How not to get on Ellen

The ill-fated U.S. Airways Flight 1549 that showboated into the Hudson River after taking off from LaGuardia Airport at 3:26 p.m. on Thursday, January 15 was a slightly too-close-for-comfort travel experience for my apparently fragile psyche. I was on the Delta flight scheduled to depart the very same runway at 4:45 p.m. Both of these flights, along with most others, had already been delayed because of that morning’s snow storm; so the departure schedules changed as time went along.

Suddenly, at 4:00 p.m. all flights on the Arrivals/Departures board showed “Delayed,” and a slightly shaky feminine voice came over the speakers saying something like, “due to an incident regarding a flight departing LaGuardia, all flights have been delayed until further notice. If you wish to cancel your flight and book alternatives, please see an agent.” That’s not an exact quote but close enough. A number of people lined up at the suddenly busy counters while I sat for a while contemplating my own strategy. My first idea was to just abandon ship and try to rebook my same flight the following day but I wanted to find out if I could retrieve my luggage first. I waited quite a while for the crowds around the counters to diminish and as I joined them I noticed that my particular flight no longer said “Delayed” but was flashing “Now Boarding,” so I reversed my direction and did just that. My flight left the gate at 4:45 p.m. and after doodling around the byways of outer LaGuardia for a while we took off without incident, not a honker in sight.

Until I landed at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale three hours later I had only an inkling of the enormity of what had just taken place. While still at Delta’s terminal in LGA I overheard several conversations between people who had gotten text-messages from friends and/or relatives; or at least from an outside source of some sort, that a plane had crashed in the Hudson River. I didn’t see or hear any details until my host and I returned to his home in Hollywood, FL and caught the drama on the tube. Wow, I realized then, that was a close call. Not a big deal really; just another real-life experience that I’m glad to have just missed.

After five days of bopping around Hollywood, Ft. Lauderdale and Tamarac, my flight home this Tuesday was perfection itself, as was my timely connection with the car service that picked me up at LGA and deposited me safely at home in Brooklyn. I didn’t even catch a cold bug this time. However, oddly enough, I’m now feeling some post-traumatic stress and I never even had the stress in the first place. Go figure on that one. I know it could have been me standing on that wing, but it wasn’t. But it also could have been me appearing on Ellen this morning and getting a free cruise on Celebrity (or maybe Carnival) just because I survived. Okay, now that makes me feel better.

Gorey Thoughts

This is my niece hovering over a jigsaw puzzle (proudly completed) that I gave her (and my nephew) for Christmas. It was sort-of a spontaneous lark of a gift since jigsaws are not really “in” in this era of on-line ephemera. But it caught my eye because of its subject matter; which is a large and detailed drawing by the late Edward Gorey who, in my particular formative years of comic-lit., was somewhat of a hero; along with Walt Kelly, R. Crumb, and later, Gary Larsen.

Way back in the mist of my own personal past I happened to be at the famous Gotham Book Mart (now defunct) on West 47th St. in Manhattan and wandered upstairs because there was a small sign in the window touting a show of Edward Gorey’s work. The stairs were rickety and the gallery was small, badly lit and a bit musty and I was the only viewer/customer. The art was arranged haphazardly around the walls and there were a couple of long tables with various prints laid flat. Seated in the middle of one of the tables was a slim-beaked person bundled up in one helluva raccoon coat (probably floor length--and this was in the summer), a spade shaped white beard/moustache, lots of rings on many fingers, granny glasses and, I think, hoop earrings (although I might be wrong about the earrings) and he was quietly, intently and almost mechanically signing his name in the lower right hand corner of each of a stack of prints; barely rustling the paper as the pile on his left diminished and the one on his right grew. It was, of course, the man himself. I was thrilled to see him and to be the subject of his rather famous eccentricity with his lack of response to my hello or even acknowledgement of my presence. Sort of a reverse thrill I guess that would be. I gave in to his privacy and what looked like an intense methodic dream state and I faithfully peered at every piece of artwork on the walls and tried not to stare at this exotic creature plugging away at, well, plugging his artwork. He inspected each sheet before he signed it and I looked longingly at the few discards under the table at his feet, unsigned and probably destined for shredding.

I went downstairs and bought two photo prints, fresh off the right-hand pile upstairs: one of “The Hapless Child” which I gave to my sister (okay, where is it now?) and the other a reprint of one-half of a two-page spread for the New York Times, illustrating the 12 Days of Christmas. At the time I couldn’t afford both halves. I doubt if there is any great value to these works except maybe to an autograph collector. I think I can vouch for the authenticity of the signature if not the actual man himself. He could have been just a finely detailed drawing of a ghost.

