I saw PILLOW TALK in large theater down the street and I was the only one. It seems like I am wasting energy to do this, but I have a hunch they would play it to a totally empty theater. What if someone came in fifteen minutes late. It would be better to be fifteen minutes into the movie than start it late and screw up the later shows. I have seen this film many times but I don't think it was on a big screen. Or perhaps my parents, who didn't pay much attention to such things, would have let me go. If I went it would have been with my friend, Karen. We would have gotten quite dressed up and took the bus and subway to downtown Philly and seen it at one of the movie palaces that were still in business in 1960. We would have had lunch down there too. I don't know if I would have let my eleven year old daughter make such a trip. And an old man in an alley once exposed himself to us. Anyway, this viewing was far less glamorous. Movies like PILLOW TALK formed my view on what adult life would be like. I have heard Megan say in interviews that movies starring Jean Harlow and Jimmy Cagney formed hers. So her view of adult life was all about night clubs and mine was about flirtation.
Enjoying THE LAST OF US, ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL, SHRINKING, and POKERFACE. SHRINKING isn't great but Harrison Ford and some of the other supporting cast are. Not quite the right fit for Jason Segal.
Finished THE SOLOIST, which I enjoyed very much. It is nice to swept away by a novel. It doesn't happen that often, but it is happening again with ITALIAN SHOES by Henning Mankell. This is not a crime story. I didn't know he wrote mainstream novels, but I will look for more.
We have had two sunny days in a row and that really does pick up my spirits. How nice it must be to live in a place where it is sunny most of the time. Don't take it for granted.
How about you?
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With temperatures in the 40s--and 50s predicted for the end of the week--the weather in Western NY seems more like April than February. Today will be another sunny day. We're entirely snow-free which is weird for this time of year here.
The Super Bowl provided a close game and plenty of suspense at the end. Billions of dollars changed hands in all the betting around this event.
Five Library books arrived so I'm busy trying to get them read. All of them have holds on them so they can't be renewed.
Diane and I have tickets for the ANT-MAN AND WASP movie at our sold-out AMC Theater on Thursday. Stay safe!
I like this spring like weather.
I'm also watching Poker Face and The Last of Us. Watched the Super Bowl with a group of about ten people. Good game but the half time show was awful. I think the wanted to see how many dancers they could fit in a football stadium. Plus Rihanna lip synced the entire show. Not that I care much for her music to begin with.
Reading Expect Me Tomorrow by Christopher Priest. He's one of my favorite sf writers. His books are on the literary side of the genre. This one takes on climate change. Also reading stories from Joyce Carol Oates Extenuating Circumstances-crime and suspense stories from 1964 to 1998.
Watched The Jungle on Hulu, a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe about backpackers in Bolivia.
It was better than I expected.
So, for the first time in weeks I just posted a comment without saving it and now it's gone.
Jeff's comment may be gone here, but in an alternate universe thousands are amazed by his wit and erudition, As it should be.
Yes, it is a beautiful day especially. The bright sun and no wind made walking a pleasure. Sorry, Jeff. I have never understood what makes that happen. I went on Facebook last night and all of my friends were gone and it was filled with ads about housekeeping products. Is that my punishment for not watching the game except for the last ten minutes? When I reloaded it and saw Steve talking about the game, I was relieved. Maybe that happens, Jerry. It seems like most books seem to think it.
What Jerry said. I certainly am not going to go through all that again.
First off, let me clearly state that I was not the old man exposing himself in that Philadelphia alley in 1960. I've never done anything like that, honest. Besides, I'm pretty sure I have an unbreakable alibi for that time.
Now, on to my great achievement of the week -- I missed the Superbowl! -- the game, the half-time show, all the commercials, the whole works. And I'm proud of it. I've watched one Superbowl in my life, and that was 1969's Superbowl III. Alcohol was involved back then.
