July 2023 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Films on a plane

Persepolis

Flying from JFK to CDG took seven hours, and the return trip took eight. I guess we’re going to be watching some films on a plane. These are in the order I watched them, which also involved viewing a few television programs.

A Man Called Otto (2022). I saw this trailer in the movie theater more than once but was wary of seeing it. Otto was a remake of a 2015 Swedish film, A Man Called Ove, which my wife had seen in the cinema, but I had not.

The trailer made it appear that Otto was a grumpy old man won over by the spunky Latina and her cute kids. Meh.

The actual film was much more substantial, with a backstory that reminded some of the emotion tied to the first ten minutes of the animated movie Up. Tom Hanks plays Otto, and his son Truman as Otto in flashbacks with Sonya (Rachel Keller).

Marisol (Mariana Treviño) is a stronger character than I believed she’d be. This article compares the film with some major spoilers. The last line: “The unique traits in Otto’s interpretation of this story make it clear that this is no shameless carbon copy of what’s worked in the past.”

A Man Called Otto is recommended.

CRA

I managed to miss Crazy Rich Asians when it came out in 2018. In many ways, it is a basic rom-com with Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) going with her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding) to his best friend’s wedding back in Singapore.

When they went out, Nick avoided telling Rachel that 1) his family was insanely wealthy and 2) he was expected to take over the family business. Rachel meets Nick’s disapproving mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), and others in Nick’s sometimes vicious circle of family, friends, and acquaintances.

Mostly, I liked it, even when the jokes were broad. But I was unconvinced by the tidy ending. I was excited that a film with a different geography and demographic existed.

Italy

I had heard about Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, the 2021–2022 Emmy-winning series about the actor traveling across the country “to discover the secrets and delights of the country’s regional cuisines.”

The episode I saw was about Venice. It was interesting because it showed how eclectic and wide-ranging the foods of the region were, in large part because of the wide-ranging immigration in the port city, both ancient and recent. Very interesting.

On the return flight, I decided to watch First Cow (2019), which I had seen teased in the cinema. But it was too dark. I don’t mean the story was too dark, though a skeleton was found early on. The visual contrast on my screen made it difficult to see, so I abandoned it.

French animation

I watched an hour-long television program in French with English subtitles. The title translates to The great history of animation cinema in France. It was fascinating.

The French were early in the animated pictured movie. Émile Reynaud and Émile Cohl were pioneers in the field. But the work of Walt Disney and others left France behind.

The industry started to turn around somewhat with the success Kirikou et la sorcière (Kirikou and the Sorceress), 1998; Les Triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville), 2003; and Persepolis,2007. Still, the French felt they were playing on an uneven playing field when they spent $8 million on a movie, but Disney et al. could spend $80 million.

I had always wanted to see The Triplets of Belleville, which did play in the cinema in Albany in 2003 or 2004, but I had missed it.

Iran

I needed to see Persepolis, Oscar-nominated as the best-animated film. The graphic novel I’ve owned for years.

“In 1970s Iran, Marjane ‘Marji’ Satrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah’s defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However, as Marji grows up, she witnesses firsthand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny.”

It is a compelling autobiography. The animation is somewhat rudimentary but effective.

With less than an hour before landing, I watched an episode of Friends in French, the one with Elle Macpherson; the dubbed voices made it enjoyable.

Recent Supreme Court rulings

rogue court

I wanted to write about recent Supreme Court rulings, some of which I found both disturbing and frankly baffling. Baffling because the justification for taking up at least some of the cases at all were specious. The words weren’t coming, so I have purloined others.

Arthur noted the case that “involved a fundamentalist ‘christian’ web designer who thought one day she might like to create wedding websites, but her religious views compelled her to refuse to create a website for a same-gender couple, in the event she ever started providing such services, of course, and if a theoretical same-gender couple ever tried to hire her services. While the supposed ‘injury’ to her was entirely hypothetical, she sued the State of Colorado, anyway—well, the ultra-far-right ‘Alliance Defending [sic] Freedom [lol]’ sued on her behalf.

Worse, “it emerged that, allegedly, someone named ‘Stewart’ had contacted her through her website’s contact form to try to hire her web services for his marriage to his ‘husband’. The problem was, the whole thing was faked by someone…. He also had no idea his name and details had been used in a Supreme Court case.” The guy, I’ve read, is mortified by this.

And lower courts had passed on the case, but the Supremes took it on.

The ruling allows for violations of well-established public accommodation laws. Specifically, advocates in Massachusetts and elsewhere fear the effect of the ruling. Will some business owners have the right not to serve customers based on personal or religious beliefs?

See also the People for the American Way (PFAW) analysis.

