So, there’s this club in Hollywood, just up from the famous Hollywood and Vine, on Franklin Avenue. The Magic Castle. A very exclusive club. Members only, and their guests (I’ve been fortunate to get entry as a guest three times). Membership is limited to Magicians. And the test for membership is to get up on their stage and perform an act of magic that everyone in the audience knows how to do, knows what to look for, won’t be distracted by your patter or any of the other stage tricks to distract the audience so “magic can happen.”
We just finished watching on Netflix all 51 episodes of “Servant of the People” starring one Volodomyr Zelensky. I can’t get enough of that guy. The show is prophetic and possibly the cleverest and longest campaign ad ever made.
Ukraine elects a comedian and actor as president and ends up with a world class leader who meets the moment. We managed to get a dismal joker installed in the White House in 2016 and nothing is funny anymore.
I've enjoyed the episodes I've seen and will watch the whole thing this coming week. my oft-maligned upstairs neighbor watched it with his parents in Italy and it only confirmed his existing prejudice that Zelenskyy isn't really a good guy (probably because he was successful and made good money) and public outrage against Putin is nothing but old-time Russophobia. but he's an idiot.
I cited his opinion to illustrate the point I keep making about how impervious to reality the right-wing scumbags are.
I mini-binge-finished the series last year. Meaning I watched multiple episodes at one sitting. Almost like eating only one of those chips. Impossible. In addition to Zelensky's comical, satirical writing, I was captured by the portrayal of people and places and the workings of Ukraine. Highly recommend.
I've never been a big fan of horror stories - read & watched many of Stephen Kings and at one time read a lot of Dean Koontz. Loved The Dark Wind - waiting eagerly for 2nd season. I will go back & watch the Mayfair Witches & the PBS show. Thanks for the recommendations. PBS has some good shows - like the older ones - like the one with John Cleese - cant remember the name of it but hes good whatever he does. And As Time goes by with Judy Dench. More than once! Likely not your cup of tea, but then how dull would it be if we all liked the same thing!
The very best show (in my opinion) is All Creatures Great & Small on PBS. I think this is the third version & somehow - each one is super - actors so believable - actions with the animals the same. Just watched Episode 2 of Season 3.
The other series I mentioned wasnt with Judy Dench, but with John Cleese - not Fawlty Towers - it was about an older couple moving in together - & the issues with her son - a real twit. Cant remember the name of it but it was on PBS before they started running As Time goes by a few months ago, I think. My memory works in fits & starts!
Thanks, TC. Always learn something from your insights.
I like Miss Scarlet and the Duke but , like Pat, I am getting tired of the on-and off- boil of their personal relationship-- though, getting away from presentism, her ambivalence may be from walking the tight rope of trying to prove herself, by herself, in a man's world! (really, not much has changed!)
I am personally not drawn to horror and I cannot read Stephen King. I know he is excellent and succesful. My imagination is such that, if just reading him gives me nightmares, visual would do me in! I take your point about the "why" of horror but the daily news already scares me half to death. It is full of mayhem, nightly murder, psychopaths, sociopaths, ghoulish neighbors, secret trafficking, financial sleight of hand, dismembered spouses, snatched and disappeared children, the paranormal, the abnormal and lost people wandering the streets seeing their own visions. And, in between, like last night, I stand on my porch and see large containers of flammatory fuel hurled into the night sky heading for an orbital track where another 50 satellites will fan out to add to a communication ring around our earth-- a great idea? or a "shock collar"?
The horror, I am afraid, is reality.
What I need now is a good literary laugh which, I am told by my King-enthusiast sister, King tries to include in an ironic kind of way. But, for me, not nearly enough to outweigh the other stuff.
btw...Banshees film. Being Irish by background and having lived in Dublin for 10 years in the 90's, I saw the film with a native born Irish friend. We agreed....it is allegory. But reviewers took it literally.
For me, the key is that on the mainland the Civil War was going on; on the island all the complexity of the Irish culture underneath that war was being played out. It is not a comedy, though there are amusing bits like the old guys in the pub. It is not just a single friendship gone bad and mad ( the overly gory finger thing). It is all the Irish historical and cultural stuff swirling around on that little island, the micro of the larger one!
Most reviewers took it at face value and played up the friendship gone wrong idea-- but for the rhyme and reason one has to go deeper and you have to know some of the "code" that unlocks it.
It is too easy to get lost in the bloody insanity and miss the rest--that, in itself, is a commentary!
