A Montgomery, Alabama, high school's performance of a play based on Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird drew out the novel's reclusive author, herself.
Alex Trulock, 16, in costume as 'Dill,' pauses backstage, Wednesday, Jan., 10, 2007, at the Davis Theater in Montgomery, Ala., prior to the evening's performance of 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Trulock and his fellow high school student cast members will be meeting with the play's Pulitzer Prize winning author Harper Lee following the show. (AP Photo/Kevin Glackmeyer) I love Harper Lee because of her reclusiveness (what a rare thing these days; she's a true artiste), obviously, because of the beautifully written novel (the only book she has ever published), and the Truman Capote connection, which is just so bizarre, yet cool (I'm aware they were childhood friends and neighbors; they just seem so different; she truly is Scout). I have much respect for the lady.
I already expressed my feelings about the the film version in a previous post, but I think it is one of the greatest movies ever made (with screenplay by Texan Horton Foote).
The Elmer Bernstein soundtrack is perfect (the title track, "Scout's Theme," can make me weep). And the opening credits sequence by Stephen Frankfurt is one of the best used in any film. Judge for yourself:
Showing some leg with producer Alan J. Pakula in a 1962 publicity photo for the film
Who can turn a can into a cane? Who can turn a pan into a pane? It's not too hard to see, It's Silent E.
Who can turn a cub into a cube? Who can turn a tub into a tube? It's elementary For Silent E.
He took a pin and turned it into a pine. He took a twin and turned him into twine.
Who can turn a cap into a cape? Who can turn a tap into a tape? A little glob becomes a globe instantly, If you just add Silent E.
He turned a dam - Ala Kazam! - into a dame. But my friend Sam stayed just the same.
Who can turn a man into a mane? Who can turn a van into a vane? A little hug becomes huge instantly. Don't add W, Don't add X, And don't add Y or Z, Just add Silent E.
"The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald, got her own stamp on Wednesday. It's the 30th stamp in the U.S. Postal Service's Black Heritage series. She was one of Frank Sinatra's favorite singers, and they appeared on the same stage over the years, in television specials in 1958 and 1959, and again in 1967's A Man and His Music + Ella + Jobim. Fitzgerald's appearance with Sinatra and Count Basie in June 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, was seen as an important impetus upon Sinatra returning from his self-imposed retirement of the early 1970's.
Lufkin/Nacogdoches visitors to EBIN might have an interest in this. It makes me heartsick. First Shaw's, and now, via The Daily Sentinel, local residents have learned we will lose the Mize Department Store:
"Mize demise: After more than 80 years, icon is closing"
Mize Department Store, a company associated with Nacogdoches since 1925, announced this week it will soon close.
Across the windows of the store's Hospital Street location, large red-and-yellow signs announced that the store would have a quitting business sale. Behind these bright yellow signs, in a display, a small wooden sign from a different time peeked out, and it read: Get Wise Trade at Mize Brothers.
"It's something we worked hard for, and it's sad to see it go," said Jack Mathews, former co-owner of the store.
Mathews was a partner for 40 years and retired a little more than five years ago. He learned a few days ago that the store would close, and said he was heartbroken. "We wanted to keep it independent and keep it going for the town and for our customers," he said. "It's good for the town, and Nacogdoches and East Texas have been good for the store, too."
The store, which sells high-end clothing and shoes, is located at the corner of North and Hospital streets. Once, every small town had a store like Mize, and larger cities had several. But along with the growth of nationwide department stores anchored to strip centers and shopping malls, many began to disappear.
Donna Maisel, retail director of the Nacogdoches Economic Development Corporation, said it was disappointing for the community to lose Mize.
"The home-owned department store concept is very rare today," Maisel said. "Privately owned and locally owned institutions cannot operate the same way they always had."
Though Nacogdoches' large student population often favored national chains and shopped elsewhere, Maisel said, tourists and local residents have continued to patronize downtown businesses while larger competition has moved in.
Longtime residents of Nacogdoches have expressed disappointment in seeing Mize prepare to close.
"It's a part of old Nacogdoches — downtown Nacogdoches. It's been there so long," said Charles Bright, 79, owner of Bright Coop.
"They made you feel like you're important, and they appreciated you coming in," he said. "They were more prone to give you service, and you didn't mind asking them for favors."
The Mize Brothers store originally opened in 1925 downtown on Main Street just west of the old opera house. B.H. Mize and his brother, W.A. Mize, started the business there, selling whatever customers suggested. When patrons didn't come to them, they went into the community to peddle their merchandise.
Eventually the Mize brothers split the business, and W.A. Mize operated the Mize Dress Factory on North Street. B.H. Mize kept the retail store and made a longtime employee, L.D. Pate, a partner in the business. His daughter, Anita Standridge, still owns a part of the Mize store, and Mike Bay is another owner.
In 1961, the store moved to its present location, and it was remodeled in 1992.
Here are three scenes from A Clockwork Orange (1971) that are perhaps less obvious to select as "favorites." These are before and after scenes in which "Alex and his three droogs tolchock an old veck, razrez his books, pull off his outer platties and take a malenky bit of cutter." This blog is rated PG, after all.
First is the scene just prior to the infamous "Singin' in the Rain" segment in which Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his droogs tear down a dirt road, while it's "country dark" in his "Durango 95" (it always reminds me of one of the vehicles from UFO), playing "hogs of the road." I tend to shriek like Dim does when I drive in heavy traffic:
Next is the scene where we learn of Alex's intense love for the music of his beloved Ludwig van:
My exact expression when listening to my beloved Francis Albert
Finally is the scene when Alex is in a record store, and he observes a couple of young ladies doing something "cold and pointless." I love how the store still looks sort of futuristic, yet is clearly of the early '70s. The sly placement of the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack album and mention of the fictional group "The Heaven Seventeen" are also a couple of my favorite things about it:
Sealy, Texas (50 miles W of Houston) was the birthplace of the modern mattress and the Sealy Mattress Company (now headquartered in North Carolina). For some reason it was also nicknamed "Most Hated Town in Texas" by Forbes magazine. I have no idea how it came to that conclusion.
UPDATE: An anonymous commenter explains the "Most Hated Town in Texas" designation: "it was nicknamed most hated town in the united states because it is mean. In order to 'fit in' in that town, one must have roots there and family members who have been there for years. It was also said that when the Sealy mattress was forced out, that there was a curse put on the town that it will never expand and grow. And till this day it is EXACTLY the same hateful small town it has always been."
The 1886 Preibisch Building - made from bricks fired from Brazos River clay
A Montgomery, Alabama, high school's performance of a play based on Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird drew out the novel's reclusive author, herself.
Alex Trulock, 16, in costume as 'Dill,' pauses backstage, Wednesday, Jan., 10, 2007, at the Davis Theater in Montgomery, Ala., prior to the evening's performance of 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. Trulock and his fellow high school student cast members will be meeting with the play's Pulitzer Prize winning author Harper Lee following the show. (AP Photo/Kevin Glackmeyer)
I love Harper Lee because of her reclusiveness (what a rare thing these days; she's a true artiste), obviously, because of the beautifully written novel (the only book she has ever published), and the Truman Capote connection, which is just so bizarre, yet cool (I'm aware they were childhood friends and neighbors; they just seem so different; she truly is Scout). I have much respect for the lady.
I already expressed my feelings about the the film version in a previous post, but I think it is one of the greatest movies ever made (with screenplay by Texan Horton Foote).
The Elmer Bernstein soundtrack is perfect (the title track, "Scout's Theme," can make me weep). And the opening credits sequence by Stephen Frankfurt is one of the best used in any film. Judge for yourself:
