The Brooklynks blog

  • Honored in Orlando

    In January I was honored with an award from the International Network of Golf for a cover story I wrote about New Yorker Charles Sands for The Met Golfer.

    Winning the 2016 Media Award for Profile Writing in this case was a little unconventional, since Mr. Sands died many years ago, having won the men's golf medal in the 1900 Olympics. What was remarkable about this story and made it so rewarding to work on is that his Olympic victory, which for years accounted for his small measure of fame, was probably not the most compelling accomplishment in his brief career in competitive golf; there was something exciting about digging up the narrative of his match against Winthrop Rutherford from newspaper and magazine accounts and old books, as though the force of his competitive determination imprinted itself on posterity, like a fossil relief, after everything else about him had mouldered away. I don't remember seeing any quotes from him, certainly none pertaining to golf, and only one photo of him golfing seems to have survived -- the remarkable image of him teeing it up at the Paris Olympics that Jeff Neuman used for the cover. His will to win alone wrote the story of an underdog achieving a remarkable win on a pressure-packed autumn Sunday before a gallery of New York society come to watch the bloodless feud.

    My thanks go to Jeff, peerless editor of The Met Golfer, and to then-Executive Director of the Met Golf Association Jay Mottola who has done so much for the organization, and for the magazine, which won three other ING awards this year. I couldn't be more proud of my association with the MGA.

  • Trial by Killing

    If I squint I might see parallels with some of my own circumstances the last few years, but really the reason I've become fascinated with Robert Aldrich's The Killing of Sister George is Aldrich's supreme artistry with Frank Marcus's wonderful play.

    As you see more of Aldrich's movies you come to appreciate the depth of his versatility and humanity. A number of his films verge on camp, or, like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, revel in it, but what distinguishes even the most outlandish of them is a simple feeling underlying the shooting and the shouting; The Killing of Sister George is broad, coarse, and satiric, sometimes bitterly so, but it's also sensitive and affectionate, especially toward its flawed heroine. (Incidentally, the Killing trivia section on IMDB is especially good, about a 6.9 -- we learn that the girl-on-girl sex so disgusted longtime Aldrich collaborator composer Frank DeVol, he quit working on Aldrich's pictures. Good riddance -- the scene DeVol found so offensive plays effectively as the movie's climax, in part because Aldrich considers the two not as lesbians, per se, but as people.)

    Its view of lesbian life is progressive but unblinkered, with a detachment once referred to as "adult." Beryl Reid's George/June exacting punishment from Childie/Alice (Susannah York) by forcing her to chew on her cigar (which Childie turns on her by making a show of relishing the filthy cheroot out of sheer perversity, which George takes as a bad omen) is a supreme metaphor for straight and gay marriage alike.

    Visually The Killing is startling, presented for the most part with the magnitude and pacing of an action movie. At pivotal moments the frame is distinctively and cinematically suited to the poignant story at the film's heart. One thing that is almost uconsciously disturbing is how unattractive Susannah York is from the start: despite her natural, hyper-sexy gamine appeal, when she's introduced she seems awkward, puerile, and unphotogenic; during the extended scene when she and George go to the lesbian nightclub to perform to do a Laurel and Hardy bit, her face is covered in greasepaint, less reminiscent of Stan Laurel than plain ghastly.

    If you think that actors talking about their "best side" are just being vain, watch your own image taken from various POVs in a video recording sometime. Or, just try to find a shot of Susannah York looking pretty in the first half of The Killing Of Sister George, fighting some harsh lighting and a succession of chiffon baby-doll nighties in a failing attempt not to look like a vapid duck

     

    then one of the most unfortunate wardrobe choices imaginable, a frilly apron over a polyester old-man leisure shirt

    Aldrich even manages to make her look unappealing in her undies

    Hold on a second, though, because here is a peaceful interlude that interrupts George's imploding professional and personal lives: in need of a good cry, George crosses the street to the flat of her neighbor, Betty Thaxter, a handsome madame/dominatrix, seemingly the only kind and unselfish being in George's life -- played by Patricia Medina, second wife of Joseph Cotten (!) and, according to IMDB, a big Lou Costello fan (!!). Dressed in a kimono, Betty is boiling water for tea in tableau framed by a doorway, in a shot reminiscent of a classic Japanese family drama

    in case you weren't sure you'd been transported to an Ozu film, the off-angled wall behind George in the answering shot shows an opaque latticed window looking suspiciously like a shoji panel.


