Wiki excerpt: “By making himself the embodiment of virtue and of total commitment, Robespierre took control of the Revolution in its most radical and bloody phase: the Jacobin republic. His goal in the Terror was to use the guillotine to create what he called a “republic of virtue”, wherein virtue would be combined with terror.”

We all recognize that Amy Coney Barrett is going to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, and that a conservative-favoring 6-3 majority means that (a) Roe v. Wade could very well be overturned, (b the Affordable Care Act might very well be overturned, and that (c) the court, God forbid, could very well decide in President Trump‘s favor should the presidential election wind up being contested. Good God and God help us.

So wishin’ and hopin’ that Al Franken was still a U.S. Senator from Minnesota and serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee is a pipe dream because even if he was still in office there would be little material comfort. But let’s dream about it anyway.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats who will presumably grill Barrett are Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Mazie Hirono, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen.Dick Durbin, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Christopher A. Coons and Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

Wiki excerpt: The Blackstone Legal Fellowship and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) are American conservative Christian nonprofit organizations with the stated goal of advocating, training, and funding on the issues of “religious freedom, sanctity of life, and marriage and family”. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the ADF as an anti-LGBTQ hate group. The SPLC has also described the ADF as a “prominent Christian legal powerhouse,” and criticized it for providing “advice to anti-gay bigots in Belize.”

Around 10 am I sat down and began to fiddle around with what I might write today. Plenty out there, just a matter of choosing. I poked, prodded, researched, surfed. After a fruitless two-plus hours I got up, staggered or stumbled into our sun-filled bedroom (mint green + lily lavender) and fell on the bed. I awoke about 85 minutes later. The reason I couldn’t write before, in short, is that my mind wasn’t working all that well due to lack of rest.

Asked by a San Sebastian Film Festival questioner about President Trump‘s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Chicago 7 director-writer Aaron Sorkin suggested a movie ending.

“If I was able to romanticize the whole thing, here’s what would happen,” Sorkin said. “On election night, Donald Trump would do what we all assume he’s going to do, which is not concede defeat, claim that the election was rigged, claim that the Democrats cheated, all of that. The nightmare scenario that’s never happened in this country — we’re very proud of our peaceful transfers of power that have been going on for 240 years.

“However, for the first time since the man was sworn in, Republicans, his enablers, his apologists, march up to the White House and say, ‘Donald, it’s time to go…you will not ruin this country, you will not start a civil war.’ I would write an ending, in short, in which everyone does the right thing.”

HE ending: A smallish group of Republican Congressional Constitutionalists, alarmed at Trump’s post-election recalcitrance, goes mano e mano with a slightly larger group of rightwing Senate and House legislators who know Trump has to leave because he’s lost to Biden, but are afraid to tell him. They don’t want to piss off his base, and they can’t quite muster the cojones to look him in the eye and say “you’re done, Don.”

This leads to a fierce, behind-closed-doors argument, with the fate of the nation hanging in the balance, etc.

Tatiana has been on a Grace Kelly kick for a couple of weeks now. Partly because she’s an admirer of three or four Kelly performances**, but mostly because she’s preparing a short video on the late actress, who was born on 11.12.29 and would be 91 today had she not been killed in a 1982 auto accident.

Today we visited two Los Angeles locations where Kelly lived — a Bel Air hotel suite rented in ’53 or ’54, and a Pacific Palisades home (321 Alma Real) that Kelly rented sometime during ’55 and perhaps into early ’56. (It’s hard to pin this stuff down.)

To make the experience complete, Tatiana wore an outfit similar to the one Kelly wore in the opening scene of Rear Window. We also figured that as long as we were exploring Bel Air bungalows, why not settle in for some vittles?

Probably my favorite photo of the late actress — zero makeup, no glam, no effort to “sell it”

Kelly rented this simple, tree-shaded Spanish-style bungalow sometime in ’55. A hop, skip and a jump away from the mouth of Santa Monica Canyon.

Bel Air hotel, 9.26.20, around 3:55 pm.

In the matter of the 50th anniversary Broadway presentation of Mart Crowley‘s The Boys in the Band, which opened on 4.30.18, the response was “okay, cool, nicely done,” etc.

