Brigham's Blog: January 2009

30 Jan 2009

FRIDAY. This has been a long week, sitting in class...

A reader sent me this link: The Boston Globe added more aerial photos of London at night. These are stunning... I wasn't a big fan of the Canary Wharf area (shown in #17), by the way. We transferred there on the way to the Greenwich Naval Observatory. It's big and modern and smacks very much of the 1980's when it was built. I prefer older and more traditional London: Picadilly Circus, the Tower, St. Paul's, etc.

Now I've got "Padam Padam" by Edith Piaf stuck in my head. Catchy song! But the babelfish translation of the lyrics don't make a lot of sense. I think it's something about a phrase or a sound pounding relentlessly in poor Edith's ears.

I took the ITIL v3 Foundation Certification test yesterday. I think I did well, but I've had that mistaken impression many, many times in engineering school. I won't know for a couple of weeks. These get put into a sealed envelope and sent off somewhere for grading.

The whole ITIL program is interesting. It got started in Great Britain in the 1980's as a remedy to British Information Technology (communications) failures in the Falklands War. Now here we are in 2009, with technologically advanced nations like the U.S. and Japan forging ahead on many fronts, making ever more incredible gains in connectivity when a tweedy English professorial voice from the back of the room interrupts, "Ahem. Excuse me, old chap, but don't you think there are better ways to design and manage your network services? Allow me." And everyone else listens and adopts.

That's kind of what ITIL is all about. A reminder that the British can never be counted out - they'll always have a global role to play in something or another. I once read that the world's hardest thing to stop is an idea whose time has come; perhaps that's what ITIL is.

But then, I have also seen Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR) come and go, too. (They now may be firmly adopted into Dilbert lore, which is a sure indication of death.) In my new position people throw around terms like Deming, Six Sigma and, of course, ITIL. What will stick only time will tell.

I mentioned Dilbert... what a great shtick Scott Adams created back in the Nineties with that! A cartoon lampooning high tech and corporate America - I wish I had thought of it. A few years ago I used to have a Dilbert desk calendar. I got rid of it when my workplace became so badly managed the world of Dilbert and my work life frequently began to collide. For instance, in Dilbert a character whose name was Griffin was introduced... his role at work was to create a bottleneck for getting anything done. This appeared at the very same time a highly-placed manager named Griffin appeared at work - and yes, he, too, was a bottleneck. As it was unsettling to see my workplace frustrations depicted so exactly in cartoons I didn't get any more Dilbert calendars after that. My wife got me the Old Farmer's Almanac desk calendar for Christmas...

Saw a quasi-semi-demi film noir starring a favorite femme fatale Lizabeth Scott last night, "The Company She Keeps" (1951); this one had fellow noir femme fatale Jane Greer in it. Didn't like it. Scott played a women's parole officer - it wasn't her kind of role at all. But the film did have some entertaining women-in-prison sequences. I always get a kick out of those in old films... cigarettes hanging out of mouths, calling each other "Sister" - heh.

Have a great weekend! My band may or may not be getting together again for a practice session tomorrow morning. I haven't gigged with them since April 2007, I think. My bass skills are very rusty.

29 Jan 2009

I saw the film "Midnight Express" (1978) the other night, a TCM video recording I made. I originally saw 3/4ths of it when it was released theatrically back in 1978 while on a date, but at the point where the protagonist violently beats a Turk and (improbably) bites his tongue off in slo-mo savagery, my date became sickened and left the theater. Okay, I agree that my choice of date movies leaves something to be desired... Anyway, I never got to see how Billy Hays escaped. So now I have. Check that box.

The screenplay is by Oliver Stone, which automatically means that it plays fast and loose with historical truth. (This wikipedia article explains how.) I don't bother with his films for that reason. Anyway, after escaping from prison in 1975, Billy Hays - incredibly - returned in 2007 to hold a press conference to amend the negative implications about Turkey in his book and the subsequent film adaptation.

Everyone seems to hate the Turks: Germans, Greeks, Armenians. But geography makes them a valuable strategic partner of ours. In 2007 Representative Adam Schiff of California's 29th District (which includes my hometown of Burbank) sponsored a resolution in Congress recognizing the Armenian Genocide since Burbank and Glendale now have large Armenian populations. But debate got postponed when the Turks objected.

I'm nearly done with that book I'm reading about Jerry Ellis' hike/pilgrimage to Canterbury. I see he wrote another book about another hike on the route of Sherman's March in 1864. Might want to read that one...

My ITIL training continued yesterday... it's difficult for me to sit and listen to it all day long (ADHD), and this stuff isn't seeming any more obvious or intuitive to me than it did the day before. But then, I've always blanked out with management abstractions... The instructor gave us a sample test, 40 questions. Many of the questions are based on stuff we haven't talked about yet, but said to take it anyway. So I did. He said nobody in his experience has gotten less than ten answers correct and if this were the case, to see him. I got ten right, so at least I'm spared that.

This morning the instructor said we'd have "good, clean fun" with the subject matter presented in this slide. But then, he also admitted that every tee shirt he owns has a Superman logo on it.

My wife got an amazon.com promotional through e-mail the other day ($5 in free music downloads), so, zut alors!, I got 36 Edith Piaf songs for $2. One of them, "Let Trois Cloche" (shouldn't it be "Les Trois Cloche?") came as a surprise. Wasn't this turned into an American hit in the 1950's? Something about - bom, bom, bom - wedding bells in a chapel? I misremember.

28 Jan 2009

A reader wrote asking to see some photos of my crown molding work. Very well: Photo One, Photo Two, Photo Three, Photo Four, Photo Five. Not too bad, huh? You get a sense of how high up I had to get on the ladder to place the pieces above that brass rubbing. And you can see my new eyeball lights. Now there's plenty of lit wall space for more posters and images.

I got that brass rubbing at a yard sale, by the way. It's big - it measures 2'8" across by 6' tall. There's a note on the back: "Hand-rubbed by Cathy Van Killeck from a 15th C. (1452) Flemish brass of Sir Martin van der Cappelle (Martin de Visch) at the Cathedral of St. Sauveur in the city of Brugge, Belgium, 1971." The lady wanted $100 for it - I offered $50. She asked, "Is it going to a place where it will be appreciated?" and I said emphatically yes - I love the Middle Ages. Sale!

One more comment about crown molding and I'll quit: a church friend of mine, a nearly perfect sixty year-old man who is the Alpha and Omega of home improvement and repairs (ain't nuthin' he ain't done), said, "Crown molding is an overrated amenity that wives seem to love." Amen and amen!

I just got finished watching the worst Twilight Zone episode ever, The Bard. Bad premise, lame humor and man, did it ever drrraaaagg. The last of the hour long episodes, thank goodness. Okay, Rod, you made your point about over-cautious TV ad executives. Now get back to writing good stories.

That ITIL class I'm taking is pretty rough going as it is extremely obtuse and jargon heavy. For instance, here's one of the pop quizzes:

Which of the following statements are correct about functions?

