Long-Range Reading and Viewing Projects

1920 by Eric Burns

This was an entertaining and informative chapter-a-day read for lunch, not bogged down in overanalysis, of the historical and cultural highpoints of the eponymous year. The author speaks authoritatively based on strong primary sources and admits where he speculates. I had one factual quibble with p. 69, referring to the rough blizzard of March 1920 and the effect of high winds: “Pedestrians in New York were blown off balance as they walked, even though the canyon walls of skyscrapers should have protected them.” I would suggest that this is not exceptional, as high winds from above are drawn down any building. The wind has to go somewhere and doesn’t only bounce back on itself. There is less volume of space for wind to blow at street level, and the result in a compressed, higher-velocity wind stream than the wind from above.  This phenomenon was also observed in Brooklyn by my mother-in-law, Rose Dunne, who called the Williamsburg Bank corner at Flatbush and Fourth Avenues,” the windiest corner in Brooklyn.”

Doctor Who: The Classic Series

How to approach the desire to see all the episodes of Doctor Who, 1963–1989? Plan A: watch them backwards in time, Doctors Eight through One. Before the return of the Paul McGann Eighth Doctor’s 1996 single television adventure, rescreened for the 50^th Anniversary celebrations on BBC America in 2013, I was able to find the one free copy of this DVD in New York City, at the Seward Park branch of the NYPL. I saw all of the Sylvester McCoy Seventh Doctor’s (1987–1989) adventures courtesy of the NYPL 42^nd St. branch, often watching a few shows in one sitting. Their Dr. Who collection is extensive. Then I switched to Plan B: watch them in order. I started at the beginning (1963) with William Hartnell’s First Doctor. I can’t explain why, after I had dipped into his Doctor several times, I didn’t get it. But somehow something clicked by watching episode 1, “An Unearthly Child.” Maybe it was my own advancing years and to learn that he was my age when he played the part (although chronic health problems made him look 15 years older). I’m in the middle of the final series that featured the original two companions, Ian and Barbara, and I will miss them dearly. I now watch one episode per week, on Saturdays, and it will take the next 20 years or to see them all at that pace, allowing time off in the Fall to watch the new series. I’ll be 78. I’m only 50 years behind, in 1965.

The 87^th Precinct Novels by Ed McBain

If you take advantage of it, the Kindle Lending Library is one of the world’s greatest bargains, as found in Amazon Prime. (Note: I know they treat employees roughly, according to a recent piece in the NYT.) Included in the package is one free book per month on the Kindle (you can also read on a PC). The selection of Kindle freebies does not align with my taste, but I have found some great Kindle Singles, including short fiction (Crooning by Frank D. Gilroy [he resurrects the great Dick Powell in a humorous tale of 1958 Cuba]) and on subjects as varied as WW II espionage (The Secret Agent by Stephen Talty) and comical memoirs (Cautionary Tales by Stephen Tobolowsky); and one great series: Ed McBain’s 87^th Precinct novels. For 50 years McBain (a.k.a. Evan Hunter) wrote these this punchy, moody accounts of tough detectives, low-life crooks, and beautiful dolls; denizens of Isola (a NYC-like city turned sideways) inhabit a universe where series regulars can die but justice always prevails; he delineates fleshy characters that lift this series up from dime novel to gilt-edged classic. I can’t wait until the first of the month (you get one free book per month) to read Lady, Lady I Did It (1961). There’s a new series on TNT this month about ‘60s cops and I’ll be watching to see if there is any 87th influence. McBain said he was ripped off by NBC when they did Hill Street Blues, a fact he alludes to in the intro to the reissue of some of the novels. TV’s Barney Miller owes a debt to him too. I am tempted to order the TV series DVD of the 87^th Precinct, which lasted only one season in 1961–62, starring Robert Lansing. It beats watching a 2015 doctor show with underwear models pretending to be brain surgeons.

