Domestic comedy

“Pasta aglio e olio is my signature dish. Pasta with tuna and lemon is my initials dish.”

Both recipes appear in this post. And ten years later, I rediscovered the Village Voice clipping with aglio e olio.

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Domestic comedy

“We should watch — we haven’t seen it in years, and gaslight is a word of the year.”

“Michael, we watched Gaslight just a few months ago.”

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[Let the record show that Elaine’s response was instantaneous.]

Domestic comedy

I was reading up on the Pillsbury Doughboy (“anthropomorphic dough,” Wikipedia calls him) when I realized that the boy shares his name with the American infantry. I know what a WWI doughboy is, but as I confessed to my fambly, I had never noticed the wordplay.

And Elaine: “Do you think the Pillsbury Doughboy gets all his clothes at Men’s Wearhouse?”

It’s domestic comedy because of this previous moment of domestic comedy.

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[Our daughter Rachel says that Elaine’s quip is an example of a callback. Merriam-Webster’s examples of the word in recent use on the Internets reflect this meaning, not yet included among the dictionary’s definitions.]

Domestic comedy

From a meeting of the Four Seasons Reading Club (Elaine and me):

“It’s a good book. Its pages are good. It feels good to read it.”

“Good.”

The book is Dorothy B. Hughes’s In a Lonely Place (1947), reissued by New York Review Books. The Hemingwayesque good appears often. Here are the first dozen, smooshed together into a single paragraph for ease of reading:

It was good standing there on the promontory overlooking the evening sea, the fog lifting itself like gauzy veils to touch his face. That too was good, his hand was a plane passing through a cloud. The sea air was good to smell, the darkness was soft closed around him. It was a good moment. This time it tasted good. It was a good omen; it meant Brub wouldn’t have changed. A good fighter. Eyes, hazel; nose and mouth right for the face, a good-looking face but nothing to remember, nothing to set it apart from the usual. Good gabardine suit, he’d paid plenty to have it made, open-necked tan sports shirt. The room was a good one, only the chair was gaudy, the couch was like green grass and another couch the yellow of sunlight. Good prints, O’Keeffe and Rivera. “Because we had to isn’t good enough.”

But really, it’s a good book. As is Hughes’s The Expendable Man (1963). I can’t say as much for Ride the Pink Horse (1946). That one is not good.

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Domestic comedy

[Star Trek. Shatner front and center.]

“What acting.”

“What acting?”

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Leopold Bloom, proto-blogger

As Leopold Bloom sits on the pot reading “Matcham’s Masterstroke,” a prizewinning story in the magazine Titbits, he thinks about writing something himself. From the “Calypso” episode:

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).

Leopold Bloom, proto-blogger, collecting choice moments of domestic comedy.

Notice that the imagined byline merges Leopold and his wife Molly into a single self: there’s no indication elsewhere that Mr. Bloom has a middle name beginning with M. Androgyny runs through the novel. In the “Circe” episode of the novel, Mr. Bloom will be revealed as “a finished example of the new womanly man.”

And yes, cuffs were once used as writing surfaces.

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Domestic comedy

“That house was already mid-century modern; then they renovated it to make it look even more mid-century modern. I guess now it’s mid-century postmodern.”

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Domestic comedy

“I’m not a big fan of Errol Flynn. But at least it’s not a swashbuckling movie.”

“It’s post-swashbuckle.”

“He’s too old to buckle or swash.”

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[“It”: The Big Boodle (dir. Richard Wilson, 1957). We didn’t see it through.]

Domestic comedy

“It’s true!”

“Everything Roz Chast says is true!”

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[Context: a Roz Chast drawing of a box of Crayolas. The built-in sharpener is labeled “Black Hole of Doom” and “Will Break Crayon.”]

Domestic comedy

“I don't like the way you imitate him. It's more annoying than he is.”

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[We get a lot of mileage out of Dan Duryea in our house.]

Domestic comedy

An ordinary evening. We were watching yet another Lou Grant episode, “Boomerang” (January 19, 1981). The opening scene: a busy hospital, doctors and nurses speaking Spanish. I called the theme of the episode (not derivable from its title) forty-four seconds in, when the camera zoomed in on a respirator, the manufacturer’s name in all caps: defective medical equipment. And then:

“Yes, Michael, you’re brilliant. You’re a genius at watching television. You can quote me.”

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[“Yet another”: these episodes aren’t going to watch themselves. And if you haven’t watched, it was a really good show.]

