Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes has been assigned to highschoolers in Deerfield, Illinois. I hear the play and movie based on the book have won big awards, is the book itself unsuitable for teenagers? Lynn Vincent gives a brief description of the book and asks, “Gay activists are constantly arguing that the gay lifestyle isn’t just about sex. Why then assign Angels in America and reinforce the opposite opinion?”
The Phantom of the Time Capsule
I like this column by Steven M. Barr, over at First Things. First of all, it explodes one of those beloved bits of modern folklore, the one about Einstein being a bad student as a kid. Exploding error is always a good thing, however much comfort I may have derived from this particular legend as a boy. Then Barr goes on to discuss the deathless question of how much we can trust experts:
My own guiding principle is to trust the experts (generally speaking) on anything purely technical, but to rely more on my own judgment as far as human realities go. I trust the architect on what will keep the building up but not on what is beautiful. I trust the pediatrician, but not the child psychologist.
That’s about how I’d put it, only I’d be talking with less… whatchacallit. Expertise.
Turning to matters related to Phil’s post below on proofreading and fact-checking, I was reading this month’s Smithsonian Magazine today, and was surprised to see how long their list of corrections from last month was. Fact after fact had been wrong. I found a mistake in this month’s issue myself (only I can’t find it again now).
Nevertheless, I was much intrigued by this article by Michael Walsh. He was working on a couple of writing projects about Andrew Lloyd Webber, he tells us, back in 1987. Webber, of course, wrote the music for the big musical version of The Phantom of the Opera. In the course of that project, Walsh read the original novel by Gaston Leroux. This novel contains the line, “It will be remembered that, later, when digging in the substructure of the Opéra, before burying the phonographic records of the artist’s voice, the workmen laid bare a corpse.”
Readers for generations had read that sentence without bothering to ask, “Who buried phonograph records in the opera house, and why?”
Well, Walsh discovered the answer when he searched the theater (for other purposes) and accidentally came across a small door with a plaque that read, “The room in which are contained the gramophone records.”
Turns out that a number of very early recordings of the world’s greatest opera singers of the day had been placed in sealed containers and entombed in that room as a time capsule. They were buried in 1907, and were supposed to be opened in 2007.
The theater management had forgotten all about the time capsule by the time Walsh rediscovered it, but they decided to honor the original intention, and leave them alone for another two decades. However, the room was rediscovered by air conditioning workers a couple years later, and then it was opened. Since one container was visibly damaged, they were all removed, but not opened. Walsh says one of them is going to be opened this month (the delay, apparently, springs from difficulties in handling the old discs without damaging them). The recordings will eventually be digitally copied and sold to the public.
Anyway, it all goes to show what every novelist knows—readers don’t pay attention!
Update: I remember the Smithsonian mistake now. In their article on composer/arranger Quincy Jones, they said he’s a descendent of George Washington. There are no descendents of George Washington.
Fact Checking Is Not Too Hard
A journalist advises publishers that checking up on all those memoirs isn’t impossible and appears to be advisable. “Standard industry rationalizations for not checking anything are: It would be too expensive and, besides, we have to trust our authors.” Trust. Sure.
In related news, Author admits gang-life ‘memoir’ was all fiction. My gosh, who knew?
A primary offense
I worry about national morning talk show host Laura Ingraham.
I listen to her show every day, and I have a lot of fondness for her. I think I was half in love with her a couple years back, when her show was more fun. Also she recently hired Bryan Preston, the founder of Junk Yard Blog, who was probably the highest profile advocate for my writing career, back when I had a writing career.
But Laura’s gotten shrill, it seems to me, since her major health crisis a couple years back.
This morning, she was taking calls from Republicans in Texas who’d crossed party lines to vote for Hillary, just as spoilers for Obama. She was cheering them on, reveling in their stories.
I don’t like this. It seems to me that if you love this country you’ve got to hold the electoral process in a kind of reverence. The fact that there are cynical people out there who game the system doesn’t justify us, the people who say we believe in moral absolutes, in pretending to belong to a different party so we can sabotage its nomination process. If they did it to us, I’d be angry about it.
Maybe I’m just judgmental.
Think Daylight Saving Time conserves energy? Maybe not.
Husband of the Future
A relatively new company, Buy n Large, has announced a developing line of robotic partners, called Roboti-Mates. They demonstrated the “Hubby” model in New York with a woman who had lived with the robot for six months. He acts like a normal husband, she says.