1.) They provide structure and stability to organizations.
2.) They are self-contained units with their own cross-functional coordination and control.
3.) They rely on processes for cross-functional coordination and control.
4.) They are costlier to implement compared to processes.

a. 1, 2 and 3 only.
b. 1, 2 and 4 only.
c. All of the above.
d. None of the above.

And the correct answer? Answer a, of course. (Don't ask me to explain. This was a real head-scratcher.)

Another eight hours of it tomorrow. But I don't mean to sound ungrateful, no. I need to know this stuff for my new job. And I haven't been on training since 1998, when I became a supervisor.

And yes, Julie London was indeed the middle-aged babe on "Emergency!" At the time she was producer Jack Webb's ex-wife. Bobby Troup, her jazz musician husband, played a doctor on the show. Pretty cozy.

27 Jan 2009

I finished the crown molding in the staircase, figuring out a tricky solution to a place where the wall is crooked. That's it - no more. I'm moving on to some other home improvement activities now. What have I learned? Molding is a pain even when the walls are all straight, but the best way to do it is via the coping method.

I am now reading "Walking to Canterbury" by Jerry Ellis. It's about an American walking the "Pilgrim's Path" from London to St. Thomas a Becket's shrine at Canterbury; the very same thing Geoffrey Chaucer recounts in his "Canterbury Tales."

I think I am the only Engineering major at BYU to ever get an English Lit minor, and to do so I had to memorize 100 lines of Chaucer's work - in the original Middle English. It remains one of the coolest things I have ever done in college. (A close second is fabricating a VLSI silicon wafer full of op amps, some of which worked.) I memorized the first 100 lines of the General Prologue for my assignment: "Whan that aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of march hath perced to the roote..." I even got the pronunciation right (because I learned it by repeatedly listening to a spoken word album).

One of my wife's all-time favorite films is about Canterbury: "A Canterbury Tale" (1944) by British filmmakers (Michael) Powell and (Emeric) Pressburger. It's a gentle and satisfying tale about people serving in England during World War II making their way to Canterbury for various reasons. None of them expect miracles, but minor ones do occur.

I like just about everything Powell and pressburger produced, but my favorite film by them is an odd little story about a convent of nuns going scrammy in the Himalayas, "Black Narcissus" (1947). I saw it late one night with my Dad when I was about fourteen and have never forgotten it. I saw many good films that way, up late Saturday night with Dad, watching re-runs. How I would love to do that again! The next best thing would be to do that with my kids, but they, alas!, are all in Utah, far away.

I've finished watching all the Season Four Twilight Zone episodes; those were the hour-long ones. Most viewers claim they drag a bit, and I agree. TZ's ideal format was a half-hour. Set up the plot, develop it a bit and Pow! the interesting conclusion. But there were some good stories, such was the overall quality of the writing and direction of the series. One I liked was "Passage on the Lady Ann," mainly because of the stellar acting from two old-time British actors.

And... and... no more. I'm tired. Too much ladder climbing!

26 Jan 2009

Monday... this week at work I attend training for three days. The subject is ITIL, which is much in vogue these days in the Information Technology world. I'll reserve my opinion as to whether or not it's a new flavor of the same old snake oil until I've become more familiar with it.

Have I ever shared my admiration of Julie London, the finest torch singer ever, with you? Call me a middle-aged guy with middle-aged taste if you wish, but they don't make 'em like this no more:

Cry Me a River
Bye Bye Blackbird (ultra cool bass; I love the last note)
Fly Me to the Moon

Dad had a bunch of her albums; once again, the old man's taste was impeccable.

And try this one out: Go Slow. Puts Madonna, J-Lo and every other modern diva firmly into the wannabe category.

Round Midnight is smack dab in film noir territory, and yet, Julie didn't do many noirs. (She played a teenage temptress in the excellent "The Red House," but her other noir, "Crime Against Joe," was pretty lackluster.) A pity.

I put up some more crown molding over the weekend; I am definitely getting better at this. Except for one crookedly uneven wall I have to deal with, it went up easily and looks great!

I also finished the classical music lectures, which ended with the music of Arnold Schöenberg, a composer more respected and studied than listened to, I think. In his career he wrote much atonal (no key signatures) music that usually strikes people as being austere and emotionally cold. I'm familiar with a few of his works, but I can't say I listen to them very often.

(Schöenberg was very German; after all, he had an umlaut in his name, right there over the "o." We shouldn't be too impressed, however - after all, an umlaut is just a colon that got drunk and fell over.)

He's the fellow who invented the method of composing with twelve tones - which is responsible for much boring, ugly music. Like all intellectual fads this caught on for awhile - even Igor Stravinsky wrote some dodecaphonically composed music - but given audience dislike and indifference, it became passe.

Would you like to hear some Schöenberg? Sure you would. Here's a song from his "Pierrot Lunaire," one of his more accessible works (believe it or not): Enthauptung (Beheadings). Aw, go on... it's only a minute. You might like it.

23 Jan 2009

Friday! I love 'em even when the workweek is only three days long!

Yesterday I mentioned Ilya Repin's famous painting "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey." So. What is amusing them so much? Wikipedia has an entry on what it is they're writing - here. I spent four years in the Marines and thought I had a fairly broad knowledge of Ermeyesque vulgarity, but, clearly, the Cossacks can teach me a thing or two.

Is this historical or apocryphal? Probably apocryphal. Another apocryphal story is that lovable old "Uncle Joe" Stalin ("One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic") had a reproduction of Repin's painting in his study, and used to stand in front of it to recite the letter by heart for visitors. When you consider that Repin spent a full thirteen years working on this canvas, it is clear that the tale has great appeal to the Russian heart.

Perhaps the corporate American equivalent is that over-photocopied image of the mouse extending his middle finger at the approaching hawk, "The last gesture of defiance."

Watching the classical music lectures about 20th century music puts me in mind of just how much intellectual energy was expended on the notion of nuclear holocaust - and how many classical pieces written after 1945 dwell on it or are influenced by it in some way.

But wait! Maybe they weren't! It was never clear to me whether I was reading a listener's critical analysis or the composer's real intent. Ralph Vaughn-Williams wrote a symphony (the Sixth) that depicts a post nuclear war emotional landscape - or at least that how it's usually interpreted. But R-V himself put an end to the speculation when he said that the closest expression to what he intended was from Shakespeare: "We are such stuff/As dreams are made on; and our little life/Is rounded with a sleep."

And as I'm going through old episodes of the Twilight Zone it appears that global nuclear destruction was practically a given as far as the screenwriters were concerned. Nowadays it's a cliche. But it still agitates people. Witness this gloomy essay written in response to a movement in Mahler's Ninth. (This guy must be a real fun conversationalist.)

But onto less weighty things than nuclear annihilation. Last night's lecture was about a favorite composer, Claude Debussy. The prof analyzed a favorite piece of mine, Les Nuages (the clouds) from his Three Nocturnes. I bought an Lp of it when I was but seventeen and have loved the work ever since.