Holman Christian Standard Bible by multiple authors

Skipped the Old Testament, working on the New Testament. Read a chapter a day (takes less than 10 minutes), stop, let it marinate. You can read the first four books in less than a year. I just started the fifth book, “Acts of the Apostles.” Try this reading plan and if it doesn’t improve your life in some way, at least you’ll improve your cultural literacy and maybe win at bar trivia. My father said to my old girlfriend (now my bride): forget those shrinks, there is something good for you on any page of the Bible. He was right. My favorite book is John. Halfway in he starts up with the events of the Passion, which the other books seem to squeeze in at the end. I especially enjoy the miracles, many of which have come true again today through science, which doesn’t make them any less miraculous. Gift of tongues = Google Translate. Curing paralysis = electrical stimulation of the spinal cord (in development). Curing the deaf = cochlear implant.  It’s a roadmap to the possible for those afflicted, if not by illness then by apathy and depression. In John 9:3, referring to the blind man’s affliction and cure, Jesus says, “this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” I’m praying for a miracle cure for tinnitus and floaters.

Go out there, help somebody, feel good about yourself! My father, who I only knew as an older Irishman in his 50s to 70s (that’s like 60s to 80s today) and never in great health, had an even older Irish friend, Barney Brady, and he’d go over and help him out. “Where’s Dad?” we’d ask.  “He went to see Mr. Brady,” said my mother.

The Hornblower Novels by C.S . Forester

After I finished the 20-volume O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series some 15 years ago, where to go? It’s like when your bar goes out of business. Do you go to the artisanal cheesemaker/gastropub that took its place, or do you find an even older bar? In reading the first Hornblower novel, Beat to Quarters, and finding the captain too dour, I then got into his psychological struggles with self-loathing, while admiring his bravery and calculating acumen in sailing and adventure planning. I’m now in the second book, Ship of the Line, and will no doubt keep far from leeward as I set topsails to the eleventh book across the horizon. I’m buying the print version to easily share with Mom. I made a decision to read the books in the order written, not in the chronological numbering order that the current publisher has chosen, in order to experience the works in the same order as the first readers. Belay that rope!

Ann Patchett

I have read five Ann Patchett novels and admire her work for its heart (without mawkishness): The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, Bel Canto, and State of Wonder. She was crazy enough to open her own bookstore in Nashville after the big chains left town. As I understand it, the big chains lost money as chains, but there were certain cities where they made money (like Amtrak in the Northeast vs. the less-used Northern-Western lines). I’m still trying to figure out why you titled Taft as you did.

I read State of Wonder first, and then I believe, TMA, BC, TPSoL, and most recently, Taft. I hope her essay collection, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, stays true. Bravo Ann!

The Fifth of July: There Used to be a Boardwalk Right Here

THE FIFTH OF JULY: I saw the Lanford Wilson play with Christopher Reeve in the early '80s. He played a paraplegic homosexual (apologies in advance, that was the word for "gay" back then--you couldn't say "gay" in the NY Times unless it meant otherwise). I probably paid the same as I paid this week to see MAN OF STEEL in Union Square ($14.50). MoS took away the stink that's been in my nose since SUPERMAN RETURNS. What won me over was the Burger King commercial. In 2 seconds of commercial screen time I could see in that pitch for the Whopper that the actor was actually an actor and not a model turned deadbeat-dad superhero. The Whopper by the way has breached $5 in Manhattan. The sign said "$4.99" on Fifth in the mid-30s but they charged $5.09. I asked for 11 cents back. As I left, I saw the new signage being delivered.

On this July 5 I took a trip to Rockaway Park to see how B116 St. weathered the storm. The Sandbar at B116 St. hasn't come back and the wooden boardwalk is gone all the way to B106. A concrete boardwalk is under construction. It was a shock to see new modern elevated bathrooms planted in the sand, the elevation being a good idea if there is another storm of the century. The locals have objected to the view being partially cut off. I observed that the old below-ground bathrooms at B116 have a few inches of green muck pooled at the bottom of the staircase leading to them.

To get from B116 to B106 you can walk along a metal-plank road plunked in the sand parallel to the shore. When you get to B106 you see another modern bathroom and the 21st c. version of The Sandbar: the Caracas Arepas Bar. I got there around 12:30 pm, a little too early for food, and killed the time with a tasty Rockaway (of Long Island City) beer. After Kindling some pix to world famous webmaster Kevin Walsh and a few of my other associates, I returned for a delicious chicken empanada and another brew. It felt like Park Slope by the shore.

