Rene Magritte at the Menil

Last week we had the opportunity to visit the Menil Collection, a museum, located in by St Thomas University in the Montrose.

https://www.menil.org/

They are currently featuring works by Rene Magritte:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte

René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that fall under the umbrella of surrealism. His work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality.

The ones pictured below are included in the current exhibit. 

There is nothing that I can say about Magritte that his paintings do not say better.  If you want to check it out, the exhibit is featured for about another month and ends on June 1st.   I went out of general curiosity and when I was there I became an instant fan.   Seeing the original images up close and in living color is definitely worth the visit. 

The Oscars Suck

David Letterman and Seth Macfarlane both bombed as Oscar hosts.  However, to me, they were the best two.  I didn't watch it last night because I didn't care to see it but I heard that Ellen was a smash hit with the Oscar people.  That means she played it safe and did what they wanted.  That is specifically what David Letterman and Seth Macfarlane didn't do.  Letterman had a dumb joke where he introduced Uma to Opra and then Opra to Uma but nobody laughed.  Still he did it about 7 times because he was apparently convinced it was funny.  Real comedian purists like Andy Kaufman, for example, just did what they thought was funny.  If most people didn't "get it", then that was fine.  No question that Andy Kaufman was a comedy genius but he would have surely bombed as an Oscar host.

To me, the idea of all the serious "actors" sitting in the audience not laughing and making it clear that they didn't approve of David Letterman's jokes is what made it even better.  I get it that acting is a skill and not every body can do it.  However, a lot more people can act than can successfully host a TV talk show for 20 years or do stand-up comedy.  There are some good actors out there but at the same time you could also pull a hundred people off the street and at least 10 of the would probably be able to "act" without any training.  It just isn't that special. 

I would much rather watch a comedian bomb than sell out by taking zero chances.  If the Oscars didn't want Seth Macfarlane or David Letterman, then they should have hired someone else. 

I bet Quinton Taranto would really bomb as an Oscar host.  But if he had been hosting last night then I would have watched. 

Junk Food Tips

 One thing nice about the Super Bowl being over is that they won't be doing the stupid segments on the news programs where bring someone on who is an expert on nachos or chips and dips so they can help us figure out what junk food is best for Super Bowl parties. 

I had a bowl of soup. 

Also, the commercials were stupid.  They even got Bob Dylan to sell out. That was sad.

The whole thing makes me think that there is less hope for humanity than there probably is. 

Spam

I had 11 emails in my spam folder just now.

"Addison" sent one with the subject line "want to try something new?"

"Pharmacy" is offering to help with "male impotency"

"Leah" says that "Melissa has a message to give you"

Why the hell can't "Melissa" send the email her own self?

"Victoria" wants me to know about "local college girls looking for Booty"

I am pretty sure they are not looking for my booty but if they are then they are probably taking an online correspondence course and are not too particular about what kind of booty they are looking for.

"Jdate" is inviting me to view profiles of local Jewish singles.

Thanks "Jdate".  I appreciate you thinking about me.

Sir Arthur's sense of humor

Recently I started reading a book  called "Bakers Dozen",  13 Short Espionage Novels".  The first one is a Sherlock Holmes short written by the great Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle.  It only makes sense that a guy who could come up with a character as interesting as Sherlock Holmes would have to have had to been, at some level, an interesting guy.  So far as TV and the movies, Sherlock is one character that they just haven't gotten right except for the critically acclaimed PBS series "Sherlock".   I am sure that Robert Downey Jr. is a fine actor but I just couldn't by into it.  Even more so with the CBS show "Elementary" with Lucy Lui as Watson.  My anticipation was that I would catch every episode.  However, just like with the movie it was very disappointing.  Benedict Cumberbatch is the only one who I have ever seen who did a good enough job to allow me to get into the story.  I heard there are a few new episodes coming out this year and am looking forward to that.


Enough about the movies, this post was supposed to be about the author who created such a great character and his sense of humor.   When I got to page 14 (of the hardback version), it gave me a real chuckle.   There was a character in the book who was already a corpse at the beginning of the story.  In this short espionage novel, his body was found near some train tracks with some top secret submarine plans except for the fact that three pages of the plans were missing.  In solving the mystery, Sherlock was going to figure out if he was a good guy or a bad guy.  On page 14 he is interviewing the grieving "fiancée of the dead man" and she tells Sherlock: 

 "Arthur was the most single minded, chivalrous, patriotic man on earth" .

I don't know if that is true but Arthur was certainly a gifted writer and story teller.

