Films to Fan a Firehouse Flame

There’s an alluring, bordering on infectious new film titled Sweet Dreams that will not be playing at theaters near you.

Not even the Screening Room, nor will it be on Netflix or any other streaming service anytime soon.

But it will play, all eleven minutes of it, at the Newburyport Firehouse, 6:00 pm, Sunday, April 21, as part of the 10th Annual Earth Port Film Festival.

I’m not saying it’s my favorite of ten selections that other festival judges and I chose to fill a 90-minute screening.  In fact, I gave it a low score on first viewing.

A young woman named Sarah starts paying attention to environmental news, and then finds she can’t stop thinking of climate change and pollution. We see her at work, and soon unemployed; in a relationship, and soon single.

Not much comic relief, but the relevance of Sweet Dreams to anyone who would rather not whistle past environmental and political graveyards today is impossible to deny. Not to mention to those of us who try to stand against anti-Semitism while we crumble under the weight of genocide in Gaza.

As one of the other judges put it, “The images stick with you.”  Stuck with me long enough to change my mind.

My involvement is no doubt a by-product of life as a projectionist at the Screening Room where I showed and saw all ten Oscar nominees for Best Picture.

Just as I thought each of the ten worthy of Hollywood’s top award, I found each of the 37 films we rated worthy of inclusion for the public showing at the Firehouse.

Thankfully, all 37 clocked between three and 21 minutes, totaling under six hours—all for the sake of finding nine or ten for the time of an average full-length film.

Only in retrospect did I realize how most of our selections are as much personal stories as documentary, as we might expect for an annual festival “inspired by a desire to highlight and raise awareness of both pressing environmental issues and the important role of community media.”

Don’t know who first struck the match, but both Elizabeth Marcus of the environmentalist group Transition Newburyport and Sarah Hayden of Port Media have fanned the flame since 2012 save for the pandemic’s intermission.

With so much to show, the festival offers a representative sampling, after which the audience casts ballots for their favorites.

This year’s selections range from cartoons to documentaries, with titles ranging from Rubbish Trip to Ocean Farming, and settings from Maine to New Zealand.

Themes and moods range from worrying to whimsical, from sobering to hilarious, from alarming to inspiring.

Might say from zany to provocative, but Just Can’t Stop is both at once while putting the “Mad” in “Madison Avenue.”

No matter the mood or content, all offer some hope—especially one of an electric airplane, the brainchild of a teenage nerd who never stops smiling in one of the longer films.

My use of the word “longer” may break a festival rule.  The two main categories are “Short” and “Very Short,” a distinction that still sounds like fingernails on the chalkboard of this ex-English teacher’s memory.

That there’s a third category called “Young Filmmakers” is by itself cause for hope—not to mention an indication of the festival’s high energy and engagement.

We judges were mostly in sync.  Of the ten selections for the Firehouse screening, just one was not on among my top rankings.

My one pick that missed, Thatch to the Future, was not about improbable roofing, but a sharp, stabbing satire of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher likely lost on anyone under the age of 50.

Better that you see Puppet Back Up about interactive shows by buskers in the streets of English cities whose puppets engage people young and old in conversation about climate issues.

Not at all surprising to see street-performers cast as environmentalists.  It’s a connection I made in my book about busking, Pay the Piper, ten years ago, a measure of how healthy a city is–with an analogy to the proverbial canaries in the coalmine.

If a local young filmmaker wants to treat it, I’ll go from judge to entrant in next year’s Earth Port Film Festival.

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A still from Sweet Dreams: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26693827/
Sarah Hayden introducing a previous Earth Port Film Festival; https://www.earthportfilm.org/#

Literally in Other Words

A good and long-time friend has advised me to avoid name-calling. Pretty sure I have avoided that in print–and if I didn’t, an editor would let me know.

As well as in these blogs, although there are times when I get so caught up in the raucous tone of satire, I may have let fly a Trumporon or Trumbecile at those in the crowds who laugh and cheer, hoot and jeer everytime he “jokes” about inflicting violence on judges, juries, and their families–or, as he is emphasizing in recent weeks, promising to pardon all the convicted criminals who desecrated the Capitol and inflicted violence on police on Jan. 6, 2021.

Don’t quite know how to be polite to–much less respectful of–those who cheer for violence and laugh at suggestions of hangings and firing squads, but if you see me put the term “human beings” in quotes, you’ll know I’m trying.

My restraint is especially tested when I see or hear a well-used analogy that calls for completion. When the same friend posted a meme telling us that…

DJT selling Bibles is like Hannibal Lechter selling cookbooks…

I suggested that he might be calling those who buy those damned or blessed books–depending on your point of view–cannibals, all while being mighty careful not to use that word myself.

Perhaps he’s a political vegetarian. He didn’t take the bait, and so I started reeling myself in–only to find that another friend, one here in Newburyport, has decided to try his hand at poetry. And there, as a screaming subject line on an email, was the title of his first attempt.

