11JAN2023 – OCF Update – All Work and No Play Makes photog a Dull Boy

There’s no rest for the wicked and I’m no exception.  Fate has conspired to render this week and next awfully busy for yours truly.  I’ll be out pocket most of this afternoon and then there’s more drama tomorrow.  I’ll be wearing a suit and tie then and doing my best to seem like that bright young photog of 1980.  Well, it’s a really nice tie.

So, I’ll do my best to fill the site with interesting content.  I’ve been enjoying the non-political stuff over the last few days.  Let’s face it, writing every day about Kevin McCarthy is not exactly an inspiring prospect.  In fact, I’d be happiest if the headline for the next two years is, “McCarthy continues to block all new spending coming from White House and Senate.”  All of his power is negative.  He can’t force Biden to do anything but he can stop him from inflicting any new damage.  And if he’s especially clever he might come up with a compromise bill that does more good than harm.  Then I would write something nice about him.  His epitaph might be, “HERE LIES KEVIN MCCARTHY, HE CAUSED LESS HARM THAN PAUL RYAN!”

I’ve been having fun mining “The Maltese Falcon” for nuggets of gold.  No work of fiction, that I know of, is all gold.  There’s always dross mixed in.  And the Falcon is no exception.  But Hammett had his moments and I enjoy picking apart some of his dialog for the sheer joy of its feel.  I especially enjoy Gutman’s elaborate banter.  But there are bits here and bits there for many of the characters.  I may do a little more digging on the Falcon if something strikes me.  And then I’ll look around to see what else is out there on the book shelf.  I noticed that some of Hammett is already in the public domain.  Well, it’s close to a century old but I wasn’t sure how much they extended copyrights the last time Disney bribed Washington.  But Hammett may not have kept up with his own intellectual property rights at the end.  I don’t think he was doing well toward the end of his life and I don’t think he had any heirs.

I was watching the movie “The Boston Strangler” last night.  I’d never seen it before and I guess I didn’t know what to expect.  I’ll put up a review soon but it certainly was a strange movie.  Maybe the best way to describe it is to say that although the events took place in 1963 the movie was made in 1968 and therefore absorbed a lot of the current day weirdness.  There are gay and lesbian characters and a tawdriness and weirdness about many of the minor characters that borders on parody.  Seeing Henry Fonda navigating this mess made me think, “How the mighty have fallen.”

Well, anyway, I’ll try to keep my nose to the grindstone in between my errands and responsibilities and we’ll see what I can come up with.  Excelsior!