勝美2

金曜五 and Friday 5 doubleheader!

Questions courtesy of 金曜五.

1. Whatcha been up to?

The past week has been very trying for Myrtle The Wonder Cat. Loud noises and chanting. She's never been affectionate except for a few headbutts at dodo time. Lately she's been very clingy. And vocal. I didn't know she could talk so much.

2. What's the latest from the front?

Wauwatosa alderperson and nitwit Heather Kuhl quit.

I would like to say her resignation was because of the months I spent writing against Heather but she shot herself in the foot. A local talk radio station posted links to Heather's "secret" Twitter account. Disgusting. And I do mean disgusting. As in there is something wrong with her.

With Heather you have to say to yourself, "What was she thinking?" Wearing a political t-shirt to her volunteer position assisting voters at the polls in spite of specifically being instructed not to do it. Making Wauwatosa a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. A sanctuary city for whom? Canadians wanting to escape low COVID-19 rates and an economy poised for 6% growth in 2021?

Heather tried to introduce citywide mandatory facemasks. But Wisconsin already had statewide mandatory facemasks in place. So yeah.

Then there was the ban on plastic drinking straws. I went to the Taco Bell recently to treat myself to the new dragonfruit slushie and bean burritos. As I placed the plastic cup in the drinkholder of my car, I remembered I'd forgotten to ask for a straw. Before I could make my request the nice young girl at the drive through window handed me a paper-wrapped straw.

Plastic.

Restaurants and fast food joints cannot give you a straw. Not plastic, anyhow. You have to ask. I have no idea how bars are doing mixed drinks. Two years ago, Hoffmaster (maker of disposable tableware) of Oshkosh (yes, where they made Oshkosh B'Gosh overalls), Wisconsin, bought out Aardvark Straws. The only American manufacturer of paper straws. And they make some kind of super paper straw that can withstand the rigors of hot coffee. Why am I not drinking with an Aardvark straw?

Then there was one that I didn't know about. Heather organized the council to have a stop sigh installed at an intersection described as "one of the busiest in Wauwatosa".

Please. A stop sign? The busiest intersection in Wauwatosa — or Wisconsin for that matter — is Bluemound Road and Mayfair Road.

Nothing special. Typical suburban intersection. It's the traffic volume.

I would like someone to point the Heather Kuhl Memorial Stop Sign out to me. But if that is what she wants on her résumé, whatevs.

Heather's most damning mistake involved Officer Mensah in the Alvin Cole shooting. She demanded he be fired immediately. Wauwatosa has to put our racist history behind us!

Except Officer Mensah and Alvin Cole are black. Heather didn't know that. She assumed the officer was white. There was no racism involved. Teenage boy stold a semiautomatic and a loaded illegal thirty-five round magazine, took it to the shopping mall, didn't drop the gun and shot at police. Office Mensah returned fire.

Heather helped establish and served on the Committee On Policing And Social Inequities and was photographed participating in the People's Revolution (the violent offbranch of BLM) caravans. Loud, late night tearing convoys through the neighborhoods. Heather is trying to intimidate the people she was elected to represent. "It's easier to replace broken windows than black lives." At no point did I think Heather came up with that beaut all by herself.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

3. What's up?

Most of the businesses in my neighborhood boarded up their windows in preparation for the Milwaukee district attorney's announcement on whether charges would be issued against Officer Mensah and the report to the Wauwatosa Police And Fire Commission from special investigator, Steven M. Biskupic, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

The few businesses that didn't had the windows smashed or suffered looting.

Ono Kine Grindz was the only one to paint "We Support BLM" on their boarded up storefront. No more Hawaiian delicatessen for me.

4. What's new?

The Green Bay Packers on a bye week.

This belongs more in the Celebrity Spotlight section of my blog. But I don't have Celebrity Spotlight.

Which dreamboat Green Bay signal-caller called it Quitsville with longtime gal pal DANICA PATRICK? This isn't the first time the former NASCAR racer has been left in the dust.

5. What's on the agenda?

The National Guard left. No curfew. Nowhere to go.

Questions courtesy of Scrivener. Thank you!

Friday 5 for October 16: Set ’em up.

1. What’s your favorite film set in space?

2. What’s your favorite film set at sea?

  

3. What’s your favorite film set in a non-U.S. city? 

Aprx 00:08:40. The little boy has a note from his mother pinned to his back. "Please do not feed my little boy. He has an upset tummy." 

Japanese mothers really do stuff like that. 

The apron the mother wears is the kappogi. To protect the kimono. Bad girls wear western clothing. Good girls wear traditional clothing. And perfect women wear the kappogi. Sort of like bad guys wearing black cowboy hats and the good guys wearing white cowboy hats. Mother is perfect.

In real life, 小津 安二郎 / Yasujirō Ozu lived with his mother and is buried next to her. He is considered the most influential director. Invented many things we take for granted today: the tatami shot (the camera is placed near the tatami mats on the floor to the height of the actors), the conversational shot (the camera looks over the shoulder of the listener in a conversation, in an Ozu movie an actor might never make eye contact with a co-actor to successfully hit her marks) and the moving camera. The camera became part of the story, an omniscient narrator.  

We might consider this movie quaint. In 1932, this was controversial commentary on contemporary Japanese life. 

An unusual feature of this film is the number of intertitles. Meant to be shown without a benshi (narrator) and seiyuu (voice actors). The benshi tradition is hundreds of years old and comes to us from traditional theater and opera. The benshi and an orchestra (traditional instruments or jazz) would tour with the film and were as popular as the actors on screen. Typically only films for export had so many intertitles.

I seiyuued with my mother at a film festival; I never knew she was so funny. 

The benshi is the reason silent film existed in Japan long after talkies. Nothing to do with lack of technology. More of a "Why fix it if it ain't broke?" 

4. What’s your favorite film set before the 20th Century? 

Beginning at 00:20:14. The Mortar. One of the funniest scenes in motion pictures. 

Buster Keaton was known for doing his own stunts.

00:52.30. Marion Mack gets tsunamied. No one told her; it wasn't in the script. Marion did not do her own stunts.  

5. What’s your favorite film set on a university campus?