A Night of Tod Browning Films

New Beat Book

Per Amazon it will be out July 8th! It's edited by Bill Morgan who wrote a recently published book that just caught my eye,"The Typwriter is Holy".  Both are on my toreadsoon list. I do enjoy reading on the history of the Beats. It's a story I never grow tired of  and always appreciate whatever new perspective or tidbits of info the author may insert. Morgan also wrote, "Beat Generation in New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac's City", but I wish he'd update it because a few places that were still around in 2001 have been razed. 

My favorite book on the Beats thus far is still, "The Beat Hotel" by Barry Miles. The book will become a documentary and I am dying to watch it. Last I heard it was supposed to be out by the end of 2009. The website makes it seem like it's still in production. Still waiting on Howl.

Minutiae Du Jour

Since the 2010 FIFA World Cup isn't going my way, I've dragged out the SCTV.  Lola Heatherton and her Juul Hallemeyer Dancers can really cheer me up.

I was in my hometown this past weekend and happened upon a rummage sale in my old school cafeteria. I couldn't believe it still smelled the same after 30 years. Nothing had changed. It was already noon and we almost didn't stop to look around. I was thinking all the cool stuff was long gone, but we looked around anyway. I passed an antique Duncan Phyfe dinner table with four chairs in excellent shape. It had a tiny blue dot sticker with $50 written on it. I nearly died! Where was the other zero? It would have still been a deal with one more zero.  It had been sold and was awaiting it's ride. I ended up getting lucky in my own way.

PUPPETS! After a soapy party in the washer, on hot, these two became really charming even if they are not Stieffs.

I couldn't pass on this ancient rabbit pin with a huge winky eye or the raccoon charm with marcasite eyes. The raccoon charm is too tiny to capture on film so you just have to believe me. I'll be sporting it soon though.

I really wanted a Mad Men Barbie- Joan- but now that they are available for purchase I can't bring myself to cough up the cash for a Joan. I'm not getting one but I'd still like to see one. I honestly don't have a place to display Joan and I wouldn't want to stuff her in the closet with my "Naked-Since-1978-Ken" (she might though) and the rest of my ragtag troupe of  misfit Barbies. Joan is for the serious collector or the fan with a special place on her bureau.

Tree

This is a Pecan tree we use to climb. We needed to use steps nailed to the tree to get into it. The last time I was in it was the summer of 1989. I miss climbing tall trees. It was fun to get up on the highest limb that could possibly sustain me and wait for the wind to blow. It was thrilling to feel the limb move. The steps were removed years ago or I would have climbed it again by now.

I actually climbed into a smaller tree this weekend. Sandals with a 1 inch heels don't make good climbing shoes and I was not able to get far in them.

Not a Care in the World

Completely present, I have not a care in the world. Nothing matters more than what is around me when I can be completely present. Such was the feeling when I stood in my Grandparent's yard this weekend. I began to record the sounds of my childhood summers. All those noises I would hear when I sat on the stoop of their front porch. When I was growing up, I enjoyed the sounds around their house. There were cicadas and chickens, cows, sheep, goats, birds...and sometimes, not a single human voice until I was called in to get out of the heat. It could have been minutes or hours that past, I had no sense of time when I sat there transfixed on what was around me.

This weekend, my thoughts did not return to the past when I recorded these sounds and images but remained in the present. It had been  too long  since I was able to have a long, uninterrupted visit with the trees and breeze and all that exists around their home.

Little Little

Awwwww I hope Little Little is found.

Old Television Shows

Before bed last night I watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver and when it was over I drifted off to sleep feeling happy. Usually I'll watch an episode of Taxi and feel like I am seven years old again.  I was always in bed when Taxi would come on and would hear the theme song creep down the hallway and into my room. If I heard the Johnny Carson theme song I was either ill or had too much sugar during the day. Bedtime was 7:30pm.

I am crazy about old television shows so I have quite the collection on DVD. Years ago, I remember telling my little brother that when I grew up I wanted to buy all the television shows on film and show them at my mansion. He would reply he wanted a teenie, tiny television set so he could watch Tom and Jerry and then play Pac-Man and Donkey Kong wherever he went. Then our imaginations would go on and on fueled by the gadgets we'd see on Get Smart. I honestly remember us  once discussing a camera/tv/phone/radio/tape player/video game and how cool it would be and if it were as small as a box of Cracker Jacks so we could fit it in the front poket of our overalls. Who knew? And now I have no desire to own a tiny phonecameratelevisonmusicvideogame box. But I digress...

After a long day relief can be found in a few episodes of some old television shows. I like everything from My Little Margie, Burns and Allen, I Married Joan to I Love Lucy and Hazel to The Dick Van Dyke Show, and My Three Sons to The Monkees, Love American Style, Hawaii Five-O, Wild Kingdom, What's Happening, Laverne and Shirley, Love Boat  and every show in between. One of my  favorite websites is TV Party.  But we have managed to get a few bootlegs like the entire In Search Of series until it is released, if it is ever released.

After 1985 there isn't much out there that I want to watch over and over.  I tried watching Thirtysomething  recently but it didn't really work. I am on my way out of my thirties and to be reminded that at one time I thought these people were so old and to be older than they were on the show...eek. At the age of 15 I  don't know why I found tthe show so interesting but something appealed to me.

