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The Stairs of Silverlake

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One of the Stairs of Silverlake

One of the Stairs of Silverlake

This being Labor Day Weekend, Martine and I attended the Cinecon film restoration show in Hollywood. To me, the highlight of this show was how three comics of the 1930s and 1940s used the stairs of Silverlake, a hilly area just west of today’s Dodger Stadium. The stairways still exist, and I would not be surprised  if hundreds of student films took advantage of their cinematic qualities.

The three films in the so-called “Silverlake Steps Trilogy” were:

  • The Music Box (1932). The best of the three, starring the inimitable Laurel & Hardy, who try to wrestle a player piano up the steps. (See illustration below.)
  • An Ache in Every Stake (1941), with the Three Stooges. Larry, Curly and Moe try to deliver ice blocks on a super-hot day up the steps, only to have them turn into cubes once they get up top. The film ends with the three acting as chefs at a birthday party at the house where they deliver the ice.
  • It’s Your Move (1945), with Edgar Kennedy hefting a wash machine up the steps.
Billy Gilbert with Laurel and Hardy in “The Music Box”

Billy Gilbert with Laurel and Hardy in “The Music Box”

The above films are not only in chronological order, but also in descending order of quality. By the time It’s Your Move was released, the big studios were less interested in short programs, especially as television was looming over the horizon.

 

A Brummagem Martyrdom

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Kim Davis, Going for the Brass Ring

Kim Davis, County Clerk, Going for the Brass Ring

It’s not often that I have occasion to quote Oprah Winfrey, but this time it fits: “If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.” The clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky—Kim Davis—is making her run for fame as it is understood in the Tea Party and Evangelical Christian worlds. By refusing a Supreme Court order to allow for same-sex marriages, irrespective of her religious beliefs, she is seeking a brummagem martyrdom which will enable her to cash in by appealing to her ever-outraged fellow religious and political cohorts. At the same time, she will find herself swirling in clouds of infamy which will probably sink her little boat.

Gay Activist Dan Savage has the lady all figured out:

I think Kim Davis is waiting to cash in. I predicted from the beginning that she would defy all the court orders, defy the Supreme Court, she would ultimately be held in contempt of court, lose her job, perhaps go to prison for a short amount of time. And then she will have written for her, ghost written books. She will go on the right-wing lecture circuit and she’ll never have to do an honest day’s work ever again in her life.

If Kim Davis aims to be the champion of heterosexual marriage, she has certainly enough experience, having been wed four times and borne children out of wedlock. By gum, it’s great to be born again: It wipes the slate clean and allows one to commit fresh infamies without being called to account.

I think she is following the example of the twenty-odd Republican presidential candidates, most of whom don’t stand a ghost of a chance (Thank God!) running this country … into the ground. As long as American political conservatism is going through this vampire phase, people like Rick Santorum, Ted Cruz, and Mike Huckabee will be able to make a living by lining their wallets with cash from the voters in the Bible States who persist in being ignorant, outraged, and relatively well off. Look at Sarah Palin: Why should she have to work at being Governor of Alaska when she get get people to pay to listen to her?

 

The Modesty of the Ancients

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An Unedited Face from 2,300 Years Ago

An Unedited Face from 2,300 Years Ago

Going to a great art museum always makes me think. Although my two most recent posts regarding my visit to the Getty Center on Saturday are (partly) repeats, there is one thing that hit me between the eyes: In the exhibit entitled “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World ,” I saw that in the ancient world, verisimilitude took precedence over vanity. In the bust of Seuthes III (above), a Thracian monarch, for example, we have a face that does not attempt to prettify its subject. If the face on the statue was not considered to be recognizable to viewers, it was a failure. Unlike today, there was no equivalent to “Photoshopping.”

The same goes for Roman coins. Consider the following examples:

The Emperor Nero

The Emperor Nero

With that massive bull neck, the Emperor Nero was no beauty, yet all representations of him from his day do not hesitate to show his bad features, of which there were many.

The same goes for the Emperor Nerva:

The Emperor Nerva with Massive Schnozz

The Emperor Nerva with Massive Schnozz

Now here is a case of a look that a good plastic surgeon could do something about with a rhinoplasty. Nerva reminds me of that exchange in W.C. Fields’s The Bank Dick (1940):

Boy in Bank: Mommy, doesn’t that man have a funny nose?
Mother in Bank: You mustn’t make fun of the gentleman, Clifford. You’d like to have a nose like that full of nickels, wouldn’t you?