224 Quiz Answer

A Midsummer Night's Dream portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.  These include a group of working stiffs - Shakespeare calls them “rude mechanicals” – who struggle to produce a play as their part of the ceremony.  Among them is the famous Bottom the Weaver, who is later turned into a jassack.

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "W" is for "Whalen")

I wrote the following scenelet, thinking it might suggest one of the Shakespeare plays.  Which play?

Jim: This meeting better be important.  We got three more trucks to load and they gotta be ready to roll out tomorrow morning.

Pete: Right.  We’ll keep this short.  As you know, our CEO is getting married next week and they’re planning a special ceremony for him.  Couple of the departments will be doing some stuff so I thought we could do something too.

Dan: Why?  Mr Whalen is up there on the top floor.  He never comes down to shipping to see what we do.  I don’t think he knows we exist.

Pete: Well, here’s your chance to let him know.

Fred: We’re supposed to perform - sing and dance?

Pete: No.  Mr. Whalen studied classics in college.  He’s very familiar with classical drama, the playwrights from ancient Rome and Greece.  So I had a great idea.  He’d be absolutely bowled over if some of his employees, blue-collar guys, connived to do a scene from Euripides for his entertainment.

Jim: Are you kiddin’?  Maybe bowled over from laughing, more like.  We ain’t actors; we’re working stiffs. 

Dan: There's a certain amount of intrigue here; you got this idea because you think it’ll make you look good to Whalen. 

Pete: It’ll make us all look good.  Now come on, here’s your parts all typed up. You’re going to get a kick out of this once you get into it.

Fred (vehemently): What’s this?  I’m supposed to play a lion?  Forget about it; there’s no way I could remember my part.

Pete: I figured that, Fred.  All it consists of is roaring.  Anyone can do that.

Jim: Why do I have the feelin’ this is a disaster lookin’ to happen?

Pete: If we all get together and work as a team I know we can do a good job.  As I said other departments will be doing something for the occasion too, but if we concentrate on this and rehearse it well we can knock the socks off everyone there.

Dan: They can keep their socks on, far as I care.

Berowne's 223

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "V" is for Victory.)

I had a strange feeling when I saw the prompt of a tape machine.  Years ago I owned a TEAC just like that one.  "Where are the tapes of yesteryear?"

Speaking of the past, I was glancing through the paper recently and I saw an article on the actress Mariska Hargitay.

Suddenly I was thrust back a half-century or so, back to when young Berowne was trying to make it as a film maker – documentaries and commercials to order.

I found myself sitting in the dingy waiting room of a small company who had called me there because they needed a film made and I had promised that I could offer something most others couldn’t: I worked cheap.

Hey, working cheap is how you got started.

The place was the Superior Welding Alloys Company and I was hurriedly reading their brochures in an effort to learn what welding alloys were.

Don't mean to gripe but their waiting room was undistinguished, to say the least, so I was sort of amazed to find myself sitting next to someone who was also waiting there to see about a job.

Amazed because she was a young woman about whom it is no exaggeration to say that she presented a spectacular appearance.  In the parlance of the time she was a knockout – not the type of person one would usually find waiting to see about a job with your average welding alloys firm.

We got to chatting – after all, she learned that I was a film producer but how was she to know I was just a beginner? – and she told me of the plan she had carefully worked out to become famous.

Later, when she was known to just about every sentient life form in the land, she seemed to many to be playing the role of a dumb blonde.  But her earlier university grades proved that she had been an intelligent student.

She said she wanted fame.  She wanted to be known.  She wanted stardom.  The agents she had contacted had been unimpressed.  They stalled, wouldn't send her out on a call-back.  Sure, she was something to look at, but it seemed she was not all that special when it came to singing, dancing, acting, etc – the things agents were usually looking for. 

