Taking the heat

Ah, summer!

Today was one of the first really sweaty days of the summer. Which is fine, these things come and go. You just have to make sure you stay hydrated. Probably run the fan some, too.

Of course insects are more active during the summer as well. There are bitey bugs, which you avoid as much as you can, but you probably can't completely. And there are noisy bugs. Beetles (to say nothing of Beatles) tend to make a lot of background noise at night. So if you want to stay focused on a task, it's good to play some music to cover them up. If you're like me, at any rate.

Bad moon rising

So I borrowed the latest season of Fargo from the library. It just aired last year, so the DVD has to be pretty new. Nonetheless, a couple of discs already seem to have sustained some damage. Noticeable chunks of the penultimate episode are gone. Since DVDs are software, once they sustain damage, it's basically impossible to fix. That's what you lose when you move away from analog technology: the chance to fiddle with something until it's right again.

Ah, but the series itself, leaving aside those parts I haven't been able to see, is excellent. I lean toward saying it outdoes the first two seasons. I saw Wonder Woman last year so I knew David Thewlis could play a good villain, but he's really, really threatening in this with only the leavening agent of being kind of funny. Carrie Coon is also excellent as she represents the forces of good. So, I'm glad not to have to be disappointed.

Siblings and partners

It's pretty big news that these dudes are playing and recording together again. Dave, at least, has been through a few wringers. As has Ray, but that's old news. The fact that there might be some lingering bad blood between Dave and Mick sounds about right, although I don't know what it's about.

As for the other Mick, Ray reveals the reunion springs at least partly from competition with the still-touring, highly profitable Rolling Stones. Which, honestly, I could have guessed.

Grooming decisions

Once in a while I decide to try growing a beard. Well, growing one again. I had one for a few weeks in college.

It tends not to last long. Facial hair is itchy in that middle period. Then you wonder if it's going to be high maintenance when it grows out.

Anyway, this one, still in its early stages, is probably going away tomorrow. It might have stood a better chance if we weren't getting into summer.

The domestic situation

Cultural works from the past carry the attitudes of the past. Sometimes this can be jarring. Different people have different levels of tolerance for this. But you also often find nuances if you look for them.

From my childhood I remember hearing stories about Fu Manchu, Sax Rohmer's Burmese mad scientist and conqueror, although the name sounds more Chinese. Manchu was most definitely a Yellow Peril villain of the sort the West has always projected. And yet the British Rohmer also regarded the character with a kind of admiration.

In most cases the mystery novels of Ellery Queen don't produce that much generational shock. The Scarlet Letters is something of an exception. Ellery and his secretary Nikki Porter find themselves in the middle of a domestic situation. The husband is a mostly failed writer Ellery has met before. The wife, a friend of Nikki's, is an heiress and theatrical producer. He's crazy jealous. She gives him some reason to be. He's followed her, assaulted men he's seen her with, and her.

Both the mystery writer hero and his secretary raise the possibility that maybe she should just leave, but relent when she asks them to help save her marriage. From a contemporary perspective he's an abuser and she should get far away from him. And yet the resulting novel is more interesting than the woman on the run melodrama that would probably get published today. There's substance to it, a dynamic.

Film stocking

HEAT WAVE from Jason Cooper on Vimeo.

I feel fortunate that thus far this year I haven't experienced heat as extreme as this is supposed to be. But then, technically, summer is just starting now.

This young filmmaker has an infectiously goofy sense of humor. Perhaps the first time we see Sock Cop will be far from the last time.

Hawking

As I was reminded today, it's really hard to take being near someone who's okay with spitting on the sidewalk. Because if they do it once, odds are they'll do it again. And you're reminded that other people do this too. Until you start to wonder what part of the street it's okay to stand on, leave your bag, etc.

Of course, as with the guy I saw at the bus stop today, the odds are pretty good they'll be doing 20 other obnoxious things too.

Get a room!

