Kevin Wolf

I was thinking maybe I’d mark today - two years exactly since I was hit by a car - with a semi-satiric post on the amusing aspects of being in an accident, or a rant on the idiot that hit me, or maybe a screed on careless drivers or even some combination of post/rant/screed.

But in fact, I don’t like to think about it. I don’t mind talking about it in general terms (I was hit by a car that approached from my right, turning into the crosswalk that I was smack in the middle of) but I don’t want to dwell on it.

There’s abject fear of death at the heart of it: an animal fear that took over for a little while (probably seconds; I don’t remember) and could be what other people felt in accidents - before they died. It was only when I became conscious I was screaming that I knew I was still alive. Weird.

It was not a TJ Hooker rollover-the-hood moment, as Bill Shatner led me to believe it might be. Still, I lucked out. Merely broken bones, no head or internal injuries. It could have been so much worse.

So, I guess I’ve marked it. Two years later and I’m still here. I’m cool with that part of it.

Tags: General Blogging by KevinWolf
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Just a quick note: One of the only people in this world who I unreservedly admire (simply for doing the right thing, when her time came in 1955) died yesterday: Rosa Parks. I was reading her obit in the New York Times when I came across this lovely bit of history:

In the last decade, Mrs. Parks was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. But even as she remained an icon of textbooks, her final years were troubled. She was hospitalized after a 28-year-old man beat her in her home and stole $53. She had problems paying her rent, relying on a local church for support until last December, when her landlord stopped charging her rent.

You’ve just got to love this country. Fucking love IT.

Tags: News of the Day by KevinWolf
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Would people please stop publishing stuff I want, with costs equivalent to a car payment?

My pal Brad brought to my attention this stunning book (at least it is said to be) of over 100 Winsor McCay Little Nemo In Slumberland strips, reproduced as closely as possible to the original newspaper broadsheets. This means huge (16″ x 21″).

Cost: $120.00

Atlantic/Rhino Records has released the complete recordings Ray Charles made for the label. It’s a mere 7 CDs and 1 DVD of prime Ray, including 1 disc of mostly unreleased stuff.

Cost: $149.98 list (can be had for $100.00 - $110.00)

Mosaic Records could easily put you in the poor house with their dee-luxe boxed sets of jazz artists. These full-size 12″ x 12″ boxes are all limited editions and, as expensive as they can be, they’re not only worth it based on their quality but also on their resale value, should you be forced to do something so drastic. (Take a peak at the eBay listings for Mosaic’s out of print sets and you’ll see what I mean.) I list below a couple of sets I want:

The Complete Roulette Dinah Washington Recordings - Cost: $85.00
The Complete Verve Gerry Mulligan Concert Band - Cost: $68.00

Meanwhile, Andrews McMeel has published The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, previously discussed here.

Cost: $150.00 list (can be had for $100.00 - $120.00)

Then there’s The Complete New Yorker, which has every page of every issue of The New Yorker from 1925-2004 on 8 DVD-ROMs.

Cost: $100.00 list (can be had for $60.00-80.00)

Doesn’t anybody spell it “compleat” anymore?

Tags: Culture by KevinWolf
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It’s getting near Halloween, and in the Northeast that’s a big deal.

For me, this means indulging in some scary music, both pop and classical. So I’ve been listening to some compilations I threw together a couple of years ago. There’s a set for rock and pop and a set for anything orchestral, such as movie scores and classical pieces. (At this time of year, I’ll also indulge in some pumpkin ale, if you don’t mind.)

The pop stuff is simply what floats around anyway (”Monster Mash”) or the kind of thing found on compilations of rock, swing and jazz material geared to Halloween. (All the swing stuff makes me think of old B&W cartoons with skeletons dancing.)

The classical works that I know are, aside from the obvious (”The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” as was used in Fantasia), things I discovered from movies. Kubrick’s The Shining started me in and I was just listening to The Exorcist which got me thinking:

Both movies use music from Krzysztof Penderecki. He’s a modernist (very modernist) composer from Poland. A month from now (November 23) is his birthday. (He’ll be 72.)

Now, I have no musical training to speak of (and to speak of it would be another post). I’m also not exactly avant-garde in my tastes, as pop music is always top of my list with swing and jazz and rock and “the usual” stuff in there.

But I keep my ears open and sometimes things sink in because I’ll listen to anything. Penderecki’s music is one of the things I’ve grown to, if not love or even like, at least respect. It’s unnerving as hell, I think with a reason. To risk sounding like a blowhard, I think he does nothing less than reflect the condition of civilization in the 20th century (and, unfortunately, beyond).