Before I reveal it, let’s be fair to the good fellow, a man of my boomer, often boomed, but still booming generation. Turns out he and I were colleagues (of sorts) for one summer in the late-70s or early 80s, whichever came first: he, a white-collar guy for 3M in St. Paul, Minnesota; me, a temporary assembly-line roustabout in a huge warehouse 3M built to avoid Minnesota taxes just over the state line in the college-town of Brookings, South Dakota.*

In other words (literally in other words), he and I share a turn of mind that has both of us looking for new ways to express ourselves when we “find wrong and try to right it.” Obligation may be the driving force, and solutions–ranging from fair treatment of local workers to clean air and world peace–may be our destination.

But damn it, don’t we deserve to have some fun along the way? Don’t we need to laugh? Quaff some Guinness? Don’t those willing to hear us want and need to laugh? Quaff what they will?

As my turned-poet friend puts it, “Thirst is a dangerous thing!”

And I keep finding over and over again and again that those who don’t laugh make me thirsty, in part because I have this odd intuition that their inability or unwillingness to laugh betrays a thirst that is killing them.

But I ingest. Before anyone gets drunk on that metaphor, let me remind you that I found this email when I had just resolved to guard against name-calling. So the title came as a shock, and my initial instinct was to change it. But no, better to offer it under the title that he gave it, a title that has honest resonance in American history with a name as proudly worn by apologists for slavery in the 19th Century as we hear their descendants call it today in their 21st Century translation, Anti-Woke:

Curses of the Know-Nothings

by Walt Thompson

No one seems to be listening

As a fog

Settling over City Hall

Silently rolls in from over the Merrimack

Silence they welcome

Dulling, oblivious, obscuring

Going along

To what ends?

Burying ethics

Staying in lanes

Comfortable in silos

Creating word salads

Ignoring options and possibilities

Why?

Not for power

Not in a small city

Not for long hours

Not for $5,000 yearly

Aspirations changing

Foggy thoughts not keeping pace

Actions impeded by imagined guilts

Imbedded

Resistant 

Spineless

Prairie-dog sensing danger

Hiding

Time will pass

Curses of the Know-Nothings

Reaping non-awards

Suffering inactions

Evolving downward

If you’re reading this outside the ten-mile radius of Newburyport City Hall, it might be tempting to dismiss its message as limited to the locality. That “staying in lanes” line, for instance, may seem like nothing more than a re-wording of “mind your own business,” but doesn’t it also summarize the adopted MO of a national political party now in thrall to Donald Trump?

If nothing else, re-consider the last two lines. These are times that try us with questions that scream whether we want to ask them or not–rhetorically, angrily, or fearfully: How did things get so bad? How did America become so divided?

As this poem concludes, inaction is devolution.

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*3M = Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing

“The name Devo comes from the concept of ‘de-evolution‘ and the band’s related idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind had begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society.”
From: https://web.archive.org/web/20071011183248/http://clubdevo.com/mp/bio.html
Photo from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devo

Trumping Jesus Christ

News of the reduced bond required and extended time granted hit my liberal friends quite hard yesterday morning.

My own reaction put me back in bed after making a pot of coffee. When I dared look again, I heard the details. Not so bad considering that the State of New York is now guaranteed to gain the lesser amount, and Trump is still liable for the rest.

Still, there was a non-monetary detail that had nothing to do with law that made my coffee redundant and got me out of bed.

Before I started venting on my own, I took a look at what my friend in Woonsocket had to say. She pays as much attention to national intrigue as is possible, connects all necessary dots, dismisses unnecessary distractions, puts it all in context, and has plenty say. As I said, the news hit her hard:

AMERICA DIED TODAY

Burial will take place in a weed-covered plot in a forgotten corner of a golf course in New Jersey.

I was going to hit the laugh emoji, but Glee Violette–better known on New England fair-weather festival and faire circuits as well as on an RI Polar Express as “Granny Grue”–continued:

I AM DONE FOR TODAY. Maybe for good.

Trump is suffering just like Jesus? In the Stormy case?

AND he just got another reprieve in the NYC business fraud case???? His bond has been cut by 2/3 and he has 10 more days to pay it?

IF MIRACLES ARE HAPPENING, THEY ARE NOT COMING FROM HEAVEN.

Donald Trump’s Truth Social account shared a message supposedly from a supporter comparing the former President to Jesus – during his critical pre-trial hearing in the New York Stormy Daniels hush money case on Monday.

If I may interrupt, as legal scholar Joyce Vance and others point out, the term “hush money,” while true, is misleading. Since it was paid to influence an election, we should be calling it “an election fraud case.” But back to my friend’s main point:

“It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”

Trump described the sentiment as “beautiful.”

