Monthly Archives: November 2010

Got the scrawny legs but I move just like Lou Brock.

Photo from phitenusa.com's official blog.

For weeks now I’ve been griping about the silliness of those Phiten necklaces that almost all the Texas Rangers, and many of the players on every other MLB team, were wearing this fall. The necklaces are nothing new (Phiten has an “MLB Authentic Collection” endorsed by Joba Chamberlain, among others), and indeed plenty of Yankees have worn them for years now, but they’ve rarely been as noticeable as the model so many Rangers sported: thick ropes that looked like some of the hideous if well-intentioned friendship bracelets I used to make at Indian Brook Summer Camp back in the day.

I was all ready to unleash a full-on rant, because the “science” behind Phiten sounds like absolute 100% shameless steaming bullcrap; from their website:

Oh sure… “Aqua-Titanium™” technology. Please, tell me more!

Phiten Technology is based around the different applications of our high-intensity Phild Process. Titanium has been found by our scientists to be particularly responsive to the Phild Process; meaning, it is consistently effective in emitting, or “passing on” the stabilizing effect of the Phild Process.

Thanks for defining “emitting” for me, that is a tricky one. And what is the Phild Process, again?

Miniscule beads of titanium are created using the Phild Process. These perfectly spherical beads can then be mixed into a compound to be printed or layered directly onto material to target specific areas of the body with concentrated effectiveness… 

At first glance, the inner core of Phiten necklaces and bracelets may look like mere rubber. However, it actually contains Micro-Titanium Spheres and Carbonized Titanium held together in a compound by the elastomer rubber.

You get the idea. I’m no scientist… in fact, in college the only science courses I ever took were Ecology 110, Intro to Computer Programming, and, I’m ashamed to admit, “Science Fiction, Science Fact”. So maybe I don’t have any right to say it, but I feel confident saying it anyway: this is not real science. It is not how the human body works. It is fairy dust. Besides, I’ve had titanium rods in my spine since high school, and the stability of my energy flow is nothing to write home about, believe me.

I was gearing up for a good screed when much to my surprise, multiple friends on Twitter – people I actually know, and who are quite smart – mentioned they’d used Phiten products, and said that it had worked for them. Which I found… startling.

Upon further reflection, I can believe that it did, even though I’m certain that this product is utter snake oil. I don’t believe that “Aqua-Titanium” does a damn thing for the body, but I absolutely do believe in the placebo effect. Ever had someone mention lice or bedbugs and start itching? Ever taken a pill and been sure it was working, only to discover it was actually a much lower does than could’ve possibly been effective? Not to say that positive thinking can cure cancer, or anything so dramatic. But there are a million examples, and tons of studies: psychosomatic symptoms, and even pyschosomatic cures for real symptoms, are very real… even if they’re not real.

So yes, I believe that Phiten is essentially a scam. On the other hand, if a $36 necklace makes your neck hurt less, or a $25 bracelet makes your carpal tunnel more manageable — well, that’s not such a bad deal. I may resent the pseudo-science, but hey: probably those old 19th century snake-oil salesmen made a few people’s joints feel better, too. Whatever works. And to quote Bull Durham:

If you believe you’re playing well because you’re getting laid, or because you’re not getting laid, or because you wear women’s underwear, then you ARE!

That rings a lot truer to me than the Phild Process does.

Man, I wish I had someone to wipe the sweat from my brow as I worked…

The death of Clyde King earlier this week did not generate national headlines. Nor did it rank quite as newsworthy as the subsequent passing of Sparky Anderson, a legend among Hall of Fame managers. But the death of King struck a chord with this writer, who remembers how he tried to restore some sanity to the frenetic whirlwind that enveloped the Yankees during the 1980s.

Before discussing King’s value as the Yankee general manager in the 1980s, his story is worth telling in other regards. Though he was a southerner who hailed from Carolina, King became one of the Brooklyn Dodgers to openly accept an African American named Jackie Robinson as one of his teammates. With allies like King and Pee Wee Reese, life became a little bit easier for Robinson, who faced more than his share of dislike from opponents, fans, and even a few of his teammates. King didn’t care about the color of Robinson’s skin, and didn’t much care for the Jim Crow laws of the 1940s. With an open mind, King accepted Robinson as his teammate and close friend; that’s what mattered to King.

