MARCH 25, USS ARIZONA MEMORIAL,PEARL HARBOR

Fifty from Minnesota toured the Arizona before boarding the NCL cruise ship on Saturday.

Hawaii 2017

Royal Hawaiian Hotel, built in 1927, the Pink
Palace

Hawaii Island cruise aboard ship

CALL ME KAWIKA

After four short classes aboard ship I was certified in Hula and performing with visitors from Japan and the U.S. on the stage on the sun deck of the NCL Pride of America.  Kaulana Bucasas and China Hill were are onboard instructors and enriched the wonderful Aloha spirit and Hawaiian experience.

TRUMP SUPPORTERS STILL ANGRY

You couldn’t swing a dead cat on deck of the Pride of America cruise ship this past week without hitting an angry Trump supporter.  One from South Carolina groused about “post election protest syndrome” and another from Orlando referred to the “United States of Objectors.”  

I replied that I would insist that our Republican Congressman resist all attempts to increase the national debt limit by an additional $54 billion for the war industry.  It could be a boondoggle; like $200 saws for the Army, said the Trump guy.  We agree on something.

This park is near where Jay stays in Honolulu and is away from the tourist district near the beach.  Honolulu is way overbuilt but Oahu has design standards so McDonalds can't build yellow structures with red arches.

Naturally Native, Allegiance, RCA SelectaVision Player

No talent Dora Hall album found

“NATURALLY NATIVE”  MOVIE EXPLORES RACISM

Jennifer Wynne was the co-director on this movie featuring an all Native American cast and financed by the Pequot Tribal Nation.  Ms. Wynne spoke to our Road Scholar group earlier this month at the LA Downtown Hotel.

The movie is the story of three native women who struggle establish a cosmetic business and are frustrated by racism and sexism.  The characters also challenge the stereotypes prevailing for Native American alcoholism and casinos.

The conflict between those who were raised Christian and those who are more traditional is also a theme in this worthwhile movie available on DVD.

DORA HALL ALBUM FOUND IN SUBURBS

A cousin had this LP from the infamous Dora Hall, a no talent with a rich husband who did a TV special for syndication in 1963 that I saw on KCOP/13.  She dabbled in several venues but country probably worked best since you don’t have to be Rene Fleming to pull it off.  She sounds like Lucille Ball in “Mame.”

“ALLEGIANCE” THEME OF RACISM RELEVANT NOW

EDINA—From coast to coast today audiences in movie theaters saw a Fathom January 2016 performance of “Allegiance,” based in part on actor George Takei’s real life experience as a child in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II.  The women in the internment camp in “Allegiance” found a way to unify in resistance with letter writing to Washington officials objecting to the racism. 

The showing here was lightly attended but those that saw it in LA and San Francisco must have enjoyed a few communal moments.  (Takei appears in the 1960 war movie ‘Hell to Eternity” which is a sympathetic look at the plight of Japanese Americans during the war.)

RCA SELECTAVISION VIDEO DISC FAILED PRODUCT

A suburban relative was an earlier adaptor of home movie equipment in the early 1980s when he and his wife purchased an RCA SelectaVision player.  I inherited it this weekend and find that the power source is dysfunctional so it won’t play the large floppy discs.  

This is America’s only attempt to invent a TV connected movie viewing device and was a total bust; worse than the Sony Betamax.  The RCA product is a reworking of the phonograph with a magnetic cartridge, needle and grooved vinyl records. 

I am sure that this analog rendering of movies is no improvement over VHS.  Next month I will give it away.

The RCA system fell victim to poor planning, conflicts within RCA, and technical difficulties that stalled production of the system for 17 years until 1981, by which time it was already made obsolete by laser videodiscs.

LOS ANGELES FEB. 2017

Norma Talmage House

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” LOVE, THAT’S WHAT

HOLLYWOOD, USA — Marvin Gaye’s hit song could serve as an anthem for the multitude who gathered Saturday (Feb. 4) at the Hollywood Pantages Theater for “Motown the Musical” in a communal cross generational outpouring of emotion during the week of hell from the twisted mind of a maniac in Washington, DC.

You could feel it in the gorgeous art deco auditorium as we clasped hands and gently swayed and sang “Reach Out and Touch” someone and make this a better world.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time; Los Angeles is America and I was happy to be among it’s assembled multitude on that beautiful day. 

REMEMBERING GOLDEN ERA MOVIES

CULVER CITY — From the alley I could get a shot inside MGM’s Sound Stage 15 where the “Wizard of Oz” was filmed in 1939 and also “A Day at the Races” with the Marx Brothers.  An entire race track was constructed for the later in this sound stage.  In this darken building are old movie sets, but photos aren’t allowed.  In a similar alley, Gene Kelly in Navy blue denims drew approving glances from ladies on the lot in a scene from “Anchors Aweigh,” an MGM musical.