Destruction and things falling apart are bad but what makes us America is growth and renewal. No flies on U.S. Would I like to see a dozen places like Caracas in 3 blocks of Rockaway? No, but its heroic return in 2013 after the storm is inspiring to anyone who likes a knosh and a drink on a sunny uncrowded day at the shore.

Postscript: I can recommend the carrot cake and coffee at the Last Stop Gourmet Shop, located next to the A train. Right outside was a blood drive to support a cop shot yesterday. You can't discourage Rockaway. Like the David Brenner gag about the New Yorker who sees the manhole cover explode into the air and yells, "Tails!" Rockaway goes on and will be better than before.

Photos of the Fifth of July, 2013, Rockaway Park, NY.

The old Sandbar.

Bathrooms in the sky.

 The long plank road of metal.

There used to be a boardwalk right here (apologies to Sinatra).

And here.

The future is now at B106.

Still getting the hang of these selfies.

There we go.

One last selfie. So long from Caracas, Rockaway. These folks make you forget that we're supposed to mad at them for selling cheap oil to seniors. Like the Texan said, what's all of their sand doin' on my oil?

The Next Doctor in Doctor Who

I regret not registering my Sarah Palin for veep prediction years ago so here goes:

The next Time Lord will be . . . a Time Lady: Hayley Atwell. She has sci-fi and real cred in spades, is a terrific actress, and not incidentally, is a beauty.

Let's see what happens.

The Parody is Better Than the Show

The classic example is the Milton Berle song parody "Sam You Made the Pants Too Long" exceeding the popularity of "Lord You Made the Night Too Long." A modern one is the Nikki Heat series by Richard Castle. I stopped watching CASTLE after trying to get into it last season. However, the books are a great read, still unknown who is penning them. Publishing is a rare media where you can easily keep a secret.

Internet Scoop, or Just a Guess

Was that John Barrowman (ARROW, DOCTOR WHO) dubbing Jimmy Fallon in Jimmy's duet with Jay Leno last night? Jimmy can sing but this bit had Broadway quality. Find Barrowman's singing in the movie THE PRODUCERS doing "Springtime for Hitler" and you'll hear the similarity. Plus, he had a show in the UK with a similar theme to the Jay-Jimmy duet. Just saying. This may be the first post on the Interwebs to notice this, or just a bad guess.

I Dreamed About Twins

I had a dream last night that I was talking to one of the boys in the E. 28th bedroom, sitting on the edge of bed. I said, Isn't that something, you're a twin and now you have twin brothers. Where are they?, I said in a panic. In the corner, opposite the window, I found two tiny babies up on a shelf in what looked like shoe boxes.

In the book I'm reading, CUTTING FOR STONE, the twins are placed in their crib apart, but by morning they are in a V-formation, touching at the head. That's how they were in the womb, slightly conjoined at the head but then separated immediately at birth. I remember our boys in the T-formation in the morning.

The dream must have come from my remark in the kitchen last night about being the son of a twin and father of twins.

There's Nothing Worse than the Wino

My daughter received a voucher in the mail the other day for $100 worth of wine. She usually runs an amazing offer past me to see if it's a scam. I thought back to my father, who would be 102 years old today. The conversation, from the early 1980s, had turned to the Bowery. This was before you needed to pass a rope line to get in. Denizens included defrocked priests, broke lawyers, crooked accountants, shell-shocked vets, and working class joes and janes who lost the battle with the bottle years before. My father said, "There's nothing worse than the wino." I said, "Dad, haven't you heard about this crack cocaine epidemic? It's killing people every day and ruining lives." "Yes," said the old Irishman, "there's nothing worse than the wino." The crack epidemic subsided.  I wonder where the winos went?

To the AMNY Hawker on the Herald Sq. Subway Mezzanine

To the lady who gives out the free morning paper:
When you hawk a paper, you're supposed to entice us with what "it" is: "Read All About It!: HUN SINKS LUSITANIA or "Read All About It!: SADDAM FOUND IN SPIDER HOLE,  not "Read All About It!: AM New York!"

