I am going to have to rethink this whole Waffle House thing. Sometimes this is simply the best possible place to go at certain times under certain circumstances. You know what I’m sayin? I seemed to have found myself there on several occasions most recently. Usually late at night and usually with a hungry friend. You dig? So, I am re-evaluating my position. In any case, their coffee still sucks.
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Another Woman
“I realize you have been hurt. If I’ve done anything wrong, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I accept your condemnation.”
“You are a member of Amnesty International and the ACLU. And the head of the philosophy department. Impossible!”
These are two of my favorite quotes from the Woody Allen film, Another Woman. I like them each equally well but for different reasons. The first is such an outrageous statement by a phony pomposity of an ego so far gone as to defy augury and the other hits a little too close to home with the exception of being the head of the philosophy department. Woody Allen strikes gold here with his study of intellectual angst and mid life crisis. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to declare this film to be a mini-masterpiece.
I ran across this neglected, forgotten and, probably one you never heard of mini-masterpiece while scrolling through HULU one night looking for something decent to watch. Oh, a film by Woody Allen! Let me check it out. Probably seen it before but what the heck? So I cued it up and started watching. Curiously enough I didn’t remember anything about it and was soon captivated and mesmerized by the haunting voice-over by one of it’s stars and the brilliant cinematography of one of the worlds foremost cinematographers.
Another Woman was released in late 1988 and runs for 81 minutes. It was written and directed by Woody Allen. It stars Gena Rowlands as Marion Post, a middle aged philosophy teacher who is on sabbatical to write a book. It is her voice-over we hear as the movie begins. She is describing her life as accomplished and reasonably well settled.
She rents an apartment downtown to work on her book without distraction and discovers that she is able to overhear the conversation between a patient (Mia Farrow) and her psychiatrist through the heating vents coming from the adjoining apartment. At first Marion blocks off the sound with pillows but later she starts to listen in. The patient is despondent, pregnant, and thinking of ending her life. Her name ironically is Hope.
This conversation gets Marion to thinking about her own life and through series of coincidences, ruminations and, flashbacks, she encounters people from previous times in her life and she discovers she is not as happy as she thought she was.
This is a film of introspection and marvelous performances. A central theme of the film is that people can transform their lives to become more fulfilled. To say the film was Bergmanesque is rather stating the obvious. It has long been known that Woody has been greatly influenced by the Swedish master, Ingmar Bergman. Some say that this film resembles Wild Strawberries but I think it is more Persona like, which was also photographed by Sven Nykvist, Bergman’s favored cinematographer.
This is a wonderful film which I highly recommend.
Merry Prankster
This has been posted before but it it a great story and one I really like. Also I have a story to tell about it. Back in the oughts I worked in a glass manufacturing factory in South Jersey. I was a staff one manager which meant I pretty much helped run the place. Sometimes I’d get a wild hair and walk out into the factory to the so called “hot end” and squarely plant my feet on the oily surface of the floor and lower my head and raise my clenched fist in a black power salute to the workers. We were about 30% black. The black workers got a kick out of it, the white workers didn’t know what to think, and it drove the other managers wild. Hahaha! I have always been an exponent of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters philosophy and I never miss an opportunity to engage.
Juxtapose
In this photograph we see a young Parisian couple dining at a sidewalk cafe in the Latin Quarter of Paris. The Flagrant Delice specializes in French Cuisine. The photograph illustrates perfectly a classic example of the juxtaposition of old and new and east meets west. Notice the male figure in the picture is probably one generation older than the female. He is Caucasian and she is Asian. Finally, he is reading a book, old technology, and she is reading her cell phone, new technology. Yes, Paris is indeed a movable feast.
Top Ten Reasons to Go to Paris this Fall
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Ernest Hemingway. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
Albert Camus. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Simone de Beauvoir. “I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself.”
Jean Paul Sartre. “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”
Patrick Modiano. ” It was in the days when theater companies toured not just France, Switzerland, and Belgium, but also North Africa. I was ten years old. My mother had gone on the road for a play, and my brother and I were living with friends of hers, just outside of Paris.”
Edith Piaf. “La Vie en rose.”
Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris. “If Only We Have Love.”
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Samuel Beckett lived in Paris and wrote in French. Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days. “We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
Portrait of American novelist Henry Miller (1891 – 1980), 1950s. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer. “I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”
Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. “It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.”
She Came to Stay
I usually read 6-8 books at a time. I have been doing this for years and it is my modus operandi. But, every once in a while I will run across a book that is so extraordinary, so compelling, that I will stick with that one book to the exclusion of all the others.
I have found the to be the case with, She Came to Stay, by Simone de Beauvoir. This is the book I chose to take to Paris with me and I am so glad I did. I have found some delightful and delicious parallels with my own life and I am sure that is part of the allure.
It is a novel set in Paris near the beginning of WWII and is based on some true life events in the lives of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre and the affair with a young girl that came between them. It is by turns philosophical and hilarious. It is Simone’s first novel and I love it!
Last Day Worked
So this happened…
During the last hour of the last day of work at my last job ever, I got a call from a customer who wanted to come by and take a look at a Chrysler Town and Country van.
“What time do you close?” she asked .
“6:00, ” I said. But if you get here before six I will be happy to show it to you.”
“OK. We are on our way.”
