"Black or White"

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The BAT Challenge: Do You Hear What I Hear?

In case you didn't know, certain subway trains play a three-note phrase from the West Side Story song "Somewhere." It's a fascinating phenomenon to hear "There's a place..." though I wish the timbre weren't so close to the sound of chalk on a blackboard.

Traces of West Side Story turn up elsewhere, too. People have noted that Danny Elfman's theme song for The Simpsons starts with the three-note "Maria" progression, except that the words are "The Simpsons."

But I'm not sure anyone hears the other West Side Story notes that I hear in the theme to The Simpsons. So the first person to identify that West Side Story "source" song and musical phrase gets a point.

Anyone can play. Leave your guesses in the comments section, using a distinct moniker so you aren't confused with the other players, such as Debbie and Deborah.

You can listen here.



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Patrick McGoohan (1928-2009)

I just got the surprising and sad news that Patrick McGoohan passed away in Los Angeles yesterday after a short illness.

McGoohan—who I just learned was born in Astoria—appeared on stage and acted and directed and wrote in an assortment of movies and television programs. The reason I am stopping everything to write about him is that, in the late 1960s, McGoohan managed to combine his talents to create the brilliant television program The Prisoner.

I've written about The Prisoner before on this blog and elsewhere. In case you need a refresher, it was a short television series about a British secret agent who resigns and finds himself in a bizarre place called The Village, where everyone is known by a number and where the leadership tries to manipulate him into revealing why he resigned. Just about every episode revolves around the retired spy's efforts to outsmart and escape his captors.

The storylines of The Prisoner could have been as rudimentary as that of a simple videogame, but under McGoohan's leadership the show went in an apposite direction. The visuals for the series remain stunning: a colorful blend of 1960s pop stylings with the eccentric retro-design of the Portmeirion resort village of Wales. The soundtrack was unusually catchy and playful; the scripts were clever and puzzling and steeped in edgy satire punctuated by powerful pathos; the actors seemed to rise to the occasion and truly belong to The Prisoner's dystopian world. I'm not sure the very end of the series is a success, but I respect the experimentalism of the whole series and the many powerful moments it has to offer. The only other television series I can think of that offered the same type of risk-taking and satisfaction is Twin Peaks, though I'm sure there are other worthy candidates, including Lost. (The Singing Detective and other Dennis Potter works are works of genius, but for the moment I'll consider them as belonging to a different genre.)

I don't recall seeing The Prisoner when it originally aired (though I might've seen fragments of it); I caught up with it when it was re-aired by PBS in the late 1970s. Attracted by the advance publicity and totally riveted by the first episode, I watched the rest of the series religiously and even refused to answer the phone while it was on—something I had never done before and would rarely do afterward. I devoured the Starlog magazine that included an episode guide. I even had like-minded friends over for a Prisoner party and got into Marvin Kitman's Newsday column with a petition (co-spearheaded by The Other Dave) that, if memory serves, had to do with keeping the show on the air.

Since then, The Prisoner has become much easier to see due to video. It's been "quoted" on The Simpsons and sort of cribbed in The Truman Show. The long talked-about remakes seem to be more imminent than ever—and the messages and themes of The Prisoner remain relevant more than 40 years after its creation by Patrick McGoohan. Standards of privacy and individuality continue to erode in a global village that seems more engulfing by the minute.

So see it if you haven't already. Here's how it begins....



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SHRED IT IF YOU CAN! Today I wondered: Was I dreaming, or had I seen Frank Abagnale (the con artist-turned-security-expert whose life inspired the movie Catch Me If You Can) promoting New York City's first free shredding event?

I wasn't dreaming! This Sunday, the city will host Shred Fest NYC, enabling New Yorkers to shred documents for free at 11 locations all over the city!

This sounds sooo much better than the city's recycling events, which take place in only five locations. I only wish I'd heard about it sooner. And I hope the weather holds out. And I hope the masses of shredders aren't overwhelming!

Here are the credits for Catch Me If You Can.



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And here's the version from The Simpsons.


via videosift.com

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OKAY GO PARODY ON THE SIMPSONS

Reading about Sasha and Dave and the OK Go video for Here It Goes Again (choreographed by Trish Sie), I remembered that The Simpsons parodied the video recently. So here it goes again—thanks to YouTube!

Also, for a long overdue follow-up, make yourself comfortable and click here for winners of OK Go's Million Ways contest!



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PUZZLE TIME! Activate the virtual jigsaw puzzle by running your cursor over it.

Access a ton o' Blog About Town puzzle fun here.

PUZZLE TIME! Activate the virtual jigsaw puzzle by running your cursor over it.

Access a ton o' Blog About Town puzzle fun here.

PUZZLE TIME! Activate the virtual jigsaw puzzle by running your cursor over it.

Access a ton o' Blog About Town puzzle fun here.

WERNER AND LUCY AND DESI AND HOMER

This weekend the Film Forum kicks off its Werner Herzog non-fiction film festival. Want a recommendation? To be honest, I don't know where to start...except to mention that Herzog is scheduled to make personal appearances at a few screenings of the first films, which get glowing reviews on IMDB. (The most intriguing appearance isn't at the Film Forum, actually; it's at Goethe House on Saturday afternoon, when he'll screen footage from his forthcoming Antarctica flick--but it's sold out!) Otherwise, he's to be at Little Dieter Needs to Fly/Wings of Hope at 7 pm on Saturday, The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner/The Dark Glow of the Mountains/The White Diamond at 8:20 pm on Sunday, and "Werner's Picks" Sans Soleil/Les Maîtres Fous at 7 pm on Monday. Wanna go? Be aggressive--tickets seem to be going...going....

On Sunday at the Museum of the Moving Image there will be a free "street fair and celebration" called New York on Location. You'll be able to step inside 20 film trailers and trucks--and perhaps see what's behind the doors marked Lucy and Desi (as if you didn't know). Plus, you can get into the museum for free (and see Sam Fuller's newspaper movie Park Row) and get bargains at the gift shop, which is having a big sale.

And Sunday night is the 400th episode of The Simpsons. Amazing. (There will be two episodes that night, actually, as the 18th season of the series reaches its finale.)

BONUS I've been hearing and reading great things about the movie Once and the people who made it. Here's the trailer.



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