I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe it is the HEIGHT of disrespect, and a //form of passive aggression, to not wear one’s hearing aid/s, unless home alone. One theory is that your mom is afraid strangers will think she is old or infirm if they see she’s wearing a hearing aid. I remember that feeling from back in my 30’s when Igot my first aid. After a while I adopted a different-but-still-cool haircut. Perhaps your mom should talk to her hairdresser. Barring that, it’s time for a family intervention. Or, each time she says “What?”, refuse to raise your voice except to tell her to please put in her aids.
Remind your mom to clean her aids every night before she goes to bed. This will keep her molds from getting mouldy and leading to an ear infection. I favor “Audiologist’s Choice” hearing-aid spray. Spray it on a tissue first, not directly onto those pricey electronics.
Readers here know I’m a big fan of advice columns in general, and of Heloise in particular. In a recent Heloise column, 13-year-old Jenna D. asked “Why are items priced at $4.99 instead of $5?”
Heloise had a good answer: “It’s based on the fact that we read [prices] from right to left. Your brain perceives the number 4 as less than 5, which it is. So we’re thinkin’ we’re getting a heck of a deal!“ God, I love Heloise. It’s like hearing from Marge Gunderson.
I’ve heard another good reason for pricing goods this way: it’s to reduce employee theft. Ever since the invention of the cash register, store owners have known that on even-dollar items, cashiers would sometimes slip the cash into their own pocket instead of ringing it up.
In the late 1800s, a manager at Sears Roebuck, or maybe Montgomery Ward depending on who you believe, came up with the idea of reducing even-dollar prices by one cent as a way to force cashiers to open the register to give change on every sale. This created a record of the sale, rang a bell to announce it, and got the cash into the proper hands.
Wikipedia article Psychological pricing gives us several other good reasons for this sometimes annoying pricing practice.
Below, the book’s title says it all – it’s a history of the cash register.
This article is about food, but this site is not a food blog, where you might expect to find a photograph of my lunch every day. In fact, I don’t think this is a blog at all, it’s more like a magazine, an online magazine, yeah, that’s the ticket. An online magazine.
A peanut butter lollipop makes an easy, healthful midday snack. It’s tasty and filling, and requires minimal cleanup.
Simply take a jar of your favorite peanut butter and with a clean tablespoon scoop out an extra-large glob. Holding the spoon like a lollipop, lick it until every trace of peanut butter is gone. Enjoy.
Took a walk on the boardwalk last week and the new wall/ bulwark/ whatever-you-call-it, plus the dune ‘enhancements’, have effectively destroyed any view of the beach (ocean itself is still in view) from the boards. I guess now even the locals will have to pay $8 to get a look.
Would you please reprint your 1918 columns on (1) how to make and apply a mustard plaster, and (2) how to synthesize laudanum from common household chemicals? I have misplaced the well-worn copies left me by my grandmother, who with their help survived that year’s terriible flu epidemic. Thank you!
I meant to post this months ago when I finally accepted I couldn’t be part of normal society without getting vaccinated. I gave up, lined up, and got it done.
I’m now waiting the two weeks it takes after the second shot to be considered “vaccinated”. But it’s starting to look like we’ll be getting booster shots for the rest of our lives, like getting a regular oil change. Covid rules and regulations seem to be made up as we go along, so we’ll see.
There used to be a great donut shop, Hoffman’s, on a side street near the railroad station here . They made long, solid custard-filled donuts they called Hindenburgs, or maybe Heidelbergs or Hindemiths, something like that, even longer than the “Long John” model pictured below. Sadly, Hoffman’s closed years ago due to a family squabble.
Once I can go out into the world again, I’m looking forward to walking into the surviving local bakery and getting a dozen donuts (not Dunkin’, although Dunkin’ is okay in a pinch).
I’m also looking forward to seeing the nice lady who works the counter there. I like how quietly appreciative she is when someone leaves a tip that’s more than just the few coins they get back in their change. Some people don’t leave anything. I’m looking forward to leaving her a generous tip as much as I am to getting some donuts. After all, we’ve been separated for almost two years.
I don’t understand why some people think it’s okay to leave a cheap tip, or no tip at all. They’ve probably never worked a service job. I have a low opinion of cheap tippers like our Canadian neighbor in Florida. He was a CPA and owned his own accounting practice, so why so cheap? What does it take to leave a little extra?
Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Here at the Jersey shore, we get a lot of Canadian tourists, and the locals have always considered the Quebec license-plate slogan “Je me souviens” to translate as “We don’t tip”.
In general I don’t like cheapskates, but I allow some leeway for girls. Girls don’t seem to consider what it’s like to work a crappy job like waiting tables or being a counterperson. Once I had lunch with two girls from work and we split the tab three ways. When we were leaving, I saw they had left lousy tips and I suggested they put more money down because we might want to go back there some day.
Mimi and I and some other couples from Insco went to a restaurant called “What’s Your Beef?”, where butchers help you pick out your own cut of meat from an old-fashioned butcher case. We agreed ahead of time we would split the tab. The bill was fairly stiff and I guess this one couple was economizing, because the husband (not the one that worked with us, the wife did) didn’t want to leave a tip. There wasn’t anything wrong with the service, it was fine, he just didn’t want to. We basically bullied/shamed him into leaving 15% on his share but he wasn’t happy about it. He said “let her dive for it” and dropped his tip into a half-full glass of water.
Well, I started out talking about donuts but ended up talking about tipping, sorry. Actually, I started out talking about the pandemic, but that was mostly a way to lead into talking about donuts and giving people decent tips for decent service.
“Long John” – custard filled, chocolate iced. Courtesy Prairie City Bakery, Vernon Hills IL
Oh, one more thing. Our government, that’s always giving money away to people we don’t know in other countries, says we should limit our mailman’s holiday tip to $25. Say what?! This is a guy who brings us our mail faithfully, never missing, six days a week, rain or shine, Try and keep me from giving him a decent tip. Merry Christmas, Henry!
Here are my new minimum requirements for anyone captioning film for US television.
1) Native English speaker
2) Minimum 60 years of life experience
3) Minimum IQ of 100
4) Broad knowledge of US history and pop culture
5) Good hearing
I could add more, but you get the idea. Here’s a small example of what’s wrong with today’s captioning.
I was watching Lansky, the 2021 version starring Harvey Keitel. Lansky is about the life and times of Meyer Lansky, often called “The Mob’s Accountant”, and his involvement in the early days of what the press then called the National Crime Syndicate. The film starts off slowly, with little violence of interest, and no new insight into 20th century crime or criminals. As I followed along with the captions, one line of dialog stopped me.
In a New York City nightclub, Lansky and a few other gangsters are sitting at the bar, just generally shooting the breeze. In the background, a woman gives out tickets as new arrivals appear and hand her their hats and coats. According to the captions, one gangster opens a new subject of conversation with “Hey, do you see that half-Czech girl over there?”
Or did a computer do this? That would make it even worse.
I recently finished re-reading J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”. I first read it about a million years ago. It was published in 1951.
Salinger’s narrator is the anxious and depressed 16-year-old Holden Caulfield. Holden mentions that his parents are leaning toward having him “psychoanalyzed and all” because his “failure to apply himself” has flunked him out of a half-dozen private schools. Old Jerry admitted his book was “sort of” autobiographical.
There’s a part where Holden has been kicked out of his latest school after failing every subject except English, and is killing time waiting to meet his nine-year-old sister outside her midtown Manhattan grade school. While he’s there,
But while I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody’d written “Fuck you” on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them—all cockeyed, naturally—what it meant, and how they’d all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever’d written it.
Holden rubs the words off with his hand. Still killing time, at the Museum of Natural History he helps two little kids looking for the mummies.
“How come you two guys aren’t in school?” I said. “No school t’day,” the kid that did all the talking said. He was lying, sure as I’m alive, the little bastard. I didn’t have anything to do, though, till old Phoebe showed up, so I helped them find the place where the mummies were.
As they follow the narrow passage leading into the tomb, Holden describes the process by which the Egyptians could be “buried in their tombs for thousands of years and their faces wouldn’t rot or anything.” The kids get spooked and leave.
I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you’d never guess what I saw on the wall. Another “Fuck you.” It was written with a red crayon or something, right under the glass part of the wall, under the stones.
That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.
