ATLAS SHRUGGED II DEBUTS TODAY!

Yikes! "Atlas Shrugged II" debuts today and I almost forgot about it! This is the kind of film I have to see on the first day, so if you feel the same way, then maybe I'll see you in the theater!

What will it be like? Er....Maybe not technically great. Atlas Part 1 (shown in the clip above) had terrific actors in the main roles but had to chintz on everything else. Atlas is an epic book and the filmmakers just didn't have the money to shoot an epic film. Even so, the effort was much appreciated by fans.

I'm expecting this second film to have more problems than the first, but I'm also expecting to have the pleasure of seeing capitalism defended on the screen. When's the last time you saw that? The last film I can think of that did that (apart from other Rand films) was a black and white Walter Houston/Mary Astor film called "Dodsworth." Look for it on TCM. I think you'll like it.

Anyway, here's (below) where the film is playing in the Los Angeles area. 'Better confirm the times and days on the net or by phone because Atlas may not start the same day in every theater.

IDEAS FOR HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS

A hydra (above)!!!! What a great idea for a scary porch sculpture...something to scare the trick or treaters with. You could make the necks out of those flexible aluminum ducts they sell in hardware stores.

It's a shame to scare little kids...but the little rugrats seem to like it.

I'd love to do flaming pumpkin torches, but I'm scared that the house would burn down.

Paper masks used to be everywhere, especially on cereal boxes. What happened to them?

Above, nice...very nice!

Hmmmm, more hydra ideas from a Russian kids book. Geez, the Russians are good at this sort of thing.

'Love those Steinberg paper bag masks (above). I made a few one year and they were more complicated to make than they look. You have to alter the dimensions of the bag to make it look right.

Every year I seriously consider going to the local kindergartens and buying up their masks. Nowadays they're probably considered folk art and parents wouldn't let their kids sell them. I should have stocked up on them when my own kids were young.

 Above, some good pumpkin ideas. Joel Brinkerhoff, a Theory Corner man,  co-created my very favorite Halloween pumpkin picture. I've posted it before, but it bears repeating. I'll pull it from the archive.

Here's (above) part of my own mask collection. I keep 'em up all year.

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Incidentally....Happy Birthday Jim Smith!!!! Here's the card that John made!

DEVIL MASKS

Here's one of my favorite Devil masks. Lots of kids in my old neighborhood had it. It was made of thin rubber and sold for a price that even us kids could afford.

Like many of the best masks, it doesn't try to look natural. It has a painterly, sculptured look. I wonder if the original was carved out of wood. 

Above, three great Devil masks. The last one on the right is particularly interesting because it depicts Lucifer as a thug. Usually he's portrayed as super intelligent...a sort of Moriarity who wins by cunning. Here he's a mindless bully, a yob, a lover of violence for its own sake. It's a new take on an old subject.

Whoa! A Nicholas Cage devil mask (above)...but my source says it's African.

Here's (above) Adolphe Menjou as The Devil.

And here's (above) an Ernie Kovacs devil. All it needs is a cigar.

This devil in drag mask (above) is from Peru. The artist apparently sees The Devil as a nice guy, someone you could joke with.

...Or maybe not! Above, more Peruvian devils, this time looking very fierce.

A VARIENT ON THE FLYING DREAM

PATIENT: "Are you sure you want hear about this dream? It's kinda silly, and it doesn't make sense. I don't want to waste your time."

PSYCHIATRIST: "You're not wasting my time. Go ahead."

PATIENT: "Okay...here it is, but remember, you asked for it.

Okay, well, it was late afternoon in a city I'd never been in before. I had time to kill, so I figured I'd take a walk around...sort of get a feel for the place."

PATIENT: "People were just getting out of work. They poured out of the buildings and lined up at bus stops and turnstiles. Everybody was jostling everybody."

PATIENT: "I felt like I was getting in the way, so I looked for smaller streets to explore. I took shortcuts through alley ways."

PATIENT: "I knew enough about big cities to avoid the most dangerous looking places..."

PATIENT: "...but even normal streets struck me as a little odd. As it got darker and I got farther and farther into the labyrinth, I'd see fewer people. Oh, they were there, but I'd no sooner catch a glimpse of them than they'd turn a corner or walk into a door." 

PSYCHIATRIST: "So they were trying to avoid you?"

PATIENT: "Maybe, or maybe I was just out of sync with them."

PATIENT: "It was the same way with buses and subway cars. I'd arrive just when they were pulling out." 

