Thanksgiving 2017

So, many of you have been asking … where have you been for the past few months?

Well, The Jade Sphinx was on temporary sabbatical while I finished a (long-overdue) book on books-adapted into films with critic and historian Jim Nemeth. But since that undertaking is drawing to a close, we will be able to post more regularly in the months to come. In fact, in the weeks before Christmas, I hope to share with you multiple book reviews that reflect new and noteworthy releases. More to come!

But before that, let’s think for a moment about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving has always been our favorite holiday. It is solely predicated on the notion of giving thanks for the manifest blessings that we find around us, and for being mindful of the still, quiet miracle of our lives. Every day, wonders settle on my shoulders like so many snowflakes, and I feel deeply in touch with some greater mystery that lies beyond me.

Though uniquely American, Thanksgiving has always been our holiday least associated with ideology or creed.  The celebratory meal represents the bounty that is our lives; it is, simply, the holiday that is best shared with people we love.

I am delighted to report that as I coast through my 55^th year, I am still as in love with my Better Half as I was when we first met, 27 years ago. In no time at all, we will have been together for half (and then more than half) of my life, and I wonder how we spent those early years apart.

I’m thankful for all the dear friends and family who have trekked out to Southern California to spend time with us, and to see us build a new life in a new clime.

I’m thankful that Southern California is the paradise that I suspected it to be, and for exceeding all of my expectations.

And last, but certainly not least, I’m thankful for the new addition to our lives, our dog Lucas. He is a four-and-a-half year old rescue that we adopted from nearby Seal Beach. I have long wanted a dog, and Lucas has been everything I could’ve wanted, and more. We spend an obscene amount of time just gazing at him; he makes us laugh simply by doing things as elementary as walking across the room or drinking from his water dish. He is a gift that has enriched us beyond measure.

It is important to point out that for the past few years, Americans have spent so much time over the Thanksgiving table arguing – over politics, over values, over questions of identity – that we have forgotten what this holiday is really about.

It seems as if we are always on the brink of disaster and things are always trending to ruin.  I’ll be jiggered if I’m going to haul that hoo-haw out again this year, because I think pointing out the negatives in our lives doesn’t do us a whole lot of good.  So, yeah, things are terrible, it seems no one is happy with our current condition, and the world as we know it is changing so fast, no one knows what to hold onto.  It was much the same last year and will be much the same next year.  Been there, wrote that.

But I have faith in America and Americans. Good heavens, we created this holiday, the first nation ever to create a secular day of thanks.  Patriotism was never popular among most of my friends; any positive sentiments towards the country are mostly met with ironic dismissal or sneering condescension. But I think we are a great people, or, at least, we try to be.  I don’t know the future of our land any more than you, but I do know that Americans are capable of great things, great kindness, and unity.  That last quality – unity – has been in fairly short supply in recent years, but I think it will make a remarkable resurgence in the months and years to come.  We can but hope, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This Thanksgiving, make it a point to greet your family, friends and neighbors as people, and not as units of some political philosophy.  Love and nurture each other, and remember to be kind and ethical.  And, finally, remember to be thankful.  Thankful for the many blessings in your life, the bounty of the world around you, and for the quiet, ineffable mystery of your own existence.

Short Story Week, Part III: The Unfortunate Undead, by Jim Nemeth

We close our week of short stories with this piece by writer and film historian, Jim Nemeth.  In 1993, Nemeth won 1st Prize in a national magazine’s short story writing contest for which novelists Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch were judges; his piece was subsequently published in a special issue. Winning held special meaning for Nemeth, as Robert Bloch remains his favorite writer and main literary influence. Nemeth has had articles and reviews printed in a variety of magazines, including Filmfax and Mad About Movies. He is currently co-writing a book that will examine the literary origins of numerous classic fantasy films.

Nemeth works as a business analyst/technical writer in the biotechnology field. A long-time community activist, Nemeth is particularly committed to the causes of cancer research and HIV/AIDS. He is equally passionate about his involvement in animal rescue.

