A Meditation on Valentine's Day

I remember you,

You're the one who made

My dreams come true

A few kisses ago. 

I remember you,
You're the one who said
"I love you, too,"  I do.
Didn't you know?

I remember, too,
A distant bell,

And stars that fell like rain
Out of the blue.

When my life is through,
And the angels ask me to recall
The thrill of them all,

Then I shall tell them
I remember you.

And when my life is through,
And the angels ask me to recall
The thrill of them all,

Then I shall tell them
I remember you.

"I Remember You" was written by Johnny Mercer

Paying the Piper

"The time has come, the walrus said...."

The simple facts of the matter are this: I owe Comcast money. Comcast provides my tv, my phone and my internet. I can not afford to pay up on the schedule they want - it would take me a few more days (next Thursday's paycheck, to be precise) to pay them up to the point they want, and I would immediately have the next month's payment to deal with, and that money needs to go to the landlord.

So, sometime on Sunday Feb. 12th, 2012, or shortly thereafter, they will be disconnecting me.

It's really stupid in the long run. It will take me awhile to pay them off completely, plus all the fees they are inevitably going to charge, plus the monies they will want in advance. They will lose my business, which doesn't mean much to them. I am going to have to get and invest in a cell phone, money which could be going to my bill.

As it is, I pay for tv channels in which I am not interested, and which I do not watch. I have to pay for "levels" of service to get the channels and choices I want. The Comcast people have told me that this having to take a bundle approach is due to legislation passed by the US Congress.

Whatever the story is, unless there is some little miracle along the way, my ability to post, use the internet, and the ability of my family, friends, and workplace to get a hold of me is about to be severely compromised.

If, and when, I can afford to re-up, I won't be going for anything other than basic cable, just the way I wanted to start out. Oh, well, their loss.

The computer I'm currently using doesn't seem to have what it takes to set up a wireless connection - my old computer found one when I booted it up again to copy files off of it. Of course, it barely runs. Funny, I thought when I bought this one that it had a wireless thingy built in, but at the moment it sure doesn't want to be found. Oh, well.

Right now I'm going to go and sulk a bit before I start the long walk to work. I wish the buses ran a little more frequently. But then again, there's a lot of things I wish for these days, and my wishes don't really seem to have much to do with it, or come true.

I'm sure I'll have more to post by Saturday, which is my day off, and the last day on which I can be sure of having an internet connection. Look for a mega post, I guess.

To paraphrase the carpenter, I've had a pleasant run.

Now, even the Dead are dying

George Romero's 1968 movie "Night of the Living Dead" was not properly copyrighted. There used to be lots of bad dupes and third rate extra poor quality videos copies of it out there. Personally, I think that helped  build the movie's reputation. It was like you were seeing something you really shouldn't be seeing, something surreptitiously filmed, something that was - and maybe should be - suppressed. As the years went by, the original negative became available (long story), prints were struck and --- it still played.



Today brought word that Bill Hinzman, known far and wide as the Cemetery Zombie passed away yesterday. He was basically the first new world order screen zombie, of the slow lurching eat your flesh and brains school of zombie-dom.

He was a second cameraman on the shoot when Romero pressed him into service. He later collaborated with Romero on The Crazies, and the 1974 tv documentary O.J. Simpson : The Juice on the Loose.

He directed two low budget horrors, The Majorettes, and Flesh Eater, in which he reprised his role as the Cemetary Zombie. He was 75.

In one of those synchronicity of events thingys, yesterday also saw the passing of Josephine Streiner. She played one of the ghouls on Night of the Living Dead - it was her car that Barbara wreaked trying to get away from Hinzman's Cemetery Zombie; in real life she was the mother of Russell Streiner who produced the movie, and Gary Streiner, who was its sound engineer.

Russ (left) and Gary (right) Streiner

The brothers have asked that those who wish to remember their mother send a contribution to Fix the Chapel, a fund set up to save (and restore) the Evans City, Pa. Chapel used in the filming from destruction. (Gary Streiner is the director of that project.)

