Review: Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story (2025)

Posted on January 24, 2025 by sheila

This was delightful. I reviewed for Ebert.

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Music shuffle: The Return

Posted on January 24, 2025 by sheila

To quote the final line of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: I been away a long time.

My last “shuffle” post was in 2022 and I worried about what I would do when “my laptop goes”. Well, it happened just a couple months later.

I “lost” my music collection when my laptop went kaput in 2022. My response would involve a rant about the state of affairs in re: the concept of ownership – which may be the most sinister aspect of the slow-creep tech takeover and also a monologue on the regret I feel that I did not have the foresight to see what was going on. The only music I had left after the laptop crashed was what had been purchased on iTunes, which meant I lost the thousands and thousands of songs I uploaded when I first converted my 100s of CDs, in my permanent collection for decades, and also uploaded all my mp3s, stuff I downloaded from YouTube. In other words: my music collection, curated by me, since I was 13 years old. This was when I gave up ownership and submitted to a landlord. This was my error. I didn’t realize that that was what I was actually doing. BUT. Recently, my friend Allison was here and she had computer problems and called the helpline. She befriended the help-line guy – who spent literally an hour on the phone with her restoring her computer. He became our friend. I then mentioned my issue with music collection having vanished. He said he could take a look. He said my complaint was one of their most common complaints. He said if I backed up my laptop then the music should still be on there. Thankfully I do regular backups. So we then transferred him to MY computer which he then took over and found my music collection – no longer in the “music” folder but in the “media” folder. There it was! All my music. Including the clip of my DAD talking. The songs from my sister, my brother, none of which are on iTunes. My Pat McCurdy collection. Like, the music that really matters to me. I have it back. I was in tears. Thank you, Mark Help-Desk Guy. You live up to your job description.

I am sure this problem will come up again. I want to get everything back into physical form, to avoid the landlord’s noblesse oblige. I only trust physical media now because the tech companies not only do not care but want it to be this way. They want us to give up the sense that we can own anything, and they wanted to position lack-of-ownership as the better way. This is why I have an entire bookshelf filled with DVDs. I’m supposed to trust Netflix? Or Amazon? Trust them to keep The More the Merrier on their streaming platforms? Fool me once, shame on you and etc.

I’ve been having so much fun re-acquainting myself with the music I love. Seriously it’s been bliss in one of the most difficult and stressful and jam-packed seasons of my life (July of 2024 to now. And counting.)

I’ve been listening to music as I do my “day job”. Simple pleasures are sometimes the best. Always, maybe. Simple pleasures are all we’ve got. Shuffling my music collection is a pleasure, not just for the music but because it also connects me to my past, past me’s, when I discovered an artist, what I was doing then, how it made me feel. Dropping into this “mode” is meaningful for me, as a human but also a writer. It shakes things loose, and I like that.

Without further ado:

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“I doubt sometimes whether a quiet and unagitated life would have suited me–yet I sometimes long for it.” — Lord Byron

Posted on January 22, 2025 by sheila

— And who is the best poet, Heron? asked Boland.
— Lord Tennyson, of course, answered Heron.
— O, yes, Lord Tennyson, said Nash. We have all his poetry at home in a book.
At this Stephen forgot the silent vows he had been making and burst out:
— Tennyson a poet! Why, he’s only a rhymester!
— O, get out! said Heron. Everyone knows that Tennyson is the greatest poet.
— And who do you think is the greatest poet? asked Boland, nudging his neighbour.
— Byron, of course, answered Stephen.

— “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, James Joyce

It’s his birthday today.

Here is his epitaph to his dog:

One who possessed beauty without vanity,
strength without insolence,
courage without ferocity,
and all the virtues of man,
without his vices.
This praise would be unmeaning flattery if inscribed over human ashes,
is but a just tribute to the memory of my dog.

“Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, and, as such, is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as a hatter?” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, letter to a friend

More. much more after the jump, about this ultimate Avatar of the Romantics. The archetype, the mold. He was very very 20th-century.

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“The fault that I acknowledge in myself is to have descended to print anything in verse.” — John Donne

Posted on January 22, 2025 by sheila

“So difficult and opaque it is, I am not certain what it is I print.” — first publisher of the work of John Donne

It’s his birthday today.

John Donne (1572-1631) was a poet and an Anglican priest (born a Roman Catholic- to quote Monty Python: “a Catholic the moment Dad came”). A metaphysical poet, language vibrating with honesty and sensuality. His work feels – and is – personal: he questions, he badgers God, he declares himself – separately, as an individual. This particular TONE was not at all in tune with the times. He traveled far and wide as a young man, giving him a less than provincial outlook. He made a bad marriage, incurring the displeasure of powerful people which landed him in prison for a time. He had been on his way to a successful career as a diplomat; all undone by his marriage.

Speaking of “undone”, when he wrote to his wife to tell her the bad news of losing his job, he signed the letter: John Donne. Anne Donne. Un-done.

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“Voices ought not be measured by how pretty they are. Instead they matter only if they convince you that they are telling the truth.” — Sam Cooke

Posted on January 22, 2025 by sheila

It’s his birthday today.

I highly recommend Peter Guralnick’s thoughtful and informative biography of Sam Cooke, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, which gives a good sense of the revolution of his career. Moving from gospel, where he made his name with the Soul Stirrers, into secular music, where he had a tremendous gift for writing memorable catchy tunes (understatement). The number of classic songs he wrote is extraordinary (especially since he died at so young an age.) He was also a pioneer in the realm of producing. He did not want to be an employee of anyone. Very early on, he made his moves towards financial independence. He created a studio and set himself up, producing others’ music took up even more of his time and devotion than his own stunning career. He created a space for fellow black artists to do things on their own terms. What a loss. He died just as the civil rights movement was heating up. His life was cut short (through his own reckless behavior, it’s got to be said), but the loss to the culture is incalculable. However: he made very very good use of his time while he was here.

More after the jump.

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You know what you need to do with that Vichy Water!

Posted on January 21, 2025 by sheila

Captain Renault: Well, Rick, you’re not only a sentimentalist, but you’ve become a patriot.

Rick: It seemed like a good time to start.

Captain Renault: Perhaps you’re right.

Rick is always right!

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Happy Birthday, Leadbelly

Posted on January 20, 2025 by sheila

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From Tennessee Williams’ play Orpheus Descending:

LADY: What’s all that writing on it?

VAL: Autographs of musicians I run into here and there.

LADY: Can I see it?

VAL: Turn on that light above you. [She switches on green-shaded bulb over counter. VAL holds the guitar tenderly between them as if it were a child; his voice is soft, intimate, tender.] See this name? Leadbelly?

LADY: Leadbelly?

VAL: Greatest man ever lived on the twelve-string guitar! Played it so good he broke the stone heart of a Texas governor with it and won himself a pardon out of jail …

Huddie William Ledbetter was born on this day in 1888, in Louisiana. Some of the details are lost to history, but what is known is that he was already “playing out” at the turn of the 20th century, in and around Shreveport. He was in and out of jail starting in the teens, for owning a gun, for killing a relative. One time, he escaped from a chain gang. While in prison, he continued to sing and make music. John and Alan Lomax (whose names come up again and again in the stories of legendary blues figures in the early years of the 20th century) discovered him in prison in the 1930s. The Lomaxes were determined to capture the sound of these so-called forgotten figures, and they put Leadbelly on tape. They may have been instrumental in getting Leadbelly an early release. Alan Lomax interviewed Leadbelly extensively for his 1936 book Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly . (You’ll see his nickname spelled both ways.) As technology developed, these 19th-century blues singers – if they were still around – found a whole new world opening up to them in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Folk music was on the rise. Much of it was watered-down but a lot wasn’t. The past moved into the present. These inspirations along with them, playing folk festivals, making television appearances. (See: Furry Lewis, but there are so many more.) Ledbetter, born on a plantation in 1888, ended up touring Europe. He traveled a long long way.