Old One awoke from his trance-like slumber and rose from his coffin. Then, as he had done every night for countless centuries, he walked toward the entrance of the cave that was his home. The cave, set high in a tall, snow-covered mountain, overlooked a populous village which the vampire nightly claimed as his feeding ground.

Old One smiled as he looked down on the valley below him. As he continued to gaze, however, the smile quickly melted into a frown. Something is wrong, he thought to himself. Something is not quite right. The village below looked the same to him as it did every night, and yet something was…different.

A brief moment passed before he realized what was troubling him. “No lights,” he whispered into the night air. Here it was, nightfall, yet there was not one torch or fire to be seen lit down in his little village.

“Where are the torches?” he asked of no one. Any other night he could rise, look down below, and see hundreds of little pinpoints of light burning within the huts. They usually lit the night as if the village were visited by a plague of fireflies. But tonight, there was…nothing.

Still puzzled, Old One strained his vampiric senses to the limit. With his keen hearing, he could hear that many of the peasants were outside of their huts.

Outside? After dark? The vampire felt a vague uneasiness creep over him. But they always lock themselves up long before nightfall, Old One reflected. They’re always too terrified to go near their doors or windows until sunrise is upon them! Yet here they are, abandoning the protection of their homes, the safety that the crosses, the garlic, and the other hated items afforded them. Why?

“Could they have finally mustered courage in numbers to try to track me down?” he asked himself. Although he knew his location was quite unreachable by any normal means, his question shot a momentary chill of fear through him.

Old One’s acute senses next became aware of a strong scent, one reaching up to him from the valley far below. It was a scent he was quite familiar with. It was the smell of fear. The villagers were afraid of something. They were scared! Their fear of the vampire had been replaced this night, but Old One did not know by what.

The vampire gazed out at the horizon as he tried to formulate answers to the mysteries below. As he did so, the night itself gave him cause to wonder.

“It’s lighter than it should be,” he whispered to himself. But just last night was the first night of the time of the missing moon!” Having had centuries in which to observe the lunar patterns, he knew that the moon should be gone tonight. It should be completely dark!

Yet, there was light of some sort! Very little, to be sure, but enough to cast an eerie illumination over the entire valley floor. In all his years, Old One had never seen such a strange phenomenon. It sent a shiver running through his unliving body. No wonder the villagers were afraid! Old One wanted to see the cause of this weird luminescence but sensed that the source was on the other side of the mountain, out of his current range of sight.

A quickening dread began to settle upon the ancient vampire. It had been many decades since he had felt this unsettled. And here, tonight, there were too many puzzles, too many questions for which he had no answers.

A moment passed and Old One began to gain control over his racing mind. It was at this same moment, however, that yet another question entered his consciousness. A question that, coming upon everything else, sent his mind reeling into an uncontrollable panic.

“Why am I not thirsty?” he shouted into the cold night. Every evening, every night he would wake and have the thirst upon him. The inhuman, burning thirst that could be satisfied only one way. But now, he felt nothing. NOTHING! “It’s as if I’d drunk but an hour ago!” he screamed, this time so loud that he was sure that even the villagers below had heard his tortured cry.

Gripped by fear, Old One determined that he had to take action of some kind. He intuitively felt that his unnatural existence depended upon his finding answers to the puzzles that were torturing him. He decided to go immediately to the village. Once there, he would find a villager apart from any group and seize him. Before taking the fool’s life, he would force the wretch to tell him what the strange events meant. “They have to know what is happening,” he tried to reason with himself. “They must know!”

The vampire instantly transformed to his aerial shape and took to the sky. No sooner was he airborne than he realized something was wrong. Very wrong. For the first time since prior to becoming an Undead, he felt…warm. Too warm. Hot. Burning! Almost as if the sun…THE SUN! But, it couldn’t be! It couldn’t…

Old One’s consciousness ceased to exist, as did his body, as his fleshless skeleton plummeted to earth.

The villagers, being a simple and uneducated people, never knew exactly why the vampire’s attacks stopped as of that fateful day. They simply assumed that the vampire had fled from their midst on that awful day of terror. The day the villagers thought that the world was coming to an end. For the villagers, like Old One, had never experienced a total eclipse of the sun.

