POETRY CORNER

Here's (above) Sylvia Plath's "Daddy," read by Plath. I like this poem, but it seems self-indulgent and even crazy to me. Boy, Sylvia could certainly can hold a grudge. What could her father have done to her to make her write a poem like this? My guess is...not much. It's possible that he had a mentally disturbed daughter who was willing to throw his reputation under the bus in order to establish her own reputation.

Anyway, love it or hate it, you have to admit that it represents an interesting extreme of revenge literature. The unrelenting, venemous intensity reminds me of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" and the several pages long curse in the Bible aimed at anyone who touches the Arc of the Covenant.





Here's (above) Allen Ginsberg reading "America." I confess to liking this poem even though I completely disagree with the content. Walt Whitman popularized this kind of rambling, sloppy, stream-of-consciousness dialogue where the poet argues with an abstraction. Like Whitman, Ginsberg is often silly and easy to parody but you have to admit that it's appealing on some level.





Here's (above) Jack Kerouac reading one of his poems on the old "Tonight Show" with Steve Allen. Kerouac comes off as immensely sincere and the poem is an interesting, example of word music, at least when Jack reads it.

THEORY CORNER FOR MEN: PICKUP LINES

Hello men! I get a lot of letters asking for advice about dating. Normally I don't answer because, well, some things can't be taught. I recently changed my mind after receiving a gut-wrenching letter from a Theory Corner men who told me that if I couldn't help then there would be nothing for it but a leap into the Grand Canyon. It occurred to me that I might be able to help this man and through him some of the other luckless, blighted males who frequent this site.

I agreed to meet the letter writer outside my favorite Hollywood disco. Out there on the street we'd talk theory then inside we'd put it into practice. 


Uncle Eddie: "Alright, listen up! The basic format is FMAC: find, meet, attract, close. Got that?"

Student: (writing nervously, nearly dropping pencil) "Got it Uncle Eddie!"

Uncle Eddie: "The trick is to play hard to get by deliberately ignoring the woman you're interested in while winning over her friends, including the men. To do that you employ a device called the 'neg'."

Student: "Huh? What's a neg?"

Uncle Eddie: "The neg is a negative comment, a sort of accidental insult. The purpose of a neg is to lower a beautiful woman's confidence. Maybe tell her she has lipstick on her teeth or offer her a breath mint after she speaks. Now what's the number one characteristic of an alpha male?"

Student: (drops pencil; when he leans down to pick it up his glasses fall off) "Um...er, I don't know, Uncle Eddie!"

Uncle Eddie: "The number one characteristic of an alpha male is the smile. Smile from the moment you enter the club! It indicates confidence! OK, let's go in!"

Uncle Eddie (inside the club...the sound is deafening...Thoomp! Thoomp! Thoomp!) : (shouting) "You see how all the guys are dressed? You gotta be bold, over-the-top! Dress average and you'll fade into the background! Wear a conversation piece! Now go up that group over there and start talking! Don't think about it or you'll chicken out! Did you memorize the dialogue? "

Student: (squints to read his notes) "Yes, Uncle Eddie! I walk over to them and say, 'Hey, it looks like the party's over here.' Then I turn to the girl I want and say, 'If I wasn't gay, you'd be so mine!' (he blushes).

'Um...I don't get it, Uncle Eddie. How do I get the girl if she thinks I'm gay?"

Uncle Eddie: (rolls eyes) "Once she feels comfortable and unthreatened by you, you forget the gay thing."

Student: "But isn't that lying?"

Uncle Eddie: "Naw, that's flirting!"

Well, that's enough for one post. Now I don't want to hear anybody talking about diving into the Grand Canyon. I'm a hiker and I don't enjoy stepping over dead bodies.

Editor's Note: This info was derived from a book: "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists" by Neil Strauss.

WHY I'M NOT A FAN OF "IRON GIANT"

Let me start by saying that I have nothing against Giant's director, Brad Byrd. I'm criticizing his film because that doing that helps me to make a point about the way I believe animated films should be made. In other words I'm contrasting my own pie-in-the-sky ideal of film-making against what Brad was able to do in the face of real-world obstacles. It's not a fair comparison and I recognize that. With that caveat in mind watch the clip above and come back here for discussion.