Apocalypse Now (redux)

 

Today, I was a little under the weather so to pass the time I watched the "Rudux" version of this movie that is currently streaming on Netflix.

It is a long movie and in the attempt to portray the Viet Nam War experience it was appropriately gory, bloody, or however else you would want to describe it.  To me watching realistic portrayals of killing isn't such a great thing.  Also, it takes Martin Sheen a long time to get up that river and during the movie I just wanted them to get on with it.  However, the wait and the build up is worth it.  Marlon Brando is the definite star of this movie.  He is only in towards the end but his lines and acting are as good as it gets.   Don't watch the following clip if you are going to watch the whole move but here is the scene when Willard (sheen) first meets Kurts (brando):

There are lots of other current day stars and great cinematography and all that but the way Marlon Brando did his job in this one is some great stuff.   You could just skip to his part of the movie but then it wouldn't be the same.  Don't get me wrong; Martin Sheen did a find job of acting as well as the rest of the star studded cast but I am sure if you asked any of them who it was that made this move, they would agree.  Here is a clip of Dennis Hopper talking about Brando:

Sam Walton would have been proud

Yesterday evening after about a 30 minute drive on the freeway, I pulled up to the community mailbox which is down the street from the house.  I got out checked my mail and just like every other day, nobody sent me any money.   I got back in the car and it was completely dead.  No overhead lights, no lights on the dash - nothing.   I figured that since it was running fine before that, then it had to be the battery.  The car is a Ford Focus that is just 2 years old so it is a two year old battery.  I didn't bother to read the owners manual to see if it was under warranty since I didn't have time to have it towed, etc. 

Thankfully we have a second vehicle in the household so was able to take the battery out of the car and drive up to the local Wal-Mart.  Normally I would go to O'Reilley's  but they were already closed.

When I arrived at the Wal-Mart automotive department, they had a handy little touch screen display thing that told me I needed a "96R".  The battery shelves seemed to be fully stocked and it appeared that the only empty spot was where they kept the 96Rs.   There was nobody working in the Automotive Department at 11:00pm so I found a guy in a nearby department that was using a box-cutter and unloading a pallet of merchandise.  He didn't work in the Automotive department but I asked him if there were any batteries in the back.  He said he could take a look.  I showed him which one it was and he went back through the door and stayed back there for about 8 minutes or so.  When he came out he seemed disappointed and told me that they didn't have one in the back.  I told him I appreciated him taking the time to look and then I left.  This guy really seemed to give a damn and when I left there I felt more of an obligation to do my part next time I run into someone needing a helping hand. 

I drove the next closest Wal-Mart and they had the battery so I bought it and came home and installed it in the car and it solved the problem.

Rock on Wal-Mart and special thank you goes out to the stocker dude who didn't have a name tag.

The power of music

Slow Hand

During the summer break after my first year in college I got a job working with a guy who sold Family Group Portraits.  The way it worked was that we, the door-to-door sales people, would go to a neighborhood to sell time slots to have a professional photographer come to the house and take group and individual portraits.  He would set up a background and take a variety of shots.  Then several weeks later a "proof passer" would come out and show slides of the photos and get the customer to order as much as they could.   We, the salespeople, sold a coupon and got to keep the money the customer paid for the coupon.  We had to sell them at the suggested price which was about $12 because they wanted the customers to be committed to the photo shoot.

The Crew of salespeople would consist of Benny Kane, the sales manager, me and  one or two other guys.   They were all unique and interesting individuals and Benny Kane was no exception.  He was from New Orleans and a pure character.  One of the things that Benny was good at was buying lunch.  Before the shift we would stop at a Jack in the Box, or somewhere like that, and I would usually just want a cup of coffee.  Benny would always insist that I at least get a sweet roll or something.  I would tell him I already ate but he would act like it was going to hurt his feelings.   Then in the middle of the day when we stopped for lunch he would choose somewhere like a Sizzler Steakhouse and we would all order steaks.   When we got to part where we were supposed to pay he  would say "Hey Marc, it really is  your turn, I bought the last time.  You don't expect me to pay for all of your meals", or something like that.  He pulled off this routine quite a few times and even though I could have objected a little more aggressively I usually let him get away with it.  There is no telling where he is now but I hope he is doing all right.

A few years ago, a friend invited me to a nice place and insisted on me ordering a nice dinner.  I tried to order a hamburger but he insisted.  He said "Don't worry, its on me.  I am buying!  We had a nice meal and then right before the check came he had to go to restroom.  He was in there no less than 15 minutes.  The check came and I found myself sitting at the table with that check for what seemed like a long long time.   It was a pretty good plan he had but he was dealing with a knucklehead of my caliber and when he came out of the restroom his grin seemed to turn to an expression of shock when the check was still there. 