Now, I know as well as anyone that a nocturne is meant to portray something at night, or, in general, be "night music." But for some reason I totally blew by the title and always imagined that this depicted big, white fluffy clouds during the day over some wheaty field in France. So now I'll train myself to imagine something different when I hear it.

I learned that this music features pentatonic chords (black keys on the piano), one of Debussy's tonal tricks to keep from sounding German. I used to sit at a piano and play chord clusters using only the black keys and wondered why it reminded me of French impressionist music - now I know. Debussy often avoided major-minor, tonic-dominant chord structures to give his music an unresolved and dreamy feel - which makes him sound totally different than anyone else. (Especially those, like Brahms, who wrote in the Viennese tradition.)

And now, onto beer. That's always a popular topic, isn't it? This from a friend in Richmond - a fellow rugby player and member of the League of Creative Rugby E-mail Writers: "Sorry for this second intrusion on your workday but I must confess I overlooked a historical fact that trumps any other on this day in history - in 1935 canned beer made its debut. In Richmond, Gottfried Krueger Brewing sold some 2,000 cans of Krueger's Finest and Krueger's Cream Ale and 91% of drinkers approved of it. Canned Beer was born and Richmond became a known as a great test market: Remember Miller "Clear?" How about Miller "Reserve?" Anyway read more about Krueger and canned beer here.

And with that I'll close. Have a great weekend! (I think more crown molding installation is in my immediate future...)

22 Jan 2009

I'm nearing the end of that 36 hour long videotape series on "How to Listen to Great Music" I started back in December. It's been great and I'm learning a lot. The other day I watched the lecture about late 19th C. Russian National Music - since I like Rimsky-Korsakov I especially enjoyed this one. The prof read from an 1886 letter of Tchaikovsky, who wrote, "I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard!" Ha!

One nit, however: He pronounces (Modest Petrovich) Mussorgsky with the "g"; but it's silent. How do I know? I read a biography about him when I was a teen and learned that it's properly pronounced without the "g" - MuSORRsky. I hear that mistake on the radio every now and then, too.

Another nit: The prof said, "All you need to know about Russian opera is Mussorgsky, Mussorgsky and Mussorgsky," which unfairly discriminates against Rimsky-Korsakov, I think. (Ask any Russian - they love R-K.)

Way back when I took piano lessons I put a little framed picture of Mussorgsky on it to give me inspiration. It didn't work. My dad once asked me who it was, and I grandly pronounced, "Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky." Dad said, "Oh, so he was modest, was he?"

Not really. He was a notorious drunkard. The famous Russian painter Ilya Repin (see image above) visited him on his death bed and painted a famous and telling portrait. Check out that nose. Reminds me of a Napoleonic soldier's song, "The Owl":

Of all the brave birds that ever I see
The owl is the fairest in her degree
Alone the day long she sits in a tree
And when the night comes, away flies she
To wit, to will, to her drink on
A knave to be
This song is well sung
I'll make you a vow
And here's a knave who drinketh now
Nose, nose, nose, nose
And who gave thee that jolly red nose?
Cinnamon and ginger, nutmeg and clove
And that gave thee that jolly red nose.

Ilya Repin, who painted scenes from Russian history, was cool. You can't read many books about Russian history without bumping into a work or two by him. My favorite is an interesting study of Ivan the Terrible after murdering his son in an uncontrolled fit of anger, here. Isn't it amazing how we're drawn to the Tsar's eyes? Repin also painted a scene with the catchy title "Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey." The faces are truly wonderful...

I finished Branagh's Hamlet last night. Didn't like it. I discussed why with a friend yesterday, and his opinion was that while he respects Branagh's capabilities as a Shakespearean, it may be that he's over familiar with the material and no longer respects it. That could be it. We both agreed that we don't like Branagh's occasional mugging and teenage behavior while he recites his lines. (There's some of this in Hamlet, and it was just plain weird.)

But, for me, the biggest objection with Branagh is his casting of Hollywood types. Thank goodness Branagh didn't live during the Rat Pack era, or we'd have a Hamlet with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop. I can see them on the Tonight Show sofa, cigarettes and drinks in hand...

Johnny Carson: I hear you're doing Hamlet with Ken Branagh. How's that coming along?
Sammy: Groovy. Ken is the sweetest cat in Hollywood, baby.
Dino: To be or not to be.
Sinatra: ...and Shirley MacLaine is Ophelia. Nice Charleys.
(They all laugh, Ed McMahon yells "(wheeze) Heigh-ohh!" and Dino surreptitiously taps his cigarette ashes into Davis' cup.)

Brrr.

And no, I have no plans to watch the Mel Gibson Hamlet.

21 Jan 2009

More home improvement: At my wife's behest I spent a good part of the day yesterday installing eyeball lights in our high-ceilinged stairwell. This required mucking around in the attic sucking in insulation as I tried to find electrical lines to power said eyeball lights. I counted myself fortunate in that I didn't come crashing through the ceiling; big as I am I managed to stay perched on the joists like an enormous pigeon.

My bride announced herself pleased with the results. Generally speaking, if she's pleased, so am I. However the lights, and the shadows they cast, highlight every nail pop and drywall joint in the wall, which I find annoying.

But we now have more lit display space for new pictures we can hang... we have always been enthusiastic picture framers. When we were poor newlyweds we bought stuff for the walls in lieu of furniture; to me a wall looks naked without pictures. (In fact I have 29 pictures hanging up in my office.)

Later on in the week I'll be atop a high ladder installing crown molding in the stairwell.

I finally cracked a rung on Madeleine's wooden six-foot Ladder-O-Death this past weekend. (I inherited this rickety thing from my mother.) I'll be very happy to replace it with a stouter aluminum or fibreglass model the next time I need it - so I cheat death once again!

Between attic sessions I also visited an interesting new attraction with my wife: Fairfax County's nearby new arts center, converted from the Lorton reformatory workhouse - the website is here. Browsing through the galleries, we happened by the studio of Sean Donlon, whom we chatted with. He's an interesting young man who seems to take at least partial inspiration from noirish cityscapes. (His business card.) My wife and I were both struck by how young he is - bear in mind it takes a juried competition to get into the workhouse.

I was also interested in Donlon's use of a stenciled image of a person who looks somewhat like a laughing Monopoly guy who appears often in his work, and asked about it. Turns out it's a cartoon self-image of his great-grandfather, named Barlog. Sean suggested I look him up. I did... he's Ferdinand Barlog, a German cartoonist. German art is so cool...

We also came across the workshop of Patricia McMahon Rice, an uncommonly good local portrait painter. Every portrait we saw by her was not only technically excellent, but communicated personality. She was also adept at depicting light striking human skin - very impressive. We wished that we knew about her - and had the money for commissions - when our kids were little. But wait - she's probably young and wasn't doing portraits when our kids were little...