It had been a slow day and Gidget, the sales manager, was sitting on the other side of the partition with two other sales people shooting the breeze. A little time passed and I thought I better tell Gidget I had a customer coming.
“No you don’t!” She protested.
“Yes I do!” I insisted.
A little more time passed and no customer. The phone rings.
“Hi! This is Sasha. Sorry, we got tied up but we are on our way now!”
“OK, good. See you when you get here!”
Gidget yells from behind the partition. “Is that your customer?”
“Yep!”
“Well she better get here quick, I’m not staying here all night!”
“She’s on here way.”
A little more time passes and no customer.
“Ben, I’m going to kick your ass!”
About this time the front windows of the showroom light up with the headlights of a car.
“There she is now,” I said, as I started towards the front door.
“You better sell that car in 20 minutes,” Rod, one of the other sales people says. “Cause were going home at six!”
“I’ve done it before,” I said with confidence.
So, I go out the front door and meet and greet the customer and show her the car.
“Yep, this is the car I want!” She says. How long will it take to tell me what you will give me for my trade?”
“Well, let’s go in, and see if we can put a deal together.”
So we went in and sat at my desk and Gidget looked at her car and we put some numbers together and agreed on price. We had a deal! The only thing was we had to do was secure financing. So I took a credit application and told the customer we would work it out on Monday for them. She was happy and left. We all got out of there by 6:00 pm but I had to come back on Monday evening to deliver the car!
Ha! That’s what I love about the car business! Just when I thought I was getting out, they pulled me back in again! It’s all good. The customer got the car she wanted and I made another sale before I left and I left on a good note and an up beat!
Now I am gone and happy as a lark!
Last Night’s Debate
There was no clear winner in last night’s debate. But there was a clear loser. CNBC. The debate performance by the moderators was a complete disaster. They could not control the candidates, they talked over each other and they asked inane questions.
Trump held his ground and was not as bombastic as usual. He got in a good zinger against John Kasich early on.
Kasich sounded like an angry old man as he denounced the others in a strident tirade. Jeb is fading fast and will drop out before much longer. He is becoming an embarrassment. He is just not a good debater.
Cruz was his usual obsequious self ordering first a tequila then a Colorado Brownie, then offering to drive everyone home afterwards. He had a moment when he attacked the moderators for being less than substantive with their questioning to loud and approving applause.
Chris Christie looked good but continues to be a bully. Don’t expect him to be around much longer. Ben Carson was catatonic as usual and almost put his own self to sleep with his slow delivery and off the wall answers that went completely unchallenged. He outright lied about being involved with that supplement company.
Carly Fiorina absurdly claimed Hilary Clinton’s policies were demonstrably harmful to women. She speaks with a machine gun like cadence twitching her head side to side like she is spitting out bullet shells and blinking her eyes with every utterance.
Rand Paul is quickly fading into oblivion. He was positioned last in line at the edge of the stage as befits his poll numbers. He is becoming largely irrelevant.
Marco Rubio was prepared, on point, and proved to be an effective counter-puncher. He pretty much put Jeb Bush away in one of their exchanges. He is emerging as one possible contender when and if Trump and Ben Carson self destruct. I wouldn’t count The Donald out, however, he just might go the distance.
Mike Huckabee didn’t get much talk time. He is still Huck the Huckster, selling books and snake oil.
All in all pretty much of a debacle but made for fascinating reality TV. It is shame the fate of the country hangs in the balance.
Are We Post Racism in America?
I take my moral courage and imagination from Albert Camus. He informs my thinking at every turn. In his writings in Combat he speaks about French racism as it relates to her then held colonies. What he says is every bit as applicable to the deeply held racist views of certain members of our own Republican party (most notably the Tea Party) when they talk about illegal immigration. It is impossible not to denounce this stupid and criminal malady that has reared its ugly head during recent political discourse and the debates.
Instead of focusing on what separates us from our Latin and Muslim brothers and sisters, let us focus on what unites us as people. There is something in each of us that cannot be despised without debasing ourselves. “It is necessary to state clearly that these signs of racism point to what is abject and senseless in the human heart. Only when we have vanquished that flaw will we win the difficult right to denounce tyranny and violence wherever it arises.”
What’s For Breakfast?
Sunday September 20, 2015. Breakfast at Denny’s. Ordered the Santa Fe Skillet. Two eggs over easy. When I was a teenager and later a young man living in Louisville many years ago we would often go to the Waffle House after a late night out on the town. After I left Louisvile I never entered another Waffle House for 30 years. Never had the desire nor the inclination. Upon my return a few years ago several of my friends began waxing eloquent extolling the virues of eating at the Waffle House. They talked it up so big that my culinary curiosity got the better of me and I yielded to temptation. I actually visited a Waffle House one Sunday morning near where I live.
Big Mistake! It was just as awful as I remembered it. I barely made it home in time before my body nearly betrayed me, if you know what I mean.
So now, I just go to Denny’s. It’s not much better but it’s sufficiently middlebrow and the food is not bad especially the new skillets. I like Wid Eggs but they are really expensive, usually too crowded and a lit bit pretentious for my taste just have breakfast.
Louisville doesn’t exactly abound in Diners, which is actually my preferred place to eat. But I did recently find one in Old Louisville that I like. It may just become my new favorite place. I’s a joint called Burger Boy. Food’s good and they serve breakfast 24/7. It is loaded with atmosphere and intesting characters. My kind of place.
Ghost Dog 