She felt there was a crisis.  She sat down and carefully evaluated herself and decided that since the agents weren’t doing much for her, she’d do this fame thing herself.  She had a small inheritance so she made it her job to spend her days methodically going around to companies – not the big corporations but rather the smaller outfits – and explaining to them that she was available as a model for any of their advertising or promotional photography. 

She didn’t have to be paid much, in some cases nothing.  She just wanted lots of pictures of herself published; she thought this way she’d become known.

Well, it worked.  She gradually became Miss Photoflash, Miss Direct Mail, Nylon Sweater Queen, Hot Dog Ambassador, Miss 100% Pure Maple Syrup, Miss Potato Soup and a page-full of other such titles.   And she got parts in a few films.

She achieved victory: she became known to just about everyone in the country.  Her name was Jayne Mansfield.

Our story takes a dark turn.  In the middle of a June night in 1967, Jayne and her family were being driven to New Orleans when they crashed their 1966 Buick Electra into a huge tractor-trailer that had suddenly slowed in front of them.  She and two others were killed. 

Her three-year-old daughter Mariska survived the crash.  You may be familiar with Mariska Hargitay.  Google tells me that she is best known for her role as NYC Detective Olivia Benson on the NBC television drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a role that has earned her multiple awards and nominations, including an Emmy and Golden Globe.

222 Quiz Answer

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, leader of the Salt March, was known for the practice of non-violent civil disobedience; he inspired movements for civil rights and freedom around the world.

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "U" is for "united")

Back in the 1930s there was a remarkable example of non-violent protest that became known around the world.  I wrote the following scenelet in the hope that it might suggest that event. 

“Who was that on the phone?”

“The leader of the march.  He wants a meeting with you.”

“The nerve of that guy.  He knows what he is doing is illegal.  Tell him that when he stops breaking the law we’ll sit down and talk with him.”

“Stop grumbling; that isn’t getting us anywhere.  The movement is going on and it’s definitely growing in size.  They’re united; more people are joining every day.  We can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“So what do you suggest?  We just throw over the rule of law to satisfy some malcontents?  You can’t run a country that way.”

“This is becoming a nation-wide cause; they've formed a bond.  The media is taking their side and it’s gotten international; several other countries are supporting them.  I’m all for taking a strong stand when we’re dealing with something important, but to go to battle over an item as trivial as this – it’s a bit crazy, in my opinion.”

“Well, luckily your opinion isn’t what counts.  You think this thing we’re talking about is trivial?  Look up the numbers, do the math.  Over time the tax we’re talking about on this adds up to a huge amount of money.  Our government isn’t about to just give up that kind of dough.  They’ve placed us in charge to keep that tax in place, keep collecting it.”

“There’s a bit of news that came in this morning that might make a difference.  The march is heading for a specific place, the sea.”

 “They’re all going surfing?”

“Ha.  Very funny.  This is going to be a media event, one of the biggest in our country’s history.  Newspapers and newsreels are going to cover it.  You see, thousands of these people, united, will be marching a couple of hundred miles, more joining them all along the way, and when they get to the ocean they’re going to collect some seawater and let it evaporate.”

“That too is illegal!  We may not be able to arrest all of them, but we can certainly put the leaders in jail.”

“But don’t you understand?  Everyone will see how silly this is.  All you have to do is evaporate some seawater and you’ve got the stuff that is causing all these problems.  It's painless.  No one has to buy it or pay any tax on it.  We’re going to look ridiculous.”

“H’mm.  You say the leader wants to talk?  Well, it’s against everything I believe in, but go ahead, set up a meeting.”

The question this week: who was the leader?

Berowne's 221

 

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "T" is for tourism)

I just stumbled across a news item.  The hotel Lutetia in Paris is going to close for three years for renovation.

That meant something to me because for a while I lived there.

For over a century it was just another good Paris hotel; they now want to make a stab at turning it into a fabulous hotel de luxe, as good as any of the other great European establishments.   

(“Lutetia,” by the way, was what the Romans called Paris.)

