“Hey, what’s with the food around here? A kid comes up to me in a white jacket, gives me a Ritz cracker, and uh, chopped liver, he says, ‘Canapes.’ I said, uh, ‘can of peas, my ass, that’s a Ritz cracker and chopped liver!’”
—- The Godfather Part 2
A week ago, Candy and I went to see the Godfather at The Alamo Drafthouse. This week is The Godfather Part II. Some people consider this to be a better movie than the first – it is one of those rare cases where the sequel is equal, if not superior to the original. Both won best picture Oscars – and every other accolade possible.
I was really looking forward to seeing it. Unlike Part 1 – which I saw in a theater in high school, I never saw the sequel on the big screen – I was in college by then and not able to get out to theaters because of time and money restraints. It would be years until I was able to see it on television – and it’s so long – it was impossible to carve out enough of a block to sit there uninterrupted. So I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen the whole thing in one sitting – though I’ve watched it in bits more than once, all told.
It is hard to compare to the first movie. Even though it has the same people, more or less, it is structured quite differently. It covers a huge amount of time and space – much told through flashbacks – two separate stories, really. The whole Cuba deal is complicated – and has the aspect of international politics, big news stories, and revolution. In that section, and in the congressional hearings, it feels like the outside world has finally started to intrude on the Corleone empire… which I guess is the point.
So I do think the second is the more subtle, complex, and possibly better film, but it doesn’t have the epic personalities of the first.
John Cazale (who plays Fredo) passed away in 1978 and I saw a short doc about his short acting career. He was only in five feature films – but what a collection – Godfathers 1 and 2, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter. Five classic films. I think his performance of the tragic, flawed Fredo is a high point of the film.
Oh, and I didn’t realize that Harry Dean Stanton is in the film (a fairly small part). He is truly in every movie.
So, next week is the third. I’m excited because the Alamo is screening the re-edit of Godfather Part III – The Godfather Coda: The Death of Micheal Corleone. It is supposed to be a big improvement. We have our tickets… and the Alamo is such a great place to see a film.
What can you do with a can of WD40? Lubricate M-16s, catch bigger fish, de-ice rod guides, clean turtles, repel pigeons, remove dog poo, make a flame-thrower, and much, much more
Unthinkable as it may sound today, the cuisines we have come to associate with spiciness—Indian, Thai, Korean, and Chinese, among others—had no chili peppers at all before their introduction in the 16th century onward. Prior to that, those cuisines relied on other spices or aromatics to add heat to dishes, such as ginger, likely native to southern China, or black pepper, native to India.
How did chili peppers become part of the human diet beginning in the Americas an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 years ago? And why were they eventually embraced by the rest of the world?
The trail runs through thick forest near the south end. While I was taking this photo – my tire was losing air.
This reads like a cautionary tale on the Law of Unintended Regulatory Consequences, and to some extent it is. However, it’s just as much a tale of green-movement hypocrisy, as well as yet another lesson on the impact of incentives and artificial market interventions. The New York Times explains in a sideways manner how the EU has attempted to comply with its own Paris Accord targets for carbon-dioxide reduction by, er, wiping out the forests of the continent for conversion to power.
The 90s was when I lost touch with contemporary rock, so the bands mean nothing to me. They’re mostly angry. Very angry. Loud and tight and tuneless. You look back and wonder: I don’t remember the 90s being this feral. But you get the sense of a youth culture that had completely decoupled from the civilization that gave them life and food and purpose. Just RAAAAHHHHWWWWW dude culture, like the last horrible yawp before the internet fixed them all with a pin and everyone was anesthetized by a gaming console or a phone.
A little over a month ago, I started feeling more fatigued than usual. Just about everything in my life—from getting out of bed to exercising to writing to coaching to reading—required a significant amount of activation energy. All of these activities usually felt smooth and seamless. Now they had turned into a grind. I wasn’t depressed, or even particularly sad. And I didn’t have the sense of stagnation or emptiness associated with languishing. I was simply tired.