I completely agree. the tipoff to me is the period in which it's set, so the characters are removed from historical events physically but can't avoid the insanity of that Civil War.
a friend I watched it with made another more down-to-earth point by talking about a mutual friend who spends half the year on the spectacularly beautiful Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine (so remote there are no cars allowed). the crazy interpersonal stuff that goes on there is incredibly intense and by now, most of the summer people (there are very few people who live there all year round) have completely stopped talking to each other.
I don't like horror. But I LOVE Stephen King when he's writing non-horror. Which alas, isn't very often.
The first I read of his was 11/22/1963--soon after it came out. I wanted a story where Kennedy lives. I wanted to see how King handled the time travel. And I'm still amazed with how he can make Maine seem like a really creepy place.
I read this book three times. And then November 8, 2016 happened, and I had to distract myself, so I read it again. It's great nostalgia for the time of my youth (I was 10 when JFK was assassinated). It has great romance--and an incredibly romantic ending, which King's son, Joe Hill wrote, when King couldn't quite figure out how to end it. And King bent over backwards to make the history as accurate as possible. A relative of a friend of mine--the woman who got Oswald the job in the book depository--makes a brief appearance. To be sure, King uses horror here and there in the book, but it's a tool. 11/22/1963 is not a horror book.
The time travel involved a worm hole in the diner that inevitably brought the time traveler to a specific day in September 1958, and you could return to the present via that wormhole. If you wanted to undue the changes you'd made to the past, you had to then go back in time again, which would automatically cause the reset.
King also did a great article in the NYer about when he got hit by a van and laid up for considerable time, and his book on writing is terrific. If you want to write a novel, and you're not quite sure how to approach it, get King's On Writing.
I did read two thirds of one of his horror books before putting it down. I can't remember the name of it, but I didn't think it was very good. One of the things that's so good about 11/22/1963 is the characters. I wanted to hang out with them. I wanted to go teach in the small town Texas school where the hero got a teaching job to have something to do while waiting out the years until 11/22/1963, because the people there were such nice characters.
None of the characters in the horror book I read had that effect on me.
Thank you. Love the PBS series.... Will be staying away from the horror shows. Never been able to tolerate scary/horror shows. Scary enough living life at times
I avoid stuff about zombies because it feels disloyal to vampires. I read "Dracula" when I was about ten and shouldn't have. that, combined with Christopher Lee in "Horror of Dracula" deprived me of enough sleep that I feel like I owe something to the whole vampire concept, if that makes any sense.
Thanks for the recommendations TC. I’m hanging out tonight with Turtle. Trying to get her antibiotics and pain med down. She’s not having any of it. Obviously I’m much better at administering meds to humans. So I’ve just mixed them with some food and waiting for her to decide to eat. So now I have several options to watch. Most appreciated!
I'm assuming Turtle is your cat Karen, and that you've been given pills to administer? If so there are steps to learning how. It's a matter of using their reflexes to your advantage. I can't really explain it, but this guy does (and he's a vet)... https://youtu.be/WnikCuQtFOw
The bit about stopping the cat from backing and holding the jaw up while rubbing the throat are spot on. Need to have collar of shame off while doing it. The whole process becomes very easy once you get the hang of it, like riding a bicycle.
Thank you Vague Craig! The video is helpful. I have many cats and typically have no problem giving them meds. But sweet gentle Turtle turned into wildcat after major abdominal surgery and sepsis. She’s pretty much had it. Hopefully as she calms down it will be easier.
I've always had good luck pilling dogs, but I've never succeeded with a cat. it feels like they REALLY hate it. and their canines (can cats have "canines"'s or are they just "fangs?") can really hurt.
finally, when I was trying to medicate the cat, I figured out the syringe thing. dissolve the pill in water and the syringe I used was the one that came in some kind of fountain pen flushing system I bought years ago. but there are medicine syringes available in any decent drug store as well.
Sorry for the difficulties with Turtle. Smurfie was fairly easy to medicate with a syringe, but I think that might have been because she was so vulnerable from being moved from her home then to the shelter then here. Might be a different story now. She kind of panicky about being picked up - likes to lap & be with me but picking her up? no. Have to quit now - shes being just a bit too helpful - keyboard & mouse wise!
I’ve been wondering lately why there are so many horror shows and movies, and you gave me the answer, “Horror stories are popular because they allow us to spend a couple hours subliminally confronting all the things that scare us in the daylight (and there are plenty of them) and see the scary things conquered. They’re valuable for that.” Between the GOPig takeover of the House, book banning on a broad scale (I’m a retired school librarian), putin’s tantrum-driven destruction of Ukraine, and what’s happening with COVID in China, the world seems pretty horrible. Maybe no more horrible than ever, but it’s what we’re living thru now. And my best beloved husband of 46yrs is a dt loyalist, so... Thank you so much, TC, for your work here. Peace and blessings on you and yours.