My dear friend of, gulp, twenty years then went on to list differences between the malignant fraud from Queens and the peace-and-love-preaching, humanitarian carpenter of 2,000 years ago. In my eccentric way, I took that as comic relief: Comic, because distinctions between these two are as obvious as they would be between a bowl of butter pecan ice cream and a vial of urine; a relief, because it proved she’s not done, will never be done, won’t ever allow herself to be done.

Like me, she felt that first whack. Difference is that she was already on line and reaction was reflex. I, as noted above, kept lazily sipping coffee as if I was self-administering last rites. Though I knew she didn’t need it, I thought to give my friend a pep talk:

I say we keep scribbling and posting. No matter what happens, or how it happens, what else are we going to do? As for this development, yes, it is demoralizing in the extreme. I’m wondering if it’s a sign that he has something on these judges or on people close to them. Anyone else who has done what he’s done, said what he has said, especially regarding court decisions, not to mention open incitement of violence, would have been behind bars long ago.

I might have mentioned that we both have grandchildren. That when older they might wonder what we did. But she was aware of that before I ever gave it thought. Instead, I wanted to pinpoint the reason to keep on:

The courts are going to fail us if they haven’t already. NBC’s recent hiring of Ronna McDaniel is yet another nail in the coffin of the media. All that’s left is the November election, and with the Electoral College in mind with all of those red, Christian states, we might do best by turning this comparison to Christ against him. First Commandment? Second? Third? All of the above? I say we treat this as if he’s handing us material. Let’s use it.

All those years I lived in red western states, all those good Lutherans and Methodists, Episcopalians and Dutch Reformers who tolerated this lapsed Catholic, all those ecumenical groups with names such as “United Ministries” that I joined, all of it convinces me that these folks will not brook a man who compares himself to Jesus Christ.

We may be able to test that claim in the coming weeks. Today, in an apparent attempt to raise the reduced bond, the fraud announced the sale of “God Bless the USA Bibles,” for $59.99:

Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy…

Will Christians fall for this? Will they not notice the screaming contradiction of the word “happy” for a religious observance of a crucifixion? With the image on his gold sneakers, we have already allowed the fraud to monetize, if not desecrate, the American flag.

Are we now going to watch him monetize Jesus Christ?

My friend in Salem keeps reminding us to follow the money. But my money says that most Lutherans in Wisconsin, Methodists in Michigan, Catholics in Pennsylvania, Mormons in Arizona, Baptists in Georgia will not stand for this.

The name “Trump” may be a double-entendre, but he keeps dealing us wild cards.

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Meanwhile in Georgia… Suggestions that Trump was sent or assigned by God to save or redeem or purge the world of evil are outlined in a book by Helgard Müller, a South African, entitled President Donald J. Trump, The Son of Man – The Christ:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2022/11/the-claim-that-trump-is-the-christ/
Reminds me of Katie Britt’s respoinse to the State of the Union Address: Hard to tell if it’s serious or satire, but whichever, these 8.5×11 prints are available on Ebay for just $11.11
$8.49 – 8×10

A Harper as the Street Allows

For the first time in over three decades, Newburyport’s harper will not ring in spring on Market Square.

Nor will that harp play Inn Street or the Waterfront or anywhere anytime thereafter.

At this writing, I do not know the cause of death at age 70, but I may be as versed as any in the harper’s cause of life.

Of all the musicians who’ve played Newburyport’s streets over the years, I alone had seniority over David Bishop, as he introduced himself to me in the late ‘80s, or Aster Shephard as she re-introduced herself perhaps 15 years later.

I had already played Inn Street for a few years since I washed ashore in 1982 after picking up that same “cause of life” in Denver.

Historic preservation made it possible.  Whether or not the preservationists knew it, they set the stage for the re-birth of busking in America.

Hundreds of stages from coast to coast.  In Denver, I was one of several able to take advantage of the wide walkways, benches, bricked-in acoustics, and historic setting of Larimer Square.

Who signed the bill?  Give credit where due:  Yes, Nixon’s the one!

Planning a return home, I knew it happened in Newburyport.  Before our harper arrived, I was one of just two buskers here.  The other was a hammered dulcimer player from Portsmouth.

Since the dulcimer player—it was the instrument, not him that was “hammered”—played here barely twice a month, I was Newburyport’s only regular.

Moreover, with an odd schedule that freed me most weekdays, I divided my time with historically re-done Salem.  For about five years, I had both cities to myself.

Enter the harper. You’d have thought he was applying for a job, as polite and deferential as could be, asking if I would share the stage.

I laid out the “Denver Accord”—my own name for the unwritten rules we High Milers all gladly upheld—to yield a space within one hour of seeing another busker awaiting it.

And to pour all pennies in your hat—or basket or case—into that of the busker replacing you.  He looked incredulous. “For good luck,” I explained.  He laughed, “I’ll bring some with me!”

Then I thought of Salem, and asked if he preferred any days.  Turned out he was a full-time machinist with only weekends free.