[As an aside let me say that the late recordings of John Coltrane, who was criticized for using his horn to make sounds almost like screams of human anguish, are the only other works that come to mind in this vein.]

There’s an excellent CD of his works which encapsulates his “sound”: Matrix 5, from the EMI Classics series of modern works. It includes stuff used in The Shining, the kind of thing I used on my Halloween comps - and stuff I’d never use, like “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima,” which uses strings to recreate air raid sirens. It was while listening to this piece and realizing I’d gone past movie music that I found my deep respect for what Penderecki was capable of.

If you listen to Penderecki, you do so at your peril. Most people I know would turn it off within 30 seconds. It’s as far from pop and - in a way - as far from beauty as one can get. But it’s full of human experience and like all art it includes death - in spades.

I don’t want to hear this all the time, but…

Tags: Culture by KevinWolf
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As you may have gathered, I’m a Netflix subscriber and I’m still catching up on a lot of stuff that I never went to the movies to see, but there are a number of movies I know and love, never get tired of seeing, and have even shelled out my hard-earned cash to own. (Granted, DVDs are pretty cheap but who needs the clutter? I made that mistake with VHS - I refuse to do it again. A movie has to be something special if I’m going to buy it.)

I’d encourage you to join Netflix if you haven’t; whether you do belong or not, here’s a list of my favorite movies, candidates for rentals, movies I think reward repeat viewings and have been issued on DVD (in no particular order):

The Late Show (1977) - This has been a favorite since I saw it in the theater, where it apparently did okay business before the Star Wars onslaught. In fact, Star Wars pretty much made this sort of movie - character driven and peopled by folks over 40 - a thing of the past, outside of independent or “small” films. It’s one of two Robert Benton movies on this list and it was produced by Robert Altman, whose Long Goodbye came out a few year before and, I think, informs The Late Show. (The Long Goodbye will make this list when I ever get around to purchasing it.)

The Late Show stars Art Carney as a retired PI tracking the killers of his ex-partner and Lily Tomlin as a fruitcake who gets involved because the same guys may have kidnapped her cat. It’s a terrific mix of comedy and crime drama, with strong performances all around (especially Bill Macy as the loser friend of Carney). The mystery is satifying (and complicated). The movie has a marvelously evocative score by Ken Wannberg and a lovely title song called “What Was,” once inexplicably covered by Alex Chilton. It’s also an eye-opener as to what a PG movie could include at one time. These days, this would be PG-13.

Jason and the Argonauts (1963) - A local TV station showed this every other Saturday afternoon when I was growing up - at least that’s how I remember it. They must have owned their own print.

God, I love this movie. This is perhaps the best of all Ray Harryhausen’s F/X flicks, capped by one of the best fantasy sequences ever filmed: a battle between Jason’s men and an army of skeletons. The Hydra sequence is merely icing on the cake and there are so many memorable monsters (Talos, the Harpies) that this movie captured my imagination when I was 9 and has never let it go.

This movie also has a magnificent score by the great Bernard Herrmann.

Notorious (1946) - Alfred Hitchcock’s great espionage thriller features Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman infiltrating a nest of Nazis. Hitch has his typically baroque touches (an upside-down shot of Grant approaching Bergman as she wakes up in bed; a crane shot starting very wide then down a huge staircase to a close up of Bergman’s hand holding a key that Johnny LaRue would kill for) but the center of the movie is whether pig-headed Grant will admit to himself that he’s in love with Bergman. Vintage B&W thiller/romance of the best kind.

Nobody’s Fool gave Paul Newman his 1,257th Oscar nomination but he’s only part of a very strong ensemble (with the exception of Dylan Walsh as Newman’s son). The frozen streets of Bath, NY is the setting of this smalltown character study and actors like Bruce Willis join in just to work with Newman and a good script. Gene Saks, Jessica Tandy, Philip Bosco, and the then-unknown Philip Seymour Hoffman are all excellent. This is the other Robert Benton movie on the list.

The Innocents is a 1961 adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw starring Deborah Kerr as the governess to two children in a spooky mansion which is haunted by the previous governess and her lover - or is Kerr’s character imagining things? Atmospheric barely begins to describe Freddy Francis’s beautiful B&W photography and the script (William Archibald, Truman Capote and additional work by John Mortimer) is excellent - literary but ambiguous enough to allow some doubt about the events depicted, which only adds to the creepiness.

