the glorious flowering of no fewer than 77 sunrises under the bountiful and omniscient Obama.
Take snoring. It is a well-known fact, especially to anyone living north of Pasadena, that women simply do not snore. Men, however, do it all the time, particularly after a certain age or after ingesting a certain quantity of alcohol. Penalty: exile, possibly for life.
Then there's housework. Men simply don't do enough of it. However much they do. This is confirmed by the Financial Times, no less, as reported by the fragrant Lucy Kellaway should you be tempted to Google it. Penalty: too many to mention.
At that we left Javier and his male assistant to clear the table.
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
There was no jazz in The Jazz Age- I saw to that
A rattlesnake almost got me today
Standards? What standards?
It seems like the 70s were a forgotten decade
If writing isn't consistent, civilization goes
In a previous life I was a carpenter
Everything evens out - in the bed and at the dinner table
Friday, April 3, 2009
Film noir and brilliant TV
March 30
Ian, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Will, Edgar, Jim, Steve L, Jeanette, Bob
I'm bookending March, with Diner Diaries immortalising only the first and last Mondays of the month thanks to Douglas Fairbanks's silent pranks and Will Ryan's considerably noisier Cactus County Cowboys!
Although he hasn't been awarded much sympathy by the public - many of whom, it seems from press and radio, have decided he's guilty - Phil Spector has been remarkably cheerful while he awaits the jury's verdict, according to Jim. While no one expected the jury to make their mind up in a trice, every obstacle appears to have been placed in the way of a definite conclusion to the five-month trial, from letting the jury stay home in case downtown was clogged up by crowds celebrating Cezar Chavez day or one of their number falling ill. When you consider that he could spend the rest of his life in jail, it has been a considerable achievement for him to surround himself with friends like Jim, generously taking them out to meals and generally living as normal a life as possible. Most murder suspects have only the four walls of a prison cell to look at while they await a verdict, but it can be just as hard to go out in public.
As far as I know, Spector has not recently visited Micheli's, the Italian tourist trap off Hollywood that really should be the automatic choice for a meal before seeing a movie at the Egyptian. But it shows just how many doubts surround the place, that its merits are so often debated. Now was one of those times, ahead of the April film noir season at the Egyptian. It has few real fans among our group and some definite detractors, notably Ian and Lynne.
I'll take the liberty of jumping ahead of myself to say that Lynne, Will and I went there on the season's first night and had a good meal, promptly served. That may have had something to do with the recession thinning out the number of customers, but let's take it as a good omen for both film noir and Cinecon. Perhaps the real puzzle is why the area doesn't have a whole bunch of excellent restaurants clamoring for our dollars. Taking tourists for granted can be a hard habit to shake off..
How much TV should we watch? That question has been asked far more than how often we should or should not go to the movies - because that has traditionally meant getting out of the house? Because movies are more of an art form than TV? Barbara revealed that she rations herself, either despite or because she wants to clear away space to watch American Idol, among other attractions of the small screen. But I haven't heard of anyone rationing themselves with regard to movies, unless to save money, so I think TV has had an undeservedly bad press. Aside from Idol, which Lynne and I also follow avidly, the debate on TV's merits were prompted by a new series that launched on HBO on Sunday, a serialization of Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana-based books, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. This really is a marriage made in heaven: excellent books, a fine lead actress in Jill Scott, great producing and directing from the late Sidney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and wonderful Botswana scenery. Don't ration yourselves!
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
There's so many more people know you than you know
I've been free for a long time of worrying about what people think of me
Every man would like to be randy for a day
Do you really mean to say that a man with a beard can't be sexy?
I saw Johnny Mathis driving down Sunset once
Touching is all right for sex, but that's it as far as I'm concerned
Ian, Bill, Lynne, Bobb, Barbara, Will, Edgar, Jim, Steve L, Jeanette, Bob
I'm bookending March, with Diner Diaries immortalising only the first and last Mondays of the month thanks to Douglas Fairbanks's silent pranks and Will Ryan's considerably noisier Cactus County Cowboys!
Although he hasn't been awarded much sympathy by the public - many of whom, it seems from press and radio, have decided he's guilty - Phil Spector has been remarkably cheerful while he awaits the jury's verdict, according to Jim. While no one expected the jury to make their mind up in a trice, every obstacle appears to have been placed in the way of a definite conclusion to the five-month trial, from letting the jury stay home in case downtown was clogged up by crowds celebrating Cezar Chavez day or one of their number falling ill. When you consider that he could spend the rest of his life in jail, it has been a considerable achievement for him to surround himself with friends like Jim, generously taking them out to meals and generally living as normal a life as possible. Most murder suspects have only the four walls of a prison cell to look at while they await a verdict, but it can be just as hard to go out in public.
As far as I know, Spector has not recently visited Micheli's, the Italian tourist trap off Hollywood that really should be the automatic choice for a meal before seeing a movie at the Egyptian. But it shows just how many doubts surround the place, that its merits are so often debated. Now was one of those times, ahead of the April film noir season at the Egyptian. It has few real fans among our group and some definite detractors, notably Ian and Lynne.
I'll take the liberty of jumping ahead of myself to say that Lynne, Will and I went there on the season's first night and had a good meal, promptly served. That may have had something to do with the recession thinning out the number of customers, but let's take it as a good omen for both film noir and Cinecon. Perhaps the real puzzle is why the area doesn't have a whole bunch of excellent restaurants clamoring for our dollars. Taking tourists for granted can be a hard habit to shake off..
How much TV should we watch? That question has been asked far more than how often we should or should not go to the movies - because that has traditionally meant getting out of the house? Because movies are more of an art form than TV? Barbara revealed that she rations herself, either despite or because she wants to clear away space to watch American Idol, among other attractions of the small screen. But I haven't heard of anyone rationing themselves with regard to movies, unless to save money, so I think TV has had an undeservedly bad press. Aside from Idol, which Lynne and I also follow avidly, the debate on TV's merits were prompted by a new series that launched on HBO on Sunday, a serialization of Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana-based books, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. This really is a marriage made in heaven: excellent books, a fine lead actress in Jill Scott, great producing and directing from the late Sidney Pollack and Anthony Minghella, and wonderful Botswana scenery. Don't ration yourselves!
CAUGHT ON THE BREEZE
There's so many more people know you than you know
I've been free for a long time of worrying about what people think of me
Every man would like to be randy for a day
Do you really mean to say that a man with a beard can't be sexy?
I saw Johnny Mathis driving down Sunset once
Touching is all right for sex, but that's it as far as I'm concerned
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