July 2013 - Page 3 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Beauty: skin deep

The New York Times used exactly the same photo on the cover of their May 5 issue as Rolling Stone did more than two months later.

It’s well established in the literature that attractive people generally fare better. In many cases, humans attribute positive characteristics, such as intelligence and honesty, to physically attractive people without consciously realizing it.

I think that’s why the story of the dental assistant in Iowa who was fired for being too attractive – Cheri noted it recently – got so much attention.

At some level, I think the issue of the recent cover of the magazine Rolling Stone was upsetting to some people because Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not homely.

In TIME magazine, Alexandra Sifferlin quotes psychologist Ellen Berscheid: “While seeing an attractive picture of a villainous person isn’t likely to change our opinion of that individual’s egregious acts, as the uproar over the image indicates, it could lead us to feel some emotions that we may not think are appropriate. That includes sadness, and perhaps even a douse of empathy over why an attractive person would commit a terrible crime.”

William Rivers Pitt in Truthout opined: “The outrage over Tsarnaev’s face on the cover has everything to do with the fact that there is a puppy-dog cuteness about him which is jarring in the context of his alleged crimes… As for glorifying Tsarnaev or potentially upsetting the bombing victims, his face has been on the front page of every newspaper in the Western hemisphere more than once…” In fact, as Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi noted: “They used an existing photo, one already used by other organizations. The New York Times, in fact, used exactly the same photo on the cover of their May 5 issue.”

nyt-may 5.2013 — **The same picture that Rolling Stone used was on the front page of the New York Times a couple of months earlier.**

Pitt said: “Putting newsmakers on the cover [of the magazine] is not out of line. Hell, they had Charlie Manson on the cover once upon a time, as well as George W. Bush in 2009.” It’s not as though Rolling Stone dubbed him the sexiest terrorist or something.

Ty Burr of the Boston Globe complained the picture was a selfie in a bit of psychobabble I don’t quite follow.

I was reminded that, back in 1994, TIME magazine darkened a cover picture of O.J. Simpson. It was supposed to be some artistic decision, but many people thought it was designed to make him seem more sinister. And TIME has had as Man of the Year Adolf Hitler (1939) and Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), but they weren’t endorsing them, merely noting their significance.

I’m not unsympathetic to those who might find the photo unsettling, and I understand why some stores took it off the shelves. But I don’t think the cover choice is outlandish.

EW’s 100 All-Time Greatest Movies

Annie Hall (1977) – this film was my talisman. I’ve seen it four times in the theater, and a few times on video thereafter.

There’s a list of Entertainment Weekly’s 100 all-time movies, TV shows, books, et al. It was printed in the magazine’s July 5/12, 2013 double-issue.

What I found interesting is how radically different than the film list EW put out in 1999 the 2013 movie roster is, once you get past the top three. (The number in parentheses represents the rank in 1999.) Given the fact that there are only three 21st century films included, this is not a function of new films, but rather a reassessment of existing ones.

1 (2). Citizen Kane (1941) – As I’ve noted, I tried to watch this on video a number of years ago, but fell asleep. Obviously, I need to try again.
2 (1). The Godfather (1972) – I was living in Binghamton, but the Okie and I, along with another couple, saw it in Syracuse. great film, of course, but I won’t see it again.
3 (3). Casablanca (1942) – I LOVE this film. Saw in outdoors near Rochester in the late 1970s, with my friend Debi. Did I mention I adore this film? I need to watch it again.
4 (48). Bonnie And Clyde (1967) – Never saw it, and don’t feel compelled to.
5 (11). Psycho (1960) – #1 on the list of greatest horror flicks, and I probably will see it at some point.
6 (56). It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) – My future wife Carol nagged me into seeing this on PBS in the late 1990s, after I had dismissed it, sight unseen, as too sentimental; it is not. Liked this far more than I could have imagined.
7 (64). Mean Streets (1973) – didn’t see; may not.
8 (15). The Gold Rush (1925) – #1 comedy, and I don’t know if I saw it or not. That’s my basic problem with movies on broadcast TV. I might have flipped through the channels and started watching something. But was it enough to give the film a fair shake?
9 (38). Nashville (1975) – I started watching this on DVD a few years ago, and simply could not get into it. I like a lot of Altman, but I just didn’t connect with this film. May try again.
10 (8). Gone With The Wind (1939) – haven’t seen, except snippets. Not motivated to do so.