“But not Saturdays,” he answered, “Sundays.”  And so, we divvied up weekends as if we were Spain and Portugal in 1494 with a line of demarcation.

Still, I didn’t want him to know of what was, frankly, the more lucrative venue.  My daughter was a pre-teen at the time, on the loose with her two buddies, Anna and Anya, one of whom lived very close to downtown.

“Rachel,” I always reminded her before going on my Sunday raids, “say hello to the harper for me, but if you talk to him, don’t mention Salem.  Salem does not exist.”

Something of a risk in this.  Getting into a conversation with David, and later with Aster, was quite easy.  Getting out of it, not so much.  He and she more than made up for his and her ancestor, Harpo Marx.

The liner notes on his second CD, Angel Music, offer several tastes of a gift of gab so in character that you can hear the harper’s meticulous, yet affable speech: For “Golden Saturday”:

A musical depiction of a Saturday in the early autumn with a deep azure sky, bright sun, and a wind that causes the colored leaves to rustle continuously in the trees.

For “The Garden Tour”:

I finished composing this piece just in time to play it at an annual garden tour. It seems like suitable music to hear while walking along looking at flowers.

“Profound Contemplation”:

I played this piece for a woman in town who told me it sounded like profound contemplation. So that’s what I call it.

The only quick descriptions go to the title track (A caprice of sorts) and to the now painfully prophetic closing track, “A Flash of Light”:

One way to go from this realm into the next.

On the few occasions when we did cross paths, we played several of the legendary Irish bard Turlough O’Carolan’s tunes.  That harp was so rich with foundation, so heavenly precise with melody, I could have improvised forever on it.

In recent years the harper showed up at King Richard’s Faire with sons, Aaron and Ian, to heckle me while reveling in Celtic tunes and early music.

But most of the harper’s own repertoire was original, much of it collected on two CDs, Original Music for Harp and Angel Music, a name taken from one tourist’s description.

When I relayed the news, fellow flautist Roger Ebacher, who produced both CDs, responded: “Completely original, naturally talented, brilliant, and uncompromising in pursuit of artistic excellence.”

“Uncompromising” is something the street allows, enhances, promotes.

Add to that the chatty exchanges with all kinds of people between songs, and you know the cause of life.

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*Original Music for Harp and Angel Music are both available at Dyno Records, downtown Newburyport.

At the Bluebird Performance Venue in Georgetown, Mass., about a year ago.
Photo from the Facebook page of the First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist, Newburyport 

On Market Square, Newburyport, summer of 2020, courtesy of Roger Ebacher, photographer unknown.
Newburyport Daily News file photo.
https://www.newburyportnews.com/news/local_news/as-i-see-it-a-buskers-cause-of-life/article_3a942c54-e6b6-11ee-9e41-b7b939e96fbd.html

Vote Screwdriver!

I’m running for mayor of Newburyport.

To stop any further damage resulting from the current administration’s “New for the sake of new” and “If it ain’t broke, break it” policies, I hereby present a ten-point plan:

First:  Restore the American principle of “innocent until proven guilty” gutted when Mayor Sean Reardon treated the library volunteers as guilty as soon as charged.

Second:  Reinstate the volunteers and the recently “retired”—despite being highly skilled, engaging, dedicated, and relatively young—archivist.

Third:  Replace NPL’s head-nodding board of directors with people who actually pay attention to what happens and act rather than look the other way when ethics are violated.

Fourth:  Reinstate the Parks Dept. and highly successful director who served Newburyport from 2006 to 2023.

Fifth:  Fire any member of any city agency or board who attempted to circumvent the advice of scientists, architects, economists, environmentalists, historians, and other professional consultants for the sake of pet projects.

Sixth:  Reinstate one said consultant and provide him with an office aside Frog Pond and an alarm to sound if Reardon’s Toy-Boats-R-Us proposal is ever again mentioned anywhere near it.

Seventh:  Fix the green arrow at the juncture of Low St. and US-1, even if I have to get a ladder and do it myself. I know something about electricity.

And that’s just between the time I take the oath and get myself to The Grog for a couple pints of Guinness.

City Hall? I’ll have the place fumigated and left vacant with all windows open for a week before I set foot in it.

Ditto the crime scene that calls itself a public library. Eighth:  Demand one of two things from all library staff:  Specific documentation of their charges against the volunteers or an apology for smearing them.

They made the charges public, so they must make the proof public, or they are unfit for public service.  Ditto the mayor and others in City Hall who have coddled them.

Ninth:  Fire any city employee who believes that an “investigation” regarding the dispute at NPL ever happened—other than a few softball questions to a few cherry-picked stooges—on the grounds of gullibility.

Good luck finding that word in a union contract!

City Council? I’ll be inclined to approve what they plan. Sure, I’ll view all plans with my advisor and parole officer, Helen Highwater, before signing off on anything.

But if there’s any attempt to turn another traffic circle into real-life dodgems, I’ll slam the brakes.