That's why there were all the "monster movies" in the 50s. I highly recommend a very funny movie, "Matinee," starring John Goodman as a movie producer who is based on William Castle (who really did come up with "the tingler") who shows up in Key West, Florida the week of he Cuban Missile Crisis to premiere his latest teen horror flick, "Mant" (Half man! Half ant! All terror!) it's a love letter to those movies.
those fifties horror movies are all so bad, they form their own sub-genre. remember how all the giant insects, etc. were supposed to have been the result of nuclear testing? I figure that Cold War paranoia was behind these movies at least as much as any other single thing.
those 'physical gimmick" movies were something else completely. I remember "Matinee" very well and the funniest thing about it is the fact that it's pretty much how that shit worked, without exaggeration. the crazy thing is that a few days ago, I was reminiscing with a friend about this exact thing. synchronicity!
"The Tingler" promised unlimited terror, but turned out to be windup toys that crept slowly down the aisles. but it was a technological compared with the preceding William Castle gimmick in "The House on Haunted Hill." that one featured a not-quite-life-size plastic skeleton connected to a "pully system" (actually, it was basically nothing more than a clothesline). the skeleton was "hidden " in a crappy little box just under the screen on the right-hand side of the auditorium and when a character was supposed to come across a "live" skeleton, the box opened and this skeleton very slowly moved on this clothesline about --I don't really exactly remember--twenty or so feet before it finished its half-circle and returned to the little box . then the box closed. end of story. I think the newspapers had advertised a money-back GUARANTEE if you weren't scared halfway to death. can you imagine trying to get that refund?
thing is, when that movie came out, I think the price of a kid's ticket was half a buck or so, if that.
I was particularly upset by "The Day the World Ended" because of that man-sized walking monster with tiny little arms. at the movie's "climax," the whole thing is explained (nuclear testing, dontcha know) and the horrible creature is identified as a freak chipmunk.
and finally...was it here that people were naming favorite antiwar records from the Vietnam Era or the Lucian Truscott Substack? sometimes it's hard to keep track. but I wanted to recommend a compilation that came out about twenty years or so ago called "A Soldier's Sad Story: Vietnam Through the Eyes of Black America 1966-73." there are some really great records here, and most of them I'd never heard before. I guess that even if you were listening to the available Black stations, those stations would have been pretty careful about not shooting themselves in the foot, as it were.
remember when Eartha Kitt was invited to the White House and got in LBJ's face about the war? a classic early case of "cancellation."
"The Tingler" was that business with wiring the seats that Goodman's character does in "Matinee." A direct lift from William Castle. When my dad was running a radar technician school for the Navy during the war, they did the tingler - wired the seats in the auditorium. They gave a lecture on the electron, which no one could see, and then to prove it's existence they told everyone to join hands and they tuned on the juice - everyone was quivering and then when someone finally let go and broke the circuit, everyone got a zap. And when they had collected themselves, dad would tell them "Gentlemen, you now understand the power of the electron."
that's pretty cool. and do you remember the two failed technologies "AromaRama" and "Smell-O-Vision?" they were virtually opposed techniques. "AromaRama" pumped smells into the circulating air in the auditorium, while 'Smell-O-Vision" pumped the smells into pipes in the individual seats. obviously, the former was cheaper to accomplish than the lartter, but everyone I talked to who'd actually gone to the Times Square First-Run, Reserved Seat (yep) movie palaces that featured these technologies told me that everything smelled like Pine-Sol.
two neurological traits I inherited from my mother are a fine tremor in my hands and the pretty radical lack of a sense of smell. the first is just a drag, the second is a mixed blessing because for some reason, there's a day or two every year on which I wake up with a pretty normal sense of smell, and I experience it as pretty much a drag. so both of these smell technologies would have been completely lost on me.