MGM STARS REMEMBED

CULVER CITY — The MGM studios has been reduced to a mere 500 acres by Japanese electronics giant Sony.  Much television is recorded here.  We rubber necked ourselves through sound stages for “Wheel of Fortune” and “The Goldbergs.” 

 We also spent time in the sound recording studio which is named for Barbra Streisand.  Bungalows on the old MGM lot have been named for famous stars.  One of these bungalows appears in the 1945 MGM musical “Abbott and Costello in Hollywood.”

LOS ANGELES — Thanks to Road Scholar tour guide John Daugherty for taking us to the downtown Fine Arts Building, a prime example of Gothic architecture. We also toured the Art Deco Union Station which is featured in several movies (below).

POVERTY ROW STARS ON BOULEVARD

Dave O’Brien was stoned on pot in “Reefer Madness” and was the Dead End Kids social worker in “Spooks Run Wild.”  Their stars are on Hollywood Boulevard.

POVERTY, WEALTHY CONTRASTS

LOS ANGELES — This strange door was donated by a wealthy arts patron to the city for the plaza near the Forum performing arts center.  Nearby, the homeless sleep in the streets.  Psychologist Dr. Stuart Perlman illuminated the humanity and pain of the homeless in his paintings that can be seen in City Hall. 

You can see Perlman’s paintings when you go to the conference room in the Los Angeles City Hall.  

WHERE RACIAL HATRED LEADS

Now is the teachable moment about race relations in America so see the exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles for critical discussions on the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans 1942-45.  In Little Tokyo.

SANTA MONICA TOUR

Norma Talmadge’s Santa Monica house also was home to Brian Aherne, Cary Grant and Randolph Scott together and David Niven and Merle Oberon together.  Talmadge, a silent era star, was married to United Artist chief Joseph Schenk.

Japanese American barracks, WW2, Wyoming

Fine Arts Bldg., downtown LA

BACKGROUND FOR ROAD SCHOLAR TOUR LA

MY LOS ANGELES 1963-64 — David Zarkin biographical

Leaving Spokane in 1963 in my 1953 Ford I arrived in Los Angeles in August’s incredible heat where I immediately called Uncle Gordon who suggested I stay at the YMCA in downtown.  While I was trying to sleep in the creepy Y, a thief broke into my Ford and stole my Coast Guard uniforms, but the police recovered them.  Meanwhile, I moved into a motel on Figueroa which was also very grim and I imagined it was the same place where pop idol Sam Cooke was murdered in 1964.

I was scheduled to start work almost immediately at United Press International in the Mirror Building on Spring Street.  (This was a job I lined up while in the Coast Guard in the Bay Area with John Madigan at UPI where I had good references from my boss Bobbi Ulrich at UPI Spokane.)

My Coast Guard buddy, John Miller of Ontario and I found a one-bedroom apartment without air conditioning in South Pasadena so I was driving the flat as a pancake Pasadena Freeway to work every morning.  John’s family was transplanted from the Midwest to work in Southland industrial jobs.

With John, I went to an organ concert at the Rialto Theater, South Pasadena, which is featured in “LaLa Land” and “The Player.”  The auction of props and sets at the closing of the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City was memorable one Saturday where Roach music director Charles Roger’s widow sat on a camp stool and showed a scrap book of Rogers career at the studio.  

UPI Summer Relief Reporter

I was summer “relief” staff at UPI in the mirror building, mostly rewriting news releases, but I also covered Clifford Odett’s funeral at Forest Lawn where Danny Kaye gave the eulogy and Zsa Zsa Gabor attended among others.  (Without the internet or a clip file, I went to the funeral totally unprepared to write anything relevant about Odett’s career.)

The UPI Hollywood International Bureau needed help writing filler features for newspapers so I succeeded writer Tom Mankiewicz, son of the movie director-writer Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

I was working under the direction of a student intern who assigned me to fabricate a piece on Ricky Nelson who was recently married to Mark Harmon’s sister and they were expecting their first child. Since the Nelsons did not allow interviews, I needed to make up froth about Rick and the wife shopping for strollers and diapers. I did a quick count from the marriage date to when the little cherub was due and said to my coworker, “there’s our story.” She was not amused, but she referred me to one of her instructors at USC, John Thompson, who also was the news director at NBC in Burbank, and he was hiring.  

