Let's get one thing clear at the start: I'm no expert on film, so don't expect too much expertise from what follows. I've passed no exams in the subject, earned no diplomas, written no books. I've just paid my money and watched.
But after nearly three years living near LA, having been through three Cinecon seasons and now into my third season of film noir at the Egyptian, some of it may be sinking in.
After last night's session, encompassing Alias Nick Beal and Fly-by-Night, the question being asked was 'were they really films noirs?' Which naturally depends on how you answer 'what IS film noir?'
Wikipedia says it 'describes stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation.'
In their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 (A Panorama of American Film Noir), said to be the original and seminal extended study of the subject, the French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton say: "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel...." Oneiric means dreamlike.
Apart from the facts that 'film noir' is a French phrase and Borde and Chaumeton are French, I'm not sure that their view is any better than anyone else's - after all, the fact I speak English doesn't make me an authority on roast beef - but it fleshes out the Wiki attempt.
To me, though, Alias Nick Beal, a remake of Faust, fits the Borde-Chaumeton definition but not Wiki. The story of the seduction of a politician was dreamlike, ambivalent and cruel, with even a touch of eroticism. But there was next to no sexual motivation and little moral ambiguity - how could there be when it came down to a fight between a vicar and the devil?
Fly-by-Night felt more like a romantic comedy made for Rock Hudson and Doris Day than a true film noir. It had crime and a light dusting of sexual motivation, but again no moral ambiguity. The far-fetched plot was a little strange, but it didn't strike me as dreamlike, erotic, ambivalent or cruel.
These two films were much more borderline than the previous night's, the two Jane Greer movies, Out of the Past and The Company She Keeps, which seemed right in the middle of what you'd expect from a film noir evening.
Like all artistic movements, film noir was categorized as such only in retrospect. At the time, they were just an era of black and white movies that were in tune with the morally fluid climate that caught plenty of people during and soon after the second world war. And many of them were based on books that had been written in the depression of the 1930s.
The LA Times reports today that romantic novels are big sellers as millions of people try to escape their financial problems. Maybe in the 2020s the Egyptian will host seasons of film rouge for a new generation eager to understand what we are currently going through. I bet you won't be able to get in for $7, though.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The real solution to the economic crisis by Bill Kay
Don't get excited - what I'm about to say may strike you as so obvious as to be a complete waste of blog space. If so, please move swiftly on with my good wishes and the hope that the word will spread and we can all then get down to sorting out this mess.
For it seems to me that the millions of words, acres of newsprint and forests of trees that have been devoted to the causes of and solutions to the crisis have left many people - expert as well as non-expert - confused. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters in London are threatening to string up bankers, brandishing slogans like 'We won't pay for their crisis', and up in Edinburgh that nice, shy Fred Goodwin gets his windows broken and his car vandalised over the huge pension he is insisting on drawing from RBS. Good on you, Fred, I'd do the same - but I'd keep my home address quiet.
Ironically in view of the public outrage, the bank bailouts are last year's story. The banks' losses started the crisis, so they needed fixing first. However, that put politicians in the uncomfortable position of lending them money to sort out their mistakes, instead of letting them go bust as would happen with nearly every other industry. But that phase is virtually over, give or take the odd few billion here or there.
The real problem is just beginning, as brilliantly set out by John Waples in today's London Sunday Times. It's so succinct, it's worth quoting at length:
'The jump in stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic over the past two weeks, combined with the bank recapitalisations, has given hope that the worst may be over. But let’s be clear — this recession has only just begun.
'All we have achieved so far is to make the banks strong enough to withstand the onslaught of what is to come. The recession is now making a direct hit on the economy. We know that the government thinks it can contain at least £120 billion of bad news. That is the size of the total buffer it has insisted our big four banks need to hold in reserve to withstand the torrent of impairments to come. And that is before the banks take part in the asset protection scheme, designed to help dispose of toxic assets. This could run into hundreds of billions.
'Some 120 small businesses are going bust every day and the economic consequences of this are huge — mortgage and credit-card defaults, personal bankruptcies and a collapse in consumer spending.
'And there are some corporate upheavals, in the shape of big restructurings, around the corner. These will result in debt-for-equity swaps and multi-billion-pound bank write-offs. You only have to look at the 50% fall in Boeing’s order book last year to get a feel for what’s happening. Then work back through the supply chain.
'We are still only at the beginning of taking leverage out of the system and it is going to take years to unwind everything. There are some encouraging signs, such as the issuance of corporate bonds, but too many people still cling to the hope that recovery is not far off. This is going to be a long haul. The stock-market bounce of the past two weeks reflects only the fact that at a (pre-exceptional) trading level the likes of Barclays, RBS and Lloyds are on the mend, even though lots of their corporate and retail customers are heading for intensive care.'
Got it? The problems are only just beginning. The solution? It's so obvious that it shouldn't need saying - more economic activity.
That can come in one of three ways: more spending, more investing (in real things, not just stock market investors passing money among themselves), or more donations - to charity if you like, but the nearest beggar will do just as well.
The important point is that whoever you release money to must also use it to do one of those three things. Keeping in a bank or under a mattress will not do.
Critics have said that debt got us into this mess, so it can't be the way out. But one of the big problems is that banks aren't lending. They've taken fright, and that is starving industry of the cash that keeps it going. You can say it shouldn't, but that's the way business works and keeps everyone in jobs.
Banks are still lending in small ways. They haven't yet started cutting credit card limits. Stores are still issuing store cards.
The problem there is that more and more of us are worried about keeping our jobs or maintaining other sources of income as interest rates have been cut. So we don't want to borrow, thank you very much.
We have national leaders, many of whom will be saying their piece in London this week, telling us to spend (but not too much) and then go into reverse and save (but not too much), unless you are in China, in which case it is your global duty never to save another penny and go on a wild binge for the rest of your life, preferably buying as much foreign stuff as your government will let you.
But while these mixed messages sound all very well in economics seminars, they are no use to the general public. Craziest of all is this notion that we should spend to beat the recession but then save and pay off debt to get western economies back in balance.
We are creatures of habit, so once we are used to a given level of spending - and the standard of living that that brings - we don't like reining it back. What are we supposed to cut? Ditching the odd trip to Starbucks or McDonald's is fine, even overdue, but are you going to stop seeing your friends, or going on holiday, watching TV or using an iPhone? These are the kinds of decisions that would make a serious impact, but they are the hardest to do.
So I think the politicians and economists are going to be disappointed twice over. We will spend, but more cautiously than before, and save, but not enough. The biggest source of new debt, mortgages on bigger and bigger houses, will simply not be permitted by the banks, whatever Obama or Brown may say. And an enormous amount of spending was tied to moving house - new carpets, curtains, TVs, washing machines and so on.
And we will save more, but much less than our leaders would like. Result: as Waples predicts, this crisis is going to have to be allowed to play itself out, painfully and over several years. The quick fix, of lurching from overspending to oversaving at a signal from on high, just ain't gonna happen. As with the long-predicted pension crisis - too many baby boomers soon drawing pensions that will have to be paid for by a shrinking workforce - we will muddle through. But millions will be thrown out of work and there will be more social upheaval. We must pray that that upheaval does not install the sort of power-crazed warmongers that the world suffered in the 1930s. That's the real bottom line.
For it seems to me that the millions of words, acres of newsprint and forests of trees that have been devoted to the causes of and solutions to the crisis have left many people - expert as well as non-expert - confused. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters in London are threatening to string up bankers, brandishing slogans like 'We won't pay for their crisis', and up in Edinburgh that nice, shy Fred Goodwin gets his windows broken and his car vandalised over the huge pension he is insisting on drawing from RBS. Good on you, Fred, I'd do the same - but I'd keep my home address quiet.
Ironically in view of the public outrage, the bank bailouts are last year's story. The banks' losses started the crisis, so they needed fixing first. However, that put politicians in the uncomfortable position of lending them money to sort out their mistakes, instead of letting them go bust as would happen with nearly every other industry. But that phase is virtually over, give or take the odd few billion here or there.
The real problem is just beginning, as brilliantly set out by John Waples in today's London Sunday Times. It's so succinct, it's worth quoting at length:
'The jump in stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic over the past two weeks, combined with the bank recapitalisations, has given hope that the worst may be over. But let’s be clear — this recession has only just begun.
'All we have achieved so far is to make the banks strong enough to withstand the onslaught of what is to come. The recession is now making a direct hit on the economy. We know that the government thinks it can contain at least £120 billion of bad news. That is the size of the total buffer it has insisted our big four banks need to hold in reserve to withstand the torrent of impairments to come. And that is before the banks take part in the asset protection scheme, designed to help dispose of toxic assets. This could run into hundreds of billions.
'Some 120 small businesses are going bust every day and the economic consequences of this are huge — mortgage and credit-card defaults, personal bankruptcies and a collapse in consumer spending.
'And there are some corporate upheavals, in the shape of big restructurings, around the corner. These will result in debt-for-equity swaps and multi-billion-pound bank write-offs. You only have to look at the 50% fall in Boeing’s order book last year to get a feel for what’s happening. Then work back through the supply chain.
'We are still only at the beginning of taking leverage out of the system and it is going to take years to unwind everything. There are some encouraging signs, such as the issuance of corporate bonds, but too many people still cling to the hope that recovery is not far off. This is going to be a long haul. The stock-market bounce of the past two weeks reflects only the fact that at a (pre-exceptional) trading level the likes of Barclays, RBS and Lloyds are on the mend, even though lots of their corporate and retail customers are heading for intensive care.'
Got it? The problems are only just beginning. The solution? It's so obvious that it shouldn't need saying - more economic activity.
That can come in one of three ways: more spending, more investing (in real things, not just stock market investors passing money among themselves), or more donations - to charity if you like, but the nearest beggar will do just as well.
The important point is that whoever you release money to must also use it to do one of those three things. Keeping in a bank or under a mattress will not do.
Critics have said that debt got us into this mess, so it can't be the way out. But one of the big problems is that banks aren't lending. They've taken fright, and that is starving industry of the cash that keeps it going. You can say it shouldn't, but that's the way business works and keeps everyone in jobs.
Banks are still lending in small ways. They haven't yet started cutting credit card limits. Stores are still issuing store cards.
The problem there is that more and more of us are worried about keeping our jobs or maintaining other sources of income as interest rates have been cut. So we don't want to borrow, thank you very much.
We have national leaders, many of whom will be saying their piece in London this week, telling us to spend (but not too much) and then go into reverse and save (but not too much), unless you are in China, in which case it is your global duty never to save another penny and go on a wild binge for the rest of your life, preferably buying as much foreign stuff as your government will let you.
But while these mixed messages sound all very well in economics seminars, they are no use to the general public. Craziest of all is this notion that we should spend to beat the recession but then save and pay off debt to get western economies back in balance.
We are creatures of habit, so once we are used to a given level of spending - and the standard of living that that brings - we don't like reining it back. What are we supposed to cut? Ditching the odd trip to Starbucks or McDonald's is fine, even overdue, but are you going to stop seeing your friends, or going on holiday, watching TV or using an iPhone? These are the kinds of decisions that would make a serious impact, but they are the hardest to do.
So I think the politicians and economists are going to be disappointed twice over. We will spend, but more cautiously than before, and save, but not enough. The biggest source of new debt, mortgages on bigger and bigger houses, will simply not be permitted by the banks, whatever Obama or Brown may say. And an enormous amount of spending was tied to moving house - new carpets, curtains, TVs, washing machines and so on.
And we will save more, but much less than our leaders would like. Result: as Waples predicts, this crisis is going to have to be allowed to play itself out, painfully and over several years. The quick fix, of lurching from overspending to oversaving at a signal from on high, just ain't gonna happen. As with the long-predicted pension crisis - too many baby boomers soon drawing pensions that will have to be paid for by a shrinking workforce - we will muddle through. But millions will be thrown out of work and there will be more social upheaval. We must pray that that upheaval does not install the sort of power-crazed warmongers that the world suffered in the 1930s. That's the real bottom line.
Friday, March 27, 2009
From Torquay to toreadors by Bill Kay
I've just been listening to a podcast of the latest in a long-running BBC radio show, Excess Baggage, about the origin and growth of travel guides, which got me thinking about my own journey.
Travel guides began in the early 19th century when mass leisure travel began thanks to the provision of commercial sea-going services from Britain to the Continent, and later the advent of the railways. Of course such ventures were only for the rich but, in comparison to the aristocrats doing their obligatory tour of Europe's capitals, money and therefore saving money were becoming a factor in travel plans. The guide books offered to replace human guides at far less cost, and was therefore an element in the great expansion of travel purely for the fun of it.
It occurred to me as I listened to this that I had undergone a similar expansion of my personal horizon. For the first 12 years of my life I never left Britain. Holidays took place either on the sunny south coast, where there are many seaside resorts from Brighton to Torquay, or up to Scotland to visit my family. Even these were quite ambitious projects at a time when many Londoners didn't get much beyond the nearby areas of Kent, Essex or East Anglia.
