Myth Happens

1. I really felt for the cockroach I met on the stairs down to the Red Line at Park Street, cowering from the upward flood of commuters. It was backed into a little corner of the step. Its antennae were vibrating madly. It had nowhere to dart into. I wanted suddenly to scoop it up and take it to safety, but I didn't think I could do so safely, sanitarily, or without getting one or both of us stepped on. The rush of people was dense and fast-moving and directed almost completely against me. So instead I was very careful to step around it; I hope others did the same. I do not like cockroaches when they appear in my house, but I don't think that means they should all get squashed in subways.

2. No, I had no idea that Donald Sinden was one of only two people to attend the funeral of Lord Alfred Douglas. I think I've seen him only in The Cruel Sea (1953), but I love that movie so much. I am sorry he's gone.

3. Have a film-related note that appears to have been sitting on my desktop since 2012:

One of the silent stars I've missed most in the sound era is Richard Barthelmess, whom I've only seen in speaking roles—the tough-break protagonist of William Wellman's Heroes for Sale (1933), a fascinating supporting part in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). It is incomprehensible to me that he was out of movies entirely by 1942, because from a modern perspective he transitions beautifully from one style to the next, especially in his low-key, naturalistic acting, his slightly rough tenor voice and his neat-boned face. For Wellman, he's a dogged, flawed pre-Code hero, sometimes coping well with the incredible crap fate hands him and sometimes not, keeping his head above cynicism only by virtue of a kind of resigned humanist faith. He gives an amazing interior performance as the disgraced and ostracized flyer in Angels, a man who enters every scene with his shoulders tensed and a wary, half-defiant flick of a look from under his brows, his mouth braced down like a tight little reverse smile. He never says anything to defend himself; his stone face is mistaken by the other pilots for a lack of shame. He has such thick dark lashes, every time he lowers his eyes is as good as a blow. He makes two or three films after that and retires. I could have watched him happily for years. I have to assume the world of talking pictures was one in which he didn't want to—or perhaps felt he couldn't—remain.

4. Satire doesn't usually become sincere. It's a lot easier to ironize something than it is to take it the other way. Nevertheless, I have an example stuck in my head.

There's a music-hall song from 1915 called "A Conscientious Objector." I've mentioned it before. The narrator is an affected, effeminate, squeamish little conscript who's bitchy to his commanding officers, readily agrees that "I don't object to fighting Huns—but should hate them fighting me," and begs for anyone, anyone to be sent to the front instead of him. It's the punch line of the chorus—what starts off like a military roll call (send out the Army and the Navy, send out the rank and file) ends like Room 101. But for God's sake don't send me! Everybody got it? Anyone who calls themselves a pacifist is really just a scaredy-cat. And probably queer.

Flash forward to the next war (I suspect the change of occurring earlier, but I've only heard recordings from World War II) and the song has been taken up by actual soldiers who sing "I Don't Want to Join the Army" with feeling. The narrator isn't a conchie, just a guy who would much rather stay home than head to war. Despite his distaste for action, his virility is no longer in question—he spends the verses detailing his success in the sack and worrying about getting his junk shot off. The chorus, apart from a few updated references (call out the Royal Air Force) and slightly more profanity (call out the bloody cavalry), is unchanged. But for Christ's sake don't call me! Everybody got it? Anyone who doesn't want to get shot is a sensible, sympathetic person. And could totally be spending that time screwing a lady.

So let's hear it for subversion. Sadly, I don't have a third version where the narrator very sensibly doesn't want to get shot and could totally be spending that time screwing a guy, so what I can offer is Alan Cumming at Broadway Backwards 2011, doing "Don't Tell Mama" with soldiers. In a pair of leather pants.

5. Seriously, I needed a fifth thing after that? Here, have this Harry Potter cosplay.

[edit] Okay, here's the Pacific Rim making-of documentary. And now I really am going to bed.