After, interviewing with Thompson, a tall man with a gray crew cut, I got a job as one of two “editorial assistants.”  I should have asked more questions about opportunities to write news for KNBC.  The other assistant was Ken, an African American announcer from PBS Channel 28 who has a bit part in the movie “Wild in the Streets,” a cult classic.  Swept up in the “glamour” of working at NBC-TV, I thought this was a step up from UPI and two of my former classmates from the University of Washington worked in the huge building.  Carol Anderson was an assistant on the Monte Hall game show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” and Skip was a page.  (Skip later got a real estate job but Carol was on track for success in TV.)

NBC/KNBC News was in a window-less warehouse where most everyone smoked.  Jack Latham was the anchor and later did cameos in some movies including “Willie Wonka.”  Some of the KNBC regulars included Elmer Peterson, Cecil Brown and Chick Hearne.  The later marinated himself in after shave and moved about briskly so he could read the sports on the air and get to his primary job, Lakers’ basketball play by play on RKO’s KHJ-TV.  I was “clerical” at NBC where I answered phones, ripped copy off the wire service machines and ran errands to LAX and Republic Pictures for CFI lab film processing.  I got my haircuts at a shop across from Warner Brothers where John Wayne was their other famous customer.  One of my best lines at NBC is that I “wanted a job where I raised and lowered the flag for news anchor George Putnam at KTTV.”

A few months after I started work at NBC, Thompson was fired by the New York suits for “financial improprieties” and a bespectacled accountant-type took charge.  A small town Spokane kid, I found Los Angeles populated by transient residents like myself where it never felt like “home.”  I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted.  I burned out the engine on the Ford driving the freeways in summer for NBC so I made a fruitless attempt to buy a Falcon at a shady Hollywood dealer.

The Van Nuys singles group I joined was my social life which meant more travel on the Ventura Freeway.  With the NBC job in the valley, we moved to a singles apartment building with a pool in Glendale on a major roadway across from a Ralph’s store.  My roommate John was rarely around and I was lonely.  By 1965, I landed a job at the Idaho Statesman, Boise, where I finally became a journalist, winning an award for a series of articles on pollution.

Events You May Know in 1963-64

Madame Nu of South Vietnam gave an angry press conference in Los Angeles after the CIA assassinated the SVN president, her brother in law.

Mayor Sam Yorty, a nominal Democrat, loose cannon and pompous ass, began every interview by stating, “As I have said repeatedly” which made his quotes irrelevant.  KNBC’s Bill Brown, a former Chrysler PR writer, covered City Hall and amused us with his cynical observations.

The Baldwin Hills Dam burst and flooded the area and Glendale hills floods sent homes sliding down the hills.

Before “Hogan’s Heroes,” Bob Crane was a morning announcer on CBS’ KNX where he interviewed show biz personalities who might get him a movie or TV gig.  He also appeared as the neighbor on the Donna Reed Show and boasted that he was the only radio personality who wore pancake makeup on the air.  Bronislav Caper, the movie music composer, was a frequent guest.  

Steve Allen”s syndicated late night TV show, taped at an old movie house near Hollywood and Vine, was the hottest ticket in town.  A secretary at NBC knew one of the writers and got us tickets.  We attended the night when Allen attempted an unrehearsed rendering of “Romeo and Juliet” with a confused middle age audience member.  Allen lost his temper when Juliet didn’t respond to his cues and the bit was scrapped. 

Heartthrob George Maharis was arrested in the men’s room at Carolina Pines Jr. restaurant.

Peter Lorre died and KNBC needed footage from one of his films.  I knew about “The Raven” and lugged the entire 35mm movie from AIP to NBC. 

Roy Neal covered NASA for NBC and was reminiscent of the Duke character in Doonesbury with a cigarette holder clenched between his teeth.  He was a nice guy but a bit pompous because he was in tight with the space gurus.   I used to pick him up at the Burbank airport when he returned to LA.

Clete Roberts covered breaking news for RKO’s KHJ-TV in a trench coat, reminiscent of a Hollywood stereotype from the 1940s.

I got a press pass from NBC for a preview in the basement of a valley bank building of the Sam Fuller film noir “Shock Corridor” and it is a low budget gem from Allied Artists.

Gun Safety, Soucheray and More

MINNEAPOLIS — Last Thursday Minnesota House of Representatives Republicans introduced legislation that would turn the Land of Lakes into more of a wild west shooting range.  Rev. Nancy Nord Bence reported Sunday at a meeting of PROTECT MINNESOTA at the Mayflower Church on disturbing events in the Republican Legislature.

One dubious piece of legislation would authorize anyone, including non-residents, to carry a gun without a permit.  The other is known as the “stand your ground” law which would allow a person to shoot anyone they considered a threat with “threat” interpretated subjectively.