Belly up to the Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien

At the Holiday party for my Monday night bowling league there were a lot of donated door prizes; some fairly valuable. First prize was a bunch of money; second prize was a bottle of expensive champagne and somewhere down the line was this strange bottle of beer. Although I didn’t win it a teammate of mine did and he graciously gave it to me. It’s an Abbaye de Saint Bon-Chien from Switzerland; its alcohol content is 11% and it retails for $34.95 if you can even find it. My goodness, how classy! I guess you could say it’s the champagne of beers even though that would be weird. I did some cursory on-line research and the 2006 vintage, which this is, is evidently a beer aficionado’s idea of heaven: “Bracing and complex, with bright, refreshing, tart flavors of citrus, spice and sour fruits.” I’m almost afraid to drink it.

Update: February 20, 2009. Drank it. Good but nothing to write on your blog about. Maybe Facebook.

Nostalgia For Sale

I finally gave in this year and bought myself this Christmas present. No, not the Coney Island Parachute Jump, but this photograph of it. The photo has been tickling my fancy for years, but I discovered it’s a waste of time hoping the price would go down anytime soon. It’s from the Brooklyn Public Library Collection and is titled “Close-up of Parachute Jump with Riders at Steeplechase Park, Coney Island – Circa 1946.” It is a blast from the past, but more than that it’s a souvenir of what Coney Island once was; even in my lifetime. It’s even more poignant in that, even as we speak, the last remnants of Astroland are slowly but surely being hauled off and put in storage; leaving behind only the rickety skeletons. The Cyclone will survive for a while, as will the Wonder Wheel; but it’s really the Parachute Jump that gives Coney its visual pizzazz. I'm hauling it off to the framer tomorrow (the photo, not the parachute jump) and will probably pay more for the matting/framing than the cost of the photo. Thereafter it will hang on the wall in my bedroom; hopefully pleasing my eyeballs for some time to come.

Milk

I’ve never been a big fan of Sean Penn’s although I guess he’s done some good stuff (not that I follow his career really). It always seemed to me that he was doing his best Marlon Brando or James Dean imitation (maybe Montgomery Clift is in that mix) but never got beyond playing himself playing them. In Milk Mr. Penn has gotten everything right. After about the first 15 minutes of the movie his performance was so good and so riveting that I totally forgot it was a performance. Unlike Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button who disappears behind his make-up; Mr. Penn just disappears. He is so convincing it’s uncanny.

The story of Harvey Milk has pretty much become a legend and the movie preserves that part of history, but it is also a documentary-like primer of what was going on in San Francisco in the mid-1970’s. It was after the hippie Summer-of-Love and before the AIDS crisis but still historically important and you’re bound to come away with something you didn’t know before (aha; a learning experience!). The movie presents a tragedy certainly, but it’s also funny at times and, yes, somehow uplifting and convincingly shows the excitement that must have been coursing through the veins of the activists in the Castro District at that time. Director Gus Van Sant, to his credit, does not try to “clean it up” for a perceived heterosexual audience and illustrates just how sexually charged everyone was within that movement. Everybody was hot to trot, including Harvey, along with all the marching and demanding and yelling in the streets. Very cool. Also cool is the interweaving of archival footage into the narrative, making the presentation even more convincing.

Milk is very fine and very timely. Well, come to think of it, maybe not so timely—but close. I just wish it had come out a couple of months prior to the shame-on-you results of Proposition 8 in California. Maybe two percent of the movie audience, which was the unholy difference in the results of that election, could have been swayed to the side of common sense. I like to think so but, well, reality is tugging me towards a probably-not conclusion. One thing I do know is that I’ve been swayed by Sean Penn into being an admirer. It’s the part and performance of a lifetime for him and I just hope he gets more of the same. It goes beyond being award-worthy as an example of total commitment to a role. We’re not apt to see its like again…unless Mr. Penn somehow pulls another one out of the Hollywood hat.

Odes to Christmas Past

Jessie:
Bravely in the window
The little cypress stands
Denuded of its ornaments
and twinkling sparkling strands.
Subject now to months alone
And scorching sun and rain
Hoping to survive neglect
'Til Christmas comes again.

Buster:
A thriving tree, a living treasure
Brought indoors to serve décor;
A visual treat; an odor pleasure
What symbolisms really for;
Should make a reveler
More than wary.
Shrugging off the rude intrusion
Stalwart ivy brought to bay;
With leafy muscle, green profusion
Nonetheless it’s moot to say;
It’s a long, long way to
Topiary.

