Quote of the Day (James Agee, on Silent-Film Comedy) “When a modern comedian gets hit on the head, for example, the most he is apt to do is look sleepy. When a silent comedian got hit on the head he seldom let it go so flatly. He realized a broad license, and a ruthless discipline within that license. It was his business to be as funny as possible physically, without the help or hindrance of...
filemot (FIL-mot) noun, adjective The color of a dead or faded leaf: dull brown or yellowish brown. Etymology: From the corruption of the French term feuillemorte, from feuille (leaf) + morte (dead). Ultimately from Indo-European root bhel- (to thrive or bloom) that gave us flower, bleed, bless, foliage, blossom, and blade. Trivia What are citizens of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, called? Cariocas. Today...
Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
Name: Michael Cerveris Age: "Stone" Neighborhood: Flatiron Occupation: "Playing pretend" Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional? James Agee. What's the best meal you've eaten in New York? The Hot Dog Française at Café Un Deux Trois . In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job? Battle the suspicion that my current job is...
As a Southerner, I am acutely aware of the concept of hand-me-down hatred. Even so, I was unprepared for the level of animosity that I found for photographer Walker Evans in these parts just a few years ago when I retraced part of the route that he and James Agee took for their landmark publication, “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.”
In 1940, Fortune Magazine (which was part of the Luce empire, and featured such writers as James Agee and Archibald Macleish – as well as Whittaker Chambers) produced an issue devoted to the relatively new industry of plastic. In Jeffrey Meikle’s American Plastic: A cultural history, he writes: “The editors seem uncertain how to present these new materials, whether to portray plastic...
By Mark Hughes Cobb Staff Writer William Christenberry graduated from the University of Alabama 50 years ago and moved to New York City and Washington D.C. to achieve fame as an artist, but he still gets home every year.
— Kindred Souls of Knoxville: Singer-songwriter-poet-playwright R.B. Morris orbits in the literary gravity of James Agee and their shared city — *** — Poster poems: Butterflies – A perennially popular subject for poetry, this time I want your flights of fancy about butterflies — *** — Poetry & Class — *** — Mute thy Coronation – — ***...
I love how Halloween has taken over October. For one thing, it's lots of fun. For another, it stops the capitalists from foisting Christmas on us too soon. Without Halloween, Macy's would be decorating Christmas trees in September. And the best thing: OLD HORROR MOVIES. If you have never seen Robert Mitchum's deranged preacher (movie still at left) in Night of the Hunter , your big chance is tonight...
A re-do of The Stepfather? It only led me to my archive of demented dads, a movie (and real life) character I'm fascinated by. From the anti-Atticus Finch figures of Bigger than Life to Lord Love a Duck to Paper Moon, varied degrees of problematic parenting are always interesting. But for those special psycho stepfathers, however, no one should ever forget the biggest, baddest, most...
I've written earlier about my love for DVD extras, especially audio commentaries by the people who worked on a film, or video introductions by enthusiasts. I don't get to see as many of these things as I'd like (given general lack of time and the fact that the priority, sadly, is to watch the actual film first, with its own soundtrack!), but when I do I’m reminded that well-put-together extras...
Originally from the suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area, I received an MFA from the University of Oregon and am currently a doctoral student and lecturer at the University of Tennessee where I teach poetry writing, serve as Poetry Editor for Grist: The Journal for Writers, and am the Alwin Thaler Fellow working with the poetry manuscripts of James Agee. I won the 2008 James Wright Poetry Award, and...
While not in the same league as Walter Kerr or Vincent Canby, A.O. Scott seems secure as the New York Times' senior film critic. Scott takes a steady, middlebrow approach to reviewing, somewhat insightful but never alarming or unpredictable. This is less Scott's fault than the era we inhabit, where the written word disintegrates and films are extensions of corporate branding campaigns. A young James...
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