I stayed in that hotel while working in Paris in the sixties.  And I became fascinated by its history, especially the part they didn’t like to talk about.

Back in 1940 the Germans knew a good place when they saw one so as soon as they occupied Paris they took the hotel over.  It actually became the headquarters of Abwehr, the Nazi intelligence operation.

This was the outfit that dealt – rather harshly as you can imagine – with sabotage, counter-espionage, security, etc.

One aspect of this that you don’t read much about is the effect this had on the citizens of Paris.  The city was flooded with gray mice.

You see, along with the German army came busloads of young German women to work for the occupying force.  They wore special uniforms, sort of gray in color, and there were so many of them about in town that the Parisians called them “souris grises” – gray mice.

It was a different kind of tourism.  For these girls, the several years beginning with 1940 were a kind of paradise.  They got to go to Paris, not only with all expenses paid, but also with a salary.

 

 For quite a while it was a huge party.  For many of them, their home was the Lutetia.

They did the usual tourism things; sight-seeing, shopping, etc.

They went out of their way to avoid being feisty or argumentative; they carefully paid the asking price for everything they bought. 

 

 

  

Hitler wanted to “woo” Paris; he had dreams of a post-war empire with Berlin, Paris and London as key parts of a new Europe – with Berlin on top, as you might guess – so his orders were to make nice to the local population.

Years later I was at a tourism conference in New York and met a German woman and we began talking about Paris.  She was pleased to learn that I had stayed at the Lutetia.  “I stayed there too, for several years!” she exclaimed.  “During the forties.”

I suddenly realized that I was talking to a gray mouse.  I didn't want to be meddlesome so I diplomatically didn’t ask her what it was like to work for the Nazi security organization Abwehr.

 

220 Quiz Answer

Madame Defarge is a fictional character in the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "S" is for "special")

There’s been quite a lot in the news lately about executions.

What has set it off, of course, is the famous botched attempt to do away with someone legally in Oklahoma on April 29. 

For many years there have been those who are in favor of the death penalty and those who are against.  My guess is that even those solidly for executions might be against the procedure if they knew it was to be a lethal injection attempted by non-skilled types using questionable drugs, obtained questionably, like the three-drug cocktail they tried using in Oklahoma. 

As soon as those involved realized what a massive botch it was becoming, what a strain it was for everyone, they tried to stop the execution.  Evidently no one had thought much about how you can stop killing someone once you’ve started. 

But I didn’t really want to talk about lethal injections, ruined or not, today.  I got to thinking about the folks for whom executions are a kind of entertainment.  They are execution junkies.  They want to be on the scene as the deed is done.

They try to be on the list of the spectators, mostly media types, who carefully watch the procedure, recording all that’s happening. 

I became especially interested in a woman who became known for this proclivity, showing up at executions so often she achieved a sort of fame.

Now you’d think that anyone who had such a passion to witness legal killings would be a special person.  She was special.

In fact, to come right out with it, she was odd.

You see, what was strange about her was this: she was a hobbyist.  She knitted.  No matter where she was she would always have with her yarns and needles; especially if she was lucky enough to attend an execution.

In spite of any problems the executioners might have with the executionee, she would go on knitting away, avidly taking in all the action, creating another pair of socks for some more or less lucky relative.

Oh, and one other thing about her.  She wasn’t just special, she was totally a work of fiction.

I’ll bet my best pair of hand-knitted sox that quite a number of you remember reading about her.

What the Dickens was her name?

219 Quiz Answer

In the dramatic arts, The Method is a group of techniques actors use to create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances.

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "R" is for "real")

It happened back in the 1950s.  There was an earthquake in Manhattan.

(Odd, because they almost never had earthquakes in New York City.)  But this was a different kind of seismic event.

                                                        

A young actor named Marlon Brando was appearing in a play and was sort of shaking the earth, or at least his audiences, with a hugely different style of acting.  It was raw, vivid, real.

What was the theatre like before, say, World War II? 