Good News from the Barber

If a haircut were a speech, then the peroration would be the mirror ritual. Late Sunday morning, my barber angled the mirror in his hands so I could see in the big wall mirror the handiwork of the last 15 minutes. As the light from the spot at the top of my head reached my retina, I also reflected, on the time I was sitting on the floor playing with my kids as they were eye-level to me. Matt said, "Daddy, you have a spot!" I had known this but went into foolish denial. My wife later acknowledged the fact. In fact, she recently expressed the opinion that had thought by this time (some 20 years later) that I would have lost it all. I said to my barber, "Well, I still have that spot back there." He said, "Don't worry, that's from the summer. It'll grow back in the winter." Punked by my own barber. I tipped 20% for the laugh.

WKRB--Sweet Sounds of Hal David

It's only blowing out 10 watts and heard in Bk and the Rockaways, but there were some big sounds coming out of WKRB 90.3 FM on Sweet Sounds tribute to the late Hal David. I think Jonathan Schwartz managed a single tune in salute to Hal David last weekend on WNYC-FM, but Prof. Ron Forman put together a terrific hour, including my personal favorites, "What's New Pussycat" sung by Tom Jones and "Living Together" from the much maligned musical version LOST HORIZON. Thank you professor. I live nearby so I can dial the show up from across Sheepshead Bay. If you live out of the coverage area you can also tune in from the Internet via this link.

I Saved a Life Today

A tornado touched down in Breezy Point, Queens and Canarsie today. We also had some strong winds in Gerritsen Creek. After the storm, my wife and went out for a walk in the creek and spied a bluefish flopping in the trail. It must have been lifted out of the water by the winds. Rather than call Nanny Bloomberg and 311 to find out what to do when discovering wildlife out of its proper environment, I picked the fish up by the tail and tossed it some distance into the water. I say some "some distance" because due to so-called restoration, the water is fenced off. I seem to recall that the same restoration line was used for Prospect Park, which is now a tree museum. We lived in Park Slope when there was just three of us and I can remember walking down to the stream, a little bit of nature only a few blocks away from our third-floor walk up. Now, you can look at the stream through a chain link fence. You think these fences are temporary and after 10-20 years, you realize that it isn't so. Each time they "restore" Gerritsen Creek, it is claimed that it is being restored to its natural original state. I'm not sure which fixed point in time they use to simulate that antediluvian condition.

I Can't Win--Caught Cheating While Asleep

My wife woke up upset today. It seems that international movie star Julie Delpy asked me out and didn't ask my wife to come along. I explained to Mrs. 1OTT that I couldn't be held accountable for something that happened in her dream. Going Jungian, I offered the theory that Ms. Delpy was an avatar for my wife, both being blonde, bespectacled, and beautiful. I think I smoothed it over and with luck it won't come up this evening.

One Man, Two Guvnors: Whatta show!

In the late '70s I saw the late Dick Shawn play Fabulous Fantastic, Jr. in THE SECOND GREATEST ENTERTAINER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. I didn't think I or an audience could laugh any harder or longer than I did that night, but OM, TG made it happen last night. The cast and crew break the fourth wall at the edge of the stage and break all the rules of a proper Broadway show. I rank the laugh factor equal to Pryor, Chappelle, and the Marx Brothers. After the finale, the standing ovation grew as each part of the troupe came out for their bows, leading to a complete standing ovation when James Corden came out. I had never seen a complete standing ovation before. They are closing this weekend. Spend the baby's college tuition on this one. (That's the kind of cheeky humor you'll find in this show, which is not for the offendable.) You won't regret it.

One Man Two Guvnors

Going to see it tonight. Brit funnyman, Tony Award winner, and two-time Dr. Who guest star James Corden has a lot on the line--I paid closing week prices to go. Be funny!

Happy 92nd Birthday Mom!

Mom's doing great and we had a nice little party.

Blog hiatus: we're getting ready to go to Paris next month. I promise to return with a big photo feature in May. I expect Mrs. 1onthetown to be constantly stopped by well-wishers of the beautiful Julie Delpy.

UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

When I was a kid I loved boxing. I read about it, watched it on TV, even kept score round by round. What turned me off permanently was the Patterson-Ellis title bout on September 14, 1968. The old champ Floyd Patterson was attempting to regain the crown and become the heavyweight king for an unprecedented third time. He gave WBA (one of two crowning authorities, the WBC being the other) champ Ellis a beating and my scorecard gave it easily to my fellow Brooklynite and all-around good citizen. I'm paraphrasing but the post-fight dialogue with announcer Howard Cosell went something like this:

HOWARD: Champ! Champ! How do you feel? It looks like you're going to regain the crown and be the heavyweight champion again!

FLOYD: Let's wait and see what the referee says Howard.

The referee in Sweden was the sole judge and he gave the decision to Ellis for reasons unknown. My own conclusion as an 11-year-old buff was that there were powers greater than Floyd that wanted a young champion that they could control.

Part of being a young buff was learning the continuous lineage of the heavyweight championship line. From John L. Sullivan in 1885, there followed Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Hart, Burns and the greatest  champ of all time, Jack Johnson. Johnson lived like a modern man and how he avoided being shot, lynched, or physically destroyed is a testament to the sheer force that this man exuded. The racism of the time prevented him from fighting for the title for many years as white champs refused to fight him. Once he was given the opportunity, he took the title and held it from 1908-1915.

The Ken Burns documentary, UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, is very well done and especially clever in the showing of and commentary on real fight footage from 100 years ago. It's almost corny to dub in the sound of punches and the crowd noise but it works with silent footage. All the other Burns touches are there, such as period music and famous people reading from archival newspapers and magazines.

I particularly recommend the on-screen commentary from James Earl Jones, who played Johnson in THE GREAT WHITE HOPE on stage and screen. Some great still photos are shown of Jones and Muhammad Ali play sparring, back in the day when Ali was banned from boxing. Jones movingly talks about Johnson's ethos: how his heart, mind, soul, and very manhood was his alone: he was not a slave.

Part I concludes with Johnson's ascension to the title. Part II covers the fall and it's sad to see a man flee his country and have to bargain his way back in to serve a one-year jail term for violating the Mann Act. In 2011 there's recurring talk of a presidential pardon. Even though he lived his later years fighting bums and living off past glory, his final rounds are filled more dignity than many modern champs who end up addled from too many blows and broke: Joe Louis working as a casino greeter always comes to mind. I was happy to see Johnson make it to 68. It's implied that his fatal car crash was precipitated by some racial mistreatment; he drove off speeding in a rage. It's hard to believe that he would have done that.

Black History Month IV: Move Over Gabriel! Here Comes Satchmo!

Welcome to the 4th annual Black History Month for 1 On the Town. Check out the archives for 2010, 2009, and 2008 (there's some amazing prognostication or just hopefulness about our current president in the Pettigrew for President entry).

Move Over Gabriel! Here Comes Satchmo!

So said radio/TV man Fred Robbins at the end of his eulogy for Louis Armstrong in 1970. I can remember growing in the 1960s, the Golden Age of free television. A middle class kid could see the greatest artists of the 20th century on free TV on the late afternoon talk/variety shows and beg his parents to stay up and watch a late night show (9 pm) if it was a school night. Louis Armstrong was a frequent guest in that era, always welcome in the home. His avuncular ubiquitous presence was anodyne to the occasional racism a kid was exposed to by his older siblings. I can't recall feeling prejudice toward blacks and my Irish father scolded anyone in the house who used the N-word, but I can recall that one sibling liked to tell offensive Black jokes and another favored anti-Semitism. We had little exposure to African Americans inside the house, except for my father's friend from work, Holcombe Hall, who fixed TVs as a sideline, and the Edison man.

I recently read Terry Teachout's 2009 bio POPS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and recommend it. What comes though is the underlying sadness of the humorous trumpet icon who brought so much joy to the world. If Tracy Morgan wants to get his EGOT, he should star in the biopic.