And then we went to Switzerland. That is virtually unthinkable now, with the British pound fetching only 1.64 Swiss francs. Back then, though, a pound was worth 12 francs. I suppose the early package holiday firms thought they had to offer something different from a beach holiday, though it was the Mediterranean beach holiday that eventually captured the big business because of its combination of sun, sand and cheap booze.
My mother was always keen on getting one over on her family, so bragging about a trip to Switzerland must have been right up her street. The first I knew about it was the brochures arriving in our flat, and finally settling on two weeks in Interlaken, a tiny village in the mountains and, as its name suggests, between two lakes.
We didn't fly, that would have been far too extravagant. It was a train from London to Dover, ferry across the English Channel, and then night train across France to Switzerland. I remember thinking sniffily that these French trains weren't up to much as the lower-class sleeping compartments had six bunks instead of the four then customary in Britain.
But at the age of 13 I did things on that trip that I rarely, if ever, did again. Pleasure trips across the lakes. A train up the 13,600-foot Jungfraujoch mountain in the Bernese oberland, still rated Switzerland's most popular railway journey, to an ice palace. A train south to Lake Maggiore in Italy, to be taken round the magical palace of Isola Bella. Somehow my parents let me get my hands on a bottle of Chianti - they couldn't have realised how strong it was, for I drank the lot before weaving off the train at Berne.
We did go back to Scotland on holiday in later years, mainly because mum had found a swanky hotel in the golf resort of St Andrews where my wealthy uncle used to take his family. Otherwise, though, we never holidayed in Britain again.
A couple of years later we joined the trek to the Med - Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava near Barcelona, where I got such severe sunburn that I was reduced to lying on my front in my room for a few days until the blisters finished cooling my back.
I was becoming interested in journalism then and also in the hotel was a family whose father was Alf Brockman, editor of Parade, a rather shady mag produced by the News of the World. It didn't lead to anything in terms of work, but it was great to talk Fleet Street with a real live editor and he gave up a lot of his holiday to humour me.
The most glamorous trip of that holiday was the coach into Barcelona, either to go sightseeing or to take in the bullfight. I was mesmerised by both, and thoroughly hooked on foreign travel.
Alcohol played a part in that trip, too, not because I drank too much but because the local bodegas had the charming custom of letting you pour as much wine or vodka as you wanted from huge barrels, and then telling the patron at the end of the evening how much you had had. This probably worked well when the customers were locals and everyone knew everyone, but I suspect that quite a few British and German tourists (the majority) soon realised that they could get away with accidently underestimating how much they had consumed. Anyway, when we went back two years later, each barrel was supervised by a member of staff, who took your money drink by drink. Shame.
By that time the tourist industry was in full swing. Hotels were being built as fast as they could clear a plot of land, and some bright entrepreneur had decided to head off the trips to Barcelona by constructing Lloret's own bullring - no atmosphere, second-rate matadors, but who cares? It makes a change from lying on the beach.
Travel guides began in the early 19th century when mass leisure travel began thanks to the provision of commercial sea-going services from Britain to the Continent, and later the advent of the railways. Of course such ventures were only for the rich but, in comparison to the aristocrats doing their obligatory tour of Europe's capitals, money and therefore saving money were becoming a factor in travel plans. The guide books offered to replace human guides at far less cost, and was therefore an element in the great expansion of travel purely for the fun of it.
It occurred to me as I listened to this that I had undergone a similar expansion of my personal horizon. For the first 12 years of my life I never left Britain. Holidays took place either on the sunny south coast, where there are many seaside resorts from Brighton to Torquay, or up to Scotland to visit my family. Even these were quite ambitious projects at a time when many Londoners didn't get much beyond the nearby areas of Kent, Essex or East Anglia.
And then we went to Switzerland. That is virtually unthinkable now, with the British pound fetching only 1.64 Swiss francs. Back then, though, a pound was worth 12 francs. I suppose the early package holiday firms thought they had to offer something different from a beach holiday, though it was the Mediterranean beach holiday that eventually captured the big business because of its combination of sun, sand and cheap booze.
My mother was always keen on getting one over on her family, so bragging about a trip to Switzerland must have been right up her street. The first I knew about it was the brochures arriving in our flat, and finally settling on two weeks in Interlaken, a tiny village in the mountains and, as its name suggests, between two lakes.
We didn't fly, that would have been far too extravagant. It was a train from London to Dover, ferry across the English Channel, and then night train across France to Switzerland. I remember thinking sniffily that these French trains weren't up to much as the lower-class sleeping compartments had six bunks instead of the four then customary in Britain.
But at the age of 13 I did things on that trip that I rarely, if ever, did again. Pleasure trips across the lakes. A train up the 13,600-foot Jungfraujoch mountain in the Bernese oberland, still rated Switzerland's most popular railway journey, to an ice palace. A train south to Lake Maggiore in Italy, to be taken round the magical palace of Isola Bella. Somehow my parents let me get my hands on a bottle of Chianti - they couldn't have realised how strong it was, for I drank the lot before weaving off the train at Berne.
We did go back to Scotland on holiday in later years, mainly because mum had found a swanky hotel in the golf resort of St Andrews where my wealthy uncle used to take his family. Otherwise, though, we never holidayed in Britain again.
A couple of years later we joined the trek to the Med - Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava near Barcelona, where I got such severe sunburn that I was reduced to lying on my front in my room for a few days until the blisters finished cooling my back.
I was becoming interested in journalism then and also in the hotel was a family whose father was Alf Brockman, editor of Parade, a rather shady mag produced by the News of the World. It didn't lead to anything in terms of work, but it was great to talk Fleet Street with a real live editor and he gave up a lot of his holiday to humour me.
The most glamorous trip of that holiday was the coach into Barcelona, either to go sightseeing or to take in the bullfight. I was mesmerised by both, and thoroughly hooked on foreign travel.
Alcohol played a part in that trip, too, not because I drank too much but because the local bodegas had the charming custom of letting you pour as much wine or vodka as you wanted from huge barrels, and then telling the patron at the end of the evening how much you had had. This probably worked well when the customers were locals and everyone knew everyone, but I suspect that quite a few British and German tourists (the majority) soon realised that they could get away with accidently underestimating how much they had consumed. Anyway, when we went back two years later, each barrel was supervised by a member of staff, who took your money drink by drink. Shame.
By that time the tourist industry was in full swing. Hotels were being built as fast as they could clear a plot of land, and some bright entrepreneur had decided to head off the trips to Barcelona by constructing Lloret's own bullring - no atmosphere, second-rate matadors, but who cares? It makes a change from lying on the beach.
Poolside paranoia by Bill Kay
A well-meaning gathering at a plush poolside house in Santa Monica last night gave me a vivid insight into how Hitler rose to power - and how a modern-day demagog might repeat that deadly feat amid the ashes of today's economic crisis.
I was attending the launch of a book, Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown, which tries to explain the banking failures that led to the current recession and suggest remedies. Her favourite is for every US state - and, eventually - every country in the world to create its own publicly-owned bank, as already exists in North Dakota.
Brown said: "State banks could lend money to the state governments, but that is OK if it's being used for productive projects." That, like any nationalised industry, begs the question of what is productive or desirable. The beauty of nationalised banks in the present climate, is that such decisions are not being made by rapacious, money-grabbing, self-centred private bankers eager to generate huge bonuses for themselves with total disregard for public policy and the wishes of the rest of the population.
"Once you understand what credit it," said Brown, "you don't need bankers." But you do need someone to run banks, and if they also understand credit - as I would hope - then what are they but bankers? Of course they would start as outsiders determined not to repeat the mistakes of career bankers, but I predict that they would "go native" within a short time and become as bankerly as any Citigroup executive. Bank of North Dakota's website says: "It was never intended for Bank of North Dakota to compete with or replace existing banks. Instead, Bank of North Dakota was created to partner with other banks and assist them in meeting the needs of the citizens of North Dakota."
State banks are not unknown in the rest of the world, particularly in those countries with a strong agricultural economy like North Dakota. That is how France's Credit Agricole started, and communist countries have naturally had their own banks. The 1945 British Labour Government contented itself with nationalising the Bank of England, on the grounds that the central bank could and would control the commercial banks. It did so for 50 years, until the present Labour government took its supervisory powers away and gave them to the Financial Services Authority, UK counterpart of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some UK commentators argue that that decision took the supervisors took far away from the sharp end, where the financial action is.
The evening began bizarrely, with a video of a tit-and-bum show - dignified as burlesque, as if that somehow made it respectable - which earned tut-tuts from some of the women in the audience, followed by a couple of songs. We were then given an extended advert for KTLK, a left-wing radio station that aims to balance the right-wing rants of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. The plug came from an aspiring Limbaugh of the Left, Richard Greene, described in the press release as "master of charisma, one of the leading communication coaches in the world". I was less than whelmed, a view shared by a man at the back of the room who, after ten minutes of this self-promotion, asked impatiently when we were going to hear from Brown. Greene was reduced to whingeing uncharismatically that such disrespect was out of order. Maybe, but it did bring Brown to the mike. Lesson one to the communication coach: don't overstay your welcome.
At the outset of her talk, Brown earned gasps of disgust and grunts of approval by describing banks as Ponzi schemes, thus simultaneously smearing them as illegal and bracketing them with Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford, two prominent villains of the stock market collapse. Her argument was that, like Ponzi schemes, they need new customers to pay off the old ones - but no more than any other business needs a constant throughput of customers. But banks are at root much simpler than that: they take in money, for which they pay a small rate of interest, and lend it at a higher rate of interest. The difference is their profit. No Ponzi required. Indeed, banks could run like savings and loans, relying on the same bunch of savers to provide cash for a standing army of borrowers.
Brown's big revelation was that banks lend more than ten times the amount of money they receive from depositors - a "secret" known as credit creation that is taught to every first-year economics student. Indeed, Brown later explained that the practice dated back to 17th century goldsmiths who noticed that their customers preferred trading promissory notes to walking around with lumps of gold. I believe it goes back a lot further than the 17th century, but the point is that it is neither new nor sinister.
The presentation went downhill from there. Brown told us that derivatives were "basically bets" - yes, but no more than any other investment as they all depend on a view of the future, even bank deposits. In fact derivatives are widely used in industry and farming to hedge against the risk of prices going bad. If that is a bet, so is an insurance policy and virtually every other financial instrument.
Then we got an attack on the Bank for International Settlements, smeared as Hitler's bank even though Brown later lauded the Fuhrer for "standing up to the banks, like Lincoln and Kennedy, who got shot for doing so". The BIS, it seems, was partly to blame for the credit crisis because of its insistence on mark to market rules and maintaining banks' capital ratio at no less than 8%, which strikes me as an edict designed to rein in bank lending rather than encouraging more foolhardiness. Brown skipped over the fact that BIS is owned by 55 central banks, including the European Central Bank and those of Russia and the US. It may not be blameless but it is certainly not the evil Swiss secret dictator that Brown made it out to be. But her dire warning was well received in a room buzzing with paranoia and conspiracy theories.
Creating state banks was the fourth of four possible crisis remedies Brown outlined. The first was nationalising the Federal Reserve, which I reckon would make next to no difference as if it steps out of line at present the government would soon slap it down. In any case, Brown admitted she "rather liked" Fed chairman Ben Bernanke "because he's a professor". Hmm.
Next came the proposal that the Fed should fund federal projects by issuing bonds - fine, but that begs the question of who is going to buy these bonds and on what terms they are going to be sold.
Thirdly, Brown suggested nationalising the present commercial banks, but only after their balance sheets had been cleaned up by getting rid of the derivatives and toxic loans. No word of the impact on the counterparties to those securities, who happen to include pension and mutual funds serving millions of ordinary Americans.
What did this chaotic jumble of an evening have to do with the rise of Hitler. I am not for a second suggesting that this well-meaning author, a lawyer who could easily be mistaken for a bank CEO's PA, might be about to march on the White House at the head of a mass army of revolutionaries. But she was feeding on the same fertile ground of fear, ignorance, prejudice, anger and simplistic solutions that enabled Hitler to overthrow the previous German government. And that is the greatest danger of this crisis: that it could spawn a populist leader who wrests power from a legitimate president whose policies are judged to have failed.
Overthrow Obama? This crowd of well-fed, affluent Democrats? Yes, because in the end even he came in for cosying up to the banks - so, Greene suggested, that he might avoid Lincoln and Kennedy's fate.
But in the end Brown revealed her true colours - as a middle-aged hippy. She said: "We hippies of the 1960s had that vision that abundance is everywhere, if we could just fix the system." Aaaawwww, sweet.
And, for the old gent who plaintively asked what he and his white-haired wife should do with their meagre savings, Brown giggled as she gave the opinion that "the stock market looks pretty good now." A closet capitalist after all.
I was attending the launch of a book, Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown, which tries to explain the banking failures that led to the current recession and suggest remedies. Her favourite is for every US state - and, eventually - every country in the world to create its own publicly-owned bank, as already exists in North Dakota.
