The Sheila Variations

Two-part Happy place

1. "A Little More Love" by Olivia Newton John. I don't know why I suddenly need (yes: NEED) to hear this song every other minute, but I do. I am transported by it. I've been listening to this song since I was a frickin' grade schooler, but whatever, this week - I have realized: Seriously. I love this song so much. Press "Play" again. And again. And again.

"Wheerree ....
where did my innocence go ..."

I think it's those CHORDS that come after the second line of the verses - after "innocence go ..." or in the first verse "draggin' her feet ..." Then: a chord. Two chords! If you know the song, you'll know the chords of which I speak. I find them to be perfect, and every time I hear them, I feel satisfied. Like: ahhh, that was a moment well-played.

Random. Why suddenly that song?

I try not to question where such things lead me.

"Night is draggin' her feet
I wait alone in the heat ..." CHORD .... CHORD ...

And now for Happy Place part 2:

2. Photo of Dean Stockwell taken by Dennis Hopper

Fanny & Alexander

Ted has some screenshots, some thoughts on Bergman.

Dear Shamus:

I want it to be true, too.

One of the things I require from my dear friends ...

is that, on occasion, they make me cry.

RIP Michelangelo Antonioni

I'm with Keith: What the hell???

Michelangelo Antonioni:

"My habit of shooting rather long scenes was born spontaneously on the first day of filming Ceonaca di un Amore. Having the camera fixed to its stand immediately caused me real discomfort. I felt paralysed, as if I were being prevented from following closely the one thing in the film that interested me: I mean, the characters. The next day, I called for a dolly, and I began to follow the characters till I felt the need to move on to another exercise. For me, this was the best way to be real, to be true ... I have never succeeded in composing a scene without having the camera with me, nor have I ever been able to make my characters talk in accordance with a pre-established script ... I needed to see the characters, to see even their simplest gestures."

Excerpt from David Thomson's film encyclopedia:

Antonioni's world of sentimental and metaphysical dismay ought to include just such a figure as himself: a man of vast intellectual sensibility and artistic aspiration; a film director capable of stripping people down to fragile skins that can hardly brush against one another without pain; but a visionary of emotional alienation, so morbidly convinced of the apartness of people that he sometimes ends by photographing figures in a landscape. In short, within a brief time span he veered from psychological exactness to abstraction. For if his suspicions of human dissolution are sound, then films are only an absurd response to the fretful human instinct for self-expression. Even if one cannot always share Antonioni's torment, it has been an engrossing, if humorless, prospect to see him gradually immolate himself with doubts. He is his own character, turned away from us, speechless at what has been lost. As Monica Vitti sighs near the end of La Notte: "Each time I have tried to communicate with someone, love has disappeared."

And this, too:

The enigmas in Antonioni's work are as subject to time as monuments are to erosion, and the achievements of some films can offset or explain the apparent, or early, limits of others. For example, The Passenger helped us see the longing for escape and space in L'Avventura, and illumined the persistence of life at the end of L'Eclisse. I suspect that Antonioni's best films will continue to grow and shift, like dunes in the centuries of desert. In that process, if there are eyes left to look, he will becomes a standard for beauty.

Rest in peace. Here's the NY Times obit

More: Reverse Shot's essay on Antonioni

Dear God, what have I done

Tonight I signed up for a 10 week intensive kick-boxing course at this totally hardcore gym whose commercials have always terrified me. Trainers screaming into the camera: "ARE YOU READY TO WORK?" etc. But I am so so ready for this, ready for SOMEthing anyway - I had my orientation tonight, and I loved the vibe of the gym. It's bare bones, with boxing bags hanging everywhere, cement ceilings, nothing aesthetic or soft - and I don't know ... it appealed to me. It appealed way more than the elliptical, I'll tell you that. I also saw a man punching a bag who could conceivably be my future husband. A blurpy boxer? Wearing a red bandana round his head? Bring it on. I meet with my trainer on Wednesday night to set up my program, based on my age, weight, body fat, whatever ... and then it will begin.

Scared! Psyched!

Compulsion - part deux

It delighted me to see that Mental Multivitamin has recently seen Compulsion - her comments are here, very insightful. And yes, I agree - Orson Welles' reading of the last line of the film ("In those years to come, you might find yourself asking if it wasn't the hand of God dropped these glasses... And if he didn't, who did?"), and Dean Stockwell's subsequent reaction to those words - are perfection. It's a true moment, not an over-played melodramatic moment. Orson Welles rarely raises his voice in the whole film, everything is contained, coiled like a spring, his eyes moving, seeing, taking everything in ... and his psychological slam-dunk in the final lines is goose-bump worthy. It could not end on a better note. What could have been a salacious or silly film - or preachy or lurid - is none of the above.

"I consider Compulsion a very good work. It's one of those films in which, by some strange alchemy, everything is exactly what the director would have liked it to be. Many times, for some different reasons, sauce won't curdle: some character appears untrue, the story doesn't work, or something else is out of tune. In Compulsion everything matched fantastically."

— Richard Fleisher, director of Compulsion

SEE it if you haven't already. (My post about Compusion here)

RIP Ingmar Bergman

Crap.

A compilation of links but I'm sure the tributes will be far and wide. Keith has some screenshots here. I can't believe it. I mean, he was 89, but still. Remarkable. A remarkable artist. Here's the one post I've written about a Bergman film - bah. Dont know what else to say at the moment. I'll ponder it. Ponder what he has given us and what we have lost. 4-page obit in the Times

One of my favorite things about Rhode Island is:

10 minutes away from my parents house in one direction you can see:

And 10 minutes away in the OTHER direction you can see:

A ton more new photos here!

Snapshots

-- spent afternoon at Apple store. Wonderful, lovely, I love it there. Got some crap I need, and returned some crap I don't. (Uhm, Nano? hahahaha)

-- watched a werewolf movie starring Dean Stockwell last night. It's brill. Cheesy-brill.

Filmed in the early 70s with that gritty docu-drama feel, with everyone in Peter Pan collars and bad haircuts and droopy toga-esque dresses. A political satire mainly - but watching Dean Stockwell morph, against his will, into a howling wolf during a high-powered meeting with serious-minded people who do not know he is a werewolf - was one of the highlights of my week. I had to order my own copy immediately, and will do a shot by shot analysis for this blog when I receive it.

-- the main joke of the week is (and it must be shouted): "YOU ARE A SEDUCE!". I can't even really explain the genesis of the joke but seriously - we have not worn it out yet. It has proven to have SO much mileage. And it can be used in so many different situations. You can use it to give someone a begrudging bit of praise. "YOU ARE A SEDUCE, damn you ..." Or you can use it purely as an epithet. "YOU ARE A SEDUCE!" You can use it as a "snap out of it" command to a friend you know can do better. "YOU ARE A SEDUCE!" I was at the grocery store last night, shopping, and thought of "YOU ARE A SEDUCE!" and started cracking up. I adore it.

-- The "YOU ARE A SEDUCE" joke reminds me of another obscure and long-lasting joke: "Es no 'ee. Oo say Drak". And that reminds me of another longer lasting joke: "Tell 'em Mrs. Barney sent ya ..." These are posts I will write next week:
1. "'Es no 'ee. Oo say Drak"
2. Mrs. Barney. (I can't believe I never wrote about Mrs. Barney!)
3. The joy of Werewolf of Washington

Oh, the joy. The joy of the joke that keeps on giving!

