ANOTHER LIST!

Fell asleep last night with the first three of an alphabet list of some favorite movies that begin with the word "THE" in my brain and woke up with more (not all totally woke) until I had this:

THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY

 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

THE COMMITMENTS

THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

THE EQUALIZER

THE FIGHTER

THE GRAPES OF WRATH

THE HUSTLER

THE INFORMER (1935)

THE KILLERS (1946)

THE LADY EVE

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

THE NATURAL

THE OX-BOW INCIDENT

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)

THE QUIET MAN

THE RAINMAKER (1956)

THE SEARCHERS

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

THE VAN (1996)

THE WOMEN (1939)

THE YAKUZA

THEN

 
I think I've posted this photo before, but I get a kick out of this image of clan parties back in the day where people sat on the floor because there were more people than chairs (there's a couch out of sight to the right with more people).

The bald guy in the back is the boarder who lived in our house, the woman in front of him my widowed Aunt Rose, the two women behind her my Aunts Peggy and Mary with my Irish immigrant grandmother Lally with the gray hair to their left who lived down the street with Aunt Peggy and not pictured but also on the floor her two young daughters and husband Lydie.

The mustached man my Uncle John who lived next door with Aunt Mary and their four kids also out of the photo, my mother in front of him with me up front, my sister Irene behind me and our grandmother Dempsey who lived with us behind her, and our cousin Rosemary who was an only child with a widowed mother who had to work so spent a lot of time at our place with my sister Joan (in black).

Talk about a full house (there's too many more to count).

PS TO LAST POST

 This says it better than I did.

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7

 
THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, has some moving and engaging moments, and a Hollywood movie ending that might bring audiences to their feet (like most of the people in the movie courtroom, which never really happened), but for me it was frustrating to watch.

I had encounters with all eight of the defendants and was in Chicago during the trial for a few days at a radical event that some of them were at, and found the portrayals of them mostly inaccurate. Borat as Abbie Hoffman was the most accurate (though Abbie wasn't that tall). And though Mark Rylance as the lawyer William Kuntsler is physically miscast, he made the performance work.

But Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden? (Were there no actors from the USA available?) I didn't like Hayden and argued with him publicly and privately over strategies and tactics, but watching this film I wanted to jump to his defense. Sorkin portrays him as some kind of wishy washy liberal reluctant to use any actions that would put protestors in physical jeopardy, but in fact Tom was hoping to ignite violence to get the media and the world to notice and more young people to join "The Movement."

I met Bobby Seale at The Peace And Freedom Party convention before the Democratic Party one where the "riots" occurred that the defendants were accused of conspiring to make happen. And met Fred Hampton in Chicago. The actors playing each of them—Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Kelvin Harrison Jr. —were terrific, but were given lines the real men wouldn't have said and misinterpreted their uniquely individual demeanor and charisma. And it was a disservice to the story and to Seale to imply he was cuffed and gagged and bound to a chair for a brief period when it went on for days.

I could go on, but won't. Suffice it to say that Sorkin mischaracterizes the politics, the personalities, and the spirit of defiant confrontation that most of the Chicago 8 embodied. And he makes up characters and scenarios to get a laugh or sympathy or let some of the bad guys look not so bad.

DIANE DI PRIMA R.I.P.

 
Diane di Prima was one of the first major influences on my poetry and other writing and life. I discovered her in the 1950s and not only had a crush on her and her writing but identified with and was inspired by her outer borough flight to Manhattan downtown and the bohemian lifestyle. She was a revolutionary, breaking all the molds and becoming a beacon of self discovery and expression. The only female who garnered attention and acclaim during the height of the Beat scene's first wave of fame, and the most independent woman I ever knew.

I was a dj (in the old radio show sense of the term) in 1960 when I was 18 and got fired for reciting a poem from her book DINNERS AND NIGHTMARES. Here's a sonnet I wrote about that:

I learn how to back scratch a record to cue it up

to the next song, then hold it steady while the

song on the other turntable winds down, and

with my free hand leaf through a binder for the

ad copy to read in between. The station higher

ups want me to talk more, but my model is

Symphony Sid, whose theme song was sung by

King Pleasure: Jumping with my boy Sid in the

city…make everything go real crazy over Jersey.

Now and then I whisper a poem on air mystifying

my bosses or pissing them off. Like one by ex-con

Ray Bremser about the Jersey turnpike: varoom.

The one that gets me fired was Diane di Prima’s

NIGHTMARE 6: Get your cut throat off my knife. 

We became friends in the early 1970s, and bonded over being activists for feminist and gay rights which she had been one of the pioneers in, but I suck at keeping connected so only saw her a few times. After one of my Black Sparrow books came out at the beginning of this century I got a postcard from her saying she'd picked up a copy and was so happy to hear my voice again (I'm paraphrasing from memory since the card is in my archives at NYU). It filled my heart.

I recommend her writing to young people all the time. DINNERS AND NIGHTMARES is the most authentic expression of the 1950s Beat scene (for my taste) and REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS captures the spirit of the 1960s better than anything, as LOBA does the same for the second wave of feminism that occurred in the 1970s. And her RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE AS A WOMAN: The New York Years is in my top five of all-time favorite memoirs.

Despite not staying in touch good enough, I felt her presence in the world every day and already miss her. She was loved and admired and appreciated by a lot of us and I'm sure she knew that (there's tons of wonderful stuff on her on the Internet, including I think a documentary that shows that). We still love you, Diane.

"IRON MIKE" 2

 
The other photo I have (which I've posted before) of my Irish immigrant grandfather the policeman, "Iron Mike" Lally.

IRON MIKE

My Irish immigrant grandfather, who was, according to family lore, the first policeman in South Orange, New Jersey, known as "Iron Mike Lally"...