I begin this little recommendation rather sheepishly. You see, the film I’m about to fawn over — “The Professional” — centers on the life of an assassin.
Frankly, I’m tired of movies that have turned assassins into Capraesque characters to be admired, worthy of our accolades and appreciation. I’ve railed against them early and often on my weekly WFPK 91.9 film reviews. These are characters, after all, who kill other people as their profession.
That said, the film babe and I happened upon this Luc Besson flick the other night on cable. I had seen it, remembered the gist of it, but forgotten many of its, ahem, charms. She had not experienced it before.
After it all played out on the screen, she said to me, “what a sweet but disturbing film.”
Raven-haired Sydney is back. So we got that going for us. We talk about the GOP’s latest strategy, and the aftermath of the UK/ U of L game. She reports on the Zombie Walk, Ryder Cup doings at GlassWorks, and generally keeps you know who in his place. It’s all too much fun. Check it out:
One summer while an adolescent I went to Camp Tall Trees in Otter Creek Park. One of our activities was an exchange of sorts with Camp Sky High, a short hike through the copperhead-infested woods away.
All the kids at my camp were white. All those at Sky High were black.
To foster connection and understanding, our swimming buddies were from the other camp. As a safety test the counselor/ lifeguards would blow their whistles and we’d have ten seconds to hook up with our buddies.
My buddy and I were among a number of couplings that were set out of the pool for awhile as penalty due to our inability to clasp hands within the alloted time. I simply couldn’t recognize my assigned partner. The color of his skin, along with the many other blacks in the pool, overwhelmed any sense I might have had to distinguish other characteristics.
Jen is back in town for yet one more week. ???? Anyway, it gave us a chance to preview the upcoming football season, especially an impartial breakdown of the U of L/ UK game. Check it out:
The Jenster is back from Nashville — for a short stay — to taunt the Culture Maven once again. She did not return the missing computer, much to the Big Boss’s chagrin. Check out all the shenanigans:
The media was out in full force the day Steve Kragthorpe was introduced as U of L’s new football coach. Half a hundred strong, they were encamped at Press Level of Papa John’s. Cameras whirred, flashbulbs popped and microphones clicked on as the elevator doors opened and the new mentor emerged with an entourage led by Tom Jurich.
The group strode as royalty toward the fourth estate. Suddenly, Kragthorpe hung a quick, sharp left into the Mens Room for a pit spot. “There’s the money shot,” chirped one wag.
A year ago Louisville coulda been a contenda. The Cards were defending Orange Bowl and Big East champs. Now the program is up on jacks. No pit stop, this is a major overhaul.
Louisville’s flavor of the month — He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere — William Mapother, has returned to his home town to star at Actor’s Theater in “Glengarry Glen Ross.” He sat down for a one on one. You decided who came out more bloodied.
If Grantland Rice — the doyen of football scribes — had been on the scene, he might have rendered poesy from the dripping, leaden skies. The air was thick and brown as hummus, and only the gray pall kept the heat index below triple digits.
Yet the day marked the Season of the Switch, from matters of lesser importance to football. It’s the brutal endeavor America has embraced as its paramount sporting pastime.
And so they came, as witness, as a pledge of allegiance, as confirmation they still believe, despite the travails that befell their beloved last season. Disregarding flies and Fahrenheit, the red-and-black faithful arrived in droves to the opening of Louisville Cardinal pigskin practice last Tuesday.
Of the brouhahas thus far in Election 2008 — there will be more — few have been as intense as the firestorm over the cover of the July 21 issue of The New Yorker magazine. Unless you’ve been hibernating in the Black Forest, on vacation to Vista Palms Glen Shores, Alabama or have set a permanent firewall against all matters political, you know the situation.
Barack Obama is on the cover, fist-bumping his spouse Michelle in the Oval Office. He’s dressed like Osama (whose photo hangs over the fireplace). She’s incarnated as Angela Davis circa the 60’s, complete with full sista ‘fro and rifle across her back held in place by a bullet strap. The exclamation point in Barry Blitt’s satirical rendering — titled “The Politics of Fear” — is the stars & stripes aflame in the fireplace.
Despite my preternatural astuteness, I missed the irony. When I first saw the magazine, I immediately stopped all activities to fire off an email advising the editors of the ‘zine to “be ashamed, very very ashamed.” And then, after pondering my vapid knee-jerk reaction, owned my stupidity but contemplated the larger meaning of that whole affair in a piece posted here, “Whither Political Irony.”
I guess if I was going to herald “Some Like It Hot,” I should rightfully have done so last week before it’s showings at the Village 8 this past weekend. Well, sorry. My bad. But there’s always Wild & Wooly or one of those chain rental places.
Anyway, the Film Babe and I did head over to see the movie voted the funniest of all time by the American Film Institute.
Baer’s Button store on the 600 block of West Market was run by Mr. Baer. Just as my parent’s store (Handbag Mart, an apt, utilitarian moniker) was owned and operated by my family down the street. In the 50’s and 60’s, some even surviving into the 70’s, they and thousands across the land like them thrived, many mom & pop operations. It had been the norm since the beginning of the republic.
The first time dad sent me down to Baer’s to get a swatch of cloth to fix a purse, I asked Mr. Baer, a paunchy man with a twinkle in his eye, to help me. “Ask Clarence,” he said. “Clarence knows where everything is.”
So he did. We took the old freight elevator to the third floor. Through narrow aisles between floor to ceiling shelves laden with thousands of bolts of fabric, Clarence circuitously led me straight to what my father needed.
Clarence — never knew his last name — was a swell guy. He became a confidant and the fellow I’d always go to when dad needed some piece of cloth or another, or my mom needed a button and sent me to fetch it instead of going herself. That Clarence was black was an afterthought. Even in the 50’s.
U of L football has careened off its collision course.
It doesn’t make sense. If the Pakistani Graduate Student Theory (details below.) is correct, the Cards should be BCS perennials, not rebuilding.
That players are getting shot and arrested is not really the problem. If the hypothesis is legit, Cardinal prospects for the upcoming season should be a lot higher because of not despite turmoil and team turnover.
Some perspective is in order.
Bill Olsen hired Howard Schnellenberger in ’85 to upgrade a program on life support. The Football Messiah soon pontificated — all together now — “We’re on a collision course with the national championship, the only variable is time.”
The Savior privately lamented that the squad he inherited had too many players who were “too nice.”
And now for the rest of the story.