Fix the Chapel (a.k.a. Save the Chapel - website)

Save the Chapel Facebook page

At the website, one can even buy t-shirts and hoodies as part of the fundriaser:

Personally, I except both Mr. Hinzman and Ms. Streiner to come lurching towards me, later, tonight, alone, in the dark.... they can never die, now.

Monday today, all day.

If you work in retail, you rarely get weekends.

But one still hates Mondays.

...and that's the kind of day it is shaping up to be.

Found on the web today

Sleepily, from the vaults

There seems to be a change underway. I start nodding off around 8 to 8:30pm these days, waking up once or thrice until I finally go to bed. If I'm not falling asleep, I alternate between feeling overly warm on the verge of sweating (or sweating slightly) and occasional chills. I've put weight on. It's winter and I suppose I'm really seeking to hibernate. There's lots of rational reasons for all of this, from starting work at 6:45am one day, and working afternoon and evening until 8pm or later the next, having to keep the thermometer set high so that my neighbor on the same heating circuit gets enough heat, aging, etc. I now wake up and get up around the time I used to go to bed - well, after a rather successful night anyway. I find it all fairly annoying.

As I go looking for various files whose names I no longer remember (if indeed I ever knew them) I find some things that I'd saved and forgotten. Like the text of the poem, "When I Am Old I Shall Wear Purple". Like the following. It's been on my computer since last May. I just found it again. And maybe it's because I'm starting to yawn and beginning to nod off, but I find myself laughing a little bit as I read it. Maybe Laura sent it to me (but I don't see anything like it in her emails from last May), or maybe I just picked it up somewhere. Whatever.

----------------


TEXTING for the Older crowd


Since more and more over 50's are texting and tweeting there
appears to be a need for a STC (Senior Texting Code). If you
qualify for Senior Discounts this is the code for you.
 
 
ATD: At The Doctor's
 
BFF: Best Friend Fainted
 
BTW: Bring The Wheelchair

BYOT: Bring Your Own Teeth
 
CBM: Covered By Medicare
 
CGU: Can't get up
 
CUATSC: See You At The Senior Center
 
DWI: Driving While Incontinent
 
FWB: Friend With Beta Blockers
 
FWIW: Forgot Where I Was

FYI: Found Your Insulin
 
GGPBL: Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!
 
GHA: Got Heartburn Again
 
HGBM: Had Good Bowel Movement
 
IMHO: Is My Hearing-Aid On?
 
LMDO: Laughing My Dentures Out
 
LOL: Living On Lipitor
 
LWO: Lawrence Welk's On
 
OMMR: On My Massage Recliner
 
OMSG: Oh My! Sorry, Gas.
 
ROFL... CGU: Rolling On The Floor Laughing... And Can't Get Up
 
TTYL: Talk To You Louder
 
WAITT: Who Am I Talking To?

WTFA: Wet The Furniture Again
 
WTP: Where's The Prunes?
 
WWNO: Walker Wheels Need Oil
 
GGLKI: (Gotta Go, Laxative Kicking In)
 
SDO: sorry, dosed off….zzzzz

-------------------------------------------

Over at Austanspace, Laura has written a nice little piece about recent unfortunate trends in horror stories,   films, and characters. The following is for her. Hey, I find it scary....

fin

The flood this time - continued

All in all, I spent over 6 hours yesterday dealing with cleanup from the mini flood in the building's basement. The box of DVDs that was sitting on the floor absorbed enough moisture that the box itself had to be thrown out. But the contents were, by and large, dry. The DVD box for The Chronicles of Narnia pt1 suffered some damage. I'm not sure how that disc even got into my collection - it must have snuck in with some of the review copy DVDs I got when I was running the video store. I've never seen the movie(s). And I guess I should confess that I've never read the books. It's just as well, if I had them, they'd probably have been lost in the flood, too.

Which is my way of noting that I have had several storage places over the years. All of the Vermont ones (with the singular exception of a friend's barn which amusingly enough has holes in the roof) have had water damage to my stuff -damage to the privately printed complete Richard Burton translation of the Arabian Nights was the real heartbreaker. I had my copy since my days running a very big bookstore in New York City, the Bookmasters store across 33rd Street from Madison Square Garden, and across 7th Avenue from the Statler-Hilton Hotel.