Brown said: "State banks could lend money to the state governments, but that is OK if it's being used for productive projects." That, like any nationalised industry, begs the question of what is productive or desirable. The beauty of nationalised banks in the present climate, is that such decisions are not being made by rapacious, money-grabbing, self-centred private bankers eager to generate huge bonuses for themselves with total disregard for public policy and the wishes of the rest of the population.
"Once you understand what credit it," said Brown, "you don't need bankers." But you do need someone to run banks, and if they also understand credit - as I would hope - then what are they but bankers? Of course they would start as outsiders determined not to repeat the mistakes of career bankers, but I predict that they would "go native" within a short time and become as bankerly as any Citigroup executive. Bank of North Dakota's website says: "It was never intended for Bank of North Dakota to compete with or replace existing banks. Instead, Bank of North Dakota was created to partner with other banks and assist them in meeting the needs of the citizens of North Dakota."
State banks are not unknown in the rest of the world, particularly in those countries with a strong agricultural economy like North Dakota. That is how France's Credit Agricole started, and communist countries have naturally had their own banks. The 1945 British Labour Government contented itself with nationalising the Bank of England, on the grounds that the central bank could and would control the commercial banks. It did so for 50 years, until the present Labour government took its supervisory powers away and gave them to the Financial Services Authority, UK counterpart of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Some UK commentators argue that that decision took the supervisors took far away from the sharp end, where the financial action is.
The evening began bizarrely, with a video of a tit-and-bum show - dignified as burlesque, as if that somehow made it respectable - which earned tut-tuts from some of the women in the audience, followed by a couple of songs. We were then given an extended advert for KTLK, a left-wing radio station that aims to balance the right-wing rants of Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. The plug came from an aspiring Limbaugh of the Left, Richard Greene, described in the press release as "master of charisma, one of the leading communication coaches in the world". I was less than whelmed, a view shared by a man at the back of the room who, after ten minutes of this self-promotion, asked impatiently when we were going to hear from Brown. Greene was reduced to whingeing uncharismatically that such disrespect was out of order. Maybe, but it did bring Brown to the mike. Lesson one to the communication coach: don't overstay your welcome.
At the outset of her talk, Brown earned gasps of disgust and grunts of approval by describing banks as Ponzi schemes, thus simultaneously smearing them as illegal and bracketing them with Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford, two prominent villains of the stock market collapse. Her argument was that, like Ponzi schemes, they need new customers to pay off the old ones - but no more than any other business needs a constant throughput of customers. But banks are at root much simpler than that: they take in money, for which they pay a small rate of interest, and lend it at a higher rate of interest. The difference is their profit. No Ponzi required. Indeed, banks could run like savings and loans, relying on the same bunch of savers to provide cash for a standing army of borrowers.
Brown's big revelation was that banks lend more than ten times the amount of money they receive from depositors - a "secret" known as credit creation that is taught to every first-year economics student. Indeed, Brown later explained that the practice dated back to 17th century goldsmiths who noticed that their customers preferred trading promissory notes to walking around with lumps of gold. I believe it goes back a lot further than the 17th century, but the point is that it is neither new nor sinister.
The presentation went downhill from there. Brown told us that derivatives were "basically bets" - yes, but no more than any other investment as they all depend on a view of the future, even bank deposits. In fact derivatives are widely used in industry and farming to hedge against the risk of prices going bad. If that is a bet, so is an insurance policy and virtually every other financial instrument.
Then we got an attack on the Bank for International Settlements, smeared as Hitler's bank even though Brown later lauded the Fuhrer for "standing up to the banks, like Lincoln and Kennedy, who got shot for doing so". The BIS, it seems, was partly to blame for the credit crisis because of its insistence on mark to market rules and maintaining banks' capital ratio at no less than 8%, which strikes me as an edict designed to rein in bank lending rather than encouraging more foolhardiness. Brown skipped over the fact that BIS is owned by 55 central banks, including the European Central Bank and those of Russia and the US. It may not be blameless but it is certainly not the evil Swiss secret dictator that Brown made it out to be. But her dire warning was well received in a room buzzing with paranoia and conspiracy theories.
Creating state banks was the fourth of four possible crisis remedies Brown outlined. The first was nationalising the Federal Reserve, which I reckon would make next to no difference as if it steps out of line at present the government would soon slap it down. In any case, Brown admitted she "rather liked" Fed chairman Ben Bernanke "because he's a professor". Hmm.
Next came the proposal that the Fed should fund federal projects by issuing bonds - fine, but that begs the question of who is going to buy these bonds and on what terms they are going to be sold.
Thirdly, Brown suggested nationalising the present commercial banks, but only after their balance sheets had been cleaned up by getting rid of the derivatives and toxic loans. No word of the impact on the counterparties to those securities, who happen to include pension and mutual funds serving millions of ordinary Americans.
What did this chaotic jumble of an evening have to do with the rise of Hitler. I am not for a second suggesting that this well-meaning author, a lawyer who could easily be mistaken for a bank CEO's PA, might be about to march on the White House at the head of a mass army of revolutionaries. But she was feeding on the same fertile ground of fear, ignorance, prejudice, anger and simplistic solutions that enabled Hitler to overthrow the previous German government. And that is the greatest danger of this crisis: that it could spawn a populist leader who wrests power from a legitimate president whose policies are judged to have failed.
Overthrow Obama? This crowd of well-fed, affluent Democrats? Yes, because in the end even he came in for cosying up to the banks - so, Greene suggested, that he might avoid Lincoln and Kennedy's fate.
But in the end Brown revealed her true colours - as a middle-aged hippy. She said: "We hippies of the 1960s had that vision that abundance is everywhere, if we could just fix the system." Aaaawwww, sweet.
And, for the old gent who plaintively asked what he and his white-haired wife should do with their meagre savings, Brown giggled as she gave the opinion that "the stock market looks pretty good now." A closet capitalist after all.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Beckham end game by Bill Kay
One of the greatest problems for footballers (soccer players to spell it out for our American cousins) is what to do after they retire from the game. A few go into management, usually thinking midfielders who fancy themselves as tactical superstars and are willing to put up with the internal politics of every club they join, just so they can get their hands on the train set. Others, if they have a tongue in their head and can string two words together, go into TV commentary. Indeed, that has proved to be a useful resting place for those who want to go into management. And it soon exposes those who aren't up to much, like the tragic Paul Gascoigne.
The traditional refuge for many of the rest was to run a pub, but that looks pretty pathetic for anyone who has had a few years on a Premiership salary. The temptation for them is to act like the lottery winners they are and spend the rest of their lives doing not very much.
That leaves David Beckham. Not the brightest, and definitely far too wealthy to bother with the grind of management - which in any case tends to favour those who didn't get to the top as players. His squeaky voice militates against a career in TV, where again the money probably doesn't stack up, and I suspect that, like many kids, he prefers playing to talking about football.
But, give the lad credit, he was clearly thinking ahead when he agreed the extraordinary deal with LA Galaxy. An alleged $250 million over five years made sense even for someone of his wealth, and the standard of football is so low that he could easily see out his contract without breaking sweat. Bye bye European football as the years catch up with him.
But what we didn't know until now was the clause in his contract that gives him the right to buy a US soccer franchise and actually make serious money as an owner - with a little help from his advisers, naturally.
All this hullaballoo about AC Milan is merely a distraction and, from Beckham's point of view, a bonus.
In his first winter break at the Galaxy he went to Arsenal to train - the break between seasons in the US is a ludicrous five months, so he had to do something to keep fit. That deal went to plan, he trained with the Arsenal players, no more came of it, handshakes all round. Arsene Wenger isn't the sort to throw his careful schemes in the air to play an aging superstar for a couple of months.
But this winter was different. He went to AC Milan, who more pragmatically gave him a few games: the Italian game is based on superstars who drift in and out of the first team. That was great for Beckham as it gave him match practice on top of his training routines - and, amazingly, he showed he has still got it at the top level. More importantly, that enabled him to show the England manager, Fabio Capello, that he was still capable of playing for England, and Capello could easily compare notes with the AC management. I suspect he also enjoys playing in Serie A after the struggles of the US league, where he is a man among boys with all the frustrations that entails.
That gave rise to the recent tug-o'-war between AC and Galaxy over Beckham's contract, which he must have loved at his age - 34 this year. But we now know that he was never going to abandon Galaxy entirely, because of that clause letting him buy a US club franchise, which I believe he sees as his long-term future after he stops playing.
Hence the convoluted compromise letting Beckham stay in Milan until the end of the current Italian season in May, taking a month off then joining Galaxy in July for the second half of the US season and enabling Galaxy's opponents to cash in on the Beckham factor at the box office.
'I don't mind if the Galaxy fans boo me,' Beckham says, I'll bet he doesn't. He is playing a much bigger game for much bigger stakes.
The traditional refuge for many of the rest was to run a pub, but that looks pretty pathetic for anyone who has had a few years on a Premiership salary. The temptation for them is to act like the lottery winners they are and spend the rest of their lives doing not very much.
That leaves David Beckham. Not the brightest, and definitely far too wealthy to bother with the grind of management - which in any case tends to favour those who didn't get to the top as players. His squeaky voice militates against a career in TV, where again the money probably doesn't stack up, and I suspect that, like many kids, he prefers playing to talking about football.
But, give the lad credit, he was clearly thinking ahead when he agreed the extraordinary deal with LA Galaxy. An alleged $250 million over five years made sense even for someone of his wealth, and the standard of football is so low that he could easily see out his contract without breaking sweat. Bye bye European football as the years catch up with him.
But what we didn't know until now was the clause in his contract that gives him the right to buy a US soccer franchise and actually make serious money as an owner - with a little help from his advisers, naturally.
All this hullaballoo about AC Milan is merely a distraction and, from Beckham's point of view, a bonus.
In his first winter break at the Galaxy he went to Arsenal to train - the break between seasons in the US is a ludicrous five months, so he had to do something to keep fit. That deal went to plan, he trained with the Arsenal players, no more came of it, handshakes all round. Arsene Wenger isn't the sort to throw his careful schemes in the air to play an aging superstar for a couple of months.
But this winter was different. He went to AC Milan, who more pragmatically gave him a few games: the Italian game is based on superstars who drift in and out of the first team. That was great for Beckham as it gave him match practice on top of his training routines - and, amazingly, he showed he has still got it at the top level. More importantly, that enabled him to show the England manager, Fabio Capello, that he was still capable of playing for England, and Capello could easily compare notes with the AC management. I suspect he also enjoys playing in Serie A after the struggles of the US league, where he is a man among boys with all the frustrations that entails.
That gave rise to the recent tug-o'-war between AC and Galaxy over Beckham's contract, which he must have loved at his age - 34 this year. But we now know that he was never going to abandon Galaxy entirely, because of that clause letting him buy a US club franchise, which I believe he sees as his long-term future after he stops playing.
Hence the convoluted compromise letting Beckham stay in Milan until the end of the current Italian season in May, taking a month off then joining Galaxy in July for the second half of the US season and enabling Galaxy's opponents to cash in on the Beckham factor at the box office.
'I don't mind if the Galaxy fans boo me,' Beckham says, I'll bet he doesn't. He is playing a much bigger game for much bigger stakes.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Suicidal thoughts by Bill Kay
It’s amazing how a little close examination can unpack a vast number of unexpected facets of many everyday phenomena.
Take suicide. I don’t mean to belittle it by calling it everyday, though I believe that someone, somewhere on the planet, does kill themselves every hour, let alone every day. It’s always there, a part of our existence that for most people is not much more than an object of mild curiosity. No one wants to encourage suicide, especially in anyone we know, and I guess we all support measures to reduce the number of times it happens, either through making people less inclined to do it or through preventative measures such as removing or limiting the equipment or circumstances that allow suicide.
The odd snigger about suicide being illegal in many parts of the world – a piece of crass legal pedantry - and that’s about it for most people. Yet a Google search yields more than 69 million results, so there is a major suicide industry encompassing medical, legal, academic and sociological considerations. You can get help to do away with yourself, and to have second thoughts, as well as interminable analyses of whether second thoughts do any good.
I was made to think about suicide by a lengthy but tetchy exchange between a prosecutor and an expert witness this week in the murder retrial of Phil Spector, the millionaire record producer responsible for the Wall of Sound in the 1960s. Spector’s defence is that the victim, a small-time actress called Lana Clarkson, committed suicide when she was shot in the mouth by Spector’s Colt 38 revolver.
Naturally the prosecution is working hard to discredit this suggestion. There is no proof either way – no suicide note, no declaration of intent to kill herself, and no fingerprints on the gun.
We have had intense examination of the crime scene, and minute measurement of where and how far Clarkson’s teeth and blood flew. Someone removed and wiped the gun, so its location gave no clues.
That leaves room for endless theorising over whether Clarkson was in a suicidal frame of mind – again, nothing conclusive so both sides are straining at every shred of evidence in their favour.
The latest expert to take the stand had written learned papers on the chances of an impulsive suicide. If impulsiveness was likely, that would help the defence as they would not have to show a lengthy history of suicidal tendencies by Clarkson.
