Some Came Running

As Iggy Pop said in the lead-in to "Louie, Louie" on "Metallic K.O.," "I never thought it's come to this, baby!"

I am sitting in the Burger King on 42nd Street off Eighth Avenue, across the street from the Port Authority, availing myself of the venue's convenient Internet service. Let me tell you, this keyboard is grimy.

I am the only one in the store wearing a suit.

I've been in Manhattan all day on business, and I have one last call to make at 4:00 p.m., and I was hoping to while away a couple of hours of my downtime in Bryant Park, and to make a bigger dent in Algren's The Man With The Golden Arm. But then my Blackberry alerted me to the most recent comment by the individual that goes by the nom "Urethra Franklin." The comment that ends "fuck you." Up to and including that phrase, it's a some-might-say-admirably deft Buddy Rich impersonation. But not the sort of thing I'm really interested in having at Some Came Running. I want to write a film blog and have some meaningful interaction between fellow cinephiles, not spend the day being assessed how things are going on an asshole farm, if you'll excuse my French. So I considered shutting down the blog altogether. Then I thought about shutting down comments altogether. Then I thought, "Why be punitive?" Then I thought, "Because." And then I thought...well, I'm still thinking. And I'm in the Burger King on 42nd Street off Eighth Avenue across the street from the Port Authority. Wearing a suit. And so on.

So here's what I'm going to do: from this point on, comments will be held for my approval before they go up. (And I see there are a couple from "Urethra" pending. Well, the individual can...fucking well wait. If you'll once again excuse my French. And yes, I DO fully expect this individual to now inundate me, in righteous indignation, with examples of all the other MUCH WORSE stuff that I've let slide, because I'm such a hypocrite. Among many other things, the internet can be soul-killingly predictable.) This will be my comments policy until a sufficient amount of time has gone by during which I haven't seen the words "fuck" and "you" yoked together in a comment. In other words, the forseeable future. I hope this move will compel anyone who's thinking of being abusive the way noted above to give the matter a little more thought, as they will now understand that they won't be heard. I really do not want to have to do this. I can recall a time not so long ago when seeing the comments threads filling up was actually a joy. Maybe it will be again.

Literary interlude

Ambassador Carbougniat, as Vichyssois as Brisson, as much a Doriotist as Robert...you should have seen his tantrums...His Excellency!...don't sent me to Vincennes!...boy, did he shake his Embassy bed, sixty-nine fits in a row, chewing whole mouthfuls of his gobelins...it was really alarming!...looked like he was going to eat the whole Embassy...the furniture and the files...everything...They had to promise him as "super-class" job in the other hemisphere...he was getting sicker than me...having me there so near to him, in the Vesterfangsel...suffering agonies...because they didn't impale me...he claimed I'd insulted Montgomery...and the Führer...and Prince Bernadette...you should have seen the letters he wrote to the Baltavian ministers...regular ultimatums! I've seen copies...

Lying here now in my fever, I tremble as much as he did...I wet the bedclothes...oh, but I'm not goofy enough to forget what I was...the prize package...the gilt-edged quarry of the chase...Glory! Bravery! Supreme Flunkeydom! even here like this, worn to a frazzle, a tottering wreck, I still get the same effects...Line up on the line...no deviations...The living proof is that they throw me out of everywhere...invariably...like forty-five chancres...everywhere...everything...the one and only genuine shithead: Ferdinand!

And I've seen them all at work...with their asses...all smeared with vaseline...licking everybody's balls...I know their names and addresses...same as the addresses of the moving-men and would-be assassins! I'm still here, only one foot in the grave...and I know their ages...their birthdays, every last one of them...I say them over to myself...their birthdates...I see their big moments of happiness...kick! trample!...in a vision!...they'll be a thousand times worse...a thousand times luckier next time...they've said as much...they've taken their positions...some positions! I see them...I see them...over 102º you see everything...fever must be good for something!...I never forget a thing!...never!...It's my nature...

—Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Castle to Castle, 1957, trans. Ralph Manheim

"Psycho" and me, 50 years on

The European release of a spiffy new version of the film—one that I cannot, as yet, properly watch, still!—spurs some personal reflections. A Very Special Foreign Blu-Ray Disc Report, at  The Daily Notebook, as ever. 

