Different Slants

By your cinema slave, Robert M. Katzman

Well, a different week and some other movies for you (and me) to think about.

1) Years ago, I saw this delightfully imaginative Czech animated film, more oriented toward adults than children, but quite surreal in its imagery called Fantastic Planet.  I read that within it are subtle political references to the Czech desire to be free from Russian domination.  I am no authority on that subject, but since the film was made in 1973, five years after the Soviet Union’s bloody and brutal suppression of a Czech independence movement in August 1968, that wouldn’t be so surprising. 

By coincidence, that is also same month and year of the infamous Chicago Police Department’s equally bloody and brutal suppression of thousands of young,  politically liberal and/or independent student voices protesting Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Chicago Machine and the Democratic National Convention across the street from the Downtown Conrad Hilton Hotel  in what was then called Grant Park.  

My co-writer of this DifferentSlants.com blog, Rick Munden, was there with other friends of ours and told me he was caught in the Police and National Guard round-up and enveloped in a cloud of tear gas.  No one was killed, and Rick and his friends escaped the net, but the violence was horrifying to the city and nation, and terrifying to all its victims. 

Now, that first Mayor Daley’s son is the current Chicago Mayor and that internationally known battleground site in Grant Park is now called “Millennium Park” very neatly obliterating any unpleasant historical references to the Daley family, who have run the City of Chicago political world for a total of about 40 years, and counting.  Now, that’s a ‘political dynasty’, man!

In any event, rent or buy the animated film.  It’s wonderful and not impossible to find, with a little effort.

2) A relatively current Western from a few years back, Open Range, fits my Western film addiction perfectly.  Kevin Costner, who should only make Westerns from this point on, and Robert Duvall as his much older friend and trail boss, are a perfect on-screen relationship, both effectively displaying decades of hard won experience and competence carving out a physically demanding existence in an un-romanticized  harsh Western landscape.           (Read on …)

On Christmas Day, I always close my back-issue magazine store, Magazine Memories, just north of Chicago, and I try do something else more spiritually stimulating.

This year, my son David, then 29, and I decided to spend the day together, going to movies and also have dinner. He is a filmmaker and had just returned from eighteen days in Asia after being hired to record the daily activities and performances of a DJ called Jazzy Jeff.  He went all over, including Hong Kong; Jakarta, Indonesia;  Taipei, Dubai; and Bangkok. He especially liked Bangkok.

So, after hearing that, I suggested we go to an intimate Thai restaurant I knew about for dinner, because that’s one of my favorite Asian cuisines, as well.  We had green tea, mild tom-yum soup with shrimp, bamboo and lemon-grass, mini toasted egg rolls, spicy crispy chicken wings with sweet and sour sauce, and then roasted duck. Great food and great conversation, too.

For Dave’s 12th birthday in 1990, my wife Joy and I gave him a video camera, and it must have been the right thing to do, because now he’s traveling the world, filming it.

After dinner, I went to pay our very cute and slender Thai waitress, who was also the cashier. After handing me my change, she wished me a “Merry Christmas” as people had endlessly said to me that day and other recent days. Then she looked uncertain, her lovely black eyes looking into my dark brown ones and she said, quietly: (Read on …)

THE PROBLEM:

I was wondering about the complex issue of where American Jews should stand in regards to the 1915 genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks; Israel’s very good current military and economic relationship with Turkey; America’s military vulnerability if the Turk’s withdraw their use of Turkey as a staging area for resupplying our troops in Iraq and how can we demand the world must remember our slaughtered families and not acknowledge the Armenians frustration, anger and pain with little international recognition of their people’s losses?

Personally, I find it to be a conundrum because of the vastly evolved current circumstances from what they were 92 years ago. All positions are effectively, correct.

If we antagonize the Turks, everybody loses and the benefit to the Armenians is something that can’t be measured. If we ignore the Armenians, it undermines the Jews’ moral foundation that the World should recognize and deplore all national or racial, etc. slaughter. The debate is dividing Jews from Jews and all sorts of other combinations in this country.

