Yorick, translating

Visiting the Opéra-Comique in Paris, Mr. Yorick has paused to demonstrate his skill at translating gestures into speech. He now recalls an incident in Milan:


Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768). Text from the 2001 Penguin edition, ed. Paul Goring.

Also from this novel
Letters for all occasions : Yorick, distracted

[Chichesbee: “form of ‘ciciesbo,’ the name formerly given in Italy to the ‘cavalier servente’ or recognized gallant of a married woman.” St. Cecelia: “the patron saint of church music.” From the Penguin notes.]

For RSS

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube — did you notice which platforms Russian election-subverters ignored? Blogger, Typepad, WordPress, none of which can be used to put “content” (as it’s called) in front of a captive audience.

Reading the new news about election subversion, watching “The Facebook Dilemma” on Frontline last night, and reading more news this morning about Facebook giving data to Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, &c., I remembered an observation in a post at The Old Reader blog: “There are really only two parties that matter. The writer and the reader.” The Old Reader calls Facebook “the ultimate middle man.”

And from another Old Reader post, a comment from Seth Godin on the virtues of RSS: “It’s an endaround to get past the giant companies that want to dominate your media life. It is snoop free, ad resistant and fast. It can’t be filtered or otherwise squeezed.”

The Old Reader is an RSS reader. Find people whose work you want to follow, add their URLs to a reader, and read.

As if

Brian Williams, interviewing a guest a few minutes ago on MSNBC: “Is there a secret whiteboard timeline in the Mueller office?”

As if anyone talking on television would have the answer to that question.

SHSL

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is doing a press briefing.

Previous briefing: November 27.

And before that: October 29.

With a “press gaggle” on October 30.

Oops — it’s already over, with less than fourteen minutes for questions.

[SHSL: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Live, à la SNL.]

Embarrassment: mild, fleeting

We live about thirty miles from an Amish community, whose members often shop at our town’s Aldi. I see families buying, say, six dozen eggs, six gallons of milk at a time. It’s like industrial-grade shopping.

Last week Aldi had a special on Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale. A recognizable brand! So I bought a twelve-pack. And as I left the store, twelve-pack in hand, I found myself walking past a little old Amish man, who was waiting, I believe, while his family shopped.

Yes, Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ is the one with the scantily clad lady on the label. She wears a bustier, short shorts, and boots. She’s on the twelve-pack box too, wearing larger sizes. I felt so English.

File under “Embarrassment: mild, fleeting.”

[Aldi’s store-brand beers are uniformly disappointing. But their Winking Owl Shiraz ($2.89!) is surprisingly good. Elaine calls it Vinking Owl, to honor Aldi’s German origins.]

Fish stockings

Bon Appétit recommends canned fish and seafood as stocking stuffers.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

“How to talk like a Samaritan”

I’m planning to listen to every last back episode of Word of Mouth, a podcast from BBC Radio 4. One exceptionally good episode that I heard this week: “How to talk like a Samaritan.”

The episode focuses on how talking and listening can help people in crisis. The discussion references the Samaritans’ campaign Small Talk Saves Lives, which encourages people to strike up a conversation with anyone who seems to be in need of help (or, if a conversation doesn’t seem possible, to alert someone else). Sample starters from the Samaritans website: It’s a warm evening, isn’t it? What train are you going to get? What’s your name? Do you need any help? Are you okay?

So many times, talking with a student after class or in my office, I found myself asking, “Are you okay?” It’s never the wrong question to ask.

Recently updated

Words of the year Now with justice.

From Diary of a Lost Girl

The closing line of Diary of a Lost Girl (dir. G.W. Pabst, 1929), spoken by the elder Count Osdorff (Arnold Korff):

“Ein wenig mehr Liebe und niemand kann verloren sein auf dieser Welt!” [Just a little more love and no one would be lost in this world!]

Twelve movies

[One to four stars. Three sentences each. No spoilers.]

Pandora’s Box (dir. G.W. Pabst, 1929). Louise Brooks as Lulu, a woman of irresistible sexual allure and cheerfully amoral and destructive promiscuity. Did I mention Louise Brooks? Yes, of course I did, because she’s unforgettable. ★★★★

*

Diary of a Lost Girl (dir. G.W. Pabst, 1929). The flip side of Lulu: Louise Brooks as Thymian Henning, a woman exploited and misused by everyone around her, and who chooses, when she is finally able to make choices, generosity and mercy in return. A film of great pathos, and a much better example of Brooks’s range as an silent actor than Pandora’s Box. With great performances too from Andrews Engelmann and Edith Meinhard, and an appropriate and evocative piano accompaniment (Scriabin, Schumann, silent-film composers), performed by Javier Perez de Azpeitia. ★★★★

