Jaquandor Archives - Page 43 of 49

Random Memory of My Father: Gregory Hines edition

The common theme: both Darlanne Fluegal and my father really needed to get out of Binghamton.

Back in 1988, my sister Leslie (who was visiting from California) and I (visiting from New York State) were in the car with my parents and my sister Marcia, traveling from Charlotte, NC to Raleigh, NC for some event when the issue of the NAACP Image Awards came up. I hadn’t watched them, and I don’t think Leslie had either. But my father had done so, on television, and he was VERY upset with actor Gregory Hines (pictured). His failing? He was wearing an earring to the event, showing an intentional lack of respect for the NAACP and for the proceedings.

Leslie and I spent about an hour unsuccessfully trying to convince my father that this was not a slight, that Gregory Hines often wore an earring, that actors are just different, and that we seriously doubted that the NAACP was upset about this (for the aforementioned reasons).

I think I remember this, and that we argued about it for so long at the time, because it seemed so…parochial, narrow-minded, and that wasn’t how we viewed our father AT ALL.

It only recently occurred to me to wonder WHY Gregory Hines was getting that Image Award in the first place. Actually, Hines had been nominated a total of four times and won twice, the latter in 2002 for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special for Bojangles (2001), but my father had passed away by then, and Hines would, too, the following year.

The award in question was for Running Scared (1986), for which Hines was Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture. “Danny [Billy Crystal] and Ray [Hines] are two street-wise cops in Chicago. When they are almost killed on a case, they are forced to take a vacation by their captain. Key West offers a substantial change over frozen Chicago. They decide to quit and open a bar in Key West. Upon returning, they find that Julio [Jimmy Smits], the drug dealer who nearly killed them has made bail and is trying to complete a giant drug deal.”

Of particular interest to me: Darlanne Fluegel played the Crystal character’s wife, Anna. From this 1986 story about her appearance on the TV show Crime Story: Actually, Fluegel never intended to be a model. Raised in Binghamton, N.Y., she was a tomboy who felt more kinship with her three younger brothers than her two older sisters. When she was 16, her father, a chiropractor, died suddenly of a brain tumor. Darlanne turned to modeling “not to be a burden” on her mother, who worked with the Department of Social Security, and “as a quick way out of Binghamton.” Darlanne attended Binghamton Central High School for a time, and I knew her vaguely; I knew her sister Donna better.

In any case, the common theme: both Darlanne Fluegel and my father really needed to get out of Binghamton.

My father would have been 86 tomorrow.

Sidebar to Jaquandor: this is the same Darlanne Fluegel you wrote about here and to which I eventually replied here. Oh, and happy birthday tomorrow.

F is for Film: 100 things about Movies

I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind. Feel like I’m supposed to.

This was one of those things that Jaquandor and SamuraiFrog, for two, did last year. But I thought I’d do it now, when I had the time.

1. Possibly the first movie I ever saw in a theater was 101 Dalmatians (1961). And what’s not to like? The lead male adult is named Roger and gets to sing the nasty “Cruella DeVille” song.

2. At this point, I’m not positive when I saw most of the Disney classic films. Disney had this policy of putting out a film, then re-releasing it every seven years. They do similar things with video/DVD/BluRay these days. I’m pretty sure I saw Cinderella but was it in the theater or on TV? I know I saw Lady & the Tramp in the theater. I saw Snow White in the past year with my daughter on TV, and good chunks were unfamiliar.

3. I saw Fantasia (and Fantasia 2000) in movie theaters when I was an adult.

4. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen, in their entirety, Dumbo, Bambi or Pinocchio. The bits of the latter I DID see were dark and terrifying.

5. The first non-animated movie I remember seeing in the movie theater was State Fair. I don’t remember anything about it except the theme: “Our State Fair is a great state fair. Don’t miss it; don’t even be late.” This movie was made thrice, in 1933, 1945, and the badly-reviewed 1962 version with Pat Boone. That’s probably the one I saw.

6. The most significant movie I saw in my childhood was West Side Story. It came out in 1961, but we almost certainly didn’t see it that year, for I saw it with my mother and two sisters, and I remember my sisters being older than that. Still, the ticket taker wanted to know if my mother was sure that she should take us to such a violent film.