There. I could start in with Wes Anderson’s movies, but that oughta keep you busy for a while.

If that doesn’t, Netflix also carries TV shows on DVD. I hear Lost is available.

Tags: Culture by KevinWolf
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Well, that’s it for now. I’m taking a break.

Sixteen episodes in and my reaction is, “Who cares?” Well, obviously my pal Brad does and Neddie Jingo has had something to say about it. What they’re on about is the hit TV show Lost. (I will state here that Neddie’s posts about Lost are 100 times more interesting than the show and took much less of my time.)

My idea of watching TV is endless Law & Order repeats. I know, a rut. I’m simply not enough of a TV watcher to stick with a continuing show - I know I’ll miss too many episodes and get off track. So, no Lost, no 24, none of these heavy time commitments.

Still, when I hear good things about a show I like to get in on it. 24 is still on the list. Lost just happens to be the first one I decided to run with.

Now that it’s out on DVD I’ve been able to rent it from Netflix. I’m just returning the fourth disc; I’ve seen episodes 1-16. At this point, all I have in my head is the sound of Sally, from a Peanuts special, sitting in the classroom and saying, with regard to a history or math lesson, “I could not possibly care less.”

Now, Brad’s going to tell me I’m Mr Negative, which certainly has some truth to it - I’m as critical of things as the worst of ‘em - but that’s not the entire truth. There are, of course, things in this world that I enjoy. But I don’t think Lost is very good; even worse, it’s boring.

This is my reaction for two reasons: (1) Lost is structured very much like soap opera and I hate soap opera, and (2) underneath it all, it seems Lost is also an elaborate puzzle and puzzles bore me.

But in addition to that: I do think only two of the many characters are very interesting; the whispering trees and growls from unseen whatevers are too coy; and there’s a yawn-inducing neatness to the backstories and flashbacks (character who once used torture is himself tortured; badass guy who actually has a heart of gold). If there is something to all this, I should have seen events more concrete than I did during 11+ hours.

I will leave it at that. I went out to see what all the hoopla is about and I’ve come back wondering what all the hoopla is about.

Tags: Culture by KevinWolf
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Inspired by a newly-minted classic Bobby Lightfoot post and my refreshingly unhinged response, I herewith compare and contrast Bazooka Joe and his Nancy-ish competition (as if he had a fuckin’ chance) Pud, of Fleer’s Dubble Bubble bubble gum.

I swear Pud is the bastard child of Ernie Bushmiller, creator of Nancy, the so uncool it’s cool, so unfunny it’s a surrealist joke on our life and times comic strip that has caused furrowed brows for years and across continents.

He looks like imitation Nancy. But where Nancy may have a subtext (or maybe not, you failed Ph.D candidate, you) Pud ain’t got nothin.’

Even so, Pud opted to take on Bazooka Joe in the gum wrapper comic strip wars, where the stakes are so high they took to lacing each other’s gum with PCP and each gathered a posse to watch his butt.

Or tried to - Pud never did find anybody. A lame-o in a striped shirt looking all Nancy-like isn’t going to get far, ya see. Even when you update your look from this

to this

But see, Bazooka Joe, man he rocks. He’s got a posse and they’re the most dangerous dudes to wrap candy this side of the Pecos. There’s Mort, who has his red turtleneck turned up to his nostrils - red so the blood don’t show and turned up so the face isn’t caught on security cams. Pesky comes complete with cowboy outfit and six-shooters and damned if they ain’t real. Call him runt and see what that gets you.

But Bazooka Joe hisself: He’s one bad MF and ain’t nobody gonna mess with him - not stridin’ through town with his posse and wearing that fuckin’ eyepatch and chewin’ his gum and blowin’ bubbles and snappin’ it - the whole nine yards with this guy.

Who ya think is gonna come out on top o’ this one? Pud, the Nancy-boy, or Bazooka Joe, with a name measured at a caliber of 89mm?

Damn straight.

Tags: Culture by KevinWolf
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I miss the laughtrack.

No, really, I do miss it these days. I know The Simpsons basically killed it and most TV comedies have abandoned it but I sometimes miss it. I think it still has its place.

Like here:

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, confirmed that “a couple” of people had withdrawn from a process [possible nomination to the Supreme Court] that he said had become “rather ugly.” Mr. McClellan would not name them, but he said, in response to a question about whether the process was keeping qualified people away: “Washington scares good people away? Is that new?”

He ought to take this show on the road. Vaudeville needs a shot in the arm. His boss and the current administration are living proof of Washington’s magnetic attraction to “bad” people while it repels the “good.” And that’s just plain funny.