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” ― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
Louise Bourgeois, Spider, New Orleans
From my old online journal The Daily Epiphany – Monday, November 30, 1998
Arachnophobia
I’m not familiar with phobias. Irrational fear maybe, but to the point of debilitation? not really. I’ve always been afraid of the dentist, but that’s pretty common. I get over it. There was that fear of bad mayonnaise that I had for a while; irrational perhaps, but it didn’t really have any effect on my life.
Poor Lee has developed a horrible fear of insects, especially spiders. He has always been goosey around bugs, but on the camping trip it erupted into full-blown panic. There was a tiny spider in the van on the way back home and Lee completely lost it. I had to concentrate on driving while he jumped out of his seat and started screaming at the top of his lungs.
Today, Candy called me at work on the mobile phone. She was trying to take the kids to a friend’s house to see some new puppies but Lee was standing in the alley, adamant, he was not going to get in the van because he was afraid there were spiders in there. Candy finally managed to get Lee in the van but by then she had lost her temper, Lee was freaked out, everyone was at the end of their ropes. I talked to Candy, tried to calm her down, then had a long, long talk with Lee on the cell phone.
It was no use reasoning with him, his fear is obviously not a rational one. I mostly chatted him up, tried to get him back to normal. He did calm down, agreed to stay in the van, but kept saying things like, “I’ll keep my finger on the seatbelt button so I can get out of my seat if I see a spider.” I’ll have to convince him this wasn’t a good idea, he has to stay in his seat.
I’m not sure what to do. Lee is only six, he will outgrow this, but in the meantime we have to get him through. I did agree to take the van and Candy will drive the kids around in the Taurus. Lee was happy with this, but that means Nick and Lee will sit next to each other in the back seat, and that is like storing dynamite with lit matches.
I think I’ll get a book on collecting bugs, maybe that will help him deal with it. The whole killing jar and pins, and waxed cardboard thing is pretty distasteful, but if it helps Lee get over his phobia quicker, I’ll sacrifice a few insects (even some arachnids) in the cause.
Maybe an ant farm too, all kids like those. Except I’m sure they could break the ant farm playing ball in the house, that would be a scary mess. Better be careful.
“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.” ― Mario Puzo, The Godfather
My bike in front of the Alamo Drafthouse, Richardson. Cool bike racks.
Last Saturday Candy and I went to a special showing of The Godfather at the Alamo Drafthouse cinema in Lake Highlands (it was sold out in Richardson – the closest to our house). We very seldom see movies anywhere other than the Alamo – it is just too cool.
This is the fiftieth anniversary of the film – which makes the math easy – I was fifteen when I first saw it. I was living in Managua – the arrival of the film in country was a big deal. I remember seeing it in a theater in town – pre-earthquake – so I did see it in 1972 (sometimes it took films a while to get to Central America).
The theater where I saw it was packed. Sometimes it was tough to get into R rated films in Managua (I couldn’t get in to see Cabaret, for example) but this one was considered highbrow and I was let in with my friends.
There was this kid at school that had mastered a loud, booming, evil-sounding laugh and would let loose with it at any inappropriate moment if he could shock everyone. In the movie, after the wedding, when Michael and Apollonia were in the bedroom and she dropped her nightgown… the crowd was silent and tense… and the guy, from somewhere in the theater (I didn’t know he was there) let out his loudest laugh. It was awful and hilarious.
Decades later, when we all got together in North Carolina, I asked him if he remembered that and he said, “Of course I do!”
At any rate, it was good to see it again, and nobody laughed at that scene. I have seen it many times over the years and was able to concentrate on details – like looking for oranges. I have to admit, over the years, I wasn’t sure what was going on all the time (like who exactly were getting shot there at the end) and I think I’ve got most of it figured out now – the internet helps.
At any rate, we’ve already got our tickets for Godfather part two, showing one week later – and the Alamo is also going to screen The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone – the re-edited version of The Godfather Part III – that is supposed to be much, much better. I haven’t seen it – have to buy my tickets.
“You’re going to have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.”
—-Merian C. Cooper to Fay Wray on being cast in King Kong
Table of tiny monsters, Clarence Street Art Collective, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
OK, to prove I am serious about my streaming Movie Recommendations – tonight when I came home from a bike ride (having narrowly missed today’s thunderstorm) I sat down, dialed up HBOMax, and watched the first item from my list – the Science Fiction film, Colossal.
