Flash Poem: Whose Flattery?

How much is too
much flattery?

It depends on who it
is you are flattering

It might fly
or lie flat.

___

2017

Simon St. Laurent

Sunday Fun: Next Week's Big KFC Fight

That's what I heard, folks, a few years ago. I was working on my laptop as the television smoked at my feet. "Next week's big KFC fight."

Kentucky Fried Chicken? ("Well, folks, he chickened out. He had not the stomach for it.")

I looked up from my computer and saw two mean-looking dudes just inches apart, sharing eye lines, staring mortars. Airing threats.

Back to my work.

I awoke the next morning to the result of the chicken fight. (People were anticipating, wagering, and watching that contest? That very idea I found really hard to digest.)

Oh. Pardon me.

I had pictured fractured legs kicking a way to that last drumstick,

crushing knuckles over the tiny tub of coleslaw,

arms swinging for a wing.

Brutes' brutality to a nutritionist's nightmare. In a fast food church.

Thinking back to "Next week's big KFC fight": I do remember getting the impression that those two dudes did not look like the type who would 'dine' at a place like KFC.

Postscript: This all reminds me that the last time I ate at KFC was in the summer of 1993. It was the location at Bloor Street West and Euclid Avenue, here in Toronto. I remember, it was a beautifully sunny and warm day. Before visiting my Film Effects coworker, I felt the need to down some salt and fat. And whatever else was in that box. Fries?

Post-postscript: While tying up this piece I decided to check that particular store location. It's now a Mary Brown's Chicken. This change must have happened fairly recently. Oh... now I can't recreate my "KFC in 1993" experience. The question is, however: Would I have had the stomach for it?

Blu-rays: Black Zero Titles of Four Ready to Go

As noted on its website: "Black Zero is a multimedia publisher specializing in Canadian experimental cinema from the 1960s to the present."

Experimental filmmaker and film scholar Stephen Broomer is its founder and bright light, and his dedication to preserving Canadian experimental films, especially those all but forgotten, is commendable and something I very much appreciate given my strong interest in the form. As a matter of interest, his book Hamilton Babylon: A History of the McMaster Film Board (University of Toronto Press, 2016) is an excellent example of the scholarly kind. This impeccable document of necessary density has the expected academic bent, but Broomer's writing style is breezy and inviting enough that it should engage those readers who might possess even the smallest interest in experimental cinema. And censorship. On that front — the courts — we Canadians fought battles of our own. (It wasn't just an "American" thing.) On that front — reading — it's quite the page turner. What happens next? What's the verdict?

Recently I picked up a few Black Zero Blu-rays, partly as a show of support, and, of course, to enjoy the disc sets' featured flicks, including their commentaries and supplementary material.

Readying to dig into:

* Green Dreams — Josephine Massarella

* Slow Run — Larry Kardish

* A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised by Joy — R. Bruce Elder

* Everything Everywhere Again Alive — Keith Lock

Enjoy!

Believe me, I will....

***

“(Canadian experimental cinema) has a finer vibration, a finer density, a finer matter.”

— Jonas Mekas, 1968

NFB Film: Test Pilot (1957) — Starring James Doohan!

The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has uploaded to YouTube a wonderful selection of their old film shorts. One such film, from 1957, is titled Test Pilot, and its twenty-nine minutes are pretty wonderful, certainly for those folk who find such material engaging. And it stars one James Doohan, "Scotty" from Star Trek. (Hearing him say the word "engineers" several times... well, you know. If he only knew then that in a few years hence he would fly to the stars, and fame.) During World War II, Doohan flew observation aircraft while serving with the Royal Canadian Artillery.

"Dave Frost" works as a company (Avro Canada) test pilot; his job is to test various aircraft functions and potential capabilities. As with any job where one is a test pilot for a high-performance aircraft, there is always that risk, that possibility that something might and can go wrong. These pilots are of a special breed: recreational flyers, they are not.

Test Pilot's angle of attack is typical of a late 1950s short film, one with an educational bent. The acting is fine, especially from that famed starship engineer, and the filmmaking sound, which is to be expected from the NFB, old or new. The short-subject was shot primarily on 35mm black-and-white film but contains a few 16mm-35mm "blow-up" sections: some of the aerial photography was captured on the smaller film format, no doubt due to its extra portability. I was somewhat surprised that the filmmakers didn't mount a dashboard camera. That "pilot's point of view" would have given the aircraft climb some extra dimension, even if the viewer would have been treated to little more than clear skies and perhaps a few cloud formations.

 

The featured flying machine: the Avro Canada CF-100 "Canuck" was a great aircraft, an all-weather twin-engine jet-powered interceptor/fighter operated by the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force). It served in that role from 1952 to 1961. However, the air force used the 100 for other roles before retiring the type in 1981. (The Belgian Air Force also bought and operated a few examples.) When I lived in CFB Borden a "Clunk" was parked in a holding area not far from our PMQ (Private Married Quarters). It may have been a static training example... or just forgotten. By the way, my dad worked on the CF-100 as an armourer. (When Test Pilot was produced he had already been serving with the RCAF for a few years — and would serve for many more.) A few years ago, while visiting the wonderful Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, I sat in a beautiful CF-100. One is allowed to sit in the machine, with a little help from the museum's terrific staff, of course. (Military-aviation buffs would enjoy visiting the CWHM. It's located at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Mount Hope, Ontario, Canada. The selection of aircraft is wide and varied.)

Test Pilot was directed by Fergus McDonell, and written by Arthur Hailey, who, the year before, scripted the CBC live-to-air television play, Flight into Danger, starring... James Doohan.

Postscript: Flight into Danger was produced by Sydney Newman, who, after that production was bought by the BBC and aired in the UK, went on to create The Avengers for ABC Weekend TV, and co-create Doctor Who for the BBC. Scribe Arthur Hailey went on to co-write the Flight into Danger-inspired 1957 feature film, Zero Hour!, which, years later, was adapted as the 1980 comedy flick, Airplane! He went on to great literary-pulp fame with his novels, Hotel (1965), and... Airport (1968), which was then adapted for the big screen and released to movie theatres in 1970. Airport was a big box office hit. I remember well the endlessly replayed television adverts.

Those Crazy Canadians and Their Flying Machines....

Athot for the Day: Strange Matter

Cats are caught in that twilight zone between acting like a cat and being a cat.