The oratorical gobbledegook and double talk of both the mayor and the teachers union president defies interpretation. I wonder if the two of them would feel the same way and give such a "nuanced" defense if the situation was an alder (how is the name of a tree appropriate to describe these elected officals? But I digress) trying to keep council members out of the chamber before a vote on reparations or something else that the mayor wanted especially if the person blocking the door was a person that consistently voted against the mayor's pet initiatives rather than his hand picked floor "leader?" Johnson's constant obfuscation on matters of importance is proof once again that he is unfit to hold his office.
Bullying? Some might argue Ramirez-Rosa committed a crime.
Section 720 ILCS 5/12-3 - Battery (a) A person commits battery if he or she knowingly without legal justification by any means (1) causes bodily harm to an individual or (2) makes physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with an individual. (b) Sentence. Battery is a Class A misdemeanor.
There's a big problem in society in general where too many people think that their opinion extends to actually physically attacking and/or otherwise intimidating people with physicality. Everyone's rights end where the others' nose begins. Mitts claimed she was grabbed. He doesn't get to do that no matter how strongly he thinks he feels about it.
A great observation as It absolutely fits the elements of a battery. Or it could be an assault. If Ms. Mitts were to sign a complaint the police would be obligated to place him under arrest. In most any court system but especially in cook county the case would be tossed.
For physical contact to be a battery, it has to be “insulting” or “provoking” physical contact. If you touch someone gently in order to get their attention so that you can speak to them (tapping them on the shoulder perhaps), not many people would consider the physical contact to be “insulting” or “provoking.” It appeared to me that Ramirez-Rosa’s physical contact with Mitts was a gentle touch to get her attention rather than an “insulting” or “provoking” sort of physical contact.
I don't think that is the way that she described it. I thought she said that he grabbed her, blocked her, and left her shaking. It reminded her of being a little girl in the south, which I assume meant demeaned, threatened, and insulted.
whether or not the physical contact was insulting or of a provoking nature is up to the person being touched. As I mentioned, a police officer (I was one) would be required to make an arrest on a signed complaint. Would there be a conviction? Of course not, in court the victim would be asked " what harm came to you?" And since there was no physical harm there would likely be a not guilty, though the offender would probably be admonished.
Actually, whether the physical conduct was of an insulting or provoking nature is not up to the person being touched. It is up to the jury. The jury is instructed in a battery case under Section 12-3(a)(2) that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the physical conduct was of an insulting or provoking nature. It is not enough under the Illinois Pattern Instructions for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the complaining witness believed that the physical conduct was of an insulting or provoking nature. I’ve tried my share of battery cases. And there does not have to be physical harm for battery by insulting or provoking physical contact under 12-3(a)(2).
We agree, yet you make my point for me. I wrote that there wouldn't be a conviction in this case. My point was that there was enough to make an arrest upon a signed complaint. A conviction by a jury (as you jumped to) would require the commencement of the process, a process that would start by the criminal act, the summoning of a police officer, a preliminary investigation after which the complainant would sign a complaint (if she desired) and the offender being taken into custody, after which the court system would take over. And as a side note, if Ms. Mitts asked a police officer to do his or her duty, and the officer refused, the officer would be subject to discipline.
I agree with your point on the effectiveness of managers. But there's no salary cap in baseball and the Ricketts rake in the big bucks, so there's no reason why the Cubs can't pay $8 mil for the best manager in the game AND spend more money on players this winter. Hiring Counsell is not an opportunity cost.
Perhaps managers’ in-game decisions don’t affect team outcomes as much as we think, but isn’t the most important MLB managerIal skill in getting all of those young men, who’ve been praised since childhood as athletic phenoms, to perform together at the highest level, under extreme scrutiny, for 162 days? Maddon did that in 2016, but like so many successful teams, the atmosphere and attitudes shifted after reaching the top, and he was unable to respond to the changes.
I think you are spot on. The manager/coach creates the atmosphere and handles the personalities of gifted, athletes who have been told all their lives they are the best.
Another example was Phil Jackson who was able to manage the egos of a tremendously capable Bulls team for so long.