11 (47). King Kong (1933) – #2 horror flick; I’ve seen scenes, but maybe not in toto.
12 (13). The Searchers (1956) – now this John Wayne film I feel I OUGHT to see, and probably will.
13 (60). Annie Hall (1977) – the #2 comedy, this film was my talisman. I’ve seen it four times in the theater, and a few times on video thereafter.
14. Bambi (1942) – #1 on the list of favorite family movies, and the higher of only two animated films. But it’s dark, and sad, at least the parts I’ve seen.
15 (37). Blue Velvet (1986) – didn’t see, feel I probably should.
16 (10). Singin’ In The Rain (1952) – seen bits and pieces, should watch from the beginning.
17 (12). Seven Samurai (1954, Jp.) #1 action flick, never seen. Probably should, since so many other films are beholden to it.
18 (52). Jaws (1975) – never saw. Someday.
19 (29). Pulp Fiction (1994) – did see this in the theater, and even though it’s rather violent for my taste, it was also oddly funny. Liked it.
20. The Sorrow and the Pity (1969, Fr.) #1 on the greatest documentaries, yet I don’t know it.

21 (9). Some Like It Hot (1959) – the #3 comedy I’ve seen big chunks of it; very funny stuff.
22. Toy Story (1995) – the other animated film, 2nd greatest family movie. Saw it in the theater, and bought it on videotape. Great Randy Newman score.
23 (66). Notorious (1946) – a Hitchcock film I want to see in full.
24. The Sound of Music (1965) – #3 family film. I’ve seen good chunks, but have I ever seen it in full?
25 (26). 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – saw in the theater in the early 1970s. Didn’t “get” it, but it intrigued me.
26 (22). Bicycle Thieves (1948, It.) – #1 foreign film, saw this in the late 1960s at a theater in Binghamton. Great film.
27 (31). The Maltese Falcon (1941) – don’t think I saw this in full.
28 (32). The Wizard of Oz (1939) – #4 family film, I saw it several times on TV or video, so that like most people, I can quote big chunks by heart.
29 (44). North By Northwest (1959) – #2 action film, seen only clips.
30 (92). Sunrise (1927) – don’t know it.

31 (4). Chinatown (1974) – well crafted, yet it always felt at arm’s length. I don’t love it.
32 (43). Duck Soup (1933) – #5 comedy. This Marx Brothers film, I love.
33 (55). The Graduate (1967) – saw this only recently, in the past five years, on DVD. Probably would have liked it even more had I seen it when it came out.
34. Adam’s Rib (1949) – #4 comedy,. saw it on TV years ago; don’t remember it well.
35. Apocalypse Now (1979) – didn’t see.
36. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – #3 horror flick, it was the first date with the Okie in 1971, so I remember the film less well.
37. Manhattan (1979) – the #6 comedy, I liked it at the time, but have only seen it twice.
38 (19). Vertigo (1958) – saw parts on TV, should watch from the beginning
39 (58). The Rules of the Game (1939, Fr.) -# 2 foreign film, don’t know it.
40 (50). Double Indemnity (1944) – I should see this! I hear Fred MacMurray is great.

41 (93). The Road Warrior (1981, Australia) (aka Mad Max 2) – #3 action film – didn’t see; didn’t actively avoid.
42 (41). Taxi Driver (1976) – one of those 1970s movies I didn’t see. I might, but it’s not high on the list.
43. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – didn’t see. Saw the first movie and that was enough for me.
44 (17). On The Waterfront (1954) – great film, which I caught on TV one afternoon in the 1990s; why did this fall so far?
45 (30). Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – saw this on TV. Should watch again.
46 (61). The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – #4 action flick, and I know it not at all.
47. A Clockwork Orange (1971) – saw this in the theater. Disturbing, to say the least. Well done, if you like that sort of thing.
48. It Happened One Night (1934) – #7 comedy, I’ve only seen parts of it.
49. Goldfinger (1964) – #5 action film. Like most of the Connery Bond films, I’d see bits on TV, but I’ve never sat through the whole thing.
50 (25). Intolerance (1916) – The earliest film in the top 100; don’t know it at all, except that it was directed by D.W. Griffith.

