Uncle Gino sings "Happy
Birthday": Gino Severini,
1950.
1 week ago
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Happy Birthday Redux
Last year I posted a "Happy Birthday" to a number of people born on June 30, including names not generally known, but known to me from my past. I tend to remember the people I've known who were born on this date because it's the date on which I was born.
One of these people I named was Martha Pinson, who I knew in the mid-1970s in Cambridge, MA, when she worked at the Orson Welles Cinema Complex. I practically lived there at the time, and officially worked on a film festival project, as well as taking tickets once in awhile when the staff was shorthanded. A Hollywood movie was shot in Boston and Cambridge (written by two other friends of mine), and Martha got a job on the crew, doing what was called Continuity at the time (it used to be Script Girl.) Now it's called Script Supervisor, and she's been doing it for Hollywood films and TV series ever since, mostly in New York. I'd last seen her on our mutual birthday in the 1980s. But I knew that since then, she's been Script Supervisor for Martin Scorsese's films. (I saw her in the special features on The Aviator DVD.)
Anyway, while looking for something else, Martha came across the birthday greeting and by rather circuitious means, got in touch with me--that is, with Captain Future. Eventually we connected directly by email. In addition to her script supe work, she's writing and directing film. Don't Nobody Love the Game More Than Me, the short film she produced and directed, is downloadable at indiePix.net .
So, it's happy birthday time again--to Martha and Bruce, Grace Ann, Donny, etc., and...me.
One of these people I named was Martha Pinson, who I knew in the mid-1970s in Cambridge, MA, when she worked at the Orson Welles Cinema Complex. I practically lived there at the time, and officially worked on a film festival project, as well as taking tickets once in awhile when the staff was shorthanded. A Hollywood movie was shot in Boston and Cambridge (written by two other friends of mine), and Martha got a job on the crew, doing what was called Continuity at the time (it used to be Script Girl.) Now it's called Script Supervisor, and she's been doing it for Hollywood films and TV series ever since, mostly in New York. I'd last seen her on our mutual birthday in the 1980s. But I knew that since then, she's been Script Supervisor for Martin Scorsese's films. (I saw her in the special features on The Aviator DVD.)
Anyway, while looking for something else, Martha came across the birthday greeting and by rather circuitious means, got in touch with me--that is, with Captain Future. Eventually we connected directly by email. In addition to her script supe work, she's writing and directing film. Don't Nobody Love the Game More Than Me, the short film she produced and directed, is downloadable at indiePix.net .
So, it's happy birthday time again--to Martha and Bruce, Grace Ann, Donny, etc., and...me.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
A Dream Darfured
Everybody talks about the killing in Darfur but nobody does anything about it. When Joe Biden repeated the fact that people are being killed every day there at a Democratic presidential debate, his fellow candidates stood in embarrassed silence. Clearly, China bears a lot of responsibility for international sanctions not working. But Western countries don't want to send a peacekeeping force there, which some observers (including Biden) say could stop the killing virtually overnight. Instead we send them to Iraq where it contributes to more death, including more dead and maimed Americans. And even though the UN is expected to authorize a peacekeeping force, and the Bush spokespeople--including most recently, Condi Rice--talk a lot about genocide and how the world is failing Darfur, it's the U.S. and its failure to pay its UN dues that threatens the peacekeeping effort before it starts.
Everybody talks about the killing in Darfur but nobody does anything about it. When Joe Biden repeated the fact that people are being killed every day there at a Democratic presidential debate, his fellow candidates stood in embarrassed silence. Clearly, China bears a lot of responsibility for international sanctions not working. But Western countries don't want to send a peacekeeping force there, which some observers (including Biden) say could stop the killing virtually overnight. Instead we send them to Iraq where it contributes to more death, including more dead and maimed Americans. And even though the UN is expected to authorize a peacekeeping force, and the Bush spokespeople--including most recently, Condi Rice--talk a lot about genocide and how the world is failing Darfur, it's the U.S. and its failure to pay its UN dues that threatens the peacekeeping effort before it starts.
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