On appearing to have struck a nerve

Boy. A guy goes to bed early, and all sorts of hell can break loose. I am not going to clean up the mess left by Lex G in various below posts. Because, as Jed Leland said of Charles Foster Kane's Declaration of Principles, I have a hunch it might turn out to be pretty important. No, not really. It's actually because I want to sadistically throw it back in his face someday if and when he finally changes his behavior. No, not that either. But finally, and for real, it's because, well, voila: behold the internet, and isn't it just too sad? Or something. I blame Jeff Jarvis, really. (n.b., that's a joke. Honest. Jeff Jarvis, I blame nothing on you.)

But yes, from hereon in, the fellow is no longer welcome here, and I'd appreciate it if the other fine people who comment here would just do me the favor of ignoring him if he turns up. That is, don't treat his comments as if they're part of any thread, because they will be gone as soon as I'm able to delete them. Thank you.

And yes, it's true; I AM bald. But hey, at least I've got my mental health. 

Palate cleanser

Jeanne Moreau and Jean Ozenne, Diary of a Chambermaid, Luis Buñuel, 1964

Anxiety of potential influence, and vice versa

Via my lovely pal The Self-Styled Siren, I learn that I am, as she puts it, "the only critic named for an individual blog" in a "who's the most influential critic" poll recently put up at Awards Daily. (The Siren then goes on to give her blessed audience advice that I would never be so presumptuous as to offer, myself. Thank you, dearest.) Anyway, it's true, there I am, and while I'm 100% certain that Ebert's got the thing wrapped up, I am flattered, it's an honor just to be nominated, and so on. Thank you, Awards Daily people.

Right as usual, sir

 "Has it ever been acknowledged anywhere that GLENN KENNY is an ABSOLUTE, 100% DEAD RINGER for the guy who played the unctuous attorney Maury Levy on THE WIRE? You are IDENTICAL TWINS."—Lex G, in a more-pointless-than-usual comment, semi-hijacking a thread about Abbey Lincoln, in retaliation (I suppose) for deleting a prior useless comment he posted on that thread, which he only put up again anyway, because this is what he does with his time apparently. Anyhow, you be the judge; at left, actor Michael Kostroff as the Levy character; at right, myself, at band practice (I'll get to that in another post), a week and a day ago. And if you endorse Mr. G's judgment on this issue, you'll likely appreciate what he has to say about Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, too. 

It has been asked around these parts why I don't just ban Lex outright. There are a lot of reasons, which might be tiresome to go into here, but mainly, as I believe most of you understand, it's a matter of principle. I've been lucky—maybe you could say blessed—that this blog has attracted the thoughtful, interesting, engaged, and often feisty readers and commenters that it has. Lex really is the first, I hate to say it, troll. And as he'd be the first to point out to you, he is a troll of distinction, having earned (qualified, I feel compelled to point out) praise from a handful of real writers. But I have to admit he's beginning to try my patience. Not with the Maury Levy remark (interestingly enough, one of my very first bosses, the 1986 editor of Video Review magazine, was also named Maury Levy), but with the one I initially deleted, in which Lex evinces his enthusiasm for Taylor Swift and whoever. I think Taylor Swift's okay myself, but it's clear that Lex wasn't so much interested in sharing an enthusiasm than in showing some disrespect for the late Abbey Lincoln and the various lovers of her work who wanted to chime in on the thread. Which makes him not just a troll but pretty much a total DICK. A worse DICK than I myself was back in the day when I used to send indignant drunken e-mails to Jonah Goldberg, of all the assholes to waste one's time on. So maybe I indulge Lex because I feel kind of sorry for him? I dunno, and I can't really devote too much time to the question at the moment as I have stuff to do. Anyway. In the meantime. "IDENTICAL TWINS."

Abbey Lincoln 1930-2010

The lady was fierce. 

Of course I love her in her brief bit in The Girl Can't Help It, above, and she is never less than breathtakingly gorgeous and unstintingly real in all of her other (too scant) film work, from her romantic lead in Michael Roemer's Nothing But A Man to the knowing cameo Spike Lee had her play in Mo' Better Blues. But her biggest impact and best art was in the musical realm, from her vibrantly angry declamations on the groundbreaking, still galvanic We Insist!, a 1960 collaboration led by her soon-to-be-husband Max Roach (they married in 1962, divorced in 1970), to the astonishing solo work of many years later. Her career renaissance was in the form of this amazing run of recordings (beginning with 1990's The World Is Falling Down), for which she assembled the most sensitive and wide-ranging groups of players—Hank Jones, Clark Terry, Billy Higgins, Charlie Haden, Archie Shepp, Jackie McLean, Stan Getz, Kenny Barron, to name but a handful—and sang a mix of American songbook standards, jazz classics, and trenchant, nakedly honest originals, investing each phrase with absolute authority and, sometimes, breathtaking vulnerability. Really an artist of genius. I'm not the world's most easily starstruck guy, but I still vividly remember standing behind her in a bank line in the mid-'90s (she wore that same sort-of top hat that she's seen in on many of her album covers of the period) and being too cowed to speak. To merely bask in her presence—which truly was regal, in its way—seemed the thing to do.