51. A Hard Day’s Night (1964) -I didn’t see this until after the Beatles broke up, and I saw it in a marathon including Help!, Yellow Submarine and the depressing Let It Be. Wish I had seen the boys and their madcap antics before the band was dead.
52. Titanic (1997) – the romance is so-so, but the detail of the tragic event is quite remarkable.
53. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – yes, it’s the better movie, I suppose, but my heart belongs to the original.
54 (63). Breathless (1960, Fr.) – #3 foreign film – don’t know it
55. Frankenstein (1931) – #4 horror film, not familiar with which iteration this is.
56 (40). Schindler’s List (1993) – I saw this with two other people, then we spent longer than the movie’s running time, which was considerable, decompressing. Excellent, but won’t see it again.
57. Midnight Cowboy (1969) – managed to see this 4 times in a fairly short time. I went with one set of friends, then another. Bleak. But it does inform how I cross the street.
58 (45). The Seventh Seal (1957, Swe.) – #4 foreign film. I’m sure I say this when I was in high school, and am not sure I got it.
59. All the President’s Men (1976) – I thought the story was magnificent telling of the American body politic. But the movie dragged in places.
60. Top Hat (1935) – did not see, probably should.

61 (98). The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – #5 horror film. I was at my parents’ house and it was on HBO. At some point, I bailed on it.
62 (20). E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – #5 family film. Saw in a theater. I liked or loved most of this, but I found the ending treacly, and it all but ruined it for me.
63. Network (1976) – Saw it at the time, not since yet it still resonates with me. One of those films that is more true now than it was at the time.
64 (83). The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) – saw this on TV (PBS?) My this is a powerful film with its ironic title.
65. Last Tango in Paris (1973) – never saw, never particularly wanted to.
66. The Shining (1980) – #6 horror flick. After seeing a few violent films in short order, such as The Godfather, Clockwork Orange, and Catch-22 (one and a half times; long story), I swore them off for most of the 1970s. Finally, saw this and hated it, not because it was scary, but because it was laughable. Nicholson’s character is supposed to be altered by the building, but he’s already looking nuts in the first scene with Barry Nelson. I’m comforted by the fact that Stephen King also hates this iteration, suggesting that Shelley Duvall’s character is too weak for the story.
67 (86). Rebel Without a Cause (1955) – I’ve seen parts, but have I seen it all the way through?
68. GoodFellas (1990) – seen parts, but not compelled to see the whole thing.
69 (14). Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying about the Bomb (1964) – #8 comedy. The movie I MOST need to see on this list.
70. L’Avventura (1960, It.) – #5 foreign film. Don’t know it.

71. American Graffiti (1973) – I like it, and great use of period music, though I’m not convinced it belongs on this list.
72. The 400 Blows (1959, Fr.) – #6 foreign film. I saw this so long ago, more than 40 years ago, and I’ve mostly forgotten it. (Strange how some films I see once stick and others don’t.)
73. Cabaret (1972) – I saw this in the theater at the time and thought it was excellent, especially Liza Minelli and Joel Grey.
74. The Hurt Locker (2009) – the most recent film on the list. I actually had it on a Netflix disc for over four months and never had the block of time to actually watch it.
75 (54). Touch Of Evil (1958) – don’t know it.
76 (18). Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – saw it on TV 40 years ago, was bored by it. I probably need to see it on DVD in one dedicated sitting.
77. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) – one of those 1970s films i passed on. MAYBE I’ll see it some day.
78. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – #6 action film. Good popcorn film, but not sure it belongs on the list.
79. Night of the Living Dead (1968) – #7 horror flick. Never saw. Probably should.
80. Dazed and Confused (1993) – never saw, for no particular reason. Would, if I thought to borrow it from the library.

81. Blade Runner (1982) – feel that I REALLY ought to see this, because of its significance.
82. Scenes From a Marriage (1973, Swe.) – #7 foreign film. Saw it at the time. Was depressed afterward.
83 (57). The Wild Bunch (1969) – Saw the graphic slo-mo ending, but not the rest. Probably won’t.
84. Olympia (1938, Ger.) – #2 documentary. Ah, the Leni Riefenstahl film. I’ve seen bits of it, but definitely should see the whole thing.
85. Dirty Harry (1971) – #7 action flick. I’ve seen bits and pieces of two or three Dirty Harry films, not enough to count it, punk.
86 (21). All About Eve (1950) – saw this one Saturday afternoon 45 years ago. It was great but haven’t seen it since.
87 (6). La Dolce Vita (1960, It.) – #8 foreign film. Also saw this more than 40 years ago, when I was in high school.
88. The Dark Knight (2008) – did not see. I think I’ve wearied of dystopia.
89. Woodstock (1970) – #3 documentary. This film, which I watched twice in a row, had a great impact on my musical development. The soundtrack was in the top ten of my favorite albums of 1961-1970. That said, not sure the FILM belongs on the list, given what it has displaced.
90. The French Connection (1971) – #8 action flick. Just read an interview with William Friedkin who expressed shock that this film did so well with the Academy Awards, and that The Exorcist did not. I enjoyed it a lot at the time. Still remember the dialogue from the movie; it helped that Poughkeepsie was not far from New Paltz, where I went to college.

