Log24

The previous post suggests a flashback . . .

Nobel Flashback:

An essay linked to here on the date of Kuhn’s
death discussed the film “Good Will Hunting”:

“You can be sure that when an experienced movie director
like Gus Van Sant selects an establishing shot for the lead
character, he does so with considerable care, on the advice
of an expert.”

Establishing shots —

1. From a post of January 29, 2014:

2. From a post of April 12, 2011:

Parting shot —

From another post of January 29, 2014:

Note Watson‘s title advice.

The title refers to this afternoon's previous post.

Some context for that post from Friday, April 8—
Hello Note (3:33 AM EDT) and Windows (Noon EDT (6 AM Hawaii time)).

Related material—

Paranormal Jackass and Roll Credits.

The Hawaiian fireworks bunker's resemblance to
the gate of Hell of course does not imply anything
about the afterlife of those who died there.

From the "Roll Credits" link above—

Click to enlarge

In the above image, the name beneath Will Hunting's license plate suggests
a search for Collinge in this journal (scroll down) that yields, at its end, some music
more appropriate for a wake than "Afternoon Delight."

For Patricia Collinge

of Collinge-Pickman Casting, Boston, whose credits include casting for the film A Civil Action.

“Take us the foxes, the little foxes…”

KHYI just played Tish Hinojosa’s “Something in the Rain.”  Here, Ms. Collinge, is a rather strange website related to the themes of A Civil Action and to Hinojosa’s song:

Something in the Rain

In the Labyrinth of Memory

Taking a cue from Danny in the labyrinth of Kubrick’s film “The Shining,” today I retraced my steps.

My Jan. 6 entry, “Dead Poet in the City of Angels,” links to a set of five December 21, 2002, entries.  In the last of these, “Irish Lament,” is a link to a site appropriate for Maud Gonne’s birthday — a discussion of Yeats’s “Among School Children.”

Those who recall a young woman named Patricia Collinge (Radcliffe ’64) might agree that her image is aptly described by Yeats:

Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat

This meditation leads in turn to a Sept. 20, 2002, entry, “Music for Patricias,” and a tune familiar to James Joyce, “Finnegan’s Wake,” the lyrics of which lead back to images in my entries of Dec. 20, 2002, “Last-Minute Shopping,” and of Dec. 28, 2002, “Solace from Hell’s Kitchen.”  The latter entry is in memory of George Roy Hill, director of “The Sting,” who died Dec. 27, 2002.

The Dec. 28 image from “The Sting” leads us back to more recent events — in particular, to the death of a cinematographer who won an Oscar for picturing Newman and Redford in another film — Conrad L. Hall, who died Saturday, Jan. 4, 2003. 

For a 3-minute documentary on Hall’s career, click here.

Hall won Oscars for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “American Beauty,” and may win a posthumous Oscar for “Road to Perdition,” last year’s Irish-American mob saga:

“Tom Hanks plays Angel of Death Michael Sullivan. An orphan ‘adopted’ by crime boss John Rooney (Paul Newman), Sullivan worships Rooney above his own family. Rooney gave Sullivan a home when he had none. Rooney is the father Sullivan never knew. Too bad Rooney is the

Rock Island
branch of Capone’s mob.”

In keeping with this Irish connection, here is a set of images.

“Like a chess player, he knows that to win a tournament, it is sometimes wise to offer a draw in a game even when you think you can win it.”

— Roger Ebert on Robert Duvall’s character in “A Civil Action”

Director Steven Zaillian will take part in a tribute to Conrad L. Hall at the Palm Springs International Film Festival awards ceremony on Jan 11.  Hall was the cinematographer for Zaillian’s films “A Civil Action” and “Searching for Bobby Fischer.” 

“A Civil Action” was cast by the Boston firm Collinge/Pickman Casting, named in part for that same Patricia Collinge (“hollow of cheek”) mentioned above.

See also “Conrad Hall looks back and forward to a Work in Progress.”  (“Work in Progress” was for a time the title of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.)

What is the moral of all this remembrance?

An 8-page (paper) journal note I compiled on November 14, 1995 (feast day of St. Lawrence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin, allegedly born in 1132) supplies an answer in the Catholic tradition that might have satisfied Joyce (to whom 1132 was a rather significant number): 

How can you tell there’s an Irishman present
at a cockfight?
     He enters a duck.
How can you tell a Pole is present?
     He bets on the duck.
How can you tell an Italian is present?
     The duck wins.

Music for Patricias

On this date in 1892, actress/author Patricia Collinge was born in Dublin, Ireland.  She is not to be confused with the Patricia Collinge of

In honor of both Patricias, the backgound music of this site is no longer “Baby, Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me.”  It is, instead,

a tune that fans of James Joyce may recognize.