7. One of the places we saw movies was at the Ritz Theater, a second-run place on Clinton Street, within walking distance of my house in Binghamton, NY.

8. Another movie venue was near my mother’s office, the Strand Theater. I’m sure there were others but they are not coming to me.

9. Of course, I saw a LOT of movies on TV. This was the period when Saturday afternoon had no programming whatsoever, except an occasional college football game. Saw lots of John Wayne pictures, but they all run together in my mind.

10. The only John Wayne movie I ever saw in the theater was The Green Berets. I hated it, but then I knew I would.

11. One movie that seemed to show up on the TV schedule a LOT was I Was A Communist for the FBI, which came out in 1951 before I was born.

12. Another film that I saw on TV multiple times was the 1949 version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and Lilies of the Field (1961) with Sidney Poitier.

13. As I’ve noted, I was terrified by a film called The Leech Woman. I was about nine, and I was freaked out for months.

14. I saw the Beatles’ film HELP! when it came out. But it wasn’t until college that I saw, all on the same day, A Hard Day’s Night, HELP!, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be.

15. The WORST editing of a movie for commercial TV purposes I’ve ever seen was Yellow Submarine, on CBS (I think). Went to a commercial IN THE MIDDLE OF A SONG.

16. The family occasionally went to the drive-in, but for the life of me, the only movie I remember seeing was The Dirty Dozen.

17. In high school, I remember going to see The Night They Raided Minsky’s with my friend Carol, and her friend Judy, who I had a mad crush on.

18. Not far from our high school, there was something called the Roberson Center. My friends and I saw a LOT of classic films there. I know I saw Jules et Jim, Wild Strawberries, The Bicycle Thief, The Birds (Hitchcock), Sunset Boulevard, probably 12 Angry Men, and a number of other films, including, I believe, some Chaplin.

19. I remember seeing, quite possibly in the movie theater, If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium (1969) and With Six, You Get Eggroll (1968).

20. Saw The Great White Hope with my high school girlfriend and her father; that was quite strange.

21. For reasons having to do with affairs of the heart (same girlfriend), I saw the movie version of Catch-22 one and a half times a particular evening.

22. My friends and I sat through the Woodstock movie twice, back in the day that no one cared if you did that. I remember staring at the purple light from the projector when Sly and the Family Stone appeared on the screen.

23. I managed to see Midnight Cowboy four times in a fairly short time. I went with friends, then another bunch of friends, etc.

24. Actually saw four of the five nominated films for Best Picture in 1969 in the theater at the time. Besides Midnight Cowboy, which won, I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Hello, Dolly! and the very powerful Z. Have never seen Anne of the Thousand Days. That became true for years thereafter that I saw at least three and sometimes all five films nominated, not because they were Oscar bait but because I saw a lot of films.

25. There was this disturbing film called Last Summer (1969) that I wrote about here, which led to my longtime crush on Barbara Hershey.

26. Watched The Wizard of Oz every year as a kid. But after we got the color TV in 1969, and I GOT the contrast, continued to view it every year for the next 20 years or more.

27. I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind. Feel like I’m supposed to. Tried once when it first came on commercial TV but lost interest.

28. Possibly the funniest movie I ever saw was Young Frankenstein. I had an aisle seat, and I laughed so hard at one point that I was literally rolling in the aisle. Saw a number of Mel Brooks films after this.

29. The very first movie I saw at college (1971) I saw with the Okie, my college girlfriend. It was Rosemary’s Baby (1968).

30. For reasons that escape me, my girlfriend at the time and I saw The Godfather with my friend Carol and her boyfriend at the time. We drove up from Binghamton to Syracuse, and we didn’t take I-81, but the lesser US-11.

31. On a single occasion, four of us went to an adult cinema. It wasn’t in our college town, but a town some miles away. It wasn’t at all sexy; in fact, it was laughable.

32. At some point after seeing A Clockwork Orange, I swore off seeing movies rated R for violence. Stuck to that for about eight years.

