1) Another Random Thoughts post here, and as always, the process of naming these pieces is an act of pure caprice. My original thought was to riff on the title of the old Herb Alpert album Whipped Cream And Other Delights (Why? I have no idea...), but instead I wind up referencing a Morey Amsterdam vehicle from 1966.
The fact that I even know about Morey Amsterdam movies from the sixties kind of disturbs me. I haven't actually seen Don't Worry, We'll Think Of A Title, but I have seen the Mickey Rooney/Buddy Hackett classic Everything's Ducky. And yet I've never seen Band Of Outsiders. For that matter, I've read Pamela Des Barre's I'm With The Band, but never so much as cracked open a copy of One Hundred Years Of Solitude. I've got to work on my priorities.
2) You may have noticed it was quiet here yesterday. Paul and I spent the day together, and after a healthy donut-based breakfast, we visited the state capitol, hit the library, then watched Independence Day on cable. (Ordinarily, I'd go on and on about how unbelievably stupid that movie is--even Paul, who just turned nine, asked, "If the aliens knocked out all our satellites and cable TV, why do the telephones still work?"--but if I even started, we'd be here all day.) Then we went outside and fought invisible aliens until his mom came and picked him up. (We tried to ambush her when she arrived, but she saw us. Though our sneaking-up skills need work, it was still a good plan.)
The point is, I had a good time yesterday--kind of a rarity around here, I know--and the thought of writing never even occurred to me. I'm not going to make the claim that I'll be posting here less frequently because every time I say that, I crank out more stuff than usual. Let's just say, the thought has crossed my mind. I've been thinking a lot lately about the very act of writing, the hows and whys of what I do, and it's something I want to explore in greater detail.
Some day. Not now.
3) Speaking of Paul and mindless alien-bashing entertainment, we also saw The Clone Wars this weekend. Nothing more to say about it, just fulfilling my gratuitous Star Wars reference obligation.
4) Since, in the immortal words of Kid Rock, nothin' seems as strange as when those leaves begin to change, the end of summer means the end of my self-imposed hiatus from the dating scene. Not that I have prospects lined up or anything, but I'll probably start actively searching for some kind of female companionship one of these days. If it follows the usual pattern, expect overwrought starry-eyed blathering followed by plenty of bitter whining in this space soon.
5) If I ever quote Kid Rock again, or acknowledge his existence in any way, please kill me.
6) The death of the great, hugely influential film critic Manny Farber at the age of 91 serves to highlight the mediocrity of what passes for criticism these days. Farber had two things going for him that are unheard of these days: He had an insatiable curiosity about (and boundless knowledge of) the bigger world beyond movies, and he could write. And when I say he could write, I mean he could do more than string words together; he had a distinctive, idiosyncratic prose style, and was worth reading even if you weren't a Howard Hawks partisan.
If you plow through the reviews of the "critics" featured at, say, Rotten Tomatoes, you'll realize most of them write for various fan-based websites, and the only thing they really know about is movies, and even then, movies of the eighties and nineties. (Any critic who thinks of John Hughes as an important auteur is not someone worth reading.) They have no desire or intention to explore beyond the surface, to back up their questionable opinions (The Dark Knight is better than The Godfather II!) in any meaningful way. But even the critics for actual newspapers are a mostly undistinguished lot, their work revealing not only a shocking lack of knowledge of film history and aesthetics but a general lack of anything interesting to say.
7) Despite that earlier Star Wars mention, I've not noted anything about the cats, haven't prattled on about Vincente Minnelli, not posted a clip of Richard Thompson or Marshall Crenshaw. But I did want to say something about Lynda Carter--
Wait! Where are you going?
