If you want to see a “performance” by an actor right up there with Daniel Day-Lewis in TWBB, rent “M” by Fritz Lang, starring Peter Lorre. Watch the last ten minutes of screen time in which he breaks down portraying a pedophile. He was a student of Freud’s for awhile, Mr. Lowenstein. A great actor like Day-Lewis, although consigned to character roles for much of his career. Memorable in “The Maltese Falcon” and “Casablanca.” Rarely did he ever give a bad performance. Like Edward G. Robinson, he grabbed you by the lapels. . .The days of the character actors are long since gone — Thomas Mitchell, Edward Arnold, Thelma Ritter, et al.
Movies have always been a part of my inner self. In the late 40s and all through the 50s I went to the movies almost once or twice a month. In those days you saw two flics, the A picture and the B picture. Often, as I look back, the B pictures were to become classics — Welles’ “Touch of Evil,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Thing,” “Forbidden Planet,” etc. By the end of the year, I may have seen 24 to 30 films on the big screen where the impact is always greatest. And when TV came into our culture, Saturday mornings were spent with Hopalog Cassidy, Ken and Kermit Maynard, Buck Jones, Gabby hayes, Bob Steele, Buster Crabbe, as well as those wonderful Art Deco Flash Gordon serials which were marvelous. Years later I began to write about the movies of my childhood and I was published in movie papers, especially Classic Images. Recently while surfing I came across a book by Sam Rubin, editor of Classic Images, and sure enough there was a listing in the 80s of two or three articles I had submitted to him. That was a kick in the pants. By the by, the best book that I ever read on the movies was by Manny Farber, “Negative Space,” bubble gum wise and crackling with New York City smarts and prose. One of the classic B movies of the 50s was Jimmy Cagney in “White Heat.” It really was an A movie all the way. Cagney, in a jail cafeteria scene, literally tears apart the film. Magnificent. So I was breast fed cinema milk during a time and place that only used the word movies.
By the way, the best candy at that time was jujy fruit, jujubes, and Goldenberg’s peanut chews. The best gum was not Bazooka — too sweet, but Dubble Bubble. And the best yo yo was Duncan, not Cheerio.
I am always intrigued by what bubbles up in mind when I have nothing to write but knowing there is always something.I really use this blog to write to myself because I have long realized that surfers seem to have little time to comment; I chalk that up to Americana, at this time in our culture. I blog to sustain a continuous conversation with myself — to express myself as clearly to me as possible. I have decided not to pay attention — not that I ever did — to what you, dear reader, need or want. I write to pleasure myself. Given that “bold” statement, I will continue. I will now proceed to bite the hand that feeds me.
I have observed that some bloggers should not be blogging or representing themselves as reviewers. Many of them are readers, not reviewers. I find it particularly dismaying to find that there is some kind of bias to books of short stories, as if a short story doesn’t have weight or little plot or not much to munch upon. The expectations for stories are too grand at times and often not appreciated as much as an art form in itself. I learned how to write within the confines of a short story. Less is more. Readers complain about short stories that are plotless, as if that hasn’t existed for decades. Often I want to shout at these “readers” to discover Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio,” Joyce’s, “Dubliners,” Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles,” Harlan Ellison’s, “I Have No Mouth And I Want to Scream,” Salinger’s “Nine Short Stories,” Poe and Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck and all the other wonderful writers down to Prioulx’s, “Brokeback Mountain.” Often these bloggers are into “giveaways” and “challenges” to see who can read the most books in a certain amount of time. I came across a blogger today who listed 1,024 pages read. Oh, I see. The appalling emptiness is beyond repair. At least Don Quixote read his tales of chivalry and became blinded to reality. These dunderheads just collect books for bragging rights. It reminds me of the Gilded Age and right now with the super rich who build libraries to display their books. We are a people of glut.
I go about my business, writing, trying to make inroads into myself. What a ridiculous occupation it is to write for marketing, selling, but what a wonderful time it is to write for one self without the exigencies of ambition, greed and money. I just want to get by, and what is sad and stifling about the culture I am in is that my existence is aggravating to some. I have to stay the course as everything about me tells me that I am blowing in the wind. Sometimes I look at people who I bump into or engage ever so slightly and realize I am really dealing with Macy Day balloons . . . It must be brutally difficult to raise children now. (The concept of play has died.)
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