YOU ARE A SEDUCE!

Happy birthday, David!

In honor of his birthday today. Just glimpses, fragments.

A glimpse:
-- David, bandana round head, no shirt on, shorts, hot bod with big sculpted arms ... standing in his living room and repeatedly punching a helium balloon - which was tethered on a string - attached to something immovable - and David kept punching it like a punching bag, saying over and over - as though the helium balloon was giving him some lip: "Whose fuckin' birthday is it? Huh? HUH? WHOSE FUCKIN' BIRTHDAY IS IT?"

-- "And you know the courtesans will burn."

-- "I looove the feelin' of that ROCK in my NOSE in the MORNIN' - BING!!!"

-- The plate dance. It has to be seen to be believed.

-- "I'm all talk no action!"

-- David standing in the parking lot at Ed Debevacs in Chicago and mooning the passing cars

-- Carving pumpkins at David and Maria's apartment. It was me, Mitchell, Jackie, David, Maria, and Bobby. Jackie had some problems while carving. She had some good ideas ... but then - disaster - she cut out too much and the eye-hole caved into into the lid-top. This was no good. Jackie got upset. David pretended to scorn her horrible pumpkin carving capabilities and started shouting at her, making it into one word: "LIDEYE - LIDEYE - LIDEYE!" I kind of can't put into words WHY this was so funny ... but we still say, on occasion, "lideye" whenever we are talking about any kind of disaster. "Lideye, lideye."

-- Mitchell and David, pretending to be announcers at the Tony Awards: "Ladies and gentlemen ................................... CHITA." Which then morphed into: "A womannnnnnnn ... a performer ... a singer ... a dancer ............ a pudendum extraordinaire ........... CHITA." Seriously. It makes total sense. The funny thing was that Maria, Jackie and I had left the apartment to ... go shopping? Do errands? We left Mitchell and David there, and they were relatively normal - we came back half an hour later... and THAT was what they were doing when we walked back in.

-- Pictionary on Saturdays at David and Maria's. Those were the wildest games EVER. Mitchell, Jackie and I looked at David and Maria's apartment on Greenview as a total haven. They had big thick water glasses, and nice china. There was always something yummy that Maria had cooked. Everything was cozy and beautiful. There was also the famous couch. You walked into that apartment - and maybe James Taylor was playing - or Marc Cohn - or Des'ree - and Maria had made a pot of coffee, and the light outside was wintry and chill - and you just felt safe, and happy to be there. The two of them have always created such spaces. It's a joint effort. You walk into their house - and you just sink into the couch thinking, "Ahhhhhhhhh".

-- M. (one of the many M. posts here) called me at David and Maria's to ask me out. This was way at the beginning, I think I had gone out with him one or two times, and I was out of my mind about him. My friends will remember it well. I have no idea why this night, of all nights, stays so vivid in my mind - it's not even a big deal - but David and I still laugh about it. After the crazy cosmic-tumbler night - and then meeting him again months later when he finally got my phone number. And I was much younger then - meaning: hopeful, positive, etc. - I would never be this hopeful now, that's what time does - so I was blabbing about M. to eeeeeeeeeeeveryone. M. tracked me down at David and Maria's. I was playing Pictionary - hooooooooping he would call. Hoping so hard that it actually was unpleasant. That was how much I was into him. David LOVES stuff like this and lives it vicariously. M. called - and we spoke, and made plans to meet at Southport Lanes. Meanwhile, David and Brian were both screaming in the background, all testosterone - and M. said, tentatively, "Who are they?" I hung up the phone and scurried about the apartment like a crazy person, putting on makeup, involving everyone there in my love life. David and Brian drove me to Southport Lanes so I could meet M. David and Brian actually escorted me into the bowling lanes, my two big brothers I never had. M. wasn't there yet (thankfully - although i still think it would have been hilarious to see how he would have handled it). For some reason, David and I still talk about that night. And Brian - (who was already dating the girl he would end up marrying a couple years later - they now have 3 kids) - who didn't know me all that well had the impression that my life was ALWAYS as crazy as it was that summer. Anyway - David's total support and non-judgment of me during the entire M. relationship - which went on for YEARS - has always meant the world to me. And I still laugh when I think of the three of us parading our way through those old-time bowling lanes, me in my derby, the two of them - big guys, football players - escorting me to my crazy date ... beautiful.

-- David and I met when I was 16. He was 19.

-- During a show once in college - he came up through a trap door into the middle of a scene that he wasn't a part of. During a performance. He did it on a dare. Just stood there grinning at the other cast members who were stunned into baffled and terrified silence, like ... "Uhm ... what the hell are you doing here?" He got into trouble but he didn't care.

-- In Chicago, David and I (and Mitchell, too) were in one of the worst shows ever put onto the stage.

-- Once at a party in college - at around 5 am - David and I wrote down a vow that we would always be friends, and there was even a pricking-of-the-finger thing that happened - I still have that vow. With an ancient blood-stain on the piece of looseleaf.

-- Every day with David is a journey. I see him once every couple of weeks - and he is always living, learning, growing, struggling. He is one of my dearest and most cherished friends. He knows how to listen.

-- David, Maria and I were all together on October 27, 2004. It's a memory that will remain vivid for me forever.

-- Another vivid memory: David, Maria, Me, Mitchell and Jackie all going to see James Taylor the last summer we were all together in Chicago. David and Maria were moving to New York in September. I have pictures of that night - Taylor played outside, it was a glowing summer twilight ... and we took all these pictures in the parking lot - that totally capture the beautiful vibe not only of our collective friendship - but of that particular moment in time - because it was July, and everything was about to change ... some good change, some horrible ... and it was coming ... and coming quick. In that parking lot, the sunset glow on our laughing faces, we tiptoed on the precipice. A magical night - made no less magical because so much sadness followed.

-- I stood up in the Barnes & Noble on Diversey, in Chicago. I had been sitting in the same position for a couple of hours, so when I stood up, I had no feeling in my foot. My ankle twisted beneath me and I collapsed onto the floor, coffee flying up out of my cup. Employees rushed over. This is before we all had cell phones. I didn't know what to do - One look at my ankle - and how huge it got - it was like a blowfish - terrified me. I couldn't walk. I also was unemployed and had no health insurance. The Barnes & Noble employees helped me over to the payphone - and I couldn't think of what to do. So I called David. "David??? Uhm .... my ankle is .... I really hurt myself ...." You could HEAR the focus in his voice immediately. He's like a fireman that way. "Where are you. I'm coming to get you." He arrived 10 minutes later, with Mitchell. By that point my ankle was so huge I was afraid to take my shoe off. He got me into his car, I wasn't hysterical or anything like that - just kind of pissed at myself. Mitchell and I lived on the third-floor of an apartment building. Once in the lobby, supported by both my friends, I stared up the stairs silently. Thinking, "Okay. Not sure how I'm gonna get up to my floor." Before I even put one foot on the first stair, David scooped me up in his arms, as though I weighed nothing, and carried me all the way up to the apartment. Even to this day I get a little choked up remembering his take-charge manner.

-- "In you In you In you In you In you" ...

