When I read Arthur Penn's obit in yesterday's New York Times, I recalled that his 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde was the first R-rated movie I saw, at the tender age of 9, at the now closed Fine Arts theater in Westport. I remember feeling privvy to an adult world . . . of crime, violence and sex. While I didn't understand it at the time, years later I came to scorn Hollywood's ability to manipulate audiences' sympathy for the most undeserving characters.
In The New York Times' April 14, 1967 movie review, by Bowsley Crowther, the era's less prurient mores led to this screed:
"A raw and unmitigated campaign of sheer press-agentry has been
trying to put across the notion that Warner Brothers' Bonnie and Clyde
is a faithful representation of the desperado careers of Clyde Barrow
and Bonnie Parker, a notorious team of bank robbers and killers who
roamed Texas and Oklahoma in the post-Depression years.
"It is nothing of the sort. It is a cheap piece of bald-faced
slapstick comedy that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy,
moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the
jazz-age cutups in Thoroughly Modern Millie. And it puts forth Warren
Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the leading roles, and Michael J. Pollard as
their sidekick, a simpering, nose-picking rube, as though they were
striving mightily to be the Beverly Hillbillies of next year."
On further reflection, and after a little digging on Wikpedia which confirmed that the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system wasn't introduced until a year later in 1968, I remembered that my first R movie was actually MASH in 1970, which I saw in NYC with a classmate who's father was divorced and lived in Manhattan. After the movie his father saw us off at Grand Central, stopping first at a newsstand to get us a magazine to read on the train home, that month's Playboy. A lot had changed in three years.
Dawn to dusk, countless hours, several hundred casts . . . and not a fish to show for it. Alas, I was not alone. High winds, surf and a full moon didn't help matters. This year's derby has a lot of anglers asking, "Where are the fish?"
But I'm not complaining. As a wise man once said, "The fishing was good. It was the catching that was bad."
Opening October 1, the film The Social Network about Facebook got some major buzz after its screening at The New York Film Festival. One critic gushed that it's "this generation's Citizen Kane."
The handful of Noepe readers know I abandoned Facebook last year because I was no longer comfortable posting my experiences, opinions, pictures and feelings on a network where privacy is a fluid value that takes a back seat to monetizing members' content.
Vanity Fair's October issue just crowned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg number 1 on its 16th Annual New Establishment list, ahead of Steve Jobs in the second spot, and Google's Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt at number 3, reporting that:
"In June, at The Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference, as
columnists Walter Mossberg and Kara Swisher interrogated him about
privacy issues, Zuckerberg appeared uncomfortable, sweated profusely,
and even—gasp!—took off his signature black hoodie."
Even less flattering, The New Yorker, in its recent article The Face of Facebook, published some of Zuckerberg's IMs during his short time at Harvard that were used in recent litigation.
The IMs speak volumes.
"In another exchange leaked to Silicon Alley
Insider, Zuckerberg explained to a friend that his control of Facebook
gave him access to any information he wanted on any Harvard student:
Zuck: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
Zuck: just ask
Zuck: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
Friend: what? how'd you manage that one?
Zuck: people just submitted it
Zuck: they 'trust me'
Zuck: dumb fucks
So what should a Westchester, NY-raised, Exeter grad and Harvard drop out do when a major motion picture is about to trash your already sullied reputation?
"Mr. Zuckerberg is setting up a foundation with $100 million of
Facebook's closely held stock to be used to improve education in
America, with the primary goal of helping Newark, NJ. The announcement of the gift has been planned for Friday on "The
Oprah Winfrey Show" show, which has been using this week to draw
attention to education.
"Mr. Zuckerberg's pledge comes as the company he founded confronts a
Hollywood film's scathing depiction of the executive. 'The Social
Network,' which opens in wide U.S. release Oct. 1, suggests Mr.