As a pitcher, King had a couple of decent seasons pitching middle relief for the Dodgers, but his career amounted to little more than mediocrity. Where he lacked physical talent, he made up with a knowledge of mechanics and pitching grips. He became a successful pitching coach, before earning managerial jobs with the Giants and Braves. In becoming the only man to manage both Willie Mays and Hank Aaron at the big league level, King kept flawed teams in San Francisco and Atlanta above .500. In spite of a lack of pitching depth, he led the 1969 Giants to a 90-win season. He did similar wonders during the second half of 1974, guiding the pitching-thin Braves to a .603 winning percentage after replacing Eddie Mathews in mid-stride.

The Yankee chapter of King’s long career in baseball began in 1976, when George Steinbrenner hired him to work in the front office. “The Boss” quickly took a liking to the affable and professorial King, who impressed the owner with his vast knowledge of pitching. Critics of King knocked him for licking the boots of The Boss, and for allegedly serving as the owner’s spy, but he showed versatility in undertaking any task assigned him: advisor, super scout, pitching coach, manager.

King did his best work for the Yankees when he was given the most authority. That came in the middle of the 1984 season, when Steinbrenner promoted him to general manager, replacing the overmatched Murray Cook. Shortly after becoming GM, King sent an aging Roy Smalley to the White Sox for a player to be named later, who turned out to be future ace Doug Drabek. The trade served as an omen of more good trades to come.

The Yankees finished with 87 wins that season, but King recognized that the offense, the catching, the bench and the bullpen all needed a boost. As he prepared for the winter meetings in Houston, King developed a detailed and systematic plan of attack to rebuild the bombers. On the first day of the winter meetings, King acquired platoon catcher Ron Hassey and backup outfielder Henry Cotto from the Cubs for spare parts Brian Dayett and Ray Fontenot. Hassey gave the Yankees a strong, left-handed hitting catcher, while Cotto’s speed and defense served him well as a fifth outfielder. On the second day, King made major headlines when he finalized a deal for the game’s best leadoff man, Rickey Henderson. The trade cost the Yankees a young ace in Jose Rijo, but it also gave them a dynamic presence at the top of a lineup that already featured Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield. That same day, King stole hard-throwing right-hander Brian Fisher from the Braves, giving up only journeyman catcher Rick Cerone in return. Fisher would give the Yankees an imposing set-up man fronting closer Dave Righetti.

Not satisfied with his Houston haul, King continued to do fine work that winter. He dumped two past-their-prime veterans, Steve Kemp and Tim Foli, on the Pirates, netting future star Jay Buhner in return. Except for the Buhner deal, every one of King’s trades benefited the Yankees directly in 1985. With their offense and bullpen greatly improved, the Yankees won 97 games, their best showing of the decade, but only good enough to finish second behind a powerhouse Blue Jays team that claimed 99 victories.

King took a less aggressive approach during the winter, while trying to promote younger players like Drabek, Dennis Rasmussen, Bob Tewksbury, and slugger Dan Pasqua from within the organization. As the 1986 season progressed, Steinbrenner grew jealous of the accolades being sent King’s way. The Boss became more meddlesome, putting pressure on King to make an unwise trade that sent Don Baylor to the Red Sox for Mike Easler. Growing tired of Steinbrenner’s jealousy and interference, King decided to step aside as general manager at the end of a 90-win season and return to the peaceful existence of being a trusted front office advisor.

Given his track record, I think it’s fair to regard King as the Yankees’ most effective general manager of the 1980s. If he had remained in power, it’s possible that the Yankees would not have traded Buhner, Drabek, Tewksbury, and other promising youngsters for fading veterans. With King in control, the Yankees might have avoided the embarrassments of the 1989 and 1990 seasons, when the franchise became a laughingstock.

As it turned out, King lost out on his chance for fame and glory, and transitioned into relative obscurity. That didn’t seem to bother King, who remained one of the game’s great storytellers. Always recognizable in his trademark horn-rimmed glasses, he loved to talk baseball, never turning down requests for interviews, and ceaselessly spinning his tales in his friendly southern drawl.

Sadly, we won’t be able to hear those stories directly from the source anymore. Yet, many of those stories can be found in a book that King co-authored, called A King’s Legacy. And even though he’s gone now, we shouldn’t forget that Clyde King was just about the best thing going for the Yankee front office during those wild times of the 1980s.