Given what Jerry/Holden wrote above and the world we live in, it seemed to me that at least one fan would have marked up old Jerry’s tombstone since his death in 2010. If not, maybe it was something I should take on as a mission, in the sense of “wouldn’t it be cool if…” I know it’s crazy, but as a matter of fact sometimes I think of stuff like that. It’s almost like he’s asking for it. I wouldn’t really do it though.
Anyway, I was sure something like that would have made the news, and I googled
defaced “Salinger tombstone”
with the quotation marks just like that. I didn’t get any hits, so I tried other googles. I’m an incredibly fast typist, if you really want to know. As a matter of fact, I’m starting to get carpal tunnel from typing up the thousands of other articles here.
I tried just
“Salinger tombstone”
again with quotes around it. There were about a dozen hits but all the dead people were different Salingers.
Before I gave up, just for fun I tried
Salinger tombstone
no quotes this time. Of course that gave me a million hits, “about 333,000”. But the topmost one was Find A Grave Memorial, at findagrave.com; now we’re getting somewhere. Without any media mentions, the next step in finding out if old Jerry’s tombstone’s been defaced is knowing where he’s buried. Then maybe I could go there and see for myself.
It turns out Find A Grave has an excellent short biography of Salinger, but the jerks yank the rug right out from under my idea of a graveside visit, declaring “Cremated, location of ashes is unknown.” Old Jerry was a notoriously private person, and he has once again avoided his fans.
Okay, here’s a tested method to snoop freely anywhere you’d like. Use it to explore interesting places where you have no legitimate reason to be.
Get a cheap wooden clipboard with a metal clip. Add a pad of standard-size lined paper; yellow works nicely. Rumple the paper a bit so it doesn’t look new. Carry your board in the crook of one arm so it looks ready for use. Keep a few pens in your shirt pocket. Walk with authority, as though you’re going somewhere, but don’t rush. Look around. Act like you don’t expect to be challenged. You won’t be.
Please don’t everybody try this at once, you’ll ruin it.
Venn diagram map of the British Isles created by Anna Debenham, courtesy brilliantmaps.com
“The map above demonstrates the difference between the British Isles, United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England. While the terms are often used interchangeably they actually mean different things.”
–brilliantmaps.com
Being an American, I have never been clear on the difference between “Great Britain” and “The United Kingdom”. Now I understand. The diagram/map above is an example of what a clean, clear graphic looks like.
I got my last real haircut back in February, from Susan, a licensed barber who will do a conservative, not-too-short businessman’s haircut. The coronavirus was already taking over the world, so along with everyone else I began avoiding unnecessary human contact. Now, six months later, the virus was fully in charge and I had a whole lot of hair. I wasn’t quite Walt Whitman yet, but I was on my way.
Cutting my own hair wasn’t all that hard, just time-consuming, and (in my opinion) the result was pretty close to a regular haircut. As long as you’re careful and take your time, your hair will not end up unbalanced, lumpy or otherwise weird.
There are how-to tips and videos all over the internet, and I took bits of advice from several. The only equipment I used was barber scissors. I chose scissors over electric clippers because clippers can cut hair too short. For other virus hermits out there who want to try it, here’s what worked for me. Like Whitman, I am an older guy with semi-wavy gray hair that’s fairly thick.
Watch the davidgpo YouTube video “How to Cut Your Own Hair with Scissors” a few times. David is also an older gent, and he shows you how to eyeball the results as you go along. Does his resulting haircut look totally professional? No, and neither does mine, but it’s not embarrassing, it’s a decent haircut and I don’t feel the need to wear a hat if I leave the house. He uses only his fingers and the scissors, and that’s what I did. You’ll get more ideas from his video.
Get a good pair of barber’s scissors, aka “shears”. I paid about $25 on Amazon. Don’t try to save money by using your old kitchen scissors, you’ll be sorry. Be careful, these are razor sharp – not a figure of speech – and you can cut your fingers or nick an ear if you go too fast.
You’ll need a mirror setup that lets you see yourself from the side. Luckily, my medicine cabinet has two mirrored swing-out doors. Keeping my head more or less between the two doors let me see everything, with the added benefit that 98% of the hair I cut off fell straight into the sink, avoiding floor cleanup.