Listening to the cross-examination, I realised that I had had an oversimplified view of the thought processes leading up to a suicide attempt. The simple distinction is between someone, like my mother-in-law, who plans the event, researches poisons or firearms or length of drop from buildings or bridges, thinks about it long and hard and – at the appropriate moment - takes a rational decision to go ahead, and the impulse suicide who happens on a lethal dose of pills or a loaded gun or a convenient method described on the internet and decides to do it there and then.
But life, and death, are more complicated than that. Interviews with failed suicide attempters suggest a an in and out, up and down process that might go on for days, weeks, months or years. It might or might not involve acquiring plenty of information. It might involve screwing up courage, not amassing enough and going on with normal life until the next time.
The Spector trial exchanges highlighted San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, a famous suicide site. The witness said that there was a proposal to raise the parapet from its present four and a half feet, which sounds ludicrously low in view of the history, to around eight feet. This might not be insurmountable, but it would at least force would-be suicides to think a little longer about what they are contemplating. Apparently a proportion will be sufficiently deterred, physically or emotionally, to give up and go home. It will save lives.
But much of the courtroom discussion centred on whether someone who takes the trouble to travel to the bridge can be said to be impulsive. No one lives on the bridge, so every would-be suicide has to travel there. Most live within Marin County, the territory which includes San Francisco. But many come from other parts of America and even from other countries, after journeys that must take days if you allow for getting to and from airports – even more if you include the need to book and buy a plane or train ticket, or drive from the US east coast.
Can such long-distance travellers be impulsive suicides? Surely they have all planned their deaths, whether or not they succeed? But that doesn’t take account of the up and down process leading to an attempt.
Quite a few are in effect tourists – with a special interest, certainly, and with varying degrees of purposefulness and determination. Some may just want to see the site, imagine what it’s like, how easy it is at a practical level, where you might have to park your car, all the mundanities that can get in the way. And, while going over all that minutiae, some say to themselves ‘This looks easy, I think I’ll just go and do it.’ And they do, hence the value of a higher parapet. Others visit several times before making a final decision to go ahead or not.
So, like most human activities, it’s messy. But are all these people impulsive or are they planners?
In one sense it’s an academic question, literally. All that really matters is whether people die. We know that people have an infinite range of reasons for wanting to kill themselves, and there have been many studies of the biggest risk factors – depression, excess alcohol, loss of job or marriage or house and so on. Unfortunately these cannot be eliminated by edict or they might have been already (though being locked in a job or marriage can be as much a reason for suicide as losing them unwillingly, I’d have thought).
Court cases can easily get bogged down in tiny disputes, and whether Lana Clarkson killed herself on the spur of the moment is just such an issue. For what it’s worth, as a non-expert who has attended only a few days of a trial which began at the end of last October, what I’ve heard of the blood and teeth evidence suggests to me she did not pull the trigger – but I could be totally wrong. Like many 40-year-old actresses whose career was probably on the slide, she seemed to be emotionally volatile, so in the small hours of the morning with a load of drink inside her and a loaded gun to hand, who knows what might have happened. And the Spector side argue that the bloodstains on the jacket he was wearing show conclusively that he could not have been near enough to fire the gun.
The jury will decide, but I have had a free lesson in the nature of suicide that has taught me that it is a far more complex business than I had really appreciated before. And if you are ever tempted, just lie down and count to 100. With any luck the feeling will pass.
Take suicide. I don’t mean to belittle it by calling it everyday, though I believe that someone, somewhere on the planet, does kill themselves every hour, let alone every day. It’s always there, a part of our existence that for most people is not much more than an object of mild curiosity. No one wants to encourage suicide, especially in anyone we know, and I guess we all support measures to reduce the number of times it happens, either through making people less inclined to do it or through preventative measures such as removing or limiting the equipment or circumstances that allow suicide.
The odd snigger about suicide being illegal in many parts of the world – a piece of crass legal pedantry - and that’s about it for most people. Yet a Google search yields more than 69 million results, so there is a major suicide industry encompassing medical, legal, academic and sociological considerations. You can get help to do away with yourself, and to have second thoughts, as well as interminable analyses of whether second thoughts do any good.
I was made to think about suicide by a lengthy but tetchy exchange between a prosecutor and an expert witness this week in the murder retrial of Phil Spector, the millionaire record producer responsible for the Wall of Sound in the 1960s. Spector’s defence is that the victim, a small-time actress called Lana Clarkson, committed suicide when she was shot in the mouth by Spector’s Colt 38 revolver.
Naturally the prosecution is working hard to discredit this suggestion. There is no proof either way – no suicide note, no declaration of intent to kill herself, and no fingerprints on the gun.
We have had intense examination of the crime scene, and minute measurement of where and how far Clarkson’s teeth and blood flew. Someone removed and wiped the gun, so its location gave no clues.
That leaves room for endless theorising over whether Clarkson was in a suicidal frame of mind – again, nothing conclusive so both sides are straining at every shred of evidence in their favour.
The latest expert to take the stand had written learned papers on the chances of an impulsive suicide. If impulsiveness was likely, that would help the defence as they would not have to show a lengthy history of suicidal tendencies by Clarkson.
Listening to the cross-examination, I realised that I had had an oversimplified view of the thought processes leading up to a suicide attempt. The simple distinction is between someone, like my mother-in-law, who plans the event, researches poisons or firearms or length of drop from buildings or bridges, thinks about it long and hard and – at the appropriate moment - takes a rational decision to go ahead, and the impulse suicide who happens on a lethal dose of pills or a loaded gun or a convenient method described on the internet and decides to do it there and then.
But life, and death, are more complicated than that. Interviews with failed suicide attempters suggest a an in and out, up and down process that might go on for days, weeks, months or years. It might or might not involve acquiring plenty of information. It might involve screwing up courage, not amassing enough and going on with normal life until the next time.
The Spector trial exchanges highlighted San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, a famous suicide site. The witness said that there was a proposal to raise the parapet from its present four and a half feet, which sounds ludicrously low in view of the history, to around eight feet. This might not be insurmountable, but it would at least force would-be suicides to think a little longer about what they are contemplating. Apparently a proportion will be sufficiently deterred, physically or emotionally, to give up and go home. It will save lives.
But much of the courtroom discussion centred on whether someone who takes the trouble to travel to the bridge can be said to be impulsive. No one lives on the bridge, so every would-be suicide has to travel there. Most live within Marin County, the territory which includes San Francisco. But many come from other parts of America and even from other countries, after journeys that must take days if you allow for getting to and from airports – even more if you include the need to book and buy a plane or train ticket, or drive from the US east coast.
Can such long-distance travellers be impulsive suicides? Surely they have all planned their deaths, whether or not they succeed? But that doesn’t take account of the up and down process leading to an attempt.
Quite a few are in effect tourists – with a special interest, certainly, and with varying degrees of purposefulness and determination. Some may just want to see the site, imagine what it’s like, how easy it is at a practical level, where you might have to park your car, all the mundanities that can get in the way. And, while going over all that minutiae, some say to themselves ‘This looks easy, I think I’ll just go and do it.’ And they do, hence the value of a higher parapet. Others visit several times before making a final decision to go ahead or not.
So, like most human activities, it’s messy. But are all these people impulsive or are they planners?
In one sense it’s an academic question, literally. All that really matters is whether people die. We know that people have an infinite range of reasons for wanting to kill themselves, and there have been many studies of the biggest risk factors – depression, excess alcohol, loss of job or marriage or house and so on. Unfortunately these cannot be eliminated by edict or they might have been already (though being locked in a job or marriage can be as much a reason for suicide as losing them unwillingly, I’d have thought).
Court cases can easily get bogged down in tiny disputes, and whether Lana Clarkson killed herself on the spur of the moment is just such an issue. For what it’s worth, as a non-expert who has attended only a few days of a trial which began at the end of last October, what I’ve heard of the blood and teeth evidence suggests to me she did not pull the trigger – but I could be totally wrong. Like many 40-year-old actresses whose career was probably on the slide, she seemed to be emotionally volatile, so in the small hours of the morning with a load of drink inside her and a loaded gun to hand, who knows what might have happened. And the Spector side argue that the bloodstains on the jacket he was wearing show conclusively that he could not have been near enough to fire the gun.
The jury will decide, but I have had a free lesson in the nature of suicide that has taught me that it is a far more complex business than I had really appreciated before. And if you are ever tempted, just lie down and count to 100. With any luck the feeling will pass.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Buddy can you spare a Buddy? by Bill Kay
Old people applying to be lifeguards. Young and old queuing for food, drink, anything free. Real beggars - not the con merchants looking for an easy living, but the sad, sad losers with that awful combination of hope, despair and desperation in their eyes, with a facial expression that is preparing them and you for your refusal.
These are just some of the daily snapshots of the 21st century depression that leap out every day in southern California, one of the richest territories on the planet.
There are hundreds more around America. Some are only indirectly related to the economy, like the even older people being moved from private Florida nursing homes to taxpayer-funded county hospitals because they had entrusted their entire life savings to Bernie Madoff and could no longer pay the fees of the private refuge.
But LA hits me hardest because I live near there and the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country - 10.5% compared with 8.7% for the whole of California and 8.3% for the entire US. I suspect that, as so often, LA is merely setting the trend. Within a few months the national jobless rate will be over 10% and where will LA be then? 15%? 20%?
These are the dry statistics of thousands after thousands losing jobs, homes and dreams. January's cinema attendances boomed just as Hollywood threw 23,000 on the street, many never to work again. No beggars to mar the Oscars, though: the streets were closed, guarded by police.
As is often the case, misfortune is polarising people. A commodities trader - presumably successful - has been on youtube asking why his taxes should be spent on giving economic stimulus to losers. Better to let the banks foreclose on their houses and he and his pals will put money into the economy by buying those houses cheap.
In a way it's a mercy that we don't have a red-toothed Republican in the White House. Instead, we have the freshly blooded Barack Obama, honeymoon over, thrown into announcing his first Budget, trying to keep faith with his millions of still dewy-eyed supporters for whom he can do no wrong and who yet expect so much. It's an impossible combination that I fear is bound to end in disillusion and resentment.
He has not started well, pandering to the view that he can walk on water by unveiling a Budget that offers a painless way out of the worst economic quagmire for at least 70 years - some say for a century. Tax the rich and improve efficiency and we'll all be OK.
I don't think so. There aren't enough rich, and those that are happen to be the most tenacious at holding onto their money - yes, that's why they're rich - and also have the best tax advice. As for eliminating waste, in the 20th century it took a Margaret Thatcher at her most ruthless to get anywhere at all with such a campaign, such are the forces of inertia ranged against anyone trying to ditch pet projects and jobs for the boys. But maybe Obama is simply letting us down gently, and can't bring himself to say so.
Meanwhile in LA we have an election for a new mayor, an exercise in democracy that seems as irrelevant as translating Shakespeare's sonnets into Urdu and transcribing them onto a grain of rice.
And yet, depending what bubble you inhabit here, there is a strange unreality about the downturn. You still hear radio hosts insisting it isn't really happening and reports of it have been got up by the meeja or the politicians or the fat cats in order to... well, at that point the explanation gets a little hazy.
But, apart from the growing number of boarded-up shops, there is little direct visible sign of what is happening. The story about 156 people applying for 25 lifeguard jobs at Huntington Beach, one of the big surfing beaches, appeared on TV this morning.
In Pasadena life has been continuing almost normally. A restaurant is opening on the main street, Colorado Boulevard. Our local Pavilions supermarket, part of Safeway, is holding a grand re-opening, not coincidentally timed to get in ahead of the opening across the road of a new branch of Fresh and Easy, the experimental west coast grocery chain launched by Tesco of the UK.
So there is economic activity. Most of my friends are unaffected because they weren't working anyway - except on 'projects' that don't pay right now but might if they get optioned by some sugar daddy who didn't give zillions to Bernie Madoff or Allen Stanford.
These are just some of the daily snapshots of the 21st century depression that leap out every day in southern California, one of the richest territories on the planet.
There are hundreds more around America. Some are only indirectly related to the economy, like the even older people being moved from private Florida nursing homes to taxpayer-funded county hospitals because they had entrusted their entire life savings to Bernie Madoff and could no longer pay the fees of the private refuge.
But LA hits me hardest because I live near there and the unemployment rate is one of the highest in the country - 10.5% compared with 8.7% for the whole of California and 8.3% for the entire US. I suspect that, as so often, LA is merely setting the trend. Within a few months the national jobless rate will be over 10% and where will LA be then? 15%? 20%?
These are the dry statistics of thousands after thousands losing jobs, homes and dreams. January's cinema attendances boomed just as Hollywood threw 23,000 on the street, many never to work again. No beggars to mar the Oscars, though: the streets were closed, guarded by police.
As is often the case, misfortune is polarising people. A commodities trader - presumably successful - has been on youtube asking why his taxes should be spent on giving economic stimulus to losers. Better to let the banks foreclose on their houses and he and his pals will put money into the economy by buying those houses cheap.
In a way it's a mercy that we don't have a red-toothed Republican in the White House. Instead, we have the freshly blooded Barack Obama, honeymoon over, thrown into announcing his first Budget, trying to keep faith with his millions of still dewy-eyed supporters for whom he can do no wrong and who yet expect so much. It's an impossible combination that I fear is bound to end in disillusion and resentment.
