Consortium of Seven

   Another relatively bare bones, random bit of potpourri this week, rather than working to a theme.    Hitting Netflix two weeks ago (and I watched it fairly soon after, but it simply slipped through the net of things I got around to mentioning) was a super-power metaphor of an urban drug crisis: Project Power (2020, 114 min, Netflix)     Starring Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dominique Fishback, it's set in New Orleans where a highly unusual drug has suddenly hit the illegal market. A drug called Power. A capsule, once twisted to activate it, then swallowed, grants anyone five minutes of one of a grab bag of superpowers -- and/or they might just explode. You don't know what you'll get until you try.   Someone has come to New Orleans to distribute an initial supply, at no cost, to the city's dealers for them to charge their customers as they wish.   Much as with Ang Lee's often-disappointing Hulk (2003) there's ...

In 1961, Elvis Presley recorded the title song from the film "Blue Hawaii." The song was a hit, as was the movie. In the trailer, we see Elvis, shirtless or in floral shirt and swim trunks, wowing the women with his dulcet tones.    But a fully-clothed Bing Crosby in 1935's "Waikiki Wedding" may have outstripped (as it were) the rock and roll superstar. "Blue Hawaii," along with "Sweet Leilani," was from the soundtrack of "Waikiki Wedding." In the 1930s movie, Bing, accompanied by a good friend and a crew of local musicians, has crept outside the window of the woman he loves, in order to serenade her.  An audience of island folk think Bing's love song is okay, but nothing to get excited about.  Bing, having only seen the silhouette of a woman crossing a room, doesn't realize he's accidentally wooing comic actress Martha Raye, who's working late. As the gentle Hawaiian breezes waft Bing's melodious voice through t...

Continuing with memories of West 43 rd Street in the 40s and 50s, I keep going back to the bedroom I shared with my little brother in our small two-bedroom house.  The room is dark, although I can see daylight around the window shades that are pulled all the way down to the sills. Grown ups are talking in the hallway and their voices fade as they move downstairs because they don’t want me to hear the news. I am not suspicious; I’m six years old and innocent as can be. After the doctor leaves, my mother comes to tell me that I have been so sick for so long that I cannot go back to first grade. I love school, the scent of chalk and floor polish, the creaking of the wood floors in those long hallways, the rows and rows of books in the classroom, the clank of the radiators under the big tall windows, the long stick that stands in the corner with a hook so that Miss Gant can reach all the way up to catch the latch to open the windows and let in the autumn air. And most of all, the kind...

I am away visiting family this week and thought this would be a good time to share cover art from the many books written by actress and writer Cornelia Otis Skinner. She created an impressive biographies, memoirs, and collections of magazine pieces while also maintaining an acting career and a vigorous life as a public figure. 

Back when I was about nine or ten my parents started a monthly ritual of making tacos on the day they went grocery shopping at the market. Dad got paid once a month and they would buy groceries for the whole month. Us kids would help to carry in the bags from the car. I think maybe my little brother was too young to help or maybe carried something light. The other three of us hustled though because we knew the faster we got them unloaded the quicker we'd get to eat homemade tacos.  This was the mid-sixties and tacos weren't so common in most parts of the country. San Bernardino had it's share of taco stands though. It's always been the capital of the fast-food industry with the original McDonalds on E Street, just up a couple blocks from San Bernardino High School.  Original building. The taco stands, as we called them, were mostly Mom and Pop operations. El Burrito, Taco Mia across from the Orange Show, Taco Tia that is the only one still in operatio...

If I had my druthers, I'd go back in time and play golf with my great-aunt Dot. I'd ask her to teach me. She and her 3 sisters were very sharp card players, phenomenal housekeepers, and avid readers. Dot and my grandmother, Liz, were equally elegant dressers, but my aunt was more slim and athletic. The sisters had the same denim blue eyes, but Dot's were piercing and direct, unlike my grandmother's, who always had a either a twinkle of humor, or a squint of concern in hers. Dot had perpetually tanned skin, a little leathery. I think she drank daily, probably a cocktail or two. Occasionally when she visited she'd get a little tipsy. That's when she'd cup my chin and offer to take me to a beauty parlor and get my hair done. I think this was when I wore it long and parted in the middle or close to it. I wish I'd asked what she had in mind.  Hers was a chin length, permed, graying bob. She had married into moderate wealth, and her husband would later ...

  There are lots of ways to unwind & after a fraught fortnight of post(?)-lockdown back-to-work hysteria, I can think of any number of ways to forget about it all & clear my head. Apart from falling asleep in front of the TV what better way to do almost nothing than to look at some nice pictures? It certainly works for me.    I may have mentioned I love a list & this one was made during lockdown.  It’s not at all exhaustive & is quite Eurocentric.   Had I made it two years ago, it would have been slightly different. Therefore in no order whatsoever, here is the first in a series of the Great Artists In My Opinion. There will be some obvious & popular favourites but you’ll find no Picasso or van Gogh, regardless of what other “Greats” lists might assert. Here there are artists whose works I’d be prepared to hang on my wall had I the money & limitless space. Here are people whose work has taught me, inspired me & bl...