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April 4, 2005:

MELON BALLS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, it’s a brand new week in a brand new month and I have eaten some melon balls. My goodness, what a sentence. That is just a fine sentence with which to start notes. I ask you, where else on all the Internet can you find such a sentence? Has anyone else eaten melon balls this fine morning? I get my melon balls at Gelson’s. They do the balling, I do the buying. I, for one, cannot be bothered to buy a melon and then make those little balls myself. The making of the melon balls is not my forte. But, I occasionally like to eat some melon balls, and Gelson’s thankfully has them already freshly-packaged. You can get cantaloupe melon balls, or you can get honey dew melon balls or you can get the combo platter of both. I got the combo platter. Speaking of melon balls, I spent a most peculiar day yesterday feeling most peculiar because of the ridiculous time change. I just didn’t feel with it all the livelong day and night. I got up at ten and felt like I got up at nine which, of course, I did, except it was ten because of the ridiculous time change. Then I felt logey all day. I felt a certain malaise all day. I took a long drive in the motor car, did some shopping, and then came home. I had someone stop by to visit, only I somehow didn’t hear the doorbell when it was rung (I might have been outside in the yard for a minute or two), so instead of having a nice visit I got a nice note. Of course, the visitor should have called – if the visitor had called then I’m quite certain we would have had our visit. Instead, I had some melon balls. It all comes back to the melon balls, doesn’t it? In any case, I hope that today I can move past the logeyness and the malaise, so that I can be perky and energetic, like a gazelle heaving a shot put.

Last night I watched two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The Laughing Policeman, starring Mr. Walter Matthau and Mr. Bruce Dern. I’d seen it way back in the early seventies, and I remembered being distinctly disappointed in it. The first two-thirds were fine, but the last third was a disaster. But, some movies I saw back then have aged rather well, so I took a chance and bought the eight-dollar DVD. Unfortunately, The Laughing Policeman has not improved with age. There are still good scenes and good performances, but that last third just doesn’t work at all, and the end of the film is so bad and so hurried that it just precluded the film being anything but a huge box-office bomb, which it was. It was one of the few policiers of the period to bomb. Still, Mr. Matthau is always great to watch, and there are some rather astonishing scenes of gay bars and gay life that will either have you laughing or feeling vaguely uncomfortable. Transfer replicates perfectly the heavily-filtered, grainy seventies photography. I then watched a perfectly odd motion picture entitled Not on the Lips, directed by Mr. Alain Resnais, and starring Miss Audrey Tatou and Mr. Christopher Lambert. It is hard to imagine that this film is from the director who made Last Year at Marienbad. Not on the Lips is adapted from a 1925 French comic operetta. There are a lot of songs, all of which have been outfitted with new arrangements and orchestrations which sound great. Since the cast is doing its own singing, voices range from acceptable to irritating. I really liked the music – completely delightful. But, Mr. Resnais shoots the film so statically that you just sit there and scratch your head because it’s so lifeless. The décor and costumes are wonderful, as is the cast. Most of the musical numbers are shot in one take from one angle and not a very well-chosen angle and whatever Mr. Resnais’ reasons for doing this, it doesn’t work. It might be that he was trying to shoot it like an early thirties movie musical, where they couldn’t move the camera because of the sound equipment. Or, maybe at eight-five, Mr. Resnais simply has lost his eye. I do give him kudos for making a film at that age – it’s pretty amazing when you think about it. The transfer from Wellspring, while anamorphically enhanced, is dark and soft and doesn’t do the film or the décor and lighting any favors. But, it’s a fascinating film nonetheless – a real musical comedy from France.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst we think of melon balls on a Spring day.

If you were one of the many errant and truant, do catch up on the notes and posts – there were many wonderful things said here at haineshisway.com this weekend.

Don’t forget, Donald has a new radio show up and running, so be sure to give it a listen and report on it.

Today I am going to do some interesting things, oh, yes, today I am going to do some interesting things. Later, I may see Mr. Walter Willison for dinner. And, of course, I will be eating melon balls during the day.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do some interesting things, I must do some interesting errands, I must eat melon balls, and I must pick up some packages that will hopefully have arrived. Today’s topic of discussion: Who are your favorite painters and what works of theirs are your favorites? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and let’s talk of melon balls all the livelong day and night.

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