October 11: Walmart parking lot in Sturtevant, Wisconsin at sunset.
Another Week: Number 94
The weather here has been a little cooler, but still nicer than expected.
Meanwhile, the southeastern U.S. has been hit by two massive hurricanes. Last week, we saw the devastation from Hurricane Helene in the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia. This week, Hurricane Milton and the tornados it spawned plowed across central Florida from Tampa Bay to Cape Canaveral. Watching all the destruction on TV and thinking about people there was heartbreaking.
Taking political opportunism to disgusting new extremes, the Republican disinformation machine cranked up a cyclone of lies, spreading viral rumors about FEMA money being diverted to undocumented immigrants and victims’ property being seized or bulldozed.
Driving up Highway 31 in Kenosha County, I saw a plywood sign with a message in red spray paint: “FEMA $ GONE!” The brainwashing is instantaneous now, and the news media is little more than a platform serving content to eyeballs.
I saw TV news anchors asking FEMA reps what they were doing to counteract the propaganda. Wait – isn’t that the job of, I don’t know, maybe journalists? Isn’t the news media supposed to discover and report the truth?
Not so much anymore. Increasingly, they sit on the fence counting ad revenue from “both sides,” careful not to rock either boat.
The climate crisis and its increasing destruction are depressing enough. When you add this level of daily mindfucking, we may be completely doomed.
I walked zero miles this week.
Flexzilla Garden Hose
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Big (1988)
Friday evening, for the second week in a row, my neighbors Angela and David hosted some people from the block in their backyard. David has a projector and a big portable screen. Big was one of Angela’s favorite movies as a kid, so that’s what we watched on a warm October night under the rustling leaves.
Big stars Tom Hanks, of course — but initially, his character Josh is a 12-year-old played by David Moscow. Frustrated over being too young, Josh’s wish to be “big” is granted by a mystical arcade fortune-telling machine, and he wakes up the next morning as fully-grown Tom Hanks, heads to New York City, lands a job, and soon attracts the interest of a woman.
It’s the sort of situation that might be the basis for an episode of Bewitched, extended to movie length and directed by Penny Marshall — who, we learned during this viewing party, was distantly related to our neighbor Tanya.
It’s a sweet movie. Hanks does pretty well playing naivete.
Mostly, it was nice to spend some more time with neighbors in their mini drive-in theater under the moon, and amid the neighborhood fireworks and sirens.
When Big ended, David was able to get the screen down and put away minutes before a cold front arrived and the chilly wind blasted our block.
Funny Girl (1968)
Saturday night at my mom’s, we chose Funny Girl from her cloud closet of movies DVR’d from TCM. The 1968 musical features Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice, the comedian, singer, and actress who starred on stage, screen, and radio through the first half of the 20th century. Mom was especially familiar with Brice on the radio as Baby Snooks.
Funny Girl is not an entirely accurate biography, but it gives you the general outline of Brice’s relationship with suave gambler Nicky Arnstein set against her arduous climb to stardom. Baby Snooks is barely mentioned. Most of the focus is on the Ziegfeld Follies.
The plot plods along. The songs are alright. But Streisand’s performance is solid gold. Her energy and humor crackle and her singing is extra enough to breathe life into an otherwise routine show. She carries the whole thing and wins the two-and-a-half-hour marathon.
She was just 25 at the time.
Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers
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