I duf the hell out of the "Dirty Bag" series (too lazy to back up and get the exact title right). it's one of the first times the Brits have gotten a Western right. Dominick Cooper is a big National Theatre guy over there and he's having a good time. another Western I've watched twice and really love is "Godless," which came out four or five years ago on Netflix (have I recommended this before?). it's designed sort of like a feminist Peckinpah thing with some of "Deadwood"s emphasis on community. I think Scott Frank can really write and Jeff Daniels was very smart to take the villain's part because it's so much NOT the way most people think of him. last night, I saw the second half of "Litvinenko," which is a very well-made English docu-drama with excellent production values.
with your wealth of screenwriting experience, I bet you have some very strong feelings about the way the Guild decides who gets credit for what. how would you change it? I probably shouldn't ask here because I'm pretty sure your answers are going to be complicated. screenwriting is something I haven't done but always wanted to do. I did manage two plays (including the book to a musical I did with my often-mentioned best friend in the late '70s), but changed professions and let the dream go. I did once write a long letter to David Milch asking for a job because the quality of the writing in "Deadwood" was such a knockout. if it actually got to him, he was obviously not interested. what's happening to him is horrifying...I saw him do an interview with Maria Shriver (who's obviously a moron, asking questions like "would you say you have an active imagination?") when his book came out. it was very, very painful to watch.
a book came out a few years back called "Difficult Men," about the guys who started the Great Cable Series thing. a lot of guys named David. the only one who comes across as genuinely supportive and kind is your friend Vince Gilligan (his chapter is called something like "The Happiest Room in Hollywood"). working with Milch sounds like it was a nightmare. and actually, David Simon comes across as an okay guy. maybe.
Vince is definitely a genuinely nice guy - what you see in interviews is what you get in person. He's got a big Apple deal now with Rhea Seehorn about something or other.
I didnt recognize the name David Milch but obviously watched lots of what he was responsible for - looked on his wikipedia page -- the health issues were many and then Alzheimers - really tough end to his career. Very talented. Going to look for the Shriver interview!
Lots of information David - thank you. And not politics!!!!!
In a town full of bounty hunters, bandits and bloody vendettas, Arthur McCoy is the incorruptible sheriff who’s trying to overcome his troubled past to bring law and order to this new frontier. On the other side of things is Red Bill, an infamous solitary bounty hunter known for decapitating his victims and stuffing their heads into a dirty black bag. When the paths of these two men collide, they both learn that in the wild west, there are no heroes, nobody is invincible, and the predators may become the prey
We've been enjoying Miss Scarlet and the Duke, too! I love her gutsy attitude and ability to show the menfolk just what a woman is capable of. On the other hand, I'm less pleased with the predictable "he likes her when she doesn't like him, she likes him when he finally gives up on her, will they ever get together" piece, yet I love the series enough to completely fall for it and root for them both.
I’m looking forward to watching Mayfair Witches as I read everything Rice wrote up to her nutty phase. Her book, “Cry To Heaven” remains in my mind as one of her best writings. I may have to dig it out to remember why. Her turn of phrase is beautiful. Thanks for the recommendations. I am curious though- what was the “tell” of the guru?
He was telling one of us to write down the serial numbers of the $20 bills he was "manifesting" from his wallet ("so I can send them back where they came from"). I watched his hands while the others concentrated on following instructions (and were thus distracted) and saw the bills inside the wallet as he "popped them out."
I also dug the shit out of "Cry to Heaven." it'd make a really good old-fashioned swashbuckler and the whole castrato thing might actually make it sort of trendy.
Thanks Tom for the viewing recommendations. I lived in Southern California for 29 years, now living with a younger sister in Calgary,despite the current storms, I really miss it. A group of us had a wonderful evening at the Magic Castle. When I told another friend who grew up in LA about it, she told me about being there many times as a teenager! You are an engaging writer. Thank you.
Can't wait for the series as well! My daughter loves horror films, so I'll pass those onto her! I may try one but I'm not sure... but thanks so much for all these recommendations!
Your life is so fascinating! The whole story about the 'Magic Club'! I never even knew that such a place existed!
My favorite Tony Hillerman book was his autobiography, and although I'm not usually a big autobiography reader, probably two of my favorite all time hundred books includes two. Anyway, if you haven't read that one, it has charming little stories embedded in it, no rabbit since it's an autobiography from an honest guy, and a really compelling description of being a foot soldier at war.
We just finished watching on Netflix all 51 episodes of “Servant of the People” starring one Volodomyr Zelensky. I can’t get enough of that guy. The show is prophetic and possibly the cleverest and longest campaign ad ever made.
Ukraine elects a comedian and actor as president and ends up with a world class leader who meets the moment. We managed to get a dismal joker installed in the White House in 2016 and nothing is funny anymore.
I've enjoyed the episodes I've seen and will watch the whole thing this coming week. my oft-maligned upstairs neighbor watched it with his parents in Italy and it only confirmed his existing prejudice that Zelenskyy isn't really a good guy (probably because he was successful and made good money) and public outrage against Putin is nothing but old-time Russophobia. but he's an idiot.