Dottie:
Roses are red,
Green is for clover,
It’s in the basement,
I’m glad it’s over.




Frank:

What?

The Curious Movie about Benjamin Button

I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately but it seems like every entertainment I encounter these days seems overly long; too digressive and seemingly filled with look-what-I-can-do bravado, sometimes without rhyme or reason. This includes the 75-minute “show-biz insider” off-Broadway musical What’s That Smell, which seems to be meant solely for the Regina Dramatica among us and on which I have chosen not to waste and further words.

Proceeding onward: Buried in the epic and bloated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a great work of cinematic art. The first 20-30 minutes are baffling and beautiful and interestingly quirky and otherworldly, which is as it should be in a story that follows the life of a man from death to birth. Beginning in 1917 and ending in what I think is about 1995 it covers a lot of historical ground while accompanying Benjamin from his birth as a baby in his 90’s to his death as an old man in infancy. If that’s confusing, so be it…you’ll just have to see the movie or Google it for a better explanation.

The movie holds your attention within its two-and-a-half-hour length but at times it seems to be striving so hard to be, I don’t know what, artistic? that sometimes I did feel a tiny bit of oh-c’mon-get-on-with-it ennui. One thing I can say for sure, the special effects are spectacular and the digital wizards in charge of the reverse-aging process of Benjamin Button have performed some kind of believable miracle. This is not entirely true of other characters (including Cate Blanchett) who seems to have had the disadvantage of good but “ordinary” aging make-up, but Brad Pitt, who plays the title character from the age of about 65 down to, say, about 18 has the supreme advantage of this digital genius. There is one extremely jangling moment however, when Mr. Button is chronologically about 28 and Mr. Pitt is given the full HOLLYWOOD STAR treatment and an audible gasp echoes throughout the theater as the audience gives tribute to a recognizable movie star as his beauty is revealed in all its sensitive, but manly, glory.

Benjamin Button ranks right up there in my favorites movies of 2008 but really, enough is enough with the snow-choked streets of Russia. The story stems from the reading (and movie narration) of the diary of Benjamin Button to a dying patient in a hospital room, which is certainly an acceptable presentation device, but I’m not really sure why it has to take place in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina is bearing down. Also, we are treated (more than once) to a symbolic humming bird beating its wings against the elements that might be too obvious for me to understand fully. I guess I just have to remember this story is a fantasy and proceed accordingly.

Despite my caveats and misunderstandings the creators deserve the highest praise for creativity, imagination, execution and the sheer audacity of it. It is a very, very good movie. Oh, by the way, Brad Pitt shouldn’t win any acting prizes for this role and I just hope voters don’t mix up great acting with great make-up, digital and not. But more curious things have happened.

Moon Over Wyoming

Once upon a time there was a little eatery in Manhattan called Moondance Diner that was down on the corner of 6th Avenue and Grand St., near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel that, sometime in 2007 (seemingly overnight), disappeared completely. Not the Tunnel; the Diner. Not that I noticed particularly, it was just another hole in the ground and it’s difficult to miss something when you don’t notice it’s gone. But now that the mystery is solved I realize there was a mystery and now I, in retrospect, miss it.

I remember Moondance because it was always open and it was always, well, just there, sort of a beacon of familiarity on the way home, sometimes worth a stop in the wee hours of the night. It served milkshakes and malts and burgers and fries that were greasily adequate for restoring brain function(s) after the intake of too much liquid, unspecified herein. I also remember Moondance giving “taco soup” a culinary blow that was never recovered, although the dish might not have been a good idea in the first place. The place had been around for 80 years or so, and it didn’t get any press until word got around that it had employed both Jonathan Larsen (the creator of Rent), and Spiderman’s girl friend in the first movie of that franchise.

Well, guess what, Moondance Diner is now in LaBarge, Wyoming (pop. 600) and will reopen on Jan. 9, 2009. In 2007 it was scheduled for demolition but Vince and Cheryl Pierce, perhaps in a fit of Midwestern lunacy, saw it for sale on a Website and bought it for $7,500 and had it towed 2,000+ miles to Wyoming. So it really did disappear overnight. In 2008 the couple ran out of funds and, a double blow, the major winter weather trends in Wyoming gave the structure a good crunch, collapsing the roof and walls. Luckily the original sign had been put in storage.

Well I guess it’s lucky anyway, because they have forged ahead in LaBarge and will be open for business in a couple of weeks. I can’t judge if this endeavor was a good investment but it couldn’t have been any worse than the Ponzi scheme that has brought a large number of big time financial wizards to their knees. I wonder if that taco soup is still on the menu.