He has not started well, pandering to the view that he can walk on water by unveiling a Budget that offers a painless way out of the worst economic quagmire for at least 70 years - some say for a century. Tax the rich and improve efficiency and we'll all be OK.
I don't think so. There aren't enough rich, and those that are happen to be the most tenacious at holding onto their money - yes, that's why they're rich - and also have the best tax advice. As for eliminating waste, in the 20th century it took a Margaret Thatcher at her most ruthless to get anywhere at all with such a campaign, such are the forces of inertia ranged against anyone trying to ditch pet projects and jobs for the boys. But maybe Obama is simply letting us down gently, and can't bring himself to say so.
Meanwhile in LA we have an election for a new mayor, an exercise in democracy that seems as irrelevant as translating Shakespeare's sonnets into Urdu and transcribing them onto a grain of rice.
And yet, depending what bubble you inhabit here, there is a strange unreality about the downturn. You still hear radio hosts insisting it isn't really happening and reports of it have been got up by the meeja or the politicians or the fat cats in order to... well, at that point the explanation gets a little hazy.
But, apart from the growing number of boarded-up shops, there is little direct visible sign of what is happening. The story about 156 people applying for 25 lifeguard jobs at Huntington Beach, one of the big surfing beaches, appeared on TV this morning.
In Pasadena life has been continuing almost normally. A restaurant is opening on the main street, Colorado Boulevard. Our local Pavilions supermarket, part of Safeway, is holding a grand re-opening, not coincidentally timed to get in ahead of the opening across the road of a new branch of Fresh and Easy, the experimental west coast grocery chain launched by Tesco of the UK.
So there is economic activity. Most of my friends are unaffected because they weren't working anyway - except on 'projects' that don't pay right now but might if they get optioned by some sugar daddy who didn't give zillions to Bernie Madoff or Allen Stanford.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The long and short of Oscar shorts by Bill Kay
I went to a movie event this week that is growing in importance and could rival the main Oscars night within a few years. It's the Academy of Motion Pictures' annual presentation of the films nominated for the two shorts categories - animated and live action.
At one time overlooked as a geeks' backwater, the short films (defined by the Academy as under 40 minutes) are becoming more and more popular. I am not sure why this is, except that a virtuous circle seems to be operating: as better directors make shorts, more people want to see them. But it's not clear where the original impetus came from, other than some directors treating this category as a stepping stone to full-length movies.
Jon Bloom, the Academy governor in charge of this category, suggested that more directors welcome the freedom of being creative without having to accept the discipline of the box office. These films are usually financed by benefactors of one sort or another, for the public good.
But that is all by way of background. What matters is what gets on to the screen.
This is my second year and this week's were every bit as good as those of a year ago. They are international, quirky, funny, sad, dramatic and in some cases made a profound point. So, compared to watching one or two full-length films, ten shorts are emotionally much more demanding and fulfilling.
Here is a brief summary of the ten. Sit back and enjoy.
ANIMATION
La Maison en Petits Cubes
Despite the French title, this is a Japanese film which definitely falls into the 'quirky' slot. It's about a man who lives in what appears to be a lighthouse, in the middle of a sea. As the water rises, he has to build a higher, smaller floor in which to live. Then he acquires a diving suit and dives right down to the seabed and we see his life history down through all his previous homes. Didn't do much for me, a little too quirky maybe.
Lavatory - Lovestory
A Russian entry, about a female lavatory attendant who is left flowers by a mystery admirer/customer who eventually reveals himself. (It is the custom in European public toilets, to have women attendants for both sexes) The form is simple cartoon line drawing and it is in places quite funny, charming, touching.
Oktapodi
A French film with a strong if simple plot. A man in a Greek seaside village buys an octopus and gets in his van to drive home. He doesn't know that the octopus has a mate who does not want to be separated from the one that has been bought. The animation is hilarious as the van clatters down steps and the octopusses flit from swimming pool to swimming pool. It's a great chase movie with wonderful facial expressions.
Presto
This has the stamp of Disney and Pixar all over it. Very professional but somehow not as personal as the first three - not that they were amateurish, just not hammered out of a major corporation. It's about a magician and his rabbit. The magician denies the rabbit a carrot before the show and then exploits the magician's limitations on-stage through a series of surreal revenges. It is funny, but has much more of the feel of what you get from watching any other Disney animation.
This Way Up
OK, I'll admit I'm biased. This is the British entry and the wacky humour was much more to my taste. It's about two undertakers taking a coffin to a graveyard and all the obstacles put in their way, from an enormous boulder to falling off a cliff. Very professionally animated and drawn.
All the animations except for the first played for laughs - and got them. I think the Oscar will be between the last two. Much as I'd like This Way Up to get it, my bet is that Presto will win as a consolation prize for Pixar's Wall-e being overlooked in the main Best Picture category. That's the way it often works round here.
(I was wrong. The Oscar went to La Maison en Petits Cubes).
LIVE ACTION
Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
This runs 30 minutes and is a bit like a TV drama. Security guard fancies sales assistant in the shop where he works, unbeknownst to her he sees her brother being beaten to death on a train and does nothing about it and they get together. OK, but nothing special.
Manon on the Asphalt
A female cyclist is killed in an accident and we see her life flashing past her. This didn't leave much impression on me either.
New Boy
An Irish film about a 10-year-old black boy's first day in an Irish school - how he is teased, makes an enemy and befriends his enemy as schoolkids do. It's well-made, though the teacher comes across as a bit lame. The kids are engaging, though, and play their roles well. It packs a lot into 11 minutes.
The Pig
A real contender, as far as I'm concerned. It's about an elderly man who goes into hospital and likes the picture of a pig on his bedroom wall. Then the bedroom is divided to make room for a Muslim patient. His family take down the picture, and another one drawn by the first man. It then becomes a classic confrontation of two conflicting priorities and why either should win. Very well argued, showing how this sort of dispute is futile.
Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Another strong film, basically a 14-minute version of Schindler's List. Two boys play the piano together, one Aryan and the other Jewish. The Jewish family are to be taken to a concentration camp but they tell their son it is Toyland - so his friend wants to come too.
It's pure coincidence, but again I think the last two were the best. Given Hollywood's predeliction for anti-Nazi films, Toyland may take it. I liked The Pig, though.
(I was right - Toyland did win)
I am grateful to Will Ryan, a member of the Academy and voter in the Oscar process, for giving me a valuable insight into the thinking behind the shorts:
'Your predictions of what may actually win are based on how "Hollywood" and "the Academy" voters may act. Luckily, the short films and documentaries (short and long) are the only categories wherein the voters are limited to people who have actually seen all the films nominated in each of those categories, with IDs shown to Pricewaterhouse Coopers personnel and Academy attendants who verify your identity simultaneously at the special screenings. We are told not to discuss our opinions with other voters. Because of these strictures, I believe the results in these categories are the most meaningful of all the Academy Award categories. We are uninfluenced by trade ads, campaigns, etc. In other categories, e.g., Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, Best Sound Editing, etc. nobody verifies whether the voter has actually SEEN all the nominated films (or ANY of them, for that matter), whether the voter is actually voting or letting his secretary DingDong or her idiot cousin Kuku fill out the form, whether the voter is deaf or blind or capable, etc. These short film (and doc feature) categories are oft considered the "wild cards" for predictors, though most people don't realise exactly why. Granted, we voters DO work in "Hollywood" and ARE members of the "Academy", but you get a lot of non-studio-ish, independent types attracted to these screenings (like wacky artist/animators and weird independent film-makers), and the voting reflects that more eccentric frame of mind. Yep, there is that one Pixar short this year, and there could be Disney/Pixar block-voting (consciously or not), but each of the five animated nominees have received votes from people I've spoken with since voting closed - and that's only about 5 or 6 people in total I've spoken with on the subject.'
It's good to know that these categories are freer of Hollywood politics than those for the mainstream awards. I'll be delighted if one or more of the more offbeat entries wins an Oscar on Sunday, as that will only encourage the growth of the shorts.
Another friend, the worldly-wise Ian Whitcomb, makes the very cogent point that it is hard to see shorts breaking through the current rigid distribution system sufficiently to be shown in the big cinema chains. But it will be an achievement for them to be shown in indie houses or clubs such as American Cinematheque. Shorts are also very well suited to television or the internet, where the audience for filmed drama is growing rapidly. And, to be fair to the big chains, they can be persuaded to show small-budget movies - Little Miss Sunshine, Blair Witch Project - if they get the right backing. The fact that Fox, Warner and others have specialist brands shows that they are alive to the possibilities if the audience is there. I know that's a chicken-and-egg dilemma, but we are seeing rising demand for shorts and it is not beyond the wit of the cinemas or big studios to come up with a suitable package or framework. An awards evening like last Tuesday is inevitably going to be showing a random collection, but if the shorts culture takes off there is no reason why a cinema couldn't put together a couple of hours of shorts on a particular theme such as spurned love, sci-fi or spectacular failures. For one thing, it would be an inexpensive way for the studios to try out promising people in almost any movie role from directing to a walk-on part.
At one time overlooked as a geeks' backwater, the short films (defined by the Academy as under 40 minutes) are becoming more and more popular. I am not sure why this is, except that a virtuous circle seems to be operating: as better directors make shorts, more people want to see them. But it's not clear where the original impetus came from, other than some directors treating this category as a stepping stone to full-length movies.
Jon Bloom, the Academy governor in charge of this category, suggested that more directors welcome the freedom of being creative without having to accept the discipline of the box office. These films are usually financed by benefactors of one sort or another, for the public good.
But that is all by way of background. What matters is what gets on to the screen.
This is my second year and this week's were every bit as good as those of a year ago. They are international, quirky, funny, sad, dramatic and in some cases made a profound point. So, compared to watching one or two full-length films, ten shorts are emotionally much more demanding and fulfilling.
Here is a brief summary of the ten. Sit back and enjoy.
ANIMATION
La Maison en Petits Cubes
Despite the French title, this is a Japanese film which definitely falls into the 'quirky' slot. It's about a man who lives in what appears to be a lighthouse, in the middle of a sea. As the water rises, he has to build a higher, smaller floor in which to live. Then he acquires a diving suit and dives right down to the seabed and we see his life history down through all his previous homes. Didn't do much for me, a little too quirky maybe.
Lavatory - Lovestory
A Russian entry, about a female lavatory attendant who is left flowers by a mystery admirer/customer who eventually reveals himself. (It is the custom in European public toilets, to have women attendants for both sexes) The form is simple cartoon line drawing and it is in places quite funny, charming, touching.
Oktapodi
A French film with a strong if simple plot. A man in a Greek seaside village buys an octopus and gets in his van to drive home. He doesn't know that the octopus has a mate who does not want to be separated from the one that has been bought. The animation is hilarious as the van clatters down steps and the octopusses flit from swimming pool to swimming pool. It's a great chase movie with wonderful facial expressions.
Presto
This has the stamp of Disney and Pixar all over it. Very professional but somehow not as personal as the first three - not that they were amateurish, just not hammered out of a major corporation. It's about a magician and his rabbit. The magician denies the rabbit a carrot before the show and then exploits the magician's limitations on-stage through a series of surreal revenges. It is funny, but has much more of the feel of what you get from watching any other Disney animation.
This Way Up
OK, I'll admit I'm biased. This is the British entry and the wacky humour was much more to my taste. It's about two undertakers taking a coffin to a graveyard and all the obstacles put in their way, from an enormous boulder to falling off a cliff. Very professionally animated and drawn.
All the animations except for the first played for laughs - and got them. I think the Oscar will be between the last two. Much as I'd like This Way Up to get it, my bet is that Presto will win as a consolation prize for Pixar's Wall-e being overlooked in the main Best Picture category. That's the way it often works round here.
(I was wrong. The Oscar went to La Maison en Petits Cubes).
LIVE ACTION
Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
This runs 30 minutes and is a bit like a TV drama. Security guard fancies sales assistant in the shop where he works, unbeknownst to her he sees her brother being beaten to death on a train and does nothing about it and they get together. OK, but nothing special.
Manon on the Asphalt
A female cyclist is killed in an accident and we see her life flashing past her. This didn't leave much impression on me either.
New Boy
An Irish film about a 10-year-old black boy's first day in an Irish school - how he is teased, makes an enemy and befriends his enemy as schoolkids do. It's well-made, though the teacher comes across as a bit lame. The kids are engaging, though, and play their roles well. It packs a lot into 11 minutes.
The Pig
A real contender, as far as I'm concerned. It's about an elderly man who goes into hospital and likes the picture of a pig on his bedroom wall. Then the bedroom is divided to make room for a Muslim patient. His family take down the picture, and another one drawn by the first man. It then becomes a classic confrontation of two conflicting priorities and why either should win. Very well argued, showing how this sort of dispute is futile.
Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Another strong film, basically a 14-minute version of Schindler's List. Two boys play the piano together, one Aryan and the other Jewish. The Jewish family are to be taken to a concentration camp but they tell their son it is Toyland - so his friend wants to come too.