(more…)

Guest Writer: Ted Berg

It’s weird to watch “Halloween” now, after Wes Craven’s meta-horror pic “Scream” explicitly exposed all the clichéd slasher-film conventions that were essentially founded by John Carpenter in his 1978 classic.

We know going in that the nerdy, chaste babysitter – played by Jamie Lee Curtis in her big-screen debut – will survive the attacks of the deranged madman and her more promiscuous friends will not. We know that the couple that has sex is pretty much doomed upon penetration. And we understand that the murderer will exhibit superhuman resolve, inexorably marching forward toward his next victim despite repeated stabbings and gunshots.

Plus, “Halloween’s” characters are flat, its dialogue wooden and its plot inane. For no clear reason, a six-year-old stabs his sister on Halloween in suburbia. Fifteen years later, he escapes a mental facility and returns to his hometown with a lust for blood.

What’s wrong with him? His doctor’s best diagnosis is, essentially, that he’s evil. Why does he choose to stalk Laurie Strode – Curtis’ character – and her friends? Well, he just kind of does. Her father is a real estate agent and she has to drop off a key at Michael Myers’ old house, and that’s apparently reason enough.

And yet despite all that, it plays, even now. Halloween is a testament to Carpenter’s directorial touch. The plot and characters, really, are secondary to perpetual cycle of suspense and startle. “Halloween” forces you to constantly scan the screen for background movement; Michael Myers is expert at the sneak-up.

Carpenter frequently uses a single, shaky, hand-held camera to simulate his killer’s field of vision. It creates an unsteady, unanchored feeling, and it’s spooky as hell. And that effect is amplified by Carpenter’s classic 5/4-timed score. The odd meter is probably important; the song feels innately disruptive and unsettling.

Curtis, for her part, proves to be a master of the terrified whimper, well-cast as the unlikely but virtuous heroine. Donald Pleasence, as Myers’ psychiatrist, is just creepy enough to deliver his ominous, heavy-handed lines with appropriate horror-movie gravitas without ever seeming totally ridiculous.

Plus the plot’s downright arbitrary nature taps into a classic element of suburban terror: At any given moment, for no clear reason, there might be a man with a huge knife peering in your window, waiting to stab all your slutty friends.

We know the following as it pertains to the Yankees in the 72-plus hours since the World Series ended:

* Signing Derek Jeter is the top priority, and the general consensus is that the tennis match being played between Yankees management and Jeter’s agent, Casey Close, is a cover. Jeter will be a Yankee and will get a new contract, it’s just a matter of how long and for how much.

* Mariano Rivera is a free agent also. Like Jeter and Andy Pettitte, the Yankees’ exclusive window to negotiate with Rivera ends Sunday. Like Jeter, it’s hard to imagine Rivera, who it can be argued is an even more iconic figure of the recent-vintage Yankees, in a different set of laundry.

* Cliff Lee is on the market.

A few months ago, many members of the media who cover the Yankees, as well as Yankee fans — I’d include myself in this camp — would say Lee coming to New York was a given. Now, it’s not as certain.

Rob Abruzzese over at Bronx Baseball Daily referenced Joel Sherman’s recent column in the New York Post, where Sherman noted that the Yankees aren’t treating the Cliff Lee Sweepstakes with the same level of aggressiveness — others might say desperation — with which they recruited CC Sabathia two years ago. Sherman cites Lee’s age (32) as being a key differentiator in the Yankees’ thought process. Abruzzese notes that the Yankees, still just one season removed from their last title, aren’t in a position where they feel like they have to have Lee. Lee certainly doesn’t have to have the Yankees. He’s proven that.

Since this is the Hot Stove topic, let’s get to it: Should the Yankees sign Cliff Lee, given the cash they’re going to be spending on Jeter, Rivera, and possibly Andy Pettitte? Three weeks ago, I’d have said, “Yes” in a blink. Now, I’m not sure.

Some other things to consider:

* Lee has been to the World Series two straight seasons with two different teams. He’s been with four teams over the past two seasons. In addition to a monster paycheck, he’s probably looking for some stability. This is likely the last chance he has to sign a huge deal. Being three hours away from his home in Benton, Arkansas, the pull of home and the quality of life improvements are tough to compete with. Do the Yankees want to go there?

* Too many years, too much money. Even at 5 years and $125 million, as some have suggested, that contract will extend him through Age 37. Putting a pitcher on the hook for that long is a huge risk.