We experienced some memorable restaurant check experiences with a couple we used to know about 25 years ago.  We got along with them just fine but when we went out to eat with them paying the bill was always a memorable event.   At the time we were on a pretty tight budget and there was this particular Tex-Mex restaurant that would have a special on fajitas for 2 on a particular night of the week.   We would order the fajitas which came with the typical side orders like beans, pico de gallo, and tortillas.  We would order water and since there were also chips and hot sauce, we could eat a nice meal for a decent price.   Our friends would also order the fajita special but they would also buy drinks, order extra cheese, sour cream, and  the result was that they were spending a large percentage more than us.  The fellow would keep saying, "have some cheese" or "have some sour cream".  It was beyond simply being polite;  he would make an issue of it and hold the bowl of cheese up and try to pass to me.  I would always say,  "no thanks".    Then at the end of the meal they would always grab the check and calculate what half of what the bill was.   One time I pointed out that since we only had the special, then our order was $12.95 plus tax, or whatever it was.  The response was "Oh maybe we should have brought a calculator".   In the end we always ended up paying for half the bill but for some reason we would sort of forget about it and then next time it would happen all over again.  

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that over the years I have been accused of being "cheap" enough times that I wonder if it isn't true. 

John McPhee

I have some of my dad's old books.   One of them is called "Giving Good Weight".   It isn't a story but instead a collection of "pieces" that were published in the New Yorker magazine back in the 1970s.   The first "piece" is the one titled "Giving Good Weight" and they used that for the title of the book also.  The title refers to New York farmer's market vendors who used analog scales, the kind with a needle.  Nowadays they would use digital scales so the term is probably obsolete. "Giving good weight" referred to when the vendor would give maybe 3 and 1/4th pounds of a particular vegetable or fruit for the price of 3 pounds. 

The book doesn't have a story and would really equate to nothing more than ramblings if the guy who wrote it wasn't a good writer and probably an interesting dude. 

Here is one passage from the book about a particular variety of onion:

   ...Onions. Onions. Multilayered, multileveled, ovate, imbricated, white fleshed, orange-scaled onions.  Native to Asia. Aromatic when bruised.  When my turn is over and a break comes for me, I am so crazed with lust for these bulbous herbs- these enlarged, compressed buds-that I run to an harvested row and pull from the earth a one-pound onion, rip off the membranous bulb coat, bare the flesh, and sink my teeth through leaf after leaf after savory mouth-needling sweet-sharp water-bearing to the flowering stalk that is the center and the secret of the onion...

Most people who would like to be able to write would spend hours to come up with something like that but it still wouldn't be like that.  It would, in most cases, seem contrived or silly.  Even the Pros who get paid to write these days don't write like this guy.  Besides the fact that I find the book entertaining, I also like the idea of reading from the same physical  pages that my dad read from at some point and probably found interesting or somehow otherwise worthy of appreciation.


I had never heard of the guy and reading his book that was published in 1979 made me wonder what it said about him on the internet.   It turns out he is a Pulitzer prize winner and had written quite a bit since then.


http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/john_mcphee/search?contributorName=john%20mcphee

John McPhee began contributing to The New Yorker in 1963. Since then, he has written more than eighty pieces for the magazine, nearly all on distinctly different topics. These have included an account of a stint with the Swiss Army, a Profile of a prep-school headmaster, an examination of modern-day cattle rustling, and a Profile of Senator Bill Bradley during his days as a Princeton basketball star, as well as four long articles on geology.
Following two years of writing for television in 1955 and 1956, McPhee joined Time magazine, where he wrote about show business until 1964. He has taught writing at Princeton University since 1975, and was awarded Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson Award for service to the nation in 1982.
McPhee has published twenty-eight books, most of them based on his New Yorker writings. Like his articles, his books do not have in common any established themes but, rather, encompass the varied topics that have interested him over the years. Among them are “Annals of the Former World,” (1999), which won a Pulitzer Prize; “Assembling California,” (1993); “Looking for a Ship,” (1990); “The Control of Nature,” (1989); and “Coming Into the Country,” (1977), which was nominated for a National Book Award. Most recently, McPhee published “Uncommon Carriers,” (2006) a collection of pieces profiling freight transportation workers.
McPhee lives in Princeton, New Jersey.