I'm still wading through Branagh's film adaptation of the full-text Hamlet. The question of whether or not Hamlet and Ophelia had sex (as shown in this film) is still bothering me. The wikipedia entry for Ophelia has this: "The 1996 Kenneth Branagh film depicts Ophelia and Hamlet as lovers, however this is not indicated in the original play in which there are several references to her claimed virginity. Yet during her madness, Ophelia makes many sexual comments and sings a bawdy Valentine song that includes the line, 'quoth she, before you tumbled [had sex with] me, you promised me to wed.'" So I guess the matter is up to the reader.

The color palette of the film - whites and light blues - is irksome; it makes all the characters seem washed out. Also, I greatly dislike Branagh's practice of fading in background music to all of the well-known passages. It's like Branagh is saying, "Okay, pay attention - this is a famous passage." And Billy Crystal and Robin Williams have parts in this. This casting doesn't really serve Shakespeare - but it serves Crystal and Williams.

This production, like his "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993), which I disliked, is leading me to believe that as far as Shakespeare is concerned, Kenneth Branagh is over-reaching.

Got to go.

19 Jan 2009

Happy Martin Luther King Day! I have the day off, but have some time in the morning before I do errands - hence this blog entry.

Yesterday I installed crown molding in the small closet (now a computer room) next to the room that I finished earlier this month; this time I did it not by the coping method, but by making straight mitre cuts, just to try it that way. I guess now I'm just showing off. Anyway, the coping method is better - it's easier to do much better corner joints that way. So that's the method I recommend. When finished I had some ugly 1/16th and 1/8th inch gaps in the corners. But not to worry... I just filled it with caulk and it looks fine. It illustrates the adage I heard from a contractor friend at church: "Caulk and paint make a carpenter what he ain't."

Over the weekend I was in a home where I saw the results of a fourth way of doing crown molding: pre-cut corners installed with straight sections butted into it. The problem there was that the seam between the straight sections and the prefab corners was all too apparent, and that didn't look good, either. So... the coping method. That's the way I endorse.

One last crown molding comment and I'll quit: At church I talked to a contractor who told me he once walked into a room where he saw that not only was the crown molding installed upside down, but flat against the wall! Haw!

Today I look at eyeball lights, to be installed in the high stairwell of my house. My question: Can they be installed from the attic down? I can barely reach the ceiling but can easily get to the space above in the attic. An interesting engineering challenge.

The other night in my videotaped concert lecture series the prof went over 19th century program music, that is, music with some non-musical connotation (like a musical depiction of a thunderstorm, or Romeo and Juliet - that sort of thing). He played the famous funeral march from Mahler's 1st, 3rd movement and asked, "What does this music depict?" I knew, but only because I got to like the work back when I was a teen. The music is a sort of slowed down, minor key version of the tune we know as "Frere Jacques" (Mahler knew it as "Bruder Martin") with some odd bits thrown in.

It depicts a scene from a book of nursery rhymes that Mahler remembered from his childhood, Mortiz von Schwind's woodcut, "The Hunter's Funeral Procession." The music is solemn with bits of cheerfulness and celebration thrown in, which makes perfect sense if you look at the woodcut. Are these animals really grieving? Of course not.

One person on the Internet claims this work is "vegan." Yeah, okay.

I watched the first hour of Kenneth Branagh's full-text "Hamlet" (1996) last night. As it's four hours long I intent to watch it in segments - I'm too ADHD to sit through the whole thing at one sitting. Besides - I'm not a big fan of the Branagh Shakespeare adaptations (with the exception of "Henry V"). The casting is annoying. I get the impression that he posts a notice on a bulletin board somewhere in Hollywood, "Hey, I'm doing another Shakespeare film, wanna be in it? - Ken" and everybody in their cousin winds up in it, whether deservedly or not. Jack Lemmon is a guard in this one, good grief.

Also... at one point Ophelia is talking to her father and flashbacks to scenes of Hamlet and Ophelia having sex is shown. Hang on... did Shakespeare intend that? A case of questionable artistic license at the very least, I think.

I'll try to reserve my opinion to the end, but my favorite filmed Hamlet is the 1948 one with Laurence Olivier, despite its (Freudian) flaws. Let's see if Branagh's version changes my mind in the next three hours.

16 Jan 2009

Geez, the celebs are dropping like flies lately. Add to the list Ricardo Montalban. You know, KHHHHAAAAAANNNNNNNN! (As the camera swings up into space, suggesting that people above the Genesis Planet can hear the sound of William Shatner's voice.) I loved that part.

Robot Chicken: Two Kirks, a Khan and a Pizza Place.

Ahem, where was I? Oh, yeah, Montalban. Thanks to an SCTV skit I can do a good imitation of him. Jessss... Soft CorRINthian leather...

Back in 1979, when my wife worked at an L.A. radio station placing ads, that Chrysler Cordoba spot featuring Montalban used to run frequently. One time she got a phone call from an irate Spanish speaker: "Why do they pronounce it Cor-DOH-ba? It should be pronounced COR-doba, COR-doba, with the accent on the first syllable." All Cari could say was, in effect, "Sorry lady - we don't produce the ads, we only run 'em."

By the way, the music in that ad? A (bad) rearrangement of a passage from Manuel de Falla's "Nights in the Gardens of Spain." And about that celebrated leather... presumably from Corinth, Greece... Montalban was once asked by David Letterman (I think it was), what was so special about Corinthian leather. His answer was funny: (Waving a hand dismissively) "It doesn't really exist! It means nothing!"

Back to the Star Trek II movie: Another reason why it was notable, other than for Shatner's celebrated scream, was for Montalban's pecs. According to movie director Nick Meyer and William Shatner, Montalban was a fitness fanatic and that those were really his and not latex. One of the great imponderables of modern society.

I have to give the man credit, however. He was excellent in two little-known films noir: "Mystery Street" (1950) and especially "Border Incident" (1949). He really could act and was a magnetic presence in those films. It's kind of like watching Andy Griffith in "A Face in the Crowd" (1957) - you watch it and realize with a start, "Hey - he can really act. He was great!"

Dying celebs: My mother used to have a theory that movie stars seem to die in groups of three. It seems to be accurate, but it's probably a case of make the data fit the theory rather than the other way around. So, Patrick McGoohan, Ricardo Montalban - who's next?

Last night I watched another superior British film (TCM was doing a run on Graham Greene adaptations, which I taped): "The Fallen Idol" (1948).

The film my son would much rather see, however, is the new Wolverine movie. I see he fought in the Civil War, and was a Yank. But Logan seems more of a Reb to me... maybe Sabertooth was a Reb.

Four day weekend coming up for Federal employees, so I may or may not be blogging Monday and Tuesday. My wife and I are going to go look for wooden flooring - that's my next carpentry project. Have a great weekend!

15 Jan 2009

I saw another totally first-rate British film last night, "Brighton Rock" (1947), a Brit noir. I'd review it for you, but I find that Jamie Russell has already said it all. I have always known Richard Attenborough as a director; I didn't know he could act so well.

Here's a news item that caught my interest: Women Can Smell a Man's Sexual Intentions. The research methodology was interesting. Executive summary for males: Be cautious of what odors you are emitting! Females not only have ears which can hear the paint dry, they have noses that can detect what you're thinking!

