7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

I’ve done a lot of blogging this week –  a sign of things to come, I hope, as I wrap up the first solid draft of one project (I’ll set it aside until December, and then give a couple of weeks to revisions – it’s due in early January) and look forward to prepare for days (gasp) alone once school starts. So click backwards for a few more Japan posts, a bunch of Mary Magdalene posts and a long post about a day that involved, among other things, a visit to Tennessee Amish country and a drive by a north Alabama Hindu temple.

 

— 2 —

Weird Catholic is a great – and fantastically designed (or…branded, as we say now) site from Tom McDonald. Do go check it out – regularly.

 

— 3 —–

Emily Stimpson Chapman is a writer and speaker. She and her husband Chris are in the process of adopting a little boy, a process that has been, to say the least, fraught. Emily has written so eloquently about her experiences, including her struggle with infertility, and this week she offered another deeply-felt post about the current situation. What she writes echoes a major theme in my life, over which I puzzle all the time: the juxtaposition of joy and pain and the tragic paradox of one person’s joy being possible only because of hurt and even tragedy.

Moreover, this particular someone who has to suffer is already the most wounded person I’ve ever met. She’s had every bad hand possible dealt to her in her 36 years, and the one beautiful thing she has in her life right now—this precious baby—she has to give to me, a woman with so many gifts, so many loved ones, so many advantages. It’s just not fair.

I know: life isn’t fair. I also know there is no other way for her. She has to place the baby for adoption. Not because I need it, but because the baby needs it. She is not physically, mentally, or emotionally capable of raising a child, nor is there is any one else in her life or the father’s life who can care for him. Adoption is the only and best option for this little boy. But the whole thing, on a cosmic scale, is still massively unfair.

I don’t understand it. I don’t know how God will bring all these things right in the end. I know He can. I know He will. But it’s impossible, from here, to see how.

 

— 4 —

Speaking of websites, my friend and collaborator Ann Engelhart has revamped her website and expanded her social media presence. Do go visit her site and keep up with her on Instagram – and if you would like to commission a watercolor – she’s got you covered!

Ann can be commissioned for custom paintings. She enjoys working with clients to develop projects of a personal nature. Her portraits show subjects in a relaxed environment that suggest their interests and individuality. A still-life of a treasured heirloom, a watercolor of your home, a portrait of a pet, or a landscape of special location can be the subject of a fruitful collaboration.

Ann can work with your institution to memorialize or acknowledge donors through portraits and paintings of architecture. Limited edition giclee prints can be created for fundraising purposes. Contact Ann to discuss future projects or to order signed prints of many of her paintings.

— 5 –

Summer movie? Well, this week, my older son has had to work many evenings, so it’s been limited to one: Bad Day at Black Rock – which we liked, but didn’t quite live up to my memories. It was short (81 minutes) which made for a good, tight narrative, but wow, I have such a low toleration for bombastic, overwhelming post-war film scores. This one was by Andre Previn and, to deepen my pain, was apparently commissioned after the movie was test-screened because audiences didn’t like the original version, which sounds like it was much more up my alley:

The movie had three previews in the fall of 1954. The first two screened the film as originally conceived, without the aerial train shots or opening music that were later added, beginning with a shot of Tracy stepping off the Streamliner train and walking down Main Street of Black Rock, accompanied only by the sound of the wind. There was also a cutaway to the depot clock, as in High Noon (1952), the movie to which this is most often compared. Many in the audience at the first preview thought the opening was too abrupt and at least 25 percent of them commented that they wouldn’t recommend the picture to anyone (this percentage was higher among women viewers). Bad Day at Black Rock faired slightly better in the second preview, but it was clear the picture wasn’t working without music and no lead-in to the opening scene in the remote town. Associate producer Herman Hoffman came up with the idea of beginning with aerial shots of the train speeding through the desert.

Sturges had already moved on to his next film, The Scarlet Coat (1955), so Hoffman took charge of filming the opening. The plan was to shoot the train hurtling toward the audience, almost like a 3-D movie. But it would have been deadly to attempt a helicopter maneuver into the path of a speeding locomotive. Stunt flier Paul Mantz offered the perfect solution: have the train running backwards, fly the copter over the retreating engine, then project the footage in reverse. “It’s a helluva shot,” Sturges later said, “but I didn’t make it.”

It was also decided to add a score after all to Bad Day at Black Rock, and MGM music supervisor Johnny Green suggested Andre Previn, who started at the studio as an arranger at the age of 16 and by this time, eight years later, had already contributed to the scores of 16 pictures in almost every style and genre. Dore Schary indicated he wanted “something loud, throbbing, and martial in undertone” for the opening. After watching the film, Previn came up with what we hear on the soundtrack today, the “vaguely dissonant and sinister score” played by brass instruments.

Go to that article at the TCM site for loads of interesting background on the film. 

— 6 —

Are you in the San Antonio area? I’ll be there in about a month, speaking at the Fullness of Truth conference. Info here. 

— 7 —

My new  book is out and slowly becoming available – you can find it at the Loyola site here and Amazon here, and hopefully at your local Catholic bookseller soon, along with all the rest of the Loyola Kids books – a great matched set to gift your local Catholic school and parish – every classroom needs a set, don’t you think?

 

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!