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Wednesday, 28 October 2020

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Uhh... the thing that should be emphasized is that the hermit survived those sub zero temps Without starting a fire- lest he be discovered!

You ever end up in rough area of a big city and came to the conclusion it might be best to get out quick? Karin and I did 4 years in Central Maine. We liked to drive and get lost just to see what we could see. Well in the boonies you can find yourself in a similar situation. When you drive through a little intersection village with folks living in shacks and immobile buses, with a few of the “residents” wanting to see who is driving through? Take Karin’s advice. “Get me out of here”

Not a knock on all the good folks from Maine BTW.

I also like old noir, the Bogart movies, but the three best noirs (in my opinion) were all done after you were born. They are the (A) 1975 "Farewell My Lovely" with Robert Mitchum ("It was one of those transient motels, something between a fleabag and a dive") (B) The Coen Brothers "Blood Simple" ("The world is full of complainers. But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. I don't care if you're the Pope of Rome, President of the United States, or even Man of the Year—something can always go wrong. And go ahead, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help—watch him fly. Now in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else—that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas...And down here... you're on your own.") And, of course, (C) "The Big Lebowski, also a Coen Brothers film ("Let me tell you something pendejo. You pull any of your crazy sh*t with us. You flash your piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you and stick up your ass and pull the f*cking trigger 'til it goes click.

I'm not counting Chinatown which is noir-like, but it's one of the best pictures ever made, and I think a real noir has to be a little cheesy. IMHO YMMV.

In thinking about films shot in B&W have you viewed “Good Night and Good Luck”? They used B&W to get the feel of black and white tv of the early 50’s.
I really liked the movie and David Strathairn’s does Edward R Murrow better than Murrow does himself.

I'm also a big fan of Noir, and actually we have the "over-the-air" broadcast channel Movies! where I live, that has Noir films all day Thursday and Sunday night (I'm watching The Killer That Stalked New York" right now at 5:30 am!). That way I still don't have to pay for cable!

I've seen "In a Lonely Place" plenty of times, actually on this channel, and it's tough to watch in some parts and hugely dark. I'm not a blond fan, but got a soft spot for Gloria Grahame, she's way more talented than given credit for(and why is she always getting beaten, slapped, killed in everything she's in, including a scalded face by Lee Marvin; leave poor Gloria alone!).

Speaking of "not blonds", I loved Louise Brooks since I first saw her in my early teens! Whata life, from dancer, through films, and into film critique! I've seen, read, and owned almost anything film or book she's been in, or wrote, or wrote about! I can tell you that there was a time in my young life that any bar, restaurant, office I would walk into, I would immediate start a conversation with any women with a blacked-bobbed hairdo!

Well Mike, as time-served professional printer and photographer, I can only say that where I loved working with two basic grades of WSG papers from Kodak (2 and 3), Ilford rarely used, and then just for its rôle as a between-grade for Kodak, the advent of resin-coated "papers" ended my love for making the black and white print. Using filters was so removed from the visceral, deeply intuitive and emotional operation of printing that I felt it to be so remote from any sense of artistic endeavour that I could only think of it with the same, detached sense of mechanical operation as the making of C-types: without soul.

It was largely instrumental in my complete abandoning of printing. I was fortunate that my business had actually taken a turn towards the deployment of nothing but Kodachrome and Ektachrome. You could say that I found its contemporary equivalent, a decade or two later, in digital printing: an operation in button pushing until the "product" looks all right. Yuk. I can only say again as I have before, that had digital been the norm back in the late 50s, I'd probably have never become a photographer.

Going to California.

One of my favorite bands is The Talking Heads, and I've always felt David Byrne's voice was a musical instrument in itself, and they way he sang, and the way he used his voice was genius.

Interesting hermit story. Since you used to live here in Oak Park, I’ll mention that there was actually a guy who lived for several years in Thatcher Woods Forest Preserve along the Des Plaines River to our west. I never saw him, but my older brother did. I saw traces of him, like brush shelters, etc. My brother felt the guy was probably ex-military and had survival training. Of course, winters here aren’t exactly like Maine.

Once my brother walked by him while he hid in the brush and told me the guy was trying really hard not to be seen. I think the River Forest cops knew about him but never arrested him. In any case, he’s gone now.

I wonder if a significant factor in the negative reaction to RC paper wasn't that its "glossy" (or 'F') surface wasn't anything like a real glossy (fiber-based paper dried pressed tight to a very smooth "ferrotype plate" or cylinder)? (I remember reading about an Ilford RC paper dryer that allegedly slightly melted the surface and produced a real gloss; but I never saw prints from one, never knew anybody who had one, and it was too expensive to buy as a total experiment.)

Now, not needing to invest in a rather expensive dryer like that may also have been a significant factor in RC paper's success. And less washing time was nice.

Even today, the good papers don't include a good glossy, we use "lustre" and things. Which are nice surfaces, just not the same as glossy. At one intermediate point I had an Epson pigment ink photo printer that had a gloss overspray; it would produce real glossy prints. It was wonderful! (I think it was an R800; looks like you can still get ink cartridges for them. The R800 is limited to letter size, though I do believe it had a big brother that did the next size up.)

My favourite Bogart film is the "Big Sleep". It has some of the best dialog ever in any movie. And I would like to point out was co-written by a Noble Prize winner, William Faulkner.

Kiss Me Deadly, Touch of Evil and, of course, Double Indemnity.

Oh another interesting fact about the "The Big Sleep" is that one of the other writers who worked on it was Leigh Brackett. She co-wrote a movie you have probably heard of, "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back".

I kind of strayed a bit off the original subject...

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