Steve T you got it correct. They were buying what Maddon was selling in 2016 and no Maddon you don't win the World Series. He made a huge impact. He put Montgomery in when it mattered. When he got let go different year. His methods probably became old. Look at Lou Pinella, terrible managing in the post season. He was good through regular season but not too good in post season. Look at his other teams same thing except Cincinnati in 1990, anyone could have managed that great team.
Concerning city council shenanigans, have you ever noticed how wordy explanations get when someone is trying to make sense and know that no one really believes them?. He was wrong, period. Her supposed forgiveness doesn't change that. Forgiveness does not make physicality acceptable in this case. But remember, this is politics. One shall not bash thy brother or sister in the name of unity. Don't give the other side a wedge to use. Of course, in Chicago, it doesn't make much sense in a city where the opposite party has not had a toehold in decades. But that's the way it is.
I think you made the argument of why we should fear a debate about Chicago's Sanctuary City status:
"Technically, the challenging influx of asylum-seekers from South America has nothing to do with Chicago’s sanctuary city status, a designation that forbids local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities to detain and deport undocumented people."
If the alders who are pushing the referendum don't know that basic fact, how can we expect the voters will? People who are concerned about public spending on the asylum seekers will vote yes to abandoning the policy which will deliver a huge propaganda victory for Abbott, DeSantis, Trump and the whole MAGA crowd - in an election year. It will feed the narrative that no one wants immigrants in their community, while not producing any actual benefit for either the proponents or opponents of the referendum, or the people of Chicago as a whole.
Thank you for posting a link to the Daily Beast column entitled “Moms For Liberty Candidates Take A Beating In Some School Races.” I am very encouraged by this. The whole “parental rights” movement within the Republican Party (see Glenn Youngkin in Virginia) taps into fears of homophobic and transphobic parents that their kids might be LGBTQ+, and sort of sells to those parents the false notion that if they can just keep their kids from being exposed to LGBTQ+ people or learning about us, they (the parents) can keep their kids from being LGBTQ+. Of course, you cannot prevent a child who is gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender from being who they are--all you can do is teach them to hate themselves for being the way they are, and create problems for them later in life when the conflict between who they were taught they should be and who they are reaches the crisis point. The MAGA movement itself is largely fueled by homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny. Could these election results be a sign that we, as a society, may actually be able to reject the MAGA movement and move towards a more inclusive culture where DEI is not mocked and called “woke”?
EZ wrote "Shaking hands is back" and my question is why? Isn't a fist bump or a wave enough of a greeting these days? Haven't we learned that nothing good comes from physical contact with others? I was really hoping that most folks would move on from shaking hands but that doesn't seem to be the case.
We are social animals. We like to touch each other. When we do, our bodies produce wonderful chemicals like serotonin and oxytocin. During COVID, the year before the vaccine came out, I was the only person in my pandemic bubble, and I went for a year without hugging another person, although I had plenty of on-line interaction (Zoom) with family and friends. After I got the two vaccine shots, I started visiting in person again with my former wife and kids. I’ll never forget how I felt when I hugged someone (my daughter) for the first time after that year. I just started crying and I realized how badly I had missed physical contact. I want to go back to touching, hugging, sharing breath, spewing droplets--all those good things!
We are social animals who have developed brains that seem to give rise to many different behaviors, mindsets and identities. I loathe all this Midwestern hugging (except for immediate family), but I suck it up. The worst was a friend's mother who insisted on kissing on the mouth. Fist bump please.
I am also not a hugger for casual social greetings. The most egregious offense to the norms I grew up was was about 12 years ago where kissing was in (between men and women) at business conferences. I think this was specific to the industry I was in though. I commented on this to a colleague and how going in for a kiss at work(even on the cheek which is what they were doing) was at risk of being at least disrespectful and likely harassment based on not so old norms. He observed that it was only people who wanted to seem like they were European who did that.
It happened to me one time that a woman from another office was visiting and I saw her in the hall. She moved in toward me. I thought she was going to whisper or something so I leaned in a little and then she kissed me on the cheek. It was fine, but I think i caused it to be as awkward as it could be. It was fine though.