A sadder news item: Patrick McGoohan dead at age 80. Aw, crap. I have always liked "The Prisoner." I used to watch it when it was first run on American television, in 1967. It had a great premise for a show about spies: You're a spy and have resigned out of disgust with something your agency has done. Why? The audience never learns. (We're told in one episode that it was a matter of conscience.) You're gassed in your apartment and wake up in a surreal village, and quickly learn that there are residents and wardens. Your name is replaced with a number - you are Number Six (the audience never learns your real name) - and Number Two wants to know why you've resigned. But who runs the village? Your side or the other side? The final episodes are way over the top in a theatre of the absurd sort of way - and the final scenes leave us wondering if we aren't all prisoners in jails of our own making.

For the time it was an unusually literate show, with themes about liberty and bondage and the role of the individual and society (sometimes the individual vs. society). The brainchild of Patrick McGoohan, who was the show's star, at the show's introduction the press was treated to a celebrated conference where they were escorted to McGoohan's presence (he was located in a jail cell). McGoohan then yelled questions at the press rather than answer questions directly.

The series was filmed in an unusual-looking resort village in Wales - Portmeirion - which I hope to visit someday.

I am now reading an interesting book, recommended by a person at work. Modesty forbids me from naming it here. But here's the amazon.com entry. I normally don't bother with books about corporate management, but this one has the novelty of a funny title and approach. I would write at length about how this book is immensely relevant to my present working life, but my legal counsel (the brother-in-law of the person who called the book to my attention) suggests I forebear writing about those topics.

Finally, a reader challenged my assertion in my blog entry of the 13th, when I stated how it's rare that there are films I have never heard of. Let me explain.

When I was eleven, my Mom bought a book: Daniel Blum's A Pictorial History of the Talkies. It covers the period from 1929 (the first talkies) to the end of 1959 (BEN-HUR!). This thick book is composed of thousands and thousands of images - production shots and the like. When I was a kid I used to thumb though this endlessly. One time I got sick, and spent two days at home with a fever; I believe I monomaniacally memorized this book. (Especially that there is a topless photo of Hedy Lamarr - Ecstasy, 1933 - on page 120.)

So, for instance, I have never seen a film called "Charlie's Aunt." But I know it stars an actor named Charles Ruggles. Because the photo in my mind's eye shows a man dressed as a woman, I know it's a farce of some kind. Checking the IMDb entry for this 1930 production, I see I am correct. There's another film I have never seen entitled "Thousands Cheer." I know Kathryn Grayson and Gene Kelly are in it, and that it's probably a musical due to the production still. Once again, checking the IMDb I see I am right. If somebody mentions the 1946 film "Till the Clouds Roll By" I know the director was Vincente Minelli. And so on...

It's regrettable that my Mother introduced this book into my life when I was a human sponge, absorbing huge amounts of nonsense, television shows and popular culture. I would much rather forgo knowing that Charles Ruggles starred in "Charley's Aunt" if I could retain, say, the name of Achilles' mother or even a new phone number. Memory these days seems to be a zero sum game - I have to abandon some bit of knowledge in order to store a new one. But, alas!, I know a lot about films due to the early influence of Blum's pictorial book, and that is why I assert that it's rare for me not to recognize a film title.

14 Jan 2009

Is that my son Ethan attempting to render the second movement from the Maurice Ravel string quartet on the banjo he got for Christmas? Indeed it is. This sort of odd stylistic conjunction is probably a case of the apple not falling far from the tree. I'm proud of that boy! Actually, this particular adaptation makes some sense - the second movement theme is played pizzicato and has the same sort of spiky tonality that a banjo produces.

And it wouldn't be the first time a classical work has surfaced in an odd setting. There used to be a cool Canadian-produced TV Western called "Bordertown" (the border in question being between the U.S. and Canada) that featured a theme from a Sibelius symphony played on a twangy guitar. It sounded just fine and was, in fact, catchy. I used to tune in just to hear the title sequence. It only lasted three seasons. All the TV shows I like get canceled quickly or don't last long: Coronet Blue, Square Pegs, Nero Wolfe, Mike Hammer, Camp Runamuck... I got a kick out of one comment about Mike Hammer: "In this show, when a girl entered the room, she was preceded by a yard of her own breast. Nothing like it on TV, before or since."

Fire Meets Desire - Here's an image that will haunt you while you try to sleep. I do believe that this particular ad agency is actively trying to creep people out.

Joshua Bell played in a D.C. Metro station for free and I wasn't there to hear it?!? Drat! Drat! Anyway, here's Bell playing the achingly beautiful main theme from "The Red Violin."

Residents are leaving California... and for good reason. It's too expensive and the place is totally out of control. Southern California was a great place to grow up, but I wouldn't live there again. Neither would my in-laws, who moved out after living there since the 1940's. It ain't the place it used to be.

I saw an absolutely first rate British film last night: "Seven Days to Noon" (1950); London is evacuated when a troubled scientist threatens to set off an atomic bomb near Parliament. Very suspenseful - but what was even cooler was seeing places and sights that I had seen last March, 57 years later.

Man, do I want to visit London again...

Boys will be boys, especially if they're teenagers and have driving licenses. Here are two 1960's stories from my hometown (Burbank, CA) as related by Mike Toon, the friend of the brother of a high school chum: "The Shopping Bag Bet" and "The Quag."

I vividly recall the slippery, slimy green goo Toon talks about the "the Quag." Burbank is riddled with storm channels and drains, and there used to be one up the street from me which doubled as the Mighty Mississippi. When I was twelve a friend and I mounted an expedition into one to see where it ended.

It was great being a boy... the other night, watching "No Greater Glory" (see yesterday's entry) took me back to a time when every vacant lot, abandoned house or industrial area offered adventure. To this day I still love new places to explore... but nowadays I do it in a car and (often) obey the
No Trespassing signs.

13 Jan 2009

I saw an interesting film last night on Turner Classic Movies: "No Greater Glory" (1934); it was a first run for them. My guess is that this movie has rarely been broadcast on television. Not only have I never seen it, I've never even heard of it - and that doesn't happen very often.

It's the ultimate boyhood dirt clod war movie. Set in Germany during World War I, two rival "armies" - staffed by what look like Little Rascalish ten to twelve year-olds - battle for the use of a vacant lot. The boys ape military structure, protocol, rank, and uniforming to an impressive degree. In fact, they seem to be a good deal more earnest about it than I usually saw in the Marine Corps!

It's supposed to be an anti-war film, but, as one online critic observed, the apparent great fun the boys have during the exuberant battle sequence seriously undermines the message! Yes it's mawkish and the theme is heavy-handed (one kid dies at the end, killed by being up and about when he should be in bed with pneumonia), but I quite enjoyed it. You could easily make the assumption that the film was written and directed by a ten year-old boy, so thoroughly are the values and interests of that age depicted on film. (There are no little girls in the cast - none of that mushy stuff.)

