Orange Crate Art turns three

Orange Crate Art is three years old today. If the average blog life-span is indeed three months, Orange Crate Art is, in human terms, some 900 years old. Which raises troubling questions as to who's been doing all this writing.

The deepest and most unpredictable rewards of keeping this blog have come in the form of comments and e-mails. The responses to posts about my friend Aldo Carrasco and my professor Jim Doyle have shown me the ways in which the Internet can bring people together, not only across space but also across time. Back in my days as a full-time Luddite, I never imagined that wonderful possibility.

Thanks (again, again) to Rachel, who thought "Orange Crate Art" would make a good name, to Rachel and Ben for showing me that I could learn a little HTML, to Elaine, my sounding board for much of what's here, and to everyone who's read (and perhaps commented). And thanks always to Van Dyke Parks, musician and mensch, who welcomed my use of his title with generous good wishes. (If you've never heard "Orange Crate Art," you can find it here and here.)

Petraeus

I find it fascinating that all questions of American strategy in Iraq are said to depend upon the observations of one man: Petraeus.

The omission of General is no sign of disrespect. It's meant to call attention to the seer-like status that seems to be associated with the name Petraeus. I'm reminded of Calchas, the seer whom the Achaean forces consult at the beginning of the Iliad:

Calchas, son of Thestor, bird-reader supreme,
Who knew what is, what will be, and what has been.

Petraeus even sounds plausibly mythic (though General Petraeus' parents are Dutch-American, not Greek or Roman): Petraeus is the name of a centaur in Hesiod's Shield of Heracles and Ovid's Metamorphoses.

[Iliad translation by Stanley Lombardo.]

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne

[I'm not the courageous type. I'm writing to tell you what I'd never dare say in person.]

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) is the fourth Robert Bresson film I've seen. As in the other three — Au hasard Balthazar, Journal d'un curé de campagne, and Pickpocket — someone is writing.

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is a story of jealousy, cruelty, and, finally, love, with a screenplay by Jean Cocteau. Some deeply Proustian moments: "There is no such thing as love, only its proofs."

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (The Criterion Collection)

Other Bresson posts
Notebook sighting in Pickpocket
Pocket notebook sighting

Music in Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Musical Assumptions)

Thanks!

I find an item online for my dad, and what do I get?

Thanks, Dad!

[Ink and watercolor by James Leddy, 2007.]

More by James Leddy
Abe's shades
Boo!
Happy holidays
Hardy mums

"Bring on the fall"

My local newspaper has its finger on the pulse of the community, such as it (the pulse) is:

More than 50 percent of those who responded to last week's poll are ready to "bring on the fall weather and activities."

In addition to the 54 percent who are ready for fall, 16 percent said they miss summer already, while 21 percent said they like both seasons.

And 9 percent said they hardly notice the difference.

Related post
Odes to autumn

9/11/01

[Photograph from a New-York Historical Society exhibit, "Here is New York: Remembering 9/11." Photographer uncredited.]

The members of the emergency crew from Rescue Company 2 (Brooklyn) died on September 11, 2001.

Rescue 2 (FDNY)
Here is New York: Remembering 9/11 (New-York Historical Society)
Remembering Lower Manhattan’s Day of Horror, Without Pomp or Circumstance (New York Times)
On Display, the Agonized Objects and Photos of 9/11 (New York Times)

Musical-comedy pencils

Ella Peterson (Judy Holliday) to Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin):

"When I went to high school, I'd do anything to keep from doing my homework. Mostly I'd sharpen pencils. You know the yellow kind that says Ticonderoga on it? Well, I'd sharpen it to the Ticonderog, and then to the Ticonder, and then to the Ticond, and then to the Tic, and then to the Ti, and then to the T. And then I'd have to start on another pencil."

Bells Are Ringing (1960), screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green

Bells Are Ringing, now packaged as a dopey-looking DVD, is anything but dopey. Smart songs, witty repartee, arch double-entendres, rotary phones, a telephone exchange name as part of a song lyric (PLaza 0-4433), a betting operation disguised as a classical record label, and a terrific cast (including Frank Gorshin as a Brando-like Method actor). Judy Holliday, in her last film, is brilliant.

Bells Are Ringing (Amazon)

Related post
Film noir pencils

Andrew Sullivan's advice

Just like yours, my beard has been getting a little gray on the chin and sides recently. And it really does age one. . . .

But all is not lost, your Mullahship.

Andrew Sullivan offers some hair care advice:

Queer Eye for the Jihadist Guy (The Daily Dish)

Film noir pencils

Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) to Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray):

"A desk job. Is that all you can see in it? Just a hard chair to park your pants on from nine to five. Just a pile of papers to shuffle around, and five sharp pencils and a scratch pad to make figures on, with maybe a little doodling on the side. That's not the way I see it, Walter. To me a claims man is a surgeon, and that desk is an operating table, and those pencils are scalpels and bone chisels. And those papers are not just forms and statistics and claims for compensation. They're alive, they're packed with drama, with twisted hopes and crooked dreams. A claims man, Walter, is a doctor and a blood-hound and a cop and a judge and a jury and a father confessor, all in one."

Double Indemnity (1944), screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

A related post
The dowdy world on film

Everything I always wanted to ask about Grape-Nuts

My son Ben gave me the above advertisement, which he found at a garage sale. (Thanks, Ben!) The plastic sheet that protected the ad is labeled 1920s. I have a bowl of sturdy, appetizing Grape-Nuts almost every morning, so this ad has found a good home.

I'm wondering: this scene carries a sexual implication, doesn't it? The locked eyes seem to bespeak a desire for more than cereal. But does "Only time for Grape-Nuts" mean that there's no time for more than breakfast, or does it mean that time already spent in the bedroom has left no time for a more elaborate breakfast? It's possible of course that this ad might only be a comment on modern times and the death of cooking. The locked eyes though suggest more.

And who are these people anyway? Are they both headed off to work? (Would a woman have dressed in this way around the house?) If the couple are a husband and wife, why is he dressing next to what looks like a single bed? And why is his coat hanging on a chair?

[Readers of a certain age will recognize in this post's title a play on the title of David Reuben's book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) (1969).]

Related posts
Alkalize with Alka-Seltzer
"Radios, it is"