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Heyday Is Over

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The Unmarvelous Marvel Universe

When I first came to Los Angeles at the tail end of 1966, it was the beginning of a Golden Era for people like me who loved the cinema and saw it as an art form that would prevail well into the next century.

Only, it didn’t. The great Hollywood directors sputtered out with films that were pale copies of their best work. There was John Ford’s 7 Women (1966) and Howard Hawks’s Rio Lobo (1970). On the plus side, there were the French cinéastes of the Nouvelle Vague, including Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Agnes Varda. And, across the Pacific, the Japanese were making great films which I have never tired of watching.

It was in 1968 that Andrew Sarris published The American Cinema:Directors and Directions, 1929-1968. It was a revision and expansion of an issue of Film Culture that came out several years earlier which I had photocopied while I was at Dartmouth College and which I always kept at my side.

But other things were happening. Hollywood was sputtering out like a volcano in its final throes. The film distribution companies were run by yahoos who insisted that people of my frame of mind were out-of-touch elitists and what the filmgoing public really wanted was Thoroughly Modern Millie and the Marvel Universe.

In the course of several decades, there was a dribble of good films from Hollywood and abroad, but mostly an avalanche of mediocrity. At the same time, it was getting harder to see the films I loved. I recorded hundreds of films on VHS videotape—but then videotape died. I switched to DVD, but now I am beginning to encounter “laser rot.”

I have in my library a number of volumes that are over a hundred years old. Unless they are destroyed, they will be readable for at least another hundred years. Such is not the case with films. The media on which they are stored has to be changed every few years because of the rate of change in the digital world.

So I have concluded that it will be difficult to be a film lover. Yet I almost never see current Hollywood film products in theaters. Sometimes on HBO or Showtime, but never at a cinema.

Fortunately, my books are still quite readable; and I am diving into them voraciously.

“People Who Do Things”

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American Poet and Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Here is a funny poem from Dorothy Parker, whose work I have hereto ignored but now begin to see the light:

Bohemia

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses’ necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!

Fantasyland

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Young American men lead a rich fantasy life. It is not enough to be a macho beast: One also has to look like one. In fact, the look is more important than the reality. All one has to do is get the appropriate tattoo, wear intimidating facial hair, drive a 4×4 pickup truck, and hang out with other macho wannabes at the appropriate meeting places.

I became ever more aware of this tendency when I reached an age which would make any macho pretense ridiculous.

As I drive the highways of Los Angeles, I see all around me vehicles for which the owners put up huge amounts of money—not for any realistic expectations, but to belong to a “fantasy league” of young men pretending to be tougher and more suave than they could ever be in real life. They want the street cred of a Danny Trejo while subsisting on Honey Nut Cheerios.

I don’t have any street cred. When I was young, however, I would love to have been thought of as a real dude—rather than a real dud. At least, living as I do is cheaper than trying to shore up a false image.

South Bay Greek Festival

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Fountain at St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church

Between Memorial Day Weekend and early October, there are several Greek festivals in Southern California. Typically, Martine and I visit the following Greek Orthodox churches during festival time:

  • St. Nicholas in the San Fernando Valley
  • St. Katherine in Redondo Beach
  • The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Long Beach
  • Saint Sophia Cathedral near downtown L.A.

The best things about these festivals are the Greek food, usually cooked by very competent Greek housewives—accompanied by some excellent pastries. The other thing is that the clergy at these festivals do an excellent job of proselytizing the visiting crowds.

Today, for instance, the Protopresbyter of St, Katherine’s, Father Michael Courey, is an expert on icons and gave an excellent slide presentation entitled “Byzantine Iconography” in the church sanctuary.

Although I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, I find myself drawn to the Greek Orthodox church for a number of reasons, not least among which is the excellent food. I even used to attend the Greek cooking demonstrations at St. Katherine and Santa Sophia conducted by Pitsa Captain and the late Akrevoe Emmanouilides.

Waiting in Line for Greek Goodies

I know that ethnic-oriented churches have their difficulties staying afloat these days, but St. Katherine’s seems to have found the right formula: good food, interesting music and dance, and very competent marketing. It also helps that the Greek Orthodox church allows for married clergy (but, interestingly enough, only unmarried bishops).

Game

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Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?
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To me. there is only one game; and that is chess. I have been playing it for 71 years. It has brought me countless hours of fun, whether I am doing chess problems; studying famous games from the past; playing computers and live opponents.