My strength is getting rid of incompetence, undoing incompetence, and cleaning up incompetence made by incompetents so incompetent that they get rid of experienced, dedicated, talented public servants for no better reason than “having new people.”

Thanks to a way-over-his-head mayor who equates “new” with “improved,” there’s a lot of incompetence to clean up.

And I alone can do it! As my former crew-leader, former Polish Pres. Lech Walesa, a life-long electrician before he led a peaceful revolution, told me:

“In all my years, I’ve broken no more than two or three screwdrivers tightening a screw. But I’ve broken dozens trying to loosen them.”

Years ago, a mayoral candidate declared herself “here to listen.”  Well, I’m here to loosen.

Tenth:  I will unscrew at least one City Council practice. In 2022, it held a joint meeting with the School Committee to hear presentations from five candidates for an open seat.

The very purpose of joint meetings is to allow two groups to gain information and then deliberate among themselves before making a decision.

The record shows that Reardon “chaired” the meeting.   If so, then hammers “chair” nails:  No discussion, no debate, no careful consideration. Just the vote.

To call Reardon’s Newburyport a banana republic would be to insult bananas.

Votes require thought.  So, think of voting for me, “Jack the Slack,” as your mayor.

Call it the Hammer vs. the Screwdriver.  As a loose screw myself, I’ll fit right in to City Hall. 

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POSTSCRIPT: If you haven’t already classified this as satire, please know that it was intended for publication in the Newburyport Daily News on April Fools Day. Someone missed a signal, and it ran Friday. As a result, I am now answering requests from people looking for lawn signs and volunteering for the campaign. A nice problem to have. In fact, considering how the word “incompetence” is repeatedly used like a dagger, the Ides of March actually was a better choice. Just know that was not done in the back, but head-on, in full view.

Campaign Photo by Paul Shaughnessy at King Richard’s Faire.

In the Coffin of Common Sense

On our island’s one and only road to the mainland, we now have signs instructing “MOTORISTS GIVE 4 FT TO PASS”–a reference to a courtesy more agreeably known as “share the road.”

My middle finger shot up spontaneously, and I heard my voice spit out my preferred verb for mindless rules followed by a non-negotiable pronoun for whoever put them up. Call it “therapy.”

Calmed down, I can’t help but wonder about yet another nail in the coffin of common sense. Does the sign apply when cyclists pedal outside the line giving them their own four-foot lane on Plum Island’s two-lane, one-in-each-direction, causeway? Not too many of those, but there’s no lack of cyclists who ride two abreast, one of them entirely on the motorists’ side of the bike-lane line.

In accordance with a state law that took effect a year ago, these signs are starting to appear on roads I frequently drive on my delivery routes in other parts of the state, as far as Erving halfway out on the Mohawk Trail and Hopkinton near the start of the Boston Marathon. These roads are often two-lane stretching up and down hills as well as around bends. In such places, maybe they help remind drivers to be on the lookout.

Our causeway, however, is flat except for a small bridge across the narrow channel, and as straight as the Pesky Pole on both the mainland and island sides of that bridge. With a line for bicycle lanes in both directions, what is the IQ of anyone who thinks that such a sign is needed? Hint: Negative numbers are in play.

Forgive me, but whether that question strikes you as rhetorical or hyperbolic, gratuitous or wild, there’s no denying the point:

Yes, there are times when the proximity of bicycles to large trucks is dicey. However, danger never results from a lack of space between a bike and any motor vehicle if the two merely stay in the middle of their lanes. The four feet will be there, no need to afford extra room. Moreover, an attentive driver, seeing no one close in the on-coming lane, will give much more than four feet while passing.

All of the risk is taken, all of the danger is created, when bicyclists pedal outside their lane–as when they ride two abreast–while on-coming traffic is well within view.

So, here’s a question that cannot be dismissed as either hyperbolic or rhetorical, though it can’t help but sound wild: Are motorists supposed to drive on or over the line that divides us from the other lane into the face of on-coming cars and trucks? Put another way, which would you rather risk: A head-on with another car? A rear-end if you slam the brakes? Or knocking some oblivious fool for a loop?

Of course, I’d hit the horn and lay on it before choosing the last option. If that didn’t get them to move over, well, that’s what helmets are for–although I might ask what such people have up there worth protecting.

If anyone who frequently drives the causeway wanted to make a sign to improve its safety, that sign would read: CYCLISTS, STAY IN YOUR LANE!

If I had my say, there would be a therapuetic “ing” word in front of LANE. And I might add a few exclamation points at the end. Still, I’d be satisfied that there would be no wimpy “please” asking people to be considerate while they are in the very act of being inconsiderate.

Then again, if a such a sign did say “please,” it would serve me as good therapy.