The last time I saw that set of books for sale was in Boston in the late 1980s or early 1990s. (I'd get lost in time if I tied to come up with the right year...) and it went for $1,000.00 I think my copy is currently in storage in my friend's barn. I don't remember what all I sold when I first went flat out broke a few years ago. Sigh. Sold all the Edward Gorey books, a lot of the Roman and Greek classics I never got around to reading, the resource materials I had for all that "in a timeline as written" reading that I never got around to (ancient maps, books of architecture and costume, etc.) Ah, well. Semi-retirement's coming.

Oh. That Bookmasters store.

Yes, that's me somewhere around November 1977.
The books and promo materials were delivered in an ambulance.
I have a picture of it around here somewhere. I'll look.

Madison Square Garden was built on the former site of the Pennsylvania Station, NYC's great transit terminal. By my day, the station had been torn down, moved underground and had the Garden built over it. The loss of the old building used to be regarded as one of the great architectural tragedys of the modern world. I never got to see it. I do remember the old Whatchi ma hootziz over on Lexington there, you know , ah ---- Grand Central Station. So, I can sort of suss out from the photos how Penn Station looked and must have felt. Sorta.

These pics from the wonderful Shorpy site give a good idea of the sheer size of the place...

These give a good idea of the atmospherics:

So, that's what used to be across the street from the store. Across the street on he 7th Avenue side was, as I mentioned, the Stater-Hilton Hotel. Which had previously been The Pennsylvania Hotel. Which just celebrated its 93rd Birthday 4 days ago. Inside the Main Entrance, to the left of the lobby, walled off and unused, is a huge old dining room/supper club. The room has two raised wings for a total space of 58 feet by 142 feet. The ceiling is 22 feet high. It used to be the Cafe Rouge. Although its had several uses over the years, including an ignominious turn as a souvenir shop (with the old dance floor showing underneath the worn linoleum), I've read that it's all still there, the fountain and everything.

It was the premier night club in New York City in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Artie Shaw played there. During his engagement in November of 1939, he quit the business there. Benny Goodman played there. Duke Ellington played there. Basie played there. Most of the big bands did. And for about three years at the beginning of the 1940's, it was home base for Glenn Miller and his Orchestra. Miller hired a couple of the unemployed Shaw musicians, including Shaw's main arranger, Jerry Gray. While with Miller, Gray came up with "Pennsylvania 6, 5000", which became a huge Miller hit. It's the hotel's telephone number, said to be the oldest number in continuous use.

There were broadcasts from the Cafe several nights a week, and on weekends there were even broadcasts in the late afternoons - it was also the site of many of Miller's "Sunset Serenades" USO shows. There were also broadcasts from the hotel's cellar club., around the corner and slightly down the side street, the Madhattan Room. For a couple of seasons it was the home base of Benny Goodman from the days when Harry James and Ziggy Elman were in the trumpet section, and  Gene Krupa was the drummer, when Swing was was becoming king.

Over the years, the Hotel fell on hard times, and its once great reputation nearly destroyed. The current owner bought it in 1997 with the intention of demolishing it for a new high rise. A group formed to save it, but their attempts to get landmark status for the building and for the Cafe failed. Last December the owners suddenly changed their minds and say they now intend to renovate it. 

       Fin.

The flood this time

So. I went downstairs to do my laundry. I couldn't help notice that there was water all over the floor in various places. I wasn't going to look, but I had to. Yes, it had hit my storage unit, And it looked like it hit various spots I had previously deemed safe. Even with my back out, I spent a good 45 minutes or so digging to the back. I did, after all, have 16mm film prints sitting on the floor. Thankfully, I had put the prints in metal canisters on the bottom. The lowest can was the final 40 mins of David Copperfield (the one with W.C. Fields as Micawber). The can was soaked. It was so wet, I was surprised that slugs weren't living on it. It took a minute to get the can open. And, praise be, the reel of film itself was absolutely dry. So, I've lost a few empty boxes in which electronic things came, a blanket, the electric mattress pad, the gift wrap bag and all the pretty ribbons, the box of Christmas Cards whose design was a Metropolitan Opera snow scene poster from La Boehme (ouch), and I found a few things I'd been looking for, especially the little plastic box of push pins - yes, I've been too cheap (and broke) to buy more because I knew they were there somewhere. I'm worried about the 16mm projector, it looks like the bottom may have gotten wet. My big 32" tv (in storage only because there isn't enough room for it -and - the Hi Def one that I was given in my room) seems like it's okay - I didn't move it yet, but it doesn't feel wet around its floor space.

