The sky is just growing light at 5:51 AM. I can see spots of orange through the trees across the street, portending a sunny day
I love short jokes. Here’s one told by the late Christopher Hitchens: Why was the Amish girl kicked out of the cummunity? Too many Mennonite.
I watched “The Godfather” for the the thousandth time last night. A thing that is exceptionally difficult to do as an actor — and I’ve had to do it, on camera (in “Mosquito”) — is to trip on something, or nothing, and not make it look fake. I don’t believe that I pulled it off. When Michael and Appolonia are first courting, there’s a shot from behind of the two of them walking up a road. Appolonia trips, Michael grabs her arm, then it’s revealed that the whole two is following along behind them. But the actress who plays Appolonia, who was probably not even an actress, just a pretty Italian girl, does the trip perfectly. However, early in “Lawrence of Arabia,” when Lawrence and his guide Tafas are at the well and first see a distant camel and rider approaching through the heat haze, O’Toole has to stumble. He doesn’t pull it off, but it’s such a huge, comlicated shot, they had to use it because it was undoubtedly their best take.
Just like in “The Godfather,” in the final shot of Michael killing Solozzo and McCluskey in the Italian restaurant, it’s a wide shot from the front door looking in, Michael turns to leave, tosses the pistol, heads directly for the lens and the door, and bumps into the camera as he passes. It’s a brilliant shot and no doubt their best take.
A friend sent me a UTube montage of one of the newest, most ubiquitous cliches in movies and TV right now. The montage was every actor you’ve ever seen, plus many you haven’t, saying to someone, “You just don’t get it.”
And finally, I love my neighborhood here in Michigan. It has the last dirt roads and the cheapest houses in the upscale Detroit suburb of Bloomfield. I walk around the entire hood every day. I’ve lived here for twenty-one years, so I’m quite familiar with the neighborhood. In a poorly maintained house that has gone through several owners, now belongs to a devout Trump supporter. He had his “Trump 2020” flag on his pole in 2018. As the election neared he put up ten Trump yard signs (and was the last one to take them down, replacing his flag with a yellow “Don’t tread on me” flag). So I had walked past the house a hundred times and never saw the occupants. But in my head I had a hundred encounters with him where I told him he was nuts in one witty way or another. However, when I finally saw him — a heavyset white man in his fifties — he was holding two colorful parrots. I said something adroit like, “Oh, you have parrots.” He said, “Yes, I save them. I have four right now. I just got this one from the animal shelter. It’ll take a year or two to calm him down, but he’ll be all right.” He and I said, “Nice to meet you,” and I continued on my way. Well, that didn’t turn out like I thought. He replaced the “Don’t tread on me” flag with an American flag, but at half-mast. I took that to mean the death of democracy, or perhaps it was commemorating the theft of the election — where seven million people mistakenly voted for Biden — but I saw yesterday that the flag now waves proudly from the top of the mast.