Monthly Archives: December 2012

Miss Subways on NPR. Listen.

The lovely Lee Wiley.

[Photo Via: DreamShots]

Charles Durning, an accomplished stage actor who later became famous for his character work in the movies, died on Monday. He was 89.

Here’s Robert Berkvist in the New York Times:

Then came World War II, and he enlisted in the Army. His combat experiences were harrowing. He was in the first wave of troops to land on Omaha Beach on D-Day and his unit’s lone survivor of a machine-gun ambush. In Belgium he was stabbed in hand-to-hand combat with a German soldier, whom he bludgeoned to death with a rock. Fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, he and the rest of his company were captured and forced to march through a pine forest at Malmedy, the scene of an infamous massacre in which the Germans opened fire on almost 90 prisoners. Mr. Durning was among the few to escape.

By the war’s end he had been awarded a Silver Star for valor and three Purple Hearts, having suffered gunshot and shrapnel wounds as well. He spent months in hospitals and was treated for psychological trauma.

After the war, still mentally troubled, Mr. Durning “dropped into a void for almost a decade” before deciding to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, he told Parade magazine in 1993. The school dismissed him within a year. “They basically said you have no talent and you couldn’t even buy a dime’s worth of it if it was for sale,” he told The Times in 1997.

Durning was a familiar face on TV and in the movies when I was growing up–he was always there in something worth watching. And even when the movie was lousy he was always worth watching. I recognized his face on the jacket cover of my father’s copy of That Championship Season and of course knew him well from The Sting, Dog Day Afternoon, The Muppet Movie, Tootsie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Sharky’s Machine, True Confessions, To Be or Not to Be, and Death of a Salesman.

He was one of the great ones. And he is already missed.

Over at Black Book, check out this interview with Amour director Michael Haneke.

Food 52’s got seven winter cocktails.

Bert Lahr. A very funny fellow.

“Lemon Halves” By Jeremy Galton (2012)

Merry Christmas.

Jack Klugman, Rest in Peace.

Campbell Playhouse, 1939.

Orson Welles narrates “A Christmas Carol.” Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge.

Ah, next couple days will be light around these parts. I’ll have a Christmas classic for you later on. In the meantime:

Hey, at least it’s better than this shit. My wife won’t stop singing this one.

Merry Everything n Stuff.

[Photo Via: Touchn2btouched]

“Knockin’ A Jug” Louis

[Photo Via: The Minimalisto]

Raul Ibanez to the Mariners and, as expected, Nick Swisher to the Indians.

That is all.

“Hey, Leroy, Your Mama’s Callin’ You”–Jimmy Castor Bunch

[Photo Via: Eye of the Beholder]

There is a long article on Mike Nichols and Elaine May in the Judd Apatow-edited comedy issue of Vanity Fair. The writer, Sam Kashner, intrudes on the story too much for my taste and I think his cop-out at the end of the piece is inexcusable (even if it is tactful). You’ve got two of the sharpest, funniest people around, you can’t cop out, man. Ask the damn question.

Still, the piece provides a detailed look at the short but dazzling career of Nichols and May.

The latest from John Branch:

he snow burst through the trees with no warning but a last-second whoosh of sound, a two-story wall of white and Chris Rudolph’s piercing cry: “Avalanche! Elyse!”

The very thing the 16 skiers and snowboarders had sought — fresh, soft snow — instantly became the enemy. Somewhere above, a pristine meadow cracked in the shape of a lightning bolt, slicing a slab nearly 200 feet across and 3 feet deep. Gravity did the rest.

Snow shattered and spilled down the slope. Within seconds, the avalanche was the size of more than a thousand cars barreling down the mountain and weighed millions of pounds. Moving about 7o miles per hour, it crashed through the sturdy old-growth trees, snapping their limbs and shredding bark from their trunks.

The avalanche, in Washington’s Cascades in February, slid past some trees and rocks, like ocean swells around a ship’s prow. Others it captured and added to its violent load.

Somewhere inside, it also carried people. How many, no one knew.

[Photo Via: Mr Freakz]

You know what’s better than leaving town for the holidays?

Staying put.

[Photo Credit:  Luke Bhothipiti]

Mmmmm.

[Photo Credit: Jojanne]

“Tribune De Lausanne,” by Herbert Leupin (1955)