Of course, now I want to bring up the electronics, bring up and use the 16mm projector, check the VHS machine once more, maybe I can get it working, etc.

Bringing up and setting up the old amplifier, speakers, and tape deck was a wonderful thing, Now I want to do more, bring up and re-connect the turntable, too. I want to listen to my music again. I want to see my old films again. Basically, I'm delving into stuff I haven't been able to play with for a good number of years. They're from a different, earlier me, part of the detritus we leave behind. And I like the person I'm discovering. He definitely had good taste, at least.

I must get back to it, I left stuff all over the place down there.
And the bottom box of the DVD's looks very wet... (ominous music).

To be continued...
   

The Convergence

And so it begins...

In an Associated Press story on the net this morning, writer Jim Coyle notes:

"Over the next few months, YouTube, Netflix and Hulu will roll out their most ambitious original programming yet - a digital push into a traditional television business that has money, a bevy of stars and a bold attitude of reinvention. The long-predicted collision between Internet video and broadcast television is finally under way."

full article (for as long as the link lasts)

Well, sort of, anyway. Just as Hollywood mogul Adolph Zukor refused to panic during the 1950's audience switch from movies to television (he saw it as the same business and moved the studio into tv production), someone is going to realize that Internet TV is simply another piece of the same money making system. This isn't really a delivery systems battle, which is how it is being cast at the moment. It's the beginning of the long time coming convergence of television and the internet, computers and home electronics, performing arts and libraries, information and entertainment, government and you and me . 

Why do you think  Hollywood pressured its Washington DC funding recipients to create bills like the Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Protect Intellectual Property Act? Those two bills may have been sidelined for now (expect to see them again), but S978, the Commercial Felony Streaming Act is still out there. 

CFSA would make streaming of unauthorized material (read: copyright violations) a felony instead of the current misdemeanor. Meaning all those kids on YouTube singing Motown and other classic songs? Illegal. Jail time. No more getting famous by postings yourself singing, Justin Beiber. Unless of course, you get copyright clearance and pay the royalty. I don't want to exaggerate here for simplicity's sake, you do get to have 9 uploads of streaming video that won't get you into trouble. It's the 10th upload that does it. By that time, you're a proven serial copyright abuser. A Felony.

There are also troublesome re-writes (they use the word "upates") to copyright laws underway. (The rebuttal period for some proposed changes just ended, hearings begin this Spring.)

It's about the money, and it's about the control.

You definitely should click on this one to enlarge it. Just click in the area outside the picture to get back here.

On the money front, once upon a time, Hollywood and the music industry really didn't give a hoot about their older product. Oh, sure, the Hollywood studios would license packages of movies for showing on tv. They chose the movies for each "package", and small tv stations had to accept all the bad titles to get the good ones. When the film distribution companies used this idea for movies in theaters, it was called "block booking" and outlawed as a monopolistic practice by the U.S. Justice Department. It's the technique cable companies use today in their approved monopolies. The film distribution companies (Movie Theatre Chains) were forced by the Dept. of Justice to sell off their Movie Studios which produced the product they distributed. All of this changed again during the Reagan years, thanks to a process which became known as "vertical integration", but that is another story. The point is, Hollywood didn't care about its older product very much.

