Well, dear readers, has this ever happened to you: You’re sitting at your handy-dandy computer. You think of something. You get up to do said something. You cross the room and by the time you reach the other side of the room you’ve totally forgotten what you got up to do. This just happened to me. I was waiting for this here page to load, I thought of something, got up to do it, crossed the room and by the time I’d gotten to the other side of the room I’d totally forgotten what I got up to do. I just stood there like a large container of borscht, trying to remember that which I’d thought of a mere ten seconds before. Isn’t that annoying? Isn’t what annoying? Now I’ve forgotten what was annoying. I hate when that happens. I have an incredible memory for things past (you will know this when you buy my handy-dandy novel), but suddenly I’m forgetting things that happened ten seconds ago. I have to write everything down, like that guy in Memento. Soon I will have notes all over my body. Can you even believe how much minutiae is in our brains? How is their room for all that minutiae. Look at that “a” just sitting in “minutiae” for no good reason whatsoever. Remove the “a” and you have a cute, if fey, looking word, “minutie”. I like “minutie” much better, don’t you? Wait a minutie. That’s so cutie. And fey, too. Not like that cucumber of a word, minutiae. “Min-oo-sha”. If we’re supposed to pronounce it that way, then spell it that way, that’s what I say. In any case, I think our brains are filled with so much minutiae that it just overloads and we forget simple little things that we thought of ten seconds ago. And, of course, the harder you try to remember what you thought of ten seconds ago, the less chance you have of remembering. You have to put it out of your head completely, and then it usually will come back into your head all by itself. Harvey Schimidt and Tom Jones wrote the perfect song for people who are having the problem I am, Try To Remember.
Speaking of Harvey Schmidt, I was speaking to Harvey Schmidt just last night. He told me that JAY Records has just recorded their show Roadside and that is good news indeed. He’s also thrilled that his painting graces the cover of my very own novel. Harvey is back in his native Texas now, although he travels to New York quite often.
Now wait just a darn minutie, isn’t it time we all click on that Unseemly Button below? Yes, I do believe it is time we do that, so let’s do it quickly before I forget that that’s what we’re supposed to do. If I forget that that’s what we’re supposed to do then I will be bitch-slapped by that Ukranian moose fancier, Mr. Mark Bakalor.
Where was I? Where am I? Was I talking about a Ukranian moose fancier and, if so, why was I talking about a Ukranian moose fancier? Is that the subject of today’s notes? The Ukranian Moose Fancier? I was going somewhere with today’s notes but now I have forgotten where because I cannot remember from one minutie to the next because of all the minutiae floating around in the middle of my brain.
I have been catching up on all manner of DVDs. Last night I watched Cactus Flower, with Miss Ingrid Bergman, Mr. Walter Matthau and Miss Goldie Hawn. Miss Goldie Hawn is adorable in this film and she won an Academy Award for it. Matthau and Bergman are great, too, as is Jack Weston. It’s one of those fluffy romantic comedies that were so popular on Broadway at the time, and it’s a perfectly nice, very contrived, confection, with some genuine laughs. Very sixties in tone and feel and look. The song that plays over the main and end titles, is one of the worst things you will ever hear. I love Sarah Vaughn as much as the next person, but it sounds like someone is making the record so slower and faster and slower and faster – it’s very strange. Then I watched half of Dick Tracy, with Mr. Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, Madonna and Dustin Hoffman. I hated it when I saw it when it came out, and its not much better now. The script is just plain bad. The film looks pretty swell – the just late Mr. Richard Sylbert did the production design, and Vittorio Storaro’s camerawork is fun and bold and brash. But the “plot” is lame, the pace is off and the dialogue is never as funny or smart as it thinks it is. Hoffman’s “Mumbles” is really funny, though. Al Pacino is over the top and fitfully amusing. Madonna is okay in the acting bits, but really doesn’t sing the Sondheim songs very well. It’s as if she’s taken the name Breathless to heart, and maybe that was her take on the way to sing, but it just sounds not too good. Mandy Patinkin gets to sing What Can You Lose?, the best song in the film.
Then I watched the brand spanking new Special Edition of The Usual Suspects, one of the few films I like from the last decade. It really works, because the script plays fair, is well-written, and the characters are interesting (more interesting the more times you watch the film) and the cast is great. The direction is not too fancy-shmancy, either. There are quite a few extras, including a lot of interviews with the various and sundried cast members, who all share their rather fond memories of the shoot. Especially amusing is Kevin Pollack’s ribbing of Stephen Baldwin, and Stephen Baldwin being surprised that Kevin holds this hostility. The enhanced transfer looks great (the previous DVD wasn’t enhanced, and didn’t look very good), the sound is great, so if you like the film it’s a must-have.
What am I, Ebert and Roeper all of a sudden? I’m surprised I could even remember what I saw last night, since I can’t remember what I thought of ten seconds ago.
I just got the Image Entertainment sell book for June, and The First Nudie Musical is one of the only things in it that gets the full page treatment. It looks really great. We’re trying to arrange a signing at a local DVD store – I will keep you posted. But you dear readers will be able to get signed copies right here at haineshisway.com. I’m going to get as many people as I can to sign them (including Cindy Williams).
Well, the minuties have flown and it is now time for me to take the day, to do the things I do. It is time to try to remember that which I have forgotten. The question is, will I forget that I’m trying to remember that which I have forgotten? And what of the Ukranian Moose Fancier? Haven’t we left the Ukaranian Moose Fancier out in the cold? Oh, well. I have been reminded (I must always be reminded because I can no longer remember anything) that today is Ask BK day, so that is the topic of discussion. You may ask me any old question that may be on your mind, or any new question for that matter, and I will answer your questions to the best of my ability in an honest and forthright manner. No minutiae is too small to ask about. So, ask away – let’s have lots and lots of questions. I’ll start. Why did the Ukranian Moose Fancier cross the street?