Nowadays the film's primary interest comes from the fact that it was directed by Frank Borzage, a director of note. I have always enjoyed Borzage's somewhat artsy film noir "Moonrise" (1948). Earlier I mentioned that the cast is Little Rascalish - in fact, there's one bonafide Our Ganger in the cast: Donald Haines. Oddly enough, keeping in mind the warlike theme of this movie, Haines was killed in action in World War II.

One last observation: In Erich Maria Remarque's famous "All Quiet on the Western Front," a jaded German veteran, on leave, returns to his school to dress down his teacher about glorifying war and patriotism to children. This film begins with a teacher giving exactly the same sort of speech to a classroom of boys - who earnestly go out and begin a war of their own with their army. Interesting comparison.

What happens in Burbank, California, if the Commies should decide to push the button and rain atomic weapons down on Southern California? They'll get no satisfaction on that account since the populace has been educated about Civil Defense!

The Patriot Microchip.

Also, some Henny Youngmanesque domestic humor a friend sent: "And then the fight started..."

Yesterday at a library sale I found a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories illustrated by Satty (depicted above) for only $1 - cool! This book came out in 1976; I have seen it about and have always wanted it. I'm reading it now. His artistic style is defined by the use of 19th C. steel engravings arranged in a collage, with occasional additions of skulls, artsy topless women and grotesqueries. Two examples: Fall of the House of Usher, MS. Found in a Bottle.

Hey... Edgar Allen Poe... it's time for the Poe Toaster to arrive in the dead of night at Poe's Baltimore grave and lay roses and cognac. (It happens on Poe's birthday, January 19th.) Maybe this year my wife and I will drive up and watch the little ceremony.

Also, I bought Kenneth Branaugh's full-text film adaptation of Hamlet (242 minutes) on VHS for a dollar - double cool!

12 Jan 2009

I finished Stephen King's "The Shining" over the weekend. A real page-turner to be sure, but I was a little surprised at King's telegraphing plot points with his chapter titles ("Halloran Laid Low," "The Explosion"). Sheesh. Now I'm interested in seeing the 1980 Kubrick film adaptation again. Well, mildly interested.

I learned a new word while watching my videotape music prof discuss Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique (we're in 19th C. romantic music): "klangfarben." It means "noise and color" and is applied to music where a sense of chaos is desired. Berlioz uses it in a passage where different instrumental ensembles play each note of a theme. I've known this music ever since I was sixteen, but I have never noticed that before. I can be a dull listener, I guess.

Another technique used in this work is the violins playing col legno, or "with the wood." That is, the strings are bumped with the wooden part of the bow and not the cat gut part. Perhaps the most famous use of this technique is in the "Mars, the Bringer of War" sequence of Gustav Holsts' The Planets. Even if you don't know much classical music, the chances are good that you've heard this. It begins with the violins tapping out the basic rhythm of the section - a martial beat - that is sustained throughout the work. Great brass (like bugle calls) and organ chords are piled on; it's very stirring.

The Symphonie Fantastique, 1830, was the equivalent of a Hollywood Summer blockbuster when it was first performed - a film with lots of "special effects." But more than that, it's a work of lust and psychedelia, which is a decided oddity in classical music. What is truly incredible was that it premiered only three years after the death of Beethoven and so represents a revolutionary advance in musical style and freedom of expression.

Over the weekend I got about 3/4 of the way into doing crown molding in my closet when I realized that I didn't have enough wood after all. So it's on hold. I'm trying this room more or less as an experiment, with the mitre cut technique rather than the coping method. I'm getty cocky, I guess. But, seriously, I would like to be a better carpenter. So nowadays whenever I enter a room I look at the crown molding, if there is any.

This weekend I noticed two crown molding disasters. I went to a off-season yard sale/"estate" sale on Saturday morning and saw an odd thing - for some reason, whomever did the work put a joint in the middle of the room, which came loose and was hanging down! This was odd because the room wasn't eighteen feet wide (the longest length you can buy molding), so there was no need for the joint. Secondly, why put the joint in the most obvious spot in the room, right over the entry to the next room? It looked horrible. And this place is on the market for sale!

The second disaster was a case of the molding in another house I was in being installed upside down! I had to stare at it for a minute before I realized why it didn't look right. So, I take consolation in that as many little mistakes as I may have made when I did it, at least I got that part right.

9 Jan 2009

Kabaddi! Is it a game even more fierce than rugby?

I am now reading and enjoying Stephen King's "The Shining," a Christmas present from my daughter. Reading a novel by Stephen King is like drinking a two litre bottle of Coca-Cola in one sitting; it gives you a buzz, but after the sugar crash you find yourself craving the filet mignon of Shakespeare, the prime rib of Sophocles or the tenderloin of Dante. Or even the cheeseburger of Twain. So to speak.

I saw Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation (which King didn't approve of) when it was in theatrical release in 1980. The audience was great - lots of reaction at the jump shots. But the best reaction of all was a scene where Shelley Duvall - not the prettiest actress in Hollywood - was whining at length at her husband (played famously by Jack Nicholson). It was a close-up, and shot in a rather bluish light. She may or may not have been wearing makeup - as I recall it was a morning scene. You could hear the audience sort of shift in their seats uncomfortably and go, "Ewwwww."

(Note: In fairness to Ms. Duvall, she does "clean up" well. Another. And she is not the plainest actress I have ever seen in a film. That honor goes to the fish-faced Kati Outinen, a frequent star in the films of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki.)

How about French singer/cult figure Edith Piaf? Those paper thin eyebrows... I saw La Vie En Rose (2007) last night, an excellent, excellent film. Marion Cotillard, the French actress who played Paif, was simply incredible. She won the Oscar for Best Actress in the role (image above), and deservedly so.

And as regards looks, Cotilliard ain't bad.

Edith Piaf was a tiny woman (4' 10") with a strong, melodic voice - the French version of Judy "Little Girl With a Big Voice" Garland, I guess. (Or Garland was the American version of Edith Piaf, I'm not sure.)

My constant reader Sherry sent this: "Here's to Ray Dennis Steckler, the independent filmmaker who wrote, starred (as Cash Flagg) and directed influential films including The Thrill Killers, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, and his masterpice The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. A visionary artist whose influnce is clearly seen in contemporary cinema, Steckler was prolific (producing movies from 1963 until last year), economical (his films were self-produced, shot on 16mm film and later Hi-8 video), and brilliant (as clearly evidenced from Creatures, "The First Monster Musical"). It hasn't been widely reported yet, but fans are mourning his passing. He died in his sleep January 7th, aged 70."

See my longer entry for Steckler on the 9 March 2008 entry, here.

I saw both Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and Incredibly Strange Creatures, etc. Steckler was a quirky and off-beat film presence, that's for sure.

That's all for this week. Have a great weekend! There may be some more crown molding in store for me...

8 Jan 2009

I timidly stepped onto the bathroom scale this morning, fearing what I'd see. What I saw was 2.2 pounds less than on the 23rd, which means that I've not only lost my holidays weight but another two pounds as well. Given that Robek's is having a half-price sale through tomorrow, I think I'll get myself another smoothie today to celebrate.

