Allen Kopp – Page 66 – Literary Fictions

Behind the Candelabra ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Behind the Candelabra ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Whether you like Liberace or not, you have to admit he was one of a kind. He had an innate musical ability, which he combined with his charisma, charm, and personality to make him one of the most famous and recognizable entertainers of the twentieth century. For twenty years, from the 1950s to the 1970s, he was the highest-paid entertainer in the world. Most of us knew him from his many performances on TV, but people all over the world flocked to his stage performances. As he says in the movie about his life, Behind the Candelabra, he was all about giving people a good time and making them happy.

There were always rumors about Liberace being gay, which he vehemently denied in public (even concocting a “romance” between himself and Sonja Henie). When he died of AIDS in 1987, the truth about his sexual orientation could no longer be hidden. Even his wily agent wasn’t able to sell the story that he died of heart failure brought on by overwork and fatigue.

Behind the Candelabra is about the sordid part of Liberace’s life that he most certainly would not have wanted to be made public. It’s based on a book written by one Scott Thorson who, for six years, was Liberace’s live-in “boyfriend.” Scott Thorson was all of forty years younger than Liberace. At one point in their relationship, Liberace was going to “adopt” Thorson because he always regretted not being a father, even though Thorson was an adult at the time. Thorson even consented to having his face made over by a creepy Hollywood plastic surgeon (Rob Lowe) to make himself resemble Liberace or to create the illusion that they were related by blood.

Liberace showered Thorson with expensive gifts, jewelry, and cars. They shared the same bed and spent many hours alone together in the Jacuzzi. After a few years, though, the relationship began to sour, as one might expect. Turned off by Thorson’s drug use, Liberace began to pursue his interest in other sexual partners. The “houseboy,” Carlucci, tells Thorson early in his relationship with Liberace that there have been a whole string of “boyfriends” and they have all, for one reason or another, been sent packing. (Liberace never dumps them himself; his agent does it for him.)

Behind the Candelabra is being shown on HBO in the U.S. because, according to IMDb, it’s “too gay” for theatrical release. Michael Douglas plays Liberace. While I’ve never been a Michael Douglas fan, I think he makes a really good Liberace. (Could anybody else have done it better?) Matt Damon plays Scott Thorson. Even though he’s too old for the part, he makes it work (with makeup and what is obviously some computer enhancement). A barely recognizable Debbie Reynolds plays Liberace’s mother.

Behind the Candelabra is fun, flashy, and entertaining to watch if you like behind-the-scenes showbiz stories, but do we really need to know about the secret sex life of a beloved entertainer who has been dead for more than twenty-five years? If you’re the type who would rather remember Liberace as the smiling, likeable gentleman who appeared on TV during his heyday, then Behind the Candelabra is probably not for you.

June 9, 2013 by allen0997

Queen for a Day

Queen for a Day ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

The year is 1958 and Mrs. Thelma Caswell has applied to go on the TV show Queen for a Day. That’s the show where four contestants, all women, go in front of a studio audience and tell their unhappy stories. Delivery is everything because the audience votes for the saddest, most deserving story, with its applause; that is, the loudest applause determines the winner. (There can be no doubt about which story garners the loudest applause because it’s registered on a scientific instrument known as the “applause-o-meter.”)

The lucky winner is given what she wants and needs most to make her difficult life more bearable, whether it’s a wheelchair or a washing machine or an iron lung—sometimes all those things. The losers are given a basket containing colorful little bars of soap, a set of shot glasses, and coupons for reduced prices on lobster dinners.

One month after applying to be on the show, Thelma is asked to come to the television studio where the show is produced for what they call an “initial interview.” The “producers” of the show (a fat man and a mannish woman) want to speak to her to make sure she is “telegenic” enough and won’t “freeze up” in front of the television cameras and the studio audience. Thelma is told at the end of the interview, which takes an entire afternoon, that she will be notified of the producers’ decision regarding her suitability to be a contestant on the show.

In the days and weeks that follow, she won’t allow herself to become excited at the possibility of being on Queen for a Day. In fact, she tries to put it out of her mind because there is a very real possibility they won’t want her. For that reason, she doesn’t tell her husband, her children, or any of her friends or family; she will tell them if and when she is chosen to be on the show.

Finally, when she least expects it, she receives the phone call. She is requested to be at the television studio at ten o’clock for a twelve o’clock taping of Queen for a Day on Thursday. When she hangs up the phone, her hands are shaking and for a few minutes she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She seems to be walking on air. When she regains control of her senses, she immediately starts going through her closet to see what she has to wear. She doesn’t see anything that she can stand anymore, so she goes shopping.

She tries on many dresses in the store but has a hard time deciding. Since the show is in black and white (color is still a few years away), she thinks she will look better in a light color, although black or navy blue will make her appear thinner. (She has put on a lot of extra weight in the last couple of years and she has heard somewhere that TV cameras add fifteen or twenty pounds to a person’s appearance.) She settles on a simple white silk dress with peach-colored trim, elegant but not flashy. She can’t think about how much it cost.

On the day before the taping, she spends six hours in the beauty parlor, availing herself of all the services they have to offer. She gets a henna rinse, a cut, and a permanent wave that makes her hair look like a poodle dog, but still she believes she looks better than she has ever looked in her life.

That night she hardly sleeps at all. She didn’t think she would be nervous, but now that it’s getting so close she feels as if she might die. She feels alternately sick with dread and giddy with excitement. In the morning she’s up long before she needs to be and spends hours on getting dressed, “putting on her face,” and getting her hair just so. When finally it’s time to leave for the TV studio, she feels thoroughly exhausted.

She can’t find a place to park so she squeezes her car in at the end of a block too close to a fireplug. She is sure she will have a parking ticket when she comes out but that’s a trivial matter, she believes, that she will deal with when the time comes.

She expects the emcee of the show, Durwood Sherwood, to be there to greet her with a little hug and a peck on the cheek, but instead she is directed to a third-floor office where she finds herself before a middle-aged woman behind a desk with facial hair and big glasses that make her look like an unhappy owl. The woman gives Thelma a stony look and bites down on her dentures.

“May I help you?” she asks.

“I’m here to be on the show,” Thelma says.

