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If I could work 11 percent less, I think I’d be happy. But then I’d fill up the space with work. Why even try. It’s hopeless.
A few moments here between duties. I was outside typing in the gazebo when my wife came out and said “Your daughter is just like you. She’s got three screens going.”
Eh? I usually have three windows in one screen going. What do you mean?
As she explained it: the TV was on. I didn’t mind, because she gets a small ration of TV per day, after everything else is done. After school there’s homework and piano and reading and other duties; a portion of Spongebob before bath is only fair. That was screen one. Screen two: she was on the computer, watching a YouTube video about unlocking a secret function of her “Diamond and Pearl” Nintendo game, and was busily following the instructions on Screen Three, the aforementioned Nintendo.
What? I should note that she gets to play with these devices in the family room; no slinking off to enter a solipsistic cocoon. I can always see what she’s doing on the computer, which lead to my main question: YouTube?
So I went inside and braced my seven-year old and asked her what she was up to. She can only access the websites in the bookmarks, and YouTube isn’t one of them.
“Well I wanted to find out how to get the secret gift in the game so I went to Google and –“
Hold on. Google?
“Yeah and I typed ‘how do I get the secret gift in Diamond and Pearl and it went to YouTube and there was the video.”
I looked at the screen: some kid had uploaded a video about that very subject.
How did you know about Google?
“Well I just did. I saw you do it.”
I suppose I should be alarmed, but I’m just so proud.
We have a new rule: I do the googling around here. That’s fine with her. She got the secret gift, incidentally. She also repeated my warning back to me: whatever she does on the computer, Dad will find out. It’s my way of keeping her on the right path. Or turning her into an excellent hacker.
Noir Tuesday!
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Eh. Young kid with a pregnant wife steals some money from crooks in a moment of weakness, spends the picture dodging said crooks. More Farley Granger. My favorite part was the opening credits: helicopter shots of lower Manhattan c. 1949. It's like the opening credits of "West Side Story," in Noir-o-vision, dense, stony, crazy:
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I had to check the Google Maps to make sure the white building above actually exists; it looks like it was dropped in by special effects. I recognize the building across the street - it's the Equitable, the famous gargantuan file-cabinet style structure whose gargantuan bulk lead to the NYC building codes, which influenced architecture around the country. The post-Equitable codes mandated setbacks, as you see in the the foreground.
On behalf of skyscraper geeks everywhere: man, look at that service core!
Obligatory Noir Tuesday Oh-That-Guy moment: Whit Bissell. I just realized he's a skinny-head version of me. Or rather I'm a fat-head version of him:
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The movie ends up in a nightclub, as they usually do. Here's the torch singer:
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Recognize her? No? Here's another shot:
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Literally. She's a boozed-up songbird, cynical and empty. Nasty work. Recognize her yet? No? Well, at the end of the Bleat, all will be revealed.
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In the end, roscoes bark, crooks crumple and die right on Wall Street, and order is restored. The ending looks a lot like "L.A. Confidential," and I'd be surprised if the director of that fine film didn't see this one and use the same ideas. As Lobachevsky said: only be sure always to call it please, homage.
Closing shot: the narrator. The man who stalked our hero and let him off because our hero's heart was true and his wife knocked up: JOHN FARGIN' LAW.
I recommend the movie. I recommend them all. There's more entertainment in these collections than you'll find in dozens of modern direct-to-DVD cheapies. Every one an inadvertant documentary; every one a fascinating look at the moral world of the 40s and 50s. Watch enough of these, and you see Tarantino for the hopped-up juvie movie-nerd he is. It's pulp fiction, but it's made by actual grown-ups. And it's all cooler than hell.
Oh. Sorry; forgot. The woman who sang the song. A few years later, in a bigger picture:
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There are color stills in existence:
Actually, that's the movie within the movie. And the movie is . . .
"Singin' in the Rain." Jean Hagen.
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Other movie news: I had written something about "Flags of Our Fathers" and modern Hollywood war attitudes, but I'll save it for tomorrow. New Funnies. I love this one. See you at buzz.mn!
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