: clamor, complain
Humpety-hump hump, everybody. Are we all getting excited for the Olympics? I know I am. For me, it's something to do here in the dog days of a Statesboro summer, other than going to the pool.
Born today:
Josephine Tey (1896-1952)
Tey was one of the great female mystery writers - really, of either gender - of the 20th century, her name commonly bandied about with Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and others. But Tey stood out on her own. Her 1951 novel, The Daughter of Time, was voted in 1990 by the British Crime Writers Association as the greatest mystery of the century.
Tey was actually a pseudonym. Elizabeth Mackintosh was born in Inverness, Scotland. Her life, about which little is known compared to other writers (Tey was fiercely private, avoiding interviews, photographs, and the press at large), seemed pretty normal. She was educated at Inverness, then at a physical training college in Birmingham. During WWI, she taught fitness classes for factory workers. She also taught at various schools and worked as a nurse in a convalescent home.
Her first novel, Man in the Queue, came out in 1929, the culmination of a lifelong love of writing; it was reputedly written in two weeks for a contest. It was published under a pseudonym, Gordon Daviot, a name she preferred to go by in public and private. For the rest of her literary career, she would go by the pseudonym of Tey. It was this novel that introduced her Inspector Alan Grant, a gentleman police officer; he would appear in four more of her novels.
1948's The Franchise Affair, about two women accused of kidnapping and beating a teenage war orphan, is probably her second best-known novel. The 1949 crime novel Brat Farrar, NPR book reviewer (and Book Lust author) Nancy Pearl's all-time favorite mystery, is about a young man posing as the heir to a fortune. It is The Daughter of Time, still on high school reading lists, that will go down as Tey's most popular book and undisputed masterpiece, an inquisitive puzzler that features Grant, bed-ridden in the hospital, trying to plunge through the history books and figure out what exactly did happen with Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.
Tey, who passed away from liver cancer in 1952, left her entire estate to National Trust of England. She had many friends in the theater (she wrote plays under a third pseudonym!), enjoyed fishing, horse racing, and the cinema.
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I'm sad today. Yesterday I finished reading The Boy Who Followed Ripley, the fourth entry in Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series. I've now read all five books. It's a great series, and although the fourth book is the weakest of the five, I still really enjoyed it. It features Tom taking in a teenage American boy who has fled from his Maine home after killing his wealthy father and is, Tom fears, potential prey for kidnappers. Soon enough, he is indeed kidnapped in Berlin and Tom has to find a way to get him back. The book goes on a bit long, considering how abruptly it ends, but Highsmith lets loose in this novel in a way she doesn't - admirably - in the rest of the series, with Tom even dressing in drag at one point to meet with the killers at a gay disco! I'm making my way through the Highsmith oeuvre, but it's somewhat a solemn affair knowing I'll read these Ripley novels for the first time ever again. Why in the world isn't Highsmith adapted more for the screen?
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In the 2012 comedy Wanderlust, everyone in the cast gets his or her licks: Ken Marino, Kathryn Hahn, Malin Akerman, Alan Alda, Lauren Ambrose, Michaela Watkins, Kerri Kenney, and, of course, Justin Theroux. Even Jennifer Aniston, in a relatively straight role, is funny too, but lord of all is Paul Rudd, who just might be the funniest actor in America. As a man who loses his job in New York City and, on his way to his obnoxious brother's in Atlanta, ends up waylaid in a commune in north Georgia, where nudity is okay, free love is better, and goofiness is the order of the day, Rudd is flat-out hilarious. He has two scenes, in which he seems to be just going off on an improvisational whimsy, that had Julia and I in stitches, much as he did in I Love You, Man. I wasn't expecting much from this comedy (from director David Wain, co-writing with Marino) but it had me laughing nearly as often as their previous outing, Role Models, did.
So the question is... Has Rudd been in every great comedy of the last seven or eight years? Well,let's see: Anchorman, check. The 40-Year Old Virgin, check. Knocked Up, check. I Love You, Man, check. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, check.
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No painting today (although it is Thomas Eakins' birthday - I'll have to post something by him tomorrow) but I will plow on in in my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time. How about it, guys? Have we enjoyed this list so far? I hope so.
Gary Busey
as Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
Though he has long since become an eerie, possibly self-aware reality-TV joke and was a decade too old for the role, Busey (in an Oscar nominated turn) is electrifying as the ill-fated early rock and roller. He lost over thirty pounds for the role and, most impressive, did all his own singing! Busey accurately captures the nasally, hiccupy sound of Holly, and his energy is infectious. He is so immersed in the character, it's astonishing. It's a good movie, with a one-of-a-kind lead performance. Sadly, it would be one of Busey's first and last quality parts, before his career (say, after 1993's The Firm) would turn into a travesty. He was talented, often typecast (as weird, mouth-breathing creeps), and has probably appeared in more direct-to-dvd crap than any five or six bad actors you can round up has. A shame.
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If the formula for Greatest Rock and Roll Band is something like this -
(# of great albums x 2) + (# of good songs) + (# of years of fertile longevity) + (peer recognition) + (multi-generational appeal) / (# of bad songs) + (media saturation + played-out songs + over familiarity) + (dated-ness)
- Then one could make an argument that Los Lobos would be a legitimate contender for Greatest Rock Band of the last 30 years.
Why not? I've never hears a bad song from them. Their music mixes... well, take your pick: soul, blues, swing, rock and roll, Mexican cumbia and boleros, R&B, and country. They have a familiar sound that you never get tired of. They've had a few "hits" (most notably, a cover of "La Bamba" for the 1987 biopic of Richie Valens) but have largely flew under the pop radar since their first album in 1976.
You want great albums? Sure, I'll give you them. 1984's How Will the Wolf Survive?, their major label debut, features incredible guitar playing, a lot of Mexican roots and terrific songwriting, and superb songs: "Don't Worry Baby," "I Got Loaded," and "A Matter of Time." 1992's Kiko, their ninth album, is about as good as it gets: "Dream in Blue," "Saint Behind the Glass," "That Train Don't Stop Here."
Their reputation as a great live band is probably justified, but David Hidalgo and Cesar Rosas are incredible guitar players and would probably sound so in any setting. What's more, four of their original members, are still in the band, with the fifth member (Steve Berlin) joining them in 1984 and staying with them today...
Which means they're consistent. They don't have a "Gimme Shelter" or a "Comfortably Numb" and nothing that's ever gotten any substantial play on commercial radio, but you're talking about versatility, you're talking about these guys. When an album thirty-three years into your career (2010's Tin Can Trust) shows no sign of creative drop-off, you know you're doing something right.
So, Los Lobos, I salute you.
Images:
http://d.yimg.com/ec/image/v1/release/24020019;encoding=jpg;size=300;fallback=defaultImage
http://static.gigwise.com/gallery/4323115_buddyhollystory.jpg
http://josephinetey.homestead.com/Josephine_Tey_April_7_1934.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2012/2/29/1330539139692/Wanderlust-007.jpg
Information:
http://josephinetey.net/Index.html
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