“What show might that be?”

“Why, Queen for a Day!”

“I know,” the woman says with a laugh. “I was just messing with you. Queen for a Day is the only show taping today. What’s your name?”

“Thelma Caswell.”

“All right. Have a seat. I’ll let them know you’re here.”

Thelma sits on an orange plastic couch while the woman picks up a phone and murmurs into it words that Thelma is not able to make out. In a few minutes a door opens and the fat man who Thelma met earlier as one of the producers of the show emerges.

“How nice to see you again, Miz Caswell!” he says, holding out his hand for her to shake. “Please follow me.”

He takes hold of her arm as if she is blind and leads her down a hallway.

“Are you excited about being on Queen for a Day?” he asks.

“Oh, yes!” she says.

“Well, right this way.”

He takes her around a corner and stops at another door. He opens it and gives her a little shove inside. “Well, have fun!” he says and then he’s gone.

The other three contestants are sitting in chairs against the wall like in a doctor’s waiting room, smiling at her wanly. She sits down with them, making four. It’s quiet in the room and nobody is saying anything, as if they are in a church. It doesn’t seem to Thelma like the kind of room they put you in before you go on TV. She wonders if she is in the right place or if they have mistaken her for somebody else.

Soon a man with a clipboard comes in and gives them nametags that he instructs them to put on their chests over their hearts. There’s Buffy, Chichi, Peaches, and Thelma.

“We use only first names,” he says. “You’ll be up in alphabetical order, but you don’t need to worry about that. Durwood will cue you. Now, if we’re all ready, we’ll go in and meet the studio audience.”

They all stand up as if they are one and follow the man out of the room. He takes them through a labyrinth of dark passages lined with what looks like clutter until they come to a black curtain. He arranges them in a line in reverse alphabetical order (Thelma, Peaches, Chichi, and Buffy), opens the curtain and motions for them to go through it.

The studio audience, numbering about five hundred, has already been sitting for two hours. They have been “primed” and are relaxed and ready to be entertained. They are cued to applaud at the entrance of the four contestants.

“And here they are!” Durwood Sherwood announces in his sonorous voice. “There are four of them! They are all worthy! But only one of them will be. Queen! For! A! Day!”

The audience applauds wildly again while the contestants take their places behind four little podiums bearing their names. Two cameras roll forward to beam their movements to the millions of people watching at home.

After Durwood has dispensed with the preliminaries, it’s time to get down to the business of hearing from the contestants. Buffy is first.

“I think you have a very special story to tell us, don’t you, Buffy?” Durwood cues her.

“Well, Durwood,” she says, “I used to be a bareback rider in the circus.”

“Ohhhhhh!” sighs the audience.

“During a performance to a packed house two years ago, the horse I was riding stumbled and fell. I, of course, was thrown forward. Two clowns tried to catch me but they missed. I landed on a low wall that was used to separate the audience from the performers. I had serious neck injuries.”

Here she pauses for effect and points to her neck brace that is, oddly enough, the same color green as the dress she is wearing, making it look as if she has no neck at all. Her black hair interspersed with gray is splayed over the neck brace to her shoulders. Her mouth is a wide, grim, lipless line. As she stares into the TV camera, she looks like a frog about to catch a fly.

“I was in a coma for two weeks,” she continues. “When I woke up, my doctors told me I would never ride again. Bareback riding was all I knew. There I was, my livelihood taken away, with two children and no husband. My daughter desperately wants to go to modeling school. She is so pretty and everybody who has ever seen her believes she has a future in modeling. If we had enough money to put her through school, she could get herself a good job and support the family while I get myself back on my feet.”

The audience is here cued to applause. The applause is interspersed with whistles and cheers.

“Now we have Chichi,” Durwood says. “Chichi, won’t you tell us your story?”

“Well, Durwood,” Chichi says in a breathy whisper, “my husband and I have eight children.”

“Ahhhhhh!” sighs the audience.

“We were always able to get along quite well on my husband’s salary, but he got into a fight with the foreman at the factory where he worked and got fired. That was six months ago. He hasn’t been able to find another job. When his unemployment runs out, we won’t have any income. He’s depressed and has been drinking quite heavily. I think he’s seeing another woman.”

Here she lowers her head and squeezes her eyes shut. The camera moves in for a close-up, showing the ugly splotches on her face and bare upper arms. For a few seconds she can’t speak at all.

“I know this is difficult,” Durwood says sympathetically.

When she speaks again, her voice is a-tremble. “If we had the money for my husband to go to trade school, he could get a good job as an auto mechanic and everything would be all right again. It would give him a new purpose in life and would make him stop drinking and running around so much.”

“That’s wonderful!” Durwood says, holding up his arms to indicate that Chichi is finished. The audience applauds.

“Now let us hear from Peaches,” he says. “Peaches, won’t you tell us your story?”

“Well, Durwood,” she says, her fleshy chin wobbling. “My husband Stan and I have four beautiful children, two boys and two girls. The oldest is twelve and the youngest four.”

“And there’s something quite different about your husband Stan, isn’t there?” Durwood prompts her.

“Yes,” she says in a kind of drawl, ”Stan is four foot tall. He’s a midget!”

Here a picture of a tiny, smiling man is flashed on the screen. He’s wearing a tuxedo and top hat and is carrying a cane. The audience applauds and cheers.

“And I couldn’t love him more if he was six-and-a-half foot tall!” Peaches shrieks.

“Ahhhhhh!” sighs the audience.

She pivots her head from side to side, obviously enjoying the attention. Her eyes are tiny slits and her cheeks apple-like, her head an inverted black bowl.

“I’ve always been a short woman,” she says, “but I’m a whole foot taller than he is!”

The camera pans out over the audience to show how much they are enjoying this moment.

“All is not well, though, at your house, is it, dear?” Durwood asks.

“No,” Peaches says, a handkerchief at the ready. “Stan works as a bouncer in a nightclub. The pay is meager, at best, but he works very hard and loves all of us very much.”

“Ahhhhhh!” sighs the audience.

“Our youngest son, Leroy, is four,” she says.

“And is Leroy a midget, too?” Durwood asks.

“No, he isn’t. He’s normal-sized. Although he’s only four, he’s almost as tall as his father and is going to be a big man some day.”