Recently watched Don't Bother to Knock. It's a 1952 thriller in which a shy and fragile woman is hired to babysit a little girl in her parents' hotel room while the father is getting some kind of newspaper award. Then she turns out to be nuts and dangerous. This is a good one for a few reasons:
1. In what has to be considered a pretty high-quality cast in general (Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft, Elisha Cook Jr., etc) Marilyn Monroe is a standout as the babysitter. Monroe was a more internalized actress than she was generally given credit for at the time, and I suspect her background in the foster care system helped inform her performance here.
2. There's a pretty bold jazz soundtrack by Lionel Newman, one of Randy's uncles. Bancroft's character sings several songs as well, and either he or whoever she was lipsyncing to had a good set of pipes.
3. Aside from the girls' parents attending the newspaper banquet, the action never leaves the hotel. It uses that setting to the fullest, setting up a varied dynamic between the major and minor characters who work there. Nothing is wasted.
The movie also has a sharp sense of humor about itself. From a certain point of view it's a comedy.

Hear that train a-rumblin'

So yes, I've been reading this book edited by Marshall Berman and Brian Berger, New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg. Partly for research, partly just because it interests me. The novelist and memoirist Jim Knipfel has a great essay on his experiences riding the subway. He has a funny observiation

(In fact, I've often suggested that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority - the corrupt and ill-managed agency responsible for keeping the whole system running - should use Walter Hill's 1979 low-budget street-gang fantasy The Warriors as a public relations tool. No other film in recent memory more loudly sings the praises of the near-Germanic efficiency and reliability of the New York subways. Whenever you want a train, the film promises, there'll be one waiting for you.)

I remember The Warriors, and I always thought of it as a science fiction movie, although no one else seemed to consider it one. It's about one of the most heavily populated cities in the world, but the gangs never run into shopkeepers or winos. Just other gangs. Oh, and there's a foxy black chick spinning records at a radio station. So are these people the only ones who were immune to radioactive fallout? Did aliens scoop up 90% of the city but left all the old-looking teenagers? What?

About buildings and food

I've been reading a book about New York and how it's changed since the blackouts and other things that happened in the city. More about that later, perhaps. But one of the changes, of course, is that so many of the kind of people who made the city what it is are being priced out. So this project certainly strikes me as interesting, and could perhaps provide a needed countertrend.

Providing housing for the formerly homeless isn't an easy task, though. Obviously money and rent are an issue, which maybe hopefully this modular housing can help resolve. But there's also the fact that a lot of people don't want to live with the homeless, or the obviously poor. You can factor in the fact that there are irritating people in any group, but I think a lot of Americans think the poor are immoral and so their suffering is God's will. That's at least a common interpretation of a lot of Protestant doctrine. So the HPD really needs to commit themselves to being firm.

Emptied out

So yeah, this.

I passed by the location of the old Cable Car the other day and took a look inside. Not much to see. The counter where they served food and beverages is still there, for now. That's just until they can haul it away.

As my friend Gary says, RISD's kicking them out doesn't make sense. Nothing is likely to have the same draw, so do they think they'll be making more money?

Of course I also wonder why they never applied to be a historic site. Seems like they would have qualified.

Huh. Huh.

This evening while waiting for a bus I saw a kid - under 25, maybe a lot under - wearing a The The t-shirt. Which surprised me in a way that seeing young folks wearing Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin gear. I mean, The The never really broke through to the mainstream. But I respect those who go deep, so here's to 'em.

Skins

I saw a guy on the bus today with a leopard print walking cane. Needless to say I approve. It might be a medical necessity for you to have support when you're walking. No reason you can't have something that expresses your personality.

Of course one actually covered in leopard skin would be going a little far, but it would be so high-maintenance I doubt many get sold.

In the air

Today was cool, continuing a trend from yesterday. Not cool as in "Joe Cool." There's enough chill in the air that I checked the radiator when I got home to see if the heat had kicked on. It didn't quite go that far, although there was one night in late May when it came on for at least a few seconds.

Anyway, it won't be a night of tossing and turning and sweating. Well, not because of the heat, at least.

Façade

Here's something fun if you're in the mood for it, which I admit I probably am more than the average person. Selections from Edith Sitwell's Façade, with their original musical setting by William Walton, and read by Sitwell herself and English opera singer Peter Pears. Sitwell was inspired, here and elsewhere, by music hall comedy. The poems are playful bordering on goofy, and their delivery matches. Walton gets into the spirit as well, his backing sounding like he's setting nursery rhymes. He would have made a great composer for the cartoon studios.