Beware the deadly vacuum pocket! (relayed by Nev Dull)
Has the blind cartoon mouse met his match?
Don’t miss — Zatô-itchy and Scratchy!
Funny blunder in Kubrick’s The Killing (1956): when George (Elisha Cook) takes a pistol from its hiding place, he pointlessly works the slide before inserting a magazine: the gun is thus not in firing condition.
Other movies seen this week:
Bob le Flambeur (1956), another caper, not bad but overrated.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), surprisingly straightforward for Hitchcock.
The Searchers (1956), a disturbing piece about obsession and hatred, with a happy ending incongruously tacked on.
In 1994, I was (so they tell me who follow such things) the first Libertarian in California to be endorsed for partisan office by a major daily newspaper. Now I have a chance at a second footnote in the history books!
There’s a new group (or maybe one guy) proposing an Amendment to recognize the right of secession:
The sovereign authority of any State to withdraw by law from the United States shall not be questioned, and the United States shall recognize it as a sovereign and independent country.
I’m chortling because the first clause was my suggestion (except that I wrote the People of any State), in response to this earlier draft:
If any state should, either through a referendum or a majority vote of that state’s legislature, choose to secede from the United States of America, Congress shall let it secede in peace, and recognize it as a sovereign and independent State.
My objection to this was that it overrode any provision that a State constitution might have for supermajority or popular ratification. Many of us, I imagine, would want some major reforms before allowing the gang of thieves in the State capitol to declare itself sovereign by simple majority!
A few months ago you may remember I had some dreams inspired by Buffy. This morning in dream, I was among the crew of Serenity, apparently taking Book’s place. We happened to be on Wash’s home planet, and I heard his side of a conversation in which he failed to find the words to tell his mother that he was married and a father. Later, Kaylee put on the “Shindig” gown for a formal dinner.
Saw two excellent Hitchcock pictures this week: Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954) — each of which concerns a tennis champion with an inconvenient wife.
In the latter, Grace Kelly’s accent is sometimes plummier than her character; I wonder whether she modelled it in part on Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Man in the White Suit, The Importance of Being Earnest).