Steve Bissette Archives - Page 8 of 9

I is for Irene

Yes, that’s 3 hours, 39 minutes of flying time over an 11-hour stretch.

Irene is one of those semi-popular names in the US, 16th most popular among girls’ names at its peak in 1918 and 1919, 684th in 2010.

Irene has also been designated as a possible hurricane name by the World Meteorological Organization. “The Atlantic is assigned six lists of names, with one list used each year. Every sixth year, the first list begins again.” Things before 1978 weren’t quite so neat and tidy, so Irene was eligible to be a hurricane name in 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1971. While Irene was unused in 1987 and in 1993, there were actually hurricanes named Irene in 1981, in 1999, and in 2005.

2011’s Hurricane Irene caused great damage, as you have probably heard. Albany County was among several in upstate New York designated as disaster areas. Our property only lost some tree limbs. But the storm was life-complicating.

As I’ve noted, my wife and daughter traveled down to Charlotte, NC August 24 to visit my sister and niece. One track of Irene would have come quite close to Charlotte, but the storm stayed on the coast, fortunately. Unfortunately, it traveled up the coast, and while it largely spared New York City, it walloped parts of New Jersey, Vermont, and upstate New York.

The problem was that the family was supposed to take the train back from Charlotte to Albany on August 31, but the trip was canceled by Amtrak, likely because of possible damage, or fear of same, to the tracks in New Jersey and elsewhere.

They couldn’t drive back because of washed-out roads. So they got a flight. Or three:
From Charlotte Douglas Intl Airport (CLT)
Departs: 08/31/2011 at 11:40 A.M. To
Baltimore/Washington Intl Thurgood Marshall Apt (BWI)
Arrives: 08/31/2011 at 1:09 P.M.
From BWI
Departs: 08/31/2011 at 4:37 P.M. To
Philadelphia Intl Airport (PHL)
Arrives: 08/31/2011 at 5:26 P.M.
From PHL
Departs: 08/31/2011 at 9:10 P.M. To
Albany Intl Airport (ALB)
Arrives: 08/31/2011 at 10:31 P.M.

Yes, that’s 3 hours, 39 minutes of flying time over an 11-hour stretch. That is what you’re left with – let’s not even talk about the cost – when one books a flight the day before.

Of course, many people had it a WHOLE lot worse! For a mild for instance, my brother-in-law Dan and his family, about an hour south of us in Greene County, NY, lost a bunch of stuff in the basement. Getting around was difficult because the roads were either flooded or washed out altogether; the schools started a week late, as much because of the impassable roads as the damage to the buildings. Those of you who know upstate geography will appreciate this: the fastest way currently to get from Catskill to Oneonta is going through Albany.

I feel a little testy about the notion that NYC overprepared; it was a hurricane, FCOL!

And there will be more storms that travel further north, because of the warmer Atlantic waters.

I wonder if Irene’s name will be retired. “The only time that there is a change is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO…the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.”

Check out some Vermont devastation HERE and HERE and HERE, collected by long-time VT resident, and my buddy, Steve Bissette.

(And I won’t even get into the subsequent destruction of Tropical Storm Lee, which did damage from the Gulf Coast to upstate New York this past week, as this video from Binghamton, NY, my hometown, will attest.)

ABC Wednesday – Round 9

July Rambling

If you’re ever in a Finnish disco, you’ll know just what to do. This is funnier to me than what’s on the video, for reasons I shan’t get into.

There was a front-page story in The (Albany, NY) Times Union this past Saturday, in anticipation of the same-sex marriage laws kicking in on Sunday. My pastors were highlighted:
Church views vary on same-sex vows; Locally, some pastors support weddings, but still wait for official word
By BRYAN FITZGERALD

The Revs. Glenn and Miriam Lawrence Leupold have been married for 24 years. As co-pastors of First Presbyterian Church in Albany, they have advocated for the right of gay men and lesbians to marry.

“When you think about the civil rights movement, so much of it was because of the churches,” she said. “The church was at the middle of the fight for civil rights. In fact, the church preceded the government.”

Sunday, when New York’s Marriage Equality Act takes effect, will be a day of celebration and chagrin for the Leupolds. The Presbyterian Church USA is still debating whether to lift their prohibition on ministers marrying gay couples.