-- David and I spent a year working on the play Summer and Smoke with our mentor. It was one of the most intense and awesome acting experiences I have ever had. And nobody, except the people in that class, saw our work. I talk about it a bit here. He's an amazing actor and working on that play, in particular, with him - was truly one of the greatest gifts of my life. It was a time of major soul-growth for me, and in many ways, Alma Winemiller led the way. Tough stuff. But the play kept me anchored. I kept a detailed journal of the whole process - which I've thought of posting here. Acting with David is one of those things where it never feels like acting. It's real. You listen, you talk - he's unpredictable, I'm unpredictable - it's not LITERAL ... It's marvelous and exciting. I STILL would love to do that play with him. Even if only 20 people saw it.

-- The relationship that he and Mitchell have is truly hysterical. They are like Long Lost Brothers, seriously. Sometimes they get so out of control that you almost want to say, "Boys. Time for bed."

-- Oh God, and then there was that morning after the craziest college party ever (all my college friends will know EXACTLY the one I am talking about) - and it was a "formal" party, so we all were dressed to the nines. David wore a tux. I wore a black lace flapper dress. We all ended up sleeping over the house, but of course nobody had pajamas or anything, so we all slept in our formal clothes: people lying in pull-out couches here and there, dressed in tuxedos and gowns. Tthen we woke up the next morning - and a core group of us - Mitchell, Jackie, David - still dressed like that - went out to breakfast at a local diner - and then drove to the Showcase to see Seventh Sign. David looked like a gigolo. His bowtie was bright red, he had loosened his white shirt, opened the collar - but he kept the bowtie on like a Chippendale - he had on mirrored sunglasses - I could not even look at him without bursting into laughter - and we all walked into the Showcase Cinema for a matinee movie dressed in last night's formal wear ...

-- He talked to me until my train came.

-- "Clip it or cloak it, Chloe."

-- He ran into M. at an audition for something. It was a couple of years into my relationship with M. - so David knew WAY too much about him because I was a blabber-mouth and found M. to be the most fascinating person ever born of woman on this planet. So. M. walked into the waiting room, signed in - and David observed his behavior for a while - like a spy - it was like he was watching a rare bird in his natural habitat. So finally David went over and said, "Hi ... I'm David ..." M., awkward at all times, kind of winced at David - like: "Oh God. What did I do and why don't I remember it?" David said, "Yeah ... we've met once or twice before - we have a friend in common .... Sheila." At the sound of my name - M. visibly relaxed - his whole tense demeanor changed, it was like this sudden softness and fondness came over his face - David saw the whole thing (and of course I made him do an imitation of the facial expressions a gazillion times. "Do it again.") - and - awkwardly - M. said, "Sheila? Yeah .... yeah ... Sheila .... She's ...." (Long agonizing pause, as he tried to think of what to say. His heart was full but his mind was a blank.) Then out came: "She's a good girl." Okay - so if you don't know me or him, this might not sound very amusing - but ... to those of you who DO know M., and you know me - and you know us together, you will know how ridiculous this moment is. What are you SAYING, man? "Yeah ... yeah ... she's ... she's a good girl." Like who says that??? A grandfather maybe, but not a crazy boyfriend! He was a tough gruff kind of guy, completely insane, brilliant, funny, a jock - and ... well. He truly had feelings for me - but instead of saying it in a normal way, like, "Oh, you know Sheila? Yeah, she's great!" or whatever ... he fumbled for words, said my name a couple of times (pointlessly)... and then summed it all up with, "She's a good girl." And the second it came out - David said he saw the mortification flicker through M.'s eyes - I'm laughing out loud - like he KNEW: "Oh shit. Did I just refer to her as a 'good girl'? Did I just say, 'Sheila ... she's a good girl' to one of her best friends? Who is a guy? Can a hole open up in the ground right now for me??" But funny thing: the stories about M. were always kind of wild, involving pool halls, and towed cars, and crawling thru windows, etc. - and my friends had to kind of just let go and say, "Okay - well, Sheila knows what she's doing ... " But after that moment with M. - the shy awkward wince, the "she's a good girl", etc. (because the thing about it is, and I know I wasn't even there - but M. MEANT it!! He meant it! He said exACTLY what he meant - it just came out in a goofiness beyond belief. But he spoke the truth.) - anyway, in that moment, David, with his intuition, completely got it. Totally saw what I saw. The wince in the eyes behind the wild behavior. It was important to me that David "get it". It always is, I guess.

-- The sun hurt my eyes that day. We sat outside at Cafe Avanti. I was so heartsick that I had become physically sick. It was right after this. I couldn't eat, sleep. I called in sick to work. It was one of the worst and loneliest days of my life. David came and got me and we spent the day drinking coffee, talking. I remember hunching over the table, protectively, nibbling on toast, or whatever, no taste buds, nothing. Heartsick. And at one point, he said these words: "Just because something is meant to be, Sheila, doesn't mean that it will be." Hard hard to hear. It's STILL hard to hear. But in raw moments like that ... his big strong presence was (is) healing.

-- "I ain't proud of it mind you...but I ain't above it neither!"

-- He's one of my "ideal readers". By that I mean - I feel totally comfortable showing him first drafts of things. Not only do I feel comfortable - but his input has always been invaluable. It's not about praise - it's that sometimes he has this way of seeing what I'm TRYING to say before I even can see it ... He's a deep reader. His insights have helped me figure out what I'm trying to express.

-- He helps me to be soft. I can be a pretty hard and rigid person. Talking with him helps me to keep open, stay receptive ... I fight him sometimes, I insist on my rigidity, I insist ... but it is never a bad thing to question, to listen, to be open to others. David helps me with that.

He has a way of expressing things - about me, and my life - that helps me remember who I am. Like this. He gives me back parts of myself that I thought I had lost along the way.

So David:

Whose fuckin' birthday is it?

Yours, my dear friend.

Below: a related diary entry from college.

DECEMBER 29
Susan had a party. At first I didn't want to go. Haven't been feeling very rowdy or social lately. But I went. All the way up to Pawtucket. I think it was so nice of her to ask me. I like her a lot. She has the cutest place. Fell totally in love. It was Mitchell, Jackie, David W., David S., Tony, a guy named Russell, Susan and me.

Cheeses galore, veggies, crackers, bread, Brie, wine.

Great music. Looked at Edwin Drood slides.

Then -on a whim - we all bundled up and went bowling. And had THE BEST TIME. We went to this Bowlarama in scary Pawtucket. Someone was murdered in Pawtucket this very morning. It's a tough place.

Let me paint the picture for you. I cannot believe that we were not mugged.

It was League night. There were also a lot of tough teenagers, being sullen and hostile. There's nothing more hostile than a teenager from Pawtucket. Then, the 8 of us arrive. Theatre geeks. Loud. Flamboyant. And INTO bowling, no matter how much we sucked.

Susan - in a bright red dress with little black dogs over it, and shiny black spandex tights. She got gutter ball after gutter ball after gutter ball. It was extremely funny.

We are not normal people. We don't just bowl. We don't just do anything. We throw our hearts into it. After every spin, there would be a production number of some kind. Screams. Hugs. Sobs. (Jackie cried once.) Susan kept standing up there, stock still, for at least a minute, after her 10th straight gutter ball. She was struck dumb. Immovable. Susan finally got a spare, and the resulting celebration - she had a FIT. David W. raced up there to whirl her around.