I’ll keep this spoiler free – it stars Anne Hathaway as an alcoholic mess of a New York party girl hitting rock bottom and a giant monster stomping on Seoul, Korea. And yes, the two plot strands are very related.
That’s all I’m going to say (these plot points are revealed in the first minutes of the film) except… someone who is very famous recently for playing the best of all good guys turns out to be… something else.
A very good movie – different, but not weird, serious, but not maudlin, and not too long. Worth your while.
I’m not even going to link to the trailer… it gives away too much.
“Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid.” ― Captain Jack Sparrow
Classic colorful street bombers at the movie.
I watch too many movies… or maybe I don’t watch enough movies. I watch too many shit movies… I guess I watch too many short, silly Youtube things and not enough full-length movies.
There are too many films streaming on the various film streaming things… what to choose. I am working on it.
I have started a DAILY NOTES notebook – attached a pen holder to it and placed a couple of useful fountain pens (a Kaweco Sport and my Pilot Capless) on the notebook.
Also, I found a Youtube channel, Flick Connections, the guy has current recommendations from the various genres and streaming channels. So I’m working my way through some of his offerings, sitting there with a pen and my DAILY NOTES notebook and writing down what he recommends that I haven’t seen (or saw so long ago I don’t remember) and may be interested in.
The first two are: 20 Stunning SCI-FI Movies to Watch on HBO Max This Weekend and 18 Fantastic ‘FUCKED UP’ Films to Watch FREE on Tubi Tonight!.
I typed up the list from my notebook, added brief comments from my scribbled notes (can’t vouch for the accuracy of these), and emailed it to Candy. I was surprised how many she had already seen.
Here’s the text of my email – for your education. Some (one at least) are already gone – but will Shirley pop up somewhere else (or maybe not, and please stop calling me Shirley). Yeah, I know, there are some on here that I should have seen already – so sue me. Or, better yet, send me your ideas and recommendations – put them in a comment.
The one film that I really want to see is the first one – the Ann Hathaway monster movie – Colossal.
So many movies (and even more books) and so little time.
* – movies I want to watch soon
—-HBO+ (Science fiction)
* Colossal – Ann Hathaway clever monster movie. Supposed to be really good.
FAQ About Time Travel – Silly British comedy – satire of science fiction
Birth – Reincarnation – not much SF – Art Film, slow Weird
Limitless – Bradley Cooper – PG13 crowd pleaser
—-Popular films you may have seen and I should have seen:
* Vanilla Sky I have seen the Spanish version, Abre los ojos, but I don’t think I’ve seen Vanilla Sky all the way through in one sitting.
* Moon
* Ex Machina
—-Tubi (Fucked up films)
The Invitation – Thriller
* Goldstone – remote locations, Mystery
Wind River – neo noir mystery, by the director of Yellowstone * Cold in July – Slick, set in Texas * All the Money in the World – Ridley Scott
* Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead – Philip Seymour Hoffman Arizona – Danny McBride
Radius – low budget – Twilight Zone Like
Kill the Irishman – Mob Movie
Bone Tomahawk – Australian Western
Red Hill – Modern day Australian Western
* 68 Kill- Dark Comedy – lot of blood
The Chaser – South Korea – pimp thriller
Hunger – Michael Fassbender’s breakout role – Irish Prison – very disturbing
The older you get the stronger the wind gets – and it’s always in your face.
—-Jack Nicklaus
Dallas City Hall Plaza
(click to enlarge)
The Wind In Your Face
Craig took a break from work and, hungry, decided to go to a local run-down crummy counter service seafood emporium.
While he was waiting on his order an old man sidled up to him and asked a question.
….. “Any sugar for this here tea?” “Umm, that thing there, it’s already sweetened .” “Where’s the ice, I think I need some ice” “There on the coke machine”
The old man, very thin, shaking, held his flimsy yellow paper cup, now half-full of the bitter old tea that they serve from big sweating metal cylinders with black plastic taps on the bottom, looked at the coke machine, levers lined up, the little grated tray held a few old ice cubes spilled by the last customer (Craig). The old man poked at these tentatively, like someone who grew up in an age when restaurants had waitresses in aprons and carried notepads, waitresses that actually brought your iced tea to the table.