     

    A few scenes later, as Alice begins to seduce Mercy Croft in earnest, she starts to get some better angles

    and when the time comes to take her leave she is wearing a pretty dress that shows off a fashionable hairstyle and her beautiful neckline.

    It isn't easy to say what purpose this sort of manipulation serves in Killing. It's not the wanton bullying of a pretentious second-rate director trying to bring life to his hollow metaphysic of pain. At first thought, the instinctive, sympathetic charm of an actress as alluring and intelligent and independent as Susannah York might simply need squelching for the sake of the drama. Surely one truth of the film is that Alice/Childie is so natural a seducer that she only comes alive when in pursuit; without that motive, she is indistinguishable from one of the dozens of dolls on her shelf. That she should become more beautiful as she vanishes from her life is another bitter aspect of George's superannuation.

    From the very first glimpse of Alice -- when, hearing George at the door, she hastily and inexplicably rearranges some objects around the apartment, as though she had something to hide, even though she's been lounging around the house -- it becomes clear that having nothing in her own life to conceal, she feels compelled to conjure up a counterfeit narrative. However trivial it may be, she needs to lie about something until she's found a real escape.

    It's not surprising that Susannah York reportedly fought Aldrich bitterly throughout the sex scene, but it also wouldn't be at all surprising if the source of her frustration had in fact been the director's dismissive brutality towards her character -- or just those outfits. What's clear is, whatever demands Aldrich made, there's great wisdom behind that invisible hand.
     

  • The Wilpons: The Men I Hate to Hate

    With the trading deadline approaching Met fans are wondering what the team is going to do, and the changing fortunes of Duda, Niese, Gee, and Tejada -- just to name four -- haven't brought much clarity. It's hard to imagine upsetting the relative stability with the team playing okay, unless maybe to get a slugging shortstop. But at the cost of one of your outstanding pitchers?

    It can't be much fun to be on the block. However much giant salaries have changed professional sports, this is still true: it sucks to be traded. You’re leaving your team -- no matter how much opportunity there might be somewhere else.

    For a manager, too -- it can’t be easy to part with a key player; especially if he’s a good, well-liked guy, you’re apt to contend with a little resentment, even if it’s unspoken. At the same time, from a organizational standpoint, culling the herd can be useful -- not so much to bring the team to heel (though this might be a part of it), rather to change the team’s identity, its self-image.

    This is the sort of thing the Mets have actually done fairly well the last few years. And even when circumstances have practically forced them to make a move (Marlon Byrd, Ike Davis) they’ve handled it professionally and openly and minimized the disruption -- one sign of a solid organization. There are other indicators of a healthy, stable franchise, too, like a thriving minor-league system which has produced a reliable stream of prospects.

    In all, the Mets are an easy team to root for, even if the Wilpons seem to make it hard. When they make an effort to rally fans, they only make it worse (sending out an email pleading for fan support, for instance).

    Why do Met fans hate these owners? All spring long, I found myself defending them. Yes, they are greedy and foolish, I would say, and the kid really seems to be not very bright at all (seriously, how do you lose Buffalo as your minor league franchise and then end up in Vegas?) but hasn’t he found the right GM (even if he hasn’t given him any money to work with)? Look at the good they’ve done, like building a gem of a minor league ballpark in Coney Island, or Citi (even if the team is starting to look like a writeoff in a scheme to turn the old junkyards into a real estate scheme).

    Even given the “evens”, compared to your typical pro franchise owner, they are boy scouts. Next to Donald Sterling -- angelic. Beside James Dolan? Organizational geniuses. I hate to say better the devil you know, but remember how many Met fans were eager to rush into Steven Cohen’s arms? We’d be owned by the US District Court at this point.