I cited his opinion to illustrate the point I keep making about how impervious to reality the right-wing scumbags are.
😄😄😄
I mini-binge-finished the series last year. Meaning I watched multiple episodes at one sitting. Almost like eating only one of those chips. Impossible. In addition to Zelensky's comical, satirical writing, I was captured by the portrayal of people and places and the workings of Ukraine. Highly recommend.
Didn't think they were still on. Watched the first 15 right before Zelensky started appearing in camouflage on the news.
I've never been a big fan of horror stories - read & watched many of Stephen Kings and at one time read a lot of Dean Koontz. Loved The Dark Wind - waiting eagerly for 2nd season. I will go back & watch the Mayfair Witches & the PBS show. Thanks for the recommendations. PBS has some good shows - like the older ones - like the one with John Cleese - cant remember the name of it but hes good whatever he does. And As Time goes by with Judy Dench. More than once! Likely not your cup of tea, but then how dull would it be if we all liked the same thing!
I LOVE "As Time Goes By"! Did you see the episode where he tried to go back to building a model ship he'd wanted as a kid?
Yes I did - more than once!! Love the characters - flaws & all. Its just kind of comfortable to watch.
The very best show (in my opinion) is All Creatures Great & Small on PBS. I think this is the third version & somehow - each one is super - actors so believable - actions with the animals the same. Just watched Episode 2 of Season 3.
Thats MY recommendation!
love it. and what's the title of the OTHER Judi Dench series?
"Fawlty Towers?"
The other series I mentioned wasnt with Judy Dench, but with John Cleese - not Fawlty Towers - it was about an older couple moving in together - & the issues with her son - a real twit. Cant remember the name of it but it was on PBS before they started running As Time goes by a few months ago, I think. My memory works in fits & starts!
Thanks, TC. Always learn something from your insights.
I like Miss Scarlet and the Duke but , like Pat, I am getting tired of the on-and off- boil of their personal relationship-- though, getting away from presentism, her ambivalence may be from walking the tight rope of trying to prove herself, by herself, in a man's world! (really, not much has changed!)
I am personally not drawn to horror and I cannot read Stephen King. I know he is excellent and succesful. My imagination is such that, if just reading him gives me nightmares, visual would do me in! I take your point about the "why" of horror but the daily news already scares me half to death. It is full of mayhem, nightly murder, psychopaths, sociopaths, ghoulish neighbors, secret trafficking, financial sleight of hand, dismembered spouses, snatched and disappeared children, the paranormal, the abnormal and lost people wandering the streets seeing their own visions. And, in between, like last night, I stand on my porch and see large containers of flammatory fuel hurled into the night sky heading for an orbital track where another 50 satellites will fan out to add to a communication ring around our earth-- a great idea? or a "shock collar"?
The horror, I am afraid, is reality.
What I need now is a good literary laugh which, I am told by my King-enthusiast sister, King tries to include in an ironic kind of way. But, for me, not nearly enough to outweigh the other stuff.
btw...Banshees film. Being Irish by background and having lived in Dublin for 10 years in the 90's, I saw the film with a native born Irish friend. We agreed....it is allegory. But reviewers took it literally.
For me, the key is that on the mainland the Civil War was going on; on the island all the complexity of the Irish culture underneath that war was being played out. It is not a comedy, though there are amusing bits like the old guys in the pub. It is not just a single friendship gone bad and mad ( the overly gory finger thing). It is all the Irish historical and cultural stuff swirling around on that little island, the micro of the larger one!
Most reviewers took it at face value and played up the friendship gone wrong idea-- but for the rhyme and reason one has to go deeper and you have to know some of the "code" that unlocks it.
It is too easy to get lost in the bloody insanity and miss the rest--that, in itself, is a commentary!
Thank you! The movie makes more sense to me now.
I completely agree. the tipoff to me is the period in which it's set, so the characters are removed from historical events physically but can't avoid the insanity of that Civil War.
a friend I watched it with made another more down-to-earth point by talking about a mutual friend who spends half the year on the spectacularly beautiful Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine (so remote there are no cars allowed). the crazy interpersonal stuff that goes on there is incredibly intense and by now, most of the summer people (there are very few people who live there all year round) have completely stopped talking to each other.
Hilarious!Yes, islands can be so insular and insulating!! Thanks!
yeah...that's what I was talking about.
I don't like horror. But I LOVE Stephen King when he's writing non-horror. Which alas, isn't very often.