* Does winning in New York mean more to Lee than winning in Texas or Philadelphia or San Francisco? We say it does because we’re from New York, have an inflated opinion of ourselves, and with that, a tendency to overdramatize the successes of our sports teams. This debate raged for a year-and-a-half with LeBron James. “He’d be a legend if he won here.” Mark Messier was referenced; how he had won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton but cemented his legacy with the Rangers. Conversely, A-Rod did what many others before him did; came to the Yankees to get his title. I get the sense that Lee doesn’t care, and that he’d be happier beating the Yankees than being a Yankee and winning here.

* On Mike and Mike earlier this week, Buster Olney had an interesting comment about the prospect of the Yankees signing Lee, and more specifically, why it wouldn’t be a good fit. To paraphrase, Olney said Lee did not enjoy answering too many questions from the media, even in a postseason setting, leading to questions about his facility and willingness to deal with the scrutiny of the New York media corps that will light him up if he loses a couple of games to the Rays or Red Sox. We might not be looking at Randy Johnson or Jeff Weaver-caliber surliness, Clemens-level denial or Burnett-ish confusion, more like a miffed, frustrated, impatient “I wanna go home” tone.

* Tuesday, per ESPNDallas.com, Lee said, “There’s a lot to build on,” referring to his stint with the Rangers. “We did a lot of firsts for this organization. We were the second-best team in the big leagues. We should be proud of that. We’re going to use this for motivation and come in next year and try to do better.” Tim McMahon, the article’s author, made a point to mention that Lee’s use of the word “we” shouldn’t be mistaken as a commitment to return to the Rangers, but can give a hint to where he’s leaning. Add that Rangers GM Jon Daniels plans on increasing payroll in a clear effort to go after Lee, and the Rangers may make this decision easy for him.

* Check out Lee’s Baseball Reference profile. The most similar pitcher to him through Age 31 is Mark Mulder. Quick tangent: when Billy Beane broke up the Big Three in Oakland, I thought Mulder was the best of that group and thought he’d be dynamite on the Yankees. Injuries derailed Mulder’s career, and not signing him was a wise move for the Yankees. Mulder is now out of baseball, a near scratch golfer and won two majors on the Golf Channel Amateur Tour this year. Lee has proven more durable than “Agent” Mulder, however.

* The Yankees do not have a pitching coach. Externally, that suggests volatility at the core of the coaching staff. (Never mind the fact that the Yankees’ club policy is to sign all their coaches to one-year deals.) If I was Lee, I’d be observing the current landscape and weighing that into my decision.

Is Cliff Lee a must for the Yankees to win next year? The local media, like the Yankees’ front office, have zeroed in on Lee as the focal point outside the organization to their 2011 success. Given the variables listed above, what do you think? Why do you believe the Yankees shouldn’t sign him? (I ask that question because the other one is obvious.)

Put on your thinking caps and hit me up in comments.

Movie Posters that scared me as a kid.

Scared me so much I didn’t see the movies until much later.

“Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.”

From the short story, “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury.

Anyone who is interested in soul records must read “Sweet Soul Music” by Peter Guralnick. There’s plenty of Solomon Burke to be found there. Guralnick called Burke,”a combination of Sam Cooke at his mellifuous best and Ray Charles at his deep-down and funkiest, an improbable mix of sincerity, dramatic artifice, bubbling good humor, and multitextured vocal artistry.”

He continues:

I remember the first time I saw Solomon Burke myself, in 1964. He was wearing a gold tuxedo with a gold cummerbund and was headlining a show that included Joe Tex, Otis Redding, and Garnet Mimms. Solomon had no competition. There has never been a warmer, more charismatic presence on stage, and when he stretched out his arms to the audience, when he declared at the outset, “There’s a song that I sing, and I believe if everybody was to sing this song, it would save the whole world,” there was scarcely anyone in that frenzied crowd who could resist either the message or the conviction that seemingly lay behind it.

Burke was a singer, a mortician, and a preacher. That was just for starters.  He was a force of nature:

“I’d go to the radio station and see the disc jockeys, go to the church and, of course, have a prayer, go to the homes and bless the homes and babies, and then maybe baptize a few people. My schedule, you see, has always been a three-way personality. There’s the artist, the religious leader, and just plain old Solomon Burke, who had his problems, who had his love life problems. Sometimes that’s another movie, you know, God help us, Jesus.”

Vietnamese Chicken Salad from white on rice couple.