More after the jump:

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“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.” — Dolly Parton

Posted on January 19, 2025 by sheila

An American original. Born on this day. A living legend. A national treasure. I have too many favorite Dolly Parton songs to list, and I love her stuff with Porter Wagoner. Speaking of which, have you seen the episode of Drunk History where an adorable wasted man describes Dolly’s break with Porter Wagoner? If you haven’t …

He loves her so much! The slam on the table at the end.

More after the jump.

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“I don’t think my books should be in prison libraries.” — Patricia Highsmith, 1966

Posted on January 19, 2025 by sheila

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It’s Patricia Highsmith’s birthday today.

He wouldn’t have killed someone just to save Derwatt Ltd. or even Bernard, Tom supposed. Tom had killed Murchison because Murchison had realized, in the cellar, that he had impersonated Derwatt. Tom had killed Murchison to save himself. And yet, Tom tried to ask himself, had he intended to kill Murchison anyway when they went down to the cellar together? Had he not intended to kill him? Tom simply could not answer that. And did it matter much?

– from Ripley Under Ground, by Patricia Highsmith

“Tom simply could not answer that.” In this one chilling sentence is the key to Patricia Highsmith’s style. There’s nothing else there except what it expresses. It’s as chilly as Johnny Cash’s unforgettable line: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” Unlike Cash’s narrator, Tom Ripley does not kill to see someone die. He kills to survive and keep his true nature concealed. Anyone who is in his way or onto him must go. Tom is almost confused by who he is and why he does what he does. But he’s not worried about it. Above all else, he is logical. The way a lion is logical when it camouflages itself before pouncing on the gazelle.

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“I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.” — Archie Leach

Posted on January 18, 2025 by sheila

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As my friend Mitchell observed:

To this day, people say, “Oh so-and-so’s the new Cary Grant.” Cary Grant was acting in 1930. We’re talking 70 years ago. Almost 80 years ago, and we’re still referring to people as the “new Cary Grant”. Well, guess what, there’s no such thing. If 80 years later, you’re still trying to find someone to be the next so-and-so, there is nobody. It’s only him.

He created the mould for what it means to be a modern male Movie Star. But the mould was so totally in his own shape that nobody else could ever fit into it. They try. And marketing departments try to convince us: “Look. It’s the new Cary Grant.” But it’s the Uncanny Valley. Nobody buys it.

There’s talent, which he had. There’s versatility (ibid.). There’s career and money smarts (ibid. idem.) There’s beauty (ad nauseum, exeunt). He had it all. But what he really had is difficult to talk about or even define: Magic.

All movie stars are not created equal.

Here are some of the things I have written about him over the years:

First up:

1. It was an honor to write the booklet essay for Criterion’s release of Bringing Up Baby. I am particularly fond of the title of the essay: Bringing Up Baby: Bones, Balls, and Butterflies.

2. an enormous essay on one of his best performances in Hitchcock’s Notorious:
The Fat-Headed Guy Full of Pain: Cary Grant in Notorious

3. Mitchell and I discuss Cary Grant. We get INTO IT.
On Cary Grant

4. For Bright Wall/Dark Room:
You Are What You Do: His Girl Friday

5. On Sylvia Scarlett, the extremely strange film that represented Cary Grant’s real “break” although he had been in films for a while:
The Wonderful Weird WTF-ness of Sylvia Scarlett

6. Because of course:
Anatomy of Two Pratfalls: Cary Grant and Elvis Presley

The rest of the stuff I’ve written on Cary Grant can be found here.

P6ToO

 
 
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.

Posted in Actors, On This Day | Tagged | 54 Comments