“Bless his heart!” Durwood says.

She waits a moment for the laughter to subside before she continues. “The problem is not with his height but with his eyes. He has a rare eye disorder and will go completely blind in the next few years if he doesn’t have an eye operation. We aren’t able to afford the operation on the money Stan makes as a bouncer. We already have a second mortgage on our house and can’t borrow another cent until we pay off the debts we already have. That will take years and it might be too late to save little Leroy’s eyesight.”

She begins crying uncontrollably, covering her eyes, and the audience almost swoons with sympathy.

Durwood gives a big sigh and looks directly into the camera. His eyes are moist. “We’ll all be rooting for little Leroy, won’t we?” he says earnestly, and the audience breaks into thunderous applause.

After a few seconds he holds up his hands to bring the applause to an end. “And, now,” he says, “that brings us to our final contestant, Thelma. Thelma, won’t you tell us your story?”

“Well, Durwood,” she says, feeling more at ease than she expected, “I don’t know where to begin. My husband is in prison and has no hope of getting out for at least six more years. We spent all the money we had for his defense. I have a sixteen-year-old daughter, Lulu, who is a paranoid schizophrenic. She believes aliens from outer space are trying to kidnap her and she needs constant supervision. My eleven-year-old son, Raphael, is an albino. He’s very smart but he has to go to an expensive special school because the kids in public school would kill him.”

“Ohhhhhh!” sighs the audience.

“Our house is heavily mortgaged and we’re behind in the payments,” she continues. “The bank is about to foreclose. I’d like to have enough money to make the back payments to keep us in the house for a few more months until I can finish the novel I’m writing and get it published. It’s sure to be a bestseller.”

“Well, well, well,” Durwood says. “We wish you and your family all the best!” He faces the audience and raises his arms as a signal for them to applaud.

When the applause subsides, he holds the microphone in both hands and looks reflectively at the floor. “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “we’ve heard the stories from our four contestants. Now the time has come for members of our studio audience to vote with their applause for the contestant they believe is most worthy to be crowed Queen for a Day!”

There’s a little bit of stage resetting as Durwood retreats to the left away from the contestants and the TV camera rolls in for close-ups. The first close-up is of Buffy. The picture the audience sees at home is Buffy’s face with the applause-o-meter on the bottom half of the screen. The audience applauds, with some cheering and whistling interspersed. The needle on the applause-o-meter goes over about three quarters of the way. The same with Chichi. Then Peaches. Then Thelma. There is a drum roll. All four contestants are nearly tied, but the judges determine that the needle advanced just a little more for Peaches than for the others. Peaches is Queen for a Day! It was the blind baby and the midget husband that did it!

Peaches is crowned and robed to the cheering of the audience. She cries, screams, and jumps up and down. When the hoopla subsides, Durwood announces in an excited voice that little Leroy will have an eye operation at the finest eye clinic in the country and his eyesight will be saved, all because his mother was crowned. Queen! For! A! Day!

Thelma gets away just as soon as she can. She doesn’t want anybody looking at her. She is the loser, along with Buffy and Chichi, and there’s no joy in that. She wishes now that she had never gone on such a show that’s obviously aimed at imbeciles. She sees now that she’s smarter than that, better than that.

While she’s driving home, her hands are shaking and her mouth is dry. She wants to find a hole and crawl inside and die. She cringes at the thought of her mother and her friends seeing the show and laughing at how insipid she is, along with those others. She has humiliated herself in front of millions of people, bared her soul, and then lost to a fat little woman with slit eyes and a midget for a husband. She can hear the world laughing at her! Woman, thy name is Fool!

By the time she gets home, it has started to rain so she pulls the car into the garage. With the motor still running, she gets out of the car and closes the garage door before any of the neighbors have a chance to see her.

It’s comforting, somehow, with the rain on the roof and the purr of the engine. It feels intimate, restful, secluded. Her own little world. Leaving the car door open, she stretches out on the seat with her feet under the steering wheel and the top of her head against the passenger-side door. Soon she begins to feel drowsy. She has never known a sweeter feeling.

May 30, 2013June 3, 2013 by allen0997

The Borgias, Season 3 ~ A Capsule Review

The Borgias, Season 3 ~ A Capsule Review by Allen Kopp

The Borgias is now in its third season on Showtime. I’ve seen every episode, and what I like most about it is the way it looks. It is, of course, set in Italy during the Renaissance (late 1400s). The sets and costumes are lavish and authentic-looking in every detail. The Vatican looks the way you imagine it must have looked over 500 years ago. How do they do it? Doesn’t it take tons of money just to achieve that “look”? It is photographed in a way to make it look like paintings of the period, with lots of soft reds and yellows. Every scene is like a painting in motion. Even the outdoor scenes are stunningly beautiful. If you don’t like the story or get tired of too many sex scenes and too much intrigue, just turn down the sound and enjoy the way it looks.

At the end of season 2, Pope Alexander Sixtus, the “Borgia Pope” (played by Jeremy Irons) was poisoned by his archenemy, Cardinal Della Rovere, with a poison called cantarella. We had to wait until season 3 to see if he survived the poisoning, but I had a feeling he would. He did survive, thanks to some quick thinking on the part of his daughter, Lucrezia, who administered charcoal as an antidote.

Cardinal Della Rovere was captured and imprisoned for his part in the attempted assassination of the pope, but he was released from prison by a “friend” and escaped. When the pope discovers that some of his cardinals (members of the “consistory”) were involved in the plot to kill him, he strips them of their offices and considerable wealth and prestige. Even with the cardinals gone who want to murder him, the pope still has lots of enemies.

While Cardinal Della Rovere was Pope Alexander’s archenemy in seasons 1 and 2, he has now receded into the background since the assassination attempt failed. The pope’s new archenemy is one Catherina Sforza, a powerful and power-hungry dame who lives in a castle at Forli and who will do anything to bring down the Borgias. The pope calls her “the Great Arachne.” She is constantly trying to bring influential “friends” into her alliance against the pope and his family, using whatever means they have at their disposal. She would rather slit a Borgia’s throat than to look at him.