POSSIBLY, A SOLUTION:

Not that anyone asked me, or anything like that, but after deliberating about the Turkey / Armenia nexus, I decided that the only viable way out (if I was in a position to mediate) that would leave the US –Turkey relationship intact and all that that entails and not risk American Jews causing a rift between Israel and Turkey by their support of a congressional resolution condemning Turkey for genocide in 1915, would be to drop the House resolution as a sop to Turkey, disengage the US Government from any further criticism of our current and strategic ally and have top US leaders meet in a bi-partisan effort to assuage the politically powerful and wealthy Armenian/American community.

Then what? (Read on …)

SIX-LEGGED OBSESSION!!!
THE FLY AND I SEE EYE-TO-EYE

by Robert M. Katzman

Our original newsstand, from August 1965 on was 4 feet x 4 feet, built from rough, stolen, construction-site exterior plywood sheeting, was about 6 feet high, with a roof that projected out from the front of it about 4 more feet, at an angle making the far edge of the overhanging roof higher off the sidewalk by about one foot than the back of the tiny newsstand, where it was secured by many nails. It was meant to shield us from the powerful sunlight that turned our ‘hot-off-the-presses’ newspapers yellow and our skin red ( pale Rick) and brown ( olive Bob), and also from sudden rain squalls that would otherwise drench our small stacks of newspapers.

Its color was a kind of checkerboard white and green, really ugly, but they were the only two cans of paint I could find in my mother’s garage. On the sides of the stand, where it was white, I painted “B & R Newsstand”. I was very proud of our little enterprise and its name. Rick, less so. (Read on …)

One morning some years ago, near Chicago, I was at a currency exchange where I would go to pay my utility bills. I suppose I could have mailed my payment, but it was faster for me to pay it in person. Besides, the dark-eyed girl working there behind the glass had a great rack on her and she always smiled at me, her blood-red lipstick gleaming on her soft, luscious lips. And when she walked over to punch my account numbers into her machine, I got a global view of all her…assets.

I didn’t mind. She didn’t mind and the whole day was better for the experience.

So, on this particular day, I was waiting in line to see my favorite cutie. I was on the left side of the small room where she always worked behind the bullet-proof glass, and there was another young guy at the teller down the way from me paying a bill too, with about a four yards between us.

I am white. He was black. I think my sexy teller was Assyrian, but that wasn’t crucial to what follows on what seemed to be an ordinary morning.

It was very quiet with the four us going about our business. Then, another young white guy, about twenty, blonde and thin, maybe five foot eight, walked in the exchange and stood silently behind me. I was almost ready to go, when the chime on the only door to the place clanged loudly as the door was suddenly shoved open and three adorable, very young black children scampered into the room, followed by a short, hesitant, thin to the point of appearing to be nearly anorexic, man of about thirty or so. The kids were full of energy and called the petite man “Dad.”

Then, to my disbelieving eyes an enormous blob of a woman ended this little parade. She was close to six feet tall, and for lack of a more accurate description, the woman most closely resembled the evil Jabba, (Read on …)

I invite all of North America to come and see me read my story titled: “The Thousand Dollar Bill” from my 3rd book, titled Saul Bellow,Kosher Pickles and the Aluminum Fortress.

It will be on July 26th, 2007, Thursday at 8 pm

My web page is www.fightingwordspubco.com.

Is a great story of an individual standing up for himself and up to one of the largest educational instutions in the United States.

The place is The Comedy Shrine, 22 East Chicago Ave. suite 205 Naperville, Illinois 60540 Phone: (630) 355–2844

There will be no charge for this performance.

If people are pleaed by what they hear, and see, the theater owner, David Sinker may have me as a regular performer, but you’d have to buy tickets if that happens. Sorry.

If any of you reading this are able to come, bring a friend, especially one who had trouble paying their tuition, once upon a time.

Thank you,