Wash your hair, comb it and blow dry to get the hairs separated and straight before you start cutting,
Start low and work upward.
Lift and cut only a small tuft of hair each time.
Don’t cut the tuft straight across, tilt the scissors sideways so the hairs are not all the same length.
Most importantly, take off only a little bit at a time, maybe a quarter inch, don’t go nuts. Then reassess and go round again.
I feel guilty taking work away from Susan; she and salon/shop workers like her are among those hurt worst by the closings. Hopefully the virus won’t be around too much longer. See you then, Susan.
Probably every commercial building in New York City has led several lives. The building at 310 Fifth Avenue, between 32nd and 33rd, is a good example. In 1927 it was an IBM showroom; in 2021 an upscale men’s hat store.
IBM showroom, 1927
The 1927 display window featured pre-computer–era business machinery such as a time clock to track employee attendance, a parcel-post scale and meter, grinders for coffee and meat, and various types of punched card equipment.
J.J. Hat Center, 2021
Ninety-plus years later, this busy Manhattan neighborhood is known as Koreatown. The IBM showroom is now the nicely-fitted-out J.J. Hat Center.
Next door at 308 Fifth Avenue is the Manhattan branch of the Bank of Hope, the world’s largest Korean-American commercial bank.
On the other side, at 312 Fifth, is Gopchang Story BBQ, a Korean barbecue restaurant focusing on beef intestines. Gopchang’s intriguing intro page and delivery menu make me wish I still worked in Manhattan.
Yukhoe – seasoned beef tartare
Nak gop jeongol – beef small intestine, large intestine, tripe, vegetables & octopus
Jane is a good friend of mine. She never misses an opportunity to tell me about the upcoming Powerball jackpot, sending me email with teasing subject lines like “Hey! Tonight’s Powerball @ $325M!” or “WOW! Tonight’s Powerball @ $500M!”. I think Jane might be a robot.
After many weeks of the jackpot growing without a winner, not Jane but a local newspaper tells me that in the January 5th drawing two people, one in California and one in Wisconsin, had all six numbers. They will split the grand prize, $632 million, meaning $316 million each if they take the annuity payout, $225 million each if they take it in cash.
So, no giant jackpot for me this week, but a new contest has already begun, with a guaranteed $20 million prize, increasing by at least $2 million twice a week until there’s a winner — quite possibly me.
Always cooking in the back of my mind is what I’ll do with the money, but also cooking is the thought that first I’ll have to protect it, so I’ll need a good lawyer. I wrote about needing a lawyer last week, here.
About five years ago I paid a certified financial planner something like $350 to look over my handful of investments and tell me how to do better. She did tell me, and it was good advice, not good enough to make me rich of course, but when my ship comes in she’ll be the first person I call. I won’t tell the secretary anything about my “sudden wealth”, the term financial types use for coming into a lot of money. I’ll just ask for an appointment, and say “Let’s make it for a full hour this time.”
What Is Sudden Wealth Syndrome?
Sudden wealth syndrome (SWS) is a type of distress that afflicts individuals who suddenly come into large sums of money. Becoming suddenly wealthy can cause people to make decisions they might not have otherwise made. Sudden wealth syndrome symptoms include feeling isolated from former friends, feeling guilty about their good fortune, and extreme fear of losing their money. – Investopedia
When my ship comes in I’ll buy a nice house, but it will have to be all on one level because I’m getting older and stairs are becoming the enemy. But some houses now have elevators, real elevators, the kind you step inside and the doors close. I’d always have my phone with me in case the thing gets stuck or the power goes out, it’s probably best to keep your phone in one of those little holsters that hangs on your belt so you can never be caught without it.
I’ll hire a cook when my ship comes in, maybe a Mexican lady. I’ll tell her how much I love Mexican food, but not the hot kind, more like what they call Tex-Mex.
She should have at least a little English, but since I’ll also need to hire a housekeeper to keep the place organized and tidy, maybe I can find one who’s able to speak Spanish, that way the cook won’t feel lonely, and the housekeeper can translate for her whatever it is I’m talking about.
Sometimes on a television show the cook or the housekeeper or the gardener, that’s another person to hire, will have kids of their own and it just makes sense when my ship comes in they can live in my big house too, the more the merrier, but maybe they need to be in another wing or maybe a separate building next door in case the kids are noisy or they like loud music, they’re only kids, after all.
