a memorable NYE dinner

this meal opens my poem "Capodanno 1984   Venezia"

Jo Van Fleet (1914-1996)

in celebrating her centennial I'd be remiss if I didn't quote one of my favorite lines from Frank O'Hara:

Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?

Dad was in my dream last nite

& then today I rememberd where he was 70 years ago.



I watchd this with tears.

thank you Dad. I love you & miss you.

surprise visit

finally met Geof Huth   

Richard Widmark (1914-2008)

Xmas 1986

poor Tobias doesn't look thrilld. but most of the times he didn't mind being held this way.  in fact I have lovely memories of dancing with him.

31 years ago

last nite I was going thru old "stuff" & found a cache of receipts from my holiday trip to Italy.

on Xmas eve 1983 I attended the pope's mass. I went for the show biz angle & it was that in spades. & then there was a memorable NYE in Venice.

major housecleaning

third day of work. altho I dislike the toil part I'm enjoying moving things around the house. re-envisioning what my most intimate environment looks like.

GWTW

"Gone With the Wind" had its premiere 75 years ago today.  & no Auntie Vera I wasn't there.

I once saw it at Manhattan's legendary Palace Theater with Richard Nelson (not the playwright but Lord & Taylor's graphic designer). then there was 1989 in Wheeling when the screening was introduced by Butterfly McQueen.

Lupe Velez (1908-1944)

70 years since one of Hollywood's most famous suicides

holy cameo Batman

today's hike

Cerrillos Hills State Park

change

it's hard. gets harder with age. but I'm working to make change a springboard.

Sam Harris (1877-1965)

last nite I got my Carolyn Jones fix by seeing "Last Train from Gun Hill."  it's a predictable western worth seeing only for Jones whose brilliance often elevatd mundane material. at one moment she stood next to Sam Harris. now I see this man almost every week. he was in some 600 films from 1928 right up till his death.

but last nite I wonderd why he hasn't been the subject of more discussion. if Bess Flowers is veneratd as "the queen of the dress extras" (as well she shd be) then Harris deserves to be king. apparently those in the business calld him "The Major." & some sources list him as Major Sam Harris. perhaps this is why the sobriquet "the king of the extras" isn't used. but when I think of the world of Hollywood extras it's always Flowers & Harris who come to mind first.

I can't breathe.