Aw shucks, & some "#inadequatemovies"

See below...

Like any modern media semi-professional worth his salt nowadays, I am active certain other "social" media. I wouldn't touch Foursquare with whatever it is they're touching it with nowadays, but who knows if I'll ever try Mindsquat or Formspring or whatever that ask-me-questions scheme is—depends on how far I wanna go with my anything-for-a-laugh ethos. Oh, and my available time, too. Any how, I've fixed it so that my blog posts feed directly into my Facebook news stream, or again, whatever, and just a little while ago, apropos my Scott Pilgrim notice, one of my FB friends said one of the nicest things anybody's ever, at least as far as my film writing is concerned. That is: "I appreciate that although you have and continue to share your prejudices and pet peeves, obliquely or otherwise, in your writing, you seem to approach every film with an open mind. The fact that you're a little difficult to peg regarding what you'll like makes your opinion seem both earned and genuine, rather than the result of a collection of predispositions and intellectual/social posturing."

I'm blushing. 

Also, as I've mentioned in a comment, I have, once again, returned to Twitter, this time for good, such as it is. Not to make trouble (and not that I can help that) but out of a perceived need to be "part of the conversation," as I think they say in that hilariously dinky New York Times TV ad. Being Twitter, it's still Twitter, but sometimes fun things happen there. Just the other day, my virtual pal The Futurist! sucked me into a fun meme, "#inadequatemovies." I recognized the idea right away; it's an only slight variant of the old New York Magazine Competition theme of "near-miss nomers," collected in the great book Thanks For The Giant Sea Tortoise in the chapter "From Poland, With Love". (Some of my favorites from that include Man and Batman, The Agony and the Fun, One Of The Greatest Stories Ever Told, and Good Ole Gatsby. One nobody gets anymore: Nicholas and Alexander's.) Many of my own contributions were responses to his, which included Vague References About Eve, Misunderstanding on the Bounty, Baseball Pennants Of Our Fathers (this, for instance, inspired my own Instant Messages From Iwo Jima) and Willie Wonka And The Breath MInt Factory. Gregory Hess, the proprietor of a good blog whose name I like a lot, Blue Collar Film Scholar, tickled me with I Corresponded With A Zombie and The Man Who Scolded Liberty Valance, among others. As for myself, the other day I had a lot of bus-waiting and sitting-around-waiting-for-my-iPod-to-be-pronounced-dead-at-the-Mac-Support-Store to do, so I was just reeling the things off. Here are some I though were pretty good: L'annee derniere a Secaucus; Fan Fiction; Boudu Relieved From Cramping; The Mild Imprecation of the Cat People; The Seventh Inconvenienced Party; Aggravated Assault, My Sweet; Force of Mediocrity; Kiss of Lingering Illness; The Battle of the Slight Protuberance; Chantal Akerman's Ma and Pa Kettle at Home; Abbott and Costello Meet The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit; Varnish Your Wagon; Hercules and the Musty World; and, speaking of making trouble, My Dinner With Eric Kohn.

I do feel my personal best was Pat Garrett and Governer Lew Wallace. BTW, my Twitter handle is ExtAngel if you're interested.

Red Hook at dusk

After a swim at the Rec Center, about 8:10 or so; Red Hook Park, as a softball game was getting started. The color of the sky and the crispness in the air and the slight wind took me back, weirdly, to my early boyhood in Fort Lee, and the songs I used to hear coming from my uncle's VW Bug when we'd drive past some park in town on just such a night; The Kinks' "Tired of Waiting For You," that's one I recall quite distinctly. 1965, then. And I am SO much older than that now, but at moments I can believe that I don't really feel all that much older at all, or that I understand anything better than a particular feeling of being glad to be alive. Odd, strangely magical, I guess I can call it; a moment when the environment compels/allows you to recede into some never-really-changing state of solitary blessedness, in which you feel a part of everything but simultaneously utterly removed from everything as well.