“State law is ahead of our church law,” Glenn Leupold said. “And that’s unfortunate.”
…
The Leupolds said several gay couples in the congregation would like to be married at the church. The Leupolds advise gay couples to either have a civil ceremony or make arrangements to be married at another church.

[Like many people who are quoted in the newspaper, Miriam believes she was misquoted on this nuanced point. She and Glenn can/will do commitment services, but they cannot do marriages. So one could get married at City Hall and then have a commitment service at church.]

“They want their spiritual life, which is very rich and very real, to have a central role in how and where their relationship is affirmed,” said Glenn Leupold.

This month a majority of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries approved an amendment to their church’s Book of Order, clearing the way for men and women in same-sex relationships to be ordained. Ministers can legally preside over gay marriage ceremony, but not without repercussions from the church, which could strip a pastor of ordination.

“The denomination as a whole isn’t quite there,” Miriam Lawrence Leupold said. “But we’re closer than we were 10 years ago.”

There was an interesting article from a gay Presbyterian pastor serving in North Carolina, and Arthur wrote about it.

Lisa is one of those people who actually understand the reasons for the Declaration of Independence; so many others obviously do not.

Comics legend Stephen R. Bissette talks about his new book, ‘Teen Angels and New Mutants’ to Entertainment Weekly

Ken Jennings, JEOPARDY! winner (left) and Brian Ibbott, Coverville host (right), together.

Mr. Parrot discovered this rather sinister site that can not only generate a random name for you but a brand new identity complete with email address, mother’s maiden name, credit card number and blood group. I could see a legit use for it; when you go to a website you may go to just once that insists on all of your personal info.

Mimi writes: Only I Could Total A Car and Not Break A Nail, followed by I’ve Had My Twelve Minutes of Fame.

THE OFFICE recut as a traditional sitcom

For anyone who hates a****s that text in theaters. Yes, the word is used, and the linked audio is NSFW.

Tiskotansi! If you’re ever in a Finnish disco, you’ll know just what to do. This is funnier to me than what’s on the video, for reasons I shan’t get into.

GOOGLE ALERT Section

Roger Green Drum Solo (video)

Roger Green’s page on My Powerblock

Roger Green’s Personal Training Website’s in Great Shape!

During the June 23 Wayne County Foundation dinner, new board members Roger Green, Greg Janzow, Darla Randall, Jim Tanner and John Zetzl were recognized.

Mozart -Dies irae

Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a famous thirteenth century Latin hymn, thought to be written by Thomas of Celano.

I’ve sung the Mozart Requiem in choirs at least twice, perhaps thrice, and I love it. The coolest piece is the Dies Irae. And it occurred to me that this is one of those pieces that gets used A LOT in commercials and movie trailers. I heard it most recently in a trailer for the VERY DARK – don’t say I didn’t warn you – Japanese movie called Battle Royale, along with the Verdi requiem that also appears in the film.

I wondered if anyone put together a list of the music’s appearances. Here’s a roster of Mozart in the movies which lists six appearances of Requiem, but only one, Incredible True Story of Two Girls in Love, which I’ve never seen, where the Dies Irae is specified. About.com notes three films, X-Men 2, Duplex, and The Incredibles DVD: Jack-Jack Attacks; I saw only the former.

My request: where have YOU heard this music before – I know you have – outside of a performance of the Requiem itself, besides in the movie Amadeus?

Incidentally, Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a famous thirteenth-century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano. The Mozart Requiem was completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr; there is a controversy about “how much of the piece was completed by Mozart before his death. The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated introit in Mozart’s hand, as well as detailed sketches of the Kyrie and the sequence, Dies irae.”

March Ramblin’

For my birthday this year, I had come across this Facebook thing whereby people could contribute $10 in my name to the American Red Cross. I picked them specifically, not only because they do good things, but because they helped me possibly save a life. Back in May of 1995, I successfully performed the Heimlich maneuver on an older woman in my church at the time who was choking on some meat, without breaking her ribs. I learned that at a Red Cross training that I took in high school.

Anyway, some people did this, some people were confused by how to do it electronically and instead gave me checks. Hey, it’s all good.

And that was before the Japan earthquake, and aid organizations such as the Red Cross in whatever country you are in can use your help even more.