I don't begrudge a hug, though I've never been much of a hugger. I do like a touch of touching among strangers, though, i.e., a nice palm-shmushing, however gross. Makes me feel good. It's a signal of openness, sociability, peace, recognition that we're both humans on, in that moment, equal footing, both possessed of well-traveled hands, both aware of germs but willing to take that tiny risk for the sake of the pro-social signal that, for now anyway, we're good friends, neither of whom is holding a sword or a dagger.
The worst is hug anxiety, which isn't about the hug so much as, What are we both doing? How do we feel about each other? Are we doing a hug, half-hug, handshake, fist-bump, the germaphobe's upward-turned hand + slight bow of the head and smile, what's about to happen? And then you discover that you and the other person had something different in mind, and, just as you predicted, the world ends.
Neither Brandon Johnson’s or Stacy Davis Gates‘s statement is exactly a tribute to CPS’s English departments. Or did they learn public speaking someplace else?
An elected School Board would be disaster. Other communities have had problems with book banners and those interfering with teaching of subjects they object to. Those elected officials will cause trouble until the next election. A Mayor can fire them. Book-banners and Religious nut-jobs will be ruining education for THEIR beliefs, not the good of education.
I cannot imagine any possibility of your concerns occurring in Chicago. It is even less likely than a Republican mayor or alderman. The new school board will be a deftly gerrymandered variation of the City Council. I expect it to be completely dominated by the CTU and progressive activists.
But Illinois now has a law that will discourage libraries from removing books from their shelves for spurious reasons. And libraries need to agree to the ALA Library Bill of Rights in order to receive grant money from the state.
I remember my Dad taking me to see the movie Dr. Zhivago in the movie theater when I was nine years old. And I seem to remember that the movie, itself, had an intermission.
I remember an intermission during a first-run showing of Lawrence of Arabia that I attended with my younger brother. Looking back, what's surprising is that I was 11, my brother was 8, and my parents weren't aware that the subject matter was over our heads. Great desert scenes, though, and I never forgot that (spoiler alert) Lawrence died back home in England in a motorcycle accident.
Just musing… our erstwhile President is fond of attaching pejorative adjectives to the names of his opponents. Time to start calling him Losin’ Donald: the Presidency, the Senate, lots of other supported candidates, several billion of the dollars he inherited, court cases past, present, and future. And the list goes on.
Ouch, Eric! Texas was this year’s winner of the World Series—in five games.
Re columnists: couldn’t agree more!! List of those I miss is far too long. Steinberg is the ONLY reason to subscribe to the S-T and my wife is the only reason we still get the Trib.
We are the only two in our cohort who still read paper newspapers. Alas and alack!
That Phillips article on movie intermissions was fun. Auteurs like Martin Scorcese find the unplanned intermission anathema and have put the kibosh on it in the U.S. (Not in some European theaters, interestingly, where everyone's apparently used to intermissions even for two-hour movies.) But his movie is 3 and a half friggin' hours long. When you count previews, you're bumping up on four hours from taking your seat. That's a big ask. Does he prefer that people miss some of the movie or sit in discomfort?
I'm a fan, but I didn't see the Flower Moon movie at the theater, in part because it looked too depressing, but also because it was too long. Phillips nicely recounts that brief period in, I don't know, the early '60s I guess when studios revived the Gone with the Wind formula and put out long movies that were happenings, complete with lobby swag, overtures, entr'acte music, exit music, and, yes, intermissions, when the intermission music would play over speakers in the lobbies and bathrooms. They were sometimes grand epics, like Lawrence of Arabia, or goofy comedies, like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. However tedious those movies may have been -- and I think they mostly were -- It was a neat idea to goose interest in going to the movies. Could work again.
Anyway, if you want to do a really long movie, and you care at all about preserving the movie-going experience amid the streaming onslaught (as I do, Eric maybe not so much), you can't be uptight about letting theaters put in intermissions. Better yet, you should plan for them and put them in yourself.
Movies that exceed two and a half hours in length should have intermissions, but the filmmakers should make sure that they are edited in a way that the delineation point is evident and an abrupt break isn’t just jammed in at the discretion of the theater operators, which seems to be what Scorsese and his editor were miffed about.