Pope Alexander is the father of a brood of “bastard” children, meaning he was never married to their mother, although the mother remains a part of the “family.” (She must endure the pope’s string of “mistresses.”) Principal among the Borgia children are Cesare Borgia, a one-time cardinal who is his father’s most loyal ally, and Lucrezia Borgia, who gave birth to an illegitimate son fathered by a sweet stable boy, whom her brother, Juan, had murdered. Cesare and Lucrezia are both young and stunning-looking. They continue to have an unwholesome interest in each other, even though Lucrezia has just taken her second husband and Cesare has a new wife from France. (The evil and dangerous Juan Borgia was murdered in season 2 by his brother, Cesare. The pope doesn’t know yet who murdered Juan, his favorite son, even though Cesare has dropped a few hints.)

While the Borgias are motivated by ambition, they also seem, in large part, to be motivated by their love for each other. This keeps them, I suppose, from being all bad. If they are to survive in a swamp full of poisonous snakes, they must be snake-like themselves. Life can’t be simple for a family that holds immense power and has no intention of giving it up.

May 27, 2013May 28, 2013 by allen0997

The Orphan Master’s Son ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Every year I read the work of fiction (usually a novel but sometimes a volume of short stories) that wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. For me, there have been many high points (Ironweed, Martin Dressler, The Hours, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, The Road, A Confederacy of Dunces) and some low points (anything involving yuppie angst or “relationships”). It seems that some years the winner is based more on “suitability” or “political correctness” rather than merit.

This year’s winner is The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson. It is set in North Korea, the one country on earth that is like no other. I had never given much thought before to North Korea. It is a communist totalitarian society. People are routinely tortured or imprisoned in horrible prison camps where they are certain to die in a few months. There is no religion other than worship of the “Dear Leader” and the state. The simple freedoms we take for granted in the United States are absent. It is a crime punishable by death to own certain items, such as a Bible or an unauthorized radio. People “disappear” overnight, for no apparent reason, and nobody ever knows what happened to them. People must act and think at all time for the good of the collective. There is no individuality.

The protagonist of The Orphan Master’s Son is a young man named Jun Do. He grows up in an orphan asylum, although he claims he has one parent living, the “orphan master.” In young adulthood, he is conscripted to help kidnap people who happen to be unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (What they do with these kidnapped people is not fully explained.) When he is older he ends up as a radio operator on a North Korean fishing vessel. What happens to him on the fishing vessel drives the narrative for the rest of the novel.

Only married men are allowed to work on fishing vessels. Their wives’ likenesses are tattooed on their chests. If any of them dare to defect to Japan or some other country, their wives and families can be tortured and killed. Since Jun Do doesn’t have a wife, the men on the fishing vessel tattoo on his chest the likeness of Sun Moon, Korea’s national actress and a favorite of the Dear Leader, who has made her what she is. All her films are propaganda disguised as entertainment.

Sun Moon’s husband is the mysterious and powerful Commander Ga. We don’t know much about Commander Ga, except that he is cruel and feared. Through a quirk of fate (or many quirks of fate), Jun Do kills Commander Ga and assumes his identity. From that point on in the story, Jun Do becomes Commander Ga. In pretending to be Sun Moon’s husband (and father to her two children), he falls in love with her and finally, through many twists and turns, determines her fate. He is inspired by the story of the movie Casablanca, in which “the honorable man stays behind.”

While The Orphan Master’s Son is easy to read and held my interest for much of its 443 pages, the reading of it seemed interminable to me. After about page 300, I was ready for it to end. Too much torture and unrelieved grimness. I mostly came away with the impression that I sure am glad I wasn’t born in North Korea. I don’t think I’d last a whole day there and it’s a world I don’t want to revisit anytime soon.

May 26, 2013May 28, 2013 by allen0997

Mud ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Mud ~ A Capsule Movie Review By Allen Kopp

Mud is a contemporary story set almost entirely on an unnamed Arkansas river. Fourteen-year-old Ellis lives with his parents on a sort of houseboat and they make their living from the river. His parents are decent people but they seem unhappy. His mother wants to separate from his father and move into town. Their way of life on the river is coming to an end.

One day when Ellis and his friend Neckbone take their boat to an apparently uninhabited island on the river, they discover a boat, intact, about twenty feet off the ground lodged in a tree. It came to be there from a recent flood. When they climb up into the boat, they find signs that someone has been living in it. Soon after, they meet a man who is known only as Mud (Matthew McConaughey). He is dirty and hungry but friendly. Ellis is drawn to him and wants to help him but Neckbone is more skeptical. Mud makes a deal with Ellis and Neckbone whereby they will help him get the boat out of the tree in exchange for his .45 caliber pistol. He plans to use the boat to escape up the river, but first he is waiting for someone to come to him, a girl named Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), with whom he has been in love since he was a child.

Mud has to hide out on the island because he has killed a man who had wronged Juniper. The man’s brother and father are after Mud, intent on killing him. They are terrorizing Juniper because they believe she knows where Mud is and can lead them to him. If Mud can get the boat out of the tree and get it in running order, he and Juniper can run away together, he believes.

When Ellis and Neckbone see Juniper, they see why Mud loves her. Ellis begins taking letters to Juniper from Mud and generally helping Mud in any way he can in his plan to escape. They devise a plan whereby they will take Juniper to Mud, but she doesn’t show up at the appointed time. This is when Ellis begins to see things as they really are. Juniper is just a floozy who will take up with any man. She says she loves Mud but Ellis begins to doubt it. The perfect love that he thought held Mud and Juniper together doesn’t exist at all. He begins to see that Mud has only used him and Neckbone. This disappointment parallels the disintegration of his own family and their way of life on the river. Even his own romance with a slightly older girl named May Pearl ends in disappointment.

Mud is a story about the South that might have been written by William Faulkner or Erskine Caldwell. It’s a coming-of-age story but also a story about friendship, family, and lost love. There are no special effects, no computer-generated razzle-dazzle. Just believable characters and solid storytelling.

