The fortieth-anniversary special aired on my PBS affiliate last night, and it made me realize that 1971 is a long time ago. The editing and graphics that once made The Great American Dream Machine look so great look faux-retro now. (Not retro: faux-retro.) My son Ben wondered whether people really thought and spoke as they did in the anthology’s clips, particularly in a series of short interviews about martial fidelity. “It’s 1971,” said one fellow, meaning that the time for loyalty to a partner had passed. A married thirtyish woman explained the rules of adultery: good taste, no tell-tale signs. At the other end of the spectrum, a segment on Fascinating Womanhood, offering instruction in wifely subservience. (Yes, FW is still around.)
Missing: Kramp Heritage Loaf, a parody of the recipe commercials that used to litter television (“brought to you by Kraft”). Sorely missing: the conversations among Studs Terkel and company in a Chicago bar. (How can you have a GADM retrospective and leave out Studs Terkel?) Surprisingly present: Andy Rooney, who turns out to have been a regular, as tiresome then as now.
The best thing in last night’s show: Elaine Stritch singing Stephen Sondheim’s “The Ladies Who Lunch” with piano accompaniment, a performance not to be found on YouTube.
Related viewing
Kramp Heritage Loaf (The Groove Tube version)
“The Ladies Who Lunch” (recording session footage)
“The Ladies Who Lunch” (a later performance)
In the preface to Coming After: Essays on Poetry (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), the poet Alice Notley considers neglected poets (the so-called second generation of the so-called New York School) and observes that “‘non-careerist’ . . . is not the same as not professional.” That’s a useful distinction for makers and practitioners who are deadly serious about what they do but unconcerned about making the right moves or pleasing the right people.
With a nod to Macbeth, David Marsh looks at the subjunctive: If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done correctly (The Guardian).
(And he quotes OCA on if I were and if I was.)
Coming soon to a PBS station near you, unless it already has or isn’t ever: The Great American Dream Machine 40th Anniversary Special.
As a high-school student all those years ago, I was crazy for The Great American Dream Machine, which felt like an oasis of hipness and intelligence. Here’s one clip, Marshall Efron grading olives.
Related reading
The Great American Dream Machine (Wikipedia)
One of the rewards of keeping a blog is spotting (via the excellent StatCounter) what I will call flurries — mysterious surges of interest that lead searchers to a post. One day several weeks ago, several dozen people across the United States were searching for Mongol 2 3/8 and found my post on that great pencil of the past. Today, several dozen people in Great Britain have searched for director of White Heat and High Sierra and found my post on those films (directed by Raoul Walsh). My guess is that an an eBay item prompted the Mongol search; a crossword clue, the Raoul Walsh search. I’m happy though to remain in the dark, with flurries.
[Mysterious, really? Okay, slightly mysterious.]
What can you do when family members ask you to go? Go. I’m glad that I did: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Rupert Wyatt) is some powerfully fun stuff. The film trades on various deep fears: of disease, genetic engineering (Pandora’s box), street violence, and terrorism (apes crash into and out of buildings). James Franco and Freida Pinto play a supremely clueless couple who’d be better off forgetting about other primates and concentrating on each other. (You dolts!) John Lithgow is very good as a father with Alzheimer’s. The real stars of the film though are the apes, with faces and gestures more expressive than those of the non-animated actors.
Two opposable thumbs up.