Meanwhile, Dubya continues to defend a his Supreme Court choice, Harriet Miers, in the face criticism from, well, everybody by stating:

People ask me why I picked Harriet Miers. They want to know Harriet Miers’ background. … And part of Harriet Miers’ life is her religion. … [People] want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. So our outreach program has been just to explain the facts to people.

I hear a good chortle on the laughtrack. Not a belly laugh, but I’ll take what I can get.

And, last, Bush engaged in a staged talk with soldiers in Iraq - ya know, shootin’ the shit off the cuff (per the script).

This one gets more of a groan than a laugh. It’s too weak a joke, though it is indeed a joke.

Skip that laughtrack. Maybe I don’t miss it all that much after all.

Tags: News of the Day by KevinWolf
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I’m going to simply blogwhore today and direct you to two esteemed sites worthy of your visits:

Shakespeare’s Sister has a really been on a roll with a choice of posts too tasty to pass up - and it’s where I learned you could even “blogwhore” to begin with. Man, it feels good!

Recent topics include that fuckwad Bush, families who have way too many children, and the question: Which movies make you cry? Read the comments and then add your own.

My other choice is from Mr Robert Lightfoot and this post. It made me laugh - a lot. Reason enough, goddammit.

Tags: General Blogging by KevinWolf
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Got the latest TV Guide magazine in the mail. Yes, somewhat embarassingly I subscribe and have done for years. Two reasons: I grew up with it and I signed on while they were making a ridiculously cheap offer (which I later renewed), during a period when I was watching an assload of movies on cable and found TV Guide truly useful in locating the channels and times when I could catch the flicks I wanted to see.

(Yes, it was overkill; I was taping movies off TV and later pretty much ended up tossing the tapes in the garbage when I had to move.)

Lesson learned: My subscription is now the sole reminder of those days and it will soon run out and won’t be renewed.

But this week the “new” TV Guide arrived and that offers an excuse to think about the magazine.

The change TV Guide made is a switch from digest form, which would sit by the TV like a disposable little reference book, into an Entertainment Weekly-ish slick (still focused on TV).

There was an article in the NY Times not too long ago about TV Guide’s falling fortunes and their hope that the “TV Guide Channel” - essentially scrolling listings accessible via cable TV with some inserted “programming” - might reintroduce the TV Guide brand to younger viewers who couldn’t care less about the magazine.

Some hope.

This drastic makeover is, it seems to me, the last ditch effort to pull TV Guide’s ass out of a fatal tailspin.

It’s too late. Subscriptions have apparently fallen off while the real death knell - a huge drop in ad revenue - is already ringing. The older audience which still subscribes has over the past couple of years seen a loss in whatever value TV Guide has left as a TV guide.

Cover stories have become breathless celeb-filled nonsense; certain favorites of the magazine staff are promoted ferociously issue after issue (Lost, anyone?); and most articles and reviews have been supplanted by dopey “bite-sized” bulletpoint lists, like “Cheers & Jeers” for good and bad TV stuff, with every comment reduced to one paragraph, snarky remarks of the witless sort of wit Entertainment Weekly has perfected.

TV Guide was never The New Yorker, of course, but I remember a few columnists and critcs - Judith Crist, for example - who actually seemed to have something to say. I remember an appreciation of the Archie Bunker character contributed by The New Yorker’s own Brendan Gill. No way they’d bother to print that today.

In the new Guide they’ve also decided to forego local TV listings in favor of national (corporate media) listings thereby eliminating the one unique function they performed. In fact, in a great many spots in the new magazine, they don’t bother giving info and instead refer the reader to their website for listings and details.

Last but certainly not least, the new version is ugly. While the digest version was hardly an award winner it was at least small enough to force the pages into some sort of consise layout. Now that pages are much bigger, the editors and designers have spread content out all over the place. But, aside from larger photos and more color, they seem to have no idea how they want to exploit this new space. There’s no continuity between departments, things are hard to find, and everything is a mess.

TV Guide has also followed most magazines in the unfortunate practice of eschewing illustration for publicity and file photos. Gone are the days when every issue featured the likes of Al Hirschfeld, Arnold Roth and others.

Take a look at this brand new monstrosity while you’re waiting in the supermarket line. You’ll wish Screamin’ James Wolcott was a TV critic again so you’d have some place to go for meaningful content.

On the other hand you can just turn the damn TV set off and toss the magazine in the garbage.

Tags: Culture by KevinWolf
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