Culture Snaps, August 31st

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

WATCHING...

The West Wing, Season 3

You don't seal up the old car in the garage just because she's got a little mileage. She cleans up nice, and purrs all the way home. Love like this, you can't buy it in a store.

READING...

Kazan on Directing by Elia Kazan

The legendary (some might substitute 'notorious' here) Broadway and Hollywood director Elia Kazan's collected notes comprise this slim volume, on topics that vary from casting actors for their unseen wounds to Brando's ferocious arm muscles. From the LA Times: 

Before starting to direct a new play or movie, Elia Kazan would purchase a little school notebook and, as rehearsals and early performances proceeded, fill it with his thoughts. Taken together, these notebooks constitute a unique (and as far as I know unparalleled) record of an uncommonly passionate and acute directorial mind at work and, in edited form, they are the fascinating and unsparing core of "Kazan on Directing."

LISTENING...

The Honeycombs, "Have I the Right?"

Men in suits spinning in unison? IN 1964?

I thought about suing these guys for reading my diary 20 years before it was written in an attempt to collectively woo and demolish my heart for all other men, but then I remembered how clutch this song is, and I told the lawyer to chill already. Simply put: this song is why we all do what we do, whether or not we know it yet. Plus: clapping in groovy unison!

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