Student loan forgiveness

This piece by the new Civil Rights Movement (NCRM) suggests that CJ John Roberts was intellectually dishonest in his opinion. In her dissent, Elana Kagan said as much. “From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint. At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.”

Teresa M. Hanafin addresses some of the questions Boston Globe readers s have asked. “Many of those folks, relieved of that debt, would have helped give the already robust economy a boost: They’d have been able to buy houses, pay down other debt, start small businesses, rely less on other social service programs. It even helps with their mental health.

“Asking why today’s students should get debt relief when yesterday’s students didn’t is a question that could be asked about any social program. Do you think that elders nearing the end of their lives when Social Security was introduced in 1935 demanded that it be squashed because it hadn’t been enacted when they were 65? Should we stop giving food stamps to single mothers simply because most of us don’t need them?

“I’m sorry, but that question is so typically American: If I can’t have it, then neither can you. Oddly, conservatives have that attitude only when it comes to poor and marginalized people; they’re fine with social welfare benefits such as tax cuts for wealthy households and corporations and subsidies for fossil fuel companies…”

See also this PFAW piece.

College Affirmative Action

From PFAW: “Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a powerful dissent, joined by Kagan and Jackson. As she has in the past, she pointed out that the far-right justices’ assumptions around race are not based on reality: “

[T]he Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.

Some interesting responses have emerged. lawsuit Uses SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling to Go After Legacy Admissions. “’Harvard’s practice of giving a leg-up to the children of wealthy donors and alumni…must end,’ said one advocate.”

Another fix: With End of Affirmative Action, a Push for a New Tool: Adversity Scores

The broader issue

The Weekly Sift covers these cases but also the broader context of a court bent on overturning precedent, disrespecting lower courts, and ahistoric rules of interpretation.

Arthur: “The court’s far-right Republican majority is doing the one thing that Republicans have long pretended was an unpardonable sin: They’re legislating from the bench.”

Vanity Fair also has taken the wider view: America Has a Supreme Court Problem. “Hillary Clinton tried warning us. Now, what do you do with a rogue Court?” In other words, she told you so.

“A year ago, in their joint Dobbs dissent, justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and former justiceStephen Breyer wrote that the ruling ‘breaches a core rule-of-law principle, designed to promote constancy in the law…. It places in jeopardy other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. And finally, it undermines the Court’s legitimacy.’”

Did anyone REALLY believe the anti-abortion activists would leave the issue to the states? At least some Republican candidates are looking for a federal restriction.

From NCRM:Well-known political expert, author, journalist, and CEO David Rothkopf is blasting conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court after their disastrous rulings…, warning the Court is now a ‘threat to democracy’ and suggesting some justices should be ‘considered’ for impeachment.” Specifically, Justices Alito and Thomas.

The “conservative” response

I’m always monitoring some of the rightwing media. The Daily Signal wrote a piece called To Gain Power, the Left Seeks to Destroy the Supreme Court, which I shan’t link to. The piece bashes Pelosi, the Squad (AOC, et al.).

It seems, in a linked Tweet to suggest that there WASN’T a “stolen Supreme Court seat.” Obama wasn’t allowed by the Senate to replace Antonin Scalia (d. Feb 13, 2016) but djt could replace RBG (d. Sept 18, 2020).

Perhaps off-topic, or maybe not: “Do you remember America?”

Sunday Stealing: Swap-Bot redux

Am I mellow?

This Sunday Stealing is Swap-Bot redux.

1. Do you trust people at restaurants who handle your food that they aren’t doing anything gross to it while you can’t see them?

What a weirdly paranoid question. Of course, because if they were to do so over time, it would likely be discovered. Incidentally, my wife, my daughter, her friend, and I went to an Italian restaurant called Tesoro in June on its last day before the owners would retire. Usually, when I have leftovers, the server will bring the empty containers to us. But this place put the food in the containers and bagged them up. That was the way it used to be, and I think it’s classy.

No hair day

2. How do you wear your hair each day?

If you’ve ever seen my hairline, you wouldn’t ask that question. The picture of the duck on my page, drawn by the late Raoul Vezina is a caricature of me that he did when I was 30 or younger It is so good that my old buddy Dan, the fuirst time he saw me on the street in 1985, after having previously seen the cartoon, KNEW it was me.

3. Have you ever worn:

A gas mask? Not to my recollection.

A blindfold? Undoubtedly, for the purpose of some game.

Is this a fashion question?

5. What is the difference between a man’s button down shirt and a woman’s button down shirt?

They’re buttoned on the opposite sides? IDK, and I don’t care. OK, I care enough to look it up afterward. Yup.