I know this is true because I got involved in film collecting in the early 1960's, just as I was entering my teen years. (Collecting was the only way to even see most silent movies then.) The films themselves were on a flammable 'nitrate' stock which could also disintegrate, or just deteriorate and give off an odorless poisonous gas. Film Collectors, seeing the losses piling up, banded together to do something about it.  The studios didn't much listen. Finally, an act of Congress created the American Film Institute, whose original mission was preservation of American films, both Hollywood and non (newsreel libraries were being very heavily hit by losses too!, etc).

And still Hollywood wasn't much interested, even in preserving its own classics which they could re-release. My first time seeing Gone With the Wind was in a release which was reformatted for cinemascope. I did not like the movie, and failed to understand what all the fuss was about. (Until I saw it years later at the Elgin Theatre in NYC in a real IB Technicolor print, in its proper frame ratio and I realized what an immense accomplishment it really was. And it played better as a movie, too. Well, at least the first half. ) If it wasn't for the work of film restorers, and the miracles made possible by computers, Gone With the Wind might not exist today in its original form.

And then there was BetaMax. And lo, the Hollywood Business Community was shakeneth to its core. People videotaping movies over the air and watching them for free? Oh, no. No, no. Several of the studios, dollar signs forming on their eyes like characters in 1950's cartoons, brought forth a lawsuit.

While the lawsuit was progressing through the court system, something happened. People started buying video cassettes of movies on both Beta and VHS. Much of what was available were titles in the public domain. Cut to the chase - there was money to be had. Maybe not Big Big Money, but Good money.

Since that time, the studios have been positioning themselves for greater control over everything they own. And what they own now, after the deregulation of the Reagan and Bush years is - a lot. Want to see Casablanca again? Okay. You just have to pay.

Same thing goes for the printed word. Save paper, go digital. (Problem one, digital can be manipulated and changed). Made available for your tablet - for a small fee.

The music industry got in on the act, too. Big time. Depending on where you live, there are laws which make it illegal to play recorded music (any format) as background in a cafe or restaurant. Unless you pay royalties, of course. It was the recording industry that went ape shit bonkers over downloading music from the internet. Remember people going to jail for downloading music?

Of course, if the song, book, movie or tv show you want to watch, read, or listen to is available all is well. But, there are lots of titles that aren't available. It doesn't  matter that the item in question was created as something which would either be sold to, or exhibited to, the public.

Case in point. At the beginning of the AIDS crisis in New York City, an all night movie special was held as a fundraiser at the 8th Street Playhouse. Everything was donated. Every cent would go to the cause. There was one problem. The ad mentioned the movies to be shown, one of which was "This Is the Army", one of those big patriotic flag wavers from WWII which was based on Irving Berlin shows. The film is in the public domain. You can make copies of it, you can sell it, you can watch it anytime you damn well please. What you can't do is show it in public - Irving Berlin owns all of the music, and he (or his lawyers at the time) didn't want the film seen. Berlin didn't care if he got paid. He didn't want the film exhibited publicly. Period. Needless to say,  it was withdrawn from the benefit.

So, imagine how much of our culture, how much literature, movies, and music can and will go missing when all of the delivery systems have merged into one business. That's where this is all headed. When you're born, you'll get your internet user ID along with your social security number and birth certificate. Probably all on a chip. Maybe implanted. Your phone is your tv is your computer or internet access portal. You pay for everything, pretty much the way you do now, except everything is digital. Access goes to those who have money and can pay. Even then, if, say, Justin Beiber were to grow up, own all his own music and decide he didn't want any of it heard or seen in videos ever again, well, you'd be out of luck. Yes, I know that's a bad example. I used it on purpose. 20 years from now, you want to examine his effect in and on the music industry and the public consciousness. Too bad, not allowed.

How long that control might last is currently set at the life of the creator, plus 70 years. Or plus 120 years if it's a corporate authorship.

And it will once again be up to the underground collectors to preserve our cultural heritage.
And possibly knowledge. A few days from now (February) is Library lovers month.
It's not too far fetched to think of a world where libraries are held by rouge collectors.
Stand up for them now, while we still have them.

Quote

Just now, ABC News (this coming political season, I think they're going to push Obama - they're owned by Disney and he'll make a great audio-animatronic) just had an off the cuff interview question to Newt Gingrich, who is supposed to be talking about Mitt Romney:

"How can somebody run a campagin this dishonest and think he's going to have any credibility running for president?"

