birthdays | dual personalities

August 12, 2014

“We bring you…a tinsel and spun-candy world of reckless beauty and mounting laughter and whirling thrills”*

by chuckofish

Today is the birthday of Cecil B. DeMille (August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959)–American film director and film producer in both silent and sound movies, Academy Award winner and Episcopalian.

Only a fourth of his movies were talkies, but they include some mighty good ones.

I recently watched The Plainsman (1936) with Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok and Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane. (I blogged about Calamity Jane back on May 1 and it took three months to get the DVD from Netflix–harumph.)

It is a very enjoyable movie, mostly because of its two stars. However, James Ellison, who plays the important role of Buffalo Bill, is kind of weak–good looking but no spark.

Gary Cooper, Helen Burgess and James Ellison

The difference between him and Gary Cooper is an object lesson in why some people become movie stars and others don’t.

DeMille doesn’t fool around with political correctness in this film: the Indians are the bad guys and they are scary. There is a lot of tension in the fast-paced, but historically incorrect plot. And the cinema technology is impressive. Although mostly shot on a sound stage, the impression of depth and three-dimensional action is suggested by the use of a screen, where previously filmed activity is projected, behind the primary shot. It is very clever and effective. Indeed, I was impressed by this 1936 film–so much more engaging than our computer-generated “action” pictures of today.

Anyway…join me, won’t you, in toasting old Cecil B. tonight! And if you can get your hands on a copy of The Plainsman, take a look.

I’ll also lift a glass to Robin Williams who died on Monday. I’ll blog about him later. Rest in peace.

Into paradise may the angels lead thee; and at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem.
–BCP, Burial of the Dead, Rite I

*The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

2 Comments

August 8, 2014

Happy birthday, Dustin Hoffman, or “Mrs. Krabappel, are you trying to seduce me?”

by chuckofish

Happy birthday to Dustin Hoffman, born August 8, 1937, who has had a long and illustrious career in film, stage and television. Known for his versatile portrayals of “antiheroes and vulnerable characters”, he has been nominated seven times and won two Oscars–for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Rain Man (1988).

My favorite Hoffman role is Mr. Bergstrom in The Simpsons (Season 2, episode 19). It’s the one where Lisa has a crush on her substitute teacher (Hoffman), who seemingly represents everything that Homer is not. Meanwhile, Bart decides to run for class president, and becomes the overwhelming favorite. Mr. Bergstrom teaches Lisa that LIFE is indeed worth living and that “for the record, there were a few Jewish cowboys. Big guys, who were great shots, and spent money freely.” Anyway, Mr. Bergstrom is a wonderful character and it is a great episode–one that nearly brought me to tears the first time I saw it. It is definitely one of my all-time favorite top 5 episodes. (Yes, I have a top 5.) Maybe even top two.

Here’s a clip with all Dustin’s parts in the episode:

http://www.simplydustinhoffman.com/apps/videos/videos/show/15221415

Yes, you can see that Mr. Bergstrom holds a special place in my heart:

Obviously my movie pick for this Friday is any one of Dustin Hoffman’s movies. Since Tootsie is the only one we own (The OM is a big fan of Toot-see), I will probably be watching it. (I may have Papillon–since it co-stars Steve McQueen–but I’ll have to check.)

You were waiting for this, I know…

Have a great weekend!

9 Comments

July 17, 2014

Happy birthday to some real yankee doodle dandies

by chuckofish

Today is the OM’s birthday so let’s all sing a rousing chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”!

Gee, this is real keen!

And here’s a special rendition of “Shine On August Moon” just for you:

It should be noted that July 17 is also the birthday of the great James Cagney (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986). I must say I was not a fan of his as a child/young adult. He is an acquired taste, but I have grown to appreciate him over the years. For years he was type-cast as a gangster, but he won an Oscar for playing a song-and-dance man in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). He is sensational in White Heat (1949) as the devoted son and psychopathic killer. It was his portrayal of Lon Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) that made me an admirer.

I remember watching this melodramatic movie with the boy when he was a small child. He was quite struck by the story and I think he actually wept during the scene when Lon’s young son Creighton is taken away from him. It prompted me to take a deeper look at Cagney who is indeed impressive in the film.

He was also quite a hoofer and his distinctive dance style was admired by the likes of Barishnikov, who was actually a pall bearer at his funeral. Check it out here–he’s like a marionette!

By the way, Ronald Reagan (U.S. President at the time) gave the eulogy at his funeral. Now that’s impressive.

So hats off to the OM and to James Cagney–let’s toast them both tonight!

Bonus picture for a Thursday Throwback: Our brother and one dual personality salute the flag in a festive mood in 1980. (My apologies for the ink stain on our poor brother’s face.)

8 Comments

July 7, 2014

Yep, our family is as functional as all get-out.*

by chuckofish

As you know the OM and I spent four days over the holiday in Michigan with my dual personality and her spouse at our brother’s lake house in Clay Township on Lake St. Clair. He and his lovely wife wined and dined us, took us on boat rides

and on nature hikes.

They introduced us to the neighbors

and took us shooting

No, that’s not Ernest Hemingway, that’s my bro

and treated us to incredible sunsets from their backyard.

And who knew my brother could cook?

It was lovely.

*Homer Simpson, of course

13 Comments

July 2, 2014

I tramp a perpetual journey

by chuckofish

Today I am actually traveling! The OM and I are flying up to Michigan where we are meeting my big brother and heading to his house on Lake St. Clair. My dual personality and her DH (Dear Husband) are driving from the North Country to meet us. We will celebrate the frater’s birthday (and also our country’s) with much toasting and fireworks. Absent friends and all that.