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https://www.cityofmelrose.org/home/news/new-massachusetts-traffic-law-biker-and-pedestrian-safety-effect
The crest of the only bridge on the only road to Plum Island. This may be the narrowest point on the two-mile road, and yet, as the next photo shows, there’s plenty of room for motorists to pass cyclists.
https://baystatements.blogspot.com/2013/11/bay-circuit-trail-at-plum-island.html
The Sgt. Donald Wilkinson Bridge, on the Plum Island Turnpike between Newburyport and Plum Island, has a grid deck like the other two bridges in this photo essay. There is a striped shoulder, and there is sufficient roadway width for motorists to overtake bicyclists. Unlike on the other grid-deck bridges nearby, there are no signs instructing bicyclists to walk.
Photo & caption by John S. Allen
https://john-s-allen.com/galleries/newburyport/slides/DSCF0162Plumbridge.html

Oscar for Best Time Warp

Back in the day–1963 to be exact–and well into the day or two after, there was a weekly TV comedy that spoofed the news, a predecessor to Saturday Night Live that also aired on Saturday nights: That Was the Week That Was.

As someone who never watched much television as a high-schooler, and who lived without a television through all of my college years and well past 1985 when the show ended its admirable run, I rarely saw it. But I recall a few nights when I enjoyed its political satire with friends, particularly when David Frost was on.

This past Weekend That Was had me doing the time warp again.

Like many folks, I spent last Friday and Saturday awaiting SNL‘s cold open take of Sen. Katie Britt’s 1-800-KITCHEN Republican response to Pres. Biden’s State of the Union Address on Thursday. But I was also already counting on whoever the host of the next night’s Oscars might be to add another stab. In his opening monologue, Jimmy Kimmel did not disappoint with his comparison of Emma Stone’s character in Poor Things to the Alabama senator as “an adult with the brain of a baby.”

People from Alabama might be forgiven for yawning or shrugging, “What’s wrong with that?” Their other senator, Tom Tuberville, is now nationally renowned for his use of a technicality of senate rules to block all military promotions through most of 2023. And before that, for taking phone calls from Rudy Giuliani while on the senate floor on Jan. 6 asking him to delay certification. The rest of us might ask which Alabama Republican senator Kimmel had in mind.

Following that one quip, the Oscar broadcast was surprisingly free of political content unless you count the subjects of nominated films, little of which figured in the speeches of presenters or winners. Only sustained exception I recall was the acceptance speech for 20 Days in Mariupol as Best Documentary, the first Oscar won by a citizen of Ukraine. But the spell was broken near the end when Kimmel announced that he had received his first review and proceeded to read a laughably ridiculous social media post from “a former president.” Kimmel had to wait for the laughter to die down. “Glad he’s watching,” he began before looking away from the audience and directly into the camera:

Isn’t it past your jail time?”

This year’s Oscars may have been tame, but the quality of all ten films nominated for Best Picture more than made up for any lack of excitement. And you could make the case that Ryan Gosling’s tour de force rendition of “I’m Just Ken” with a guitar solo from Guns & Roses’ Slash was excitement enough.*

Low points were few. Almost all memorial tributes were impossible for me to read on a modestly sized screen, and the nude man shtick struck me as hopelessly juvenile at the time–although I learned why the next day when I read that the presentation of…

… the Costume Design category [was] tied to the demand the Costume Designers Union is making. Their slogan is ‘You’re naked without us.’

So many high points, that, fearing inevitable oversights, I won’t risk a list. Instead, I’ll pick the highest: 92-year-old Rita Moreno singing America Ferrera’s name and reminding us that Ferrera’s soliloquy in Barbie was the most riveting, talked about, and memorable statement in any film released last year–as was Moreno’s sizzling rendition of “I Want to Live in America” in 1961’s West Side Story.

Friends are wishing that Killers of the Harvest Moon won a few awards or that Jeffrey Wright won Best Actor or that Greta Gerwig had been nominated for Best Director. I agree on all counts, but as a projectionist at a cinema, I had an easy time seeing all ten nominees for Best Picture–not only do I not pay to see them, I get paid. All ten were worthy of the award, and of awards in every category for which they were nominated.

At heart, the problem is a single category that lumps all films together. The result is an inate bias for films that are straightforward, realistic. Satirical films such as Barbie, American Fiction, and, to use a glaring example from 2021, Don’t Look Up are easily dismissed as unrealistic no matter how spot-on the implied comparisons. The Golden Globes avoids this with two categories, dividing drama from comedy/musical. Not only does it give satire–comedic by definition–a fair shake, but it also spares its voters the absurdity of measuring, say, The Holdovers against The Zone of Interest.

Here’s a theory: Had Oppenheimer not been made, Killers of Harvest Moon (which won nothing), American Fiction (which won Adapted Screenplay), and Barbie (Best Song), would have split its seven awards–and Barbie would have had at least three more nominations, including Greta Gerwig for Best Director.