Jackie - wearing silky grey pants, and a sweater. Glamorous as always. Offhandedly tossing the ball into the lane. Her pattern? Her first try? gutter. Second try? she would knock down about 8. And her last try? Gutter. She had no set up, no carry thru. She just stood up there and whipped the ball down wildly. And she would get really sullen after gutter balls. Didn't want to talk about it, or discuss it. She also cried for real when she got a spare.

Me - I had my hair pulled back. I had on huge hoop earrings, a silky white shirt, tight jeans. My setup would be: I would shake my ass in everyone's face and then I would very very seductively toss the ball down the lane. Such a jackass. And after all that, I would basically seductively toss the ball straight into the gutter. It took me 2 strings to warm up. I, too, got frustrated after gutters and would stomp back to my seat. Quite bratty. I also flirted madly with the guy in charge. He loved me and came over to keep score for me and Jackie. I strolled around like I owned the place.

Mitchell - totally in black, with a Joan Crawford-like jacket with shoulder pads bigger than mine. He is so handsome. It kills me. Especially with his hair short. His face is fantastic. It makes me laugh. He is also a FUNNY bowler. I now want to go bowling with him every day. Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, seriously tallying up the scores, barking funny comments out of the side of his mouth. He is a serious bowler too. He would do many wild Carlton Fisk-like gesticulations to try to change the direction of the ball. Then, he'd invariably realize how ridiculous he looked, glance around to see if anyone had noticed. And of course we ALL had noticed, because we were all looking at him. We laughed explosively. "I was trying to make it turn," Mitchell would say ... like he really had to explain.

David S - Pretty normal. (Looking, anyway.)

Russell - also pretty normal as a bowler. These two seemed tame to me.

And then ... there was:

Tony. Tony. Tony. Okay. Tony had on a white tuxedo shirt, black tuxedo pants with a black satin stripe down the side, matching purple and blue paisley cummerbund and bowtie, and then - a shimmering purple velvety velour smoking jacket with black satin lapels. And bowling shoes. I didn't even realize how hilarious he looked until halfway thru our time there. They had a bar and Tony went up and ordered us all beers, and he came back with a loaded-down tray, and in the blazer, and tuxedo pants, he looked like a bizarre Bowlarama waiter.

God, I love my friends. "We might be laughing a bit too loud ... but that never hurt no one..."

Tony was a wild bowler. Sometimes right on the money, and sometimes he would whip it, with total conviction, right into the gutter. He took none of it seriously. He would laugh after every gutter ball. Hysterically. Something about gutter balls (other people's gutter balls) are extremely funny. So there we all were, holding our beers, and pointing at Tony, laughing uproariously.

Then - David W. What a creature. What a piece of work. He is the most riotous person I know. First of all, he looked like a guido from hell: gold chains, flashy open shirt, pleated pants ... I just cannot laugh hard enough to satisfy how funny he is. He would walk up there ultra-confident and arrogant, with that funny deadpan TOTALLY serious look on his face, picking up a ball jauntily as though he were Mr. Pro, doing this magnificent sweeping setup, sliding to his knees as he let the ball go, and then the ball would careen right into the gutter. It happened to him so many times. And his face! It was all Mr. Macho! Yeah, I meant to do that ... big deal ... When he would get a strike or a spare, he would do a mad Solid Gold dancer dance routine, or he would whirl around to face us, leaping and bounding, like it was the World Series. He busted up Susan mercilessly about her gutter balls, making fun of her, and then he would go up there and immediately get one himself. Every time the two of us would end up up there together, he would try to distract me. "Hey baby ... what are you doin' later? How you doin', baby? Come here often??"

We were two very noisy lanes, and the League kept giving us dirty looks. We had become their enemies.

The punks next to us were 15-year-old tough guys ... and they just did not know what to do with David W. They could not take their eyes off of him. They could not believe what they were seeing. They were dumbfounded.

David was dressed like a Cranston guido, with the pinkie rings, and the open shirt - he looked like one of them - but he was behaving like a MANIAC. At one point, he was DISCO dancing at the end of his lane as though he were an extra in Saturday Night Fever.

So these kids were gaping at him, literally slack-jawed, and they kept muttering to each other, "Faggot. That guy is such a faggot. Look at that guy. What a fag." It was all "fag fag fag fag". That word makes me see red.

The funniest thing, though, is that David is the most heterosexual guy in our group - and they called HIM a "fag"! Meanwhile, there was Tony strolling around in purple velour and paisley, and Mitchell strolling around in shoulder pads and penny loafers. But no. DAVID is the one who gets picked on. Genius!

After they left, I told Mitchell and David what had gone on, how they had kept calling David a "fag". Mitchell automatically assumed (poor thing) that the dudes had been harassing him. For some reason, he has been harassed constantly this year. It makes me see red. But I said, reassuringly, "No! They were calling David a fag!"

And the three of us exploded. David just LOVED it. "Me?? I love it!"

It was just so ironic. Tony sashays by in velour, speaking in a faux British accent, and the kids don't say a word.

Tonight there was a roaring wind, and shaggy clouds in the night sky, with bright crystal-clear starry sky, in all the rifts between the clouds ... a moon that seems to half-fade into darkness. I loved the sky tonight. All of us went outside to pile into cars to go bowling, and we had to stop, and stare up at the sky. It demanded our attention. Susan was so cute, and Parisian, in her black coat, red scarf, and black beret, gasping up at the sky in admiration and awe. It was shiveringly cold. Because of the amazingly strong wind, and all of those clouds ... it's a very uncanny sight to see white clouds at night. It was a spectacle. And the clouds seemed low to me ... torn apart, and hurrying by ... and behind them, actually overwhelming them, was the vast brilliant wintry cosmos.

We all were struck quite dumb by it, there on the freezing scary Pawtucket sidewalk.

Years Later: backstage at the worst show ever. We cared more about our Uno game than our performances.

Happy birthday, dear dear David.

Saint Joan

A production (and performance) I'd love to see.

As played by Anne-Marie Duff, the latest pinup girl of cerebral London theatergoers, Joan is a raw, guileless lass, without a clue about anything the men around her are doing. That’s usually the way of Joan, of course. But the superb, and ultimately very moving, Ms. Duff doesn’t pull the time-honored trick of flipping the internal switch that says “radiance” and making her voice go all trembly and poetic.

This Joan is an energetic, ordinary, irritating lass in all ways but one: her belief. We’ve had plenty of examples of late of how religious conviction can turn ordinary souls into fanatics. And history is filled with unexceptional people who were made exceptional by the fierceness of their confidence, the sense that they always knew they were doing the right thing for the right reason. Ms. Duff makes it clear just how irresistible such confidence can be.

Ah, the ol' Saint Joan "trembly and poetic" trap. Sounds like a really interesting production - love the photos, too.

Details!

"I want you to hold it between your knees."

I mentioned my love for the LOOK of Five Easy Pieces here - in my rambly elegy to László Kovács.

But the wonderful Jim Emerson pinpoints the details of what is so good, so damn RIGHT - in the last shot of that film.

Love it. Love it. Thanks.

"habits of work ..."