The first I read of his was 11/22/1963--soon after it came out. I wanted a story where Kennedy lives. I wanted to see how King handled the time travel. And I'm still amazed with how he can make Maine seem like a really creepy place.
I read this book three times. And then November 8, 2016 happened, and I had to distract myself, so I read it again. It's great nostalgia for the time of my youth (I was 10 when JFK was assassinated). It has great romance--and an incredibly romantic ending, which King's son, Joe Hill wrote, when King couldn't quite figure out how to end it. And King bent over backwards to make the history as accurate as possible. A relative of a friend of mine--the woman who got Oswald the job in the book depository--makes a brief appearance. To be sure, King uses horror here and there in the book, but it's a tool. 11/22/1963 is not a horror book.
The time travel involved a worm hole in the diner that inevitably brought the time traveler to a specific day in September 1958, and you could return to the present via that wormhole. If you wanted to undue the changes you'd made to the past, you had to then go back in time again, which would automatically cause the reset.
King also did a great article in the NYer about when he got hit by a van and laid up for considerable time, and his book on writing is terrific. If you want to write a novel, and you're not quite sure how to approach it, get King's On Writing.
I did read two thirds of one of his horror books before putting it down. I can't remember the name of it, but I didn't think it was very good. One of the things that's so good about 11/22/1963 is the characters. I wanted to hang out with them. I wanted to go teach in the small town Texas school where the hero got a teaching job to have something to do while waiting out the years until 11/22/1963, because the people there were such nice characters.
None of the characters in the horror book I read had that effect on me.
The book on writing is superb. "The best monsters have their fur on the inside."
Thank you. Love the PBS series.... Will be staying away from the horror shows. Never been able to tolerate scary/horror shows. Scary enough living life at times
Miss Scarlet is about as scary as I can get.
I avoid stuff about zombies because it feels disloyal to vampires. I read "Dracula" when I was about ten and shouldn't have. that, combined with Christopher Lee in "Horror of Dracula" deprived me of enough sleep that I feel like I owe something to the whole vampire concept, if that makes any sense.
Me, too.
Thanks for the recommendations TC. I’m hanging out tonight with Turtle. Trying to get her antibiotics and pain med down. She’s not having any of it. Obviously I’m much better at administering meds to humans. So I’ve just mixed them with some food and waiting for her to decide to eat. So now I have several options to watch. Most appreciated!
I'm assuming Turtle is your cat Karen, and that you've been given pills to administer? If so there are steps to learning how. It's a matter of using their reflexes to your advantage. I can't really explain it, but this guy does (and he's a vet)... https://youtu.be/WnikCuQtFOw
The bit about stopping the cat from backing and holding the jaw up while rubbing the throat are spot on. Need to have collar of shame off while doing it. The whole process becomes very easy once you get the hang of it, like riding a bicycle.
Thank you Vague Craig! The video is helpful. I have many cats and typically have no problem giving them meds. But sweet gentle Turtle turned into wildcat after major abdominal surgery and sepsis. She’s pretty much had it. Hopefully as she calms down it will be easier.
Wish I had known this years ago
I've always had good luck pilling dogs, but I've never succeeded with a cat. it feels like they REALLY hate it. and their canines (can cats have "canines"'s or are they just "fangs?") can really hurt.
We were lucky today and they were able to switch to liquid antibiotics. Syringe to mouth is much easier on both of us.
finally, when I was trying to medicate the cat, I figured out the syringe thing. dissolve the pill in water and the syringe I used was the one that came in some kind of fountain pen flushing system I bought years ago. but there are medicine syringes available in any decent drug store as well.
Sorry for the difficulties with Turtle. Smurfie was fairly easy to medicate with a syringe, but I think that might have been because she was so vulnerable from being moved from her home then to the shelter then here. Might be a different story now. She kind of panicky about being picked up - likes to lap & be with me but picking her up? no. Have to quit now - shes being just a bit too helpful - keyboard & mouse wise!
Hope Turtle feels better soon.
I’ve been wondering lately why there are so many horror shows and movies, and you gave me the answer, “Horror stories are popular because they allow us to spend a couple hours subliminally confronting all the things that scare us in the daylight (and there are plenty of them) and see the scary things conquered. They’re valuable for that.” Between the GOPig takeover of the House, book banning on a broad scale (I’m a retired school librarian), putin’s tantrum-driven destruction of Ukraine, and what’s happening with COVID in China, the world seems pretty horrible. Maybe no more horrible than ever, but it’s what we’re living thru now. And my best beloved husband of 46yrs is a dt loyalist, so... Thank you so much, TC, for your work here. Peace and blessings on you and yours.