Well, the art of acting in America then emphasized diction, fencing, dancing and singing.  And the business was very successful: there were a great many productions – mysteries, musicals, classical dramas and drawing-room comedies (“Tennis, anyone?”).  But in dramatic terms it was all rather weak; the school of realism of Ibsen and Zola had not impacted Yankee actors and directors.

This new type of dramatic presentation required the actors to use what was called “emotional memory.”  They had to find within themselves the means to express the emotion they were trying to portray on stage.

If the script called for a murderous rage, the actors should look deep in their pasts, into their emotional memory, to find a moment when, maybe as a child, they had felt this same murderous rage against another kid who was tormenting them.

An interesting idea.  It had literary justification.  Surely you’re familiar with Marcel Proust, who dipped the little cookie known as a “madeleine” into his cup of tea and experienced a whole world of – emotional memory.                                

                            

It was an American thing.  The great actors of the United Kingdom, Sir Laurence Olivier and others, for example, looked with amused condescension on these strange Yankee rituals.  They believed that it was training, technique and talent that made for great acting, not necessarily personal emotional involvement.
 

The story is told of a famous British actor who played a tempestuous scene and was later asked by an eager drama student what he had been thinking about during his shouting and groaning in that wildly emotional moment on stage.

“The size of the house,” he replied; “how many tickets had been sold.”

But there must have been something to the American deal.  For quite a number of years, thanks to Brando and other such stars, this was taken up by thousands of American actors who adopted this style and would take it to a point where it was a bit absurd.  They had to have time out to dig deeply into themselves before they felt they were ready to deliver their lines in a play or a film.

Starting back in the Fifties, this way of doing things got to be well known; it entered into our national consciousness.  It had a name.  What was its name?

218 Quiz Answer

Last week's "Cleopatra" question was a tough one; only three correct answers.  This week's, "Acme," just about everyone got right.  My thanks to those who took part.

This is a Roadrunner, a bird of the genus Geococcyx, a member of the cuckoo family.  (He’s called a member of the cuckoo family because the whole family is a little odd.)

In recent years, there have been attempts on the part of some to suggest that the renowned Roadrunner of cinema fame was never anything more than a cartoon character, but the facts belie such accusations.     

The motion picture series that was popular for so many years, featuring the Roadrunner and his adventures with a Coyote, were an early form of reality programming.  It can now be stated that it was no cartoon; the Roadrunner existed and the Coyote, of brownish hue, also was real.  The important point about the film series is that the Coyote was quick but the Roadrunner was quicker.

Doctor Nestor Vogelsang, who holds advanced degrees in chronic ornithology and bird psychology at the eastern campus of the University of Northwestern South Dakota, has studied the bird – specifically the Roadrunner who stars in the Roadrunner-Coyote film series – for several decades.

“No question the creature is real,” Dr. Vogelsang reports.  “As is easily verified, it has feathers, and to the scientific community feathers often indicate a bird.”

In addition, the Coyote on the screen was always hungry; coyotes usually are.  (The latin name for coyote, according to the movie series, is “Appetitius Giganticus.”)  And the Roadrunner would have provided a decent meal, along with a suitable white wine, if it could ever be caught.

But that, of course, was the problem.

The Roadrunner, whose name originally was Runroader, always managed to burn up the roads to evade the oncoming Coyote, even though the latter employed various hi-tech devices to effect a capture.  All of these hi-tech instruments were developed and marketed by a certain corporation of Tipover Junction, California.

There are other malcontents who loudly proclaim, without the slightest shred of evidence, that this corporation also didn’t exist, that it too was just part of the cartoon presentation.

That is manifestly absurd.

The highly moral company is known throughout the barely civilized world as the firm that markets such highly successful products as Earthquake Pills, Portable Holes and Jet-Propelled Roller Skates.

Which brings us to our weekly quiz question: What was the name of that corporation?  [No googling, now. J]

217 Quiz Answer

 

 

Act II of “Antony and Cleopatra”  CLEOPATRA's palace.