But no complaints. In my book, 2023 was film’s Year That Was. To have its highlight reel one night following SNL’s cold opening on the Weekend That Was was exquisite timing. Had there been an Oscar for Best Impersonation, Scarlett Johansson might have accepted it in character, doing a time warp again.

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*Turns out that Slash worked on Barbie‘s soundtrack. Also, Gosling himself planned for the pink stairs and costumes as a tribute to Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” performance in 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes:

https://variety.com/2024/awards/awards/ryan-gosling-im-just-ken-marilyn-monroe-tribute-oscars-1235938402
https://www.looper.com/1536351/ryan-gosling-im-just-ken-oscars-2024-revealed-barbie-secret-ken-slash-guitar-solo/
A very young David Frost raises a pencil and perhaps a question or at least a point. This is from the British show that ran for two years before emmigrating (with Frost) to the USA. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057789/

Pitch & Bitch Perfect

Was there ever a more anticipated five to ten minutes of any show in the history of television than Saturday Night Live‘s cold opening this weekend?

From the moment that the junior senator from Alabama ended her audition for MAGA Mom Superior on Thursday night, we all knew what the target of SNL’s opening had to be. Even most Republicans admit that it was, to quote more than one, a “disaster.” Her only positive review came from fellow Alabama Senator Tom Tuberville who unwittingly tipped the Republican Party’s hand by saying she was purposefully cast “as a housewife.”

Katie Britt’s response to Biden’s State of the Union Address was so bizarre, berserk, and freakish that, were I a writer for SNL, I’d have suggested having the cast walk onto the set waving white flags.

Instead, SNL treated it as deftly as any of the subjects handled by the best of television and radio satirists–at my age, that would be The Smothers Brothers, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and more recently, A Prairie Home Companion. By first poking fun at the president, the show allowed Biden (actor James Austin Johnson) to introduce Britt “who’s going to help me more tonight than anything I can say here.”

Took everyone by surprise to see–or learn as I did the next day–that it was Scarlett Johansson in the role. She proved me wrong about Britt being beyond satire. With daggers at the start, she spit out what Britt did not say when she cited an incident about sex-trafficking:

And rest assured that every detail about it is real except the year, where it took place, and who was president when it happened.

Hilariously pitch and bitch perfect, Johansson emphasized that list with both voice and fingers that rendered the mention of each missing item an accusation. Not long after she was done, Britt dodged questions about her claims, changing the subject when confronted with the truth:

The incident she used to smear Biden took place in Mexico, 600 miles south of the Rio Grande, while George W. Bush was in the White House.*

All from a kitchen “just like yours” at a table “just like yours” where her family “just like yours” talks about dreams “just like yours” with a crucifix prominently hanging from a neck just like the one you should have hanging around yours.

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*https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/03/11/katie-britt-trafficking-in-sotu-response/72932385007/

https://www.showbizglow.com/news-scarlett-johansson-impersonates-katie-britt-in#google_vignette

You May Also Like…

We see them all the time on social media, not memes which are a by-product of social media, but lists, a creation of humanity’s need for order and context as old as hieroglyphics on the walls of caves.

Lists of best or worst: states to visit, cities to live, highways to travel, plants to grow, vitamins to take, and so on. Many begin with “Most”: healthy foods, wealthy celebrities, popular movies, successful sports teams, party-prone colleges, risky occupations, also on and on. Others begin with “Top” or “Favorite”: years for automobile sales, rock-and-roll guitarists, coffee producing countries, sandwiches in each state, and on and on and on.

Not to press the matter, but I can’t help but mention highly specified lists such as–and no, I am not making this up–“Stadiums with lighthouses within a 25-mile radius.” Finally, the Mets win something!

All of it click-bait for the ads they carry, as I learned early on. A few years back I couldn’t resist one ranking state capitols as places to live. I’ve lived in three, all of them high on the list. When I sent it to a long-ago friend from Bismarck, North Dakota, then living in Salem, Oregon (two of mine, the other being Denver), she returned a dry thank you with the complaint that the site should offer the bare list to be viewed all at once.

I agreed. Of course, the whole point of the paragraph or two or three is to stretch the list for the sake of ads. Various scientists as well as marketing experts would call any such list a “delivery system” for as many ads as they think we can stand–or withstand.

So, with the exception of a few such as US presidents ranked according to height or weight, I’ve done well to avoid these lists–until last week when I spotted “Worst books we read in high school ranked from bad to terrible.”

No way this former English teacher could scroll past that. If nothing else, I knew I’d get a good laugh at flippant descriptions of every novel I ever read and avoided reading (courtesy of Cliff Notes) through high school and college.

When the brief intro promised a range from “the long-winded adventures in The Deerslayer to the complex friendships in A Separate Peace,” I knew that every classic ever assigned in high school would be dismissed on one of those two grounds. Proving my point immediately were two John Steinbeck novels in the high 30s, but is East of Eden ever assigned in high schools? Did someone somehow mistake those 700 pages for the high school staple, Of Mice and Men?

