Isegoria

I just watched Hitchcock’s Notorious for the first time. It stars Ingrid Bergman as a “notorious woman of affairs” (a woman who, shudder, drinks and sleeps around) and Cary Grant as an “adventurous man of the world” (a spy). Overall, certainly a good movie, but a few things stood out to me:

Despite the fact that Bergman’s character is sent to infiltrate a German spy ring in Brazil, there was no German spoken, next to no Portuguese (just “dois martinis” to the waiter, and “senhor” and “senhora” to locals), and one surprisingly long French monologue (in a party scene).

The kissing scenes seemed really, really awkward and forced.

Oh, and I missed Hitch’s cameo during the party scene.

It was only a matter of time — and, frankly, he lasted longer than the oddsmakers predicted. From ‘Gonzo’ Godfather Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself:

Hunter S. Thompson, a renegade journalist whose ‘gonzo’ style threw out any pretense at objectivity and established the hard-living writer as a counter-culture icon, fatally shot himself at his Colorado home on Sunday night, police said. He was 67.

According to Looney Tune-Ups, Warner Brothers is “reimagining” its most famous characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.) for a new show, Loonatics:

For “Loonatics,” the six characters are being projected 700 years into the future, given superpowers, and outfitted in tight-fitting, slenderizing space gear.

No thanks.

Will Blogs Produce a Chilling Effect? opens with a thought experiment:

Imagine that mind reading were suddenly imposed on humanity automatically transmitting all our thoughts to those around us. Involuntary telepathy would destroy countless marriages as wives learned of their husbands perverse fantasies. Bosses would fire millions after they found out what their employees really thought of them. Police would be inundated with reports of ordinary citizens contemplating hideous crimes. But eventually we would realize that all humans harbor evil thoughts and an equilibrium would emerge in which we forgave bad thoughts that didn’t lead to terrible deeds.

James D. Miller contends that blogs have a similar effect:

I fear that blogs may soon make many Americans afraid to speak their minds. Imagine you’re a manager of a company. Your new blog nightmare is that you will say something stupid in a meeting and this will be reported in a blog. Other blogs will report the initial comment and soon whatever group you have offended will pressure your company to fire you. Or perhaps your distasteful remark will go unreported until you’re promoted to CEO. Then your employees, while blogging about what kind of boss you are, will literally tell the world about your past unfortunate utterance.

From Top American Playwright Arthur Miller Dies at 89:

Arthur Miller, a titan of American theater who wrote ‘Death of a Salesman’ and was revered as a playwright who spoke for the common man, has died. He was 89.

He spoke for the common man — the kind of guy who marries an iconic Hollywood starlet (Marilyn Monroe), goes head to head with the House Un-American Activities Committee, and writes critically acclaimed plays — that kind of common man.

2blowhards.com points us to a sad, but funny, audio clip of Orson Welles taping a commercial for peas — “and not taking direction well, to say the least.”

In Ayn Rand, the Russian-American Victor Hugo, Bryan Caplan describes Rand’s work as a combination of two styles:

Ayn Rand’s novels blend two distinct genres. She fits squarely into the tradition of the Russian philosophical novelists like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. But she is also a plot-rich Romantic in the tradition of Victor Hugo.

Some standard features of the Russian approach:

1. Characters embody philosophical positions.
2. The plot explores the implications of these philosophies on the characters’ lives
3. The conclusion of the novel vindicates the current philosophical position of the author.

[...]
Some standard features of the Romantic approach:

1. The characters are larger-than-life.
2. The plots are imaginative.
3. The plots are carefully crafted puzzles, unpredictable in advance, but cleanly logical in hindsight.

The opening to Roger Ebert’s Review of Groundhog Day:

‘Groundhog Day’ is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.

Certainly I underrated it in my original review; I enjoyed it so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation. But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phrase This is like ‘Groundhog Day’ to explain how you feel, a movie has accomplished something.

From Ayn Rand at 100:

A hundred years after her birth and nearly 25 years after her death, Ayn Rand remains a fascinating and enigmatic presence. She has been “mainstreamed” enough to have been honored by a U.S. Postal Service stamp in 1999 and to have been featured on C-SPAN’s American Writers series in 2002. Her novels figure prominently in readers’ lists of the 20th century’s greatest books. Notably, in a 1991 survey of more than 2,000 Book-of-the-Month Club members about books that made a difference in their lives, Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, came in second — albeit a very distant second — to the Bible. Rand, a devout atheist, might have seen that as an insult rather than an honor.

How did I not hear about the oh-so-ironic USPS Ayn Rand stamp?