Save Tuesday, February 14th. That's when we'll go to the capitol to put our hard work into action!  

CLASSIC MOVIE INSPIRES STEW

In the classic movie “It Happened on 5th Avenue,” an estranged couple is reunited when the wife makes “mulligatawny soup.”  The millionaire husband, played by Charlie Ruggles, is overwhelmed by the wife, played by Ann Harding.  They fondly remembered the soup from leaner times.

So I ran across the recipe in my heart healthy cookbook and am giving it a go now in the crockpot.  The main ingredients are chicken, broth, apples, onion, green pepper and carrots.

BITTER SWEET IRONY

I am savoring right of center Sunday Pioneer Press columnist’s Joe Soucheray’s discomfort with Trump playing footsie with Putin.  Like me he grew up in a school where we were taught to fear the Soviet Union and the Reds.  (A seventh grade teacher, John Kale,  warned us that the radio documentary spoofing the Army McCarthy hearings was a subversive danger.)  

Soucheray compares the Ruskies to the Green Bay Packers.  What a horrible thing to say about Russia where my father was a native of Minsk, but was also anti-Russian.

Joe no doubt would prefer that Tim and Mary (Pawlenty) would soon be occupying the White House but it hasn’t come to pass (and never will).

 CABIN FEVER MOVIE BINGE

With snow, ice and freezing temps, the 1981 film noir “Body Heat” seemed an appropriate title to chase away the winter blues last night.  Coupled with the 1944 noir “Double Indemnity,” both provided a wonderful take on the state of civilization as we know it.  In “DI,” Fred MacMurray is fixated on Barbara Stanwyck’s ankle bracelet while in “BH” the object of William Hurt’s lust is shown in explicit bedroom interludes with the femme fatale played by Kathleen Turner.  

This is an updated take on the biblical Adam and Eve Garden of Eden yarn for adult viewing.  Greed and lust send our erstwhile heroes down the swirling vortex of hell and damnation, but getting there is half the fun. 

Hawaii 1991, "Last Five Years"

HAWAIIAN DREAMS

Preparing for a tropical getaway, so I am playing this 1988 CD I bought in Oahu in 1991 when I was with the Uhlers Ski Club.  Time to get back there.  Photo with my Yashica SLR, 3M film.

AEROBICS PARIS STYLE

Something different was added to Silver Sneakers aerobics today at the YMCA when instructor Sarah provided Edith Piaff singing “LaViene Rose.”  On a day when I thought rigor morits had set in, this was enough to help me forget that it’s only 9 degrees outside today.

ARTY DORMAN, THEATER CRITIC

Growing up in New York in 1965, Arty Dorman saw a summer production of “The Music Man” with Anita Bryant as Marian and Gig Young as Professor Harold Hill.  Given that Gig was gay and Anita was homophobic, that was indeed a strange bit of casting.  Arty spoke Sunday at the Or Emet Jewish Humanist Congregation meeting in St. Paul.  He recommends the play “The Humans” which won a 2016 Tony Award.  Dorman expanded his love of theater to become the lead Twin Cities critic for www.talkinbroadway.com

NEW YORKERS IN LALA LAND

Like the popular movie “La La Land,” the characters in the movie “Last Five Years” have difficulty navigating careers and maintaining romance.  The setting is New York City in this musical with Jeremy Jordan (“Smash”) playing a writer and Anna Kendrick as an actress.  This is one of the more interesting movies on Netflix. lastfiveyearsmovie.com

MISS BROOKS, CHILDHOOD FAVORITE

HIGH SCHOOL DAZE

This past weekend I was reminded of Eve Arden’s sarcastic wit when Decades did a weekend of “Our Miss Brooks,” the story of the erstwhile bachelorette I knew as a youth listening every week on KXLY radio.  Her matrimonial efforts were lost on biology teacher Mr. Boynton, played on radio by Jeff Chandler and then on TV by Robert Roxwell.

Richard Crenna’s airhead Walter Denton trades barbs with Gale Gordon’s Osgood Conklin, the principal and father of Harriet, Denton’s girlfriend.  Crenna was fodder for Kathleen Turner in “Body Heat” and was paired with blonde bombshell Cleo Moore in “Over Exposed” on the big screen. 

BAD TECHNOLOGY

Get paranoid with the British TV series “Black Mirror” where cookies are implanted and people disappear with the touch of a remote control.  The “Christmas Story” episode features a bird wall clock identical to the one a friend in Edina owns.

