Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

I hadn’t planned on posting another mystery so soon. But there he was.

Leave your guess in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one is needed.

*

9:47 a.m.: That was fast. The answer is now in the comments.

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The last movie-rental clerk

“Here at Film Noir Cinema, we bring darkness to light, not light to darkness”: in The New York Times, a profile of the last movie-rental clerk in New York City.

The little theater attached to the rental store reminds me of the Snark Theater in Daniel Pinkwater’s The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death (1982). Walter Galt narrates:

It shows movies I never heard of, and it shows them in strange combinations.

For example, a typical double bill may consist of a Yugoslavian film (with subtitles), Vampires in a Deserted Seaside Hotel at the End of August, and along with it, Invasion of the Bageloids, in which rock-hard, intelligent bagels from outer space attack Earth. Everybody gets bopped on the head until scientists figure out a way to defeat the bageloids. I won’t spoil the ending by telling what it is, but it has something to do with cream cheese.

I wouldn’t say that every movie the Snark Theater shows is good, but they’re all interesting in their way.

“Eating plums way up there”

After first reading Ulysses. From a wonderful short essay by Fintan O’Toole, “The Book That Never Stops Changing” (The Atlantic ):

Now I knew what my father and Vincent were joking about and why we were eating plums way up there above the streets of Dublin. The book was in their heads, and they were inhabiting simultaneously Joyce’s comic parable and the present-day city.

Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)

Mystery actor

[Click for a much larger view.]

His name was in the credits. But I still didn’t recognize him. Do you?

Please, guess and guess again. I’m going to be away from screens for a bit; I’ll drop a hint in the not too distant future if necessary.

Someone guessed Mark Hamill, and there is a strong resemblance. But this actor was born much earlier.

*

Here’s a hint: here the actor is playing a bad guy. But he’s best known for a role on the right side of the law.

*

One more hint: That role was in something whose title gave rise to a memorable bit of slang.

*

I’ll leave the name in the comments. Anyone who still wants to guess is welcome to do so.

More mystery actors
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Canned sardines (still, yes, still) having a moment

In The New York Times, a visit to Portugal’s Conservas Pinhais:

Canned sardines are having a moment in the food world. With exquisitely decorated tins, perceived if questionable sustainability and the decadence of being drenched in oil, they’ve earned a devoted following among youngish people who love them with their whole heart. At Conservas Pinhais e Cia in Matosinhos, a fish-canning factory just a few miles from the center of Porto, visitors are invited to see that their new favorite treat is, in fact, a very old operation.

“Youngish people who love them with their whole heart”: that’s me!

Insider paid Conservas Pinhais a visit in 2019 and brought back a short film. And yes, Nuri sardines are delicious.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Don’t call him MBS

NPR: Please, stop calling Mohammed bin Salman MBS. He is not a brand like BMW or IBM. He is not a hip-hop star like DMC or DMX. But the nickname serves to turn bin Salman into a brand, into a star. He is in fact a suave, murderous theocrat.

Ask the bonesaw, if it can be located.

[I listened to too much NPR yesterday.]

Proust on paper and film

~ Conservators at the National Library of France are restoring the first known draft material of À la recherche du temps perdu, the seventy-five pages known as “the seventy-five pages.”

~ El tiempo perdido, a documentary by María Alvarez, will be released in August. It’s about a group of readers in Buenos Aires who have been reading and rereading Proust for eighteen years.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

Ellington at Uwis

Fifty years ago, July 17–21, 1972, it was Duke Ellington Week at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here, from the Duke Ellington Society of Sweden, is an account of the proceedings, with links to the program and recorded excerpts.

And here, also from the DESS, is a Zoom discussion of Ellington Week, with Patricia Willard’s firsthand account of the proceedings, followed by a half-hour television broadcast of Ellington talking to and playing for a Uwis audience. I think having an audience mostly of young people must have pleased Ellington: I’ve never seen him speak with greater ease and openness. The highlight: Paul Gonsalves’s unexpected appearance on stage, an episode I wrote about in a 2016 post.

Why Uwis? Because Ellington marked the occasion with with The Uwis Suite. It’s in three parts as released on the The Ellington Suites (Pablo, 1976): “Uwis,” “Klop,” and “Loco Madi.” A recording of a fourth (first) section, “The Anticipation,” for solo piano, was released on Duke Ellington: An Intimate Piano Session (Storyville, 2017). Here they are, all four: “The Anticipation,” “Uwis,” “Klop,” and “Loco Madi.” “Uwis” is one of my favorite pieces of late Ellington: serene, urbane, with just a hint of the polka that appears in “Klop.”

Related reading
All OCA Ellington posts (Pinboard)

Another Miller vote

Mary Miller (R, IL-15) was one of just eighteen members of the House of Representatives (all Republicans) to vote against H.Res. 1130, a resolution expressing support for Finland’s and Sweden’s applications to join NATO. Here’s the vote.

There’s something about Mary.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

A new strain

In The New York Times, “How ‘Stop the Steal’ Captured the American Right”:

History, faith, crime, retribution: These are the rudiments of a new strain of Republican politics, shaped by the last year of Trump’s presidency — the second impeachment trial, the coronavirus pandemic, the campaign — but destined to extend far beyond it.