By 1987 I was already in high school and didn't get into many new televsion shows.  I'll sit and watch an episode of Perfect Strangers, Night Court, The Wonder Years or Who's the Boss, but these shows ran into the early 90's when I was struggling with college and money, heating Ramen on the stove in the kitchen of a cheap rental, in the middle of summer, with a broken window unit.  Then there were those two months when I was unemployed and had a television with really bad reception. All I had was back to back Reading Rainbow all afternoon to look forward too.  My introduction to the adult world and being on my own for the first time had it's moments and maybe one day I'll find those days charming, at best, but the theme song to Blossom will not soothe me to sleep. Unfortunately, I don't feel the sweet, warm cuddle of nostalgia around me in an episode of 90210 and re-runs of Melrose Place just about make me puke. But one day I think I'll look back on The Office and Gilmore Girls with much affection.

Lucky Day

William scored some goodies at the record store today. I knew of the Johnny Staccato soundtrack but didn't even try looking for it. He just happened upon it in that lucky William way. He also found the soundtrack to the awesome Bruce Brown film, Barefoot Adventure! Lucky day.

Views from a hammock

It's my favorite place to be on a cool, breezy morning. Those will be rather scarce pretty soon. I hope not, but that is usually the way the summer progresses in Austin,TX.  Let me define cool...85 degrees or below. The shade and a tall glass of cold, rose petal tea does wonders. No really,  even 85 can be "nice", not just tolerable. Especially when you compare it to 90 in the sun, away from a beach, pool or Slip-N-Slide, hmmm water balloon fight, just a single spouted sprinkler on high....hammock by the sprinkler, teehee, now I'm just being terribly tacky.

All week long, all I can think of...

is sleeping in on the weekend, taking things slow

and  being in the company of the Mona.

Voyages Part 1

Her name was Dafne and in February of 1957 she traveled.

I sometimes feel that because she did, I've already been.

Ben Carruthers

We are having an ongoing Benito Carruthers film festival. I had not seen The Dirty Dozen in a few years but I am sure I have watched it more than ten times. I always failed to notice that Carruthers was one of the dozen. Cassavetes always filled the screen for me. In fact I had forgotten Trini Lopez had a part. Trini Lopez?!

Carruthers reminds me of a cat who regally slinks quickly in and out of a room. He has a presence but the camera seems incapable of capturing him for long. There is constant movement and energy. I want Carruthers to hold still and the camera to focus clearly on him for all of  twenty minutes. It would not be boring. In that way he reminds me of Tim Carrey. So far, none of the films we have seen that feature Carruthers have really captured him. He slinked quickly out of life as well, he was in his forties when he passed away.

Tonight is Goldstein.

Doilytime

Next week is the first day of summer and it has been getting into the high nineties, daily. It has been tres summer for awhile. I feel a case of the doilies coming on. I love to crochet a ton of them all summer while sitting by a sunny window in an air conditioned house. The decadence. I like how the cotton thread feels, it's lovely to work with. It's always more fun to create a doily while watching the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Team colors find their way into my work, even the ones I am not cheering on. 

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

World Cup Soccer has begun today, a Friday, when I am already uber hyper.  What a difference four years makes. I am now able to easily find the game streaming on my computer and watch it without fear of causing the computer to crash. It was so buggie in the past that any sort of streaming would cause the computer to seize up. I had to sneak away to catch games at Wendy's.

Unfortunately the first game I've seen  has left me disappointed.  Mexico vs South Africa has to be the sloppiest game  in my personal World Cup viewing history.  Mexico should have made three goals. Why wasn't Chicharito playing from the start?

Here we go!

But not me...

This month I have seen two public telephones and that pleases me.  We don't own cell phones. We were given a cell phone that you buy minutes for but it rarely gets used. It is something we'll carry with us on a road trip though, just in case there is trouble.

When I am out, away from the phone, I don't want to be disturbed. I don't like the whole brain tumor, salivary gland tumor and the possible correlation to cell phone use thing. I don't want try and figure out the dollar to minutes thing either. I never liked the phone company and it seems keeping a cell phone requires you to become best friends with whatever cell phone company you do business with. All my friends have cell phones and it works for them. I can see how it is an absolute necessity for some of them too. The need for one in my life just hasn't presented itself.

In 2007  it was hypothesized that cell phone use was messing with  the bees and their little navigational systems. This year it has been confirmed  by scientists from Chandigarh's Punjab University to be true and it's scary. Those little guys keep fruits and veggies a food option. It's more important that they find their way back to their hives than it is for me to catch a call when I'm strolling from my office to my car.

Model Shop (1969)

Tonight we watched Model Shop (1969) directed by Jaques Demy. It is my new favorite movie.  I enjoyed the pace and something about it reminded me of Paris, Texas.  The wallpaper, colors and props in a few of the scenes had me believing that the aesthetics from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg had not been far from anyone's mind when Model Shop was made. Then there is the continuation of the Lola storyline. The character's melancholic appearance in color in the late 60's as a cynical "model" trying to earn money to get back to France is in sharp contrast to her black and white youth seven years before. It is interesting to see how a changing world found it's way into the little nuances of this film.

It's Batman!

 We went to see Batman (1966) at the Paramount. We got to see Adam West and the Batmobile. Mmmmmmm, Batmobile. Adam West was *AWESOME* and so very, very charming, but when you have a thing for cars, mmmmmmmmm Batmobile! If only the Batboat and Batcycle had also been on display. Swoon!                                        

Safari in the Parlor

“A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.”
~Jean Genet