Over at SI.com, Tim Marchman looks at where the Giants rank among the surprise champions of the wild card era:

The baseball commentariat didn’t like the San Francisco Giants’ odds going into this year. Nor did it like them going into the stretch run, as they were behind the similar, but seemingly more talented, San Diego Padres in the NL West. Nor did it like them much going into the Division Series, the Championship Series or the World Series. Which surely makes the wins all the sweeter, and the triumph all the more deserved.

Just how much of a surprise is the Giants’ first championship since moving to San Francisco? Putting a number on this isn’t actually as hard as one might think. There are three factors that make a team a surprise, or none at all: The actual strength of the team, its star power and its position going into the stretch run. A fundamentally mediocre team with few stars and a low payroll that enters the late season in a tight race will, if it wins the Series, stun everyone. A terrific team with lots of pricey veterans that leads the race all year will not.

Charles Pierce and Steven Goldman on Sparky Anderson.

Ah, the New York Post: where Hal Steinbrenner’s statement that the Yankees will actually, you know, negotiate with Derek Jeter over his new contract gets the headline “Yankees Warn of ‘Messy’ Talks With Jeter.” (And by the way, why hasn’t the nickname Prince Hal ever stuck? Doesn’t anyone read Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, or Henry V anymore? Hank’s nickname could be Falstaff. Let’s make it happen, people.) The actual quotes from Hal:

Ben at RAB has a good reasonable view of why this is pretty much all smoke and no fire, written after SI’s Jon Heyman floated the rumor (“industry sources suggest that he could“) that Jeter might want as many as six years in a deal, but before Jeter’s agent responded to Hal’s interview (or “fired back,” as the ESPN NY article would have it) over at AOL FanHouse with the shocking suggestion that his client was worth lots and lots of money:

“While it is not our intent to negotiate the terms of Derek’s free-agent contract in a public forum,” Casey Close told FanHouse, “we do agree with Hal’s and Brian (Cashman, the GM)’s recent comments that this contract is about business and winning championships.”

“Clearly, baseball is a business, and Derek’s impact on the sport’s most valuable franchise cannot be overstated. Moreover, no athlete embodies the spirit of a champion more than Derek Jeter.”

So it goes. This has been described as “battling it out publicly,” but agents are always spewing stuff like that; it’s part of Close’s job to be a dick, with the Yankees and with the media, so that Jeter doesn’t have to be. The Yankees can’t say they’ll give Jeter whatever he wants, and Jeter’s agent can’t say that Jeter doesn’t want a massive contract. The team isn’t going to sign Jeter to some crazy six-year deal, but they’re obviously going to overpay for him, and I would imagine they’ve made their peace with that; exactly how much they’ll overpay, and for exactly how long, are the details that will be worked out over the next few weeks.

I’ll never understand how, say, $15 million a year could seem like not enough to someone, but then, the Yankees are worth billions to Jeter’s millions, so I have no horse in that race. Anyway, Jeter is generally pretty smart about these things: his last contract was absolutely massive in its own right, but since it was a bit less than Alex Rodriguez’s and was signed shortly after that firestorm, he got very, very little criticism or resentment for it. It’s quite a trick to sign a deal that nets you an average of $18.9 million a year and makes you seem moderate and reasonable, but The Captain pulled it off, and I doubt he’s gotten any less savvy in the years since.

Of course it’s possible that negotiations will indeed get messy… but they certainly haven’t yet. Sit back, relax, pass the popcorn, and may the best negotiator win.

—

Discussion Question: If Derek Jeter “embodies the spirit of a champion,” what do the rest of the Yankees embody? And what about you, what do you embody? Right now, I’m pretty sure I “embody the spirit of a nap”.

When thinking of former Yankee managers, Clyde King is hardly the first name that comes to mind. But when it comes to former Yankee skippers who devoted their lives to the game, while doing so with intelligence, enthusiasm, and style, King’s name should be placed near the top of the list. One of the few men who served George Steinbrenner as both manager and general manager, King died Tuesday from heart-related problems. King was 86.

With baseball ravaged by World War II, King made his major league debut as a right-hander with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944. He returned to the minor leagues after the war, but eventually returned to Brooklyn, becoming a contributor to the Dodgers’ staff in the late forties and early fifties. While with the Dodgers, King became close friends with Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in the major leagues during the 20th century. The friendship surprised some, given the southern heritage of the Carolina-born King, but it was emblematic of his open-minded, outgoing, and accepting nature.