Still, I got a couple of gift cards, one from Amazon, one from Borders. So I got my fix of new music for a while. From Borders, I got the greatest hits albums of the Guess Who (my previous copy had disappeared), and Peter, Paul, and Mary (I saw Peter and Paul at Proctors in the fall of 2010). And I was really pleased with myself with my Amazon purchase. I looked at my wish list and noted that a Sheryl Crow album had gone down from whatever to under $5. A Madeleine Peyroux album was down at least $3 to around $10. And Judy Collins’ cover album of Leonard Cohen songs, used to be $16+ but was down to under $11. The grand total was $25.15, plus 84 cents tax, for a total of $25.99, minus the GC for a massive charge of 99 cents to the credit card. ($25 was the minimum to get free shipping.) Oh, I may have purchased newish albums by Robert Plant, Mavis Staples, and R.E.M. as well.

Carol and I got to see an amazing percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennie, with the Albany Symphony Orchestra at the Troy Music Hall, performing a piece written by Academy Award-winning composer, John Corigliano (“The Red Violin”). Thanks to our friends Philip and Marilyn who couldn’t use the tickets. In the same week, we also saw The Lion King at Proctors in Schenectady, which was great.

My wife was confounded as to what to get me for my birthday. She thought about getting a bicycle. But, using the $100 from the CSN stores I got from Lily Hydrangea, I bought a Mongoose myself for $59 additional. She thought to buy me a TV, to replace the one we have with only two volumes, inaudible and LOUD; but then my friend Uthaclena and his wife offered their spare set when they showed up with their daughter as a surprise on my birthday weekend; the following weekend, he brought up the set.

And the wife did buy me a book, the autobiography of Ed Dague, the local newsman I admire, but a friend from work had already given it to me.

So she let me have a card party, specifically a HEARTS party, on March 19. There was a period in the 1980s where a group of us would play hearts once, twice, even thrice a week, always at the home of our charismatic and maddening friend Broome and his “this woman is a saint” wife, Penny.

At the card party, I got to see my old friends such as Orchid, who I goaded by e-mail – “You HAVE an A game?”; Jeff and Sandy, Jendy, and of course Broome. As they say, a splendid time was had by all.

So it’s been a pretty good birthday month, thanks to many of you. Well, except for some major computer problems at work, but that’s finally fixed.

Second place in this crossword contest, by my boss, is not bad, especially when the winner was a ringer.

The Cheap Flights song, complete with dancing. And subtitles?

Lots of Elizabeth (“I hate being called Liz”) Taylor tributes out there; here’s the one from Arthur.

In answering my questions, Jaquandor says something shocking about Richard Nixon. Worse, I’m inclined to agree with him.
**
My buddy Steve Bissette writes about D.W. Griffith’s two Biograph caveman movies, Man’s Genesis (1912) and Brute Force (1914), with a link to the latter.
***
Diagram For Delinquents Kickstarter project:

“This is a documentary film about the most hated man in comics history: psychiatrist Fredric Wertham.

“Beginning in the late 1940s, Wertham began publishing articles linking comic books to juvenile delinquency. This work culminated in his now-infamous 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent. Burnings of comics were reported across the United States, and Congress held hearings into the matter, which helped spur the creation of the self-censoring body the Comics Code Authority…”
***
Google Alert finds – other people named Roger Green:

Roger Green Pt 1/5 ‘Feng Shui & Building Biology’ ‘Conversations with Robyn’
Roger has a background in Chinese Medicine and was a pioneer in introducing the ancient knowledge of Feng Shui to the western world.
This clip also shares some info on the harmful effects of wireless broadband on our health and sleeping patterns.

Custom Knives Created By Roger Green

Patients who walk through the doors of Dr. Roger Green’s clinic are eagerly greeted by Izzy, Green’s 5-year-old Basset hound.

One of those passengers at Narita Airport in Tokyo, on flight No. 276, next in line on the runway when the earthquake hit, was the Rev. Roger Green, longtime pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Middletown.

Steve Bissette Tackles the Hate Movies

The late Gail Fisher, who is best know for playing Peggy Fair on the detective series Mannix, starred in The New Girl, and it also featured Edward Asner.

Not only is my good buddy Steve Bissette a great comic book artist, he is a cultural historian. First, he linked to a booklet created by Steve Canyon artist Milton Caniff on How to Spot Someone of Japanese Descent, but the terminology used was less appropriate.