An Evening With Celeste Holm

One month ago today we lost Celeste Holm (1917-2012), one of the few remaining figures from Hollywood’s Golden Age.  Of that august body, the only four survivors that come to mind are Olivia de Havillland (born 1916), Kirk Douglas (born 1916), Mickey Rooney (born 1920), and Shirley Temple (born 1928).  I’m sure it’s possible that, some 60 years hence, someone will write an appreciation of Ben Affleck while contemplating with nostalgia the Millennium Era of Hollywood, but I somehow doubt it.

It’s hard for people born into the era of movies like The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and yet another version of Spider-Man, to remember (or understand) that films were once made by, and for, adults.  (And, seriously, does our culture really need a “realistic” Batman movie?  Isn’t the very phrase fairly insulting?  Could you imagine anyone with a straight face 40 or 50 years ago suggesting that adult audiences would greet the notion of a “dark” superhero film with anything other than blank incomprehension or withering disdain?  And isn’t this stuff supposed to be fun, anyway?  Please don’t get me wrong – I enjoy a Batman film as next as the next fellow, and was entertained by both the 1960s comedy series and the Tim Burton films.  But … have we degenerated so as a culture that the story of a millionaire dressed like a giant bat so he could punch a homicidal clown is now considered worthy of an “adult” take?)  In such an atmosphere, it’s somehow consoling to remember that films were once made by adults and not a culture of arrested adolescents.

Holm was a staple on Broadway and film for decades.  She won an Academy Award for her performance in Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), one of the first films to seriously address anti-Semitism, and was nominated for her performances in Come to the Stable (1949) and the classic All About Eve (1950).  On Broadway she originated the role of Ado Annie in Oklahoma!, and in 1991 I was lucky enough to see her as an aging actress in Paul Rudnick’s comedy about the ghost of John Barrymore, I Hate Hamlet. 

Holm had a very distinct screen persona.  Her somewhat plain, non-glamorous beauty hinted at an inner warmth, and her natural reserve suited her for roles as patrician or distant women.  Always more convincing as a socialite than a tart, Holm managed to bring an element of Yankee gentility to any endeavor.  To see two disparate sides of Holm, watch her nearly incandescent turn as a nun in Come to the Stable and then see her as chanteuse Flame O’Neill in the riotous comedy Champagne for Caesar (1950).  For a taste of her range, watch Holm cornered by the duplicitous Anne Baxter in All About Eve here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=987UWPKQVQA.

About 15 years ago I had the great pleasure to dine with Holm at the apartment of lyricist Fred Ebb  (1928-2004).  My friend, film scholar and writer Jim Nemeth, had “won” Holm for dinner at a charitable auction, and she regaled us for over four hours with stories alternately salty and scandalous.  For a woman so composed and serene onscreen, she could be quite surprising in the flesh.  (There is a reason it’s called “acting.”)  She spared nobody.

Asked about her Caesar co-star Vincent Price, Holm asked, “why would you want to know about him?  He couldn’t act.”  That was a comment not nearly as withering as her take on Stable costar Loretta Young, whom she called “a chocolate-covered black widow spider.”

About her Eve costars, she was equally brutal.  Hugh Marlowe was “dull,” and she had no comment on George Sanders, who she claimed only spoke to the director and never to the rest of the cast.  She called Baxter “ambitious,” and Bette Davis a word that rather rhymes with “ambitious.”

She had some genuinely nice things to say about her High Society (1956) co-star Frank Sinatra, but added, “you wouldn’t want to cross him.”  She dismissed Nicol Williamson (Barrymore in I Hate Hamlet) as a “drunk” and pronounced Julie Andrews (they worked together in television’s Cinderella) “cold.”  The biggest mistake of her career was not made by herself, but, rather, the producers of the film version of Oklahoma!, who did not ask her to reprise her stage role as Ado Annie.  Perhaps my favorite Holm-ism was her take on her fans:  “When someone tells me they like Gentlemen’s Agreement, I know they’re a West Side liberal.  When they mention Eve, I know they’re gay.”

It was, in short, an unforgettable evening.  Though I found the real Celeste Holm very different from the reel one, she was a woman who will be greatly missed.