Samia Halaby, Self Portrait, 1972. © Samia Halaby, courtesy the artist
Palestinian American’s art exhibition in Indiana canceled after criticizing Gaza bombings
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.-W.H. Auden
Just had a crazy idea John Oliver. What if I turned this website into über alles Donald Trump November?! If Justice ‘whatsisname’ turns you down, howsabout you offer me, legally, $100,00 p/a NOT to write anything ever again. [excluding award winning novels/screenplays/ vodka commercials etc totally akimbo]. Could live comfortably on that. Keep buskin’ the NYC subway playin Bach getting hit over the head by mean girls. Guess the motor-home offer is specific F’off use only, though would fit nicely aside my garden for cocktails, ‘recreation’ whilst re-decorating the cottage. And just maybe we could all vacation together. Ricky hates kids though, so. There we go. Democracy and capital living together in harmony John. How good could ever it get. And you still have a $million or so left over from your HBO salary. Legally. Sweet deal.
Or is this a Knives Out ploy? Mercenary meow…
All joking aside, has American television ever had a show like John Oliver’s? Sure there’s satire every which way over the decades but a show of facts? On important issues? Where one’s only response is ‘you must be joking’. Took an Englishman to boot. Mad dogs and …. Not diminishing fact based shows 60 Minutes etc etc but John’s show is the living embodiment of Network’s “I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore”. Well, Mr. Oliver never descends into meltdown [yet,,,] and never promises to change the world only act as messenger. The saddest story of John Oliver’s show: that it had enough material to last a decade of seasons, @ episodes 21-35. And most probably a decade more. And more. And more. So keep smiling everyone, hello real life! :(
Ο κόσμος αλλοίωσις, ο βίος υπόληψις.
Leonard Bernstein: If I close my eyes I can’t tell that you’re a cat.
Pace conductor Seiji Ozawa who recounted meeting Bernstein about something at his apartment and was asked to join him at the piano and study the score of an old ‘war horse’ the Tchaikovsky Pathétique Sym. that he was conducting that night. That must have been in Bernstein’s DNA. Still he questioned.
So, Oppenheimer. A 3hour studio movie mostly talking heads. It shouldn’t work, director Christopher Nolan makes absolutely sure it does. Some may find the incessant use of music score [Ludwig Göransson] problematic. A device working sure better in large movie theaters, all that bass and high sonorities, than home cinema. Something very operatic much of Mr. Nolan’s movies. Oppenheimer has but few big scenes. All seen before. Ad infinitum. The mushroom cloud, protective glasses etc. Nolan elicits an edge and suspense never boring audiences. And this huge ship icebreakers on music score its hull. Fast, disturbing. An amazing ‘where do you start’ cast! Robert Downey Jnr. unrecognizable interiority. When the triumphant ‘Aida’ chorus does finally sound after Hiroshima - “The world will remember this day” - Oppenheimer grows sensorily deprived plunging us into the last hour and fateful final act.
The film’s strength truly inhabiting operatic. Duets, trios, the quartets, quintets etc etc. A big movie comprised of Nolan’s envisaged atoms with Oppenheimer the still point on stage of a world that may stop turning. Humans questioning moral integrity. Duplicity. Jealousy. Loyalty. Their love.
Oppenheimer sows seeds of curiosity in a depleted world. All one should hope of cinema. So many untold stories.
Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty took her husband's ashes out in a boat towards Carval Rock, a tiny island he used to gaze out at from the cottage, and dropped them into Hawksnest Bay. When Kitty passed in 1972, her ashes were scattered at the same spot. Their daughter Toni was refused security clearance as a United Nations translator after the FBI pursued old charges against her father. In January 1977, three months after her second marriage ended, she hanged herself in the family beach house leaving a handwritten note on the bed, deeding the house and property "to the people of St John".
KITTY’s review of THE HOLDOVERS
Sugar the cat must miss you a lot. About 1.8 million Palestinians have been displaced since Israel launched its attack on Gaza.
Los Angeles radio station KCRW selected Alma Thomas, Deep Red Roses Chant as their inspiration for their 2024 Soundtrack to compliment Frieze LA.
Cat -(Gwendolyn Knight, Monoprint)
Haven’t seen this Oscar nominee, sounds awesomely relevant though! The ‘cat’ section !!! Where you creatures at?!
From the red carpet: songwriter Diane Warren “almost got arrested” at the corner of Highland and Hollywood. Almost! Pathetic wench! I remember back in the 90’s finding cheap digs for the night in a room but 100 yards from the now Dolby Theater. Dragged a mattress, there was for some reason another, in front of a rather dodgy ground floor window. Some Kurt Cobain was I ;( Nothing happened. We live by lyrics.
Haven’t seen Poor Things but: my ever erudite [check the pedigree, woof!] colleague’s Amy Taubin’s review sounding very Pauline Kael, hello. How could anyone not ummm not like Yorgos. The Lobster. Sex, death, rock n roll n skin. Enjoying Emma Stone kinda in The Curse comedy-drama pushing boundaries, when sub-titled fatigued of Mubi films.
So, how was Jimmy Kimmel’s 2024 Oscar intro: sweet, tamed on rye. Touch of curry Sarah Silverman, dog, taco..geese…Letterman firmly in cage:) [p.s. Dave was a bit angry you forgot to release him as promised at midnight Jimmy. The geese drove him mad and the morals of that mouse: well….Still, now’s got even more dirty secrets to tell beyond the grave.]
Say my name three times, like Beetlejuice: Lily Gladstone, Lily Gladstone, Lily Gladstone. Oh: a Ken doll avec papoose. Mooo...