That dancing on the stars number in “LaLa Land” was first done in  the 1952 comedy “Lovely to Look At,” a remake of RKO’s “Roberta” which is better.  Marge and Gower Champion danced on the stars as do Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. 

Glenn Miller Story revisited 63 years later

NEW YEAR’S EVE 1953 REMEMBERED

I was breathless with anticipation when I went to this New Year’s Eve offering at Spokane’s Post Theater at road show prices.  The LP was a Chanukah gift from Auntie Dora (Barer) and I still have it.  Singers Tex Beneke and Ray Eberle from the original Miller band aren’t in the movie but can be seen with Glenn in the 40s TCF musical “Sun Valley Serenade.” (Not available on DVD yet.)  

The VHS tape I am watching tonight has a $69 price tag but I got it for a buck at the thrift store.  A restored version of Glenn Miller was shown at a downtown St. Paul auditorium in the 80s and I took Mike to that.  The ending was from the imagination of director Anthony Mann.

Favorite Musicals, Oliver! and Ski Party

HIS PANTS SPLIT AT END

James Brown turns in a pants-splitting performance of “I Feel Good” in the 1965 AIP comedy “Ski Party” with Duane Hickman and Frankie Avalon in drag in a hare brain scheme to improve their love lives.  Leslie Gore and Dick Dale make this a must see beach movie.

IT’S A FINE LIFE

The 1968 award winning film “Oliver!” is excellent because the producer turned a deaf ear to suggestions to cast Liz and Dick in the leads or other Hollywood box-office stars.  Instead a talented British cast and crew makes this one of the best film adaptations of a stage musical, unlike “Hello Dolly” and “Mame.”  Bloomsbury and the London market are all sets built at Shepperton Studios, which is amazing and wouldn’t happen today.  I saw the play, heard the music in Boise in about 1966.

Butcher Shop, Zsa Zsa, 5th Avenue

THE OLD BUTCHER SHOP

Shopping at the meat counter at Fresh Thyme yesterday reminded me of going with Mom to the Manito Grocery Store in Spokane where bald headed Herb was the butcher.  Although Fresh Thyme lacks the sawdust floors, it provides that friendly personal touch so missing at CUB or Target.

LIFE OF THE PARTY

Nervous about entertaining this holiday?  Alfred Hitchcock has the recipe for a perfect party in his 1948 film “Rope” with John Dahl and Farley Granger.  

ME AND ZSA ZSA

When Johnny brought the “Tonight Show” to Burbank in 1963 I was in the audience with my roommate John Miller of Ontario to see Zsa Zsa in person.  By then she was no longer one of the “beautiful women” from “Queen of Outer Space” (1958).  During the commercial break Carson lit up a smoke and exited the stage leaving Zsa Zsa alone.

Her maroon Rolls Royce with her name on the door was parked at Clifford Odet’s funeral in 1963 that I covered as a reporter for UPI.  Danny Kaye gave the eulogy.   Zsa will be remembered as the love starved scientist in “Queen” who falls for Eric Fleming in this Allied Artist cosmic classic.

CHRISTMAS MOVIE FAVORITE

A homeless squatter enters a mansion through a manhole and brings joy in the 1947 Allied Artist comedy “It Happened on 5th Avenue.”  Playing the tramp, Victor Moore is quite believable and helps reform a money mad capitalist who is estranged from his family.  Actors from fifties TV sitcoms in this holiday favorite are Don Defore and Gale Storm.  

I saw it at the rustic Spirit Lake, Idaho, theater in the summer of ’47 with Mom and my sister and never forgot the man in the manhole.

Gun Safety Vigil at Mt. Zion Temple

At least 100 Minnesotans braved the bitter cold to hold an interfaith candlelight vigil Wednesday night  at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul on the anniversary of the Sandy Hook shootings.  

Preceding the vigil, Protect Minnesota met in the temple where people spoke about gun violence that has affected their families’ lives and people they have known, such as the students of educators and the clients of social workers.  

Participants were asked by the Protect Minnesota Executive Director the Rev. Nancy Nord Bence to have respectful conversations with people, even if they disagree on gun violence protection, “to soften hearts” rather than change minds.

“The weakest state law will become the national standard” if the Mandated Concealed Carry bill is passed by legislators, Rev. Bence said.  If this bill passes, Minnesota would recognize all carry permits from all states including those who don’t require a permit to carry a firearm, she added.  Introduction of the legislation is expected by the spring of 2017.

Minnesota groups and individuals involved in gun violence protection include hunters, sport shooters, licensed dealers, veterans and interfaith religious groups such as Muslim and Jewish Women of Minnesota and Daughters of Abraham (Jewish, Christian and Muslim.)