Last night I was sitting in my chair in my living room with my bride, brain inactive, staring around. (I do this sometimes between activities, projects and media.) I happened to glance at the doorbell. How many of you remember that doorbells used to come (perhaps still do) with terminals for a front door button and a side or back door button? Nowadays one might ask, "Why would you need a doorbell on the side or back door? Who's coming in that way?"

Back in the old days and into the Sixties, one's groceries, milk, laundry and whatever were brought to the home by tradesmen, who used the side or back door rather than the front door. Seems odd now in our do-it-yourself age, but that's the way it was.

When I mentioned this to my wife, she said that this was noted in a book she had once read, "More Work for Mother," written by a cranky feminist (I know I'm being redundant) who postulated that the laborsaving devices and procedures developed since the 19th century only really saved work for men - the dreadful patriarchy. Wah, wah, wah.

While we're on the subject of feminism I think I'll relate my pet grammatical peeve. In all the years my kids were going to school in the public education system, I can't say how many times I've seen variations of this case of tortured grammar, from teachers with college degrees, yet: "Your student should bring their whatever to class or on the bus..." etc. This is wrong. "Student" is singular, "their" is plural - they have to match in a sentence. Why this bizarre formulation? Because the writers want to avoid writing "his" (which is traditional) in order to not rile feminists.

Sorry, but there is no gender-neutral possessive form in English, and when "his" is written it's assumed that it's really "his or her," just as the term "mankind" includes females. Back in the 1980's journalists were considering the adoption of "he/she," but that didn't catch on. (Perhaps it sounds too much like a sneeze.) Anyway, feminists understand that if you can influence the language you can influence the agenda - and this tortured grammar is a part of that.

Rant over. Perhaps tomorrow I'll write about the misuse of apostrophes.

My wife and I then drove to the Tyson's Corner mall to knock out a few errands. We stopped into Lenkersdorfers, the jewelry store where I got my Breitling, and noted a display case full of expensive Swiss watches at 25% off. Wow. I never saw that before! I guess this recession is real.

Also saw this at a kiosk: "Give blood, Play soccer." Haw! Yeah, right. Has anyone ever really been injured playing soccer? Those injuries look like lousy acting, to me. By the way, don't bother answering - it isn't going to change my opinion of that sorry game.

I finished "The Warriors" last night - what a disappointing book. The characters weren't fully fleshed out, the plot was unrealistic (see yesterday's blog), some matters were unresolved and the conclusion was unsatisfying. My wife agreed with me that it wasn't a very good novel. I think I'll write up a review for it on amazon.com, give it a poor score and be taken to task by the crowd who gave it five stars. A literary rumble of sorts.

Finally, my son gave me the two DVD limited edition set for "Memento" for Christmas as we're both admirers of the film. Great! So I pop it into the drive and find the most needlessly frustrating and obscure menu structure I have ever encountered in a DVD. Nothing is spelled out directly, such as "Play film," "Features," "Setup," etc. You have to take a bogus psychiatric test in order to proceed to a menu window which, again, looks like a mental test. In other words, you have to play a video game in order to access the material. Whoever thought this up ought to be shot. But don't take my word for it - read the numerous amazon.com one star reviews.

I truly hate being a poor gift recipient, but I mentioned this to my son on the phone and he found it hilarious, and suggested that I return it to a Best Buy. (He works at one while being a student.) I tried that last night - no receipt, no wrapping, no dice. But the clerk at the returns desk was familiar with the DVD and had heard complaints from others about it - which I found somewhat gratifying.

So I think I'm going to mail it to Ethan so he can experience the joyous menu structure... Also, we have a running argument for which is better, DVD or VHS. I claim another point won for VHS in this one. With VHS, there is simply no way a media producer can prevent you from fast forwarding through needless menus, music, animation, ads and other crap to access the actual content. Who has time to dork around with that stuff?

Gotta go.

7 Jan 2009

Last night my wife and I ate at a Five Guys, and an old song by the Kinks came on ("Set Me Free," if you must know). This caused me to wonder: What major British Invasion band who was recording in 1965 (the year "Set Me Free" was released), could reunite today with the original members?

(Did I ever mention that I like British Invasion music? Well, I do.)

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Dave Clark Five, the Zombies, the Pretty Things, the Troggs, the Bee Gees, Freddie and the Dreamers and the Animals - all have had deaths of original members and couldn't now tour with the original line-up.

As near as I can tell there appear to be only four who could: The Kinks (as I suspected), the Hollies, Manfred Mann and the Moody Blues. Rock and Roll offers a tough lifestyle!

On the contrary, classical musicians often live to ripe old ages, and, in contrast to rock songwriters (whose best works are almost always penned when they're young), classical composers' masterpieces are often among the last things they've written.

Conductors often live to advanced ages as well, and I think I know why. Bob Goldberg, the professor who does those concert music videotapes I watch (I am on set 5 of 6), explains that the absolute best location for hearing a symphonic orchestra is on the conductor's stand. There the music congeals and solidifies into a presence he swears you can feel. This must be good for the body, heart, mind and soul. (Well, even listening to it in recorded form has for mine!)

The book I'm reading, "The Warriors" by Sol Yurick, is getting a little hard to believe. There's a passage in it where the gang beats a man, kicks him when down then repeatedly stabs him with a switchblade (passing it around from member to member), killing him - then immediately moves on to gang-rape a woman. These are fourteen and sixteen year-olds, and they apparently have no qualms about it at all. I find this hard to accept.

As bad as J.D.-style violence got in the 1950's, this would be way beyond the norm, at least as far as I've been able to tell from my readings on the subject. Which raises the question, why did the author put it into the book? I can think of a few reasons:

1.) I recall considerable fear about juvenile delinquency back then, some of it bordering on the irrational (it got passed on to me as a little kid); perhaps the fears were getting to the author.

2.) It may have been a case of sick wish-fulfillment on the part of the author.

3.) The book is merely sensationalist trash!

I think #3 is it...

6 Jan 2009

I ate like a (pig, goat - insert favorite animal metaphor here) over the holidays, eating the fattiest foods in as much quantity as I wanted. Fearful of the result, I haven't yet stepped on a scale. I'm giving myself a week back on my calorie-counting regimen first, to shed some holiday weight. The last time I checked I weighed 259 on the morning of the 23rd. I like to stay between 255-260, with 255 being a target maintenance weight. We'll see where I am on the heart attack scale next week...

I found another cool old photo of "Fawkes Folly" from the Good Ol' Days in my hometown (Burbank, California). What's Fawkes' Folly? A monorail a guy named Fawles designed circa 1907 - 1910, only he called it the "Aerial Swallow." The page the describes the venture is here; the new photo is here. From the looks of it, it must have been what my mother called "big doin's" in town that day.

I get a kick out of that exposed propeller - it could shred bystanders as it rolled by. Aerial Grim Reaper, more like.

Still reading the Warriors novel... I'm enjoying it. In fact, I rather prefer it to the movie. Authenticity always appeals to me, and this book seems to be more or less a could-have-happened account of J.D.s. It'll go on my bookshelf alongside Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" and the Irving Shulman novelization of "West Side Story."

