Log24

See also this journal on Feb. 15, 2017 —

"For Your Consideration."

Related item from Arts & Letters Daily today —

From Oscars La La —

"What could go wrong?"  See . . .

The producers of "Spotlight," a 2015 film about The Boston Globe —

The online New York Times  reports this afternoon
the death of a production designer on January 9th —

"In addition to the two Oscars Mr. Marsh won
(which he shared with others), he was nominated
for two more: for 'Scrooge' (1970), with Albert Finney and
Alex [sic ] Guinness, and 'Mary, Queen of Scots' (1971),
with Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson."

"… The Little Broomstick  by  Mary Stewart,
illustrated by Shirley Hughes, published Brockhampton 1971.
The story is about Mary, staying at Great-Aunt Charlotte's house,
bored until she meets the black cat Tib and finds the purple flower
fly-by-night that makes the little broomstick fly. In chapter 10
'gay go up and gay go down' Mary hides in Endor College,
the witch school, after hours and finds Tib transformed into a frog
(Madame Mumblechook had taken him from her as her entry fee).
She recites the Master Spell to release him. ' It was a simple,
gay little rhyme, and it ended on a phrase that might have been
(but wasn't) "the dancing ring of days".'  "  

"Bah, humbug!" — A Christmas Carol

From "Core," a post of St. Lucia's Day, Dec. 13, 2016 —

In related news yesterday —

California yoga mogul’s mysterious death:
Trevor Tice’s drunken last hours detailed

"Police found Tice dead on the floor in his home office,
blood puddled around his head. They also found blood
on walls, furniture, on a sofa and on sheets in a nearby
bedroom, where there was a large bottle of Grey Goose
vodka under several blood-stained pillows on the floor."

See as well an image from "The Stone," a post of March 18, 2016 —

Some backstory —

“Lord Arglay had a suspicion that the Stone would be
purely logical.  Yes, he thought, but what, in that sense,
were the rules of its pure logic?”

—Many Dimensions  (1931), by Charles Williams

“Bryan Cranston won an Emmy for lead actor in a drama series Monday…”

“Tu es le pianiste….” — Log24 post 641

Continues.

See also a legal term— discovery— and a musical tale.

Update of 8:28 PM—

"He got the voices speakin' riddles."

"Hans Castorp is a searcher after the Holy Grail.
You would never have thought it when you read
his story—if I did myself, it was both more and
less than thinking. Perhaps you will read the
book again from this point of view. And perhaps
you will find out what the Grail is: the knowledge
and the wisdom, the consecration, the highest
reward, for which not only the foolish hero but
the book itself is seeking. You will find it in the
chapter called 'Snow'…."

— Thomas Mann, "The Making of
     The Magic Mountain "

In related entertainment news…

Click image for some backstory.

Mann's tale is set in Davos, Switzerland.
See also Mayer  at Davos.

Click to enlarge

Related material: Oscar Day 2007

Early Nothing

Manohla Dargis on film director Fritz Lang in The New York Times  (online Jan. 21, 2011, printed Jan. 23)—

"Hollywood endings can be beautiful fibs, but in Lang’s movies the glossy smiles and fade-outs feel forced. You can almost feel him pulling at them, trying to bring them back into the dark where they belong. The miracle of his Hollywood era is that, even when the screenplays tried to force his work in one direction, he managed to take them into richer, more complex realms with a style that was alternately baroque and stripped down and peopled with characters whose cynicism was earned. Every so often, though, he did strike screenwriting gold, notably in 'The Big Heat,' his 1953 crime masterwork. 'Say, I like this, early nothing,' a mink-swaddled Gloria Grahame says of a hotel room. Everyone really is a critic."

Here comes everyone .

McGee Thanks the Academy:

“The ulterior motive behind this essay [“Reading Authority,” above], the purpose for which I seize this occasion, concerns the question or problem of authority. I stress at the outset my understanding of authority as the constructed repository of value or foundation of a system of values, the final effect of fetishism– in this case, literary fetishism. [Cf. Marx, Das Kapital] Reading– as in the phrase ‘reading authority’– should be grasped as the institutionally determined act of constructing authority….”

Wikipedia:

“[In Peter Pan] Smee is Captain Hook’s right-hand man… Barrie describes him as ‘Irish’ and ‘a man who stabbed without offence‘….”

Background: In yesterday’s morning entry, James Joyce as Jesuit, with “Dagger Definitions.”

A different Smee appears as an art critic in yesterday’s afternoon entry “Design Theory.”–

Smee Stabs Without Offence:

“Brock, who has a brisk mind, is a man on a mission. He read mathematical economics and political philosophy at Princeton (he has five degrees in all) and is the founder and president of Strategic Economic Decisions Inc., a think tank specializing in applying the economics of uncertainty to forecasting and risk assessment.

But phooey to all that; Brock has deeper things to think about. He believes he has cracked the secret of beautiful design. He even has equations and graphs to prove it.”

A Jesuit in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

“When may we expect to have something from you on the esthetic question?”

Beckett Bethicketted:

“Our entanglement in the wilderness of Finnegans Wake is exemplified by the neologism ‘Bethicket.’ This word condenses a range of possible meanings and reinforces a diversity of possible syntactic interpretations. Joyce seems to allude to Beckett, creating a portmanteau word that melds ‘Beckett’ with ‘thicket’ (continuing the undergrowth metaphor), ‘thick’ (adding mental density to floral density)…. As a single word ‘Bethicket’ contains the confusion that its context suggests. On the one hand, ‘Bethicket me for a stump of a beech’ has the sound of a proverbial expletive that might mean something like ‘I’ll be damned’ or ‘Well, I’ll be a son of a gun.’….”

— Stephen Dilks

At the Oscars, 2009

Related material:

Frame Tales and Dickung

Women’s History Month continues.

Contender

Miss O’Hara
on the Oscars:

“Cinderella Man: To me, this is the best film of 2005 (qualifier: I have not yet seen Walk the Line). Cinderella Man is a terrific film – maybe even a great one. It isn’t flashy, it isn’t brimming with special effects, porn stars, or snappy one-liners. But it is a terrific story, one that you feel good after watching. It’s a slice of the true Golden Age of Hollywood – a solid story about good people that is well-acted by a superb cast. It’s a very family-friendly film – although some of the boxing scenes may be too intense for little ones. I can’t recommend this film highly enough, and am still furious that it was snubbed for the Oscars – then again, perhaps I shouldn’t be. It would be an insult to the movie, the actors, and the writers to nominate this fine film with the dreck they are glorifying this year. Watch this movie. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Bush Seeks to Shore Up
Support for Iraq

Fri Apr 9, 2004 03:49 PM ET

By Jeremy Pelofsky

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) – President Bush on Friday won renewed pledges of support for U.S. efforts in Iraq from allies Italy, Poland and El Salvador, the White House said, as casualties and kidnappings mounted.

Viva El Salvador!

— Jim Carrey at
 the 1996 Academy Awards

Passion

From the previous entry:

 1.
Oscar:
military phonetic
for the letter
‘O’

From an entry of Dec. 21, 2002, some background in literary theory:

At the Oscars Sunday night, a thought attributed by Billy Crystal to Sean Connery:

“Pussy Galore! I just got it! That’s vulgar.”

For further background, see

Passing the Crown (Aug. 24, 2003) and

The Agony and the Ya-Ya (Oct. 4, 2002).