Tuesday 2/13/24
Writing a piece now on the 1948 film adaptation of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White. Should have had this done a while ago and hope to have it completed today.
I can't really use the words, "The new story," because that could refer to so many things, but the story that I wrote in those early hours on Saturday--which I spent a large part of yesterday working on--is called "Idra." Idra itself is a female Hebrew name meaning, fig tree. The story is told by the unnamed man who is married to Idra about how they cut down Christ from the cross when he was still alive--despite what we've been told--and the exchange they have with him before he dies. The "voice" is both modern informal, but also learned, and it has certain Biblical aspects, but without anything overt, so as a voice it occupies this unique space. Is this a translation, what is this? And it describes a crucifixion as kind of event, like a game or a show. An outing, a fair.
Northeastern beat BU in OT--that fake kind of OT with the three-on-three--in the Beanpot final last night. Ah, the Beanpot. This is what one likes about it. You had the number one team in the country and the number three team in the country, and who wins the thing? Not either of them, but the .500 "Huntington Hounds" who have had quite the thing going on in this tournament over the last several years. I would say that's in the spirit of the piece.
Downloaded the two-disc edition of the Seeds' 1967 album, Future.
Listened to a couple of Escape episodes: "Gringo" and "Operation Fleur De Lis." The former stars William Conrad and a sort of treasure hunt--effectively scripted--while the latter features Jack Webb and, I have to say, is rather shocking.
Two US soldiers parachute into Nazi-occupied France in order to round up resisting locals so as to be ready to make roadblocks when the Allies invade. A French woman is likely a traitor, and the Webb character romances her--or lets himself be romanced--to flush her out and confirm what they suspect. They're doing moony lover stuff in car and he gives her a drink with a "capture pill" in it--a roofie. She passes out, the other US soldier emerges from the brush where he'd been hiding, they go through her bag, confirm that she is who they think she is, and then they shoot her in the head while she's asleep. How's that for some prime time radio entertainment? Webb has the most stolid sounding voice of any radio actor. You have the feeling that the Reaper whipping up his straightest serving of grim death couldn't get a rise out of it.
Also listened to a very rare audience recording of Jerry Lee Lewis at the Star Club in 1963. Note the date--so this is the year prior to one when Lewis cut his famous album at the venue.
Went to the MFA on Saturday and for the first time since I've been wandering the galleries the Winslow Homer canvases had been moved into a different room of the American Wing. In their old quarters were these Western paintings like George Caleb Bingham's The Squatters (1850) that haven't been on display, so that was pretty neat and I'll be back soon to look them over again.
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