Category Archive: Uncategorized
Alan Arkin
(26 March 1934 – 29 June 2023) Mike Nichols called him “the best actor in America.” He was often one of the few good things about the films he landed, but in his best ones (see below) he was a veritable virtuoso. He generally took ‘small’ roles and made them into brilliant little portraits. Watch him in the original version of The In-Laws, or Glengarry Glen Ross, and you see a man with a barely bottled hysteria. His best: The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming (1966), Wait Until Dark (1967), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1968), Popi…
Continue Reading →Something for Everyone
A Day on the Green, Spring, 2022 Omnivorous music fans thronged the tent at the Fumier Winery to enjoy the ne plus ultra in nuovo-Punk, Prog and Grunge. Wound Pump This hard-working Birmingham band, all of whom were expelled from art school, opened at the reasonably unpopular time of 4 am. Their set included “Get Two Free,” “Monkeypox Mary,” “Signing On,” “UB40 IS KRAP,” “Chilean Torture Chamber,” and a great cover of Wayne/Jayne County’s immortal “If You Don’t Want To F**k Me, F**k Off.” TVC particularly liked Pump’s snipe at the likes of Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith: “this old…
Continue Reading →Parody # 2 “From Blank to Blank (For He Who Forgets Who Is In Charge of Hotel Quarantine)”
(with apologies to Emily Dickinson, “From Blank to Blank” From Blank to Blank – A Threadless Way I push mechanic words – To stop – or smother – or confuse – The skeptics and the turds – If votes I gain If jail avoid Indefinite disclosed – I shut my eyes – with fingers crossed That all but I – am Blind –
Continue Reading →“The Elephant”
“{Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant (The only harmless great thing), the giant Of beasts, who thought none had to make him wise, But to be just and thankful, loth to offend (Yet nature hath given him no knees to bend) Himself he up-props, on himself relies, And, foe to none, suspects no enemies, Still sleeping stood; vex’d not his fantasy Black dreams; like an unbent bow carelessly His sinewy proboscis did remissly lie.” “The Elephant” by John Donne
Continue Reading →“This cruelty too will end”
Anne Frank (born 12 June 1929) would have been 91 today. “It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquillity will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps…
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