Pot, Kettle.

A few from The Vaults

While making file folders and organizing various graphics, I felt like it was time to share again...

Here's an old fave from the exploitation movie poster files. (Did I ever mentioned that I worked for Sam Lake back in the late 1970's or so? God, and I'd finally managed to forget that one, too. Shipping porno trailers to states in the American South labelled as "machine parts"! Really, I'm not making this up.) Okay, be here now, from 1961, a.k.a. "V.D."... the story of a high school track star, his girlfriend and the new girl in town...

of course, there was a little something else that became a plot point. Here, from my WPA art files:

(The Works Progress Administration, a Federally funded program which hired artists during the Depression)

Arrruuugggghhh. I can't believe I forgot to post this one on the appropriate date:

and, from the Early Disneyland (and other Amusement Parks and Arcades and that sort of stuff) files, Tomorrowland in 1957!

and finally for today, a reminder that February is Library Lover's Month:

Before going off to work

Another before I go off to work note: Found on the web this morning:

The following would have been posted yesterday, but I just couldn't post it considering the story I was telling. This has got to be one of my favorite headlines of all time. I didn't purchase a copy of the paper back when because I thought the headline pandered to the worst in all of us, and was too far over the top. Now I wish I had it (I still cherish my copy of the New York Times'  "Nixon Resigns" - I kept the whole paper. I used to have the Kennedy assassination, but it went missing over the years, I think my father threw it out.) Anyway, this bizarre story is back in the news because the murderer involved was seeking parole (Charles Dingle's parole was, thankfully, denied.).

Silly observation of the day: doesn't the woman who heads the IMF (International Monetary Fund) look a lot like actress Tilda Swinton (a stevil fave)?

and last, but not least, one of the reasons this country has gotten so fucked up that it actually entertains the notion of Newt Gingrich emerging from his hidey hole and running for president, this from NYC:

Bingham Ray

This morning I became unstuck in time again.

Work today doesn't start until 3:15pm, so I was enjoying a leisurely click through fest of the news , my recent eye problems making it difficult at times to read, when I clicked my way right into the news that Bingham Ray had died.

Bingham was just a few years younger than I am. He was out in Utah where he had just attended a conference and was about to attend the Sundance Film Festival. I called my old friend and something of a mentor in the film business, George Mansour right away. Bingham had had a little stroke and Richie Abramowitz drove him to the hospital. Everything was fine. Until the next day.

These are names from my past, years ago in film distribution in New York City. Bingham managed the Bleecker Street Cinema (after John Pierson, I think...). He became a booker for Walter Reade for awhile, and if I remember correctly, it was Bingham who was responsible for saving a little art deco cinema called the Metro, which was way uptown on Manhattan's West Side (99th Street). It had originally been the Midtown, and was one of those little jewels of the movie theatre biz.

At the time, revival and repertory were all the rage. People had discovered the joys of seeing old movies on big screens again after years of late night showings on television. I've often mentioned that my opinion of John Ford as a director changed completely after seeing his movies on a big screen as opposed to tv.  The movies of that era were thought out in terms of 20+ foot high screens. It would take too long to explain what I mean, so here's a quick, not very good example, a scene from the 1939 "Stagecoach", in the wrong frame ratio to boot.

Kind of impressive looking, eh? Ford liked to film in Monument Valley. Well, click on the image and blow it up until it fills your screen. It's not the same image anymore, is it? Ignore the soft focus, I didn't have time to find a good hi res still. Even the point at which your eyes naturally focus shifts.  Big screen. The Metro had a decent sized screen. It was a joy to see old movies there. They felt at home. It wasn't as big as a screen as at the Regency, the leading revival & repertory house, but I liked the theater a bit better. Bingham and I used to trade potential double bill titles. He was kind enough to run several of them. One (at least, in memory it was my suggestion - after all these years, I wouldn't swear it wasn't his) was my favorite, a pairing of two film noirs, The Big Sleep and In a Lonely Place - now forever known as "Gloria in excelsis" for Gloria Grahame who appeared in each. (I also once ran a theatre bookstore that used to sell her her scripts and sound effects for year yearly summer tour in The Glass Menagerie. We had just gotten one year's materials in when she died.)

