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November 30, 2004:

NOVEMBER, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, the week is already truckin’ along, and so am I. For example, I spent most of yesterday finessing the first few pages of this thing I’ve started writing – I’m discovering the flow and the tone and really want the first ten pages to be just right before I go on. I also started actually having fun with it, which for me will be the key. I then took a break and went to my mail place where three count them three packages awaited me – an amazon France order (which included several DVDs – an anamorphically enhanced The Rocketeer, Two RKO films, On Dangerous Ground and Journey into Fear, and the French DVD of L’Appartement, which has a better transfer than the UK one I had), the first issue of Harvey Comics Li’l Abner in a primo copy, the third highest graded copy in the world, and a souvenir program of The Most Happy Fella from the Broadway production. I’ve been buying lots of little cheap stuff on eBay, just because I love getting packages at this time of year. I then came home, wrote a bit more, and then took a nice long drive and listened to more of my new CD purchases. I then came home and watched a DVD, but to talk about that we’ll have to have a brand spanking new paragraph.

But, before I talk about that, may I just say that I have no patience with rude people on the phone. When people are rude to me on the phone I find that it becomes my solemn duty to become twice as rude as they are, just so they know how it feels. This particular rude woman got on my nerves quite fast and with thirty seconds I managed to be so rudely obnoxious that she hung up on me, which I considered a grand victory. It wasn’t anything important, but I just cannot stomach rude people. I also cannot leg rude people or even chest rude people. Damn them, damn them all to hell.

Well, you see, we had an interim paragraph there, didn’t we? In any case, I got this French DVD of Disney’s Rocketeer (there is no “The” in the main titles of the film, starring Mr. Bill Campbell, Miss Jennifer Connelly, and Mr. Alan Arkin, along with Mr. Timothy Dalton. Disney’s domestic DVD is not enhanced for widescreen TVs and therefore is of no use to me. This French DVD looks splendidly splendid if a bit soft, and the sound is quite robust. I really don’t care for the film much, but I do like the actors and the production design is first-rate straight down the line. Also, it’s one of the few James Horner scores where he’s not in rip-off mode and I like the music quite a bit. And there is, of course, Miss Connelly, who is eye candy of the first order and even the second and third order. I also watched a DVD entitled Missing, un film de Costa-Gavras, director of Z. I didn’t remember much about it at all, but in revisiting it I found a really riveting film, beautifully directed, with a terrific cast including Mr. Jack Lemmon (one of his best performances), Miss Sissy Spacek, Miss Melanie Mayron and some wonderful character actors. The missing person is played by John Shea, who I’m not so fond of, but then again he’s missing for quite a bit of the film. It’s interesting to contrast this film with something like Tony Scott’s Man on Fire, another political thriller, but one that is tarted up in Mr. Scott’s horrible “style” – all sped-up cameras, and quick cuts and CGI effects. Costa-Gavras, on the other hand, just shoots his movie and tells us his story in a compelling and all-too-believable fashion (toreador pants and a red silk shirt). The transfer is excellent and the DVD, rather amazingly, can be had for around six bucks.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below before we have another pesky interim paragraph.

Has anyone noticed that it is the last day of November? This month has flown by. Yes, November, we hardly knew ye. I hope December takes its sweet time so we can all stop and smell the coffee and the cocoa and the Diet Coke. Yes, Virginia, tomorrow will be December, a time of cheer and hope and fun and merriment and mirth and laughter and legs. There will be many birthdays and holidays to celebrate – in fact, it will be a month-long partay here at haineshisway.com, so be there or be round.

I feel it’s time for another interim paragraph, don’t you? You know, a bridge to the next paragraph. I hope this won’t be a troubled paragraph because then it will be a bridge over troubled paragraph, won’t it?

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must do things around the home environment, I must drive about in my motor car, I must find my overnight bag which may still be in a box somewhere, I must do some grocery shopping, I must prepare myself for the dental visit tomorrow and I must ready myself for December and all it will bring. Today’s topic of discussion: Some of my favorite music growing up was what we called “instrumentals” – so, what are your all-time favorite pop instrumentals? I’ll start, so you get the idea – Strangers on the Shore (oh, how I played that 45 over and over again), Our Winter Love by Bill Purcell, A Taste of Honey by Eddie Cano, Exodus by Ferrante and Teicher, Midnight in Moscow and on and on. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we? Let’s even have some interim postings between the regular postings.

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