Enter a Messenger:

Madam, madam…

CLEOPATRA

Antony is dead!?

Messenger

First, madam, he is well.

CLEOPATRA

If thou say Antony lives, is well,
Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
Rich pearls upon thee.

Messenger

Madam, he's well.

CLEOPATRA

Well said.

Messenger

And friends with Caesar.

CLEOPATRA

Thou'rt an honest man.

Messenger

Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.

CLEOPATRA

Make thee a fortune from me.

Messenger

But yet, madam,--

CLEOPATRA

I do not like 'But yet,' fie upon 'But yet'!
Messenger

He's bound unto Octavia.

CLEOPATRA

For what good turn?

Messenger

For the best turn.  In the bed.

Madam, he's married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRA

The most infectious pestilence upon thee!

Messenger

Good madam, patience.

CLEOPATRA

Horrible villain!  I'll unhair thy head.

Messenger

Gracious madam,
I that do bring the news made not the match.

 Cleopatra in “Antony and Cleopatra,” often behaves childishly and with relentless self-absorption; nevertheless, her charisma, strength, and indomitable will make her one of Shakespeare’s strongest, most awe-inspiring female characters.

(Also for Three Word Wednesday and ABC Wednesday: "P" is for Philadelphia)

I loosely - very loosely - based the following scenelet upon a famous character in a Shakespeare play.  Your assignment, if you choose to accept it is, which character?

(Mitch has lunch with an old friend, Gail, a young woman he’s known since high school.)

“How long have you been back in L A?”

“It’s been a week or so now.  Gail, I’m sorry I haven’t called.  They made me a department head and it's almost as if I were quarantined, I've been that busy.”

“Sure, but Mitch, you’re practically my oldest friend.  You could have taken just a moment to call and say you were back.  You know I always want to know what’s going on in Philadelphia.”

“Well, outside of the occasional acrid smell here and there it's a pretty fine town."

“What about other items of interest in Philly?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know dam’ well what I mean.” 

“Oh, him.”

“Yes, him.”

“Oh, Greg’s fine.  Didn’t see him much, what with me being so busy.  He seems to be doing okay.”

“He promised me he’d be back in Los Angeles in a month.  According to the date on the morning paper this is the sixth week.”

[Antony Pic 2, right]

“Gail, listen.  You know I don’t have any control over what Greg does.  I can tell you this.  He told me that the time he spent with you on the beach in Southern California was the happiest time of his life.”

“He said that – ‘happiest’?”

“Right.”

“It’s really wonderful I have a good friend like you I can talk to, Mitch.  You see, there’s this problem, the problem so many females are faced with.  If I call him, or email him, or whatever - which I’m dying to do - I come across as needy and someone to be pitied.  If I just sit here and say nothing, I come across as someone who’d just as soon forget the whole deal.”

“Well, Gail, I’m no Doctor Drew; I wouldn’t be able to offer any helpful advice.  There is something, though, that I have to tell you.”

“H’mm.  I don’t like the way this is heading.”

“He – uh – he met this girl.”

“I see.  What’s her name?”

“Joanne.”

“’Joanne.’  Sounds kind of frumpy.”

“Well, I guarantee that she isn’t in the same ballpark with you, as far as looks are concerned.  Greg told me you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever known.”

“So he stays in Philadelphia with Miss Frumpy?  How does that make sense?”

“Gail, here’s the bad news.  Joanne is the daughter of Greg’s boss, the CEO of the Corporation.  To be brutally honest, it seems that alone makes her very attractive.  So I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you - they were married last week.”

“What!  You came here to tell me Greg’s married?  I thought you were my friend!  I never really liked you anyway; get out of here - I wish you’d never called!  “

“Gail, come on, don't get so dramatic.  I knew you’d be upset.  But you know the rule: don’t attack the messenger.”

“Who the hell else can I attack!?”