Stanley Kubrick's movie adaption of "A Clockwork Orange" came out in 1971, when I was fifteen. For my sixteenth birthday in 1972 my father took me out to see it. At the time it was an X-rated film, and the sex and nudity scenes greatly embarrassed me... I'm not sure what Dad was thinking, but giving in to the whims of a sixteen year-old is not always a great idea.

I liked the movie's music more than the film itself, actually. The score was partly orchestral - Elgar, Rossini and Beethoven - and partly synthesized on a Moog by Walter Carlos. (He is now Wendy Carlos. Click here.)

In general I liked, and still like, purely electronic music, and bought all of Carlos' Moog recordings, most of which were Bach transcriptions. (His "Switched-On Bach" Lp music was ubiquitous during the late Sixties.) A personal favorite Carlos release was a 2-Lp set entitled "Sonic Seasonings." Each album side had a sound/musical representation of a season - I don't think it was a particularly successful Lp in terms of sales, but I listened to it a lot. (Not sure I would nowadays; I'd probably find it somewhat tedious. I actually think my attention span has decreased since I was a kid.)

Interested in his musical techniques, I wrote him a letter, asked some technical questions and got a reply! Sadly, I lost the letter. (Which is odd for me - I normally stick such things in the album jackets, which I keep with the Lps.)

Wendy Carlos has an unusually erudite web page, here. In addition to music, she has an interesting hobby: She chases ecipses of the sun! This sometimes involves getting on a cruise ship which tracks the path of totality across the ocean... obviously, not a hobby for the financially-challenged.

5 Jan 2009

Back to work after twelve days off - ugh. I always hate that particular culture shock.

Some odds and ends I reminded myself to post here:

One: I found this interesting: What single day of the year do you think would produce the most American traffic fatalities? Snopes describes it here.

Two: I took this photo at the World War II National Memorial in D.C. one day a few years back. With a fast enough shutter speed you can freeze water in mid-flight. Pretty cool, huh? It looks like plastic. I think it was taken at 1/2000ths of a second shutter speed.

Three: Did you know that if you are a Virginia resident you are subject to being called up into the Commonweath's unorganized militia until age 55? True. See this wikipedia excerpt from the Virginia Code. Whether this is compulsory or not, I do not know. (I doubt it.) But it reminds me of a funny article my pard Don wrote (as Mal Stylo) about using reenactors as armed forces during time of emergency.

I am now reading "The Warriors" by Sol Yurick, the 1965 novel that inspired the 1979 movie of the same name. It is nothing like the movie. The movie is a visually over the top production set sometime in the future when gang members can paint their faces, wear baseball uniforms and not get universally laughed at. The novel is set in what I'd call Late Period J.D., 1965.

The heyday for juvenile delinquency matter seems to have been 1955-1965, although I know a movie - Teen Age Gang Debs (1967; a guilty favorite) - that is something of a cultural throwback, as is S.E. Hinton's book "The Outsiders" from the same year. In 1966 American teens started turning on to what we now call the 60's drug culture, and in 1970's my generation was involved with something I might call the post 1960's culture, the Me Decade or any other number of labels. By the mid-Seventies disco appeared and... the whole thing went to hell in a hand basket. But I digress.

By the time 1979 came around, the "classic period" J.D. culture was remembered largely through the more or less accurate lens of "West Side Story" and a fractured, culturally schizoid television Happy Days. (If it's the 1950's why does everyone have 1970's hair and mannerisms?) So it stands to reason that a movie production of The Warriors might not be true to the period of the novel. More later as I progress through the chapters.

The Seventies were curious in that a vogue for the 1950's appeared. "Grease" appeared off-Broadway in 1972 and in movie form in 1977. "Happy Days" appeared in 1974, spun off from interest in "American Graffiti" (1973). "The Lord's of Flatbush" appeared in 1974, "The Wanderers" in 1979. Why did this happen? An eighteen year old in 1960 would have been 33 in 1975, an age when people start looking backwards a bit.

(And yes, I know that some of these works were set in the early Sixties. But the early Sixties were culturally the same as the Fifties. Everyone knows the Sixties really begun with the death of JFK and the arrival of the Beatles.)

It's funny: based on that logic I would have expected nostalgia booms for the 1960's in the 1980's, for the 1970's in the 1990's and for the 1980's in the 2000's. But did this happen? Not really. Not as much as the 1950's/1970's boom, anyway.

And... that's all for today.

3 Jan 2009

The molding pro (whom I know from church) came by yesterday morning, showed me a few tricks, lent me a pin gun to help secure outside corners together, and I adopted the coping method. Actually, I refined it using a Dremel tool. What they don't tell you on these online "How to" pages is that the coping has to make almost a knife edge so the pieces don't interfere in the back and join together tightly. The Dremel tool with a sandpaper wheel takes wood off quickly, making it easier than manipulating a coping saw.

After about two hours my pard Chris and I got the molding up - most of the corners look okay - and when my wife (the final judge) came home and saw it, it got the coveted, "Looks fine - terrific!" designation. I'll include a photo after I get it painted.

So there it is: victory. I now have my crown molding home improvement merit badge. I think I'll use the scraps to do the little 4' X 8' closet off the room where the computer is located, just for additional practice.

Next: trying to figure out how the three GFI circuits in the house are wired so I can make the front and back porch outlets active for the first time since we moved here 11 1/2 years ago... the wiring in my 1985 Van Metre home is weird - or perhaps it was the prior homeowners.

2 Jan 2009

Read this. Looks like the Orange County Board of Supervisors is preparing to turn their section of Virginia into Van Nuys. (Van Nuys is the most charmless section of a fairly charmless part of greater Los Angeles: the San Fernando Valley.)

Got to go: the molding pro stops by shortly.

1 Jan 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Yesterday I ate lunch at a place I had heard of and wanted to try, the Globe and Laurel, in Stafford (Virginia). Somebody had told me about it when he learned I was in the Marines; this place was reputed to be a huge Marine Corps gathering spot. Indeed, it is - the decor is remarkable. There are all sorts of USMC stuff on the walls. Check out the ceiling, filled with police force patches. I met the celebrated owner, the Major, and chatted, then presented him with a copy of my autographed Pappy Boyington photo. (Click here for an image. Note that I was blessed by the Pap by name.) As it turns out the Major had once met Boyington and had a memorable night of drinking with him. (Boyington's son unaccountably wound up in the Air Force!)

I also ran over to Smoot Lumber, in Alexandria (Virginia), to buy some more crown molding. (A professional I know from church is going to stop by today and give me tips.) Interesing place - it billed itself as "the oldest lumber yard in America." They had this window on display in the showroom, which I found interesting. It was also interesting to strap eighteen foot lengths of molding onto the roof of my minivan during yesterday's gusty winds. I really lashed it down but it got home okay.

That's it for today. I have to put the Christmas dishes away under the staircase, where they have a home for eleven months out of the year.

Brigham's Blog