*

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (dir. Marielle Heller, 2018). Based on a true story: Melissa McCarthy as Lee Israel, a biographer of celebrities who turns to fabricating letters from dead writers. Highly entertaining for a movie founded on misanthropy and deception, of self and others. All set in a highly stylized 1990s Manhattan, with cozy bookstores, booksellers crazy about Fanny Brice and Noël Coward and “Miss Parker” (first name Dorothy), and Blossom Dearie and other singers providing the sophisticated extra-diegetic music. ★★★★

*

I Saw What You Did (dir. William Castle 1965). Home alone, two teenagers make prank telephone calls and just happen to reach the wrong person. Moments of genuine suspense and moments of bizarre comedy make for a movie that seems to meld Psycho, Rear Window, and The World of Henry Orient. Special bonus: Joan Crawford as a bonkers paramour. ★★★

*

Border Incident (dir. Anthony Mann, 1949). Suspense and brutal violence, in the semi-documentary style, as American and Mexican lawmen (George Murphy and Ricardo Montalban) team up to protect Mexican braceros from exploitation and worse at the hands of unscrupulous (and murderous) American ranchers. That Anthony Mann directed was reason enough to put this film in our queue. But also: the cinematography is by John Alton, with the deepest blacks, the brightest whites, and the most mysterious shadows. ★★★★

*

Victim (dir. Basil Dearden, 1961). “Somebody called this law against homosexuals the blackmailer’s charter”: life in an England in which sexual acts between men were still criminalized. Dirk Bogarde stars as Melville Farr, a married man and rising barrister threatened with blackmail. Will he pay, or out himself and fight? ★★★★

*

Marwencol (dir. Jeff Malmberg, 2010). I had this documentary on my Netflix “saved” list for years, and finally it’s available, no doubt because a major motion picture with Steve Carell, Welcome to Marwen, premieres this week. The story of Mark Hogancamp, for whom dolls and storytelling become a way to cope with trauma. Hogancamp’s imaginary town of Marwencol has strong overtones (for me, anyway) of Henry Darger’s Realms of the Unreal: each is the site of a battle between good and evil, with each creator a protagonist in battle. ★★★★

*

Double Lover (dir. François Ozon, 2017). A young woman (Marine Vacth) who suffers from what seem to be psychosomatic stomach pains receives a referral to a therapist (Jérémie Renier). What follows looks like a sometimes preposterous erotic thriller, but is — I think — a hallucinatory story about desire and doubles, with echoes of The Shining and Vertigo. I need to watch again to get a better sense of what’s happening, or isn’t. ★★★

*

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (dir. Matt Tyrnauer, 2017). “It’s not a secret really — it may be a secret to some square that lives in Illinois.” A documentary about Scotty Bowers, who for many years supplied sexual partners (including himself) to closeted men and women in the Hollywood film industry. Astonishing because it seems at times as if everyone was in a closet, depressing because of Scotty’s capacity for self-deception: he was a friend, he insists, not a pimp! ★★★

*

The Monster and the Girl (dir. Stuart Heisler, 1941). A low-budget but exceptionally stylish film that’s insanely awful, or insanely great, or both. Begins as a story of gangsters, prostitution, and a man framed for murder; ends with a dog bereft after the loss of his ape companion. Add the middle and everything makes sense, sort of. ★★★★

*

Riot in Cell Block 11 (dir. Don Siegel, 1954). An often brutal but largely sympathetic depiction of a prison uprising, with both inmates and warden agreeing that conditions are intolerable. And a great chance to see a number of lesser-known actors shine: Whit Bissell, Neville Brand, Frank Faylen, Leo Gordon, and Emile Meyer, among others. Filmed in Folsom State Prison, with guards and prisoners as extras. ★★★★

*

The Blackboard Jungle (dir. Richard Brooks, 1955). For me it breaks apart into its small memorable bits: the grammar lesson, Morales and the tape recorder, the destruction of a record collection, the students gathered around the piano, New Year’s Eve in the hospital. As a rookie teacher at a vocational high school, Glenn Ford’s Mr. Dadier (or Daddy-O, as his students call him) makes every mistake imaginable — turning his back, picking out an antagonist, trying to curry another student’s favor — and yet he still figures out a way to reach his class (cartoons!). The real star of the film is Sidney Poitier as student Greg Miller, cynical, wary, and sane. ★★★★

 
[Louise Brooks as Lulu. Louise Brooks as Thymian. Click for larger views.]

Related reading
All OCA film posts (Pinboard)

[Whatever became of Edith Meinhard? An assidious blogger has tried to find out.]