But the question was “why?” — why revive a play that the gay community began to turn its back on around the debut of William Friedkin‘s film version, which opened in March 1970. That was nine months after the June 1969 Stonewall rebellion, and the sea-change in gay consciousness and values that happened in its wake — pride, solidarity, political militancy — had no room for a rather acidic drama about a group of Manhattan gays gathered at a friend’s birthday party in the West Village, and with three or four consumed by loneliness, misery and self-loathing.

The answer was “uhm, well, it’s a very well written and highly engaging classic play, and where’s the harm in looking back a half-century? Plus we’ll probably do good business.”

In the matter of Joe Mantello’s Netflix feature version of same, costarring all the members of the 2018 revival, the response is “okay, cool…those of us who didn’t catch the 2018 play can sample the wares and once again sink into the whole magilla.”

But the question is “why?” — why make another film version that will naturally be compared to the excellent Freidkin adaptation? Why remake it if it’s not clearly better than the 50-year-old chestnut? Or if you don’t have something new to say in a textural or cultural sense?

I’m mentioning this because Mantello’s film (debuting on 9.30) is good enough or “fine” or whatever kind of “attaboy” you want to apply. I liked it as far as it went, but it’s not as good as the Freidkin version. I’m sorry but it’s not, although it isn’t half bad. The fact of the matter is that the Friedkin is funnier, smoother, more touching, better edited and definitely better performed in terms of the two strongest characters, Emory and Harold.

I’m not dismissing Robin de Jesús‘s Emory in the newbie — he especially catches fire during the telephone confession section — but Cliff Gorman‘s Emory is at least two of three times better. Nobody has ever said or ever will say “sort of makes you want to rush out and buy a slide rule” better than Gorman; ditto “hot cross buns!” and “who do ya have to fuck to get a drink around here?”

And despite the amusing, often riveting performance by Zachary Quinto as Harold, the bitter, acidic “32 year-old pockmarked Jew fairy”, he’s just not the giddy but wicked tongue-snapper that Leonard Frey was in the Friedkin film. Quinto is very good — Frey was great. I’m sorry but that’s how it seems.

Plus I found Frederick Combs‘ performance as the droll Donald somewhat more engaging than Matt Bomer‘s opaque version in the Mantello. And Robert La Tourneaux‘s “Cowboy Tex” definitely outpoints Charlie Carver‘s in the Netflix version. Ditto Peter White‘s closet case (i.e., “Alan McCarthy”) in the Friedkin, who’s a bit more compelling than Brian Hutchison in the newbie.

On the other hand I felt a bit more empathy for Jim Parsons‘ Michael than the overly acidic Kenneth Nelson in the ’70 version. Ditto Tuc Watkins‘ “Hank”, who sinks in a tiny bit deeper than Laurence Luckinbill‘s performance in the Freidkin — both are fine, no fault, no foul. Keith Prentice‘s “Larry” is just as good as Andrew Rannells in the Mantello. And I would rate the two “Bernard” performances — Michael Benjamin Washington in the oldie, Reuben Greene in the Mantello — as roughly the same.

The only added element in the Mantello are some memory vignettes from the telephone confession portion — fleeting images of men whom this and that partygoer has always loved and never forgotten.

Filed on 5.31.13 from Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland: I clench up every time a table of three or four people erupts in loud sustained giggling. Laughter is basically about the releasing of feelings that you’ve kept bottled up for whatever reason. Freeing these suppressed judgements and emotions from the cage is exhilarating — an occasion for pure joy.

I’ve been there a few thousand times in my life, and will hopefully go there again very soon. But it’s over within five or ten seconds, max. And then I settle into “the space.” Because I don’t have that much bottled up to begin with. No healthy person does.

What good are you if you can’t be Zen about things? The Zen guy or the Bhagavad Gita gal lives 24/7 with the hum of the universe animating his/her spirit and zapping every molecule, and therefore he/she doesn’t explode in spazzy giggling fits at breakfast tables…on and on and on, dropping silverware on the floor, getting louder and louder.

It’s not “she knows too much to argue or to judge” — it’s “she knows and feels too much to giggle for 30 or 40 seconds straight.”