91 (81). Do The Right Thing (1989) – I thought this was a tremendous film, Spike Lee’s best, and the best film that came out that year. SamuraiFrog wrote about his recent reevaluation of the movie, and he’s now where I was from the beginning.
92 (97). The Piano (1993, NZ) – I thought it was well crafted, yet at arm’s length. Can’t explain without seeing it again.
93. A Face in the Crowd (1957) – I saw this one afternoon in the past 10 years or so. 1) Andy Griffith is TREMENDOUS, 2) it speaks to today better than I could believe, and 3) it is the one film on this list that, if you haven’t seen, I most highly recommend that you see.
94. Brokeback Mountain (2005) – I’m not sure this belongs here either. It was socially significant, and once it got going, it could be quite moving. But for the longest time in the set-up, I was rather bored. The actors were great; the story could have been trimmed by 12 minutes without great loss.
95. Rushmore (1998) – the #8 comedy I’ve never seen this one. Probably will.
96. Sullivan’s Travels (1941) – not remembering this, the #10 comedy.
97. Diner (1982) – enjoyed this at the time, but wonder if it’s a bit overrated here.
98. All About My Mother (1999, Sp.) – #9 foreign film. I enjoyed this Almodovar film, but usually do like that director.
99. There Will Be Blood (2007) – did not see it, except the last 10 minutes on YouTube.
100 (49). Sweet Smell of Success (1957) – not recalling this one.

Next outing, which will be soon, I’m going to list the genre films that didn’t make the top 100. Plus, the MASSIVE list that were dropped from the 1999 iteration. Some of your favorites, I’m willing to bet.

That “lender or borrow be” thing

I ALWAYS remember that I have other people’s stuff. Other people aren’t nearly as locked in about these things as I am.

I was sitting in our home office the other day, trying to figure out what I might write about, when I saw it: a paperback copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Someone – I remember who – lent it to me three or four or five years ago. She figured since I used to work at a comic book store, and used to read comic books, I would enjoy it. She gave me the book to read, and I got to about page 59, but never got any further, and never got back to it.

Now I have this book that I haven’t read and have had in my possession way too long. I feel that I OUGHT to read it before I return it.

There is this coffee table version of a book called Baseball by Ken Burns that came with 10 VCR tapes. A guy I knew at the YMCA, Lou, offered to lend them all to me, and I had them for a couple of years. The big problems here were these: 1) My VCR player ceased working, and in fact started eating tapes, so I didn’t want to ruin HIS tapes. I got a NEW VCR/DVD combo player, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the VCR part to work correctly. 2) My local Y closed, and I didn’t know how to get hold of Lou. Fortunately, he joined another Y, in north Albany, I tracked him down and returned the videos, unwatched. But he told me I could KEEP the book, so I did. Haven’t read it, but have picked out sections to peruse, now and then.

My friend Norman lent me tools to knock down the old shed. Hey, buddy, you can get them anytime you want! I’m done with them.

I ALWAYS remember that I have other people’s stuff. Other people aren’t nearly as locked in about these things as I am.

My position about lending things, whether it be money or objects, is this: I don’t expect to EVER get it back. I’m quite OK with this. I’d much rather lend cash than something with emotional value. That way, I’m not so bummed out if it’s lost to me forever.

Florida: race, murder, self-defense

“The most damning element here is not that George Zimmerman was found not guilty: it’s the bitter knowledge that Trayvon Martin was found guilty.”

After George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin death in Florida, the New York Daily News did a piece When will it end? Deadly racial targeting of black men and teens is hardly ancient history.

So I find it difficult to look at the case as a singular event but in the context of a social pattern. Black-on-black murder doesn’t make headlines, unless it hits an epic proportion, as it has in Chicago recently. Black-on-white murders statistically draw tougher sentences. So there is always uneasiness when a white-on-black killing takes place.

In the “good old days”, there were often no consequences, and in these days, laws such as Stand Your Ground can justify the same result.