Sometimes he cries at inappropriate times and bangs his head on the wall screaming, ‘Please kill me!’ But I just quickly reboot him before the kids get upset.
I don’t think this will catch on, but I’ve been wrong before. (via Arts and Faith)
Quirky Charms
“Quirky charms” is one way to describe books with weird titles, like “Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues” and “Cheese Problems Solved.” Of course, weird is in the ear of the reader. I mean if you want a straight-talking book on women’s relationships with men, would you pick up something called “Straight Talk for Women on Men” over a bold book like “If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs?” No contest, don’t you think? The follow up to the second book is “How to Duck a Suckah: A Guide to Living a Drama-Free Life,” both written by a bodyguard and former pimp.
I’m going to think about something else now.
‘Passover by Design’ sells 20k on First Day
Author and cook Susie Fishbein seems to be building a devoted following. Her fifth cookbook, Passover by Design, sold 20,000 copies on the day of its release. Her Kosher by Design series has sold 250k over the years, and Fishbein has been making the rounds on talk and cooking shows. In Passover by Design, she helps the kosher cook by offering recipes without leavening so no additional substitutions would have to be made.
Sissel
Old film review: “Impact”
I’m still working my way through my renter’s collection of old mystery movies, and this weekend I was pleasantly impressed by a fairly obscure 1949 production called “Impact,” starring Brian Donlevy.
“Impact” is technically classed as Film Noir, but in honesty it must be about the least noirish Noir film ever made. Instead of the angular shadows and cramped urban settings we expect in Noir, this film is largely set in the sunny outdoors and bright interiors. More importantly, instead of the fatalism and cynicism so characteristic of the form, this movie is about redemption and mercy. As a matter of fact, this one is so saturated with Christian values that you almost expect to see World Wide Pictures in the credits.
Donlevy plays Walter Williams, the head of engineering for a major corporation. At work he’s an alpha male, aggressive, savvy and a risk-taker.
But at home, in the company of his young, beautiful wife, Irene (played by Helen Walker [no relation]) he’s a pussycat. He defers to her, spoils her, and actually simpers in her presence. (By the way, this movie made me revise upward my estimation of Donlevy as an actor. I always had a hard time buying him as a tough guy. He struck me as a shrimp with an attitude, all swagger and no punch, especially when cast as a heavy against tall guys like Joel McCrae and Gary Cooper. But here he’s given other things to do than strut around trying to be intimidating, and he does a very creditable job in the vulnerable scenes). Irene bestows on him the nickname “Softy,” and he thinks it’s an endearment (I know what that suggests, I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers intended it, but this was 1949, when Hollywood still understood subtlety).
So poor Walter hasn’t the least suspicion when Irene suddenly begs off accompanying him on a road trip to Denver on business. Instead she asks him to give a lift to her “cousin.” The cousin is actually her lover, a man named Jim Torrance, and he and Irene have worked out a plan for him to murder Walter on the way and make it look like an accident.
But fate intervenes. Jim fails to finish Walter off, and then is himself killed in a fiery crash. The charred remains in Walter’s car are assumed to be his.
Hitching a ride in a passing moving van after regaining consciousness, Walter soon figures out, through newspaper stories and a couple strategic phone calls, that he’s been betrayed in the worst possible way. When he reads in the papers that his wife has been arrested for his murder, he figures it would be both just and satisfying to let the law take its course. So he hits the road.
Soon he fetches up in the pretty town of Larkspur, Idaho, where he gets a job as a mechanic at a gas station owned by the fetching Marsha Peters (Ella Raines). And it’s here that simple, small town (Christian) virtues begin to wear away at his anger and bitterness. Two significant scenes involve Walter’s first evening as a boarder with Marsha and her mother (where he reaches for the food, only to discover that they’ve bowed their heads to say grace. Imagine that happening in a movie today), and a Sunday church service (after which Walter breaks down and tells Marsha his true story).
Walter’s difficult (also well-scripted and acted) decision to do the right thing plunges him into the final conflict of the film, in which he finds himself on trial for his own life. His only hope is Marsha’s (and a cop’s, played by the old, reliable character actor Charles Coburn, who keeps forgetting to keep up his Irish accent) faith in him and determination to prove his innocence.
A preachy, spoken introduction and epilogue are a weakness in the story, but they used to do that sort of thing a lot in those days.
Rent “Impact” if you get the chance. I think you’ll like it.
Could This Be a Dawn of the Dead?
Author plans posthumous comeback, saying her book “will not be published until after I kick the bucket.”