    It’s a thankless enterprise, team ownership. Unless you extort tax breaks and other favors from your city, you really aren’t doing your job -- and unless they fork over, the city isn’t doing its citizens any good. (If you don’t agree, consider what Walter O’Malley’s options were when Robert Moses steamrolled his plans to build a ballpark where Barclay’s now stands, and what happened to Brooklyn when the Dodgers bolted.) You treat your athletes like cattle, which causes untold resentment from every quarter -- even though you pay for them, they expect you to feed them, and if you’re not careful they’ll wander off or get shot. And at the end of the season, only one owner out of thirty is considered a genius, and that’s if he hasn’t pissed off the hometown media. When you or I complain about Carlos Beltran or slight David Wright we’re just being fans -- when Fred Wilpon does it to a New Yorker writer, he sounds mean and bitter.

    Which for Fred Wilpon means, avoid interviews. And here’s more advice: trust the competent reliable people you have hired to run your operations, and don’t get involved.

    And fellow Met fans: remember who we are. We’re not the Masters of the Universe franchise in this city -- our fans don’t ride limos or show up to the ballpark in $5000 suits: we’re Doris from Rego Park, the chubby unshaven guy who hasn’t combed his hair in a month wearing three blue and orange windbreakers in limping towards Citi Field in 90-degree heat carrying two dozen scorecards. It only makes sense our owners are creepy but reasonable Nassau County real estate shysters.

  • Baby You Can't Drive My Bike

    It bothers me when people say "drive" a motorcycle. Because you don't drive a motorcycle, you ride it, just like you ride a bicycle. In a way it would make sense to refer to “driving” a bicycle, since you actually provide the motive force for it -- but no one says that, probably because the sense of "drive" is really more about steering and controlling the vehicle’s speed and handling. On the other hand, if no one ever suggests you “drive your bicycle to my house" why do people so often say "drive your motorcycle"? The answer is in the stable, munching alfalfa, maybe the only other species on Earth with reason to celebrate the advent of the internal combustion engine. When most of our overland travel needs were fulfilled by horses, you would drive a carriage on the one hand, or ride a horse on the other. When bicycles came along, obviously you were riding one, something like riding a horse. But with the advent of motor cars -- motor carriages -- in effect you had harnessed a big team of horses, hence you drove them. Given that 200hp motorcycles aren’t at all unusual, I suppose there is some logic to the usage. But the only motorcycle you’ll ever see me driving will be on the bed of my truck, busted.

  • Proof God exists?

    I often stop to chat with the Egyptian guy who runs the laundromat downstairs from our apartment in Greenpoint. Mustafa -- he prefers "Mac" -- never is in a sore mood, and is originally from Alexandria, where I've always wanted to visit. We always find something to talk about -- we're in much the same boat, middle-aged men scraping along to retain our dignity, respectful if not observant of our fathers' faiths, cynical about politics. Last week, we somehow got onto the subject of communism. "Tell me, Rafi, they don't have communism in this country? So when a business fails, everyone stand around, watch it die in this country, no yes? But give all that money to those banks, Rafi? What you call that, if it's not communism?"

    We always seem to make one another laugh. This afternoon as we were standing talking outside the doorway to his store, a woman doing her wash called him in to help her with something. He came back out a few minutes later and we resumed talking about whatever -- if there is a Devil, how cheap and delicious fava bean sandwiches are in Alexandria, what a terrible place our end of Driggs Avenue is to run a business -- until a minute later, she called him back inside, and once more he left and returned. The third time she interrupted us, he cast me a pained look and said, "I gave her five dollars in change and she says I owe her a quarter. I counted again to show her." Then he glanced at her over his shoulder and said something in what sounded like Arabic -- startling me, because I was sure she was a Polish housewife.

    Mac saw my confusion. "I have just said to her in Arabic, 'May God shorten your life.'" I buckled over laughing to think this tight-lipped middle-aged woman blithely ignorant of the deadly efficient coldness of his curse, the unkindest wish I have ever heard.

    My enjoyment amused him. "Yes, it is a vicious expression. In Egypt you might say it as a joke, or you might say it seriously."

    I wished I were a brilliant language philosopher like Wittgenstein or Chomsky, then I could make an argument that since the language can create such a role for an entity, the likelihood for the existence of that entity stands in direct proportion to the strength of flavor of statements it engenders. Such infinite hatred surely contains infinite life.
     

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