After his playing days came to an end with the Reds in 1953, King became a successful minor league manager with teams like the Atlanta Crackers and the Hollywood Stars. Noted for his knowledge of pitching, King turned to coaching with the Reds and Pirates, a springboard to his first big league managerial post in San Francisco, followed by a later stint with the Braves. As a manager, King forged a record five games better than .500, at 234-229.

King joined the Yankee front office in 1976, quickly becoming a trusted confidante of Steinbrenner. He remained with the Yankees for the next three decades, serving alternately as a super scout, coach, manager, general manager, and special advisor. King became one of Steinbrenner’s go-to men, a troubleshooter who would fill any capacity requested by the principal owner.

King moved into the Yankee spotlight in the middle of the 1982 season, when he became the team’s third manager that summer, succeeding Bob Lemon and Gene “Stick“ Michael. Under King’s leadership, the Yankees limped to a 29-33 finish. Several of the veteran Yankees claimed that he was actually a spy for Steinbrenner, a charge that King denied.

After the season, the Yankees bumped King back to the front office. In the mid-1980s, with the Yankee front office in a state of constant turmoil and upheaval, Steinbrenner turned to King to run the entire baseball operation. He promoted King to general manager, giving him [relatively] full authority to make trades and sign free agents. King impressed a number of Yankee watchers at the 1984 winter meetings. Coming to the meetings with a detailed and organized plan, King engineered a blockbuster trade for Hall of Fame leadoff man Rickey Henderson. King also swung lesser trades for useful role players like Ron Hassey and Henry Cotto, and stole hard-throwing reliever Brian Fisher from the Braves for a declining Rick Cerone. (After the winter meetings, King also acquired a young Jay Buhner from the Pirates in exchange for the washed up pair of Steve Kemp and Tim Foli.) Bolstered by the wintertime pickups, the Yankees improved by ten games in 1985, winning 97 games. Unfortunately, the Yankees ran second to a powerhouse Blue Jays team that won 99 games and claimed the American League East.

Some historians, including this one, regard King as the Yankees’ most effective general manager of the 1980s, but that stature did not prevent him from being fired in 1986. Now demoted, King returned to being a lesser known member of the front office. Whether working in a position of power or simply serving as a scout, King also developed a reputation as one of the game’s great storytellers. Always approachable, King loved to talk baseball, spinning his tales in his trademark southern drawl.

Along the way, King managed to accomplish something that few others can claim. He somehow worked for 30 years under the imposing thumb of George Steinbrenner, before finally retiring in 2005. If nothing else, lasting that long while working for “The Boss” should earn Clyde King at least half of a plaque here in Cooperstown.

Jeanne Verdoux’s got it going on.

There is a new biography of Roald Dahl.

Check out this review in the L.A. Times:

For those who do not know Dahl’s grown-up stories, one of his most beloved — if I may use that word — is called “Pig” (1959), about an orphan raised by a tender, vegetarian aunt. The boy’s talents as a young vegetarian chef are depicted in a magical, mystical tone. When the aunt dies, the boy buries her and goes to the city where he encounters, gasp … pork! He loves it, and ends up with his throat slit by a butcher. Pure horror.

“Storyteller” is a dense, satisfying book about a mercurial author. The biographer, Donald Sturrock, frankly addresses Dahl’s darker moods and speculates as to their origins in biographical details. Dahl did face struggles in childhood and as a parent, but so do many, and some even worse. What, then, can explain his dark charisma, the beauty of his threatening prose? It seems that like a character in a folk tale, he was just so inclined. And, then, in a stroke of good luck, he was at an early age introduced to folkloric, literary stories and fell in love especially with Hillaire Belloc’s “Cautionary Tales for Children” and “The Classic Fairy Tales” by Iona and Peter Opie.

Though the details of Dahl’s life — his affairs and his losses — are told sensitively here, and are riveting, “Storyteller” is most fascinating when it retells and analyzes his body of work for grown-ups and children, revealing them to be cut from the very same cloth as that of fairy tales. As Walter Benjamin wrote, “The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales.” As with all the great fairy-tale authors, Dahl makes them new, revisiting the themes of childhood, violence, power and magic.

Good lineup at Gelf’s Varsity Letters Speaking Serious tomorrow night in BK: Howard Byrant, Tommy Craggs and Dave Jamieson.

Yo, check out this recipe for homemade Nutella over at the most cool blog, I made that!