Well, to start with the robot looks pretty good. Whenever he leans there's a great perspective shift and his glancing back and forth at the rock and tree was impressive in the sense that the space between those items seemed immense. I don't know if I've ever seen that awareness of horizontal space in an animated film before. How did they do that? And the grinding metal SFX were great! Anyway, that's what I liked about the sequence. For me the rest of the clip was all about lost opportunities.

There's no art in the way the kid tried to teach the robot to talk. Theatrical dialogue is supposed to be better than the way real people talk. What if Romeo had said to Juliet," Hey, Juliet! It's me, Romeo! Boy, you look great standing there on the balcony!" Would we still remember the play after all these years? There's no excuse for lackluster dialogue. Hollywood is full of dialogue enhancers. Remember how interesting the language teaching sequences of "My Fair Lady" were? It's an interesting subject if it's handled right, even in an abreviated time frame as it was here.

This dialogue problem set a bunch of dominos to falling. Lackluster dialogue led to a lackluster recording and the lackluster recording led to lackluster animation. The reading and animation were convincing all right, you can't walk off the street and do that, but that's the problem. That's all that they were -- convincing. As I've said elsewhere, it's not enough for an actor to be convincing in a role. Real life is convincing and I get all I want of that for free. When I pay for media I want it to be better than life. I want a performance in the true sense of the word, one that'll blow my mind and make me want to tell my friends about it.


Now there were some good animators on this film, you could tell, but they had nothing to work with. The writing wasn't there. did you feel chemistry between the robot and the kid? I didn't. The exchange between them was cold as ice. The boy's mother called and the kid simply turned his back on the robot and matter-of-factly started for home. Didn't it occur to anyone that if boy didn't care for the robot then we had no reason to care for him either? Imagine if the boy had been a real fleshed-out character like Penny in "The Rescuers." A boy like that would have never have willingly turned his back on his new-found friend.

The writing also hurt the interrogation sequence. The CIA guy's threats were so artless and blunt. Imagine a similar scene played by Darth Vader. Fans would have lovingly quoted the threats for decades. The villain is supposed to be a guy we love to hate. I didn't love to hate this guy.

And why the arid silence? Didn't the filmmakers believe in music? Music might have soothed over some of the writing problems and explained the characters' emotions to us. Maybe the money ran out. If they ever re-release this they should add some sound.

Well, that's it.

JOHN CLEESE, ANDY KAUFMAN, SAM KINISON

I'm probably overdoing this YouTube thing. After all, people don't need me to look up comedy shorts. I did it because I was having such a blast watching these films that I just had to share them with someone. Anyway, here's three more and I'll try to restrain myself after this.

JERRY LEWIS, W.C. FIELDS & JIM CARREY

MORE CLOUD DRAWINGS

Here's a quick sketch I did while leaning outside my car window. All the time I was driving there were great cloud formations but I couldn't get my hands free to draw. What a pity; no record will ever exist of the flottila of battleships chasing the runaway amoebas or the indian bracing himself to get hit with pies. Finally these came along, the caterpillar with a bonnet and the people in the school bus throwing dogs and cats out the window. It was too good to pass up! I pulled over to the shoulder and drew fast with cars whizzing by only a few feet from my paper.

Here, to fill out the post, is Jerry Lewis's famous elevator scene from "The Errand Boy."

VINTAGE SID CAESAR

Here are a couple of sketches featuring Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris. If you're seeing them for the first time then I envy you.



I love sketch comedy and it breaks my heart that we so infrequently see this kind of thing in animation. I'd love to do some short cartoons that are built around funny sketches. Avery's "King-Size Canary" was a arguably a sketch cartoon as was the "Shampoo Master" and lifeguard sequences of John K's "Naked Beach Frenzy."

Before I close here's a tip of the Theory Hat to Steve Worth, the erstwhile wizard of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. Steve just won a well-deserved Annie for his work on the archive, escorted on stage by the famous "Annie Trophy Girls." Way to go, Steve!