“They don’t give you any scoop.” “Umm, see that thing right there in the middle?” Craig pointed. “This?” “Hold your cup under it, press this lever, and the ice’ll come out.”
Craig had been standing next to the array of drink machines and collection of condiments, pumping catsup out of a recessed bulk container and mixing it with Tabasco in little white paper cups. The supplied cups were tiny so he had to prepare a handful of them. As Craig stood back with his red plastic tray he watched the old man as the ice came out in an unexpected tumble, that startling fast-food ice bin rumble, Clankity-Clank. The old man jerked, collapsing his drink cup, ice and tea squirting out. With a heavy sigh, the girl came out from behind the counter with her dirty looking towel and helped him get things straightened out.
Craig sat down at a booth. It was late, almost three, the day at work had been awful, full of disasters; he hadn’t been able to sneak out for lunch until the middle of the afternoon. Desperate for a few quiet moments he had gone for fast food fish, hoping the place would be mostly empty this late. As he started to eat, the old man shuffled over and settled in slowly in the next booth. He sat down on the other side, facing straight at Craig.
“McDonalds has fish sandwiches now.” he advised. “Uh-huh.” “Mebee I shoulda gone over there, fish sandwiches, ninety nine cents.” “Really.”
Craig remembered noticing a big sign in the entrance to this joint that promised a hefty senior citizen discount. It made an impression on him ’cause he noticed it would be only thirteen years before he would be eligible.
It was obvious that the old man wasn’t there so much to eat some fried fish as to talk to somebody. Craig knew that in small towns even today, most restaurants have long counters where you can go get coffee, maybe a cinnamon roll, sit and the major activity is to for everyone to simply talk to each other. The old man looked like he belonged in a very small town.
“I can’t eat this hard crust on this fish.” “Uh-huh.” “I went down to the VA hospital to get some new glasses and some teeth. They bought me some glasses but I can’t see with ’em, I can see better with these.” Craig took a good look – he was wearing an enormous pair of those cheap plastic reading glasses they sell at dollar stores. “But they won’t give me no teeth. I’ve gone down to there over and over, the doctor said I was too thin, filled out this form….. they still won’t give me no teeth.” “The VA sent me these papers, hundred pages long, my sister…. but still they won’t give me no teeth and that’s what it said, right there.” “You know, I really like tomatoes. Sliced tomatoes.” “I really like eaten’ me up a big plate o’ sliced tomatoes ‘n scrambled eggs.” “That’s what I had this morning, tomatoes ‘n scrambled eggs.” “It they’d serve that here, it’d be…..”
As he talked he became more and more garrulous. Also, more and more incoherent. He would be jumping around in time, his stories would go on for awhile, then lose themselves in a long pause, only to start up somewhere else, sometime other… related, but different. It was apparent that Craig didn’t actually have to speak to keep this conversation going, only look up from his food every few minutes and nod a little.
“Did you get bread? They don’t give you no bread here. I like some bread with my meal. I really like bread.” “I went and got coffee… Eight-five cents!”
Craig wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be low… or high.
“At the Waffle House they’ll let you sit there and get coffee and some eggs.” “Then they’ll keep comin’ over and warmin’ it up and let you sit there all day.” “….. and they would wash that cup, that spoon, a couple of plates, wash them, pick them up, only charge five cents.” “I was there in Houston this morning.”
Craig was sure the old man walked up to the restaurant. Although he said “this morning” he had the feeling the old man hadn’t been in Houston for decades.
Craig finished with his food and had to get back to work. Actually, he would liked to have talked to the old man, get his story, but he was too far gone to be able to have a real conversation. By now he was simply complaining about random things that are too expensive. Also, it would be uncomfortable to talk with a stranger like that, Craig had the uneasy sensation of looking into his own future. The day had been too stressful already to have to deal with that.