Domestic comedy

Elaine and I were admiring a handsome Carhartt chore coat: cotton duck with water-repellent coating, quilted nylon lining, corduroy-trimmed collar, and rivet-reinforced pockets. In black, brown, orange, and army green.

The catch: it was a chore coat for dogs.

“But what kinds of chores would a dog do? Herding? That’s not a chore. It’s a lifestyle!”

“It’s a profession!”

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Ten movies, two seasons

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, HBO Max, TCM, YouTube.]

Treasure of Monte Cristo (dir. William Berke, 1949). There’s a sailor, see, named, lol, Edmund Dantes (Glenn Langan). And a dame, Jean Turner (Adele Jergens). And the whole thing’s a set-up, I tell ya. And it’s filmed on location in San Francisco, which is probably its main redeeming feature. ★★ (YT)

*

Meet John Doe (dir. Frank Capra, 1941). When he answers what can only be called a casting call for a newspaper’s circulation stunt, Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), a jobless ex-baseball player, becomes John Doe, a desperate everyman who has vowed to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest the state of the world. As John Doe, Willoughby becomes a national hero, and then, when he defies his newspaper boss, a national disgrace, as Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck), whose column put this scheme into motion, watches from the sidelines, appalled at what she’s helped bring about. Here, as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Capra’s depiction of the power of journalists and politicians to manufacture reality is eerily prescient. Alas, the John Doe movement’s plain, corny, hopeful ethic — be a better neighbor, look out for the other guy — now seems unattainable in a country so bitterly divided. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

The French Connection (dir. William Friedkin, 1971). I think I had last seen this movie when it was released. Gene Hackman is Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, a brutal, reckless NYPD detective, hellbent on nabbing Alain Charmier (Fernando Rey), the suave Frenchman behind an enormous delivery of heroin to the city. Remarkable to see how the cops put together the pieces of the puzzle. Great action sequences, both automotive and pedestrian, as Doyle and his partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) track Charnier and his associates, foreign and domestic, on the streets of New York. The greatest sequence pits Doyle against a henchman (Marcel Bozzuffi), car versus elevated train, racing through Brooklyn, where, yes, there are candy stores. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Holiday Affair (dir. Don Hartman, 1949). Canon formation: does it really become a “holiday classic” because TCM shows it? Janet Leigh plays Connie Ennis, a war widow and comparison shopper. Her possibilities in life are subject to four male force fields: her dead husband, whose picture stares out from her nightstand; her young son Timmy (Gordon Gebert), whom she calls “Mr. Ennis”; her patient, lackluster suitor of two years, Carl (Wendell Corey); and a charismatic free spirit, Steve (Robert Mitchum). Try to guess who will win in the battle between ghost, boy, beta male, and alpha male. Weirdest moment: “Mr. Ennis” on top of his mom in bed. ★★ (TCM)

*

Take One False Step (dir. Chester Erskine, 1949). O contingency: an academic, Albert (William Powell), in Los Angeles to raise money for a new university, walks into a bar and discovers an old flame, Catherine (Shelley Winters, a young old flame). When Albert’s bloody scarf is found in Catherine’s apartment but she isn’t, Albert becomes the target of a police manhunt. And when he seeks treatment for rabies after being bitten by a dog, his situation becomes still more desperate. A Detour-like premise, but with odd touches of comedy, and one great, strange scene with Houseley Stevenson as a sloppy but surprisingly methodical doctor. ★★ (YT)

*

The Passionate Friends (dir. David Lean, 1949). Think of it as a variation on Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945): here too the story is one of desire and restraint. Mary (Ann Todd) loves Steven (Trevor Howard) but marries Howard (Claude Rains) for money, security, and a placid friendship, and Howard’s fine with that. But Steven appears and reappears in Mary’s life — brief encounters, plural, so what’s she to do? Three great performances, and the closing minutes are gripping and startling. ★★★★ (CC)

*

In the Good Old Summertime (dir. Robert Z. Leonard, 1949). It sits between The Shop Around the Corner and the second remake, You’ve Got Mail, and it’s the warmest of the three stories of love and hate and correspondence (and it was my mom’s choice on Christmas). Judy Garland and Van Johnson are wonderfully at odds as Veronica and Andrew, music-store employees; Spring Byington, Buster Keaton, and S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall add to the movie’s gentle humor; and Marcia Van Dyke gets to play a Strad. The revelation for me, but it may already be obvious to you: Judy Garland was a great comic actor. Follow her facial expressions in any of her conversations of Johnson and see for yourself. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