Susan Slept Here and More

Debbie Reynolds in RKO Radio's Susan Slept Here

LAST PICTURE SHOW

In the Peter Bogdonavich 1971 classic film the town turns to a tumble weed ruin when the movie theater closes.  Very are many cues to 1950s diversions:  Father of the Bride, Mutual Radio, Fulton Lewis Jr., Strike it Rich with Warren Hull, Your Show of Shows, Red River (the last movie) and Grandma’s Lie Soap.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA

A blue collar New England man consumed by guilt and depression bonds with his teenage nephew and ward in a contemporary setting.  This is NOT the movie to lift you out of your post election early winter blues.  Not to be confused with Frankie and Annette at the beach but definitely destined for several awards.  Casey Affleck is a revelation.

FINIAN’S RAINBOW

A hopeful message on racial tolerance is delivered by St. Louis Park’s community theater in their production of the 1947 musical “Finian’s Rainbow” at the SLP Jewish Community Center.  Today was the final performance which featured Adam Western with a great voice as the romantic lead and the ballerina Julie Hattestad as Susan Mahoney.

VIEWER’S GUIDE TO “SUSAN SLEPT HERE”

A favorite holiday movie for the nostalgic, this 1954 RKO Radio big budget May-December romance with Debbie Reynolds as the teenage rebel and Dick Powell as the playboy screenwriter.  This was Powell’s last big screen appearance and he dusts off his dancing shoes after a 20 year hiatus for a big production number.  A ballet with Debbie in a cage is quite campy and not to be missed.  

Take note of the nod to Fifties Modern design with the furniture and signature stone fireplace wall.  I had the 78 record of Don Cornell singing the movie’s “Hold My Hand,” not to be confused with the Beattles hit 10 years later.

CITY COMPREHENSIVE PLAN

No harm can come from a citizen task force formulating the Forward 2040 Comprehensive Plan for the city but I suspect that the Bloomington City Council will give attractive developers exemptions from the plan when its said and done.

The first task force session Wednesday Dec. 7 was the usual Power Point statistics and the January meeting in the City Hall will include a facilitator.  The comprehensive plan document may be required for cities seeking grants and aid from the state and federal governments.

I see Bloomington as part of a greater conurbation that also includes Edina, Richfield and beyond.  

Many Bloomington residents call the Southdale YMCA in Edina their community center serving toddlers to seniors.  For meetings, lectures and reference room help we look a few blocks north of the YMCA to the regional Southdale Library.  Edina is where we go for health care with the Fairview Southdale Hospital and adjacent satellite clinics.

The 2040 Task Force would be wise to do a France Avenue bus tour.  North of I-494 dense commercial and residential development dominates the landscape where urban density “claustrophobia” has been experienced by some Edina residents testifying at a recent meeting to discuss plans for demolition of the regional library.  Neighboring Richfield homeowners have concerns from this York Avenue plan that include aggressive commercial use of public property.

South of I-494 on France Avenue is Bloomington with three churches, a pristine lake and marshland where the fog rises in the fall.  On this serene suburban landscape can be found a college campus, the dated unappealing Valley View Shopping Center and a planned unit development that replaced Andy’s Tap, an iconic venue where residents met, drank and dined.

I am aware that the 2040 plan coordinators held meetings this summer including one in a school cafeteria in August without air conditioning.  

Similar task forces in Edina and Richfield should join with the Bloomington group and discuss the similarities and difference in their plans and then report to the public.

-30-

World War II Memories

AMERICAN FAMILIES

Billy Manbo is about my age and we both grew up during the war in the American West, with a significant difference.  I was comfortably raised in Spokane while Billy and his family were dealing with harsh realities in Heart Mountain, a Japanese American relocation center in the Wyoming badlands.  

While my father was serving in the Army reconstruction unit in war devastated Japan, his father, Bill, was trying to truthfully answer harsh loyalty questionnaires for military authorities.

Like my Dad, Bill Sr. was handy with a camera and took color photos of life in the camp that are featured in the book “Colors of Confinement” edited by University of North Carolina law professor Eric L. Mueller.  

WEST COAST MILITARY ZONE

It was Military Zone 2 if you lived in Spokane during the war starting in 1942 and relatives in Seattle and Bremerton were in Zone 1 where Japanese American citizens were uprooted from their homes on Bainbridge Island and sent to a War Relocation Center.

One of those former Seattle residents, Sally Sudo, spoke Saturday at the Or Emet Minnesota Congregation of Humanistic Judaism meeting in the Minneapolis Jewish Community Center.  She was six years old on Dec. 7, 1942, when the Imperial Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Her family operated the Olympia Cafe in Seattle.  