May 12, 2013 by allen0997

The Great Gatsby ~ A Capsule Movie Review

The Great Gatsby ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

The Great Gatsby stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the fabulously wealthy, mysterious Jay Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, the woman who Gatsby has lost and attempts to regain, with tragic results. It is told by Gatsby’s one true friend and confidante, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), who innocently falls under Gatsby’s spell. The Great Gatsby is directed by Baz Luhrmann in a grand visual style (remember Moulin Rouge a few years ago?) that never gets in the way of the story. There have been other film versions of the venerable American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but this one is by far the best.

The story is set in the 1920s. No other decade could have spawned such a story. Not only did the 1920s roar, but they also boomed. There were fabulous amounts of money to be made. It was a time of great optimism. The bubble seemingly would never burst. Jay Gatsby is the perfect figure for the times. He lives in an enormous seaside “palace” on Long Island. He drives a custom-made yellow convertible. He gives lavish parties that he doesn’t attend but observes from a distance. He conducts shadowy business deals over the phone. Because nobody knows much about him, he is the object of much speculation.

Five years earlier, at the end of World War I (before Gatsby made his fortune), he had met and fallen in love with one Daisy Fay of Louisville, Kentucky. Daisy loved him in return but was not going to marry a man without money. She ended up marrying a brutish lout of a man named Tom Buchanan, heir to one of the largest fortunes in the country, and they took up residence on Long Island.

During the five years that Gatsby and Daisy are apart, he never forgets her and never stops believing that the two of them can be together, even though she is married to another man. Now immensely wealthy, he buys the estate just across the bay from Tom and Daisy and spends a lot of time standing on the pier looking across the bay, reaching for the green light that represents for him what is unattainable. He gives lavish parties, to which nobody is invited but goes to anyway, because he’s hoping that Daisy will just “appear” at one of them. Nick Carraway, callow and humble bond salesman, rents the caretaker’s cottage near Gatsby’s home and befriends Gatsby. Learning that Nick is a cousin of Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby gets Nick to arrange a reunion. When Gatsby and Daisy meet again, the old spark of five years earlier is reignited. Will she divorce Tom and marry Gatsby? In the end, it seems she hardly knows what she wants.

Fans of Fitzgerald’s novel, of which I am one, will not be disappointed with this movie adaptation. It is faithful to the novel but, for me, the best thing about it is its lavish visual style. It is, first and foremost, a visual experience (in 3D, no less), especially for those who know the story so well and know what is coming. My favorite scene is Gatsby’s party with everybody happy and dancing to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, with fireworks exploding in the sky. I want to see it again.

The Great Gatsby does not have a happy ending but it couldn’t have been any other way. The grand future that Gatsby envisioned with him and Daisy happily in love is not meant to be. The bubble always bursts, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

May 11, 2013May 12, 2013 by allen0997

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls ~ A Capsule Book Review

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls is the title of David Sedaris’s new book of essays. This book is much like David Sedaris’s seven other books of essays (Barrel Fever, Naked, Holidays on Ice, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You are Engulfed in Flames, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk), meaning that it’s funny, entertaining and full of his trademark self-deprecating humor.

If you are a fan of David Sedaris, you know that his writing is as easy and quick to read as anything you’ve ever read in your life. The word “essays” seems a little formal and academic for these little stories that differ from fiction stories in that they are about real life instead of being made up. They could easily pass for fiction if you didn’t know any better. At the center of each story is David Sedaris himself talking about things that have happened to him (sometimes, but not very often, in the voice of somebody else).

The experiences he relates involve everything from his outspoken, rough-around-the-edges parents to visiting a French dentist to dealing with litter in the English countryside; from having a colonoscopy to meeting an interesting stranger on a European train; from feeding strips of meat to a kookaburra (a large bird) in Australia to dealing with a stolen laptop computer; from eating at less-than-sanitary restaurants in China to purchasing a stuffed owl from a very forthcoming British taxidermist.

The only thing about Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls that I didn’t like is when he ventures into the odious and offensive subject of politics. I despise politics, politicians and all things political. I would rather not hear anybody’s political views. If you don’t bore me with politics, I will extend you the same courtesy.

David Sedaris is a true literary star, a real celebrity, although you’d never know it from his humble demeanor and appearance. Years ago I stood in line for over an hour at one of his book signing events to get him to sign my copies of Holidays on Ice and Me Talk Pretty One Day. (The bookstore where the event took place waived its no-smoking policy for him only for that evening.) I had been to many book signings but had never stood in line that long before (or since). Somehow it seemed worth it. I still have the two signed books. Maybe someday it will be like owning a signed, first-edition copy of Tom Sawyer.

May 6, 2013May 6, 2013 by allen0997

The Beauty Box

The Beauty Box ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

When Noreen set the plate of salmon croquettes and macaroni and cheese in front of Odell, he gave her a significant look but didn’t say anything. He was hoping for chicken or beef stew, at least. He didn’t like salmon croquettes; they had little soft fish bones in them that he tried not to think of as bones as he chewed them.

“Do you notice anything different about me?” Noreen asked as they began eating.

“You’re wearing a different shade of lipstick,” Odell said, barely looking at her.

“I’m not wearing any lipstick,” she said. “Guess again.”

“You got a new pair of pedal pushers.”

“No!”

She turned around so he could see the back of her head. “I’m wearing what they call a ‘fall,’” she said. “It’s an addition that blends in with the rest of my hair so you can’t tell the fake hair from the real hair.”

“Do you mean you’re wearing a hairpiece?”

“Well, if you want to call it that.”

“Why don’t they call it a hairpiece, then?”

“Because ‘fall’ sounds better.”

“The more important question, I suppose, is why do you need a hairpiece?”

“Well, I don’t really need it, but it makes my hair look better, don’t you think? Thicker and fuller? It somehow makes me look younger?”

“If you say so.”

“I went to the Beauty Box today. They have this wonderful new hairdresser named Enzo. He took one look at me and said, ‘A fall would do wonders for your hair!’.”

“Enzo is a man?”

“Yes.”

“Why is it that hairdressers are all men now? Hairdressers used to be women. Now they’re men. Men with foreign-sounding names.”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you conduct a survey?”

“Is Enzo a homosexual?”

“I didn’t think to ask.”

“Well, it seems you would want to know the sexual preferences of a person fixing your hair.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What country is he from? Is ‘Enzo’ an Italian name?”

“If I had to guess, I’d guess he’s an American.”

“Does he speak with an accent?”

