Zoot Soot

A viewer writes:  "I have just been listening to a recording of 'Dream Dancing' by Mr. Zoot Sims and have been entirely enchanted.  Please tell me, was 'Zoot' his given name?"

Ha ha!  Madam, you have come to the right place!  No, "Zoot" was not the name pronounced at the baptismal font.  The infant tenor saxophonist was christened John Haley Sims.

How, you now wonder, did he acquire the appellation "Zoot"?  It came as a result of his  youthful introduction to the music scene. He performed in a band in which a trio of saxophone players, in rented white dinner jackets, stood behind music stands labeled "Root," "Toot" and "Zoot." 

And Madam, you have guessed it!  He stood behind the stand identifying him as "Root"!

Pointless Digressions welcomes all questions and is prepared to provide authoritative answers. All major credit cards accepted.  Bags of cash preferred.

Oscar Who?

"Everyone else was acting so compulsively I had to do something compulsive too."  That was Nelson Algren, writing about writing about Hemingway in "Notes from a Sea Diary " (1959). But I feel much the same in writing about the Academy Awards.  Everyone is doing it.  If you don't do it, they come and take away your laptop and your Blockbuster Video card.

I don't really want to write about the Academy Awards, and I feel uneasy about again sitting through the four-hour show.  When it's over you feel like the guy in the old TV commercial who said "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."

So what I'm going to write about (and probably everyone has a list of this sort) is people who should have won Oscars and didn't.

* Peter O'Toole.  Perhaps the most astonishing mistake of all.  O'Toole wasn't even nominated for Best Actor for his role as Lawrence of Arabia.

* Peter Sellers.  Played three distinct characters in "Dr. Strangelove"--RAF Captain Lionel Mandrake, US President Merkin Muffley, and the crazy genius Dr. S. himself.  After Marlon Brando won for "On the Waterfront," Humphrey Bogart said "They should wrap up all the Oscars in Hollywood, including mine, and give them to Brando."  They should have given Sellers three for "Dr. Strangelove."  Not even a nomination.

* Richard Jaeckel.  At least he got nominated for his enormously likable evangelical and wildly sex-happy lumberjack in "Sometimes a Great Notion."  But no golden statuette at night's end. 

* Lee J. Cobb.  Never a nod from the Academy, despite decades of great performances; e.g., Johnny Friendly in "On the Waterfront." 

* "The Big Knife."  The Academy has never had a category for ensemble performances, but had there been one in 1955, a major contender would have been this film of a Clifford Odets play with a cast that included Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Rod Steiger, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Shelley Winters and Ilka Chase.  Other superb ensemble performances include almost everything Robert Altman made, but especially "Gosford Park."

* "Singin' in the Rain."  Now generally acknowledged to be the best musical ever made.  What did it win?  Fuhgeddabudit.

* Jean Hagen.  Most often seen as a mistreated and teary gangster's moll, Ms. Hagen gave an unforgettable knockout comic performance as Lina Lamont, the silent movie queen with an appalling voice in the aforementioned "Singin' in the Rain."  If ever a performer deserved a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, it was Ms. H.

And we will leave you with one of her memorable lines from that film:  "If we bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, we feel all our hard work ain't been in vain for nothin'."  

That line, and all the others in "Singin' in the Rain," was written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who also wrote "On the Town," "The Band Wagon," "Bells are Ringing" and half a dozen other movies.  They didn't win anything, either.

Post-Olympics Clear-out Sale

It has been revealed that many of the players involved in 2010 Olympics hockey were not in attendance for the closing ceremonies, a fact that has sparked cries of outrage from the sorts of people who e-mail sports pages signing themselves "Troo Bloo Canuck."  They feel that athletes who failed to attend the wind-up gala should be stripped of their medals and, if not made to face a firing squad, be condemned to sail the world forever on a ship that never docks, the punishment suffered by the title character in "The Man Without a Country," he having been  disenfranchised for whistling "Salt Peanuts" during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" or some equally heinous offence.  Further to the hockey brouhaha, outraged fans are muttering that perhaps the game should be dropped from future Olympics, to be replaced by something like volleyball on ice.

The Digressions crew also missed the closing ceremonies, having previously been committed to a sauerkraut tasting, but we do have a report from faithful correspondent Whitfield Wallaby, who writes as follows:  "When the Canada-US hockey game ended, I went in search of a bracing beverage, but, as the liquor vendors had locked their doors at two o'clock, I was compelled to settle for a bottle of almond extract.  Falling into an altered state, I dreamed I was trapped at an event populated by giant beavers and dancing Mounties.  I thought I witnessed poor William Shatner delivering lame jokes and wishing that the floor beneath him would open up, or that he could morph into Denny Crane.  It was a frightening mirage, part 1950s Vegas club show, part early CBC-TV variety.  I thought I heard Ryan Miller say 'Losing the game was disappointing, but this is a nightmare'."