"(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue?" Louis sang courtesy of Fats Waller and Andy Ratzaff. Twice Teachout comments and reports on Louis's interpretations of the song. From the first time he recorded it in 1929, Louis "made a point of blunting its confrontational edge," Teachout notes. When I hear anyone criticize Louis this is usually the thrust, that his good-natured stage and real-life personas made his people look meek or happy in their oppression, ignoring the reality of racism. They conveniently ignore the mixed-race bands he led, which did more to break down legal barriers and hidden prejudices than any professional speakers ever did or will do.

There's a beautiful scene in the documentary JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S DAY (1959) (thank you Netflix streaming) with Louis and Jack Teagarden doing their old chestnut, "Rockin' Chair." Teachout describes a 1957 TV perf "in which the broad shouldered Teagarden puts an arm around the shorter Armstrong and looks affectionately at him as they amble through their well-worn routine:

 [JACK:] Fetch me some water, son!

[LOUIS:] You know you don't drink water, father.

If you don't dig this kind of good humor and bonhomie, then you can't dig Pops.

One more note on Louis and childhood: I think every kid in the family did a raspy impression, which was always followed by Mom warning that you'd ruin your throat. I can even remember bringing out a handkerchief for verisimilitude.

Antenna TV: Old Shows on New Network; Back from the North Country

ANTENNA TV

By "old shows on new network" I'm not talking about Dr. Phil repeats on the new OWN channel. The first day of the new year 2011 saw the return of the Three Stooges to channel 11, that is, eleven point four on the over-the-air digital dial, on a new national network called Antenna TV. A Stooges marathon was followed by regular programming later in the week. This channel trumps cable's TV Land by sheer variety, none of the four-hour blocks of the same show that I can't imagine anyone sitting through. Also, black and white is welcome on 11.4. I assume TV Land thinks that only color GUNSMOKEs would be of interest but I would love to see a b/w from the beginning of the run.

Antenna TV is running classic comedies like THE MONKEES and BENNY HILL that I'm pretty sure anyone under 25 either hasn't seen or only heard their parents talk about. How to describe, in a 24-hour Internet world, the joys of the naughty, bawdy Brit humor of Benny Hill? The one guest that Johnny Carson wanted but couldn't get, Benny Hill and his amiable troupe of old men and young ladies were last seen on a regular basis in New York in syndication on channel 9 in the '80s, late at night (after 11). Musical parodies and sketches that never reached the level of lewd (by 21st c. standards), Benny Hill and his backward salute could find favor with a new generation if they can find him. Hey Cablevision, can you drop one of your several end-is-near or PPV porn channels and put on something that more people would want to watch?

THE NORTH COUNTRY

My last trip to the farm was in 2008 in the summer and this time I was promised soul-searching wind chills in the week after Christmas. Walking 3 miles to the F train through the aftermath of the blizzard of 2010 (I actually got a lift for part of the way from a van full of Chinese fellows) to catch a bus from the Port Authority, my arrival in Gouverneur found me above the snow line and the beneficiary of temperate weather on Lockie Lane Farms. Ken's wife Claire and her mother Elsie fed me so well that I gained 5 pounds in 3 days, which doesn't seem possible. Elsie's biscotti, Claire's sweet and sour pork and apple pie and more apple pie--not even a few hikes through the hills, or reading my trip book, GULLIVER' TRAVELS by Jonathan Swift, could work off the weight. The only thing close to work that I did was climb up the hay bale stairway to the loft and throw a few bales down to Mr. Sullivan and his father-in-law. One bale is going for 2 bucks this season.

Did you know that chickens need 12 hours of sunlight to lay an egg? Some folks force them to lay, by installing artificial lighting, but Ken's giving the girls these short days off.

One day we bought two new barn windows and a dump wagon, two things I probably won't do again for awhile, although we may buy a few hundred new windows this year here in the co-op.

Here come the pictures and some video. Turn down the volume if the sound of bleating disturbs you.

And here comes my new best friend, Major.  A black Lab, he was found on the side of the road with a bag of dog food. Who would do something like that? They actually know who did it--Major's collar had a chip in it. Best dog I ever met.