Excerpt from Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, which I am now reading:

So long as one is happy one can endure any discipline: it was unhappiness that broke down the habits of work. When I began to realize how often we quarrelled, how often I picked on her with nervous irritation, I became aware that our love was doomed: love had turned into a love-affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work: I would reconstruct what we had said to each other: I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make-believe that love lasted, I was happy - I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death: I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck.

And all that time I couldn't work. So much of a novelist's writing, as I have said, takes place in the unconscious: in those depths the last word is written before the first word appears on paper. We remember the details of our story, we do not invent them. War didn't trouble those deep sea-caves, but now there was something of infinitely greater importance to me than war, than my novel - the end of love. That was being worked out now, like a story: the pointed word that set her crying, that seemed to have come so spontaneously to the lips, had been sharpened in those underwater caverns. My novel lagged, but my love hurried like inspiration to the end.

Peter Lorre

A wonderfully observant 5 for the day.

One particularly good quote, but go read the whole thing:

Lorre’s work here cannot be judged by any normal standards: his performance of thwarted passion is so far-out, so bizarre in its details, yet it somehow remains gentle and human.

I've got Fritz Lang's M on my Netflix queue somewhere - but it's buried beyond all the Dean Stockwell stuff for the time being. I saw M on a rainy night in Providence RI with my boyfriend at the Cable Car Cinema - I had never seen it - and the movie just freaked me out, blew me away, whatever superlative you want to assign to it ... I had never seen anything like it, and Peter Lorre is haunting. He makes well-chick from The Ring look like a nice (if maladjusted) girl.

Oh, and I loved this bit from the post:

On the Berlin stage, he turned a one-line bit part into a triumph: playing a servant, he was supposed to come on and simply say, “Frau Schultz is here to see you.” Instead, Lorre entered insolently, slowly lit a cigarette, and turned Frau Schultz’s arrival into an extended improv interrogation with the lady of the house (a portent of his later scene stealing).

Anyway, go read the whole thing.

I love Wanda Jackson

Who doesn't? What a BROAD, what a voice.

Great photo!

John Banville's list

Any time I come across anything about John Banville, I must post it - because my dad loves him so.

I found this interesting: John Banville lists his "5 most important books".

I felt the same way about Middlemarch for years ... finally read it, and had the following response.

RIP László Kovács

Renowned and influential (yet Oscar-less) cinematographer László Kovács has died - he was 74 years old.

"Oh .... I've got a helmet!"

"As the years go by, romance fades and something else takes its place. Do you know what is??"
"Senility."
"Trust."
"That's what I meant."

A few of his credits:

What's Up Doc
King of Marvin Gardens
5 Easy Pieces
Shampoo
Paper Moon
Easy Rider
Paradise Alley (Stallone's directorial debut - MARVELOUS movie - and marvelous LOOKING movie, which is Kovac's doing)
Say Anything
Ghostbusters

I mean - just to name a FEW.

His early gritty days were when he first made his mark - and so his influence is enormous - but think of the look of Paper Moon compared to the look of Shampoo and you will see the unbelievable versatility and artistry of this man. Wow.

He went on to work on some of the most successful films of the 80s - where his work became slick and commercial (these are not epithets) - and please. Say Anything. I mean, come on. But it is his work in the late 60s, early 70s, for which he will be remembered. At least by those who "know". It was important stuff going on then - a revolution in art, an explosion of creativity and courage. The stories being told, and how they were being told ... are startling, to this day. And whether or not you "like" those movies is irrelevant. It would be like discounting the influence of Joyce because you personally don't like him. That's an ignorant position. Kovacs was attached to many of the auteurs of the day - and you can kind of tell which movies are his. Even with his versatility. Shampoo LOOKS like a Kovacs picture, for example. Five Easy Pieces might be my favorite, but then - there's the Bogdonavich classics - and how THOSE movies looked. But without Shampoo, without Five Easy Pieces (keep going ...) - American cinema flat out would not be the same today. We would all be poorer for it.

He was IT for a while. The 1970s - in the aftermath of the collapse of the studio system - brought about a lot of good, and also a lot of crap - a lot of exploded ego, and a lot of mess - but that's to be expected, with a lessening of control. His work - his passion and ambition and just how damn GOOD he was - helped to create the look of the 1970s American movie (Hungarian-born though he was!). Helped put American cinema on the international map again, because we had been falling far behind the rest of the world, in terms of what we were putting out, and the conventions we were willing to accept and not question. Made us look shallow and uncurious. That all changed - and the way those movies look - still have a deep impact.

Oh, and of course there is a Dean Stockwell connection. They were both at their hippie/biker/lover-o-flowers height at the same time, along with Dennis Hopper and all the others. Kovacs was cinematographer on Psych-Out in 1968 (which is shrieking towards me, as we speak, from a Netflix facility on the eastern seaboard).

And I want to make out with the dude just for working on What's Up, Doc alone. i mean, honest to GOD.

I have some great quotes about him from a couple different books. I'll share them later.

Rest in piece Mr. Kovács. And thank you.

The Books: "In Cold Blood" (Truman Capote)

Next book on my adult fiction bookshelves:

The great In Cold Blood - by Truman Capote. On my top 10 list of favorite books.

A couple posts about Capote on my site:

In Cold Blood - the first 3 paragraphs (actually, that's a link to another site. Not to be missed)

Capote's birthday post

Haunting excerpt from In Cold Blood below.

Excerpt from In Cold Blood - by Truman Capote.

Dewey fitted a key into the front door of the Clutter house. Inside, the house was warm, for the heat had not been turned off, and the shiny-floored rooms, smelling of a lemon-scented polish, seemed only temporarily untenanted; it was as though today were Sunday and the family might at any moment return from church. The heirs, Mrs. English and Mrs. Jarchow, had removed a vanload of clothing and furniture, yet the atmosphere of a house still humanly inhabited had not thereby been diminished. In the parlor, a sheet of music, "Comin' Thro' the Rye", stood open on the piano rack. In the hall, a sweat-stained gray Stetson hat - Herb's - hung on a hat peg. Upstairs in Kenyon's room, on a shelf above his bed, the lenses of the dead boy's spectacles gleamed with reflected light.

The detective moved from room to room. He had toured the house many times; indeed, he went out there almost every day, and, in one sense, could be said to find these visits pleasurable, for the place, unlike his own home, or the sheriff's office, with its hullaballoo, was peaceful. The telephones, their wires still severed, were silent. The great quiet of the prairies surrounded him. He could sit in Herb's parlor rocking chair, and rock and think. A few of his conclusions were unshakable: he believed that the death of Herb Clutter had been the criminals' main objective, the motive being a psychopathic hatred, or possibly a combination of hatred and thievery, and he believed that the commission of the murders had been a leisurely labor, with perhaps two or more hours elapsing between the entrance of the killers and their exit. (The coroner, Dr. Robert Fenton, reported an appreciable difference in the body temperatures of the victims, and, on this basis, theorized that the order of execution had been: Mrs. Clutter, Nancy, Kenyon, and Mr. Clutter.) Attendant upon these beliefs was his conviction that the family had known very well the persons who destroyed them.