Here’s another idea I had, not to have a house at all, instead just live in a fancy hotel in New York City. I started thinking about living like that a few years ago when I was following the news about the scammer girl who was the fake German heiress.
Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, at her trial in 2019. Richard Drew / AP
It sounded like she was living a pretty good life, tipping the help with fifty dollar bills and the concierges with hundreds, while scamming Manhattan banks and making up excuses for not paying her rent. She was pretty and sexy and charming, although some people I know didn’t think she was pretty at all. The charming part meant lots of socialites wanted to be her friend and lend her money until her own ship, a fictitious delayed inheritance, came in, and pick up the check when the group went out for dinner, I guess whenever they got tired of hotel food.
Those stories made it sound like the concierges in a fancy hotel could find you anything you wanted. I like going to museums, but not alone, and I thought I would ask the concierge to ask around for a fine-arts major to keep me company and go with me to my favorite museums like the Cloisters at the north end of Manhattan, and maybe tell me a little extra about some of the paintings without making it a whole big lecture. Maybe in her 30s, early 40s would be fine too. She should be smart and pretty, but not so pretty that she looks like a model and people are going to look at us and think, ha, that’s not his daughter or his granddaughter or his niece I’m sure.
I like Italian girls; they’re fun and natural and nice to look at. It would be okay if my companion was born over there, in fact that might make her a better-natured person than the average American girl. She should be mature, I don’t mean physically, I mean mentally mature, but it would be okay for her to be a little silly too sometimes. She’d be there to go places with me and be a good companion. I wouldn’t expect any funny stuff, certainly not at first, but we’re only human, after all.
And oh yeah, saying the girl could be Italian made me remember one more thing for when my ship comes in, I’ll put it here, it’s to learn to speak Italian. I wrote in another article here that in freshman high school they put me in Italian class instead of Latin like I signed up for because my real name looks Italian, even though it isn’t, and how much I enjoyed being in Miss Mercurio’s class for a few days. By contrast, I think French would be hard to learn, their words are not spelled anything like the throaty, wet way they sound, but Italian is spelled pretty much the way it sounds. Then if my museum companion was Italian, we could talk in Italian while we’re looking at paintings. I would pay extra for her to help teach me Italian of course; I won’t care about how much things cost when my ship comes in.
Altarpiece, Robert Campin and workshop, Metropolitan Museum at the Cloisters
I want to go to other museums besides the ones in New York City of course; there’s a nice small museum out in one of the Hamptons, on the far end of Long Island, either 80 or 180 miles from the city, I forget which. That means I’ll need a car, but not a limousine where everyone’s going to say “Who’s that” when we go by, but something more low key. I saw somewhere that a Bentley is pretty much the same as a Rolls-Royce but without the wings on the radiator and all. There would need to be a chauffeur of course, that’s one more on the payroll. He probably should be a retired cop so he could be a bodyguard too. I guess when we stop to have a meal, he should be near us but probably not at the same table. That doesn’t sound quite right somehow, but things get complicated when your ship comes in. I’ll have to think about that part some more.
I’ve been cutting my own hair for over a year, not to save money but to avoid other people and the coronavirus. I’m assuming that when my ship comes in, Susan, who used to cut my hair here in town, will be available, triple vaxxed and maybe masked-up too if that’s the rule then. She’ll have to get some sort of a pass at the front desk to come up to the room, although I guess ‘suite’ or ‘floor’ would be a better word for it. I’ll leave her name at the desk and send a car, a nice car, not some random-brand Uber, down to the shore to bring her up to the city. I guess I should arrange with the concierge for a nice in-room lunch in case they hit a lot of traffic coming in. So it’s not awkward for her at lunch, she can bring along Tina, the receptionist at the hair parlour, to keep her company.
Something else I’ll do when my ship comes in is have a dinner for everybody I worked with at Insco, except for the few people I didn’t get along with, they know who they are. Or maybe a picnic outside would be better, then we could all just wander around and catch up. If it’s outside maybe no alcohol because of what happened with the cars at the softball game that time.