Meanwhile, the auctioning of thousands of items of Olympics memorabilia has begun, with buyers willing to pay up to $600 for a hockey puck.  Here at Pointless Digressions we have, for sale to the highest bidder, half  a poppy seed roll left behind by a member of the Azerbaijan team.  Genuine tooth marks!

Finally, a person who wishes to remain anonymous wants to know what he is offered for Sidney Crosby's gloves.  

Memorial Notes from All Over

We have just received a copy of the program for a memorial service which includes the usual Celebration of Life information, but which has, on the reverse, the Saskatchewan Roughriders logo, the team's schedule for the 2010 season, and the line "Go Rider Go!"  Which, we suppose, is a tribute to the super fandom of the person who has gone Riders gone.

One hopes that wherever he has gone, he has a great view of the games.

Bringing Down the Budget

In line with his federal and provincial counterparts, Uriah Chizelflint, Pointless Digressions Minister of Finance, has brought down his 2010 budget.

"This is a cautious but reckless budget," said the terminally confused Chizelflint.  "We are going to cut back severely on essential services and spend lavishly on risky, suspect and demonstrably hare-brained projects."  Highlights of the 2010 PD Budget follow:

* Education:  $21.35 for renewed subscription to National Enquirer. 

* Infrastructure:  $1.89 for paper clips.

* Arts, Culture and Sports:  $12.50 for autographed photo of Alvin and the Chipmunks, offset by expected revenue of $5,000 for Sidney Crosby's gloves, obtained at conclusion of Canada-US hockey game. 

* Community Outreach:  Significant savings anticipated though recycling of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Valentine's Day cards.  $1.50 for White-Out.

*  Travel:  Sizable reduction of travel expenses through use of elderly neighbor's bus pass. 

*  Health:  $341 for medicinal spirits and consultation with Dr. Jack Daniel.

*  Taxation:  Expect cost of perusing of this blog to rise sharply.  

Old Friends

Hey, old friend

Are you okay, old friend?

What do you say, old friend,

Are we or are we unique?

Time goes by,

Everything else keeps changing;

You and I,

We get continued next week.

Most friends fade

Or they don't make the grade.

New ones are quickly made

And in a pinch, sure, they'll do.

But us, old friend,

What's to discuss, old friend?

 Here's to us--who's like us

   Damn few!

--Stephen Sondheim, "Merrily We Roll Along"

Posted in memory of old friends:  Ray Lees. Brian Cross. Terry Garner. Bill Hutchinson. Jack and Jim Hutchinson. Jim Kern. Bernie Vinge. Doug Hughes. Tom Huntley. Peter Ross. Art Hives. Denny Boyd. Larry Rose. Syd Boyling. George Price. Bob Giles. Jay Leddy. Larry Macdonald. Brad Keene. Ron Grimster. Jean-Luc Bertrand. Jack Brooksbank. Godfrey Gower. Ted Scott.   

Ain't but a few of us left.   

Last Olympics Post. We Promise.

Those suffering Olympics withdrawal might alleviate their distress by picking up a few Olympics-theme films at their friendly DVD dream pharmacy.

There have been more movies with Olympics settings than one might think (or fewer. depending on who one is).  From these, the Digressions panel has selected three it deems worthy of viewing, from--in this order--the years 1982, 1969 and 1965.

1.  "Personal Best."  Written and directed by Robert Towne, better known for writing "Chinatown" and "Shampoo."  Mariel Hemingway stars as a runner training for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow (subsequently boycotted by the US, to the bitter disappointment of American athletes).  Co-star is Patrice Donnelly, an All-American hurdler who represented the US at the 1976 Olympics.  Music score by Team Dresch, an early punk rock group.

2.  "Downhill Racer."  Directed by Michael Ritchie ("The Candidate") from a script by novelist ("A Sport and a Pastime") James Salter.  No one has ever captured competition, whether athletic or political, better than Ritchie.  The downhill racer of the title, a rather scruffy and self-centred skier, is played by Robert Redford (Roger Angell, writing about baseball films, said that Redford is one of the few actors who has the moves of an athlete).  The ever reliable Gene Hackman and Dabney Coleman turn up as coaches.  Filmed in the Austrian Alps.

3.  "Walk, Don't Run."  Lightest of the three, and the most fun, this lark is set in Tokyo, site of the 1964 Summer Games.  Stars Cary Grant, Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar as three people who end up sharing a small apartment in a very crowded city.  The sport under examination is race walking, which looks like a lot of work.  Music score by Quincy Jones, with songs by Peggy Lee (including the appropriately titled "Happy Feet") and fine contributions by Toots Thielemans and Harry "Sweets" Edison. 

You decide who gets the gold.