Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to conductor Rudolf Kempe conduct an almost twenty-seven-minute suite from Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel opera, all the only music bits. I just love this music and now I’ll have to watch the damn opera again. Now, before I continue, may I make a slight detour into orange chicken. I do not understand why so many of today’s Chinese restaurants make such mediocre orange chicken. As you know, Genghis Cohen had the best but even that was not up to its usual greatness the last couple of times I was there. It’s a sad state of affairs when Panda Express is one of the few reliable places for orange chicken, even though it’s not great there. But I have really been on a bad food roll and it continued yesterday with a BOGO offer from Green Apple Chinese Bistro – you know, buy one get one free – so, I couldn’t remember if there’s was decent or not, so I placed the order for two small lunch-sized portions along with some white rice. It arrived about twenty-five minutes later and I could not believe how heavy the bag was. I thought for a moment they’d left the wrong order. But no, I guess the BOGO is for some kind of lunch special, so not only did I get the two small orange chicken things, which weren’t so small and probably could have fed ten people, I also got two soups, two salads, and four cartons of rice. It was almost comical. I tried the soup – looked like some egg drop thing that was kind of gross tasting. Then I doled out some orange chicken onto some white rice and dug in. Well, it was awful. First of all, I went back and read the description – orange chicken in a tangy tangerine sauce. Um, tangerine is not orange nor is orange tangerine. But even so, it was just kind of yuckilicious and I ate less the a quarter of one of the two things of it. I deposited the rest directly into the trash. Later, I ordered a slice of pepperoni and mushroom pizza to get the taste of the tangerine chicken out of my mouth. It did, but then I had the taste of the mediocre pizza slice in my mouth. One of these days, I’ll find some good orange chicken again, but frankly I’m afraid to order it. Frankly, I’m afraid to order anything. I may have to go somewhere trusted like Barone’s this weekend.
I did manage to watch a motion picture last evening, a new Blu and Ray of a motion picture comedy entitled Teacher’s Pet, starring Clark Gable, Doris Day, Gig Young, the ubiquitous Charles Lane, Nick Adams, and Vivien Nathan. Shot in black-and-white VistaVision, this is a brand new transfer from the VistaVision large format negative and the resulting image quality is amazing. I saw the movie back in August of 1958 at the Picfair, one of my three neighborhood theaters and the worst of them. I don’t think it was a favorite, although I do remember sitting through all of it. I have not seen one frame of it since then. Don’t know why, really. Well, it’s pretty damn good, if you ask me, which you didn’t because you didn’t know I watched it. Gable is really funny in it – subtle but funny – Doris is her usual charming self, and Gig Young is laugh out loud hilarious and surprisingly got an Oscar nomination for his performance. Nick Adams was a terrific young actor who never got the breaks he deserved, even though he was in several A pictures like this one and No Time for Sergeants. But the performance that took me completely by surprise was an actress I never heard of – Vivien Nathan – who plays Nick Adams’ mother. She has only two scenes, but she’s so simple and real and those scenes are very touching. I looked her up and she’s in John Frankenheimer’s The Young Savages, so I saw her in that but don’t remember her, a lot of TV, and then surprisingly in Klute, playing Jane Fonda’s therapist. I’ve always thought it was another similar actress. Well, she’s terrific in Klute despite most of her performance being just her voice. Just Googled whether Vivien Nathan ever appears on camera – Google now uses AI to give you answers and woe to anyone who would trust anything that it comes with. In this case, it didn’t answer the question, but informed me that the therapist was played by Carol Lawrence. I kid you not. Anyway, I’m going to seek out more of Ms. Nathan.
Anyway, I laughed out loud several times and while it does go on a bit too long (two hours), it’s very well written by Fay and Michael Kanin, and very well and simply directed by George Seaton, who seemingly could succeed in any genre. I also dozed off several times during the day, had a nice telephonic conversation with dear reader Jeanne, and that was pretty much it and it was pretty much was that.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I don’t know what I’ll do about food, nor does food know what it will do about me, I may finally open the document that has the information about the second book I’d write this year, IF I decide to do it. I may visit the mail place to see what’s what, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be more of the same and then this week I really must buckle down, Winsocki and choose songs so I can get the young people their sheet music.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, do something about food, maybe go to the mail place, take a look at my notes on a new book, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite motion pictures of Clark Gable and Miss Doris Day? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, as I’ll dream of finding the perfect orange chicken.