Spent the first part of the week beginnning to plan Kitty's memorial service, to be held in Massachusetts on July 17th (coincidentally, my mother's birthday; that's just how the scheduling with the church and everyone's work schedules worked out). Then I spent the weekend trying to decipher a mountain of medical bills -- most from doctors I do not know, and giving no dates of service, or even the type of service provided. I found a number of the bills had been paid twice; others had discrepencies in the amount charged and the amount the insurance covered. It will probably take months to get everything straightened out. **shiver**
My cousin's son died unexpectedly last week. He was 44 and leaves a 15-year-old son. Then I found out one of my cousins had died in December of Covid. Add to that another cousin (just two weeks younger than me) died unexpectedly about a month and a half ago. Shortly after Kitty died, a close cousin of hers lost her son unexpectedly. It's not been a good year. To top everything off, it's been cold and rainy. On the bright side of things, my back pain cleared up and I can actually walk again. (Take the small wins when you can, Jerry.)
Watched the forgettable Tom Holland-Mark Wahlberg flick. When I say forgettable, I can't even remember the name. It was a caper/thriller/adventure/comedy/quasi-buddy flick -- a bit enjoyable, if I remember properly.
Finished Neil Gaiman's ADVENTURES IN THE DREAM TRADE, the best part being a web log detailing his efforts in getting AMERICAN GODS published and promoted; that took up over half the book. MY FFB was the old space opera TRIPLANTARY by E. E. Smith; I'm currently reading the second book in the series. Read Ray Bradbury's NOW AND FOREVER, a collection of two novellas. I find Bradbury easy to take in small doses. Also read Lawrence Block's HIT PARADE, a collection of stories bout his hitman Keller disguising as a novel. Block is always worthwhile. Read the first three volumes (containing the first sory arc) of James Tynion IV's graphic novel SOMETHING IS KILLING THE CHILDREN; the monsters here are monstrous but not as bad as the secret group that is chasing them.
Enjoy your week, Patti.
I am lucky with medical bills. The plan that I pay quite a bit for every month, pays everything (so Far) and maybe not if the Republicans get a hold of it.
Sorry again, Jeff. Can't imagine how frustrating that must be.
Well, Patti, I know in the mediocre old days of actual celluloid prints, I attended at least two screenings...one of SMOKE (1995) and one of SO CLOSE (2002), that wouldn't've been run if not for, respectively, my sister and I (she was a few minutes late) showing up for it, and Alice and I doing so...the only time I didn't have any problem with Alice's tendency to ask questions during a film in a theater, not only because of our being the sole audience but because most of that Hong Kong film was subtitled...today's all-electronic projection is probably more electricity-efficient, and not wearing out any prints.
My first formative vision of what adult life was like would've been through reading, and to some extent the adventures of the teachers in ROOM 222, and the like. I did see THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK as broadcast at a young age, and that stuck with me, as well. By the time I was 10yo ('74-'75), M*A*S*H and THE BOB NEWHART SHOW and BARNEY MILLER might've given me about as much input about adult life as a/v presentations would offer, along with the likes of 12 ANGRY MEN; a bit later, the Eunice sketches on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW reminded me of my extended families.
Our Verizon internet is choosing to be intermittent at the moment. Sending this along now, so as to see if it's Up...
Only saw as much of the football as flipping over two times to tell Alice the score (as she played viseogames), after she got back home from visiting with friends where she watch the first hour or so, required. Did note as reporting the final what a poor job both teams' defense must have put up, given the high scores.
Was watching THE LAST OF US and the last episode of DEEP STATE at those points, and can recommend both, even if LAST is perhaps a bit too neatly episodic and DEEP reaches for improbabilities as convenient, as it tells its over-arching story of those with power doing everything they can to maintain and further it. The operatives having rather belated This Far And No Farther consciences seemed a bit improbable, but not Too much so, throughout. Chose not to watch the depressing-seeming crime documentary series on Showtime and MGM+ last night.
Did get a solid start on fully indexing THE WAYS WE LIVE NOW, Raymond Smith's anthology from the first decade of ONTARIO REVIEW, for the FictionMags Index. Review(s) forthcoming.
Not familiar with that anthology. It must have been tough being married to Oates although Megan who knows her through a mutual friend, says she is very nice. And they have the time in Detroit in common.
Don't think I have the channel DEEP STATE is on but I will check. Episodic tv can be a bit of relief as POKER FACE has reminded me.
I don't remember seeing Pillow Talk or movies like that when I was younger. I may have seen it on TV at some time, but I only remember seeing it on a DVD some years ago because Glen likes it.
