I'm a little tired. I have been a physically lazy C-Dawg for some weeks. Just beaten down. Having a hard time keeping going. Today I forced myself into some physical activity, and walked twenty miles. Felt a little sore after. Went to the BC football game v. Temple. They suck. Got my niece and nephew something at the BC bookstore--a little sweatshirt, minus a hood, for her, a T-shirt for him. My two-year-old niece, Lilah, was going around the other day at my mom's in Chicago saying, "Colin sad, Colin sad." Apparently she intuits things from afar. My mother inquired as to what could be done about that, to which Lilah answered, "watermelon." My nephew Charlie likes watermelon gum, so my mom asked her if that was what she meant, and she said, no, she meant the actual fruit. So, what the hell, I stopped at the Golden Goose today--and I realize that sounds like some magical, wish-granting being you meet at the shady edge of an enchanted meadow, but it's just an overpriced convenience store--and bought some watermelon. Maybe she knows something.
If I make it until tomorrow, it will be 123 weeks without a drink. Tomorrow I need to get back to climbing the Monument. I am basically starting over from scratch after my weeks of revolting sloth. My goal is to have climbed it ten straight times before I go to the cardiologist in early November. I'm going to have to be there a lot to work up to that. But we'll see. I don't doubt I can do it. I did it eight times in a row back in the summer.
Just watched the end of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. On my walk I came up with an idea for another seminar series at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, on great cinematographers. You'd have Gregg Toland, John Alton, Nick Musuraca, Arthur Edeson, James Wong Howe, Jack Cardiff. What the hell, I'll pitch it in a few minutes, when I'm done with this. It could be a few thousand dollars for me, and I need the money. If I could do these seminar things and build up a core following at the theatre, I could do a few a year, to help out financially until I get past the blackballing and explode everywhere. It's too late for this year, but under-appreciated Christmas films would be good for next year, though I hope the problem of this hell is solved by then. Holiday Affair, The Holy and the Ivy, Three Godfathers, Curse of the Cat People. It'd also be a good idea to find some things to do re: talks that can publicize my book on 1951's Scrooge, which I need to get cranking on in the next few days. The showdown scene in Liberty Valance has an admirable pace to it. Ford uses a lot of deep focus, too. That sequence takes its time, without feeling slack, to get where it needs to go. Sometimes moments--movements--in the cinema feel inevitable, where every last beat is required for them to play out as they must play out, as though they were etched into reality in another world and are now being viewed in ours, as part of ours, as a substrate for ours. That's how that bit in Liberty Valance works.
On this day in 1969 the Who played the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. One of the best rock and roll shows ever performed. Here is the entire thing: