Noir Is As Noir Does

So there's film noir and then there's FILM NOIR. Lots of films have noir elements - dark, atmospheric settings and cinematography; labyrinthine plots; a mystery to solve; some bleakness. But not every film touted as a film noir actually qualifies.

True, whole, and complete noirs are not just bleak but nihilistic. They offer a look into the human heart and they don't find anything good there. True film noirs do not have happy endings. Ever. They are neutral at best but they are never happy. Also, destruction and double-crosses in noir films always come thanks to a femme fatale. Men can punch each other's faces in but it's the dames that do the real damage.



With this in mind, I declare the 1955, Robert Aldrich-helmed Kiss Me Deadly to be as noir as noir gets. Based on Mickey Spillaine's novel of the same name, it tells the tale of crooked private investigator Mike Hammer and his attempts to get to the bottom of "something big" after a happenstance run-in with a desperate blond (played by none other than our own wacky, unsettling Cloris Leachman). There's torture, fast cars, broads, a glowing suitcase, and Ralph Meeker as a sadistic, meaty Mike Hammer who doesn't care for much beyond himself. It's not the most cheerful movie you'll ever see but it is one of the more perfect examples of what a noir film really is.



The menacing Mike Hammer. In his regular line of work, he sets up husbands with his temptress of a secretary, gets the goods on them, and then blackmails them. Not a nice man.



Cloris was a nutjob even back then.



Gabrielle (a.k.a. Lilly Carver) finally finds out what's in the box. It does not end well. Just a word of advice: if you come across a valise that glows and is warm to the touch and it's the paranoid, nuclear age 1950s, just walk away.

For Anyone Who Ever Had To Share A Fridge At Work

toothpastefordinner.com

Have a Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Tonica

Tonica. It rhymes with Hanukkah. It is the name of the population-700-village where will be making our days after the first of the year. That's right. We made an offer on a house yesterday afternoon and by early evening, it was all sewn up. A day or two after Christmas, we will load up the biggest U-Haul we can find and drive to the land of Lincoln and start our life there in our red-brick, 1960 retro house. We're pretty excited.

Tonica is only five minutes from Oglesby where I'll be working and that's a nice thing. However, Tonica doesn't exactly have. . . anything. It has a lumber yard, a hardware store, a bank, a barber shop, and a gas station. That's it. No grocery store, no laundromat, no video store, no movie theater, nothing. All of that stuff is a mere ten minutes away in Peru but still, when it's midnight and you need Children's Tylenol, ten minutes can be a long way.

I'm not worried though. I think the positives will outweigh the negatives. We've asked everyone and their dog about the school district and the neighborhoods, we've researched cost of living (88% of the national average), the violent crime levels, any sex offenders living in the area, property taxes, etc. We feel it will be a good place to be.

Anyway, about the house:



This is it.




This is it from the property line in the back. Yes, I know. It is a ridonkulous amount of yard. I think we may be in the market for a riding lawnmower. Or goats. Whichever is cheaper.




The front room.



The kitchen which is retro but not in a good way. It needs updating pretty bad but we will get to it when we get to it. For now, we'll be rocking it June Cleaver-style.



The sun room. The girls call this "the dance floor room."



A bedroom.

The most important thing is that Suzanne likes it. It's the house she wanted more than any of the others we looked at (with the exception of the heart breaker in the middle of downtown Peru) and so I'm glad we ended up with it. Stay tuned for further developments as we pack and prep and move and alla that junk.

We're Back

We spent Saturday looking at about a dozen houses. The girls stayed at the Bishop's house for the first half of the day and then, after lunch, we picked them up and they looked at the last few with us. It was a long, draining day that was discouraging at times. Suzanne and I had both picked out houses online that we thought would be "the one" and they both turned out to be comically, positively not. Her house was beautiful and brand-new on the inside - and it was also smack in the middle of downtown businesses. The backyard was a parking lot. And the side yard was a parking lot. Across the street? Parking lot. Suzanne just walked around the house saying, "This place is breaking my heart!"

The house I'd picked out turned out to be some freak kit-home from the 1950s that was part ski chalet, part-Jetson's kitchen, part torture dungeon. The less said about it, the better. Generally speaking, the communities we expected to wow us and to offer lots of great houses didn't. There's a big difference between looking at some tiny photos online and actually being in the house, you know?

Anyway, a couple of the houses we looked at were promising so Sunday after church we went back and looked at the first home we walked through in Ottowa and another one in a small community called Tonica. We felt good about what we'd seen, made a decision between us, and told the realtor we'd call her the next day.

We got on the road around four and made pretty good time until somewhere around the Indiana/Michigan border. Something happened. Something bad. I have no idea why but I suddenly got really, really sick. Bad. Like stopping three times to throw up in various locations around our fair state. I had the chills and the shakes and I felt like I was going to die. Suzanne drove most of the way home and allowed me to just sit and whimper.

When we finally made it home, I really, really, really threw up. Later, I asked Suzanne, "Did you hear me in there?" She replied, "Dude, people in China heard you."

So once it was all over, I drew the hottest bath known to man, a bath so hot I could feel my flesh separating from my bones as I got in, and I just lay there, half folded up because the tub isn't long enough for me, and boiled myself alive for about half an hour. When I could barely pull myself out of the tub, I decided that work was out of the question for the next day. I sent my boss at text around midnight to say that I wouldn't be in.

So now it's morning. Everyone else is still asleep. We're all pretty washed out from our trip. It was a lot of houses, a lot of meeting new ward members, a lot of driving, a lot of puking. Draining, you know?

Anyway, the offer on our (hopefully) future house goes in today so we'll see how it goes. Wish us luck.

SIGH

After a stop for dinner in Jackson, MI and for gas somewhere before Chicago, we made it to Oglesby around 11:30 p.m. We crashed pretty immediately and woke up refreshed at about 8.

Suzanne then asked if I'd given the realtor the list of houses from the OTHER side of the paper she'd handed me last night. Apparently, there were like eight more houses in Ottowa on the list that I didn't know about or tell the realtor about. Sigh.

We've still got plenty of houses to look at and there's still a chance that we'll get into some of these other Ottowa houses today, but still - SIGH. Sometimes it's hard being human, you know?

Night of the (House) Hunter

If I can manage to get out of this evil quagmire of a place (my genius boss came up at about 2:15 to announce he is holding a staff meeting at 4:00 today - Friday freaking afternoon and he calls one of his stupid, interminable meetings), then I will speed home as fast as I can, pack my bag, and the four Browns will depart for Oglesby, IL.

Tomorrow, the local Bishop's wife will watch our girls while Suzanne and I check out houses in the Ottowa/Peru/Oglesby area for the first half of the day. We're hoping that one of the houses we've looked at online will stand out and be "the one" and that the owners of "the one" will be willing to negotiate and to act fast. It feels like time is just running away right now. I want to have the whole thing done and taken care of as soon as possible so we can feel secure in having someplace to go at the end of December, you know?

Wish us luck.

Jump Back, What's That Sound?

I had a co-worker at Papa Kelsey's in Pocatello whose theory was that your musical tastes freeze at high school. "Whatever you listened to in your senior year is probably what you're listening to now," he'd say. Since I had U2 and the Indigo Girls in the tape deck of the car I was delivering pizzas in, there wasn't much I could do to contradict him.

It's not entirely true - one glance at my ipod "most listened" list would demonstrate that. I have come to enjoy the Fratellis, The White Stripes, Beth Orton, Joss Stone, Kanye West, and plenty of others in the many, many years since I graduated. I know I'm not musically frozen in ice.

But still, some of those early loves never leave you, y'know? I can find as many new artists and songs as I want but they will never eclipse certain songs.

So here's the thing: I love, love, love "Panama" by Van Halen. I do. If I could marry a song (and Suzanne didn't mind musical bigamy), I would totally marry "Panama."



I know what you're thinking. If you're my mother, you're thinking, "What song?" If you're my brother Jason, you're thinking, "Righteous, dude." If you're one of my grad school buddies, you're thinking, "Poor, poor Mark. I wonder if he keeps a mullet wig in his closet." If you're Suzanne, you're thinking, "Musical bigamy? Beg your pardon?"

But yeah, when that thunderous guitar intro comes along with the sharp, pounding drum beat courtesy of Eddie and Alex, the Van Halen brothers, I am transported. I realize David Lee Roth is a tool and I know the band hasn't done anything good in decades. But "Panama," yeah. It rocks.

So if you pull up alongside me at an intersection and I have my ipod headphones in and tapping my feet, pumping my fist, and I've got the white-man-overbite going, you can bet I'm probably listening to "Panama."

Beware when I am in this mode:



Stay clear or some of the 1984 awesome rockitude may rub off.

Bringing Up Badness

As I have been watching these classical Hollywood films for school, I've decided that, for the most part, films and actors really do live up to their reputations. Humphrey Bogart really is charismatic, wolfish, and interesting to watch. Sunset Boulevard really is fascinating, well-written, and well-acted. Joan Crawford really is complex, enigmatic, and magnetic. All true.

However, occasionally, films or actors don't live up to the hype and I don't know what the big deal is. As fun as it is to watch John Wayne the first time, once you've seen one of his performances, you've seen them all. Touch of Evil, as I blogged about previously, is a hyper-stylized exercise in "Look at me, ma! I'm directing a movie!" by Orson Welles. As effective as 95% of it is, the final few minutes of The Long, Hot Summer are lamer than Paul Sheldon, post-hobbling.



My latest disappointments are Bringing Up Baby and Katherine Hepburn. Admittedly, having the little TMC host-guy come out prior to the movie and announce that it's "one of the funniest movies ever made" sort of set it up for failure. I mean, that kind of hyperbole is pretty hard to live up to. More than that though, I think maybe I'm just not made for screwball comedy. Some part of me, the part that yells at the tv screen when no one's around, just watches the characters and thinks, "Shut up! If you would just shut up and listen to each other for ten seconds, the problem this stupid film is centering around would be solved." I think it's the contrivance that's bothersome. It strains my suspension of disbelief and my patience to watch Katherine Hepburn prattle on endlessly while Cary Grant stammers and stumbles endlessly. It's like a Mamet play that's supposed to be funny and zany but isn't.

Katherine Hepburn. Don't like her. Never have. Didn't like her as an old, creaky On Golden Pond lady and didn't like her as a young, kittenish Bringing Up Baby heiress. I didn't even like Cate Blanchett "channeling" her in Scorcese's The Aviator. I just don't see what the big deal is. Her bizarro, old-money accent and angular looks just never did a thing for me. As Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby, I just wanted to punch her in the face.

So, sadly, I didn't make it all the way through the movie. I watched over half of it and then, due to the lateness of the hour and the stupidness of the movie, I shut it off and went to bed. I'm still putting it on my list of watched films because I think I can talk about it in a useful way if called upon - but it's definitely not going on my list of Great Films to Rewatch in the Future.

The Missing

So snow has come to Detroit. We had a few flakes earlier in the week, but yesterday, it really came down. We drove to our nephew's baptism in Bloomfield Hills and, at times, the snow was so thick and fast, I had to slow down to only ten or twenty miles an hour. I've never liked snow, never been a big fan of winter - but there is something pretty magical about that first storm. It's transformative and beautiful. Of course, eventually, it just becomes cold and wet and dangerous and I end up hating the winter season like a suck-egg dog. (Seriously, five bucks to anyone who can identify the American short story that reference is from. Exact line of dialogue: "Ah hates yuh lak uh suck-egg dog.")

But for now, it's pretty and I don't mind it. It means I don't have to rake leaves for a while and it makes being at home all the more cozy.

We ate at a Leo's Coney Island on Saturday for lunch and the warm, slightly greasy air and butt-kicking Greek salad got me to thinking about the things I will miss about Michigan and Detroit. Now, keep in mind that I am glad to be getting the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks out of this gray, depressing, forsaken city and state. However, that's not to say that there aren't wonderful people, places, and things here that I love very much and will miss a lot. I think I will occasionally post lists of what I will miss about this place.

1. Being near Suzanne's family and friends. This has easily been the best thing about being here for her and for me. Paul and Linda, Ben and Erin, Jeff and Amy - it's just really nice to be able to see them more than once a year. Having Suzanne's friends like Becky, Casey, and Sheila around is nice because when Suzanne is happy, I'm happy.

2. Coney Island restaurants. In this state, you can't throw a rock without hitting a Coney. They are mostly mid- to low-end dives but they consistently serve awesome Greek salads, lemon rice soup, and crispy fries that burn the flesh right off your tongue if you're too eager.

3. The Detroit Institute of Arts. It's the fifth largest art museum in the country and has world-class exhibits. I always feel refreshed and enlivened after I've spent and hour or two there.

4. Racial and cultural diversity. I'm not sure but I'm betting small-town, farm-centered Illinois Valley probably isn't as diverse as Detroit, Michigan. I'll miss being equi-distant from Mexican Village, Greektown, Hamtramck, and Dearborn. I'll miss the groups of Middle Eastern girls moving across Wayne State campus like flocks of glossy, glamorous birds.

5. The Vos family. Chris is a great guy, Jennifer is really funny and smart, and their kids are really excellent people to a one. I'll miss being their home teacher and miss going over to their house for games and appetizers. (My cholesterol will not miss the appetizers. No, it will not.)

6. My students. As maddening as they are, I'm going to miss their humor, their weird dignity, and even some aspects of their sometimes-inscrutable code of honor.

There will certainly be more as time goes on but that's a good list for now. I've got some lunch to get to.

It's Official

Like the men in the photo above, I'm in love with Barbara Stanwyck.

I watched the 1941 Howard Hawks comedy Ball of Fire last night and was once again struck by how versatile, funny, and sexy she was.

Ball of Fire is the story of a group of professors working to write a new encyclopedia. They live together, eat together, take their morning constitutional together, and are basically isolated from regular life as they pursue their goal. When an errant garbage man makes his way into their gloomy mansion, the group's resident gramarian, Professor Bertram Potts (convincingly played by Gary Cooper), realizes his encyclopedia entry on slang is dated and useless. He determines to go out into public to do some research and, among other places, he ends up at a nightclub where the singer Sugarpuss O'Shea is performing the song "Drum Boogie" with the Gene Krupa Orchestra. Potts is fascinated with O'Shea and asks her to be part of his roundtable discussion on slang. O'Shea brushes him off but later decides to not only take him up on his offer but to take up residence in the mansion. O'Shea is the girlfriend of the gangster Joe Lilac and she finds that she needs to hide out for a few days while the cops are looking for her because they want her to testify against Lilac.

So the professor and the showgirl end up in the same house along with seven hilarious professors whose adoration of Sugarpuss is, without question, the comedic highlight of the entire movie. Comedy and star-crossed love ensue. It's a very sweet, very funny movie and I enjoyed it a lot.

Hypocrisy

I should point out, however, that it is never to early to mention to your near and dear what you would like for that most generous of holidays. See below:



Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was




State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America











And, of course:

Christmastime Is (Not) Here

I'm a tolerant man, more or less. I can put up with a lot.

I understand that Christmas is the happiest time of the year and that the food, decorations, gifts, and get-togethers are something to look forward to and cherish.

Also, I'm a man who can get behind Christmas music. The Johnny Mathis Christmas album featuring classics like "It's a Ding-Dong Marshmellow World" is one of my favorites of all time and I would happily listen to the Vince Guaraldi Trio's music for "A Charlie Brown Christmas" any day of the year. And Frank Sinatra's version of "Jingle Bells?" Fuhgeddaboudit. I defy you not groove on that song.

However, despite my oceanic tolerance (ha ha) and my love of Christmas tunes, I believe there is a time and a place for everything. I don't try to mow the lawn in flip-flops and a tube top in January nor do I wear earmuffs and legwarmers in July. I eat eggs for breakfast and pizza for dinner and never the twain shall meet, you know?

With that in mind, you have to understand that I am of the firm belief that radio stations that start playing Christmas music 24 hours a day, seven days a week the day after Halloween are violating natural law. They might as well be cloning Nazi-cyborg-sheep or something. Christmas music before Thanksgiving is just. not. right.

I realize we don't exactly live in a less-is-more society. There isn't much that's left to the imagination any more and the idea of delayed gratification has become nothing more than an occasional punchline on television.

But come on, doesn't anyone understand that Christmas is that much better when it's a compact, concentrated experience and not something thin and dragged out? I'd rather take a short, luxurious bath in a deep tub than have all the time I want to bathe in a long puddle, you know? I want to be sad when Christmas is over, not wearily relieved.

So don't give me Christmas the day after Halloween. Let me enjoy the falling leaves and the cooling temperatures. Let me look forward to Thanksgiving dinner and the first big snowfall. Don't jam a tree down my throat and tinny, crappy Amy Grant Christmas songs in my ear until I'm good and ready.

Illinois

Land of...

Lincoln
Obama
Oprah
the Cubs
the Sox
da' Bears
the Browns.

Yay for us! Yesterday I was offered the job at IVCC and I happily, greedily, slobberingly accepted it. Thanks to everyone for the good vibes, prayers, and pagan sacrifices that were offered on our behalf.


P.S. We will be located in Lasalle county which is the yellow shape that looks like a box with one leg up near the top of the map.

Super Turkey

Another example of how Maryn's creativity, intelligence, and nerd-heritage come together in unexpected and wonderful ways: Super Turkey!