They were “relocated” to the Minidoka WRC near Jerome, Idaho, where I visited the memorial markers in 2015.  When her brother, with the military service, was transferred to Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities much of the family followed him here after the war.

Upcoming events here related to Japanese American relocation include a Day of Remembrance 2 pm Feb. 19 at the Minnesota History Center  and starting Jan. 27 through March an exhibit at Wallace Fine Arts Center at Macalester College, St. Paul.

BROTHERHOOD OF WRITERS

Jesse Eisenberg

Jason Segel

You know this story because it’s yours and it’s mine.  David Lipsky and David Foster Wallace, two gifted writers, meet for the first time in 1996 in the movie “The End of the Tour” on a day like today.  Wallace is an acclaimed novelist on tour selling his latest book and Lipsky, also a published author, is assigned by Rolling Stone Magazine, to write a profile piece on DFW.  Wallace teachers creative writing at a Midwest university,

TWO DAVES BOND

The chemistry is right between Jason Segel as Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as Lipsky with James Ponsoldt directing.  One reviewer called it “funny” but that misses the point.  Maybe it’s ironic.  Both characters are in thirty-something limbo and meet at the right time.  The dynamics of bonding are explored where the two Daves are first antagonists but find they have much in common.  Lipsky stays overnight at Wallace’s home and snoops through his stuff to get a better idea about the “real” Wallace.

TOUR ENDS IN MINNEAPOLIS

Lipsky and Wallace then fly to Minneapolis where Wallace, at the end of the book tour, gets a short downtown tour.  On the way to the reading, they pass the Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicollet Mall which is a defining local icon, their local driver explains, but to some visitors it’s hokey small town bad taste hilarious.  The two writers do more sharing at the Mall of America with the theme park in the background, another iconic Twin Cities venue.

YOU KNOW THESE GUYS

“Of Course You End Up Being Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace” is the book by David Lipsky which was made into the movie “The End of the Tour.”  Some memorable references in the movie about the two Daves:  They choose to take dates to see an incredibly bad action guy movie at  the Mall.  Wallace is addicted to TV, likes the 1939 classic movie “Algiers” and his “best friend” is a junker Honda Civic.  Questions of uncomfortable conforming while being misunderstood in a perceived hostile society must be issues for many writers as they are for the two Daves.

“TOUR” RESEMBLES “VELVET”

 In the British movie “Velvet Goldmine,” a Rolling Stone reporter bonds with gay glitter band 70s rockers with the reporter played by Christian Bale.  Like “The End of the  Tour,” it’s good to be a Rolling Stone writer where the assignments are better than what I knew as an Idaho Statesman reporter in the 1960s.

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

 LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD

Little did I know in 1956 when I saw Mike Todd’s “Around the World in 80 Days” that 35 years later I would be living in his home town, Bloomington, Minn.  Todd was one of those bright young Jewish lads, sons of Eastern European fathers like the Volk Brothers, who found their fortune in movies.  (Todd was born in 1909, a year after Sidney Volk and a contemporary of my father who came to Minneapolis in about 1920.)

FAIRY TALE FOR ADULTS

I saw Todd’s “fairy tale for adults” “Around the World in 80 Days” at the refurbished Post Theater in Spokane where the projection booth was moved from the second balcony to the first floor and a wide curved screen was installed for Todd-AO plus surrounding speakers.  Todd-AO and Cinerama were both Todd enterprises that brought TV viewers out of their living rooms to the theaters again.

THRIFT STORE BARGAIN

The price tag was $49.63 but I bought it for $1.28 at the thrift store.  That would be the double DVD set of “Around the World in 80 Days” which includes a documentary on Todd’s life.  Liz Taylor is flashing the 29 carat diamond Todd gave her in the 90 minute CBS live coverage of Todd’s Madison Square Garden “party” celebrating the movie and this is painfully boring.

Todd never had a follow up act for ATW and I doubt that when the bills came due he could swing another ring for Liz.  They lived large and did not frequent thrift stores.

The Player, Bob Roberts and William Tell

I KNOW THAT THEATER

A famous organist gave a concert at the Rialto in South Pasadena in the summer of 1963 and I went with my roommate John Miller of Orlando, Calif., when we were living in a quaint apartment without air conditioning in South Pasadena.

  It was a beautiful theater and is featured in the Robert Altman black comedy “The Player” (1992) where movie producer Maxwell drowns the innocent screenwriter David in a nearby alley.  According to Los Angeles magazine, “The building was sold late last year (2014) to downtown developer Izek Shomof, who has restored several historic structures including the Alexandria Hotel and Title Guarantee Building.”