During this visit Dewey paused at an upstairs window, his attention caught by something seen in the near distance - a scarecrow amid the wheat stubble. The scarecrow wore a man's hunting cap and a dress of weather-faded flowered calico. (Surely an old dress of Bonnie Clutter's?) Wind frolicked the skirt and made the scarecrow sway - make it seem a creature forlornly dancing in the cold December field. And Dewey was somehow reminded of Marie's dream. One recent morning she had served him a bungled breakfast of sugared eggs and salted coffee, then blamed it all on "a silly dream" - but a dream the power of daylight had not dispersed. "It was so real, Alvin," she said. "As real as this kitchen. That's where I was. Here in the kitchen. I was cooking supper, and suddenly Bonnie walked through the door. She was wearing a blue angora sweater, and she looked so sweet and pretty. And I said, 'Oh, Bonnie ... Bonnie, dear ... I haven't seen you since that terrible thing happened.' But she didn't answer, only looked at me in that shy way of hers, and I didn't know how to go on. Under the circumstances. So I said, 'Honey, come see what I'm making Alvin for his supper. A pot of gumbo. With shrimp and fresh crabs. It's just about ready. Come on, honey, have a taste.' But she wouldn't. She stayed by the door looking at me. And then - I don't know how to tell you exactly, but she shut her eyes, she began to shake her head, very slowly, and wring her hands, very slowly, and to whimper, or whisper. I couldn't understand what she was saying. But it broke my heart, I never felt so sorry for anyone, and I hugged her. I said, 'Please, Bonnie! Oh don't, darling, don't! If ever anyone was prepared to go to God, it was you, Bonnie.' But I couldn't comfort her. She shook her head, and wrung her hands, and then I heard what she was saying. She was saying, 'To be murdered. To be murdered. No. No. There's nothing worse. Nothing worse than that. Nothing.'"

Encouragement ....

I never can say, "nah, don't need THAT anymore."

So when some random (to me, anyway!!) person - reacts to something I wrote (last link in his list o' links) - it fills me with happiness and gratitude. Seriously.

Thank you, sir. I needed to hear it today, it's been a rough one.

A break in the Stockwell obsession ...

(which shows no signs of abating for the time being) ... just to say: Sigh.

Another Dean, another dollar.

Emily - this is for you:

Coming this fall to Manhattan: (photos taken with cell phone on rainy rainy afternoon)

File My Claim

I know the song Marilyn Monroe is probably most known for singing is "Diamonds are a girl's best friend".

But the way she sings "File My Claim" in River of no Return is my personal favorite.

Marilyn in River of No Return

"File My Claim" clip below.

Titanic

Alex - I think your friend Cole, the Titanic expert, will really be into this photo.

Heck, I'M into the photo. Amazing.

Dean Stockwell

The gesture.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B and C

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get the hell off the Internet because I am so afraid of coming across Harry Potter spoilers of any kind.

Buying the book today.

NO SPOILERS. NO SPOILERS.

Hands over ears, eyes closed - lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

The long awaited ...

photo of my haircut.

Ooops. This is what thunderstorms and humidity will do.

Conversation with my mother:

2 quotes:

"I'm so glad you didn't get blown up this week."

"Excuse me a second. A bunny is eating my petunias."

I love her.

At long last: The Professor's New Movie Quiz

I have been waiting patiently for the seasonal movie quiz from Dennis' stellar site - and at long last - it has arrived!! I put my answers in the comments section on Dennis' site - and seriously, reading thru everyone's comments makes me feel so happy - it's just the kind of place I love, and the TONE of the comments section is also admirable, fun, opinionated, but welcoming. So make sure to visit the link above!! But I'm re-posting my answers here, because then I can link to stuff, and also put in pictures ...

Thanks for yet another awesome quiz, Mr. Shoop!

1) Favorite quote from a filmmaker

"Make it true, make it seem true. And don't have something, even in a farce like Some Like it Hot that isn't true." -- Billy Wilder

2) A good movie from a bad director

I dislike Anthony Minghella's movies. The English Patient stank up the field, and I thought the entire world had gone crazy for praising that piece of junk. Same with his other movies. I find him obvious, condescending, and shallow. I don't know - he's obviously skilled, so I can't in all good conscience call him "bad" - let's just say I dislike his sensibility, and I thnk he's crap at telling stories.

HOWEVER. Truly Madly Deeply is one of my favorite movies ever. My post about it here.

3) Favorite Laurence Olivier performance

You know, I saw his King Lear - the one he did in the 80s on PBS, I think - it's remarkable. At least I remember it being remarkable. He sometimes can be a bit actor-y for my taste (and makes me WISH I had seen him live!!) - but his King Lear was truly tragic.

4) Describe a famous location from a movie that you have visited (Bodega Bay, California, where the action in The Birds took place, for example). Was it anything like the way it was in the film? Why or why not?

The steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. If you look at those steps, and DON'T feel like re-enacting that famous scene, there is something seriously wrong with you. My boyfriend and I used to run up them all the time - and then leap up and down in triumph - I don't know if we ever walked normally up those steps.

5) Carlo Ponti or Dino De Laurentiis (Producer)?

Carlo Ponti, cause of Doctor Zhivago. I felt like I SHOULD say Dino De Laurentiis, because of Dune, and because ... well ... you know

... but I gotta go with Ponti.

6) Best movie about baseball

I'm partial to 61* - but I love most baseball movies.

7) Favorite Barbara Stanwyck performance

Ball of Fire

I mean, honestly.

8) Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused?

9) What was the last movie you saw, and why? (We’ve used this one before, but your answer is presumably always going to be different, so…)

Self-explanatory.

Or at least it should be

10) Whether or not you have actually procreated or not, is there a movie you can think of that seriously affected the way you think about having kids of your own?

Nope, not really. There were a couple of afterschool specials that put the fear of God into me about having sex and getting pregnant while still in high school ... but that's not quite the same thing.

11) Favorite Katharine Hepburn performance

She has never been so moving to me than she was in that movie. I get all choked up every time I watch it.

12) A bad movie from a good director

Amistad is pretty bad, I thought.

13) Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom-- yes or no?

Actually, this film was off my radar - but after reading the comments on IMDB, I feel I need to see it. So I guess yes.

14) Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder (Screenwriter)?

Ben Hecht.

15) Name the film festival you’d most want to attend, or your favorite festival that you actually have attended

I'd like to attend Cannes at least once in my life. Just for the spectacle. Also the Toronto Film Festival has always appealed to me.

I had a blast at the Montreal Film Festival a couple years ago.

16) Head or 200 Motels?

haha

200 Motels

17) Favorite cameo appearance
(Try visiting here and here for some good ideas! This question was inspired by Daniel Johnson at Film Babble)

There are so many more I can think of - I love cameos - but that's the first one that came to mind.

18) Favorite Rosalind Russell performance

19) What movie, either currently available on DVD or not, has never received the splashy collector’s edition treatment you think it deserves? What would such an edition include?

Well, up to 5 or 6 months ago, I would have shouted REDS, DAMMIT - but that has now been rectified.

The fact that The Magnificent Ambersons isn't even on DVD at all is completely outrageous

20) Name a performance that everyone needs to be reminded of, for whatever reason

(Jack Nicholson is the one I am talking about. Watch him shine!)

Never forget her brilliance as a comedienne

Just because, dammit.

... in one scene in Running on Empty - now THAT is acting. The best acting I think I've ever seen.