33. There were lots of movies I saw at college. A number of them were classics. Then there were others. I know Reefer Madness [watch!] was one; boy, did I get a contact high viewing THAT.

34. I definitely saw Fellini’s Satyricon and Andy Warhol’s Dracula and HATED them. Almost walked out of the Fellini film.

35. There was a movie called The King of Hearts (Le roi de coeur – 1966) that ran at the local theater in town often, and I probably saw it three or four times. I had a mad crush on Geneviève Bujold.

36. This is when I started seeing Woody Allen movies: Bananas; Play It Again, Sam; Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex; Sleeper; and Love and Death

37. Of course, I saw my linchpin film, Annie Hall in 1977. I think I related to it in part because, like Alvy Singer, I just hate going into a movie after the movie starts. For me, that’s in part due to increased night blindness; a dark auditorium, even with an illuminated screen, is treacherous for me.

38. I’m still convinced that Diane Keaton won her Oscar, not just for Annie Hall but Waiting for Mr. Goodbar, which also came out that year, and which I also saw.

39. I’m guessing I saw To Kill a Mockingbird while I was at college, but I’m not sure. Very fond of that picture.

40. In the mid-1970s, at a drive-in somewhere, I saw all five Planet of the Apes movies then extant. I think I fell asleep during the battle scene of the last one.

41. I saw Jane Fonda in pretty much every film she put out in the 1970s.

42. I first saw Casablanca outdoors at a park in Rochester, NY in the mid-1970s with my friend Debi (who I’ve long lost track of). I adore that movie.

43. I remember staying in line – at the Fox Theater in Colonie, NY? – to see the original Star Wars movie, weeks after it had opened. I love that film.

44. Coming Home (1978) is the movie that pretty much defined how I feel about watching movies on TV versus in the theater. I saw it in the theater, liked it. Saw it on HBO, didn’t like it so much; figured it couldn’t withstand a second look. But then saw it in a second-run theater and discovered that I liked it nearly as much as the first time.

45. I saw Gaslight, the latter version, at the public library in Charlotte, NC in 1977. The verb “to gaslight” has been in my vocabulary ever since.

46. The first films I ever bought on VHS tape were Annie Hall and Being There. I tend to buy videos only of films I had seen in the theater first.

47. I started watching Siskel and Ebert back in their early days on PBS. They, more than any other critics, have had a huge impact on how I view films.

48. When I moved to Albany in 1979 and went with this woman named Susan, we started frequently to a movie theater called the 3rd Street Theatre in nearby Rensselaer. It was an “art” cinema, where I’d see the newest Woody Allen film.

49. The first movie rated R for violence I saw after my hiatus was The Shining (1980). I thought it was ruined early on when Nicholson looked crazy while he was still sitting in Barry Nelson’s office; I thought staying in the hotel was supposed to make him insane. And the wall of blood was comical rather than scary.

50. Probably my least favorite commercially-released movie is Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part 1. A bunch of jokes about urination. I did like the Hitler on Ice part near the end, though.

51. Seems that I have seen one of the Halloween pictures, but not in the theater, and much after the original release. Or maybe it was one of those other horror franchises.

52. When I worked at FantaCo, we sold a lot of Freddy Krueger masks and gloves. Peculiar since I never saw any of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

53. FantaCo sponsored a couple of local premieres. The only one I can remember, though, is the debacle that was Howard the Duck. It’s not like we got to see it before it showed.

54. I did see, at 3rd Street, a movie called Eating Raoul (1982). I remember this because it was a running joke aimed at employee Raoul Vezina.

55. The one world premiere film I saw was Twilight Zone: The Movie. It started in Binghamton at the long-defunct Crest Theater. Rod Serling was dead eight years by then, but his favorite teacher, Helen Foley, who was a character in a segment of the film, was there.

56. I saw Chariots of Fire right after it had won Best Picture with my girlfriend at the time, and her son. We were all bored silly by it. I think it was that the weight of the Best Picture distorts expectations, which is why I try to see films before Oscar night.