Jelani Cobb has covered the Zimmerman trial for the New Yorker. Her stories are all worth reading. George Zimmerman, Not Guilty: Blood on the Leaves has some quotable pieces.
“The most damning element here is not that George Zimmerman was found not guilty: it’s the bitter knowledge that Trayvon Martin was found guilty.”
“Yet the problem is not that this case marks a low point in this country’s racial history—it’s that, after two centuries of common history, we’re still obligated to chart high points and low ones. To be black at times like this is to see current events on a real-time ticker, a Dow Jones average measuring the quality of one’s citizenship… That [Trayvon’s shooting] occurred in a country that elected and reëlected a black President doesn’t diminish the despair this verdict inspires, it intensifies it.”
*”Perhaps history does not repeat itself exactly, but it is certainly prone to extended paraphrases. Long before the jury announced its decision, many people had seen what the outcome would be, had known that it would be a strange echo of the words Zimmerman uttered that rainy night in central Florida: they always get away.”

Of course, the case may have hinged on the judge’s jury instruction, which was appallingly incomplete.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the review of the newly-released movie Fruitvale Station,- the true story of Oscar Julius Grant III, a young black man unjustly killed in California in 2009, notes how that story echoes the Martin case. “The film’s portrayal of a young black man as a complex human being– [not that] you’re either a thug or a saint, good or bad, black or white (sometimes literally), with no shades of grey between…. [T]he eagerness with which the pro-Zimmerman faction of the populace and media leapt breathlessly upon any scrap of negative information about his 17-year-old victim–he smoked pot! He talked like a thug on Twitter! He flipped off the camera in pictures! He may have stolen jewelry!… But even if every vile posthumous rumor that attached itself to Martin was true, even if he was a pot-dealing, thugged-out thief, what then? Is tweeting like Tupac a death-penalty offense?” Supporters of Trayvon have suggested he was a good son, someone who did well in school, who went to church, who did community service; assuming that’s true, that’s fine, but it’s just the “saint” side of the portrayal, and, for me, doesn’t materially affect the tragedy of the situation.

Another Florida case in which Stand Your Ground may be invoked is the first-degree murder case in which Michael Dunn, who is white, is charged with shooting into a car, killing 17-year old Jordan Davis, who was black, after an argument over loud music. (Sidebar: someone on Facebook complained about a person mentioning this case on FB, because the original story came out back in November 2012, as though it were old news, or resolved. Just this month, 2nd judge leaves the Michael Dunn/Jordan Davis case.)

Meanwhile, I came across this bizarre story from May 2013: Fla. mom gets 20 years for firing warning shots. “Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville had said the state’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law should apply to her because she was defending herself against her allegedly abusive husband when she fired warning shots inside her home in August 2010. She told police it was to escape a brutal beating by her husband, against whom she had already taken out a protective order.” One is left wondering if she had instead killed her husband, she would be walking the streets, or whether her race (she’s black) or gender would have played into the case.
***
Related: this week is the 150th anniversary of the New York City Draft Riots. “With the ludicrous Newt Gingrich (who claims to be a historian) insisting the peaceful Trayvon Martin protesters were ‘prepared to be a lynch mob,’ it’s worth remembering that devastating eruption of white mob violence 150 years earlier when at least 11 black men were actually lynched.”

Lester Chambers of the Chambers Brothers Assaulted on Stage Dedicating Set to Trayvon Martin, with link to “Time has Come Today.”

Kids Who Die by Langston Hughes.

Blog site down; I’m so annoyed

What happens to the blog when I die?

For some reason, the company that has provided service for this blog since May 2, 2010, stopped working on July 10, 2013, at 11 a.m., EDT. I went to the web guy’s website and found it (and his wife’s site) was also down. I have had pretty good luck with the company to date; I never was offline more than 10 minutes in the past.

What’s bugging me, though, is not just that the site was offline for over six hours, but the fact that I had not set up a current backup system. Oh, the first five years of this blog are available at my old Blogger blog site. And I DID create an echo site, rogerowengreen.wordpress.com four years ago; I just never actually followed up on this.

The service being down has prompted me to finally post there as a backup site going forward, and, as time permits, back four years to May 2, 2010.

This actually also addresses another issue I’ve thought about, which I may have mentioned here: what happens to the blog when I die? Assuming – a big assumption – that WordPress will continue to provide a free blog service AND that they don’t start deleting blogs that have become defunct, then the backup site will be my blog beyond the grave. Or something like that.
***
Sad that Cory Monteith, 31, of the TV show Glee died from an overdose of heroin and alcohol. His character Finn Hudson will have to die as well, but will it be in some noble fashion, when the show starts shooting later this month? Or will they let Finn’s death be an object lesson to the fans?