Ms. Grahame and Bogart "In a Lonely Place" a story of a washed up Hollywood screenwriter and his neighbor.

His management of the theater was so successful, in an out of the way neighborhood, that it was twinned and turned in to a first run house. It seems to me that he booked the Film Forum for a little while before he moved on into film distribution, but my memory of those years is getting a little fuzzy and takes a while to sort some things out. The Metro was bought and sold, and closed shortly after the nearby Olympia kept a date with a wrecker's ball. It was slated to become a supermarket, but that deal fell through after the exterior was awarded landmark preservation status. Then it was going to be a trendy clothing shop. Then an apartment house. Last I heard, it was still there, sitting idle, most of the interior gone.I believe it is now slated to become a performing arts school. I hope it has survived.

Details from the interior like the following, however, are long gone:

Bingham made quite a name for himself in the world of independent movies, and was co-founder of October Films (still around after being bought and sold several times, now under the name Focus Features). Bingham is one of the people who built the market for, and took the chances on financing, serious art films in this country. For a couple of years, he even headed United Artists, when it was a specialty division of MGM. Some of the movies he championed include Bowling for Columbine. Life is Sweet. Secrets and Lies. Breaking the Waves. The Last Seduction. There are many, many more.

And I'd go on and on if I could, remembering when there were so many theatres where one could go and see art films and old movies and third and fourth runs, the St. Marks (what a pit! One never wanted to put one's feet on the floor in that place), Theatre 80 St. Marks where Howard Otway used to show 16mm movies in rear projection, The Cinema Village, the Paris, the Walter Reade, the 57th Street something or other where the Chaplin movies played, I'd go on, but I must leave for work.

Take care, Bingham Ray.
As my friend Austanspace would say, Ya did good.

Dream

Image find of the morning while dreading the necessity to get ready to go to work.

  

Perfect for a Sunday morning

As I head off for the 45 minute walk to work, and see that it is -4 (F) out there, this just warms my heart. Thank You, whomever is responsible. Please do Newt and Mitts next, then we'll talk about people in my everyday life...

Harrumph.

Is it wrong of me to want to have a smoke detector that doesn't go off every time I boil water? All I have to do is turn on the exhaust fan, but even at the slow speed the noise is overwhelmingly obnoxious. It's bad enough where I work - buzzers buzzing, bells ringing, beeps beeping, kids screaming, bad 80's music playing on the celestial sound system where "Shiny Happy People" seems to play every 20 minutes as though it will somehow turn either the staff or the customers into happy face moronic shoppers... oh, wait...no, they just don't have happy faces. Everywhere, it seems, there is noise, noise, noise. I feel positively grinchy.

I do not like the way this year has started

It's only January the 20th, for Christ'sake. Already we've had IowaNewHampshire free time for uncontested Republican ideology, SOPA, PIPA, the Costa Concordia tragedy advertisement for the upcoming 3D re-release of the movie Titanic, a severed head rolling around the Hollywood sign, the bankruptcy reorganization last ditch attempt to save Eastman Kodak from extinction, a Russian intended destination Mars aircraft that fell to earth no one quite knows where, locally horrible news of the accident related death of a well known woman, a teenager killed by a train, a ruling from Federal level Judge Murtha that the local falling apart nuclear plant run by cost-cutting seeming we don't care about the consequences as long as we rake in the dollars sociopaths who have lied to the state and it's agencies can stay open for another 20 years, a friend losing her job due to the closing of a store which benefited our local hospice, the forced cancellation of a mediation session between the town approved but yet to be built skate board park and the intractable well off bastards who live across from it and are horrified by the thought of such commonness near them (although hidden in save the park stay green sloganeering),  the nearly complete destruction of our once wonderful local daily paper, and now the announcement of the passing of both Etta James and Johnny Otis, who wrote her first big hit and made her a star.

It's all a bit much.