Getting back to all the people I’ll have working for me if I live in my own house instead of the hotel, I looked for books on how to be rich, meaning how to manage your life, where to buy things like good clothes and such, but the books all seemed to be about how to get rich, which of course won’t be an issue.
With all those people in the house, I guess I’ll have to hire some sort of manager to tell them how to do their jobs and write their paychecks. Maybe my financial planner will know someone. Or maybe I’d get a butler, a butler could manage them, like in one of those high-class English TV series like Upstairs, Downstairs or movies like The Remains of the Day. If the butler was a guy like Anthony Hopkins that would be great, we could have a drink together once in a while.
One thing I almost forgot, I’ll get my shoes made to order and not have to try on every pair of shoes in the store anymore. I have a narrow foot.
Pete and Trudy Campbell board the Learjet to Wichita. Courtesy AMC
If I want to go somewhere that’s not close after my ship comes in, I’ll fly there first class. Going places first class sounds nice, but I don’t really want to fly at all anymore, I haven’t been in a plane for 25 years. I can tell from the newspapers it’s different now – there’s all kinds of not-very-nice people flying now, even in first class. Maybe a better idea would be to just charter a small Learjet like the one that picked up Pete and his wife to bring them to Wichita in the final episode of Mad Men. If I’m not going very far, maybe just take the car, the chauffer and I can take turns driving.
“All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws.” — Konstantin Stanislavski
Here are a few things that bug me when I see them in a movie. Allow me to get them off my chest.
First off, let’s think about things that are heavy – luggage and packages and other things that get carried, thrown, or otherwise moved from one place to another. The audience can tell the difference between a full suitcase and an empty one, simply by seeing how the actor interacts with it. The audience will not be fooled.
Think about the great actors who have played Willy Loman, the self-deluded traveling salesman in Death of a Salesman. Willy carried cases of samples to show his customers. Arthur Miller never told us what Willy sold; some people speculate it was only lingerie and socks, but whatever it was, Willy’s sample cases were big and packed tight full, and they were HEAVY, you could tell by the way they pulled his arms straight down and rounded his shoulders and put a bend in his back. That wasn’t acting, it was gravity.
Willy Loman didn’t bob along swinging his arms as he walked, he couldn’t. If you are putting on a production of Death of a Salesman or some other work where there’s luggage or bags of ransom money or anything else that has real weight, you need to go and get 60 or 80 or 100 pounds of yesterday’s newspapers to make that weight be real.
Relatedly, in the movie Three Kings, each of the stolen gold bars is roughly the size of a carton of cigarettes, and the actors handle the bars as though gold and tobacco weigh the same. THEY DO NOT. A bar of gold that size would weigh about 60 pounds, so your actors shouldn’t be handing them off to each other as though they’re shaking hands. As a moviegoer, how am I supposed to suspend disbelief when I see something like that on the screen?
The f-word: Whatever happened to the word “hell”? Where has it gone? Scene: A young suburban husband comes home and sees his wife is working on, say, a semi-abstract painting. It is not very good. Instead of having him jokingly ask “What the hell is that? “, or even the softer “What the heck is that?”, he asks “What the fuck is that?” and the joking is over. Point: The f-word does not fit in everywhere. Unless you’re Quentin Tarantino or some other writer with a great ear for dialog, which you are probably not, take it easy with the f-word. Also, remember that in the real world, a person of lesser authority will cut back on f-words when a person of greater authority is present.
Some of the best dialog ever written comes from The Sopranos, but even those writers go over the top sometimes. I have known some real-life lowlifes, and in general they did not use more than one f-word in a single sentence, or more than ten in a single speech. IT JUST DOESN’T RING TRUE. Getting back to “hell”, when’s the last time you heard a Sopranos character say “hell”?
I suggest not trying to write working-class dialog until ypu have worked a while as a member of the working class. Listen closely. Make notes.
Read your dialog out loud. Can you imagine a real person, in the real world, ever saying those words to anyone? People don’t just spout words; they assemble sentences that make sense, it’s not poetry, but it’s an ability we begin developing at age two, and we know when it sounds fake. Does it sound fake? REWRITE. Does it lack a realistic pace and cadence? REHEARSE SOME MORE.