When Glen was a child he used to see a lot of movies when they first came out because his father maintained the systems in the theaters in that area and they got free tickets to openings. Ben Hur, Spartacus, My Fair Lady, The Music Man. The Longest Day. Dr. Zhivago. Lawrence of Arabia. I have always been envious of that because I don't think I ever went to a movie with my family.
I did go downtown with a girlfriend when I was 11 or 12, riding the bus. We took a metropolitan bus to school (and back home) which was halfway between where we lived and downtown, so we were used to it. And her mother and my father worked downtown. Her mother was a single mother (in the 1950s) and the girlfriend was much more independent that I was.
Thanks for reminding me of all that.
My parents never went to the movies although my mother watched a lot on THE LATE SHOW. She especially loved westerns. I went almost every Saturday to a kid's matinee at the Renel Theater in my neighborhood. It was fairly dilapidated but good enough for this. The first run movies played downtown for weeks. Later, the suburban theaters outside Philly seemed to get them earlier as fewer people wanted to go downtown. All of those terrific theaters are gone although the FOX in Detroit was refurbished and now shows lots of stuff-but not movies.
Todd, my late brother in law had a small role in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK, as well as in WHERE'S POPPA? and (a little bigger role) PUTNEY SWOPE. I remember when my sister first got involved with Buddy that she was shocked how excited my brother and I were, as big SWOPE fans.
I know at 10 years of age I was riding the subway alone from Kew Gardens to Union Square in Manhattan to the dentist's office. In those days, you could see out of the first car of the subway, so I always stood at that window. I loved to watch to see if the train was on the express or local track, as what is now the F train (I think) or the E would go to different local stops that the express train didn't even pass, go through a separate tunnel.
That's the kind of nerdy kid I was then.
I gather that Oates and Smith Agreed (you decide to what extent mutually) that he would Not Write (or at seek to have published his) Fiction. Beyond that, am unsure as any outsider of their dynamics.
The review I'm putting together is about two notable little-magazines' best-ofs, and how obscure the volumes have become, despite good work from billboard contributors...and the magazines themselves not being too obscure. First dozen years of OR would be more accurate...they never did another.
Cool, Jeff. Less so his lateness, but hope he was able to act professionally as long as he wanted to.
DEEP STATE was presumably shown here around time of production in 2018-19, though I missed it if so, by formerly Epix now MGM+, and I was able to see it On Demand from their cable library. The two-season series was a Fox UK production, presumably was first offered on Sky.
It may be that DEEP STATE was seen previously only on DirecTV/Audience Network in the US, as was CONDOR before Epix dusted it off and cablecast it.
Todd, he became a director, mostly at San Jose SU, but also in other black theater.
Patti, my mother always loved going to the movies. My father went occasionally, but she often went alone or with friends. In later years, she seemed to go just to go, no matter what was playing. I can remember going with her when we were kids. In fact, I remember her and my grandmother taking me to Radio City Music Hall to see A MAJORITY OF ONE (1961) with Rosalind Russell, a movie definitely not to my taste. Later that year she did take me and my brother to see WEST SIDE STORY, but as I've retold before, we just walked in at random, and it was AFTER THE RUMBLE. We had no idea what was going on, saw the end, then watched the beginning. And she didn't let us see it all, just said, "This is where we came in," and made us leave.
Maybe that's why my attitude is that of Alvy Singer in ANNIE HALL: I have to see a movie FROM THE BEGINNING otherwise I'd rather not go.
For sure, but I rememberhow often people seemed to come and go anytime. Did the newspaper not give times then?
I'm sure they did. It seems crazy to me too. I don't understand it. You'd go to the 6:00 show or the 8:00 show or whatever. Who would go at 7:00? Too weird. I wish I could ask her what she was thinking.
That was famously a tendency in NYC back then...sit in the theater till "this is when we came in" rolled back around. It's a rare film on television, much less one I've paid to look at, where I'd take that tack.
A happier VDay for Michiganders and others than last night in Lansing would encourage. Apparently the self-executing shooter briefly lived in Bear, DE, with one of the conspirators in the Whitmer kidnapping scheme.
Good to know, Jeff, about your b-i-l...did he go professionally by Buddy?
Buddy Butler. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0124847/
Going into a movie after it has started is like reading a book starting at the third chapter. I have to see it from the beginning.
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