“No.”

“Do you want me to go punch him in the face for you?”

“What for?”

“For raising so many questions for which there are no answers.”

“But don’t you think my hair looks cute?”

“It looks flat in the back and pushed up on top,” he said. “The way it looks when you get up in the morning.”

“Enzo said I have lovely hair.”

“Isn’t he paid to say that?”

“He looked at my face with a magnifying glass and he said I have beautiful skin. He said a lot of women have weather-beaten skin, but he could tell that I take care of mine. He said you can tell a lot about a person’s general health just by looking at the skin on their face.”

“And if Enzo said it, you believe it.”

“It’s his business to know about those things.”

“If he told you to make yourself up to look like a frog, would you do it?”

“Of course I would!”

“Are you in love with Enzo?”

She laughed. “Hardly.”

“Why don’t you divorce me and marry Enzo?”

“That’s too much trouble.”

“If you heard Enzo talking to other women, I’ll bet you’d hear him say the exact same things to them, no matter how old and ugly they are.”

“Are you saying I’m old and ugly?”

“No, I’m just saying I’m wondering what Enzo’s game is.”

“I don’t think he has one. He’s just a very nice man.”

“He made you feel important.”

“Well, yes, I guess so.”

“He made you feel special.”

“When you put it that way, I guess he did.”

“And you gave him a great big tip.”

“I always tip my hairdresser.”

“What else?”

“What do you mean?”

“What else did you feel compelled to do for him because he’s such a nice man?”

“I bought some beauty products from him.”

“How much?”

“A hundred and eighty-seven dollars.”

“And that on top fixing your hair and selling you the fall?”

“Well, yes.”

“How much did you spend today at the Beauty Box?”

“Everything is always about money with you, isn’t it?”

“How much?”

“Three hundred and thirty dollars.”

“So there you have Enzo’s game.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“He’s a crap artist! He flatters you and makes you feel special and gets you to liking him. Then he just happens to mention these beauty products he’s selling. By that point you have no sales resistance. You wouldn’t be able to turn him down if he was selling real estate on the moon.”

“Now you’re just being silly.”

“I didn’t get fleeced out of three hundred and thirty dollars today.”

They were silent for the rest of the meal until Noreen was serving the dessert. “There’s a Doris Day movie on tonight,” she said. “It’s one we haven’t seen before. Do you want to watch it with me?”

“I told Willard I’d stop by and see him this evening,” he said tersely.

After he was gone she stacked the dishes in the sink and went to the phone and called the Beauty Box and asked to speak to Enzo. She had to wait what seemed a long time but finally he came on the line.

“Enzo?” she said. “This is Noreen Baggett. I was in the shop today.”

“Yes, darling,” he said. “I was just about to leave for the day. What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to make sure you have me down for the seventeenth at ten o’clock.”

“Just a minute, dear. I’ll check the book.”

He laid down the phone and when he came back he said, “Yes, dear, we’re all set for the seventeenth.”

“I’m so looking forward to it!” she said.

“Well, so am I, dearest!”

After she hung up the phone, she turned on the TV and sat down in the recliner and made herself comfortable. The Doris Day movie was just beginning.

May 5, 2013May 7, 2013 by allen0997

The Place Beyond the Pines ~ A Capsule Movie Review

The Place Beyond the Pines ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

The Place Beyond the Pines is an ambitious, complex story that is in fact three interwoven stories about how people’s lives can interconnect in a way that seems like fate. It begins in the 1990s with blond-haired, tattooed bad boy Luke Glanton (played by Ryan Gosling), who is employed as a stunt motorcycle rider in a traveling carnival. We don’t know much about his past except that is probably unsavory. When he reconnects with an old girlfriend named Romina (Eva Mendes), he discovers that she has had a baby by him, a son named Jason. He wants desperately to win Romina back and to play a part in Jason’s life, but Romina has moved on. She has another man in her life and she knows that Luke is not the sort of person that anybody can depend on.

Desperate for money to prove to Romina that he can provide for her and their son, Luke turns to robbing banks with a male companion. His excellent motorcycle riding skills allow him to get away easily. He pulls off a few robberies without a hitch but, as expected, his good luck runs out. He meets his end at the hands of a young police officer named Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who, it turns out, has an infant son about the same age as the child that Luke has fathered with Romina. Avery is injured but victorious in his violent encounter with Luke Glanton and is hailed as a hero.

We learn that Avery Cross is more than a police officer; he’s also a lawyer and the son of a distinguished judge. As a police officer, he’s exposed to a level of corruption on the police force that he can’t stomach. He uses his position as an injured hero and as the possessor of knowledge about his fellow officers to advance himself to the position of assistant district attorney. He knows how to play the game.

Fifteen years later, Avery Cross is emerging as a player in state politics. He is running for the office of attorney general and is no longer married to the mother of his son. The son, AJ, is now a pouty, mumbling teenager in high school. He meets another seemingly troubled boy at school to whom he is drawn for some reason. We learn that this boy is Jason, the son of Luke Glanton and Romina.

Jason, as a seventeen-year-old, is much like Luke Glanton, the father he never knew. He steals drugs from a pharmacy and has an explosive temper. He is going to come to a bad end. He gradually learns who AJ is and, more importantly, who AJ’s father is and the role he played in Luke Glanton’s death fifteen years earlier. He’s wired like a time bomb.

For the serious moviegoer, The Place Beyond the Pines is thoughtful, intelligent and well-written, with enough twists and turns to keep the viewer engaged. It’s no surprise to me that it’s not playing at the multiplex in my neighborhood, where you can see all the latest G.I. Joe movies, chainsaw movies, and special effects-laden action-adventure movies. It’s the kind of movie that’s worth seeking out, wherever it might be playing, even if it’s at an “art” house in a part of the city where you’d really rather not go. (The whole time you’re watching the movie, you’re probably thinking at the back of your mind: Is my car really safe parked there?)

April 27, 2013April 29, 2013 by allen0997

Charmaine Chatsworth, Society Girl

Charmaine Chatsworth, Society Girl ~ A short story by Allen Kopp

Fifi opened the curtains, letting the sun in. Charmaine was instantly awake. She groaned and sat up in bed as if reveille had been sounded.