No, non, nein, nyet

Tthe answers to

4. Would you be willing to go hang gliding?

6. Have you ever taken a lock of someone else’s hair?

7. Have you ever given anyone a lock of your hair?

8. If you had a locket what would you put inside?

16. Do you have any tattoos or piercings?

are no, don’t think so, I doubt it, I’m not a locket kind of guy, and no, respectively

9. Have you ever written something on a bathroom wall?

It’s possible, though i don’t remember specifically. but it would have been one that had been severely graffitied previously.

10. When was the last time you fell down in public?

I don’t recall. I remember doing so on my way to church pre-COVID whe it was icy out.

Have I ever been mellow?

11. Are you more aggressive or mellow?

I wouldn’t use either of those terms. There are times when I will exhibit a flash of anger, usually when I, or someone else, has been wronged. I can be mellow about things that just don’t matter much to me. If a group is going out to a restaurant, and they want my preference, generally, I don’t care.

Conversely, if something is important to me – and I had made it quite clear that it was, and yet I’m not heard – I can be quite vociferous. This happened at least twice at my last job.

What is life?

12. What have you done with your self to keep your life worth living?

Being useful, broadly speaking. That was the great thing about being a librarian; I could answer questions that some wanted to know the answer to. there are things I know – CDTA bus routes, certain music trivia, news – that can be helpful.

13. What is the most incredible thing you can do?

Incredible? IDK. I do know all of the US Presidents in order, by year inaugurated. Indeed, muy brain is so full of ephemera that I can’t even remember what I remember.

So I asked my wife. She mentioned two separate things: my ability to remember the dates of many events in my life; and recalling music ties to lyrics, when I got the album or first heard the song. I see them as part of the same brain process. For instance, I first heard The Beatles white album in the basement of the Unitarian Church in Binghamton, NY shortly after Thanksgiving 1968 when friend Steve used his LRY (Liberal Religious Youth) credentials to be able to use the building.

14. Do you bury your pets, flush them, or throw them away?

I haven’t had fish since I was kid. Probably flushed them.

15. What’s your favorite thing that is yellow?

An electrical banana. Nah, probably a T-shirt.

(Thanks to Gus for the graphic.)

1963: a musically liminal year

folk, doo-wop, and a Belgian nun

I’ve long thought that 1963 was a musically liminal year. The decade started slowly, then exploded in 1964 with the Beatles and the British Invasion, as well as big hits by the Supremes and other Motown artists.

1963 was the link between the sound of the 1950s, along with the decline or loss of that decade’s most prominent artists (Presley, Berry, Holly, et al.), and what was to come. Hits by Stevie Wonder and Steve Lawrence, along with songs in French and Japanese, topped the charts; an eclectic selection.

It was the year of the March on Washington and JFK’s assassination, both of which informed the vibe of the remainder of the decade.

Sugar Shack– Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, five weeks at #1, gold record

He’s So Fine – The Chiffons, four weeks at #1. Written by Ronald Mack, the evil Allen Klein got almost no compensation when George Harrison subconsciously lifted the tune for My Sweet Lord.

Dominique – The Singing Nun, four weeks at #1, which I wrote about here

Hey Paula – Paul and Paula, three weeks at #1, gold record

My Boyfriend’s Back – The Angels, three weeks at #1

Blue Velvet – Bobby Vinton, three weeks at #1

I Look Up as I Walk

Sukiyaki – Kyu Sakamoto, three weeks at #1, gold record. The song has nothing to do with food. “A Newsweek columnist compared this re-titling to issuing ‘Moon River‘ in Japan under the title ‘Beef Stew.'”

I Will Follow Him – Little Peggy March, three weeks at #1

Fingertips, Part 2 – Little Stevie Wonder, three weeks at #1

Walk Like A Man – The Four Seasons, three weeks at #1. BTW, my wife and I think Jersey Boys, about the group, is the best of the so-called jukebox musicals because it has the most substantial storyline

Go Away Little Girl – Steve Lawrence, two weeks at #1, a gold record. A Goffin/King song that went to #1 eight years later, performed by Donny Osmond.

I’m Leaving It Up To You – Dale & Grace, two weeks at #1

Surf City – Jan & Dean, two weeks at #1. When Brian Wilson gave the song to the duo, his dad Murry was irate

It’s My Party – Lesley Gore, two weeks at #1

Walk Right In – The Rooftop Singers, two weeks at #1, gold record

Easier Said Than Done – The Essex, two weeks at #1

If You Wanna Be Happy – Jimmy Soul, two weeks at #1

So Much in Love – The Tymes

Deep Purple – Nino Tempo & April Stevens. Not to be confused with a group of the same name.

