New Year's Eve couldn't come sooner! After all, it's been 365 days of rising prices, heightened international tensions, increasing inequality, burgeoning racism, growing sexism, skyrocketing attacks on the LGBTQ community, and fascism in the ascendency. Any downward trends? Yeah, myself, because all of it has left me down in the dumps. Funny how that works. Not that I've entirely given up hope. I mean, 2026 just gotta be better! There's no place to go but up (assuming prices, international tensions, inequality, racism, sexism, attacks on the LGBTQ community, and fascism all go down.) So what's the best way to celebrate the deep-sixing of 2025 and the welcome arrival (and hopeful course correction) of 2026? To best answer that question I went to a seance and asked the medium to contact birthday boy Henri Matisse (above), who suggested that at the stroke of midnight, we all start...
"Can't all the good little boys and girls in the world wait just this once? The Jack Frosts are throwing a party and I want to go!"
Actually, that's model Dorian Leigh and actor/singer/dancer Ray Bolger on this 1946 magazine cover. Bolger makes a rather scrawny St. Nick, don't you think? He could use a pillow under that outfit, or maybe just some...
Rob Reiner's violent death is shocking, but no more--in fact, it arguably should be a bit less--shocking than the violent deaths at Brown University and Australia's Bondi Beach, both of which had a higher body count. Interestingly, the All in the Family star and This Is Spinal Tap director did share one characteristic with the Bondi victims. He was Jewish and they were Jewish, but in Reiner's case anti-semitism does not appear to be a motive in his killing (instead, as of this writing, mental illness and the accompanying family strife it so often causes seem to be contributing factors.) Still, Reiner's life is worth your attention not for how it ended but for its contributions to acting and cinema. Eventually it went beyond those art forms. Reiner was every bit as progressive as Mike Stivic, the character he played on AITF. That progressiveness was spun-off not into its own TV show but the real-world body politic. Reiner supported many causes, but I'm going to focus on just one right now. In 2008, Reiner co-found The American Foundation for Equal Rights to help fight California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. "We don't believe in separate but equal in any other legal position except this," he said in explaining how same-sex marriage at the time was outside the Constitution. Thanks to a court battle that Reiner's organization pursued, the Ninth Court of Appeals eventually overturned the proposition. Not bad for a "meathead."
Left to right: Epstein, unidentified (duh!) woman, and Woody Allen.
Left to right: Segway inventor Dean Kamen, Epstein, and Richard Branson.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Epstein's not in this one, but it's among the photos released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Larry Summers, Epstein, and Bill Gates in a previously released photo. Summers and Gates do appear in separate photos released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, but, oddly enough, without Epstein, so I opted to go with this one instead.
The Andrew Formally Known as Prince, and Epstein, in another previously released photo.
Epstein and supermodel (so where's her cape?) Ingrid Seynhaeve.
Left to right: Jimmy Buffett, Buffett's wife Jane Slagsvol, Bill Clinton (as the signature indicates), Ghislaine Maxwell, and Epstein.
In the center--what the hell, I'll let you figure that one out yourself.
My takeaway?
Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or a conservative, an intellectual, artist, or businessman, it may not mean as much as whether one belongs to the clique, a clique variously referred to as the Jet Set, Cafe Society, the Beautiful People, the Rich and Famous, the Glitterati, and the A-List. In his unfinished novel Answered Prayers, Truman Capote refers to it as the "Center of the Earth". Now, not necessarily all of the members of whatever you choose to call it did anything wrong (FULL DISCLOSURE: I've complimented one or two of these people on this blog in the past) but my, oh my, for a bunch some have also referred to as "elitists", they weren't always careful about who they hung around with, were they? As for Jeffrey Epstein, I suspect he preyed not only on underage girls, but in a different sort of way, this clique as well. There's something to be said for exclusion.
Peter S. Lewis Building, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
I am obsessed with architecture. It is true, I am restless, trying to find myself as an architect, and how best to contribute in this world filled with contradiction, disparity, and inequality, even passion and opportunity.
Shawn was born on this day in 1923. However, it's his death in 1987 that remains noteworthy (albeit in a morbid sort of way):
Apparently, no thought it all that unusual when the Shawn fell face first onto the stage right in the middle of his act. After all, he had a very physical, manic comedy style noted for its utter unpredictability. As far as the audience was concerned, it was a supreme act of slapstick that put Dick Van Dyke's trip over the ottoman to shame. Except in Shawn's case, Mary Tyler Moore and Morey Amsterdam didn't run out and help him to his feet. Shawn just laid there for a few minutes until a stagehand (who at first also thought it was part of the act) came out to check on him. Someone in the audience, thinking the stagehand was part of the act, yelled out, "Take his wallet!" Soon a doctor showed up, and then paramedics. The audience was asked to leave, though a few in the theatre stuck around a little while longer, maybe thinking there that, sooner or later, there must be a punchline.