PATIENT: "The whole time I had the feeling that I was being watched."

PATIENT: "But who'd want to watch me? I didn't even know these people."

PATIENT: "Later on I got tired of walking. Not only that, but I was hopelessly lost."

PATIENT: "That's when I stumbled on an old hotel with a restaurant on the bottom floor."

PATIENT: "There were people there, but they didn't think much of me. I could feel the hostility."

PATIENT: "But why, I kept thinking. What did I do to them?"

PATIENT: "I think they wanted to tear me apart, but were under some restraint that I didn't understand."

PATIENT: "It was all too much. In an effort to block it out, I buried my head in my hands."

PATIENT: "The instant I closed my eyes I heard a loud airplane engine and I flashed on a vivid image of an airplane flying over some kind of tundra. Don't ask me how, but somehow I knew that the plane was in trouble. It was out of gas and would have to make a landing in a field of trees." 

PATIENT: "I could also hear the ticking clock on the restaurant wall."

PATIENT: "The plane circled around once then came in low. The engines sputtered and stopped."

PATIENT: "It glided over tall pine trees. It was suicide to land in a place like this, but the pilot had no choice."

PATIENT: "As if things weren't bad enough, the landing gear got stuck halfway down. I could see the pine trees rushing up. I could hear screams. I had the sickening feeling that the fate of this plane would determine my own fate."

PSYCHIATRIST: "What happened?"

PATIENT: "What do you think happened? It was horrible."

PATIENT: "I looked up to see what was happening in the restaurant and I was amazed to see that everyone was positively jovial. It's as if they were relieved of a burden of some sort. They hadn't changed what they thought about me, though. I could see that."

PATIENT: "They surrounded me like it was a game they were playing, and I tried to reason with them. 'Look, I don't want to bother you, I just want to get back to the center of town. Does anybody here know where I can get a trolley?' "

PATIENT: "A crowd had gathered outside. "He wants a trolley! Get him a trolley!' they shouted.

PATIENT: "A flaming trolley was brought up."

PSYCHIATRIST: "Wait a minute! Hold the story there! Your hour's up and I have other patients."

PATIENT: "Huh? B-but what about my dream?"

PSYCHIATRIST: "It was a fine dream! We'll talk about it next time."

PATIENT: "But...but..."

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Aaaaaargh! If the deadline wasn't hard upon me, I'd have shelved this story because it's riddled with flaws. I started with two completely unrelated ideas that I thought I could fuse: one about someone who gets lost, and another about a crashing airplane. Geez, what was I thinking? Any ideas for how I could have saved this?

A HOTEL EVOLVES

This hotel was used in a horror film I just saw called "The Innkeepers." I can't really recommend the movie but the hotel, which was real and not a set, was interesting. The hotel's seen a lot of changes in the last century and I thought it might be fun to trace them, and pass judgement on the architects who made them.

This hotel is called "The Yankee Peddler." In a comment Bougieman identifies the location as Connecticut, and my guess is that the picture above was taken about a hundred years ago. I love the long porch and the gazebo-type structures on the corners.

Later on the hotel (above) was renovated and enlarged. An annex was butted up against its right side. Of course we all wish the old hotel had been permitted to stand unmolested, but the new addition isn't horrible. It continues the dominant lines of the old building, and the street view is still somewhat pleasing. 

Notice the exterior of the old hotel has been altered. No more gazebo corners, no more tall trees, no more shutters on the side of the windows, no more chimneys or nifty crawlspace vents, no more high Victorian-style arches supporting the porch roof. 

I notice the entrance now has a Teutonic or Mayan look. It's more austere. Now there's a little fence around the porch roof, and that seems to work. 

A little later (above) and the side porch has been removed. There's only the front porch now. That's a big, big change for the worse. The building's character depended on the porch. 

Still later, it appears (above) that the buildings have been white-washed...or is that a tint added by the photo developer?

Here's the present hotel. The porch is completely gone and a new facade fronts onto the street. The new look is far from perfect, but the renovation could have been worse and the architect succeeded in giving the place a lively feel.

Even so, I still miss the wrap-around porch with it's gazebos and fleet of rockers. People like to look at other people. I also miss the chimneys and trees, and I'd have re-instated the storefronts on the bottom of the annex. Those would provide more visual interest for pedestrians.

If this were a modern building, built from scratch, I would have recommended using the roof space for a garden restaurant. Rooves are the most neglected asset of current architecture.