The Dude in Indian Territory

Mattie Ross: [watching Rooster load his revolver] Why do you keep that one chamber empty?
Rooster Cogburn: So I won't shoot my foot off.

As I surfed the web looking at Dennis Hopper's career, I discovered, much to my surprise, that the Coen Brothers are in the process of remaking True Grit. True Grit is one of my favorite movies: the counter play of John Wayne, the smiling Glen Campbell, and the gumption of Kim Darby's character teamed with Robert Duval as Ned Pepper, Dennis Hopper as Moon and Jeff Corey as Tom Chaney (all a string of superb villains) makes for a great two hours of cinema. While we think of Indian Territory, Oklahoma, as a Great Plains swath of Red Clay, the scenery of Fort Smith and Indian Territory reminds us that the Ozarks spill over form Missouri and Arkansas into Eastern Oklahoma.

The Coen Brother's Barton Fink, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Fargo and The Big Lebowski are modern masterworks, forgive me if I didn't pick your favorite film. In their reprise of True Grit, Jeff Bridges is cast as Rooster Cogburn, Matt Damon as the Texas Ranger LaBoeuf and Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney. Which reminds me, I need to see No Country for Old Men, and Josh did play the villain of Milk, Dan White.

We have already seen Jeff Bridges in one Post-Modern Western, Wild Bill. Lawman/Gunman/Hero/Heel? a la the Earps, Holliday and Masterson: depends on what point in what life one is judging? As with current Hollywood, the lens of popular culture, wishful thinking, dime novels and the legend of the West, all of our heroes either larger than life or smaller than legend. And, in another interesting side note, Jeff Corey, Tom Chaney in the original True Grit, played Wild Bill Hickok in Little Big Man.

I can only wait for this to hit the Screen!

The Original Buried Alive

With TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive and the season finale of Bones, compulsive hoarding has become a compelling trainwreck to watch. I thought we might take a look at the "Ur Text" of hoarding in popular culture: The Collyer Brothers. Homer and Langley Collyer's demise was the ultimate buried alive, at least for Langely.

Born in Gilded Age New York, Homer (1881 to 1947) and Langley (1885 to 1947) both graduated from Columbia. Homer practiced law and Langley studied engineering and was an avid musician. Their father, a prominent New York doctor, had built a brownstone in Harlem when it was en vouge to live in the neighborhood . The brothers never left the nest; apparently, their parents did. By the 1920's both of their parents were dead and the brothers had the house to themselves.

What came next echoed a Poe or Lovecraft short story, except this wasn't fiction--not yet.

Langley and Homer began collecting and neglecting. By the end of the 1920's the house was without utilities; for heat the brothers turned to kerosene and some sources say that the water was drawn by the bucket from a distant pump. And by the 1930's Homer was blind and disabled. Langley became his caregiver. Although the brothers had money in the bank, Langley picked food from trash bins. He saved newspapers, so that when Homer regained his sight, he could catch-up on the news. Papers, books (25,000), musical instruments, and odd items such as a baby carriages, clocks and yards upon yards of unused fabric all stacked up in the 12 room mansion.

To the neighbors, the brothers had become "Ghosty Men." In 1942 the Bowery Savings Bank began foreclosure proceedings when the brothers fell behind on their payments. In the midst of a confrontation with the bank and police, Langley paid off the mortgage with a single, final payment and wished to be left alone. Langley continued his foraging and collecting at night. And then one day in March of 1947, the police received a report of a dead body at the Collyer House. The front door was blocked, even when taken off of its hinges. The police gained entry through a window. In the squalor they did find Homer dead, but Langley was nowhere to be found. During the ensuing manhunt, which was going on as the same time as the city was clearing over a 100 tons of stuff from the house, Langley was reported in New Jersey, but the leads turned up nothing.

Homer was found on the 21st of March. On April 8, the body of Langley was uncovered by workman. It was less than 10 feet from the chair in which Homer died. In an effort to protect their "treasures," Langley had engineered as series of bobby traps. Unfortunately for him, he apparently triggered one while bringing Homer food.

Even after the house was cleared of refuse and objects, it wasn't structurally sound. The house was raised and the site now is a pocket park.