57. Saw quite a few John Waters films. One was Polyester (1982), after which we went to our friend Miriam’s house and consumed nothing but polyester food, such as Cheez Wiz and Marshmallow Fluff.

58.I saw Rear Window for the first time during a theatrical re-release in the fall of 1983. VERY entertaining.

59. There was an art theater called the Spectrum that opened in Albany in 1983; the 3rd Street, owned by the same folks, closed in Rensselaer a couple of years later. I have probably seen more films there than at any other venue.

60. I’ve seen a lot of John Sayles, Merchant-Ivory, and non-American films, almost all at the Spectrum, as it has expanded to eight theaters over time.

61. I’ve never seen the movie Ironweed. I saw part of it being filmed, it features Meryl Streep who I’ve seen in about 30 movies, it’s about Albany, and I’ve met William Kennedy, who wrote the book.

62. Rob Reiner put out a bunch of really good films (The American President, A Few Good Men, Misery, When Harry Met Sally…, The Princess Bride, Stand by Me, This Is Spinal Tap) for about a decade and a half.

63. After I saw Schindler’s List with two other people, we went somewhere to eat and discuss it for longer than the film’s running time. Glad I saw it, but I may never see it again.

64. I liked the first 2/3s of Terms of Endearment before it turned into Tears of Internment.

65. When I’d visit my mother, we’d invariably see a movie. I know I saw Rocky and Star Trek IV with her. The latter was a bit confusing for her since she hadn’t seen the previous films, but she liked it.

66. I’ve seen the first five Star Trek films, but none since.

67. The only time I fell asleep while going to see a single movie, not at a drive-in, it was the Oscar winner The Last Emperor (1987). Not sure it was the movie.

68. I stood in a ridiculously long line at the Madison Theater to see Pretty Woman.

69. Almost invariably, there is a Best Picture nominee (or even non-nominee) I thought was better than the winner. I’d pick The Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction over Forrest Gump, for instance.

70. I tried to watch Silence of the Lambs on HBO at my parents’ house; couldn’t do it – too scared.

71. I avoided seeing It’s a Wonderful Life for years until my wife talked me into it about a dozen years ago. It’s far better than I would have expected.

72. The first movie I saw with my now-wife was Speed (1994).

73. Saw Braveheart on the BIG screen at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady; I wonder if the larger palate made it even less palatable. I suppose it was good for what it was, but I didn’t much like it. When I was taking the JEOPARDY! test, Braveheart was an answer; I had blocked out the title from my brain but remembered it just in time.

74. Another great venue for films was Page Hall at the downtown UAlbany campus. I saw mostly older films there. But I also saw Devil with a Blue Dress (1995), starring Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle before it was released. Walter Mosley, who wrote the book, was supposed to be there, but couldn’t make it.

75. I saw every movie nominated for an Oscar in the Best Picture, Best Director, all acting categories, and both screenplay categories for the year 1997 except one. Peter Fonda nominated for Best Actor in Ulee’s Gold; I STILL haven’t seen it.

76. The only time I put salt on any food is movie popcorn.

77. I went to an IMAX theater in Boston in 1998 to see a movie about Himalayan avalanches. Very effective.

78. The greatest number of films I’ve seen in a three-day weekend: 5 on Presidents Day weekend in 1998; four of them were Oscar nominees. The Apostle (Robert Duvall- best actor nom), Afterglow (Julie Christie- best actress nom), Mrs. Brown (Judi Dench- best actress nom), and L.A. Confidential (best pic nom; Kim Basinger- best supporting actress win.)

79. I’ve seen all the Pixar films except Monsters Inc., the new Brave, and the two Cars films. My favorite is The Incredibles.

80. Lots of people seem to hate Jim Carrey, but I especially liked him in two films, The Truman Show and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

81. I’ve seen many of the “newer” Disney animations, which I count from The Little Mermaid (1989), and I didn’t have a child at the time.

82. Raising Arizona is my favorite movie before the opening credits roll.

83. Saw Spy Kids at the Madison Theater and I was the ONLY person there.

84. Groundhog Day is a movie that spoke to me in a profound way. Maybe it’s the JEOPARDY! sequence. I love movies with JEOPARDY! sequences, such as Airplane 2 (the only original bit) and White Men Can’t Jump.