The first movie that I saw theatrically that had an intermission was “Scarface” at the long gone River Oaks Theater in Calumet City. The intermission was perfectly placed (between the scene that ends with him gazing upon the airborne blimp and the “Take It To The Limit” montage), and if the edit wasn’t intended as an intermission break, the director certainly couldn’t have complained that it interrupted the flow in any way.
The only problem was that we couldn’t use the intermission for the usual bathroom or concession break, since the two friends I was with and I were all twelve, and had snuck in to see it (after buying tickets for “A Christmas Story”, which we had already seen). We were afraid that if we left our seats we might get caught and thrown out.
Back in the day, when major motion pictures were shown initially and exclusively at a single downtown theater, they often had intermissions, but they also had reserved seats, like the legit theater. As a result, no scrum jockeying for better seats after the intermission. I’m thinking particularly of “Around the World in 80 Days” at the Michael Todd Theater and “My Fair Lady” at one of the downtown B&K palaces. The intermissions, besides offering a bathroom break, provided an additional opportunity to patronize the concession stands.
Eric...looks like a typo....the first name of the Cubs new manager is Craig...have a great day and weekend!
Yeah, I was so focused on getting the last name right I glazed over the first name. The online version is fixed.
The oratorical gobbledegook and double talk of both the mayor and the teachers union president defies interpretation. I wonder if the two of them would feel the same way and give such a "nuanced" defense if the situation was an alder (how is the name of a tree appropriate to describe these elected officals? But I digress) trying to keep council members out of the chamber before a vote on reparations or something else that the mayor wanted especially if the person blocking the door was a person that consistently voted against the mayor's pet initiatives rather than his hand picked floor "leader?" Johnson's constant obfuscation on matters of importance is proof once again that he is unfit to hold his office.
Yeah. I laughed when I tried to imagine Gates defending the humanity of Emanuel or LIghtfoot.
Bullying? Some might argue Ramirez-Rosa committed a crime.
Section 720 ILCS 5/12-3 - Battery (a) A person commits battery if he or she knowingly without legal justification by any means (1) causes bodily harm to an individual or (2) makes physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with an individual. (b) Sentence. Battery is a Class A misdemeanor.
There's a big problem in society in general where too many people think that their opinion extends to actually physically attacking and/or otherwise intimidating people with physicality. Everyone's rights end where the others' nose begins. Mitts claimed she was grabbed. He doesn't get to do that no matter how strongly he thinks he feels about it.
A great observation as It absolutely fits the elements of a battery. Or it could be an assault. If Ms. Mitts were to sign a complaint the police would be obligated to place him under arrest. In most any court system but especially in cook county the case would be tossed.
For physical contact to be a battery, it has to be “insulting” or “provoking” physical contact. If you touch someone gently in order to get their attention so that you can speak to them (tapping them on the shoulder perhaps), not many people would consider the physical contact to be “insulting” or “provoking.” It appeared to me that Ramirez-Rosa’s physical contact with Mitts was a gentle touch to get her attention rather than an “insulting” or “provoking” sort of physical contact.
I don't think that is the way that she described it. I thought she said that he grabbed her, blocked her, and left her shaking. It reminded her of being a little girl in the south, which I assume meant demeaned, threatened, and insulted.
I was basing my comments on the video.
whether or not the physical contact was insulting or of a provoking nature is up to the person being touched. As I mentioned, a police officer (I was one) would be required to make an arrest on a signed complaint. Would there be a conviction? Of course not, in court the victim would be asked " what harm came to you?" And since there was no physical harm there would likely be a not guilty, though the offender would probably be admonished.
Actually, whether the physical conduct was of an insulting or provoking nature is not up to the person being touched. It is up to the jury. The jury is instructed in a battery case under Section 12-3(a)(2) that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the physical conduct was of an insulting or provoking nature. It is not enough under the Illinois Pattern Instructions for the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the complaining witness believed that the physical conduct was of an insulting or provoking nature. I’ve tried my share of battery cases. And there does not have to be physical harm for battery by insulting or provoking physical contact under 12-3(a)(2).