At this point you may be thinking, "Well, if I were in that audience, I would have known something was wrong right away." Well, you know what they say, hindsight is a TV newsmagazine. Meanwhile, here's Dick Shawn sometime in the 1950s. And don't worry. He survives this one:
Watching that, it's hard for me to know if he was parodying old-time show biz or in fact embodying it. One person reportedly influenced by Shawn was Andy Kaufman (whose own death from cancer was thought by some to be a put-on.) After viewing this clip, I can believe it.
Their paths crossed?! I luv it!
Growing up I was unaware of Dick Shawn's stage act. Instead, I knew him as someone who kept popping up in 1960s comedies. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was one. What Did You Do in theWar, Daddy? was another. And then there this much more briefly titled 1967 film:
If you squint at the row of pictures at the bottom, you'll see Shawn, third from the right.
Years later, in this interview conducted by Eight is Enough star Dick Van Patten (?), Shawn was asked about Brooks first directorial effort:
The character of Lorenzo St. DuBois (LSD) was jettisoned from the 1990s Broadway adaptation. I don't know why, but it's just as well. Shawn was gone by then, and I think he may have been the only one who could have done the role justice. Watch:
With all the turmoil taking place here on planet Earth, you'd at least think the heavens above could offer a bit of serenity. No such luck! On July 1 of this year an Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile took notice of a comet newly arrived from outside the solar system. That it's acting a bit different from other known comets has scientists puzzled, and at least one scientist thinks it may not be a comet at all. Watch:
You heard that guy. If it turns out to be just a comet, don't worry. If it's a spacecraft, worry.
Actually, I worry even if it is a comet, especially as I recall this movie from way back when:
Well, maybe there's nothing to worry about after all. That '80s teen slang is much too dated to make a comeback.
I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made....
Halloween is almost here, the time of year when we take perverse delight in getting the hell scared out of us, and what better way to get the hell scared out of us than by a creature from Hell? Of course, I'm talking about the Devil, a.k.a., Satan, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Belial, Old Nick, Old Scratch, the Evil One, the Arch Fiend, the Serpent, and the Antichrist.
Did I leave a name out? Oh, yes. Blair:
Scary, huh? But is it fair? Can there be another side to the Devil? Can Satan be misunderstood?
John Cleese offers this perspective:
So you might want to consider chipping in a few dollars. It will do your soul some good. Assuming it hasn't already been sold.
When, in the early 1960s, I brazenly used such words as "childhood", "adolescence", "motivation", "excitement", and "mood" I was much criticized. Even worse was my crime of suggesting that chimpanzees had "personalities". I was ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman animals and was thus guilty of that worst of ethological sins—anthropomorphism.
Norman Rockwell. It's not his birthday or anything. He just happens to be on my mind. I think as time goes by, Rockwell's work is seen as increasingly sentimental, increasingly old-fashioned. Here's one such example:
Freedom of Speech, 1943
Given the current political climate, I'm afraid this particular sentiment may be getting more old-fashioned by the minute.
This 1976 paean to freedom of the press must be old-fashioned, too. After all, I watched it on TCM!
Thespian Mae Questel was born on this day in 1908 (she died in 1998.) If you don't recognize the name, you at least may recognize the iconic cartoon character to whom she lent her voice:
When Betty Boop made her animation debut in 1930, she was a dog. I don't mean that unkindly, that she was a homely human woman. No, I mean that literally. She was neither homely nor human but a member of the species Canis familiaris. Allow me to explain. At the time another anthropomorphic pooch named Bimbo was animation studio head Max Fleischer's most popular character. Fleischer came up with a story for a cartoon short that had Bimbo as a dishwasher in a nightclub in love with a sexy canine singer, and asked his leading animator Grim Natwick, to come up with a design. Natwick's Betty was similar to the later human version, except that she had droopy ears and a little black nose. The subsequent short, "Dizzy Dishes", did well, and Betty remained both a supporting player and a sexy dog (she's seen in a lacy bra in one pre-Code cartoon) for the next ten or so shorts (sources vary.) Theater operators made it clear to Fleischer that they wanted to see more Betty and less Bimbo. And that it wouldn't hurt to remove any urge towards bestiality on moviegoers' parts if they were given an actual member of the species Homosapiens to drool over. And so Betty was humanized, her droopy ears replaced by earrings, and the dark nose transformed into a pert dash. As for Bimbo, he stuck around for a while as a supporting player, remaining a canine. Needless to say, the relationship between him and Betty from that point on was strictly platonic. Around this time (sources again vary), Mae Questel took over vocal duties from Betty's original portrayer Margie Hines and enacted the squeaky-voice flapper for eight years, longer than any other actor. However, that wasn't Questel's only acting achievement, as you'll find out in this interview from the 1980s:
Still sounds like Betty, doesn't she? Probably the reason Questel was asked to do the character one more time in 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit?:
Recently, a musical based on Betty Boop opened and very shortly thereafter closed on Broadway. Perhaps if the show's producers had found some psychic who could have channeled Mae Questel's vocal talents, it would still be running today.
Overture, curtain, lights This is it, the night of nights No more rehearsing and nursing a part We know every part by heart Overture, curtain, lights This is it, we'll hit the heights And oh what heights we'll hit On with the show this is it.
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