Alexander

Education is SUPPOSED to be a secure profession. Everybody needs teachers, right? Well, not where I live. New York's Capital District is one of the few places where there are TOO MANY teachers. This area has no less than FIVE colleges with teaching programs which churn out a new crop of fully certified and qualified teachers every year like clockwork. The competition for jobs here is insane. Last fall, I interviewed for a part-time position. The principal I spoke with told me that he went through hundreds of applications for a job that usually brings in only twenty or thirty applicants. I was actually kind of flattered that I had even made the cut for an interview, given those odds. He said, however, that at the moment the odds are against me. English and Social Studies are not in high demand right now (Special Education, Math, Science, and Technology are the money disciplines) and since many districts are facing budget cuts, very few new positions are opening up. And, once again, since there are so many people applying for those few jobs, the odds of getting one are very slim indeed. So basically, my options are as follows: Move to a part of the country where they need teachers. New York City is always in need, as are many southern states. I've been told that if I were to apply to districts in North Carolina, Virginia, etc with my NYS certification, I would have a very easy time of it. Moving is more of an option than it used to be, since I'm separating from my wife, but I really don't want to be far away from my daughter. My other option is: Do something else. Unfortunately, I went into teaching because I was having trouble finding a job doing anything else!

Hate to burst everybody's bubble, but the Hall/Evans album used a preexisting image for the cover. It's photographer Toni Frissell's 1947 photo Weeki Wachee spring, Florida. It's a famous photograph and it has been used for several album covers, not just the Hall/Evans.

I bet it was those damn Democrats!

I'm being treated for major depression, too. If this had happened to me a couple of year's back (along with my marital troubles), it would have been all over for me. As it is, I'm actually doing well. I'm getting occasional acting and improv gigs, so at least I have something to do and a tiny amount of money coming in (whenever I draw a $100 or $300 check from acting or improv, I tell my wife, "This is $100 more than we would have had if I weren't doing this!"). I'm probably the happiest guy you'll ever meet who doesn't have a job and whose wife is leaving him!

I was laid off back in the summer. I've been looking high and low, but I've had no luck finding a job in that time. My unemployment is almost up. Hopefully, I'll be able to get an extention. I was really hoping that I was be able to get at least a part-time teaching position without having to resort to subbing (I've done it before, and I actually like it, but it's way too unstable as a source of income). I have, however, just put in to be put back on the sub lists in all the districts I used to work in. It'll take a few weeks for the paperwork the clear, but I'll be back in a classroom soon. And I'm glad, too! I've been going stir-crazy lately! If I get steady work, I'll be able to make at least as much as I'm getting on unemployment. But, as I said, it's not secure and there's no future in it. Plus it will actually distract me from job hunting! But it's better than sitting at home day in and day out. Hold steady, boys. We're in for a bumpy ride!

I skipped the Sopranos as well, but to me the Godfather films are about a lot more than just the Mafia. Consider the time period during which the first film opens: Michael has returned from the war and is attending his sister Connie's wedding. Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo have been defeated, but in many ways the fascisim they represented continues in Don Vito Corleone's office. Of course, Don Vito looks like a big softie compared to what Michael represents once he takes over... It's a film about innocence and the fall from innocence. It's about the ways in which a good man, desiring to do good and protect his family, can still do evil. Saying "The Godfather" films are about the Mafia is like saying that "Moby Dick" is about fishing or "Lolita" is about relationships.

Agreed. He WAS Marv.

I reviewed "The Wrestler" on my blog. Check it out... Darren Arnofsky's magnificent tragedy The Wrestler is getting a ton of attention for Mickey Rourke's note-perfect perfomance as the washed-up title character. What struck me, however, was how the film is really about the way in which fantasy and reality intersect, particularly in two performative careers that tend not to get much credit: Pro-Wrestling and Exotic Dancing. The film focuses on Randy "Ram" Robinson, nee Robin Ramzinski, a peroxide enhanced, 'roid fueled, fake tanned has-been of a pro-wrestler. Everything about Ram is fake...except for his pain. His only real human connection in the film is with a stripper named Cassidy (nee Pam). This makes perfect sense, since Cassidy exists in the same twilit world of low-class fantasy. Ram and Cassidy are mirror images. Like Ram, Cassidy is a fake. She pretends to be a breathy vixen for her paying customers when in reality she's a struggling single mother. Cassidy resists Ram's advances because she believes that he's falling for the fantasy. What she doesn't understand is that Ram is probably the one person who knows what it's like to live that lie. Read the rest of the review here.