85. The Graduate and Raging Bull I only saw a few years ago, on DVD. I liked the former but felt impatient with the latter.

86. I’ve watched only the first Harry Potter movie, the first Lord of the Rings movie, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie; call me an incompletist.

87. I tend to like Charlie Kauffman’s movies, but I hated the last third of Adaptation (2002).

88. When my wife got pregnant, I went through a period where there just certain films that I would have otherwise seen that I suddenly just didn’t want to: Mystic River and Hotel Rwanda for two.

89. Unsurprisingly, we saw few films in 2004; we were just too tired, and getting a babysitter was a new issue.

90. When we were at a timeshare in western Massachusetts, Carol tried to take Lydia, who was three at the time to the movie Charlotte’s Web. Lydia freaked out so that they left in 10 minutes.

91. At that same venue, I got to see Spider-Man 2, arguably my favorite superhero movie ever, though I do have a soft spot for the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve.

92. The best feature about the Madison Theatre – it’s three blocks away.

93. I tried to take the Daughter to see The Princess and the Frog, which scared her, though we stayed. In recompense, I took her to see the squeakwell to the Alvin and Chipmunks movie. She liked it, but I loathed it.

94. The first movie Lydia and I saw together that we BOTH liked was Ramona and Beezus (2010).

95. The first movie all three of us went to was Dolphin Tale (2011).

96. When my buddy Greg Burgas would do a recasting of films, I was always the one who wanted to find the non-white actor or the female actor in the white male role.

97. I have quite a few movie soundtracks, some to films I have never seen.

98. I canceled my Netflix subscription, not because of the pricing debacle but because I had a difficult time actually having time to carve out to watch what I took out. I had The Hurt Locker for FIVE MONTHS and never watched it; never found the quiet time with the Daughter not around. Unlike movies I’ve seen before, where I don’t mind seeing part of now, and more later, I feel a video of an unfamiliar should be viewed in one sitting.

99. All things being equal, I’ll go see a movie with George Clooney in it.

100. I refer to my movie reference books at least weekly, even when I’m not seeing movies, because questions always arise. Yeah, there’s Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, and OSCARS.org, but I still need my books.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Evil, President Romney, and my daughter’s future

Mitt Romney’s hard right swing makes it difficult for me to ascertain what his real values are.

First, Chris, in answer to my answer, writes:

You bring up Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears. However, my husband is studying for a military exam, and the honors that his company won during the “Indian Wars” is considered part of their venerable history… And then I think of Hitler and Genghis Khan and I wonder, were they genuinely trying to do good by their own?

This is why I picked him over the more obvious choice such as Hitler. History, at least the history most of us have read, has already assigned Hitler with the “evil” mantle; he doesn’t need me. Whereas Jackson’s place in history is a more of mixed bag. I have an ex who could talk your ear off (probably not literally, though I’m not sure) on the topic. I would submit that GWB’s war in Iraq may have been – OK, probably was, in his mind – initiated by “trying to do good” for his own people; didn’t make it right. I daresay most ethnic cleansing is done to “protect” one group from “the other” (see: Rwanda or Yugoslavia in the 1990s for recent examples). Whether the “good intentions” of mass murder are relevant inevitably will be written by the historians.

Maybe a better question is “What do you consider evil?” What is good and what is evil, really?

I defer to Potter Stewart, who famously said, concerning pornography, that he knows it when he sees it. I do agree, for example, with the sentiment in the article Condemning foreign governments for abusive acts while ignoring one’s own is easy. But the U.S. leads the way.

American slavery was evil, and you had good Christian people defending it at the time, though almost no one does now. People in the US North who were involved in the “triangular trade” at the time seemed to be oblivious to their role in the “peculiar institution.”

Not incidentally, I wouldn’t argue against your notion that this “American life” is supported by a modern-day form of slavery and exploitation, which is, however, much harder to see, though some of us do try.
***

Jaquandor of Byzantium Shores provokes me:

At the risk of provoking a more political post than you might wish…

Almost certainly true, BTW.

how bad do you think a Romney presidency might be? (I, as you might suspect, think it would be an absolute train wreck that might make us pine for the days of George W. Bush.)