It's pure coincidence, but again I think the last two were the best. Given Hollywood's predeliction for anti-Nazi films, Toyland may take it. I liked The Pig, though.
(I was right - Toyland did win)
I am grateful to Will Ryan, a member of the Academy and voter in the Oscar process, for giving me a valuable insight into the thinking behind the shorts:
'Your predictions of what may actually win are based on how "Hollywood" and "the Academy" voters may act. Luckily, the short films and documentaries (short and long) are the only categories wherein the voters are limited to people who have actually seen all the films nominated in each of those categories, with IDs shown to Pricewaterhouse Coopers personnel and Academy attendants who verify your identity simultaneously at the special screenings. We are told not to discuss our opinions with other voters. Because of these strictures, I believe the results in these categories are the most meaningful of all the Academy Award categories. We are uninfluenced by trade ads, campaigns, etc. In other categories, e.g., Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, Best Sound Editing, etc. nobody verifies whether the voter has actually SEEN all the nominated films (or ANY of them, for that matter), whether the voter is actually voting or letting his secretary DingDong or her idiot cousin Kuku fill out the form, whether the voter is deaf or blind or capable, etc. These short film (and doc feature) categories are oft considered the "wild cards" for predictors, though most people don't realise exactly why. Granted, we voters DO work in "Hollywood" and ARE members of the "Academy", but you get a lot of non-studio-ish, independent types attracted to these screenings (like wacky artist/animators and weird independent film-makers), and the voting reflects that more eccentric frame of mind. Yep, there is that one Pixar short this year, and there could be Disney/Pixar block-voting (consciously or not), but each of the five animated nominees have received votes from people I've spoken with since voting closed - and that's only about 5 or 6 people in total I've spoken with on the subject.'
It's good to know that these categories are freer of Hollywood politics than those for the mainstream awards. I'll be delighted if one or more of the more offbeat entries wins an Oscar on Sunday, as that will only encourage the growth of the shorts.
Another friend, the worldly-wise Ian Whitcomb, makes the very cogent point that it is hard to see shorts breaking through the current rigid distribution system sufficiently to be shown in the big cinema chains. But it will be an achievement for them to be shown in indie houses or clubs such as American Cinematheque. Shorts are also very well suited to television or the internet, where the audience for filmed drama is growing rapidly. And, to be fair to the big chains, they can be persuaded to show small-budget movies - Little Miss Sunshine, Blair Witch Project - if they get the right backing. The fact that Fox, Warner and others have specialist brands shows that they are alive to the possibilities if the audience is there. I know that's a chicken-and-egg dilemma, but we are seeing rising demand for shorts and it is not beyond the wit of the cinemas or big studios to come up with a suitable package or framework. An awards evening like last Tuesday is inevitably going to be showing a random collection, but if the shorts culture takes off there is no reason why a cinema couldn't put together a couple of hours of shorts on a particular theme such as spurned love, sci-fi or spectacular failures. For one thing, it would be an inexpensive way for the studios to try out promising people in almost any movie role from directing to a walk-on part.
Not so magical mystery trip by Bill Kay
It all started out so straightforwardly. And, I suppose, ended straightforwardly. But in between was a bizarre road trip that just reminded that, after umpteen vacations and living here for two and a half years, I can still get caught out by the complexities of the LA road system.
The plan was to attend a journalists' meeting at the Metropolitan Water Board offices next to Union Station. It's a mess round there, and the first time we made several missteps, but we'd been before and knew the routine. You get to the front of Union Station, turn to the right and go round the back of the Water Board building to the underground parking lot.
But, having not made the trip lately, I consulted my new best pal, the map application on my iPhone. I entered Union Station and it helpfully told me to go down Pasadena Freeway and take the 5 south to Mission Street, just a mile or so down the road. The traffic wasn't too busy but, this being just before 6pm, it was the rush hour and the regular commuters weren't taking prisoners. Fine.
So, off the slip road, turn right on Mission and right on Cesar Chavez back into downtown. Then left on Vignes.
This didn't look very familiar, but it seemed like we were approaching from the back of the station, not too much of a problem, minor adjustment maybe.
So I went into the approach road, round in a circle and out again, not onto Vignes but a strange little open space which should have set alarm bells ringing. One exit said No Entry but the next seemed OK though (or maybe because) it had no sign saying where it led.
That, though I naturally didn't realise it at the time, was the point of no return. It led into a one-way channel with concrete walls on either side. Other cars were using it, which was reassuring and by now there was no way out. I thought it might lead back to Vignes or Cezar Chavez and the worst would be that I would have to start again.
But this little rat run went on. And on. And on. And on.
After a while I noticed we were travelling alongside a freeway, which I correctly guessed to be the 10, and we looked to be going east, out of town. But there was no turn-off, no way out.
I have checked the map - masochism is my middle name - and I calculate we went 25 miles before finding a turnoff.
Everything seemed upside down. I found Del Mar Boulevard, which I know a little bit, and took that without realising I was going south instead of north. We nearly got down to the 60 before correcting that mistake and eventually pulled into the side in San Gabriel to check the iPhone map. With touching innocence, I trusted it to take us over to Alhambra where we thought we might have a Chinese meal - the journalist meeting would have started by now and we were on to Plans B, C, D and E.
It directed us back to the 10 and recommended going back west for a few miles then north. Looked good - until I mistakenly took the eastbound ramp.
"Ah, there's an exit for Rosemead Boulevard, Route 19, I know that," I cried as if I were foraging through the Amazon jungle.
We took that and it did indeed take us to what I might loosely call civilisation. We swapped our Chinese meal in Alhambra for a Thai meal in east Pasadena, at a restaurant I'd been meaning to try for years. It wasn't a bad meal, not particularly memorable, but the important thing was that I knew where I was. Home was only a ten-minute ride away. We had been in a huge circle, the meeting was lost - and I learned to be more precise about telling a computerised map where I wanted to go.
The plan was to attend a journalists' meeting at the Metropolitan Water Board offices next to Union Station. It's a mess round there, and the first time we made several missteps, but we'd been before and knew the routine. You get to the front of Union Station, turn to the right and go round the back of the Water Board building to the underground parking lot.
But, having not made the trip lately, I consulted my new best pal, the map application on my iPhone. I entered Union Station and it helpfully told me to go down Pasadena Freeway and take the 5 south to Mission Street, just a mile or so down the road. The traffic wasn't too busy but, this being just before 6pm, it was the rush hour and the regular commuters weren't taking prisoners. Fine.
So, off the slip road, turn right on Mission and right on Cesar Chavez back into downtown. Then left on Vignes.
This didn't look very familiar, but it seemed like we were approaching from the back of the station, not too much of a problem, minor adjustment maybe.
So I went into the approach road, round in a circle and out again, not onto Vignes but a strange little open space which should have set alarm bells ringing. One exit said No Entry but the next seemed OK though (or maybe because) it had no sign saying where it led.
That, though I naturally didn't realise it at the time, was the point of no return. It led into a one-way channel with concrete walls on either side. Other cars were using it, which was reassuring and by now there was no way out. I thought it might lead back to Vignes or Cezar Chavez and the worst would be that I would have to start again.
But this little rat run went on. And on. And on. And on.
After a while I noticed we were travelling alongside a freeway, which I correctly guessed to be the 10, and we looked to be going east, out of town. But there was no turn-off, no way out.
I have checked the map - masochism is my middle name - and I calculate we went 25 miles before finding a turnoff.
Everything seemed upside down. I found Del Mar Boulevard, which I know a little bit, and took that without realising I was going south instead of north. We nearly got down to the 60 before correcting that mistake and eventually pulled into the side in San Gabriel to check the iPhone map. With touching innocence, I trusted it to take us over to Alhambra where we thought we might have a Chinese meal - the journalist meeting would have started by now and we were on to Plans B, C, D and E.
It directed us back to the 10 and recommended going back west for a few miles then north. Looked good - until I mistakenly took the eastbound ramp.
"Ah, there's an exit for Rosemead Boulevard, Route 19, I know that," I cried as if I were foraging through the Amazon jungle.
We took that and it did indeed take us to what I might loosely call civilisation. We swapped our Chinese meal in Alhambra for a Thai meal in east Pasadena, at a restaurant I'd been meaning to try for years. It wasn't a bad meal, not particularly memorable, but the important thing was that I knew where I was. Home was only a ten-minute ride away. We had been in a huge circle, the meeting was lost - and I learned to be more precise about telling a computerised map where I wanted to go.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
All that Jazz by Bill Kay
It is disconcerting when a perfect stranger yanks a bar stool away from under your feet - all the more so when she is a striking blonde in the throes of performing in a play and you're practically sitting on the stage of the theatre.
We were at the Blank Theatre Company's 2nd Stage, one of the run of small venues on a shabby stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard known as Theatre Row. For Brits, it brings back memories of the Edinburgh Festival - no frills, seemingly impromptu, lots of scruffy guys in their twenties running about everywhere fixing seemingly vital last-minute problems. And nowhere to eat. We arrived early and wandered around for half an hour, finally settling for Winchell's Donuts on Fountain and Vine, a good half-mile away.
Our friend Ian Whitcomb has composed a musical background for the show - The Jazz Age - and is playing in it with his band, the Bungalow Boys (Fred Sokolow on guitar, Dave Jones on bass). Like anyone involved in a play, Ian has been agonising for weeks whether it will be a success and whether any of the countless changes will improve it or otherwise.
So my expectations were low. All the more of a surprise, then, to applaud the actors' final bow with the feeling that this was the best theatrical experience I had had for years.
It began as farce. The tiny foyer was crammed when we were allowed to go to our seats. You climb straight up to the back of the auditorium - capacity 55 - and then hare down to the front, no reserved seats, first come first served. We landed in the front at extreme stage left - by one of two bar stools.
The other facility that was first come, first served was the one and only restroom - and we were repeatedly reminded that there would be no intermission, the show was two hours straight through and the restroom was at the back of the stage. The Bungalow Boys were above us in a gallery, playing music to get us in the 1920s mood, as we lined up. The time for curtain up (or lights down, no curtain) was decided by the moment when the last satisfied customer made her way contentedly back across the stage to her seat.
The Jazz Age is as much a misnomer as the title of the recent film, Australia. Its only relevance is that the action takes place 1920-40. It tells the story of the developing relationship between Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, spiced by Zelda Fitzgerald (the blonde). I'd call it Scott, Zelda and Ernie, but what do I know? I'd probably have called King Lear Keep It In the Family.
The plot has a natural shape, as Fitzgerald goes on a steady, drink-fuelled decline while Hemingway grows into an international celebrity who ends up punching Louis B Meyer, the Hollywood studio magnate - in the play, anyway.
In one way I'd liked to have gone armed with more than my very skimpy knowledge of the actual threesome, but in another way I was probably better off not knowing any more or I could have been irritated by the inevitable inaccuracies, short-cuts and liberal use of poetic (or playwright's) licence.
As it was, the three characters didn't need names. They played themselves out in a timeless drama that Shakespeare would have loved to get his teeth into. I am not saying the writing - by Allan Knee - was up to Shakespeare, but it was tight and muscular, building the tension relentlessly with the help of three terrific actors: Luke MacFarlane, Jeremy Gabriel and Heather Prete. The beauty of it was that, like all good art, it felt complete and rounded and gave a sense that by the end the viewer knew all that he or she needed to know about that subject.
I came out on Santa Monica Boulevard feeling drained, but satisfied. And very glad that I hadn't fatally entwined my legs in that bar stool.
We were at the Blank Theatre Company's 2nd Stage, one of the run of small venues on a shabby stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard known as Theatre Row. For Brits, it brings back memories of the Edinburgh Festival - no frills, seemingly impromptu, lots of scruffy guys in their twenties running about everywhere fixing seemingly vital last-minute problems. And nowhere to eat. We arrived early and wandered around for half an hour, finally settling for Winchell's Donuts on Fountain and Vine, a good half-mile away.
Our friend Ian Whitcomb has composed a musical background for the show - The Jazz Age - and is playing in it with his band, the Bungalow Boys (Fred Sokolow on guitar, Dave Jones on bass). Like anyone involved in a play, Ian has been agonising for weeks whether it will be a success and whether any of the countless changes will improve it or otherwise.
So my expectations were low. All the more of a surprise, then, to applaud the actors' final bow with the feeling that this was the best theatrical experience I had had for years.
It began as farce. The tiny foyer was crammed when we were allowed to go to our seats. You climb straight up to the back of the auditorium - capacity 55 - and then hare down to the front, no reserved seats, first come first served. We landed in the front at extreme stage left - by one of two bar stools.
The other facility that was first come, first served was the one and only restroom - and we were repeatedly reminded that there would be no intermission, the show was two hours straight through and the restroom was at the back of the stage. The Bungalow Boys were above us in a gallery, playing music to get us in the 1920s mood, as we lined up. The time for curtain up (or lights down, no curtain) was decided by the moment when the last satisfied customer made her way contentedly back across the stage to her seat.