MUSIC UP CLOSE

I have never bought a ticket in advance for the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra so Sunday at the last minute I was seated with the orchestra on the stage.  You really do FEEL the William Tell Overture sitting near the brass section.  Hi Ho Silver!  I learned my lesson; buy early when the orchestra is at  the Schneider Theater.

FAMILIAR STORY?

A famous media celebrity launches a political campaign based on empty slogans and slandering his opponent.  This celebrity is quick tempered with an enormous ego.  Sound familiar?  Actually it’s the 1992 Tim Robbins’ fake documentary “Bob Roberts” and worth seeing now in the light of recent events.

SWIMMING IN THE ABYSS

Before Nov. 8 we thought we were peering into the abyss, but on Tuesday “we fell into the abyss,” said journalist Moustafa Bayoumi Wednesday afternoon at the University of Minnesota Provost’s conversation in Coffman Memorial Union.

“The election was a catastrophe of global and epic proportions, especially for foreign policy,” said Bayoumi, who has served on the American Studies Association's National Council and currently teaches English at Brooklyn College.

Trump-land “is not the country I want to live in.  I want a pluralistic society that demands cooperation,” he added.  There’s a lot to deplore out there including Steve Bannon and Frank Gaffney but maybe we can agree to support the Native Americans in their fight against the Keystone Pipeline and Ms. Levy-Pounds for Minneapolis mayor.  Also, the Minnesota Interfaith Alliance on Gun Safety is worth our efforts. 

Bayoumi is a journalist whose work has appeared in The Nation, The London Review of Books, and The Village Voice, Moustafa Bayoumi has served on the American Studies Association's National Council and currently teaches English at Brooklyn College. In eye-opening lectures based on his award-winning book “How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?”, he highlights challenges facing young Arab- and Muslim-Americans today.

Carnival of Souls and Spellbound

ORGANIST CHASED BY ZOMBIES

There are a few times in my life when I feel like the church organist in “Carnival of Souls” being chased by zombies and now is one of them.  Other incidents in my life when I was a bit paranoid were the three years I worked for the Grain Exchange and the four years I lived in Boise.

Sad to say, the church organist couldn’t escape the zombies.  They done her in.  So when a friend called last night to suggest I watch someone from the Trump group on “60 Minutes” I said “no.”  I’ll catch that act at the State Fair Midway’s freak show in August.

Mrs. Trump looks and talks like Ingrid Pitt in the Hammer gothic horror “The Vampire’s Daughter.”  Let me know when apocalypse arrives or is it here?

“SPELLBOUND” PROVIDES LINK TO VOICE TO VISION

To understand what University of Minnesota art professor David Feinberg is doing with the Voice to Vision project you need to see Hitchcock’s forties thriller “Spellbound.”  Focus on the Salvador Dali hallucination where the Gregory Peck character sees art that shows the nightmare he represses from a childhood accident.

V to V particpants use art to form a collage that helps define the terrors they experienced in the Holocaust or similar homeland depravity they escaped.

Feinberg spoke Friday night at a meeting of Or Emet Jewish Humanist Congregation at the St. Louis Park JCC. 

SPOKANE TV IN '50s

DEEP RETRO TV

Before Trump, America’s most notorious died blond was villain wrestler Gorgeous George who was resplendent in a pink fuzzy robe entering the ring before gouging the eyes of his opponent.  I traveled down that rode lat night via YouTube and watched the Gorgeous one strut his stuff in the Chicago Inernational Arena.  In the Zarkin household, we gathered around the Arvin with our TV dinners to see this permanent wave get mussed up.

SNOOKY LANSEN AND MORE

Saturday night was eagerly anticipated with KHQ/NBC showing kinescopes of Your Hit Parade.  The episode from 1956 featured Dorothy Collins singing “The Wayward Wind” on a train.  YHP did pantomimes to illustrate the hit songs, but they were annoying.  Collins number would have worked better if she was hanging onto a tree in a Florida hurricane.  The number one hit was the theme from “Picnic” that week and that was handled by the dancers.  Other singers on the show were Snooky Lansen, Gisele McKenzie and Russell Arms.  Raymond Scott led the orchestra. www.imdb.com/title/tt0042172/

CHUCK HESTON AS HEATHCLIFF

Continuing in the retro mode, last night I watched the 1950 Studio One “Wuthering Heights” with Charles Heston and others eating up the scenery.  I continue in the Heston vintage performances today with “Ben Hur” at the Heights Theater.  Studio One Westinghouse spokesperson Betty Furness was pushing a B&W TV that could be converted to color with an adapter in 1950.  Seems suspicious to me.