Zuckerberg may have stolen the idea for his social-networking site
David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMD) during the Reagan administration, was "taken to the woodshed" in 1981 by Reagan after telling an Atlantic Monthly reporter that supply-side trickle down economics and increasingly large federal deficits and the rapidly expanding national debt were unsustainable and bad economics. Stockman's clout waned after that but now he's back with some tough words about current stimulus spending, tax policy and the current $16 trillion in federal and state debt.
His solution? Stop stimulus spending. Cut spending dramatically for several years. And raise taxes. Not a platform for getting elected, but it makes sense. Regardless of party affiliation, I think he's right. The long drunken party of spending beyond our means is over. We're broke and the debt must come down.
"In fact, since chronic current-account deficits result from a nation
spending more than it earns, stringent domestic belt-tightening is the
only cure. When the dollar was tied to fixed exchange rates, politicians
were willing to administer the needed castor oil, because the
alternative was to make up for the trade shortfall by paying out
reserves, and this would cause immediate economic pain — from high
interest rates, for example. But now there is no discipline, only global
monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses
at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from
the Federal Reserve."
Well, it's not The Fall Classic yet, but the Yankees - Rays series had all the drama. Three one-run games, several lead changes, extra innings, and leading performances by bit players. Except for Yanks team captain Derek Jeter.
In the seventh inning Jeter earned a trip to first base by, well, acting.
"Fresh in the fans’ minds was the tempest that brewed an inning earlier, when Rays
Manager Joe Maddon was ejected after arguing that a pitch from Chad
Qualls hit the knob of Jeter’s bat, bouncing into fair territory, and
not his left forearm.
"Asked where the ball hit, Jeter smiled. 'The bat,' he said. And nowhere else? 'Well, I mean, they told me to go to first,' he said.
"Jeter sold the play well. The bat flew out of his hands, and he jumped away as the trainer Gene Monahan came out.
"'Vibration,' Jeter said. 'And acting.'
"The umpires convened, upholding the original call, as Jeter stood on
first base thinking, 'Don’t change your mind.' Stunned, Maddon kept
arguing, unclear how the ball could have caromed that hard into the
infield — the Rays picked up the ball and made the out at first base —
if it had struck only Jeter’s arm. Perhaps softened by a sweet victory,
after the game Maddon called it a heady play.
'If our guys did it, I would have applauded that, too,' Maddon said. 'It’s a great performance on his part.'
Nearly a century ago, on September 6, 1920, a bomb exploded across the street from JP Morgan headquarters at 23 Wall Street, killing 38 and injuring more that 400. The resulting investigation focused on Galleanist anarchists which law enforcement had tied to the 1919 bombings and to Sacco and Vanzetti.
The Wall Street Journal's Gordon Crovitz reports on the 1920 bombing and the Symbols of 9/11:
"Wall Street reacted by getting back to business as quickly as
possible. A Wall Street Journal editorial the day after the blast said
it "killed an uncertain number of absolutely innocent and uninterested
people," sending "a sufficient number of injured to the neighboring
hospitals to make it a total record of casualties about equaling a raid
in France in No Man's Land during the late war. And that is all it did."
The editorial added, 'The relations between capital and labor will not
be changed, not even for the worse as regards labor; for no one but a
fool has ever doubted Wall Street's courage.' "
"But
as with today's Islamists, the anarchist threat was real. Anarchists
had bombed and killed many at Chicago's Haymarket Square and the Los
Angeles Times building, and had tried to mail bombs to 30 people,
including J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and the mayor and police
commissioner of New York City. Anarchists had assassinated President
William McKinley, a Russian czar, a French president, a Spanish prime
minister and the king of Italy.
"The memorial to the earlier attack
on Wall Street is unusual: damage left unrepaired. The bomb, made up of
dynamite and hundreds of cast-iron slugs, went off across the street
from the headquarters of J.P. Morgan, then the world's leading bank. It
left deep pockmarks in its marble outer walls, which the partners left
as an act of defiance."
John Stanwood and Dukes County Love Association rocked out the end of summer last Sunday night for the locals, following an afternoon fashion show by island designers.
Getting to know our neighbor's sheep this spring was fun. Now they like bedding down over at our house. Baaaaah!