Breezy (dir. Clint Eastwood, 1973). Rhymes with queasy and uneasy. We watched because it stars William Holden. He’s a craggy, cranky, divorced real-estate man who finds a young woman with a guitar (Kay Lenz) at the foot of his driveway. She’s Breezy, a manic pixie et cetera, and the relationship that develops between the two had us making faces (eww) now and then — indeed, often — and yet we could not look away. ★★ (TCM

[Chosen by TCM guest Paul Thomas Anderson, who recycles some of the movie’s dialogue in Licorice Pizza. So the movie’s prime-time slot on TCM was just a matter of commercial interests at work.]

*

Curb Your Enthusiasm (created by Larry David, 2021). The eleventh season is, I’d say, pretty, pretty, pretty good — not great, and lacking the kind of strong, loony narrative arc (Larry’s “spite store” vs. Mocha Joe) that held season ten together. As Larry and Jeff (Jeff Garlin) begin work on a new series, complications arise about a pool fence, a city ordinance, a daughter who cannot act, restaurant etiquette, Mary Fergusons, favors for favors, and a surprising final-episode cameo. As councilwoman Irma Kostroski, Tracey Ullman is a great foil for Larry. As Leon Black, J.B. Smoove has become all too reminiscent of Eddie “Rochester” Anderson (but with language). ★★★ (HBO Max)

*

Hacks (created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky, 2021). Jean Smart is great as Deborah Vance, a Las Vegas stand-up comedian and almost talk-show host whose jokes and merching strongly recall Joan Rivers. A much younger (self-proclaimed “Gen Z”), improbably canceled writer, Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), is given the unwelcome assignment to leave Los Angeles and help revitalize Deborah’s material. So: mismatched partners, fighting and bonding and fighting and bonding, with a good measure of smart (no pun intended) comedy, and a predictable, cringe-worthy montage or two (or perhaps they’re spoofs of predictable, cringe-worthy montages). Some plot twists come out of nowhere (before disappearing), and many ends are left loose, especially with the show’s secondary characters, so I look forward to the second season. ★★★ (HBO Max)

*

If Winter Comes (dir. Victor Saville, 1947). On the rebound from a former love, a writer of textbooks and newspaper columns (Walter Pidgeon) marries a miserable woman (Angela Lansbury). When a much younger unmarried pregnant woman (Janet Leigh) turns to the writer for help, he becomes the stuff of scandal. And meanwhile his former love (Deborah Kerr) comes back into his life. Great work by Lansbury, Leigh, and Kerr, but Pidgeon is absolutely wooden. ★★★ (TCM)

*

Designing Woman (dir. Vincente Minnelli, 1957). Mike, sportswriter (Gregory Peck), and Marilla, clothing designer (Lauren Bacall), marry on impulse, and — surprise — they turn out to be an odd couple, with a poker game on one side of the house and theatricals on the another. Even if it’s 1957, the movie is painfully coy: a major issue in the marriage is whether Mike and his previous lady friend Lori (Dolores Gray) ever, well, you know. (Peck was almost forty; Bacall and Gray, in their early thirties). The saving graces here: Mickey Shaughnessy as Mike’s punchy bodyguard, sleeping with his eyes open, and Jack Cole as a choreographer whose performance in the movie’s final minutes is worth the long wait — promise. ★★★ (TCM)

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At breakfast

[Reading the Grape-Nuts box: Whole grain wheat flour, malted barley flour — pause.]

“It’s like eating Scotch!”

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Domestic comedy

[Watching the news.]

“She has the same glasses. But they look better on me.”

[Laughter.]

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[It’s true: they do.]

Domestic comedy

“Our knowledge of Los Angeles is vast and shallow!”

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[In the latest episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Igor, Gregor, & Timor,” we were pleased to notice and understand a passing reference to the Park La Brea Apartments.]

Domestic comedy

[The shelves were bare.]

“Pepperidge Farm forgot.”

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[Context here and here.]

Domestic comedy

“I knew it had to be a fragrance commercial, because it was completely incoherent.”

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Domestic comedy

“I cannot open this magazine without coming to grief.”

See the previous post.

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Domestic comedy

“That guy looks familiar. Everyone on this show looks familiar.”

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[The show was Murder, She Wrote. Familiar faces in new arrangements.]