He mumbled something incoherent and dumped the remnants of the meal; plastic plate, paper cups, bits of fried something, through the swinging door on the trash bin. He didn’t make eye contact with the old man as he walked past and went out to his van.
On the drive back to work Craig decided to set his alarm for a little earlier the next day. That way he could get up and make some scrambled eggs and tomatoes for breakfast.
“I was not proud of what I had learned but I never doubted that it was worth knowing.” ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary
Es café macerado en ron, posee todas las propiedades organolépticas del ron, pero tiene grado de alcohol
If you have been reading this for a while you already know that I have (although I didn’t want to/plan to) fallen way down the coffee rabbit hole… serious gourmet shit.
Even though I have, for all practical purposes, almost quit drinking alcohol (for no known reason) – one thing I have been experimenting with is making rum flavored coffee. More specifically Ron Flor de Cana flavored coffee. My experiment of adding some rum to a container of coffee beans and then drying them in the air fryer was a spectacular failure. The beans became soft and I can’t get them to grind properly. A waste of coffee beans and of Flor de Cana.
Now, finally I have figured it out. Make the coffee and then add the rum to it. Makes the morning better. We’ll have to see what it does to the afternoon.
The founding of the United States is surely one of the greatest events in world history. It was what we might call a trans-historical moment. America is the first nation in history to be founded openly and explicitly on the basis of certain philosophic ideas. If the Old World invented and launched the Enlightenment, it was the Anglo-American New World that made it a living reality.
Elites have always been ambiguous about the muscular classes who replace their tires, paint their homes, and cook their food. And the masses who tend to them likewise have been ambivalent about those who hire them: appreciative of the work and pay, but also either a bit envious of those with seemingly unlimited resources or turned off by perceived superciliousness arising from their status and affluence.
Bicycle Drag Races, Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas
Many people have linked to this recent op-ed in The NY Times by Harvard Law professor Ryan Doerfler and Yale Law professor Samuel Moyn. John Hinderaker of Powerline discusses the piece here, as well, and he calls it “literally one of the stupidest things I have ever read.”
Recycled Books Records CDs
Denton, Texas
(click to enlarge)
“Fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which one is which until we’ve loved them, left them, or fought them.” ― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
It was amazing, cheesy, and so much ridiculous fun. It took a little searching until I found out the scene was from part one of a two part movie series called Baahabuli. I watched bits of it and it was as glorious as it could be. I never had time to sit down for the whole six hours it would take to grind through both installments – plus, viewing little bits here and there with no idea of the overall plot or who these people were was kind of exciting.
Now, however, I have more opportunities for allocating big chunks of time (though not as many as you would think – it is possible to be very busy doing nothing) and over a couple of days I have been able to sit down and watch part one of Baahubali. Now it (sort of) makes sense. I had watched some of the over-the-top action scenes… but being Bollywood it had some equally fantastic musical numbers – and romantic dancing. I really enjoyed these – probably more that the blood slaughter.
In particular, there is a scene in a bar where three sexy dancing girls emerge from a giant coil of rope to dance with the hero and distract the dastardly bad guys for a few minutes – very imaginative and unexpected.
Some friends of mine once came up with the idea of Bollywood watching parties – I would love to try and pull this off – find a place with a big television (ours isn’t giant enough). Baahubali would be perfect – both parts one and two. Crazy action, melodrama, politically incorrect dancing and romance (there is actually a scene where the hero, while holding his breath underwater, tattoos his love’s arm while she sleeps trailing her arm into a lake – that’s a me-too moment).
Now onto part 2 – there’s a lot of unanswered questions.
Ok, there is a YouTube movie reviewer named The Critical Drinker. He is apologetically nasty towards modern shit movies and the useless crap mendacity that has invaded what passes as entertainment – but every now and then he finds something that swims against the stream to recommend.
Today he reviewed and liked a recent Bollywood extravaganza called RRR. He does a very good job of explaining how odd these movies look to Western eyes and why you should put your preconceptions aside and enjoy what dances across your eyeballs. A very interesting review (not too many spoilers).
RRR is streaming on Netflix. So its Baahubali Part 2 – and then it’s time for RRR. Sounds like a party.
Bill Chance 