Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Jeanette Macdonald

Jeanette MacDonald, you'll find, if you Google that name, may not be particularly remembered today, perhaps because she led a happy life and appeared in light weight musicals in 1930's movies, has been much written about. In the 1940's she made a movie in color that was along the lines of Lassie Come Home; but in MacDonald's movie I think the animal of sentiment was a horse. She was spectacularly well made up and photographed to perfection, so that I can claim she outshone Garbo in beauty (I doubt Garbo ever made a movie in color) and in spite of J Mac's so-so acting, and light weight singing, she's easily the most beautiful woman in the history of the movies.


I noticed something most peculiar: her Hollywood makeup man didn't believe in black lines surrounding her eyes, a practice today that's all the rage. Every female face on magazines displayed in supermarkets today has been made ugly by  ludicrous almond-shaped (if you insist) black lines around the eyes. Are women today trying to look like Cleopatra, or some other long dead supposed great beauty? Every (?) woman newscaster has those damn black circles. What gives? Hillary probably has them too. Might rethink my vote. Ha.


Usually, in my visceral response to women actors, my involuntary response depends almost exclusively on their acting, not their appearance. But in the Case of MacDonald her beauty floors me. In the movie I saw her character gave a singing recital which included an aria from Madame Butterfly, her character a young Japanese woman in love with an American sailor. She sang the music (Puccini) but didn't characterize at all. That fact didn't detract from her beauty one teensy bit! My guess is that by that time, the 1940's, she called the shots. Which, I bet, included, no black circles around her eyes!!


Barry


http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/




 


 

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Okay then, cats it is.....

The vehicle parked next to mine in the garage has on the dashboard a small, but lifesized, and lifelike, children's (?) ginger kitten looking almost full grown. The other day a fully grown older and wild cat, female, was lying next to the 'kitten' but outside in the cruel world. I could hardly believe my eyes and for some minute or so thought the inside kitten was real. 'How cute' I thought.


I know that 'Mother' cat and have smooth-talked her to be more tame. Nothing doing, not really, she's a cat that has given up on humans and loves the dumptster instead: the food there being more reliable and certainly more sumptuous. She lies on the hood in order to keep warm at night. The engine coolant stays warm for hours I guess, in spite of the fan that runs even after the engine has been turned off.


I can only assume the mother cat was pretending just as the owner-child of the inside ginger toy pretents the stuffed animal is real. Let me jump ahead: I think domestic cats, whether inside or permanently 'out' have evolved to stay connected to the races of people who in various ways bred them. Even the wildest of domestic cats will, almost involunteerily, respond to 'Kitty kitty kitty' even from anti-sentimentalists such as I am. They evolved with us, and can't forget us....ha ha ha ha ha...I like cats. But think giving them diamond collars is a bit much.


Barry


 

Friday, November 16, 2007

History and White Women.

When I pick up my two 'middle' boys Patrick and Michael, three African American parents, two women and one man, a husband/parent of one of the former, merrily chat with me while we wait. Yet, not one single Hispanic parent, of hundreds if not thousands, will even look my way, let alone converse with me. Spooky.


That fact seemed worth establishing as in my experience, before I comment on the comedy of Obama and Hillary (aka Hillary and Obama). I swear Obama, Lawyer, US Senator from Ohio, Harvard Review (law school) chief for a period, is terrified of getting caught, him a Black man, peering at the probable place of the white woman's cleavage. Remember? Cleavage really and truly re Hillary, did come up as a subject along with photo proof on TV. (Nice btw; hey, I always look; I look at everything, even if nothing is showing.)


Main Entry: cleav·age
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'kle-vij
1 a : the quality of a crystallized substance or rock of splitting along definite planes ; also : the occurrence of such splitting b : a fragment (as of a diamond) obtained by splitting
2 : the action of cleaving : the state of being cleft
3 : the series of synchronized mitotic cell divisions of the fertilized egg that results in the formation of the blastomeres and changes the single-celled zygote into a multicellular embryo ; also : one of these cell divisions
4 : the splitting of a molecule into simpler molecules
5 : the depression between a woman's breasts especially when made visible by the wearing of a low-cut dress


(Gee, billing here seems a bit off: "Cleavage" needs a stronger agent or lawyer)


So, it was truly giggle time whenever Obama tried not to actually look at his political nemesis Hillary Clinton, Sen. (D) New York.  She even had the Chutzpah to say she came that night wearing her flame proof pants suit!  Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Love that woman. 


Barry


http://journals.aol.com/bbartle3/Vengeance/



 

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Why Blog?

Main Entry: con·science
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'kän(t)-sh&n(t)s
Etymology: Middle English, from Old French, from Latin conscientia, from con scient-, consciens, present participle of conscire to be conscious, be conscious of guilt, from com- + scire to know -- more at SCIENCE
1 a : the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good b : a faculty, power, or principle enjoining good acts c : the part of the superego in psychoanalysis that transmits commands and admonitions to the ego
2 archaic : CONSCIOUSNESS
3 : conformity to the dictates of conscience : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : sensitive regard for fairness or justice : SCRUPLE
- con·science·less /-l&s/ adjective
- in all conscience or in conscience : in all fairness


There's something out-of-whack when I wait this long to write an entry; so I look to conscience for a guide. Pretty thorough definition for 'conscience' from the dictionary - better than I expected.


