She likes strong, dominant men and you’re too smooth and mushy to qualify. She’s sexier and better looking than you — it would be one thing if you were gym-toned with big broad shoulders to match her large breasts, but you’re not. Plus she’s much more powerful than you (economically, fame-wise) and she’ll soon be punishing you for these shortcomings — trust me. Plus she’ll eventually humiliate you when a more suitable lover comes along. And you’ll never really recover from this. You’ve fucked yourself. If only you’d stayed with Debbie Reynolds…

Born in 1929, legendary TV journalist and probing celebrity interviewer Barbara Walters (aka “Baba Wawa”) has passed at age 93. She bagged so many big-deal, on-camera interviews during her half-century-plus career (many U.S. Presidents, Fidel Castro, Barack Obama, Katharine Hepburn, Monica Lewinsky, Warren Beatty, Vaclav Havel, Boris Yeltsin) that there’s no room to list them all. Not to mention the satirical stamp of Gilda Radner. Not to mention Walters launching of The View in ‘97. Respect for a major influencer & feminist pathfinder.

I’ve only just discovered a YouTube clip of the A&P musical dance sequence that closes Noah Baumbach‘s White Noise. It’s the only portion of the film that really and truly works.

I’ve written about this twice over the preceding two and a half months, but it can’t hurt to re-post. It’s titled “White Noise Finale That Could’ve Been.”

Posted on 10.1.22: “The common consensus is that whatever you may think of Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a dryly farcical ‘80s period drama set in an Ohio college town, the final sequence — an ambitiously choreographed dance sequence featuring shoppers at an A & P supermarket — is the highlight.

“The sequence affirms the film’s basic theme about nearly everyone turning to all kinds of distractions (including food) to avoid contemplating their own mortality.

“Though brilliantly staged, the dance number is undercut by Baumbach’s decision to use it as a closing credits backdrop. Here’s how I put it to a friend:

“The LCD Soundsystem ‘New Body Rhumba’ finale could have been great if Baumbach hadn’t decided to overlay it with closing credits. I almost shouted out loud ‘Oh no!! He’s blowing it!!’

“I’m saying this because once the credits begin we instantly disengage as we tell ourselves okay, the movie’s over so the aisle–dancing is just a colorful bit, a spirit-picker-upper…whatever.’

“If Baumbach hadn’t given us permission to disengage, the dancing could have been wild and mind-blowing in a surreal Luis Bunuel-meets-Pedro Almodovar way. It could have been a mad slash across a wet-paint canvas…a Gene Kelly consumer-orgy crescendo.

“And then it could have segued into a closing credit crawl. Alas…”

I just want it known that I caught Bette Midler‘s “The Divine Miss M” show at the Berkeley Community Theatre (1930 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94704) on Saturday, 9.29.73.

Terry Anzur’s review appeared the following Tuesday (10.2.73) in The Stanford Daily.

My group included ex-girlfriend Sherry McCoy, her sister Donna and three or four pallies who shared a place on San Francisco’s Russian Hill. Tons of gay guys dressed in drag…quite the colorful community. And the crowd roared when Midler, carrying a pair of pink feather boas, ran out to ecstatic applause. Her opening number was “Friends.”

After the show we all went to the backstage door to watch Bette come out and sign autographs. Her hair was tied up in a bun (or she didn’t have the red wig on…whatever), and when she came out and waved ‘hi’ to the onlookers, Donna said “who’s that?” My eyes rolled into my forehead.