Update: For some idiotic reason there was no Amazon Kindle purchase option earlier this morning, but now there is. So I bought the Kindle version and cancelled the Barnes & Noble hardback.
Allen on Hachette’s decision to not publish “Apropos of Nothing“, included in a postscript: “Hachette read the book and loved it and despite me being a toxic pariah and menace to society, they vowed to stand firm should things hit the fan. When actual flak did arrive they thoughtfully reassessed their position, concluding that perhaps courage was not the virtue it was cracked up to be and there was a lot to be said for cowering.”
Dr. Jerome Adams, speaking this morning on Today: “I want America to understand. This week, it’s going to get bad. We really need to come together as a nation. You’re seeing young people out in beaches. Here in DC, the district set up a cam to watch the cherry blossoms. You look on the cam and you see more people than cherry blossoms. This is how the spread is occurring. We really, really need everyone to stay at home. I think there are a lot of people who are doing the right thing. But unfortunately we’re finding out a lot of people think this can’t happen to them.”
As far as I can assess there are five modes of COVID-19 behavior.
First are the oblivious assholes who wander all over, take few precautions, don’t wash their hands much, behave as if nothing’s really changed, etc. These people are public enemies.
Next in line are your casual responders — people who are mindful of the pandemic but are somewhat careless or sloppy-minded…taking walks, talking to friends on the street (I saw a few yesterday and the day before), washing their hands once or twice a day if that, willing to alter their behavior but not that much.
Then there are your caution freaks who nonetheless yearn to taste a spoonful or two of the life they used to live — people like myself who wash their hands obsessively, never go outside for supplies (local market, CVS) without a face mask and plastic gloves, never stand less than three or four feet from anyone, who wash their hands when they get home and then again for good measure, and who occasionally indulge in modest rumblehogging.
Fourth are your strict shut-ins who haven’t left their homes over the last 10 or 12 days due to the usual fears and who order all necessities online — the ideal citizen in this time of nightmare crisis. Tatyana freely admits to being this kind of conservative.
Last and fifth is your semi-paranoid Howard Hughes-style germaphobe who pads around the house with plastic bags around his/her feet, washes hands frequently (which is good) and constantly wipes down kitchen counters and coffee tables (which is good) and who, when online, shrieks and scolds the fuck out of anyone who admits to careful shopping and taking an occasional breath of fresh air by lowering their face mask while standing on a patch of grass near a parking lot. Or while driving inside a car with all the windows closed.
People who qualify as category five types shall henceforth be known as “virusbros” — the COVID-19 alarmist cousins of Berniebros who are technically in the right (Bernie Sanders‘ assessment of our social ills being the most frank and accurate of all the present and former candidates) but who harass and belittle and piss people off.
I went out for some paper towels, but WeHo Pavilions was fresh out. It was raining lightly outside. I was leaning against the car, and for a moment or two I pulled down the paper mask and my God, the whiffs of damp grass and rain-sprinkled sidewalk and a small cup of cookies & cream in my right hand. Mask-wearers like myself have been doing without gentle, spirit-lifting aromas these last few days, and it’s been a shame. We’ve all been doing without in different ways, and it’s likely to stay this way for months to come.
Since we’re looking at months and months of coronavirus lockdown, I’m figuring I might as well wear a face mask with a sense of style. I’m thinking either (a) Jasper Johns American flag or (b) black with white polka dots.
Honestly? If I was Newsom I would put armed troops and tanks on the street. I would not fuck around. He predicted the other day that over half of Californians will be infected. It could be higher than that if people continue to casually hit the beaches, etc.
Note: My little drive didn’t count. I was totally isolated in the car, and stepped out only once for three or four minutes, and never came close to anyone.
There are two reasons why I’ve never seen Anthony Mann‘s Raw Deal (’48), and why I’m not all that inclined to see it later today, despite the obviously high-quality cinematography by John Alton.
Reason #1 is that it’s never been a highly rated film — it’s basically regarded as a programmer and nowhere close to the level of Detour or They Live By Night or Gun Crazy. Reason #2 is Dennis O’Keefe, who plays the lead character, Joe Sullivan. O’Keefe was a decent actor but he simply didn’t have the X-factor — one look at the guy and you’re thinking “meh, second banana, doughy-faced, no snap.”