On the DO YOU BELIEVE?message board, wars still blaze between the atheists and the 'Believers.' Lately the name calling has seemed to reach an even higher decibel level than earlier. I wonder if the approach of the Holidays induces unwanted anxiety in the combattants? Think I'll make sure I get in the mood for Christmas by rereading the Dickens ever-so-famous story featuring Scrouge.


Children seem to totally understand Christmas (and I suppose Hanukkah)


Main Entry: Ha·nuk·kah
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'hä-n&-k&, '[k]ä-
Etymology: Hebrew ha nukkAh dedication
: an 8-day Jewish holiday beginning on the 25th of Kislev and commemorating the rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem after its defilement by Antiochus of Syria


and often get as much if not more pleasure from giving as receiving. (Forgive me for knowing little or nothing about Hanakkah celebrations)


See? I'm out of practice and need the dictionary to help me along.


To one and all Happy Holidays!! Hey, I'm not jumping the gun: Thanksgiving is only eight days away!


 


Barry



 


 


 

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

A 2007 movie that came and went....zip....

Purely by chance I just watched, yesterday, two amazing, worth-watching movies, both dark but gripping nevertheless.


I'll start with the documentary, BRIDGE. This one has, to be candid, really taken me aback. The subject is suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, you know the one Drake could have seen as he sailed by hundreds of years ago. (S.F. doesn't have a Drake Hotel for nothing.)  Yes, the camera lingered on the Bridge over so long a period it actually catches people repeatedly returning to the Bridge and finally jumping off. The most flamboyant is a fairly young male with long black hair and wearing all black clothes. Twice he climbed over the waist high steel railing but didn't actually jump until the second time. He had a rehearsal in other words. On the way down he did a sort of swan dive and landed horizontal ensuring, knowingly or not knowingly, instant death. At 120 miles per hour it'd be like hitting concrete. Another jumper landed feet first and survived. He is given a long interview in which he is most candid and engaging. I think it was unusually generous of him to submit so graciously. Glad to be alive I suppose.


Relatives and friends of the dead also give interviews. The documentary must have been a labor of love. There is nothing prurient or irreverant intended in the documentary, nor is any intended in this heads up recommendation: to watch, not to jump!  Ha!


Actually I'd read some years ago an article in the New Yorker about suicides from that Bridge. And recently I read in the paper that jumping may be made much more difficult, if not impossible, by adding fencing.


_______


I've searched my conscience for evidence that when I hitch-hiked to Wyoming and back on a weekend by beginning after I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, did I have suicide in mind? No memory of entertaining suicide can be discovered. But, I was perhaps in desperate need of a change of scenery. I left out earlier, in an Entry, that in Wyoming I knocked on the door of a brothel, very late at night. I had to walk up some wooden stairs. Quickly, immediately after knocking, I went back down the wooden stairs as quietly as possible. I was only seventeen. Somehow, though, I knew what the naked light bulb at the head of the stairs, near the door, meant.


_________________


A movie with a strangely similar ambience opened and vanished last March (2007) so fast I missed any and all mention of the film. It's called Reign Over Me, starring Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle (the latter the Black head of detectives in CRASH.) When it came out critics turned sour apparently because of a plot detail than seems to have been ommitted from the DVD which I've seen now four times beginning yesterday. Adam Sandler plays a dentist off his head from the death of his wife and three very young children in a plane crash. From the DVD I got that they were killed in a routine plane trip from NY to Boston to see relatives. But when released there was a line saying that the plane crashed on 9/11, out of Boston I assume. That one line seems to have ruined the movie's chances of being taken seriously. For the story it matters nothing where the plane was going. Planes crash, and almost never from terrorists. It's billion to one chance even today.


The movie was written and directed by Mike Binder. Produced by Jack Binder. One of the roles is played by a 'Binder.'


Critics jumped on trivia such as New York law prohibits engine driven scooters, a vehicle excentrically ridden at all hours by the deeply disturbed, shattered, Adam Sandler character whom kind dentist played by ever-skillful Don Cheadle at the heights of his powers tries to assist.


Movies about kindness grip me. Reminds me of the line spoken by Blanche: "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers." (Sure hope I have that word perfect.) Cheadle puts up with a man 'drowning' who apparently wants to drown. Swimmers know that rescuing someone in the water can be treacherous because the drowning person in panic is likely to drown you too!


Two fascinating women's roles are played, says the critics, by otherwise "supermodels." I didn't object to their credits good or bad, I just got a bit confused by the fact they looked almost the same. Their roles help establish how far gone Adam Sandler's character really is; all blandishments leave him cold.


The critics were right about one thing: New York City sure is made to look good, night or day. But, trust me, NYC for very young people; older people are happier elsewhere. IMO.


Barry