Or if your fat ass is feelin’ lazy, just go out and cop one of these:

More Solomon…

Remakes are a tricky business. Well, I should specify remakes of great movies are a tricky business (e.g. “The Maltese Falcon” had been adapted for the screen twice before Huston & Bogart got their hands on it, and no one seemed to notice). Don Siegel’s 1956 film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” is, to my view a great movie. However, it was a B-movie, made on the cheap with few resources beyond a great story (adapted from Jack Finney’s novel “The Body Snatchers”) and a terrifically skilled director. Maybe that’s what drove Philip Kaufman to remake “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in 1978. Whatever his motivations were, it’s one of the few remakes that really work: respectful of its source material, while carving out its own distinct cinematic territory in its own time. It’s also a very entertaining and truly creepy movie that blends horror with a genre that’s always been a personal favorite: the 1970s paranoia thriller.

Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland, still with the shaggy curls and mustache you all loved in “Don’t Look Now” and “National Lampoon’s Animal House”) is a city health inspector and Brooke Adams pays Elizabeth, the co-worker and friend he’s clearly pining over. Together, they begin to piece together something strange going on. Soon after the appearance of a strange new plant no one can identify, a flowering pod, people start to behave strangely. Elizabeth’s boyfriend and Matthew’s dry cleaner, among others, just don’t seem like normal anymore.  Matthew’s friends Jack and Nancy Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright, both excellent) find something even more disturbing at their mud bath spa. As fans of any of the film versions of Body Snatchers know, and our heroes soon discover, the pods are from “deep space” and are creating perfect, soulless replicas of everyone in sight as they sleep.

They attempt to enlist the help of Matthew’s good friend David Kibler (Leonard Nimoy) a noted psychiatrist and best-selling self-help author. Nimoy’s performance is crucial – he’s having so much fun playing Kibler, with such aloofness and measure, that the audience can’t help but keep wondering, “Is he or isn’t he?” He manages to seem both warm and friendly and cold and calculating, whether trying to reunite a concerned wife to her pod person husband, or assessing the validity of his friends’ story.

While Siegel’s film was set in a small town in California, Kaufman’s (scripted by W.D. Richter) transplants it to a big city: San Francisco. The crowds and architecture of the city serve the story well, amping up the sense of dread and paranoia. What if that cold stranger who just passed you on the street wasn’t just a cold stranger? Why is that janitor staring at you like that? Why is that mob chasing that man down the street?  (The man being chased through the streets is played by the star of the 1956 film, Kevin McCarthy, in a witty and smart cameo. Kafuman even gives Siegel himself a part as a cab driver.) Just who, really, do you trust?

Siegel’s film is widely read as an allegory about the Cold War hysteria of the 1950s. (But from which side? The fear that evil, soulless beings that look just like us could be infiltrating our happy society or that McCarthyism had turned us into unthinking, uncaring, sleeping drones?)  Kaufman and Richter set their film in the then present, the late 1970s and seem to be spoofing the near fascistic groupthink and narcissism of the “me generation.”  Once overtaken by the space pods, people claim to be happy and relaxed, but show no emotion or individuality. They’re told that it will be easier if they just relent, fall asleep and join them, where they’ll no longer feel hate or love.  It’s a future Matthew wants no part of.

However, this is no bloated, didactic lecture – the film is a hell of a lot of fun. Kaufman’s compositions and pacing keep the film taut and also give it a persistent undercurrent of dread. We know something’s wrong, even if the characters haven’t figured it out yet.

Kaufman’s remake was a critical and box-office success. (I can recall going to see it back in the winter of ’79 with a group of neighborhood kids led by my friend Will’s dad, an actor, who told us all about the original version and Kevin McCarthy on the walk home.) Pauline Kael was one of the film’s critical champions and called the film “undiluted pleasure and excitement.” She also wrote,

“…the director, Phil Kaufman, provides such confident professionalism that you sit back in the assurance that every spooky nuance you’re catching is just what was intended.”

Writing in New York magazine, David Denby said that he found Kaufman’s film even more entertaining than Siegel’s and offered this:

“Like all great horror films, is an insinuatingly sensual experience: Our morbid curiosity is engaged and then exploited. We are drawn into complicity with the dark, oozy terrors of nature run riot and human beings deformed and mutated.”

If the pod people ever do land on Earth, just make sure to throw in a copy of this movie – you’re sure not to fall asleep.