Here’s the thing: I don’t know. His hard-right swing makes it difficult for me to ascertain what his real values are. I’m not a big fan of pointing to “flip-flopping” when a person’s view on life has changed over time; I know mine has. But Romney would contradict himself and even lie about his position from weeks earlier during this campaign. And I don’t remember him doing that during the 2008 race.

Let me go wildly optimist: Maybe he really is that guy who was the Massachusetts governor who could manage to have some sort of health care plan that would be palatable to Republicans.

Nah.

I believe that he would expand on the covert military actions that both GWB and Obama have overused; difficult to put that genie back into the bottle.

I believe he, with Republicans, will dismantle regulations pertaining to banking (such as they are) and the environment. I expect that the pipeline from Canada, which Obama has partially resisted, will be expedited, and a massive catastrophe will ensue.

I believe, if the Republicans still control the House, that there will be pushes to go into either Syria or Iran (or Lord help us, both), to terrible outcomes.

I believe that not only does the divide between the rich and poor increase, but there will be hunger in America with a safety net that has been rendered totally inadequate, so apparent that there will be demonstrations a lot more confrontational than Occupy has initiated to date. To Chris’ question about evil: some of it, at least, is all that Biblical stuff about NOT feeding the hungry, NOT clothing the naked.

What’s a movie or book that you were convinced you would hate and ended up liking a good deal?

Any number of movies billed as raunchy but I liked anyway, such as 40-Year-Old Virgin, and, to a lesser extent, Knocked Up. Dolphin Tale, which I saw with The Wife and The Daughter, I thought wasn’t awful, and Ramona and Beezus, which I saw with the Daughter, I rather liked. I actually did try to read The Bridges of Madison County, but just couldn’t, yet I liked the movie. But, in general, I go to a movie EXPECTING to like it; sometimes I don’t, but I have my anticipation.

Even more true, I just don’t read books I don’t expect to like. Well, when I was in my church book group at my former church, from about 1986 to 1995, we would read from various genres; that’s how I read Margaret Atwood, which I didn’t expect to like, but I did.

Are there any careers you’d like to see your daughter pursue? Or, on the flip side, any careers you would be deeply troubled to see her pursuing?

To the former, no. I’m REALLY TRYING to give her room to figure out her path. Although she could do worse than to be a librarian or teacher. There COULD be a parental bias here, however. She is starting to write stories, and while I would not wish a writer’s life on her – full of rejection – I’m happy about the learning aspect of her activity, at least. She likes to dance, and I don’t know whether that is a career path she’ll want or not. Maybe she’ll be a pastor; that was my dream when I was about 10 to 15.

But I wouldn’t want her to be a politician, because I just think it’s too brutal, with candidates decided upon with too much superficiality.

Geek Confessional

Obsessions with vampires, zombies, LOLcats, Facebook games such as Castleville, which female celebrities are pregnant or just had a baby…

Jaquandor addresses: “What is something you absolutely hate or love or just don’t get, or maybe it’s something you have never even seen or read. What is your deepest, darkest geek confession?”

The breakdown:

Something I hate that everybody else loves.

Does EVERYBODY love ANYTHING anymore? I mean someone is watching those Real Housewives shows, and I despise their very existence, but they are quite avoidable.

The closest thing, I suppose, to the nature of the question is The Big Bang Theory. I watched it, didn’t HATE it, but didn’t find it particularly funny either. And I am convinced it was the laugh track. When I’m not chuckling, and “they” are, it’s quite telling to me.

Something I love that everybody else hates.

Watches. Something that has only one function – to tell time. Actually, I don’t have one presently – it died – but I’m in the market for one.

Physical music. Everything is downloaded or in “the cloud”, whatever that is. I still like the tactile sense. I like reading the liner notes.

Physical books. I tell you that, with some reference books, I can find reliable information a lot faster than by Googling it. (Note the term “reliable.”)

Bicycles. Some drivers are just hostile to the notion of sharing the road.