“You said you wanted to be up by seven, miss,” Fifi said.

She wanted to pick something up and throw it at Fifi for interrupting such a lovely sleep but, after all, she was only doing her job.

“Where are mummy and daddy?” she asked.

“Breakfast is being served on the terrace, miss.”

She got slowly out of bed and went into the bathroom. After brushing her teeth and dabbing at her face with a washcloth, she ran a brush over her hair, put on a dressing gown and went down to the terrace.

“Good morning, dear!” mummy said cheerily. “I hope you slept well.”

“I always sleep like a dog,” Charmaine said.

“I think that’s ‘sleep like a log’,” daddy said, not bothering to look up from the paper he was reading.

“Well, that’s a cliché,” mummy said. “We try to avoid clichés in our speech.”

The maid came with coffee for Charmaine.

“None of that,” Charmaine said. “I’ll just have some grapefruit juice and toast.”

“I’m afraid you’re not eating enough,” mummy said. “You’re as thin as a nail.”

“I think you mean ‘thin as a rail’,” daddy said.

“Isn’t that what all women strive for?” Charmaine said.

Daddy put the paper down and looked at Charmaine’s dressing gown. “Are we not even bothering to get dressed anymore?” he asked.

“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m not getting dressed until there’s a good enough reason.”

“Why don’t we all just sit around in our drawers, then?” he said.

Chester came out onto the terrace, kissed mummy on the cheek and sat down at the fourth side of the table.

“Morning all,” he said.

“Yes, isn’t it?” Charmaine said.

Chester was two years younger than Charmaine and already quite a man. He was six feet, two inches tall, had blue eyes and a dimple in his chin. He looked nothing like either mummy or daddy. Nobody was more entranced by his handsomeness than he was himself.

“How’s my favorite son this morning?” mummy asked, reaching over and patting him on the hand.

“I’m your only son, mummy,” he said.

“Unless, of course, you count Rexford, my dog,” she said. “He’s like a son, really, when you think about it, except that I didn’t give birth to him.”

“Why are you all dressed up so early in the day?” daddy asked, pointing at Chester’s tie and jacket. “You’re not by any chance planning on doing any work today, are you?”

“Heaven forbid!” Chester said. “I stand to inherit a very large fortune. Why would I work for it when I don’t have to?”

“There’s a little thing called ambition,” daddy said.

“Of which I have none. No, I just have a little business in town, that’s all.”

“What kind of business?” mummy asked.

“I think it comes under the heading of private business.”

“You’ve just been told to mind your own beeswax, mummy.” Charmaine said.

“It’s not some intrigue with some woman, I hope.” daddy said.

“Nothing as tawdry as that,” Chester said. “I’m going to the travel bureau and then I’m having lunch at the Seafarers’ Club with Dexter and Louie.”

“Louie’s that musician fellow, isn’t he?” mummy asked.

“That’s the one.”

“I’m afraid he isn’t a very savory companion for you.”

Chester laughed. “I believe I can choose my own friends, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Well, I just want you to be careful with that sort.”

“I hear he smokes reefers,” Charmaine said to tease Chester. “And that’s just for starters.”

“Oh, he does not!” Chester said. “You stay out of it!”

“How about you, daddy?” Charmaine asked. “Aren’t you going in to the office today?”

“Not today,” daddy said. “I’m taking a few days at home.”

“It wouldn’t matter if he never went to that horrible old office again,” mummy said. “He’s already got a hundred and seventy-five million dollars. Let those other people scramble and claw at each other to make money. Daddy doesn’t have to do that anymore.”

“Three years ago, in 1929, I had two hundred million,” he said.

“This awful Depression,” mummy said. “I don’t know what people are supposed to do.”

“Yes,” Charmaine said. “Isn’t it awful to have to squeak by on a hundred and seventy-five million?”

“The way you females spend money,” daddy said, “I’m wondering how long it’ll take you to run through the hundred and seventy-five million.”

“Oh, you exaggerate so!” mummy said.

“You ever notice how much of the conversation in this family centers around money?” Chester said.

“Well, since you’re not using Liggett this morning,” Charmaine said, “I thought I could get him to drive me in to town.”

“Oh, not you, too!” mummy said. “Why do both of my children have to go to town today when it’s a perfectly lovely spring day and we have this charming old thirty-five room house to knock around in?”

“I’m sure Rexford won’t want to go,” Chester said.

“Well, it’s like this,” Charmaine said. “I haven’t seen my friend Claudia Millet for ages. I told her I’d spend the day with her today and I might even stay the night if she invites me. We’ll probably see a show or something.”

“Well, if you think you should,” mummy said. “I have to keep reminding myself that you’re a grown-up person now.”

“I was going to take a cab to town,” Chester said, “but since Liggett is going to drive you, Cha-Cha, I’ll just tag along. He can drop me off at the travel bureau. I can walk to the Seafarers’ Club from there and I’ll take a cab home.”

“Oh, why must you use that horrible nickname?” mummy asked. “I cringe every time I hear it.”

“What’s wrong with Cha-Cha? It’s a perfectly logical diminutive of Charmaine.”

“It sounds like a floozy or a harlot or something.”

“Well, isn’t that what she is?”

“Watch who you’re calling names, buster!” Charmaine said. “Two can play at that game. I might think of some names to call you that you wouldn’t especially like.”

Charmaine ordered the car for nine o’clock. Liggett was waiting for them at the front door. All the way into town, she and Chester spoke little. Chester closed his eyes and appeared to be dozing, while she looked out the window at the trees, which were just beginning to come into full leaf.

Liggett dropped Chester off first and then turned around in the front seat and asked Charmaine where she wanted to go.

“Just let me out at the library,” she said, “and I’ll walk from there.”

As she was getting out of the car, she dismissed Liggett for the day. She was spending the night in town, she said, and wouldn’t need him. He looked pleased that he wasn’t going to have to wait for her and could go back home and do as he pleased until he was needed again. He touched the brim of his hat in a kind of salute and drove away.

From the library, she walked six blocks to a different part of the city. She turned at a corner as if she knew where she was going and walked two blocks down until she came to an old hotel on a corner opposite an empty warehouse. She went inside and engaged a room for the night. The desk clerk told her she could have the room only if she paid for it in advance.