Vincent and Jules have a conversation on their way to work. Courtesy miramax.com
In-car conversation: when we see two actors having a conversation in a moving car, we know the car is actually on a low-slung trailer being towed through the scenery by a professional. The actor “driving” isn’t really driving at all, but he needs to LOOK like he’s driving. That means not engaging with the passenger as if they’re seated in a living room somewhere. Drivers, drive! Adjust the steering wheel to stay in your lane. Turn the wheel as you get towed around a corner. Yes, glance at your companion, but keep your eyes on the road, so the audience isn’t always anticipating a collision.
Lastly, our mothers taught us to look for traffic before we cross the street. Teach your actors to do the same. I always think “BAM!” and expect a plot twist in 3 – 2 – 1 when I see an actor walk into the street without looking.
”Women there don’t treat you mean”: ABILENE
Lily Munster’s maiden name: LILYDRACULA
Explosive that can ruin a dinner party: FBOMB
“La la” preceder: OOH
Computer language placeholder: FOO
British lavatory: LOO
Weasel sound: POP
KSWIN Industrial End Table, 18 inch Square Side Table with Storage Shelf, Sturdy Metal Frame, $66 USD at Amazon
My new monitor will be
of size 32 inches, much
bigger than the old one,
the old one hardly a monitor at all,
just a screen.
I’ll order my new monitor
when my ship comes in.
I’ll put it where the old one sat
for years, sort of half alongside
my comfy chair, the chair
also old, but still reliable.
My big new monitor will need
something substantial under it, the
table there now is much too small.
There is space enough for a bigger table,
but it has to be extra solid,
so if I happen to
bump against it when I stand up
it won’t wobble and
cause a tragedy.
When I buy electronics, I never buy the insurance, I think it’s a ripoff.
. . .
At Amazon, I look at side tables and
end tables and just-plain tables, looking for
something maybe 20 inches square,
but not too high –
I do my computer typing leaning
way back and slouched way down.
Here’s one that looks sturdy for sure –
it has an almost medieval quality,
with braces of strap iron,
like a Tennessee jail cell.
There are not many reviews,
so I read them all.
Overall, 4.5 stars out of 5.
The reviewers fall
into three classes:
– the majority love it
– pragmatic types say it’s adequate
– one single-star reviewer
is disappointed by the size.
Here’s what they said:
– Just what I needed
– Nice shape, nice size, and very pretty
– Sturdy little table
– Pretty little table
– KSWIN end table
– Worth the price…
– Easy to assemble
– Love it!
– Tables
– Awesome product!
– Worth it
– Great purchase
– Great table
– A lot smaller than I expected
– PERFECT
– Good
– So cute and sturdy!
– Mesita decorativa
– Easy to assemble and useable
– Nice table
After I order, it arrives in two days. As I bring the box into the house, I hear something bumping around inside. It’s the table in its own tight little box stamped with Chinese characters and bound in yards of transparent tape. It warns “Do not open with knife” and “Returns will only be accepted in original package”.
The table is packed flat of course, and must be assembled. The directions are simple and clear.
Included are two plastic bags of eight screws each, a bag of four adjustable feet, and an Allen wrench. The other parts are individually wrapped and packed tight together using precision-shaped Styrofoam bumpers.
IKEA has nothing on the KSWIN company – the parts fit together perfectly. It takes me about fifteen minutes, that long because I’m pretty methodical.
This article is sort of an addendum to Please, no more empty luggage, where I list careless or sloppy things that directors allow, and say “Here are a few things that bug me when I see them in a movie. Allow me to get them off my chest.”
There are several things that can show us an actor is not actually dead, breaking the movie magic; looking dead isn’t just squeezing your eyes shut and clenching your jaw. In fact, those things only serve to prove you’re still alive, and probably not a good actor. First, make yourself comfortable. You don’t want to have to adjust your underwear halfway through the scene.
To look truly dead, relax, completely. Let gravity happen. Let your body lose its tension and fall in on itself. Relax your facial muscles and let your face sag. Let your mouth fall open, let your tongue loll as gravity wills it. Let your eyes go ‘soft’ – look at a single spot on the wall without bringing it into focus. There’s a YouTube video called Acting Deadwhere actor Doug Fahl gives extensive tips on how to play dead on stage or screen, including simple methods of breath control.