The Jazz Age is as much a misnomer as the title of the recent film, Australia. Its only relevance is that the action takes place 1920-40. It tells the story of the developing relationship between Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, spiced by Zelda Fitzgerald (the blonde). I'd call it Scott, Zelda and Ernie, but what do I know? I'd probably have called King Lear Keep It In the Family.
The plot has a natural shape, as Fitzgerald goes on a steady, drink-fuelled decline while Hemingway grows into an international celebrity who ends up punching Louis B Meyer, the Hollywood studio magnate - in the play, anyway.
In one way I'd liked to have gone armed with more than my very skimpy knowledge of the actual threesome, but in another way I was probably better off not knowing any more or I could have been irritated by the inevitable inaccuracies, short-cuts and liberal use of poetic (or playwright's) licence.
As it was, the three characters didn't need names. They played themselves out in a timeless drama that Shakespeare would have loved to get his teeth into. I am not saying the writing - by Allan Knee - was up to Shakespeare, but it was tight and muscular, building the tension relentlessly with the help of three terrific actors: Luke MacFarlane, Jeremy Gabriel and Heather Prete. The beauty of it was that, like all good art, it felt complete and rounded and gave a sense that by the end the viewer knew all that he or she needed to know about that subject.
I came out on Santa Monica Boulevard feeling drained, but satisfied. And very glad that I hadn't fatally entwined my legs in that bar stool.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Best meal of my life
I know, I know, it's hard to justify a headline like that. But, for once, I really think it's true: last night I had what I believe was the best meal of my life. Anywhere. Certainly in California and I'm pretty sure in the whole of North America. Now I must admit there is some competition with forty years living high off the hog and well above the salt in London, so I concede my memory may be letting me down. Some excellent meals were, I admit, blurred by alcohol. For that I must apologise to Raymond Blanc, chef at the Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Oxfordshire, proud holder of two Michelin stars. That was a blissful occasion in December 2005, but the details have melted away. http://www.manoir.com/web/olem/olem_menus_classiques.jsp gives the flavour, though.
Memory is part of what constitutes the best anything, unless it can be objectively measured - which food or drink cannot. So let us say that last night's gastronomic heaven has supplanted all others as the one I regard the best, and I have seldom sat back at the end of a meal and said 'That was it.'
And while the Manoir indulgence ran to six courses, with a different wine for each, this was a mere four, accompanied by gently sparkling mineral water.
OK, I will tease no more. The restaurant was Fatty's, a renowned vegetarian restaurant in Eagle Rock, a trendy community between Pasadena and Glendale. It's named after the owner's dog.
We had never been before, but kept meaning to go. At last we made it.
The unmistakable sign of brilliant cooking was the absolute necessity to taste one another's dishes, just to believe how good they all were.
I started with what was called a garlic feast. It was really a multiple bruschetta: a pile of tomato, garlic and cheese in the middle of a large plate, surrounded by slivers of toast. Very garlicky, very refreshing.
That was followed by a small dish of butternut squash soup, which could have had some carrot in it.
But the bigget surprise and simply exquisite was the entree: moussaca, as the menu spells it and best describes it: a mildly spicy gratin of chickpeas, red lentils, mushrooms and onions between layers of roasted eggplant and garlic mashed potatoes; topped with a crust of artisan dry Jack cheese - all the cheese is rennet-free, to meet the vegetarian stricture. It was surrounded by a tomatoey, but not plain tomato, sauce.
I finished with the cheese plate: five delicious cheeses, hard, soft and blue, with strawberries, olives and glacee walnuts. I also had a taste of apple pie and the peanut butter soy cream cup with dark chocolate syrup.
It was the sort of menu that I just want to return to again and again, until I have tasted the lot. The standard of cooking and presentation was second to none.
Yet this was not a foodie shrine. The surroundings are spartan, with huge windows looking out onto Colorado Boulevard. No tablecloths (but linen napkins). Very swift and friendly service, everything explained knowledgeably and painstakingly.
It was a meal where you just pushed your chair back and realised that you had had a completely fresh experience, unlike anything ever before. The bill was not cheap, at $25 a head without drinks, but for the quality of the food it was a giveaway.
At the next table were a couple aged 91 and 83 who had been married only five years and could have each been 30 years younger - no thanks to Fatty's, alas, as this was their first visit too. But I suspect that, like us, they'll be back.
Memory is part of what constitutes the best anything, unless it can be objectively measured - which food or drink cannot. So let us say that last night's gastronomic heaven has supplanted all others as the one I regard the best, and I have seldom sat back at the end of a meal and said 'That was it.'
And while the Manoir indulgence ran to six courses, with a different wine for each, this was a mere four, accompanied by gently sparkling mineral water.
OK, I will tease no more. The restaurant was Fatty's, a renowned vegetarian restaurant in Eagle Rock, a trendy community between Pasadena and Glendale. It's named after the owner's dog.
We had never been before, but kept meaning to go. At last we made it.
The unmistakable sign of brilliant cooking was the absolute necessity to taste one another's dishes, just to believe how good they all were.
I started with what was called a garlic feast. It was really a multiple bruschetta: a pile of tomato, garlic and cheese in the middle of a large plate, surrounded by slivers of toast. Very garlicky, very refreshing.
That was followed by a small dish of butternut squash soup, which could have had some carrot in it.
But the bigget surprise and simply exquisite was the entree: moussaca, as the menu spells it and best describes it: a mildly spicy gratin of chickpeas, red lentils, mushrooms and onions between layers of roasted eggplant and garlic mashed potatoes; topped with a crust of artisan dry Jack cheese - all the cheese is rennet-free, to meet the vegetarian stricture. It was surrounded by a tomatoey, but not plain tomato, sauce.
I finished with the cheese plate: five delicious cheeses, hard, soft and blue, with strawberries, olives and glacee walnuts. I also had a taste of apple pie and the peanut butter soy cream cup with dark chocolate syrup.
It was the sort of menu that I just want to return to again and again, until I have tasted the lot. The standard of cooking and presentation was second to none.
Yet this was not a foodie shrine. The surroundings are spartan, with huge windows looking out onto Colorado Boulevard. No tablecloths (but linen napkins). Very swift and friendly service, everything explained knowledgeably and painstakingly.
It was a meal where you just pushed your chair back and realised that you had had a completely fresh experience, unlike anything ever before. The bill was not cheap, at $25 a head without drinks, but for the quality of the food it was a giveaway.
At the next table were a couple aged 91 and 83 who had been married only five years and could have each been 30 years younger - no thanks to Fatty's, alas, as this was their first visit too. But I suspect that, like us, they'll be back.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A five-star weekend by Bill Kay
For the second time in three weekends, Lynne and I had a real kulturfest that shows what varied entertainment there is in and around LA, and how similar the audiences are - even though we were probably the only two people who went to all five, yes five, events.
It started last Wednesday, Jan 19, at the Huntington Library with a lecture on the social side of scientific discovery in the eighteenth century - no, it doesn't sound promising, but it was a real gem.
Thursday we were two of only a dozen or so who went to see the 1967 film of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood at the Egyptian.
Friday we had $20 tickets for Minsky's, a new musical at the Ahmanson.
Saturday we went to hear Ian Whitcomb and the Bungalow Boys at the Fret House in Covina, preceded by dinner at One World vegetarian restaurant in West Covina.
Sunday was a trip to the Pasadena Playhouse for Stormy Weather, a bio muscial of the life of Lena Horne - with a quick dinner beforehand at Gale's.
We made our usual visit to Conrads on Monday, so by the Tuesday we were gagging to stay in and watch TV - American Idol was about all we could manage, and a chance to catch up with the by-then highly neglected newspapers.
The Huntington lecture was given by Jan Victor Golinski, despite his name a Brit living in New Hampshire who has specialised in the history of science since he left Cambridge. it was all about how scientists used to meet in London coffee houses in the 18th century and how they thereby restrained (and stimulated) one another - as opposed to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's creation, who worked on his own in an attic. It was very lively, with lots of questions afterwards - including one by me on whether this social scene crossed over with the stock and insurance markets, which also grew out of coffee houses. Apparently it did.
We always enjoy going to the Egyptian, something warm and comforting about it, and we discovered a new restaurant, Mediterranean Fresh, on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard.
In Cold Blood is a grim tale, grimly told. No overt blood - it is in any case in black and white - but lots of suspense. Lots of smoking too: this was a 1960s film. But no mobile phones. It showed how easily the two murderers could have got away with it, if they had only stayed in Mexico or just laid low. Remote farmhouses will never seem the same again.
Minsky's couldn't have been more different, a standard hoofers show, not an original note in it, but professionally presented and a really light evening out - and we had good seats, at the end of Row E in the stalls.
On Saturday we were among only 26 at the Fret House, which couldn't have made money for someone, either the venue or the band. Ian took the first opportunity to plug his forthcoming book, a collection of Letters from Lotusland, about Rollo being groomed for stardom. I took care of the real Rollo, who was a bit fractious.
Back to more sombre fare on Sunday, with a show that I thought didn't really work. We went with our friend Diana Cole, who had alerted us to the Minsky's tickets. Stormy Weather was too lopsided, because everything happened in the first half, being discovered, going to New York then Hollywood, breaking up her family, facing racial prejudice then the communist witchhunt. It slowed to a crawl after the interval, until we got the 'Stormy Weather' finale with Leslie Uggams in a gold lame evening gown.
it says something for American education and culture that any of the audiences for these five events could have been transposed to any of the others and felt entirely at home. There is an acceptance of entertainment that is completely different from the restlessness you can find in London theatres and cinemas, where everything seems very stratified.
Of course there were differences, because the Huntington lecture was in effect for members although anyone could attend for free. But in front of me at Stormy Weather was an irritating little man in a beard and check shirt who could easily have been at the Fret House or In Cold Blood.
It started last Wednesday, Jan 19, at the Huntington Library with a lecture on the social side of scientific discovery in the eighteenth century - no, it doesn't sound promising, but it was a real gem.
Thursday we were two of only a dozen or so who went to see the 1967 film of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood at the Egyptian.
Friday we had $20 tickets for Minsky's, a new musical at the Ahmanson.
Saturday we went to hear Ian Whitcomb and the Bungalow Boys at the Fret House in Covina, preceded by dinner at One World vegetarian restaurant in West Covina.
Sunday was a trip to the Pasadena Playhouse for Stormy Weather, a bio muscial of the life of Lena Horne - with a quick dinner beforehand at Gale's.
We made our usual visit to Conrads on Monday, so by the Tuesday we were gagging to stay in and watch TV - American Idol was about all we could manage, and a chance to catch up with the by-then highly neglected newspapers.
The Huntington lecture was given by Jan Victor Golinski, despite his name a Brit living in New Hampshire who has specialised in the history of science since he left Cambridge. it was all about how scientists used to meet in London coffee houses in the 18th century and how they thereby restrained (and stimulated) one another - as opposed to Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's creation, who worked on his own in an attic. It was very lively, with lots of questions afterwards - including one by me on whether this social scene crossed over with the stock and insurance markets, which also grew out of coffee houses. Apparently it did.
We always enjoy going to the Egyptian, something warm and comforting about it, and we discovered a new restaurant, Mediterranean Fresh, on the other side of Hollywood Boulevard.
In Cold Blood is a grim tale, grimly told. No overt blood - it is in any case in black and white - but lots of suspense. Lots of smoking too: this was a 1960s film. But no mobile phones. It showed how easily the two murderers could have got away with it, if they had only stayed in Mexico or just laid low. Remote farmhouses will never seem the same again.
Minsky's couldn't have been more different, a standard hoofers show, not an original note in it, but professionally presented and a really light evening out - and we had good seats, at the end of Row E in the stalls.
On Saturday we were among only 26 at the Fret House, which couldn't have made money for someone, either the venue or the band. Ian took the first opportunity to plug his forthcoming book, a collection of Letters from Lotusland, about Rollo being groomed for stardom. I took care of the real Rollo, who was a bit fractious.
Back to more sombre fare on Sunday, with a show that I thought didn't really work. We went with our friend Diana Cole, who had alerted us to the Minsky's tickets. Stormy Weather was too lopsided, because everything happened in the first half, being discovered, going to New York then Hollywood, breaking up her family, facing racial prejudice then the communist witchhunt. It slowed to a crawl after the interval, until we got the 'Stormy Weather' finale with Leslie Uggams in a gold lame evening gown.
it says something for American education and culture that any of the audiences for these five events could have been transposed to any of the others and felt entirely at home. There is an acceptance of entertainment that is completely different from the restlessness you can find in London theatres and cinemas, where everything seems very stratified.
Of course there were differences, because the Huntington lecture was in effect for members although anyone could attend for free. But in front of me at Stormy Weather was an irritating little man in a beard and check shirt who could easily have been at the Fret House or In Cold Blood.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
An Inspector Calls by Bill Kay
"Good morning, I'm from the Internal Revenue Service. My I speak with you for a moment?"
I had answered the late-morning door bell thinking it was the usual peddler of a road to heaven, either religious or pharmaceutical. Instead I was confronted by a little bald man in a striped formal shirt, no tie, holding over his head a garish red-and-white golf umbrella. That was the easiest bit to understand: it was raining, after all.