Click to enlarge.





According to Maryn, the bomb the evil scientist creates is designed to make all the animals of the world obey his evil commands. Naturally, Super Turkey would be concerned about such a threat to the agency and safety of animal kind. I mentioned that she didn't show how ST stopped the mind-control bomb and she said she might address that in a future issue. For now, enjoy your poulty-based super heroics.

How The Interview Went

So the interview went well. It was long - about six and a half hours, but not as grueling as one might think.

I showed up a little before ten, checked my tie, hair, and teeth in the mirror and then presented myself at the front desk. George Needs (which I think is a hilarious name) from HR came downstairs and vigorously shook my hand. We headed upstairs to the HR office where I got the lowdown on benefits, retirement, etc. Not much on salary yet because they only really start figuring that once they've committed to you. I've got a Master's degree plus over 30 hours of credits from a major state university toward a PhD, plus four years of high ed experience, and two years of YDB (how they'll count that is a mystery.) So hopefully, if I'm hired, we'll have sufficient for our needs.

Anyway, from there I was taken to the testing center where they gave me thirty minutes to write an impromptu essay on my teaching philosophy and how it intersects with the mission of a comprehensive community college. I used the Goethe quote that I have posted on my sidebar as a starting point and wrote a bunch of stuff about how community colleges are the place for humane and compassionate yet rigorous instruction. I came to a comfortable stopping place in the essay with one minute to spare on the egg time they left sitting on the table next to my keyboard.

An English faculty member took me around on a campus tour from there. Suzanne, the girls, and I had walked around the night before and gotten a sense of the place so the tour was more about learning the names of places more than about seeing them for the first time. The campus is really interesting and I've never seen a college put together in exactly the same way. The buildings are all connected and form a ring that circles a tree-filled courtyard. The buildings are pretty maze-like but open with lots of windows. The campus is situated on a hill that leads directly down to the Illinois River and is surrounded by woods.



After the tour came the lunch which was pretty informal - pizza and pop with members of the division. (English, Math, Early Education, etc.) The division members were nice and polite and the pizza was okay. I ended up doing most of my chatting with a math teacher named Wes who is originally from Mississippi. We talked about the differences between northern and southern MS and those sorts of things.

I went from lunch straight to a meeting with the VP for academic affairs. We sat in her office and she asked me a series of questions about my teaching methods, my plans for professional development, etc. Once that was over, she walked me to the President's office. The President is a slender, bald man in his mid-fifties who doesn't seem to have much use for beating around the bush. Nice guy, straight talker. I thought the two of us got along swimmingly.

The last two events were sort of the big finish - a formal interview with all six members of the division hiring committee and a teaching demonstration. The interview consisted of the committee members reading off their list of prepared questions and me doing my best to come up with useful, intelligent answers on the spot. For the teaching demonstration, I presented what I would do in a classroom on an average day. They had given me an essay to work with, "Life of the Closed Mind" by Anna Quindlen, so I used that as a jumping off point and then just did my thing.

Once that was over, each committee member shook my hand and wished me the best of luck and that was it. I splashed some water on my face in the bathroom and then wandered outside to wait for Suzanne and the girls to come and pick me up.

I felt like it went as well as it possibly could have gone. There isn't anything I look back on and think, "Jeeze, I should/shouldn't have said/done that." If they don't pick me, it will be because they just liked someone better, not because I dropped the ball, I don't think.

We'll know one way or the other soon enough. They promised me they'd let people know by the end of this coming week - so no later than Friday. I'll hold them to that and I'll be sure to keep you updated as things develop.

After a Draught

It's been a week, dear readers, and I'm sorry about that. I will repent, I promise. I'll catch you up on Halloween, on the long drive to Oglesby, the details of the job interview yesterday, and the long drive back. And I'll do it soon.

But I have an exam I have to finish writing and then I need to get in the shower and head to Henry Ford so it will have to wait for now.

Before that aforementioned exam and shower, I did want to acknowledge our new President--elect and how excited I am for what I hope will be a genuine turn in the rhetoric and policies of the federal government. My friend Tracy summed up my thoughts nicely a few days ago on her blog:

"Is Barack Obama perfect? No. But, his world view doesn’t involve swirling the country around in a neverending toilet bowl of fear and greed and hate. That’s good enough for me."



Congratulations, President-elect Obama. I'm glad you won. Now let's get to work.