He was known as a great tragic actor. That's the beauty of how hiLARIOUS he is in Twentieth Century.

My thoughts on her incredible performance in Sudden Fear here. It's just good to remember how GOOD she was, when she was on top of her game.

And because I must:

it would be easy for Stockwell to be overshadowed by the other three (Hepburn, Richardson and Robards) but seriously, he's the cornerstone to the whole thing.

21) Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn (Studio Head)?

Well. MGM. I'm gonna go with Mayer, even though he was such an ass to Judy Garland.

22) Favorite John Wayne performance

But then there's also The Searchers - where he reaches (in my opinion) truly tragic heights. It's an iconic performance.

23) Naked Lunch or Barton Fink?

Barton Fink!!

24) Your Ray Harryhausen movie of choice

I have no Ray Harryhausen movie of choice.

25) Is there a movie you can think of that you feel like the world would be better off without, one that should have never been made?

Basic Instinct 2. (I also wish Forrest Gump had never happened.)

24) Favorite Dub Taylor performance

I know I've seen him a ton of times - but I'll go with Bonnie and Clyde

25) If you had the choice of seeing three final movies, to go with your three last meals, before shuffling off this mortal coil, what would they be?

Quickly, with no thought beforehand:

26) And what movie theater would you choose to see them in?

The Music Box, on Southport in Chicago.

Here's the original post - the comments are so exciting and fun to read! Thanks, Dennis - you're the best!!

Beauty

... and also horror. One of my favorite series on the entire internet.

I read those poems and I find myself laughing and also crying - it's like staring directly at the sun. Genius! So brave to post that stuff.

This is just not right

If you Google "Edie Sedgwick" - at the top of the page are three images - you know how Google does that sometimes, then you can click on "Image Results" to get more. But one of those images is a photo of Mitchell and me - on Halloween - dressed up as Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol. That damn photo has been climbing up in Google results for months - especially when Burnt Sienna made her movie about Edie - but now it's on the first page of Google, that stupid photo. The majority of my traffic right now is coming from people clicking on that photo (which - makes me laugh ... hahahaha ... It's NOT Edie!) ... and then obviously clicking away, because it leads to this post which ... You know, if you're looking for Edie Sedgwick, you don't want to see some random little girl in a bunny suit. I find the whole thing totally amusing.

Mitchell: we have conquered Google. We ARE Edie and Andy now. God help us all.

Dammit

Sounds like I missed something rather extraordinary.

Over the rainbow

Alex has a lovely post about the song.

It makes me think of that great thing Kathy Bates said, about having talent: "If you have a gift, you have to give it away. Just give it away. Every day, all day ... just give it away."

I certainly don't want to make TOO big a deal out of this

but Dean Stockwell went to Alexander Hamilton High School.

Carry on.

Oh. And while I'm here.

Stockwell as Eugene O'Neill's alter ego in Long Day's Journey Into Night

Watched Boy With Green Hair last night - after I recovered from running away from the damn explosion on 41st Street.

It was a horrible copy of the movie- it looked like it had been taken off a television or something ... blurry, smudgy, and the sound was so-so - but it sure was the movie I remembered from my youth.

I had forgotten, though, about the random unexplained fantasy-flashback musical-number near the beginning. So bizarre!!! Like: what? Who is that king? Why are they singing? What is the point? What's up with the red wig? Why the Thru the Looking Glass set? WHAT. THE HELL. is going on??? Why are there no more musical numbers of that kind in the entire movie? Hilarious. Totally meaningless. It looked like the screenwriter said, "You know, I have this random silly song I wrote that has nothing to do with anything. Is there any way we can squeeze it into this serious anti-war movie? Thanks." hee hee I'll write more about the movie later - lots of good stuff. And it was really fun to see what I remembered. I remembered the first scene almost shot by shot. The two cops talking to someone, you can't see who it is ... they're trying to figure out the person's name ... the person is not speaking ... then one of the cops steps back, and it's Stockwell, aged 12, sitting there - completely bald. I so remember that from when I was a kid. It scared me. Why is he so bald?? etc. Totally remember that.

All Dean Stockwell stuff here

Steam pipe

Horrible. God. In one moment, it's like 6 years have not passed. You never forget. It's muscle memory. I was 2 blocks away, walking west on 41st - towards my bus home - when I felt the ground rumble - this horrible sensation - truly sickening, a lurch - and suddenly there was an explosion. I didn't see it - but I felt it in my eardrums - and I looked east and saw towers of black smoke pouring up from the street. And then I was running, as fast as I could- west - away from the smoke. Everyone was running. I've seen the pictures now - of the flipped cars and shit - and am just grateful I was 2 blocks away, and not 1 block. It was horrible. by the time I got home, rattled and shaken up - I hung out at the deli across the street watching the news with a crowd of neighbors, a couple of whom had stories like mine- and at that point nobody had died. It said only 12 people injured - and having seen that blast - I was amazed that nobody died. It looked so apocalyptic. Now I read that one person has died. Bah. It's awful.

"He used to be a big shot."

Great still from a great scene.

I think it's one of the best death scenes ever filmed, at least in the top 5 - and if you've seen it - you'll know why. It's a long drawn-out run - all one take - almost balletic - Cagney running and tripping and swooning up and down the steps - it's incredible. Not just the shot itself - but his athleticism, his control of how his body moves, his ability to fling himself into the reality of the moment. It never fails to stun me.

Peter Bogdonavich interviewed James Cagney, hung out with him a couple of times and had this to say about Cagney and death scenes:

One of the guests asked how he had developed his habit of physically drawn-out death scenes, probably the best coming at the conclusion of The Roaring Twenties, where he runs (in one long continuous shot) along an entire city block, and halfway up, then halfway down, the stairs in front of a church before finally sprawling dead onto them. In answer, Cagney described a Frank Buck documentary he'd once seen, in which the hunter was forced to kill a giant gorilla. The animal died in a slow, "amazed way," Cagney said, which gave him the inspiration, and which he played out for us in a few riveting moments of mime.

The animal died in a slow amazed way.

Wow.

Hair and also Dean Stockwell

I think I got the best haircut I've ever had last night. I can't stop staring at myself. She is a genius. A genius.

I came home, made a late dinner, lit some incense, and watched Kim, a movie I have not seen since I was 8 years old. I have to say - it has "dated" very well. It's wonderful! Errol Flynn is ridiculous, campy, and kinda perfect, he makes it all look so easy - leaping on his horse, stroking his beard, thinking and scheming - and Dean Stockwell, age 14, carries the entire movie on his small shoulders. He's in almost every scene, but he shows no wear and tear. He knows what he is doing at all times. He is a complete and total natural. He has to be a street urchin, a fighter, a cunning and conniving operator, a precocious social animal (winking and leering at the pretty Indian lady he is sent to give a message to), a lost little boy - he has to fight, and cry, and do all kinds of physical stuff too - climbing, jumping, hanging upside down - it's all him. He's funny, sweet, a little bit intimidating (like the Artful Dodger would be intimidating if you met him and tried to talk to him as though he were a normal little boy) - he's sad, he's illiterate, he's brave, he can be unscrupulous, and he has deep love in his heart for the Holy Man. He also has flowery language at times, not normal kid speech. It's a lot for a kid to do. He's fantastic. And it's uncanny - you never catch him "acting". He does not ham. I can't think of a hammy moment in his whole career. His talent guides him to what is true, natural, and ultimately right. He was kind of a phenom as a child actor, in that regard.