Then he put together a series on posts on what he calls Hate Movies:

1. The horrific anti-Japanese propaganda “documentaries” during and after WW2, and well into the early 1960s

2. The 1960s exploitation movies that played upon racist fears of miscegenation, black-and-white sexual relations, and so on (from which I purloined the image to the left).
Discussion of movie titles such as I Passed for White and My Baby Is Black.

3. How to Deal with Racial Conflict Head-On & Fail at the Boxoffice, Whatever Your Race – the harder to summarize, confrontational race conflict dramas of the 1960s.
Features a six-minute clip of a pre-Star Trek William Shatner in the title role as The Intruder, plus a discussion of the film by Shatner and director Roger Corman. Also a discussion of actor Sidney Poitier and writer LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka.

3 APPENDIX. What Happened to The Intruder?
Mike Ripps’ versions of Bayou aka Poor White Trash (trailer) and Roger Corman’s The Intruder under the title Shame (the whole thing).

4. Turning Up the Heat: Bill, Juan, & Leroi, Then & Today Or, What Do You Call Angry Anti-Hate Hate Movies? Whatever You Call Them, Don’t Call Them Late for Supper!
LeRoi Jones’s Dutchman (1966), which will feature in the next eight segments. The Negro Handbook and the Negro Motorist Green Book; and is there anti-white xenophobia? Also featuring FOX News and the firing of Juan Williams from NPR.

The series was briefly interrupted as explained HERE.

5. Subversion on the Subway. LeRoi Jones/Amiri Imamu Baraka’s Dutchman and Jones’ wife Hettie Jones.

6. Lula’s Roots: Little Sisters, Passing Pinkies, Poor White Trash. Antecedents of Dutchman’s Lulu in such diverse fare as D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915), Fritz Lang and Thea Von Harbou’s Metropolis (1927), Elia Kazan’s Pinky (1949), Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night (1967).
I was most fascinated by “Lewis Freeman’s government-produced educational short film The New Girl (1959), produced for the President’s Committee on Government Contracts, created by Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in August, 1953 and …chaired by none other than Vice-President Richard M. Nixon.” The late Gail Fisher, who is best know for playing more-than-just-a-secretary Peggy Fair on the detective series Mannix, starred, and it also featured Edward Asner. Steve linked to it, but I thought I would as well:
PART 1 and PART 2.

7. On a Downtown Train…Cashing Out Clay. More on Dutchman, plus Amiri Imamu poetry.

8. From Lula to Lulu: Making Manhattan in London – Underground, Overseas. Dutchman and the Beatles films link; Black Like Me; To Sir With Love; and an episode of The Outer Limits.

9. Bring Out Your Dead…”The Jones Boys”: Carrying Clay. Clay, the black male character in Dutchman, as he relates to the music of Charles Mingus, and the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton.

10. Going Continental: Continental Divides. The distribution of Dutchman by Walter Reade/Sterling, which also was responsible for Lord of the Flies, Black Like Me, Ghidrah, Night of the Living Dead, Dr. Who and the Daleks, and Slaves.

11. Dutchman: Contemporaries, Ripples & Shockwaves. Masculin, Féminin; The Brig; Marat/Sade; very early Brian DePalma films such as Hi, Mom!; Be Black; and Paradise Now, which Steve rightly suggests is an antecedent to to the Broadway musical Hair.

12. Uncle Toms, Watermelon Men, Sweet Sweetback & Mandingos. “Being a potpourri of images, quotes, and links that relate to, summarize and/or surround the essay installments I’ve posted to date…” Including the “blaxplotation” films of the early 1970s, such as Watermelon Man (1970). the brutal Fight For Your Life (1977), and the pivotal Melvin van Peebles work, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971).

EPILOGUE: White Trash, Blaxploitation, Hate Movies & Continental Blues. Or; Final Look at What I Was Talking About All Month
A summary, but mentions a Leadbelly movie I need to know more about.

It’s fair to say that there is a LOT of material here, and the blogposts are a first draft of a project Steve is working on. As he then noted, the postings “prompted deeper research into some venues, and I’m expanding and considerably revising a print version of this essay for publication later this year in one of my collected editions of my fanzine/magazine/online writings on genre films.” Also, at the end of each segment, he writes, “Please note: I do not condone or share the views expressed in the archival images presented in this serialized essay at Myrant. I share them here for historical, educational, and entertainment purposes only.”