Thursday, August 1, 2019
Some random thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s, “Once upon a time in Hollywood.”
(See full Commentary below Lead Picture)
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This, the Lead Picture Today, Thursday, August 1, 2019, on the blog –
existentialautotrip.com
Charles Manson
Photo Credit
1969 mug shot
State of California, San Quentin Prison - www.mugshots.org
The blog? A daily three to four minute excursion into photos and short texts to regale the curious with an ever-changing and diverting view of a world rich in gastronomy, visual art, ideas, chuckles, stories, people, diversions, science, homespun, and enlightenment.
Observing with wit and wisdom, Dom Capossela, an experienced leader, guides his team of contributors and followers through that world, an amusing and edifying conversation to join.
See ‘Thumbnail’ below for further description of the Lead Picture theme.
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Commentary
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Some random thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s, “Once upon a time in Hollywood.”
Brad Pitt and Leonardo di Caprio make one of the most satisfying twosomes in film.
Not the least aspect of their relationship is that Brad plays look-alike stunt man to Leonardo’s fast-fading B-movie stardom.
Tarantino’s genius at work: his portrayal of Sharon Tate as a transparent, lovely naif who unabashedly enjoys her stardom. We who know her terrible fate, when eight and a half months along, stabbed sixteen times and then hung by the Manson family, feel our empathy for this childlike innocent grow as the movie progresses towards what we see as her inevitable end.
So our attraction to her all the more requited by a Tarantino-ending that makes us want to cheer and laugh. And we do.
The movie takes us into the psyches of two men, past their primes, battered around Hollywood but loving the entire mystique. Tarantino reveals their characters by interweaving their careers with fascinating vignettes. We see Sharon Tate watching herself in a movie theatre, engagingly thrilled by the favorable audience reaction to her scenes. Gotta love her. We see Leonardo mess up his lines and then berate and lose himself in a solo scene that reminds one of Brad Pitts’ role in Twelve Monkeys. We see Brad intrude into a rural Manson family colony and feel the spooky of a very strange colony, the eruption of hatred and vitriol directed against him soon to be unleashed on our country. And we see Brad’s character as an amalgam of the fearlessness of Clint Eastwood and the charm of Brad himself.
It’s one of those movies in which the ‘did you like the part where’ can go on and on longer than the long movie (2hours and 39 minutes) itself.
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Weather
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Today in Boston will be 82* and a feels-like of 84* under a mix of sun and clouds.
Although thundershowers heading our way, the next seven days will show temperatures in the eighties, a
perfect summer stretch.
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Tracking Postings – Tracking Time
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Our 482nd consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.
After 482 posts we’re at the 9.64 percentile of our commitment, that commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.
By the way, our posts are always done by 6.00am the day of, but are usually available by 6.00pm of the night before.
Tuesday’s Dinner posted on
Thursday, August 1, 2019
We had a great piece of Swordfish, broiled/seared for 4 minutes 30, with an anchovy-lemon-butter sauce.
Delicious, quick, and easy.
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Chuckle of the Day:
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Wife leaving on a two-week business trip to Italy walks over to her husband sitting in his easy chair watching the game.
She kisses his cheek and he moves his head not to miss the next play.
She heads for the door.
The play over, husband yells, “Hey, bring me back one of those attractive Italian girls,” and he laughs.
She returns in two weeks to find him still in his chair.
She walks over to him and kisses his cheek and he moves his head not to miss the next play.
As she walks to the stairs he yells out, “Hey, I thought you were taking me back one of those pretty Italian girls.”
“I did my best,” she said. “But the pediatrician says we won’t know the sex for several weeks yet.”
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We love getting mail.
Contact me at domcapossela@hotmail.com
Thursday, August 1, 2019
From Howard D:
On a light note:
© Howard Dinin, 2019. All rights reserved.
Web Meister has no response.
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Acknowledgements
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Always thanks to Wikipedia, the Lead and the Thumbnail sections of the Blog very often shaped from stories taken from that amazing website. They are truly worthy of public support.
And to Howard for his suggestion of a new face on the dollar bill.
A tip o' the hat (U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, 1924
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Today’s Thumbnail
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox, November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and cult leader.
In mid-1967, he formed what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune based in California.
Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969.
According to the Los Angeles County district attorney, Manson plotted to start a race war, though Manson and others involved long disputed this motive.
In 1971, he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people.
Although the prosecution conceded that Manson never literally ordered the murders, they contended that his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy.
Manson was also convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of Gary Hinman and Donald Shea.
At the time the Manson Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict who had spent more than half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses.
Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis Wilson, drummer and founding member of the Beach Boys.
In 1968, the group recorded one of Manson's songs, "Cease to Exist", retitled "Never Learn Not to Love", as a single B-side, but without a credit to Manson.
The Los Angeles district attorney said that Manson was obsessed with the Beatles, particularly their 1968 self-titled album (also known as the "White Album").
Allegedly guided by his interpretation of the band's lyrics, Manson adopted the term "Helter Skelter" to describe an impending apocalyptic race war.
At trial, the prosecution claimed that Manson and his followers, who were mostly young women, believed that the murders would help precipitate that war.
Other contemporary interviews and those who testified during the penalty phase of Manson's original trial insisted that the motive for the Tate–LaBianca murders were copycat crimes designed to exonerate Manson's friend Bobby Beausoleil.
From the beginning of Manson's notoriety, a pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of insanity, violence, and the macabre.
After he was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by Manson were released commercially, starting with Lie: The Love and Terror Cult (1970).
Various musicians have covered some of his songs.
Manson was originally sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life with the possibility of parole after California invalidated the state's death penalty statute in 1972.
He served his life sentence at California State Prison in Corcoran and died at age 83 in late 2017.
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Good Morning on this Thursday, the first day of August, 2019
Love having pix of both Brad and Leonardo.
Our lead picture is a portrait of Charles Manson and our Thumbnail adds a bit more info about the madman.
Our commentary discusses the current Tarantino film which includes the Manson family.
We posted a Boston weather report and the ‘ticking calendar’ as illustrated by the growing number of posts as calendar markers.
We posted a chuckle and shared a dinner.
And shared a photo-shopped dollar bill. I tried printing it on green paper and bringing fifty of them to Whole Foods. Fortunately their security guards are very slow.
And now? Gotta go.
Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?
See you soon.
Your love.