I never saw a truly convincing on-screen strangulation until Tony Soprano killed Ralph Cifaretto. Ralph had it coming, both for engineering the racetrack fire that killed Pie-O-My and for beating to death Tracee, Tony’s young friend from the Bada Bing. As Tony strangles Ralph, he shouts in his face “She was a beautiful, innocent creature!”, leaving us to wonder whether he means Tracee or the horse.
When the fight ends, Ralph is dead, and certainly looks it. Not for the faint of heart, here’s a YouTube video of Ralph’s murder.
Hey, special-effects people, here’s an idea: how about a neck wrapper made of flesh-tone Play-Doh so we can see the killer’s fingers really digging in?
If a script requires a captive be kept quiet, remember that gagging someone with a rag or article of clothing does not work in real life, no matter how you do it. “Mmmmglurrrgg!” Hello, we can still hear you!
This leads us to duct tape.
Lifetime Movie Network is the primary offender against duct-tape reality. On Lifetime at least twice a week, weeping kidnap victims wear a neat rectangle of duct tape barely wide enough to cover their mouth. Is there a shortage of duct tape? I’ve never kidnapped anyone, but when I do, they’re going to get at least two yards of duct tape wrapped around their head to keep them quiet.
If I ever get to be a Lifetime director, we’ll have rolls and rolls of fake duct tape, standard gray on one side but no adhesive on the other, and you better believe you’re going to see the bad guy walking around his prisoner at least twice, tightly wrapping their head, mouth and hair. Sorry if this disturbs anyone, remember it’s only a movie.
Neptune Blue 2020 Kia Soul EX, somewhere in Colorado
My car was recently in the shop but I had some appointments to get to. Based on everything I’d read and heard, Uber was the answer. I was a new rider, although I’d installed the app on my cell phone “just in case” two years ago. Using it was a little confusing at first, but I managed to schedule a ride to my favorite destination, LabCorp, without embarrassing myself.
Uber sent me a text twenty minutes before my ride arrived, then again about five minutes before. My driver was a pleasant woman of about 40, not that that makes any difference. I sat in the back on the right-hand side, as recommended by Uber and common sense for everyone’s safety in these days of the pestilence. When you schedule a ride, the app asks you to check a box stating that both you and the driver will be masked up. I wore the shoulder belt on all my rides, because I’ve seen some highway carnage.
That first ride was in a small, older Honda, or similar, that rattled going over every bump. When arranging my rides I chose the least expensive, smaller-car option. The cars were decent; they were all clean, inside and out, and fairly new. I used to laugh at the television ads selling the undersized, semi-fluorescent Kia Soul, but my ride in one like the one above was the smoothest and most comfortable of the seven rides I had during the week.
When you’re ready to go home, just select “Now” for the pickup time and your next ride will soon appear. I never had to wait more than ten minutes — maybe there are a lot of people trying to make a living, or just earn some extra money, driving for Uber these days.
My rides were all short, under five miles, with fares ranging from $13 to $17. Uber takes a variable booking fee of 15 to 20% out of the fare, and the driver gets the rest. The charges go on the credit card you signed up with; you’ll get an email receipt later in the day.
At the end of each trip, the app asks you to rate your ride on a scale of 1 to 5. It’s rare for anyone to rate their ride less than 5, resulting in a sort of grade inflation, with every driver carrying a 5 rating or just a shade under. My rides were all 5’s anyway; the drivers drove safely and were friendly but not chatty. In general, a driver will only chat if you initiate the conversation. I thought for a moment about rating my rattle-y first ride less than 5, but the owner-driver already knows her car isn’t brand new, so what’s the point.
When you are asked to rate the ride, the app also asks if you want to tip the driver. I prefer to do that in cash rather than through the app. I try to tip enough that they’ll be happy to see me again. The fact is, most Uber riders don’t tip at all, and the drivers don’t expect it. I think when a driver picks up an old guy like me, they expect it even less. They seem surprised when they do get a tip, and genuinely happy if it’s halfway decent.
“A 24-year-old Barnegat man was driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit when he crashed his car in Stafford last month, killing a man in the passenger seat, authorities said.“
Not to blame the victim here, but if you go out riding with somebody that’s drunk, put your damn seatbelt on. That goes for people in the back, too.