Something I don’t get that everyone else seems to:

Obsessions with vampires, zombies, LOLcats, Facebook games such as Castleville, in which female celebrities are pregnant or just had a baby (and they keep track of their children’s names), or how quickly they’ve gotten rid of their baby fat. (Look at the most popular baby names, and you’ll find lots of kids of celebrities with those names – but don’t ask me which celebs.)

Something that you would think I’m familiar with and yet am not:

I suppose I should go with the big one: Harry Potter. Never read one book; didn’t even start one, only to give up. Did see the first movie, and thought it was OK, but never went beyond that.

Any number of TV shows: Mad Men, The Sopranos (I’ve seen maybe six minutes of it), Breaking Bad, The Wire…the list goes on and on.

Music by The Decemberists, Florence + the Machine, pretty much all of the 21st-century music, though I actually have a Black Keys album. There was a category on current pop music on the last JEOPARDY! Teen Tournament and I went 0 for 5.

Yes, there was a real Vidal Sassoon

The elimination of the ACS would mean the loss of all the data Census used to collect on the long form. A voluntary ACS would actually cost MORE to operate than it does presently.

I was on Facebook recently, and someone, who I believe considers herself a bit of a fashionista, wrote: “Did you have ANY idea Vidal Sassoon was a real person? I did not.” She must be even younger than I thought because that means she never saw this commercial and others like it. This made me feel rather old but also puzzled. I found this list of companies named after people, and Sassoon was not on it; maybe it seemed too obvious.

At a conference last week, I was talking to some folks about movies. I mentioned how cinematic offerings so often come from another source, such as The Avengers (a couple of no-spoiler reviews here and here, BTW) I said I didn’t know why they bothered to slap the name Dark Shadows on it, since it has such a different feel than the TV show. Both of them expressed shock. I said, “Look it up!” at which point one pulled out his smartphone. “Go to IMBD.com,” I directed. He exclaimed, “Dark Shadows 1966-1971, 30-minute gothic soap opera. I didn’t know they had goth back then!” I just walked away. They must have missed Jonathan Frid’s obit; he originated the character Barnabas Collins in 1967 that Johnny Depp will play in the film.

All the obits for Maurice Sendak mentioned first Where The Wild Things Are; I don’t think I’ve ever read it! Yet I immediately recognize the artwork. I DID watch Really Rosie and saw some of his other work, such as in The New Yorker.

A guy who’s my sister’s friend, and my Facebook friend and real-life acquaintance, lives in the San Diego area. He wrote of Junior Seau, the San Diego Chargers linebacker who committed suicide: “There’s an outpouring of sadness in this city. He was much more than an athlete: his charitable contributions were well-respected. We won’t know what demons were in his life; we’d rather remember the goodness that he radiated, at least in public.” What Jaquandor said, I would echo.
***

From the Association of Public Data Users:
“The U.S. House of Representatives voted on May 9th to eliminate the American Community Survey. This amendment to the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill passed by a vote of 232 to 190. Right before this vote, the House passed the Webster amendment, approved by voice vote and sponsored by Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), to make a response to the ACS voluntary by prohibiting both the Census Bureau and the Justice Department from using funds to enforce penalties in the Census Act that make survey response mandatory. (The amendment had to be written as a limit on the expenditure of funds in order for it to be ruled “in order” on an appropriations bill.) The outcome of this vote demonstrates the importance of proactivity among data users in conveying their support for the ACS and other surveys to all members of the House and Senate. The Senate is expected to take up the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations bill next week.”

The elimination of the ACS, for those who don’t deal with Census data, would mean the loss of all the data Census used to collect on the long-form, discontinued after Census 2000 to make way for the ACS, at Congress’ urging! The ACS has provided data more regularly. A voluntary ACS, because it would involve contacting more households, would actually cost MORE to operate than it does presently, and because of participant bias – i.e., people who like to fill out surveys – would lose its statistical validity. Governments, businesses, and individuals use these data daily, I know from experience.
***
Evanier notes that on a recent trip how much of it was made possible by technology that didn’t exist a decade or two ago.