The most striking actors in Raw Deal are Claire Trevor and Raymond Burr.
John Alton‘s lensing achieved a certain elegance, for sure. The author of “Painting With Light” (’49), he believed that “studio lighting must always simulate natural light in texture and direction.” But he mostly shot programmers. Like O’Keefe, he was a respected second-tier guy. He worked steadily in the ’30s,’40s and ’50s (his last significant feature was Richard Brooks‘ Elmer Gantry) but he was a “house” cinematographer and not a name-brander.
Lewis Beale says: “Last night my wife and I watched the 1948 Anthony Mann noir Raw Deal. Solid film, kind of over-heated plot, but what makes it more than worthwhile is the immaculate b&w cinematography by the great John Alton. Every frame of this film could be mounted and put in a museum.”
HE’s most beautiful b&w films (random order): Citizen Kane, Manhattan, The Silence, The Hustler, Out Of The Past, Hud, Cold War, Ida, Odd Man Out, Only Angels Have Wings, The Lighthouse, The Train, Wings of Desire, Schindler’s List, Wild Strawberries, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Grapes of Wrath, Ed Wood, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Big Heat, How Green Was My Valley, Rebecca, Psycho, Notorious, Stardust Memories, The White Ribbon, Hour of the Wolf, Raging Bull, The Elephant Man, Dr. Strangelove.
Idris Elba: “One of the upsides of this whole drama is [that] we are forced to think together as a race. We really are.” Oprah Winfrey: “As a human race.” Idris Elba: “As a human race, yeah. But also our world has been takin’ a kickin’. We have damaged our world. And…no surprise!…our world is reacting to the human race. It’s no surprise that a virus has been created that’s going to slow us down. And ultimately make us think differently about our world and ourselves. To me, that’s the stand-out thing that’s very obvious. This is like the world crying out….hey, hey hey, you’re kickin’ me. What you’re doin’ is not good so I’ll get rid of you, as any organism would do. To try and get rid of an infection.”
When Elba, 47, first announced on Instagram that he’d been infected with COVID-19, I was wondering if the young-looking girl sitting behind him was his daughter. (Her name is Isan, born in ’02.) She was actually his wife, Sabrina Dhowre, a 30 year old model-actress whom he married in Marrakech last April.
I just can’t fathom why a rich actor would choose to wear a schlubby normcore T-shirt. He could wear the coolest Calvin Klein or John Varvatos three-button T-shirt…some kind of cooler-than-shit creation with a little style, something he bought in Milan or London or at a tag sale in Marin County. What’s the point of looking like some average dude from Worcester or Scotch Plains or Clearwater when you’re Ben fucking Affleck? To what end? To prove to himself that he’s average common too, just like him and the same as you?
I was in this normal-seeming dream, and then it suddenly turned into a nightmare. I was a kind of gladiator in ancient Rome, and yet I was speaking to friends and acquaintances like it was 2020 America. I was dressed like Victor Mature in Demetrius and the Gladiators, and I was at some kind of party and telling people in a no-big-deal sort of way that I would soon go into the arena in a one-on-one against an opponent. The goal, I explained, would be try to hack off my opponent’s arm with my sword, or vice versa.
As the moment approached I was suddenly seized by a horrific realization that this was not just some idle fantasy but something real. I suddenly stopped being Victor Mature and became Woody Allen in Love and Death, whining and moaning in a high-pitched voice about losing my left arm and suffering terrible pain. What was I thinking? I have to get out of there and run for my life. I’m not a trained gladiator. I’ve never fought anyone with a sword and I sure as hell don’t want to cut anyone’s arm off…good God!
Then I woke up. It was 4:20 am. I had suddenly become Jimmy Stewart as he came out of his Carlota Valdez nightmare in Vertigo.
I’m presuming that the arm-hacking is a metaphor for what the coronavirus plague is doing to life in Los Angeles…to life everywhere. To calm myself down I picked up the phone and twitter-surfed for a couple of hours. I finally got back to sleep around 7 am.