The fact is that anyone who succumbs to boorish and sustained giggling fits means they’ve probably got a shitload of bottled-up feelings and rage and bad memories, which obviously indicates they’re living in a fairly conflicted or repressed place, and are therefore probably miserable to some degree, not to mention immature. So if you’re the type of person who giggles in loud, prolonged, hyena-like bursts in a Swiss breakfast room at 8:25 am you’re probably a bit of an asshole. You probably need years of therapy, but if you haven’t done the therapy by now you probably never will.

Does it matter that you’re irritating others with your gales of hideous gaiety? Of course not. Why should it? You’re on your vacation and you worked hard to pay for it and so you can do what you want, whenever you want…right? So you’re a sociopath to boot.

Note: The below video was taken during a forest hike near Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland in late May 2013. Rather than take a late-afternoon train ride from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen I decided to hike up a trail alongside the Lütschine river.

One of the most infectious bass lines in pop music history was performed by Bill Church on Van Morrison‘s “Wild Night” (’71), a track from his fifth studio album, “Tupelo Honey.” Written by Morrison almost 40 years before he became an anti-masker, “Wild Night” was recorded in the spring of ’71 at San Francisco’s Wally Heider studios (245 Hyde Street, between Turk and Eddy). It was released as a single in ’71 and reached #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Reported two days ago: “Basketball legends Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley are facing backlash over their response to the grand jury decision on the Breonna Taylor case.

“I feel just bad the young lady lost her life, but we do have to take into account her boyfriend did shoot at the cops and shot a cop,” Barkley said during pregame coverage of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals Thursday.

HE interjection: White people have not been allowed to say and are currently prohibited from saying what Barkley said. Because if they did, they would be instantly tarred and feathered for spewing toxic racism.

Back to story: “The decision sparked protests and demonstrations across the country. Many NBA players have used their platform to bring attention to Taylor’s case and to amplify calls for change. And yet two days ago, On a grand jury decided not to bring charges against Louisville police for Taylor’s March 13 killing and only three counts of wanton endangerment against fired Officer Brett Hankison for shooting into Taylor’s neighbors’ homes.

“O’Neal, also anchoring the pregame show, agreed with Barkley and argued that while “no-knock warrants” should be abolished, the officers involved were simply following orders.

“A homicide occurred, and we’re sorry a homicide did occur, but if you have a warrant signed by a judge, you are doing your job. And if someone fires at you, I would imagine that you would fire back,” O’Neal said.

Barkley then took a stance against defunding the police. “I’m like, ‘Wait a minute’, he said. ‘Who are black people supposed to call…Ghostbusters? When we have crime in our neighborhoods? We need police reform.”

“Social media reaction came swiftly, with many denouncing the former NBA players’ response.”

Plus: “Not to relitigate old wounds, but all the Hillary equivocators from 2016…the people who said she was racist, not really that different from Trump…the ones who voted third party…the ones who stayed home because, you know, ‘the lesser of two evils’…sorry but you all have to eat it one more time. Because oh, how I would love some of that Hillary evil right now.”

Plus: “Let’s look at the alternative universe if a few more people in 2016 had told themselves, ‘Yes, she’s not my favorite but you only get two choices in our system, and it’s probably better that this sane, competent person gets in as opposed to a malignant narcissist.”

Plus: “I hope you like carrying your rape baby to term. You can name it Jill Stein.”

Friendo: “When will HE be addressing the middling Metacritic score (75%) for The Trial of the Chicago 7, especially given your recent comment that ‘any film with a Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic rating below 80% obviously has an issue or two’?”

HE reply: The Metacritic figure may seem mildly troubling at first, but if you look more closely it’s not so bad. 22 out of 26 reviews (written by Chicago Sun-Times‘ Richard Roeper, Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan, Time‘s Stephanie Zacharek, Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman, the Washington Post‘s Ann Hornaday, TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, USA Today‘s Brian Truitt, The Telegraph‘s Robbie Collin, The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney, the Boston Globe‘s Ty Burr) range from solidly approving to borderline ecstatic. The 75% grade was caused by four lone wolves — the N.Y. Times‘ A.O. Scott, A.V. Club‘s A.A. Dowd, The Film Stage‘s Matt Cipolla and especially The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw, the biggest sorehead of the bunch.