We agree, yet you make my point for me. I wrote that there wouldn't be a conviction in this case. My point was that there was enough to make an arrest upon a signed complaint. A conviction by a jury (as you jumped to) would require the commencement of the process, a process that would start by the criminal act, the summoning of a police officer, a preliminary investigation after which the complainant would sign a complaint (if she desired) and the offender being taken into custody, after which the court system would take over. And as a side note, if Ms. Mitts asked a police officer to do his or her duty, and the officer refused, the officer would be subject to discipline.
Yeah, no. Check out the video from CBS2. https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/ald-carlos-ramirez-rosa-stepping-down-over-assault-allegations/ Mitts grossly exaggerated the physical nature of the confrontation.
Wow, shockingly dismissive of the lived experience and perceived reality of a black woman's experience of male dominance.
Surely you are being sarcastic. Look at the video.
Obviously. Just mocking the usual progressive response to such evidence.
I watched that. Looks like workers standing around a water cooler. I don't see any confrontation. Ridiculous.
I agree with your point on the effectiveness of managers. But there's no salary cap in baseball and the Ricketts rake in the big bucks, so there's no reason why the Cubs can't pay $8 mil for the best manager in the game AND spend more money on players this winter. Hiring Counsell is not an opportunity cost.
Perhaps managers’ in-game decisions don’t affect team outcomes as much as we think, but isn’t the most important MLB managerIal skill in getting all of those young men, who’ve been praised since childhood as athletic phenoms, to perform together at the highest level, under extreme scrutiny, for 162 days? Maddon did that in 2016, but like so many successful teams, the atmosphere and attitudes shifted after reaching the top, and he was unable to respond to the changes.
I think you are spot on. The manager/coach creates the atmosphere and handles the personalities of gifted, athletes who have been told all their lives they are the best.
Another example was Phil Jackson who was able to manage the egos of a tremendously capable Bulls team for so long.
Steve T you got it correct. They were buying what Maddon was selling in 2016 and no Maddon you don't win the World Series. He made a huge impact. He put Montgomery in when it mattered. When he got let go different year. His methods probably became old. Look at Lou Pinella, terrible managing in the post season. He was good through regular season but not too good in post season. Look at his other teams same thing except Cincinnati in 1990, anyone could have managed that great team.
"I wonder what the part of my brain that used to store people's phone numbers is doing now. — @MediocreJoker85"
Remembering passwords?
And not doing it well, as before.
Concerning city council shenanigans, have you ever noticed how wordy explanations get when someone is trying to make sense and know that no one really believes them?. He was wrong, period. Her supposed forgiveness doesn't change that. Forgiveness does not make physicality acceptable in this case. But remember, this is politics. One shall not bash thy brother or sister in the name of unity. Don't give the other side a wedge to use. Of course, in Chicago, it doesn't make much sense in a city where the opposite party has not had a toehold in decades. But that's the way it is.
I think you made the argument of why we should fear a debate about Chicago's Sanctuary City status:
"Technically, the challenging influx of asylum-seekers from South America has nothing to do with Chicago’s sanctuary city status, a designation that forbids local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities to detain and deport undocumented people."
If the alders who are pushing the referendum don't know that basic fact, how can we expect the voters will? People who are concerned about public spending on the asylum seekers will vote yes to abandoning the policy which will deliver a huge propaganda victory for Abbott, DeSantis, Trump and the whole MAGA crowd - in an election year. It will feed the narrative that no one wants immigrants in their community, while not producing any actual benefit for either the proponents or opponents of the referendum, or the people of Chicago as a whole.
Thank you for posting a link to the Daily Beast column entitled “Moms For Liberty Candidates Take A Beating In Some School Races.” I am very encouraged by this. The whole “parental rights” movement within the Republican Party (see Glenn Youngkin in Virginia) taps into fears of homophobic and transphobic parents that their kids might be LGBTQ+, and sort of sells to those parents the false notion that if they can just keep their kids from being exposed to LGBTQ+ people or learning about us, they (the parents) can keep their kids from being LGBTQ+. Of course, you cannot prevent a child who is gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender from being who they are--all you can do is teach them to hate themselves for being the way they are, and create problems for them later in life when the conflict between who they were taught they should be and who they are reaches the crisis point. The MAGA movement itself is largely fueled by homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny. Could these election results be a sign that we, as a society, may actually be able to reject the MAGA movement and move towards a more inclusive culture where DEI is not mocked and called “woke”?