I LOVE these movies. Haven't seen the remastered films. I hope they come to a theater in my area!

I don't know if the article mentions this, but Charles Schulz was a fan. Snoopy famously had a Wyeth hanging in his doghouse!

Happy, happy! Joy, joy! :party: :party:

GREAT film. It was the first film to co-star Bogie and Bacall. The effect she has on him is immediate and quite obvious. I don't think he's acting in the "you know how to whistle" scene. It's also a great film because it was scripted by William Faulkner and directed by Howard Hawks. Faulkner also wrote for Hawks and Bogie on "The Big Sleep," but "To Have..." is even more delicious because it's Faulkner rewriting Hemingway! The ending is completely changed. I mean, I admire both authors, but when you come right down to it Faulkner was the greater novelist and having him rewrite Mister Short-and-Punchy is incredibly cool! I once saw an amazing photograph of Faulkner, Hawks, and Carmichael on the set of that film. Imagine what that conversation sounded like!

Kanye West (on "808 and Heartbreak") has done what might have previously seemed impossible - He used autotune as an instrument, not "fixing" his vocals per se, but actually using it to make his singing simultaniously more emotive and paradoxically less human. T-Pain certainly uses the autotune to good effect, but the fact is that he CAN sing without it. Kanye turned what might have been an awkward album into an excellent album through his creative use of the device.

Courage, Alexander, courage. Okay, Free For All, you win the geek-of-the-month award. No, you do, because you got the joke!

Patrick McGoohan AND Ricardo Montalban die...PLUS Steve Jobs stepped down at Apple! This is the worst day for geeks in recent history!

Why release these as CD-Rs? Why not just straight downloads?

I understand that back in the heyday of the "Cowboy and Indian" films, Native Americans were usually played by Italian-Americans and Jews. Which, of course, reminds me of Mel Brooks in "Blazing Saddles"...

Yep! Absolutely incredible!

One wonders if Zantzinger ever listened to Bob after his song made Zantzinger literally a household name to millions of fans...

"I'll buy anything that's shiny and made by Apple."

If the players are doing something right, the jazz being played in fifty years should bewilder and outrage us. In fact, it shouldn't sound like jazz at all. After all, to a Dixieland player, Bop didn't sound remotely like what he thought of as "jazz." And many a "mouldy fig" was plenty outraged and bewildered by Bop. If the jazz of fifty years hence still sounds like the jazz of fifty years ago, then it will be pretty much dead...

The Everglades party is a great scene and this is cool info to have. There are very few black characters in KANE and none with speaking parts. Here's a bit I always wonder about: During that scene, the film cuts to Kane and Susan in their tent having an argument. "Sure, I'm Charles Foster Kane. I'll give ya anything you want, but you gotta love me!" Anyway, right after Susan says that line and Kane slaps her, a woman is heard off screen. At first she seems to be laughing, then screaming (but in a playful way). As Kane and Susan stare at each other ("I'm not sorry.") the screams sound like screams of terror. What do you think is going on in this scene? KANE is my all time favorite film, btw. I've seen it literally hundreds of times, including at least twice on the big screen (I've also taught it in a film class). I've owned it on VHS and DVD. I never, EVER get tired of watching it!

Thanks, y'all!

I was a big Trekker once upon a time. Loved the original series and TNG, but DS9 was my favorite. I loved the political intrigue. Never liked Voyager (except for Tim Russ as Tuvok) and was done with Trek by the time Enterprise came about (but the few episodes I have seen have done nothing for me). Nevertheless, Majel Barrett was an institution on that show in most of its incarnations, even moreso than her late husband. She will be missed. RIP.

Almost forgot to mention Blind Roosevelt Graves and his brother Aaron!