Our Name Will Come – Ruby & the Romantics

My longest 4th of July

seeing the niece Rebecca Jade

In 2023, I experience my longest 4th of July. It started off with rain, not what we wanted for the Underground Railroad Education Center’s annual oration, Speaking Truth to Power. This was even more dire because the musicians Magpie, Terry Leonino and Greg Artzner, were bringing a whole bumch of their equipment (sound board, mics, et al).

When my wife got to the residence at 194 Livingston Avenue with one of two tarps, the forecast was that the rain would subside. Ultimately, it did. It’s a good thing my wife was there because she’s WAY more mechanically proficient than I.

This year, Paul and/or Mary Liz Stewart recruited me to be on the committee to work on the event for the first time. I had the fool notion of using some of the speeches from the the 1963 March on Washington, since it’s the 60th anniversary. This meant, of course, finding the addresses then whittling them down to reasonable lengths so Greg and Terry could figure out what songs to insert between them.

It wasn’t until just before the program began that I noticed that I was to introduce Magpie and their longtime collaborator Kim Harris. I also introduced about half of the speakers and gave an excerpt of Whitney Young’s speech.

Ultimately, though it ran a bit long, it was successful. (You can find the speech excerpts on this blog this coming August 28.) After having eatten 60 fewer hot dogs than Joey Chestnut, I helped Magpie break down their equipment. Now it is HOT! And humid!

I did sit in Greg and Terry’s car watching the equipment while talking to Kim Harris about her teaching theology and other topics.

By the time we got home, my wife and I were ready to take naps. It was not on the agenda.

Empire State Plaza

The plan for part two of the day was to drive down to our church, park in the church lot, then carry our lawn chairs down to the Empire State Plaza, a distance of little over two miles. My wife had purchased two new chairs and we borrowed one from the Stewarts.

We caught the swearing in ceremony of 27 new Americans from over 20 countries at 5 pm. It was pleasant, but we did worry that the participants would pass out. They were all dressed up. Our pastor, Glenn arrived just in time for that.

Did I mention that it was hot? If I didn’t, the energetic DJ let us know. As the sun started baking us, we retreated to the top of the external stairs abut the State Museum/Library.

A sibling duo named Jocelyn & Chris performed at 6pm. Our daughter arrived from work not much before we learned that my niece Rebecca Jade and the rest of Sheila E.’s entourage were leaving their hotel and heading to the plaza. Rebecca wasn’t supposed to be at the show, but one of Sheila’s singers had a family emergency.

Seeing the first niece

Soon, as Glenn watched our chairs, and Chuck Miller was setting up his cameras, my wife, my daughter, and I got to visit Rebecca backstage. We were introduced to some bandmates, the sound guy, and others. Sheila, who we had met in 2019, waved as she walked by.

Shortly afterward, there was an announcement from the stage that there was great threat of thunderstorms, and specifically lightning, coming. Everyone, including Glenn, my BIL Dan, and one of his daughters, joined the hundreds who went into the concourse beneath where we had been seated.

For a time, it was rather interesting to see people hanging out unexpectedly. Eventually, we got word that the Sheila E. show was not merely postponed but canceled and the fireworks wouldn’t take place until the next evening. Yet we weren’t supposed to leave because of the lightning threat.

Sudeenly, about a dozen teenaged girl got into a fracas. It took at least five state troopers to break it up. Rebecca had made it back to the restaurant at her hotel.

Rescue mission

My daughter and I decided to get the chairs, believing, erroneously, that the lightning had ended. The cops were trying to quell the sudden proliferation of firecrackers going off. As my daughter ran up the stairs, one officer asked if she were going up there to set off fireworks. “No! She getting our chairs that we left up there!”

But as she was going up the stairs, someone was carrying our chairs down via another path. My daughter yelled to the person. Finally, we discovered it was pastor Glenn, carrying FOUR chairs. He’s stronger than he looks.

By this time, the state troopers decided that their priority was to get all of those people OUT of the concourse. We walked back to the church parking lot, then in our two cars, drove down to the hotel where Rebecca was staying.

By this time, the restaurant was closed. But we went upstairs to a conference area and told tales for well over an hour about everything from her musical journey to genealogy. Rebecca had a 3:45 a.m. wakeup call so she can take a 5:30 flight back to California.

We got home shortly before midnight having done over 15,000 steps, which may not be much for you but, on a hot day, it was a LOT for me.

I did my Wordle (VENOM, in 4), then fell asleep in my chair, waking up at about 2:45 a.m, before going to bed. On July 5, I took two naps.

The front page of the local Times Union showed two event photos, at the plaza, and the Underground Railroad Education Center event. My wife and I were at both. BTW, she took a nap too.