Moms for Liberty is in the Gold Medal Round for hypocrisy!! - Their misuse of the word Liberty is just the start of their cruel agenda.
EZ wrote "Shaking hands is back" and my question is why? Isn't a fist bump or a wave enough of a greeting these days? Haven't we learned that nothing good comes from physical contact with others? I was really hoping that most folks would move on from shaking hands but that doesn't seem to be the case.
We are social animals. We like to touch each other. When we do, our bodies produce wonderful chemicals like serotonin and oxytocin. During COVID, the year before the vaccine came out, I was the only person in my pandemic bubble, and I went for a year without hugging another person, although I had plenty of on-line interaction (Zoom) with family and friends. After I got the two vaccine shots, I started visiting in person again with my former wife and kids. I’ll never forget how I felt when I hugged someone (my daughter) for the first time after that year. I just started crying and I realized how badly I had missed physical contact. I want to go back to touching, hugging, sharing breath, spewing droplets--all those good things!
We are social animals who have developed brains that seem to give rise to many different behaviors, mindsets and identities. I loathe all this Midwestern hugging (except for immediate family), but I suck it up. The worst was a friend's mother who insisted on kissing on the mouth. Fist bump please.
I am also not a hugger for casual social greetings. The most egregious offense to the norms I grew up was was about 12 years ago where kissing was in (between men and women) at business conferences. I think this was specific to the industry I was in though. I commented on this to a colleague and how going in for a kiss at work(even on the cheek which is what they were doing) was at risk of being at least disrespectful and likely harassment based on not so old norms. He observed that it was only people who wanted to seem like they were European who did that.
It happened to me one time that a woman from another office was visiting and I saw her in the hall. She moved in toward me. I thought she was going to whisper or something so I leaned in a little and then she kissed me on the cheek. It was fine, but I think i caused it to be as awkward as it could be. It was fine though.
I don't begrudge a hug, though I've never been much of a hugger. I do like a touch of touching among strangers, though, i.e., a nice palm-shmushing, however gross. Makes me feel good. It's a signal of openness, sociability, peace, recognition that we're both humans on, in that moment, equal footing, both possessed of well-traveled hands, both aware of germs but willing to take that tiny risk for the sake of the pro-social signal that, for now anyway, we're good friends, neither of whom is holding a sword or a dagger.
As someone who's afraid of awkward handshake situations, the rise of the fist bump has been GREAT for me.
The worst is hug anxiety, which isn't about the hug so much as, What are we both doing? How do we feel about each other? Are we doing a hug, half-hug, handshake, fist-bump, the germaphobe's upward-turned hand + slight bow of the head and smile, what's about to happen? And then you discover that you and the other person had something different in mind, and, just as you predicted, the world ends.
Neither Brandon Johnson’s or Stacy Davis Gates‘s statement is exactly a tribute to CPS’s English departments. Or did they learn public speaking someplace else?
Remember Rick, they're "Leaders", or so they say. I'm curious about who would follow them around.
I certainly would not rely upon their directions!! - I would likely end up in Indiana rather than the Bear's stadium, e.g.
An elected School Board would be disaster. Other communities have had problems with book banners and those interfering with teaching of subjects they object to. Those elected officials will cause trouble until the next election. A Mayor can fire them. Book-banners and Religious nut-jobs will be ruining education for THEIR beliefs, not the good of education.
not "would be". It "will be" happening for better or worse. For Chicago, I expect the main special interest group that will get power will be the CTU.
I cannot imagine any possibility of your concerns occurring in Chicago. It is even less likely than a Republican mayor or alderman. The new school board will be a deftly gerrymandered variation of the City Council. I expect it to be completely dominated by the CTU and progressive activists.