Despite my expectation, Animal Farm‘s inclusion shocked me. Text posits that students would have to know history to understand the allegory, but an allegory always stands on his own, and I recall a high school class of 1968 that laughed all through it and for days after the assignment. Film adaptations appeared in 1955 and 1999, and in 2017 the book became a video game.

To Kill a Mocking Bird at 26 proves that the list is bogus, the product of a writer with no clue of how young people read or how literature is taught on any level. A more shocking entry is Lolita at 22. What high school teacher ever assigned that? But by that time, I was scrolling rapidly–the text as repetitive as predicted–to confirm what I knew would be number one as soon as I read the intro.

“Long winded” and “complex”? No way that prize goes to any book not named Moby-Dick.

Right again! After reading that my favorite novel “veers into the labyrinthine (sic)” and “leaves many readers adrift in a sea of boredom,” I couldn’t resist bragging about my foresight and so I sent it to my editor, Helen Highwater, who had this to say:

That list, written by “Rachel B,” scares me. Almost certainly “written” by an AI. (Was Lolita ever assigned to a high school class?)

I’m at the point that any piece of ad-delivery web-crap that ends with “You May Also Like” non-sequitur click-bait, published in a nearly anonymous generic site, is an AI suspect.

That never occurred to me. I answered:

I did blink at Lolita, but just kept going. And how could Catcher in the Rye possibly be on a “worst” list for high-schoolers? AI authorship would explain how parts of each one seemed interchangeable with others. Might even explain the glaring confusion of “labyrinthine” for “labyrinth.”

Also wondered how “Works by Charles Dickens” gained an entry. Did the machine have so many Dickens titles to process that it just vomited a catch-all? A deliberate twist to Twist?

Helen filled me in:

I heard an audio report recently about an industry growing up around purchasing abandoned, expired website addresses when they come up for auction, then populating them with AI content. The report authors contacted one such entrepreneur who was willing to talk about it.

I think the guy was in Croatia or Serbia. He claimed to be a pop musician and DJ, well known in his country, who had heard about this business model, and decided he’d try investing in some sites to see if he could generate income. He said he still makes more money from his music gigs, but that he’s not losing money on the websites. Once they are set-up, the AI does all the work. 

When asked about the ethics of it, he said he doesn’t worry much about things like that. He claims his initiatives are not intentionally harmful, that he does feel a little guilt about how some of the sites are drawing in fans of the original (economically failed) sites, but that he’s not really tricking anyone to keep coming back.

Not me. I’ve learned my lesson. This has taught me to make up my own lists, and write accompanying BS text that is at least plausible. If nothing else, I’ll satisfy my need to express myself, a need as old as hieroglyphics on the walls of caves.

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A story that summarizes the “business model”:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/27/1075545/next-gen-content-farms-ai-generated-text-ads

AI’s 40 Worst List:

https://worldlyhistory.com/40-of-the-worst-books-we-read-in-high-school-ranked-from-bad-to-terrible/40

https://nerdist.com/article/george-orwells-animal-farm-gets-the-video-game-treatment/

A Modest Request

One friend dubbed it, “writing with your feet.” That’s better than any description I ever had for my head-down, lost-in-thought scheming to the tune of a pair of New Balance high-cuts padding time.

As friends who live nearby know, I’m frequently taking walks on the road that runs the length of Plum Island’s wildlife refuge. Some have noticed that I sit for long spells on one of the two benches across from Parking Lot 3 in blessed silence save for the occasional passing vehicle. Or, they (you) see me sitting on the hill overlooking the marsh just before the gate.

While seated in either spot, I’m either scheming in a slower tempo–perhaps that of a duck or Canada goose or swan gliding on the panne–or reading the results of someone else’s scheme, plunged as much into their world as I am into my own while writing with my feet.

While I appreciate the friendly expressions of those driving past, I wish they (you) knew that the last thing I want to hear while walking or while seated is a car horn.

Even when I see a friend’s car approaching, the sound is not just jarring, but ruinous of the mood I’m in, derailing my Amtrak of thought and grounding all flights of fancy. When the car is behind or right aside me, I can feel my central nervous system shatter like a pane of glass smashed with a hammer.

That’s also true of a sudden voice from bicyclists who wait until they are already beside me. And how is it that, now that cyclists have these signs on the causeway telling motorists to give them four feet, some of them barely give a pedestrian one–even when there are no cars to be seen in either direction nearby?

Now that the seasons are changing, the experience of my last few walks–and of my seat just on the other side of this window where I write–does not bode well for the summer that is to come.

If only these friends would refrain from that reflexive urge, and perhaps send a greeting via email or social media or even a phone call: “Hey, I saw you today…” Or just let me know the next time we cross paths–with or without four-foot clearance.

Think of it as a season of conversation–free of noise.

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https://www.yelp.com/biz/parker-river-national-wildlife-refuge-newburyport