Alone in the room with the door securely locked, she put her little suitcase on the bed and opened it. She took off her expensive-looking dress and changed into an ugly gray one like a female prisoner would wear. She changed her stylish shoes for a pair of scuffed oxfords and then put her dress, shoes and leather handbag into the suitcase and put the suitcase under the bed. She wiped the lipstick and makeup off her face and put on a brown felt hat that completely covered her hair. Checking herself over in the mirror, front and back, she then went back down the dark, foul-smelling stairs to the street.

From the hotel, she walked five blocks and turned and began walking toward the river. She could smell the river and feel it in her mouth from a long way off. Finally when she came to a charity soup kitchen in a building whose windows had been covered with newspaper, she paused for a moment and then went inside. She found the man who ran the soup kitchen, a Reverend Peebles, and told him she was there to help. He gave her an apron and put her behind the counter.

She ladled soup into bowls until the pot was empty and somebody from the kitchen came and replaced the empty pot with a full one. She was sweating and her feet ached. Still the indigents came, an endless flow of them. The bowl of soup and slice of bread was all the food most of them would have all day.

After a couple of hours she spotted him far back in the line. His turn came, finally, and she filled his bowl. She smiled at him and he smiled back. When she saw him take a seat at the back of the room and begin eating, she gave her ladle to the girl standing closest to her and said she needed to take a little break. She took off the apron and went to where he was sitting and sat down across from him.

“Hello,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be here today.”

“Well, here I am,” he said.

“Are you feeling better than the last time?”

“No. I think I’m dying.”

“You should see the doctor at the free clinic.”

“What if I told you I don’t care that I’m dying?”

“Everybody wants to live,” she said.

“Do they?”

“Let’s not quarrel.”

“Who’s quarreling?”

“I read the first six chapters of your book.”

“Are you going to tell me I’m a lousy writer?”

“On the contrary. I’ve never read anything like it. You have a very interesting and unusual way of expressing yourself. I can’t wait to read the rest of the book.”

“There’s not going to be anymore,” he said. “I’ve given up writing. It’s a luxury I can no longer afford.”

“What about the six chapters?”

“Burn them. Use them for wrapping fish. I don’t care.”

“You can’t give up now.”

“Can’t I?”

“I got us a room,” she said, hoping to change the subject.

“Does this room have a bathtub?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He flashed one of his rare smiles at her and finished his soup.

When they were walking back to the hotel, she stopped at a little market and bought a loaf of bread, some cheese, a couple tins of sardines, a package of cigarettes, two apples and some oranges.

“First a room and now food,” he said. “Where is the money coming from?”

“I had a little saved,” she said.

“You’re not a prostitute, are you?”

She laughed. “I’ll try not to be too insulted by that,” she said.

At the hotel, she had to help him up the stairs to the room because he was so weak. She opened the door and when he saw the bed he went to it and lay down heavily on his back, gasping for air.

“When are you going to see a doctor?” she asked.

“Probably not until they’re doing the autopsy.”

“Ha-ha. What a wit.”

While he was taking a bath, she washed his underwear and socks the best she could in the sink and hung them up to dry. When he came out of the bathroom he got into bed and covered up because he had nothing to put on.

“You’re feeling much better now, aren’t you?” she said.

She lay down on the bed beside him, on top of the covers. She kissed him lightly on the lips and then lit a cigarette for him.

“I really don’t know what I see in you,” she said.

“Don’t you think I’m handsome?”

“Not especially.”

“What is it then?”

“I don’t know. It was something I felt the first time I saw you last fall. Something that can’t be explained in words. Some kind of mysterious connection.”

“I don’t believe in that kind of bull,” he said.

“What do you believe in?”

“Nothing.”

He took her hand and put it to his lips. “You look and smell so clean,” he said. “Not like the rest of us.”

“I had a bath before I walked over to the soup kitchen.”

“I know nothing about you,” he said. “Are you some kind of an angel or something?”

“Hardly.”

“Do you have family? A family of angels?”

She laughed. “I have a mother, father and brother, but I don’t think anybody would ever think of them as angels.”

“Where do they live?”

“Not far from here.”

“When do I get to meet them?”

“Soon.”

“You know, don’t you, that you’re wasting your time with me?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I’m no good. When I was growing up, my old man was always telling me I was worthless and I see now that he was so right.”

“Everybody has worth,” she said.

“I want you to just forget about me.”

“I could help you if you’d let me.”

“How do you mean?”

“I could give you money while you finish your book.”

“I’d rather die than take money from you.”

“You could think of it as a loan and pay me back when the book is published.”

“The book won’t ever be published. I told you. I’m washed up as a writer. I won’t ever write another word.”

They talked through much of the night and slept intermittently. He wanted to know about her upbringing. She told him as much as she could without actually lying, omitting, of course, certain details such as the family yacht and vacations in the South of France. They ate the food she bought, talked some more and slept some more.

When a police siren woke her up before dawn, he was gone. She waited for the sun to come up and then changed her clothes and left the hotel and found a cab to take her home.

At mid-morning when she was dozing on the terrace in the sun, mummy came out of the house and sat down close to her. When she realized mummy was looking at her with more than the usual scrutiny, she opened her eyes all the way and sat up.

“Are you going to the dance tonight at the country club?” mummy asked.

“I suppose so.”

“What dress are you going to wear?”

“The peach, I guess.”

“Who are you going with?”

“Talbot Lakey.”

“He’s very good-looking, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t like him very much, do you?”

“Not very much.”

“He’s an accomplished polo player and already owns his own yacht.”

“Yes.”

“I think it’s time for you to start thinking about finding a suitable husband.”

“Maybe you can find one for me and save me the bother.”

“Did you and Claudia Millet have a good time?”

“Yes.”

“What show did you see?”

“Oh, we decided not to go to a show after all. We had lots of talk to catch up on.”

“Why don’t you tell me where you really were?” mummy said.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do any good to tell you it’s none of your business, would it?”

“No,” mummy said. “Not this time. I think you should see a doctor and have a thorough physical exam.”

“All right, mummy,” she said. “Anything you say.”

April 23, 2013May 11, 2013 by allen0997