That's why there were all the "monster movies" in the 50s. I highly recommend a very funny movie, "Matinee," starring John Goodman as a movie producer who is based on William Castle (who really did come up with "the tingler") who shows up in Key West, Florida the week of he Cuban Missile Crisis to premiere his latest teen horror flick, "Mant" (Half man! Half ant! All terror!) it's a love letter to those movies.
those fifties horror movies are all so bad, they form their own sub-genre. remember how all the giant insects, etc. were supposed to have been the result of nuclear testing? I figure that Cold War paranoia was behind these movies at least as much as any other single thing.
those 'physical gimmick" movies were something else completely. I remember "Matinee" very well and the funniest thing about it is the fact that it's pretty much how that shit worked, without exaggeration. the crazy thing is that a few days ago, I was reminiscing with a friend about this exact thing. synchronicity!
"The Tingler" promised unlimited terror, but turned out to be windup toys that crept slowly down the aisles. but it was a technological compared with the preceding William Castle gimmick in "The House on Haunted Hill." that one featured a not-quite-life-size plastic skeleton connected to a "pully system" (actually, it was basically nothing more than a clothesline). the skeleton was "hidden " in a crappy little box just under the screen on the right-hand side of the auditorium and when a character was supposed to come across a "live" skeleton, the box opened and this skeleton very slowly moved on this clothesline about --I don't really exactly remember--twenty or so feet before it finished its half-circle and returned to the little box . then the box closed. end of story. I think the newspapers had advertised a money-back GUARANTEE if you weren't scared halfway to death. can you imagine trying to get that refund?
thing is, when that movie came out, I think the price of a kid's ticket was half a buck or so, if that.
I was particularly upset by "The Day the World Ended" because of that man-sized walking monster with tiny little arms. at the movie's "climax," the whole thing is explained (nuclear testing, dontcha know) and the horrible creature is identified as a freak chipmunk.
and finally...was it here that people were naming favorite antiwar records from the Vietnam Era or the Lucian Truscott Substack? sometimes it's hard to keep track. but I wanted to recommend a compilation that came out about twenty years or so ago called "A Soldier's Sad Story: Vietnam Through the Eyes of Black America 1966-73." there are some really great records here, and most of them I'd never heard before. I guess that even if you were listening to the available Black stations, those stations would have been pretty careful about not shooting themselves in the foot, as it were.
remember when Eartha Kitt was invited to the White House and got in LBJ's face about the war? a classic early case of "cancellation."
"The Tingler" was that business with wiring the seats that Goodman's character does in "Matinee." A direct lift from William Castle. When my dad was running a radar technician school for the Navy during the war, they did the tingler - wired the seats in the auditorium. They gave a lecture on the electron, which no one could see, and then to prove it's existence they told everyone to join hands and they tuned on the juice - everyone was quivering and then when someone finally let go and broke the circuit, everyone got a zap. And when they had collected themselves, dad would tell them "Gentlemen, you now understand the power of the electron."
that's pretty cool. and do you remember the two failed technologies "AromaRama" and "Smell-O-Vision?" they were virtually opposed techniques. "AromaRama" pumped smells into the circulating air in the auditorium, while 'Smell-O-Vision" pumped the smells into pipes in the individual seats. obviously, the former was cheaper to accomplish than the lartter, but everyone I talked to who'd actually gone to the Times Square First-Run, Reserved Seat (yep) movie palaces that featured these technologies told me that everything smelled like Pine-Sol.
two neurological traits I inherited from my mother are a fine tremor in my hands and the pretty radical lack of a sense of smell. the first is just a drag, the second is a mixed blessing because for some reason, there's a day or two every year on which I wake up with a pretty normal sense of smell, and I experience it as pretty much a drag. so both of these smell technologies would have been completely lost on me.
Horror movies resolve, unlike the ongoing pulsimanious show that is today's political serial.
