(no subject)

[andrew_jorgensen]

Last night, I went downtown to see North By Northwest, preceeded by two of Chuck Jones's Merrie Melodies, at Cinema At The Square. I knew that the people behind me were trouble when, during "Little Beau Pepé," one of them loudly exclaimed "Oh my God!" when the black and white cat rubbed up against the freshly-painted ladder and ended up with a white streak down her back. I don't know what sort of cultural illiterate is surprised when, during a Pepé Le Pew cartoon, the cat ends up with white paint on her, but I hope that some sort of LiveJournal community exists to make her feel ignorant. These women continued to offer helpful commentary throughout the movie: when the bad guys have propped an intoxicated Cary Grant behind the wheel of a car on a precariously windy seacoast road, another woman said, "I think they're going to drive him off the cliff." And when the movie got to the establishing shot of the Indiana cornfield, and one of them said, "That's no man's land," I wanted to turn around and say, "For the next ten minutes, the movie will take place with practically no dialogue. Let's see if we can do the same." But I didn't, because I'm polite, genteel and cowardly.

North By Northwest is still one of my favorite movies; I was reminded last night that it, much more than the novels, set the framework for the James Bond movies. And there were some lines I didn't remember. Cary Grant saying to James Mason, Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau "The three of you together -- now, that's a picture only Charles Addams could draw," at least had the ring of familiarity, but I have absolutely no recollection of ever before seeing Mason, captured by Leo G. Carroll and watching as the park ranger shoots Landau, saying, "That wasn't very sporting, using real bullets."

On a completely unrelated subject, I was tickled to read today's New York Times Magazine and find that it contains an "On Language" column by William Grimes which mentions Chez Panisse but not Alice Waters and a Food column which mentions Alice Waters but not Chez Panisse. I don't imagine that the Times is running some sort of hidden contest where you're supposed to match obvious pairs, setting "Curtis Sliwa" with "Guardian Angels," or "The Bell Jar" with "Sylvia Plath," or "colossal embarrassment" with "U.S. Men's Basketball Olympic team," and then counting the pages in between the references for some sort of Kabbalistic frisson. Perhaps it should.

Comments

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Well, the stone faces weren't quite right in all the shots either. I figure it's as close to Frank Lloyd Wright as Hollywood of that era was ever going to get. ;o)

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Well, Rapid City is a lot closer to the prairies than most examples of Prairie School architecture.

I always wanted the house from NxNW (it's a shame they didn't have the abbreviation-happy marketers in 1959 we have now), and must say that I was disappointed when I actually got to Fallingwater and got a crick in my neck. But though I don't suppose it's that close to a Borders or a P.F. Chang's, you have to admire the location, location, location of the fake Frank Lloyd Wright-designed fake house in the movie.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

You should see Taliesin West here in Phoenix, where FLW taught his architecture students. UGGGLY!

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Having just recently visited Fallingwater, I fail to "get" the point of it. I just kept thinking - "these Kauffman's must have been very teeny people".

FW and tiny people

[rebekahroxanna.livejournal.com]

As I recall on visiting Falling Water and Taleisin West, that Wright supposedly designed at the human scale. How short was he? At Taleisin West, the docent mentioned that after his death, one of the board members removed some cross beams so that he could stand up under them. I was so disappointed in FW. I had for some reason expected high ceilings, but got cramped rooms and little windows with small panes.

d'H, did you ever eat at Chez Panise? I remember taking my two sisters there and we barely got in for lunch (great happenstance with my downloaded Teal Meal guide for Berkeley revealed we were only two blocks away at 11 am and we got in!!). The food is wonderful. I'm not sure I'd want to eat dinner there though.

Re: FW and tiny people

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I never got to Chez Pannise. Reading the Magazine yesterday really made me want to go to Berkeley and eat . . . at Zachary's. That's the problem, I get all the way over to Berkeley and I don't want to waste a meal eating anywhere else.

I can't find a height for Frank Lloyd Wright, but my understanding is that he was short. Perhaps nasty and brutish as well. But if he was solitary and poor, he wasn't after Fallingwater.