The brother's lives and legacy have been novelized by both Marcia Davenport and E. L. Doctorow, turned into a stageplay, inspired artwork and forms one of the narratives of Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men. And apparently, in the lexicon of New York Firefighters, the dwelling of a hoarder is "a Collyer Castle. "

Mario Meatless

Mario Batali recently announced that his restaurants would become part of the Meatless Monday movement by offering vegetarian suggestions and specials on Mondays. While at first bite this might seem paradoxical, given Mario's penchant for Parma Ham, prosciutto, and anything fowl, there are plenty of recipes in the Italian cannon that work for Meatless Mondays.

Mario joins Sir Paul McCartney, Gwenneth Paltrow, Kate Moss, Al Gore and Yoko Ono in Meatless Mondays; he is the first noted "Foodie" chef to become part of Meatless Mondays. One should note, however, that Michael Pollan, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, University of California Davis and University of Maryland have also joined the movement.

Don't trick yourself into thinking this as a penance for living in the modern world. Rather, see this a chance to explore and to ensure that you are eating with your eyes as well as your stomach. Sometimes, we view food way too much as raw fuel (just eating) and forget the social and ritual contexts of meal.

Meatless Mondays or a Meatless Day a week seems sensible; our factory farms are economically efficient but resource exhaustive. And there is plenty of produce in the garden and market that await discovery. Learn how to cook chard, roast fennel, saute some mushrooms, make polenta, fry squash or simmer a vegetable bolgnese. Ciao

New Wine in Old Bottles

Just a brief posting....

Nightmare on Elm Street is back.

Haven't seen the new one. I saw the first version 20 years ago, and have not looked at a basement the same since. The movie industry is a risk averse enterprise; so, if a plot line or a character or a concept have worked once, why not try it again? That is, until I saw a trailer for the "A Team." But hopefully, as George Peppard did in the original, Liam Neeson can make the best of a wobbly bottle.

Next, I saw a commercial for a film I thought would surely be a remake of It's Alive. I don't know, but thank heavens, it turned out to be entitled Splice. BTW It's Alive was remade two years ago!

Camped Crusader Cameo!

I thought I had seen, or maybe I thought I had remembered, all of the guest villians from the late 1960's Batman series. This great casting/fawning to the stars of stage and screen (Ethel Merman, Victor Buono, Vincent Price and Van Johnson), earlier television (Art Carney and Milton Berle), or pure wild cards (such as Joan Collins, Zsa Zsa Gabor or Roddy McDowell) makes the series just as outrageous as the "KAPOWS" splattered across the screen in fight scenes.

This evening, in my stroll through cable channels, I caught an episode featuring the Black Widow. I must admit, if I have seen this episode before, I don't remember it. As far as episodes go, not much, but a whole lot of Tallulah Bankhead to make up for it. I didn't recognize her, I kept running true classic movie actresses through my mind trying to make a match! It was only until I saw the credits, that duh, of course, I recognized her.

Born of an Alabama politcal family, Tallulah's grandfater and uncle were US Senators and her father eventually became speaker of the US House of Representatives. Leaving the South for New York in her teens, she had a little luck on Broadway. It was the West End where she made her mark, starting in The Dancers. She did have later successes on Broadway in Little Foxes, the Skin of Our Teeth and Private Lives, but her career on stage and screen seemed to be either hit or miss. She played her best character in real life. After 1950, as a character none other than Tallulah, she became the successful host of a radio show, published a best selling memoir and made appearances on talk shows. Given what we know now, by the 1960's her life was marked with substance abuse and physical breakdown, it is amazing that she could even guest star on Batman.

Ms. Bankhead starred in Lifeboat, where the director, Alfred Hitchcock was the less the guest star and more the King of Cameos in his own films. From the Lodger to Family Plot, Mr. Hitchcock would appear for a few moments on film, sometimes even carrying a Bass in a case or as a newspaper photograph. Hitchcock's cameos became something to look for in his movies, an expected event that occurred along with a few red herrings or plot twists. Sometimes being the inside joke and also getting to tell it, makes the rest of life and work so much more satisfying.