Comes running like a bullet from a half-mile away.

His Master's Voice.

Good boy.

Looking down on the farm from up the hill.

Who you calling chicken?

Ken said that Major barks at anyone new, but Major and I hit it off from the start. I miss Major.

The sheep. The barn smells a lot better in the winter. The coats are to protect the wool. Ken sells the wool and some go to slaughter. Sorry PETA.

 The rams are kept separate.

Ken and Claire are off the oil grid for heating--he chops wood and has at least a two-year supply for the furnace (made in USA furnace and fuel--take that, Kuwait).

Mom sends an ornament each year. This year I hand delivered one (this is an old one from the their tree--you can guess where they got the tree from).

Sheep on Film: Turn down your sound card if you're at work. These sheep are like sheep except when you ask them to keep it down at feeding time. There's another difference in visiting in the winter--no baa-ting when you're waking up.

Year-end Roundup: BLOODY BLODY, TRUE GRIT, Hooked on Netflix; THE EMPEROR OF MALADIES

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON

1onthetown had a theatre companion this month for BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON. We've been talking about seeing this for awhile and when the closing notice was posted she ran out and got us two ducats on the aisle in front of the stage right speakers. The intimate Belasco Theatre Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre houses this rousing Guitar Hero bio of the seventh president. The eponymous lead as played by Benjamin Walker proves he can fill a theatre with his voice even without a mic. The incredibly cluttered stage makes scene changes easy as everything is already up there. I liked a lot of it except for the dotty lady in the wheelchair who narrates the first half of the proceedings.

This show started in L.A. in 2008 and there's a West coast TV sick humor sensibility that may have contributed to this show not catching on, such as jokes stretched paper thin and too long (for example, in the very beginning we suffer through the narrator wordlessly tooling around and around the stage in the electric wheelchair). The other negative is the effeminate depiction of Eastern political figures. Except for the rugged postures of Jackson and Calhoun, figures such as JQ Adams and Martin Van Buren are portrayed as foppish jackasses. I can accept that Andrew Jackson is bringing back sexypants but the other male characters were too Paul Lynde for this context.


TRUE GRIT

What does it take to get me off the couch and into a movie theatre?: a weekday afternoon and the Coen brothers teamed with Jeff Bridges making a movie out of the great Charles Portis's TRUE GRIT. But the real attraction is newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as the plucky miss out to avenge her father's murder by an ungrateful coward. I feel like Christopher Plummer giving you "Miss Daisy Clover" but I'm giving a money back guarantee based on her perf. She's real and the true grit of the title, with no phony 21st c. politics informing her acting.

Were the Coen Bros. joking by hiring a lookalike (Barry Pepper) for Robert Duvall to play the same part that Duvall played in the first version of TRUE GRIT? Oh brother!

HOOKED ON NETFLIX

I spent a good deal of week one of vacation watching DARIA on Netflix DVD, streaming Season 2 of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, and also streaming the cult classic TV show FIREFLY. So sad that we have hundreds of ST: TNG eps and only 14 FIREFLYs but I'm telling myself it's like watching 5 or 6 great movies. I read that 20% of Internet traffic from 8-10 pm is from Netflix streaming and that only 2% of their customers currently stream. When this catches on it may break the Internet. I was running the laptop thru the TV but my new BluRay player makes it a couch potato's dream. How did I miss FIREFLY during its run on FOX in the early 2000s?

THE EMPEROR OF MALADIES by Siddhartha Mukerjee

This book is subtitled "A History of Cancer" and is a good read if you've ever liked a science class or read science for leisure. Stay away if you're looking for humorous anecdotes. The author's vocabulary is excellent and I learned some new words, or at least one of those words that you see but can't ever remember its meaning: febrile.


That's it for 2010. I'm off to the farm, bringing the camera, and will have a full report in the new year.

Merry Christmas from Mel Tormé 3

Cre-a-k-k! The private vault is open again for Mel Tormé. This time it's New Year's Eve, 1987. Like Santa, he comes around every December and leaves all with a great feeling. Enjoy!!