Otherwise the Rotten Tomatoes score for Aaron Sorkin‘s film is 92%, which is excellent.

Is Trial a perfect creation? Maybe not, but even the most widely acclaimed films have met with one or two detractors. It goes like that. The seriously admired Manchester by The Sea, which earned a 96% positive on Metacritic, was panned by The Guardian‘s Lanre Bakare.

I made it fairly clear on 9.22 and again on 9.23 that Aaron Sorkin‘s The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a truly exceptional smarthouse drama — a character-driven procedural that will hook adults of whatever age.

Despite the tumultuous late ’60s milieu it’s not about the usual noise, rage and chaotic energy, but about thought and procedure and agendas laid face-up on the table. It’s about clarity and drillbits and impressive brain-cell counts.

“This is great,” I was muttering to myself. “I love that I’m in the company of some brainy and passionate people who know about honing and sculpting sentences…why can’t more movie characters talk like this?” Possible answer: Because certain producers, directors and screenwriters are afraid that younger audiences will be put off by screenplays that sound “written” — by rhetorical precision and fine argumentative fencing? I for one loved being in this realm.

The endless trial (September ’69 to February ’70) was about a Nixon administration attempt to nail eight anti-establishment activists for activities tied to violent conflicts during the August ’68 Chicago Democratic convention.

Four of the defendants were Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin and activist David Dellinger, respectively played by Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong and John Carroll Lynch. The idea was to convict them for violating the Rap Brown law by crossing state lines in order to incite a riot. In so doing Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell was ignoring a previous assessment by LBJ’s attorney general Ramsey Clark (Michael Keaton), which was that the conflict was primarily provoked by the Chicago police.

The number of defendants was reduced to seven when the attempted prosecution of Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen) was declared a mistrial.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 works because it’s all on the page — because of Sorkin’s shaping and honing — emphasizing and de-emphasizing to achieve a certain focus and tone. And then he assembled a top-tier cast and hired Phedon Papamichael to shoot it without any muss or fuss. Sorkin could’ve made a half-dozen other films about the Chicago 7 trial with all kinds of attitudes and approaches, but he decided to make this one.

The film’s central conflict is not a good guys vs. bad guys thing, but between Hayden and Abbie Hoffman — between their differing approaches to stoking or harnessing the social unrest.

Hayden’s approach was cerebral and sensible — classic political organizing, focused pragmatism, position papers, non-violence. Hoffman was about trusting in theatrical instinct — hippie-yippie tribalism, generational anger and a vaguely understood practice of cultural revolution for the hell of it (i.e., irreverence, impulsiveness, cranked-up emotion).

The Hayden approach dominates, certainly as far as the defense strategy is concerned, but Hoffman’s (and Rubin’s) wise-ass theatricality and flamboyance punches through.

It’s actually a kind of four-way debate by way of defense attorney William Kuntsler (played by the always-good Mark Rylance) and co-attorney Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman).

But the payoff (and it’s a rouser) comes when Kuntsler decides to put Hoffman on the stand, which sets the stage for one of those robust Sorkin-crescendo moments.

In so doing Sorkin has burnished Hoffman’s legacy. As noted last Tuesday, he’s made him into a more charismatic and compelling speaker than Hoffman ever was in actuality. Partly because Cohen was enabled to portray Hoffman in just the right way — a certain physical resemblance, a decent stab at his western Massachusetts accent plus the Sorkin makeover. To hell with the fact that the 6’3″ Cohen is almost a foot taller than the Real McCoy — Cohen blows all such thoughts out of the water.

And what a pleasure it is to watch Eddie Redmayne play a reasonable adult in a recognizable realm — no handicaps, no gender-switches, no Les Misérables, no Jupiter Ascending showboating, no Fantastic Beasts, no helium balloons…just a regular, well-educated guy wearing 20th century clothing.

This is a film about radical ’60s behavior and agendas that actually adds up and makes sense in 21st Century terms. There’s no watching it without considering contemporary echoes. Enough said.