But more than that, the movie is so much fun! I loved it when I was a kid, and it still is fun to watch.

Oh, and I remember reading once in some interview - it was in the last couple of years - Stockwell was asked, "Who taught you about sex?" (Ah, nothing like a nice personal question to start out the morning.) And Stockwell replied "I did a movie with Errol Flynn when I was 14. I got quite an education."

Their rapport in the film feels genuine. They feel like equals. Co-conspirators.

If you haven't seen Kim, I highly recommend it. It'd be fun for kids, too. I remember loving it when I was a tato-tot.

All Stockwell stuff here

Happy birthday, Clifford Odets!

Clifford Odets (playwright in the 30s and 40s - inspiration to Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, a generation of playwrights - and he inspires still although some of his plays have dated badly) kept a journal throughout his tumultuous life.

One year of that journal has been published - 1940 - and the title of the book is "The Time is Ripe". It's a classic. Practically required reading for those of us in the theatre, but chock-full of stuff that would be interesting and illuminating to anyone. Marvelous first-person document.

A couple biographical notes:

Clifford Odets was catapulted into fame in the early 30s with his play Waiting for Lefty. He became a resident playwright with the influential Group Theatre - and they put on many of his plays - which are now considered classics: Awake and Sing, Paradise Lost, Golden Boy - just to name a few. His work is very much of a time and place - although the writing is good enough for ALL times. But his plays all have "the Great Depression" as an extra character. Without understanding that context, his plays may seem ... trite, or small, or naive. His theme is how the individual man can maintain his dignity, his human worth, in the middle of a capitalist society. He has written lines like, "Is life written on dollar bills?" WORTH has nothing to do with money ... but when you have no money, it sure as shit is difficult to remember that. His plays in the 30s insist upon human dignity, but also (like in Golden Boy) insist on the fact that there is compromise, and tragedy. This is where he can seem, to modern eyes, a bit naive - but it is essential to place him in his context.

But what remains (for me anyway) is not so much the thematic elements, the snapshot of urban life in the 30s - but the language. Odets' language!! It's raw, it's poetic, and it's not realistic. It's street poetry.

We got the blues, Babe -- the 1935 blues. I'm talkin' this way 'cause I love you. If I didn't, I wouldn't care ...

Or

You won't forget me to your dyin' day -- I was the first guy. Part of your insides. You won't forget. I wrote my name on you -- indelible ink!

Or this, from the same scene = I love this line:

So I made a mistake. For Chris' sake, don't act like the Queen of Romania!

Or

Yes, yes, the whole thing funnels up in me like a fever. My head'll bust a vein!

Or

A sleeping clam at the bottom of the ocean, but I'll wake you up. I'm through with the little wars: no more hacking, making a pound in a good day. Like old man Pike says, every man for himself nowadays, and when you're in a jungle you look out for the wild life. I put on my Chinese good luck ring and I'm out to get mine. You're the first stop!

And then this famous exchange from Golden Boy, immortalized in millions of acting classes across the country:

JOE. What did he ever do for you?

LORNA. [with sudden verve] Would you like to know? He loved me in a world of enemies, of stags and bulls! ... And I loved him for that. He picked me up in Friskin's hotel on 39th Street. I was nine weeks behind in rent. I hadn't hit the gutter yet, but I was near. He washed my face and combed my hair. He stiffened the space between my shoulder blades. Misery reached out to misery --

JOE. And now you're dead.

LORNA. [lashing out] I don't know what the hell you're talking about!

JOE. Yes, you do ...

Harold Clurman wrote about Odets:

Odets wrote some of the finest love scenes to be found in American drama. An all-enveloping warmth, love in its broadest sense, is a constant in all Odets' writing, the very root of his talent. IT is there in tumultuous harangues, in his denunciations and his murmurs. It is by turns hot and tender. Sometimes it sounds in whimpers. It is present as much in the scenes between grandfather and granson in Awake as in those of Joe and Lorna in Golden Boy. It is touchingly wry in Rocket. This explains why these scenes are chosen by so many actors for auditions and classwork.

The Group Theatre lasted almost a decade - from 1931 to 1940.

The Time is Ripe describes the year of the Group's demise. Night Music, Odets' latest play (which I ADORE - it is very difficult to find, and never produced anymore - my dad found it for me in the library and Xeroxed me a copy - Great play.) - was a huge flop. This was devastating for Odets - the critics were very cruel. They had built Odets up - and man, they loved tearing him down.

The play was a huge flop, and the theatre ensemble folded.

All members scattered to the 4 winds - John Garfield, Franchot Tone, Frances Farmer, Morris Carnovsky, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan - and yet they were forever linked, they forever had a relationship with one another - because of their experiences in the 1930s.

In honor of his birthday, I've posted a bunch of excerpts from his journal below. (Oh - and welcome House Next Door readers! Thanks for the link, Keith - and LOVE the Awake and Sing poster you found!) Some are funny, some are thought-provoking, some are lyrical - he is at the height of his powers here. He is about to go into his long decline - which is sad, because he has such fire and energy here. In 1944, he made his directorial debut with None but the Lonely Heart - starring Cary Grant. This was the second part Grant was nominated for an Oscar for - mainly because of the big crying scene at the end. (The fact that Grant would not be nominated - then or now - for his performance in His Girl Friday - is just indicative of how silly those awards can be!!) He and Grant were friends until the very end - and Odets had a particularly sad end. The guy had a long way to fall, and boy, did he fall. Grant would lend him money, or go and sit with him and talk and laugh and try to help his friend. None but the Lonely Heart is obviously Odets-ian - the themes, the compromises (it's always about choosing money or love, choosing money or humanity) - but what's really interesting about it is how great it LOOKS. The MOOD of the movie is really the reason to see it. It has an almost Fritz Lang-ish feel to it, eerie, melancholy, big empty urban streets, the alienation of urban life made manifest in the dark cobblestones - it's a great looking movie.

But now, in honor of his birthday, some excerpts from his journal from 1940. Obviously Clifford was all about Beethoven. Beethoven, and thoughts on FORM. Great stuff.

January 21, 1940

I am growing uneasy -- a new play is coming on. For me, this creative uneasiness excuses everything. Otherwise my inability to follow up assumed personal responsibilities would be another strong item to make my life unhappier than it is. Everything-for-the work is practically the only way I can feel and think -- notice that I put the word feel before think. Right now, these days and weeks, I am very clear in my relationships with the theatre, friends and intimates, almost the world. And that clarity of relationship is the prime necessity for doing good work.

Loneliness -- the business of living alone -- seems to have one of two results for a man. Either it makes him excessively romantic; or it makes him sour and bitter. Sometimes, however, there is a curious blending of both, a tart personality emerging, a sort of eccentric. In fact, all three results add up to an eccentric.

January 23, 1940

The period of courtship, in any matter, gets to be a shorter and shorter affair with me. This is because I am getting shorter and shorter on self-delusion. Let us get to the heart of the matter, I feel, and let us get there quickly and put things on a working basis. I am anxious for results and impatient, unfortunately, with the steps which lead up to