The siblings circa 1967–pretend traveling at the Transportation Museum

And FYI the Star of the Month for July on TCM is the lovely Maureen O’Hara.

Check out the schedule here. They aren’t showing The Quiet Man (1952) or Only the Lonely (1991) where John Candy plays her son–inspired casting! But they are showing Rio Grande (1950), and there are some other good ones on the list.

Enjoy your holiday weekend! Celebrate responsibly!

2 Comments

June 11, 2014

I’m sorry I called you “Fat, fat, fat”.*

by chuckofish

Happy birthday, Jerome Silberman! Alias Gene Wilder (born June 11, 1933). Okay, I admit, I love Gene Wilder.

Maybe it is because he chose his stage name because he liked the character Eugene Gant in Look Homeward, Angel and he was always a great admirer of Thornton Wilder. Those are good reasons.

Maybe it is because he does such a great imitation of Kirk Douglas as Jim, the Waco Kid, in Blazing Saddles (1972), which is a movie I do not love. But Gene is perfect.

Anyway, I like him. Despite the fact that so many of his movies are take-offs and parodies, which is not a genre I love, I like him.

Oy. Will you toast Gene with me tonight? Happy 81st birthday, Jerome!

*Leo Bloom in The Producers

5 Comments

June 5, 2014

“This must be Thursday,’ said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. ‘I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”*

by chuckofish

I am a bit confused about what day it is. After a week away from the office, the amount of emails and phone messages and out-of-context requests is daunting. You know how it is.

Anyway, I was pleased to find out that today is the birthday of Richard McClure Scarry (June 5, 1919 – April 30, 1994), illustrator extraordinaire and children’s book author.

I loved his books when I was growing up and collected them long after I was considered to be of an appropriate age to read them.

I am not alone in this. Scarry is arguably the most popular children’s book author of all time. In a career that spanned four decades, he wrote and illustrated more than three hundred books and it is estimated that he has sold more than 200 million copies in over twenty languages. Scarry is most famous for writing a series of books about Busytown, a fictional town populated with a variety of anthropomorphic animals. Some of the main characters include Huckle Cat, Lowly Worm, Bananas Gorilla, Hilda Hippo, and Farmer Fox.

The great thing about his books is that they can be read over and over and studied and enjoyed.

The boy reading about Busytown

Well, his books have been very successful and to some of us they are timeless, but, of course, they had to be “updated” to make them more politically and gender correct.

According to Wikipedia, characters in “cowboy” or “indian” costumes were either removed or given nondescript clothing. Moral and religious elements were altered or removed, and wording like “he comes promptly when called to his breakfast” was changed to “he goes to the kitchen to eat his breakfast”. And so on and so on.

Oh gee whiz.

Dated maybe, but offensive? Discuss amongst yourselves.

*Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

4 Comments

May 28, 2014

I tramp a perpetual journey

by chuckofish

Saturday, by the way, is Walt Whitman’s birthday–May 31, the last of the amazing birthday month of May!

I will be out of town, so I thought I would give you a little W.W. today so you can think ahead and plan your celebration.

I know I have the best of time and space, and was never measured and never will be measured.

I tramp a perpetual journey, (come listen all!)
My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,
No friend of mine takes his ease in my chair,
I have no chair, no church, no philosophy,
I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange,
But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,
My left hand hooking you round the waist,
My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road.

Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.

–Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 46

Oh, man, isn’t he the best?

4 Comments

May 26, 2014

By the dim and flaring lamps

by chuckofish

Today is Memorial Day and also John Wayne’s birthday!

You can watch war movies all day on TCM. Twelve O’Clock High (1949)–one of my favorites is on tonight, followed by another great one, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

Or you can choose to watch John Wayne movies.

Either way, have a good day and take some time to remember the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces.

Here is a great rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861 to the tune of “John Brown’s Body”:

Have you ever read all the lyrics to this wonderful hymn? Well, here they are:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal”;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,

He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,

So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah.

Our God is marching on.

And here is a special prayer from the BCP for today:

ALMIGHTY God, our heavenly Father, in whose hands are the living and the dead; We give thee thanks for all those thy servants who have laid down their lives in the service of our country. Grant to them thy mercy and the light of thy presence, that the good work which thou hast begun in them may be perfected; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Amen.

3 Comments

May 23, 2014

Happy Friday–like the blast of a trumpet!

by chuckofish

This Friday has been a long time coming–what a long week! But we have a three-day weekend coming up, so it’s all good.

FYI May has been a big month for birthdays already and this weekend we have two more favorites: Bob Dylan (May 24) on Saturday

and Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25) on Sunday!

Those are two great reasons to celebrate this weekend! One good way to do so would be to re-read Self Reliance, which I have been meaning to do–how about you?

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance

Another way would be to watch No Direction Home (2005)–a film chronicle of Bob Dylan’s evolution between 1961 and 1966 from folk singer to rock star. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it uses archival footage and recent interviews to tell the story of the illusive Bob, who refuses “to be simplified, classified, categorized, or finalized”. And why should he be? He is, like Emerson and those other guys mentioned above, a “pure and wise spirit,” both great and misunderstood.

Dylan and Emerson are certainly on the same page. Here’s Bob:

‘Trust yourself
Trust yourself to do the things that only you know best
Trust yourself
Trust yourself to do what’s right and not be second-guessed
Don’t trust me to show you beauty
When beauty may only turn to rust
If you need somebody you can trust, trust yourself’

How Emersonian can you get?

So enjoy your weekend and trust yourself. Eat cake.

6 Comments

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