I duf the hell out of the "Dirty Bag" series (too lazy to back up and get the exact title right). it's one of the first times the Brits have gotten a Western right. Dominick Cooper is a big National Theatre guy over there and he's having a good time. another Western I've watched twice and really love is "Godless," which came out four or five years ago on Netflix (have I recommended this before?). it's designed sort of like a feminist Peckinpah thing with some of "Deadwood"s emphasis on community. I think Scott Frank can really write and Jeff Daniels was very smart to take the villain's part because it's so much NOT the way most people think of him. last night, I saw the second half of "Litvinenko," which is a very well-made English docu-drama with excellent production values.
with your wealth of screenwriting experience, I bet you have some very strong feelings about the way the Guild decides who gets credit for what. how would you change it? I probably shouldn't ask here because I'm pretty sure your answers are going to be complicated. screenwriting is something I haven't done but always wanted to do. I did manage two plays (including the book to a musical I did with my often-mentioned best friend in the late '70s), but changed professions and let the dream go. I did once write a long letter to David Milch asking for a job because the quality of the writing in "Deadwood" was such a knockout. if it actually got to him, he was obviously not interested. what's happening to him is horrifying...I saw him do an interview with Maria Shriver (who's obviously a moron, asking questions like "would you say you have an active imagination?") when his book came out. it was very, very painful to watch.
a book came out a few years back called "Difficult Men," about the guys who started the Great Cable Series thing. a lot of guys named David. the only one who comes across as genuinely supportive and kind is your friend Vince Gilligan (his chapter is called something like "The Happiest Room in Hollywood"). working with Milch sounds like it was a nightmare. and actually, David Simon comes across as an okay guy. maybe.
Vince is definitely a genuinely nice guy - what you see in interviews is what you get in person. He's got a big Apple deal now with Rhea Seehorn about something or other.
....which he obviously richly deserves.
I didnt recognize the name David Milch but obviously watched lots of what he was responsible for - looked on his wikipedia page -- the health issues were many and then Alzheimers - really tough end to his career. Very talented. Going to look for the Shriver interview!
Lots of information David - thank you. And not politics!!!!!
Is this the Western trailer that you saw?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7809420/
That's it!
It's an Italian Spaghetti Western - Premise:
In a town full of bounty hunters, bandits and bloody vendettas, Arthur McCoy is the incorruptible sheriff who’s trying to overcome his troubled past to bring law and order to this new frontier. On the other side of things is Red Bill, an infamous solitary bounty hunter known for decapitating his victims and stuffing their heads into a dirty black bag. When the paths of these two men collide, they both learn that in the wild west, there are no heroes, nobody is invincible, and the predators may become the prey
Too bad Morricone wasn't around for this.
We've been enjoying Miss Scarlet and the Duke, too! I love her gutsy attitude and ability to show the menfolk just what a woman is capable of. On the other hand, I'm less pleased with the predictable "he likes her when she doesn't like him, she likes him when he finally gives up on her, will they ever get together" piece, yet I love the series enough to completely fall for it and root for them both.
I’m looking forward to watching Mayfair Witches as I read everything Rice wrote up to her nutty phase. Her book, “Cry To Heaven” remains in my mind as one of her best writings. I may have to dig it out to remember why. Her turn of phrase is beautiful. Thanks for the recommendations. I am curious though- what was the “tell” of the guru?
Mayfair Witches is on already - last night was Episode 2 but you can catch them on streaming.
"I am curious though..." Me, too! "...what was the “tell” of the guru?"
He was telling one of us to write down the serial numbers of the $20 bills he was "manifesting" from his wallet ("so I can send them back where they came from"). I watched his hands while the others concentrated on following instructions (and were thus distracted) and saw the bills inside the wallet as he "popped them out."
I also dug the shit out of "Cry to Heaven." it'd make a really good old-fashioned swashbuckler and the whole castrato thing might actually make it sort of trendy.
hmmmm.....
🤣🤣👏👏
Thanks for the reviews TC! LOVE Miss Scarlet and anything Tony Hillerman.
Thanks Tom for the viewing recommendations. I lived in Southern California for 29 years, now living with a younger sister in Calgary,despite the current storms, I really miss it. A group of us had a wonderful evening at the Magic Castle. When I told another friend who grew up in LA about it, she told me about being there many times as a teenager! You are an engaging writer. Thank you.
I used up my tolerance for horror with Lovecraft and The Twilight Zone but will definitely watch Miss Scarlett. Thanks TC.
Can't wait for the series as well! My daughter loves horror films, so I'll pass those onto her! I may try one but I'm not sure... but thanks so much for all these recommendations!
Your life is so fascinating! The whole story about the 'Magic Club'! I never even knew that such a place existed!
My favorite Tony Hillerman book was his autobiography, and although I'm not usually a big autobiography reader, probably two of my favorite all time hundred books includes two. Anyway, if you haven't read that one, it has charming little stories embedded in it, no rabbit since it's an autobiography from an honest guy, and a really compelling description of being a foot soldier at war.