After those opening words he showed his badge, which I didn't ask to inspect but looked genuine, so I invited him in and sat him on the sofa. I sat opposite and prepared to savour one of the more bizarre encounters I have experienced since moving to the US nearly two and a half years ago.
He began by handing me a piece of paper setting out my rights as a taxpayer. I didn't read it there, because I had decided I was going to let this meeting proceed as painlessly as possible. The paper says nothing about surprise visits, but it does say I can have someone accompany me at an interview, at which I can make a sound recording provided I give the IRS 10 days' notice - maybe so they can dust down their tape recorder too. If I believe I have not been treated in a professional, fair and courteous manner, the paper advises me to tell the employee's supervisor - not exactly designed to get the most easy-going deal.
But the fellow was polite enough and, after these preliminaries, he told me he was calling about Pasadena Media, the little business my partner Lynne and I have set up to give us access to a group health insurance scheme. I thought it best not to pass on that detail.
No, the problem was that we had not been making quarterly payroll returns. I explained that Lynne and I were the firm's only employees as well as its only shareholders, and our accountant had advised us not to bother filing returns because we pay our tax at the year-end instead. The inspector seemed content with this explanation but said he would like to talk to our accountant, which may or may not be significant.
He said: "I usually deal with people who owe $500,000 or $1 million, but this is a very simple case." And off he went, taking his umbrella with him.
It seems a very odd way of chasing what appears to be little more than a minor discrepancy in the paperwork. We hadn't ignored any letters or phone calls, even though he left a letter saying "you should already be aware of this from our previous contacts with you."
My suspicion that, as we are relatively new taxpayers, and our company as a taxpaying entity is even newer, the IRS just wanted an excuse to eyeball us and make sure we weren't employing a factory full of illegal immigrants and failing to declare tax on their income. Instead, they found a decent-sized but decidedly non-industrial cottage containing two rather bemused Legal Permanent Residents.
* For anyone who didn't spot it, my heading is the title of an excellent mystery play by the British author, J.B. Priestley.
I had answered the late-morning door bell thinking it was the usual peddler of a road to heaven, either religious or pharmaceutical. Instead I was confronted by a little bald man in a striped formal shirt, no tie, holding over his head a garish red-and-white golf umbrella. That was the easiest bit to understand: it was raining, after all.
After those opening words he showed his badge, which I didn't ask to inspect but looked genuine, so I invited him in and sat him on the sofa. I sat opposite and prepared to savour one of the more bizarre encounters I have experienced since moving to the US nearly two and a half years ago.
He began by handing me a piece of paper setting out my rights as a taxpayer. I didn't read it there, because I had decided I was going to let this meeting proceed as painlessly as possible. The paper says nothing about surprise visits, but it does say I can have someone accompany me at an interview, at which I can make a sound recording provided I give the IRS 10 days' notice - maybe so they can dust down their tape recorder too. If I believe I have not been treated in a professional, fair and courteous manner, the paper advises me to tell the employee's supervisor - not exactly designed to get the most easy-going deal.
But the fellow was polite enough and, after these preliminaries, he told me he was calling about Pasadena Media, the little business my partner Lynne and I have set up to give us access to a group health insurance scheme. I thought it best not to pass on that detail.
No, the problem was that we had not been making quarterly payroll returns. I explained that Lynne and I were the firm's only employees as well as its only shareholders, and our accountant had advised us not to bother filing returns because we pay our tax at the year-end instead. The inspector seemed content with this explanation but said he would like to talk to our accountant, which may or may not be significant.
He said: "I usually deal with people who owe $500,000 or $1 million, but this is a very simple case." And off he went, taking his umbrella with him.
It seems a very odd way of chasing what appears to be little more than a minor discrepancy in the paperwork. We hadn't ignored any letters or phone calls, even though he left a letter saying "you should already be aware of this from our previous contacts with you."
My suspicion that, as we are relatively new taxpayers, and our company as a taxpaying entity is even newer, the IRS just wanted an excuse to eyeball us and make sure we weren't employing a factory full of illegal immigrants and failing to declare tax on their income. Instead, they found a decent-sized but decidedly non-industrial cottage containing two rather bemused Legal Permanent Residents.
* For anyone who didn't spot it, my heading is the title of an excellent mystery play by the British author, J.B. Priestley.
Monday, January 19, 2009
The shape of LA by bill kay
Life, and writing about it, look totally different if you can give them a shape - as I am sure fellow hacks will agree. And, with a little shaping, this has been an extraordinary weekend for me, which I hinted at in a status update.
It's been the sheer cultural variety, which I know can be experienced in any decent-sized city these days but which seemed peculiarly LA mainly because of the attitude that other people demonstrated towards each event.
It began on Friday night with a trip to the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard for a rare 70mm showing of Magnificent Seven in a new print. These days the Egyptian, once a mainstream cinema, is run by American Cinematheque, a non-profit dedicated to giving rarely seen movies a fresh airing (can't wait for the annual film noir season in the spring). It has been wonderfully restored, sight lines perfect and we sat in the balcony which is at just the right height for a big film like this. All for $7 (member) or $10 (non-members) a ticket.
I hadn't seen Mag7 since I was a kid, so had totally forgotten what it was about beyond the fact that it involved 7 cowboys getting together to do something noble, and it was based on the Japanese film Seven Samurai.
As it was made in 1960 it seems naive by today's standards. Mexican village gets terrorised by bandits, villagers go into nearest town for protection, find Chris (Yul Brynner) who recruits another 5 gunslingers. A kid (Horst Buchholz) tags along to make 7. After winning and losing battles against the bandits, the 7 stage a final assault in which 5 of them are killed. Brynner and Steve McQueen sail off into the sunset, job well done.
Very enjoyable. But, bearing in mind that this was essentially a club viewing even though the public were admitted, you get a lot of cine-nerds at the Egyptian, a mood enhanced by a preview from Glenn Lovell to push his new biog of the director, John Sturges. Among the distinctive habits of Hollywood cinemagoers, especially at the Egyptian, is applauding the first appearance of the stars or their names, as if we were at live theatre. A guy in front of me went into raptures about the first appearance of James Coburn about 20 minutes into the film, but I suppose it makes for a more emotionally charged occasion.
Saturday was a complete change of gear. I suddenly noticed that LA Opera was performing Magic Flute at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown. The tickets were ever so slightly dearer than at the Egyptian, but it was worth it for the experience.
The audience was much more restrained, not quite like Covent Garden, many dressed more casually, but just as appreciative. A custom at LA Opera is to hold a lecture or Q&A before the performance to give backgroun and insights into the work - on this occasion given by the conductor, James Conlon, in full white tie and tails just before he descended to the orchestra pit. He was in great humour, telling plenty of anecdotes from the 350 Flutes he has been involved in right from his early days as the back of an animal!
The production was Peter Hall's, using very arty sets designed by Gerald Scarfe which added to the sense of fun, fantasy and general unreality. We had an idiot two rows in front of us who was tall to start with and insisted on moving forward and upward at the slightest excuse, even though we all had perfectly good uninterrupted views. If I'd been right behind him I'd have been furious. As it was, there was a strange sense of changing cultures as we raced for our car in the underground car park and within minutes of the final curtain (we didn't wait for encores) we were negotiating the Pasadena Freeway.
There were actors and audience of a totally different stripe on Sunday morning for Pasadena's Doo Dah Parade, the yearly mocking of the official Tournament of Roses Parade on new year's day. So touchy is Pasadena high society about the formal parade, that this rebel version offends some of them - hard to believe, as it's pretty tame, poking fun, sticking bums out blowing a general raspberries at a level barely above a British university rag week. Just shows, California is neither as laidback nor as egalitarian as it thinks it is.
The parade itself, the third we have seen, was easily the limpest. Hard to tell whether it was the recession was cutting budgets, or because the imminent coronation of Obama had killed off several anti-Bush floats from previous years, but after a while it seemed to fizzle out. But there was plenty of anarchy and rock n roll, with bizarre costumes which I will post on the status page, to make a pleasant couple of hours in the sun watching the world (or at least a mildly eccentric part of it) go prancing by.
By last night we were sufficiently sated to stay in and watch a DVD of Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood hit that could easily be renamed the Magnificent One. Same plot - bunch of thugs disrupt a neighbourhood, the Eastwood character seems them off in a startling way. He turns from grump to saint and nearly everyone lives happily after. Not a bad film, but not worth a fraction of the praise that has been lavished on it. Lesson: keep the plot simple and you can rehash it endlessly.
And tonight, I'm not there yet, but it will almost certainly be a very stimlating evening of chat, conversation, banter and hyperbole at Conrad's diner. With the Inauguration to come tomorrow, it will add up to five days of tremendously varied and quintissentially American cultural experience.
And what shape was it? I'm thinking tetrahedron with knobs on.
It's been the sheer cultural variety, which I know can be experienced in any decent-sized city these days but which seemed peculiarly LA mainly because of the attitude that other people demonstrated towards each event.
It began on Friday night with a trip to the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard for a rare 70mm showing of Magnificent Seven in a new print. These days the Egyptian, once a mainstream cinema, is run by American Cinematheque, a non-profit dedicated to giving rarely seen movies a fresh airing (can't wait for the annual film noir season in the spring). It has been wonderfully restored, sight lines perfect and we sat in the balcony which is at just the right height for a big film like this. All for $7 (member) or $10 (non-members) a ticket.
I hadn't seen Mag7 since I was a kid, so had totally forgotten what it was about beyond the fact that it involved 7 cowboys getting together to do something noble, and it was based on the Japanese film Seven Samurai.
As it was made in 1960 it seems naive by today's standards. Mexican village gets terrorised by bandits, villagers go into nearest town for protection, find Chris (Yul Brynner) who recruits another 5 gunslingers. A kid (Horst Buchholz) tags along to make 7. After winning and losing battles against the bandits, the 7 stage a final assault in which 5 of them are killed. Brynner and Steve McQueen sail off into the sunset, job well done.
Very enjoyable. But, bearing in mind that this was essentially a club viewing even though the public were admitted, you get a lot of cine-nerds at the Egyptian, a mood enhanced by a preview from Glenn Lovell to push his new biog of the director, John Sturges. Among the distinctive habits of Hollywood cinemagoers, especially at the Egyptian, is applauding the first appearance of the stars or their names, as if we were at live theatre. A guy in front of me went into raptures about the first appearance of James Coburn about 20 minutes into the film, but I suppose it makes for a more emotionally charged occasion.
Saturday was a complete change of gear. I suddenly noticed that LA Opera was performing Magic Flute at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown. The tickets were ever so slightly dearer than at the Egyptian, but it was worth it for the experience.
The audience was much more restrained, not quite like Covent Garden, many dressed more casually, but just as appreciative. A custom at LA Opera is to hold a lecture or Q&A before the performance to give backgroun and insights into the work - on this occasion given by the conductor, James Conlon, in full white tie and tails just before he descended to the orchestra pit. He was in great humour, telling plenty of anecdotes from the 350 Flutes he has been involved in right from his early days as the back of an animal!
The production was Peter Hall's, using very arty sets designed by Gerald Scarfe which added to the sense of fun, fantasy and general unreality. We had an idiot two rows in front of us who was tall to start with and insisted on moving forward and upward at the slightest excuse, even though we all had perfectly good uninterrupted views. If I'd been right behind him I'd have been furious. As it was, there was a strange sense of changing cultures as we raced for our car in the underground car park and within minutes of the final curtain (we didn't wait for encores) we were negotiating the Pasadena Freeway.
There were actors and audience of a totally different stripe on Sunday morning for Pasadena's Doo Dah Parade, the yearly mocking of the official Tournament of Roses Parade on new year's day. So touchy is Pasadena high society about the formal parade, that this rebel version offends some of them - hard to believe, as it's pretty tame, poking fun, sticking bums out blowing a general raspberries at a level barely above a British university rag week. Just shows, California is neither as laidback nor as egalitarian as it thinks it is.
The parade itself, the third we have seen, was easily the limpest. Hard to tell whether it was the recession was cutting budgets, or because the imminent coronation of Obama had killed off several anti-Bush floats from previous years, but after a while it seemed to fizzle out. But there was plenty of anarchy and rock n roll, with bizarre costumes which I will post on the status page, to make a pleasant couple of hours in the sun watching the world (or at least a mildly eccentric part of it) go prancing by.
By last night we were sufficiently sated to stay in and watch a DVD of Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood hit that could easily be renamed the Magnificent One. Same plot - bunch of thugs disrupt a neighbourhood, the Eastwood character seems them off in a startling way. He turns from grump to saint and nearly everyone lives happily after. Not a bad film, but not worth a fraction of the praise that has been lavished on it. Lesson: keep the plot simple and you can rehash it endlessly.
And tonight, I'm not there yet, but it will almost certainly be a very stimlating evening of chat, conversation, banter and hyperbole at Conrad's diner. With the Inauguration to come tomorrow, it will add up to five days of tremendously varied and quintissentially American cultural experience.
And what shape was it? I'm thinking tetrahedron with knobs on.
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