But Illinois now has a law that will discourage libraries from removing books from their shelves for spurious reasons. And libraries need to agree to the ALA Library Bill of Rights in order to receive grant money from the state.
If Wagner operas can have intermissions, so can movies.
I remember my Dad taking me to see the movie Dr. Zhivago in the movie theater when I was nine years old. And I seem to remember that the movie, itself, had an intermission.
I remember an intermission during a first-run showing of Lawrence of Arabia that I attended with my younger brother. Looking back, what's surprising is that I was 11, my brother was 8, and my parents weren't aware that the subject matter was over our heads. Great desert scenes, though, and I never forgot that (spoiler alert) Lawrence died back home in England in a motorcycle accident.
P.S. Couldn't resist the chance for an all Joan(ie) thread.
I love it!
Just musing… our erstwhile President is fond of attaching pejorative adjectives to the names of his opponents. Time to start calling him Losin’ Donald: the Presidency, the Senate, lots of other supported candidates, several billion of the dollars he inherited, court cases past, present, and future. And the list goes on.
Edit: it’s FORMER President
erst·while
[ˈərstˌ(h)wīl]
ADJECTIVE
former:
"his erstwhile rivals"
I’ve learned a new word
Ouch, Eric! Texas was this year’s winner of the World Series—in five games.
Re columnists: couldn’t agree more!! List of those I miss is far too long. Steinberg is the ONLY reason to subscribe to the S-T and my wife is the only reason we still get the Trib.
We are the only two in our cohort who still read paper newspapers. Alas and alack!
You are missed, sir.
That Phillips article on movie intermissions was fun. Auteurs like Martin Scorcese find the unplanned intermission anathema and have put the kibosh on it in the U.S. (Not in some European theaters, interestingly, where everyone's apparently used to intermissions even for two-hour movies.) But his movie is 3 and a half friggin' hours long. When you count previews, you're bumping up on four hours from taking your seat. That's a big ask. Does he prefer that people miss some of the movie or sit in discomfort?
I'm a fan, but I didn't see the Flower Moon movie at the theater, in part because it looked too depressing, but also because it was too long. Phillips nicely recounts that brief period in, I don't know, the early '60s I guess when studios revived the Gone with the Wind formula and put out long movies that were happenings, complete with lobby swag, overtures, entr'acte music, exit music, and, yes, intermissions, when the intermission music would play over speakers in the lobbies and bathrooms. They were sometimes grand epics, like Lawrence of Arabia, or goofy comedies, like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. However tedious those movies may have been -- and I think they mostly were -- It was a neat idea to goose interest in going to the movies. Could work again.
Anyway, if you want to do a really long movie, and you care at all about preserving the movie-going experience amid the streaming onslaught (as I do, Eric maybe not so much), you can't be uptight about letting theaters put in intermissions. Better yet, you should plan for them and put them in yourself.
Movies that exceed two and a half hours in length should have intermissions, but the filmmakers should make sure that they are edited in a way that the delineation point is evident and an abrupt break isn’t just jammed in at the discretion of the theater operators, which seems to be what Scorsese and his editor were miffed about.
The first movie that I saw theatrically that had an intermission was “Scarface” at the long gone River Oaks Theater in Calumet City. The intermission was perfectly placed (between the scene that ends with him gazing upon the airborne blimp and the “Take It To The Limit” montage), and if the edit wasn’t intended as an intermission break, the director certainly couldn’t have complained that it interrupted the flow in any way.
The only problem was that we couldn’t use the intermission for the usual bathroom or concession break, since the two friends I was with and I were all twelve, and had snuck in to see it (after buying tickets for “A Christmas Story”, which we had already seen). We were afraid that if we left our seats we might get caught and thrown out.
The European breaks are primarily designed to let people go out and smoke. -
Back in the day, when major motion pictures were shown initially and exclusively at a single downtown theater, they often had intermissions, but they also had reserved seats, like the legit theater. As a result, no scrum jockeying for better seats after the intermission. I’m thinking particularly of “Around the World in 80 Days” at the Michael Todd Theater and “My Fair Lady” at one of the downtown B&K palaces. The intermissions, besides offering a bathroom break, provided an additional opportunity to patronize the concession stands.