1 week. 3 storms.
Why punish a region just a little bit when you can punish it a lot? It wasn't enough to get hammered by Hurricane Sandy. A few days after that, a powerful nor'easter rolled in off the Atlantic bringing with it a staggering amount of wet, heavy, snow.
Most of the trees haven't shed their leaves so the snow settled on the branches and weighed them down until their tips touched the ground. Many limbs snapped under the strain. Our power was knocked out AGAIN. I thought the girls would be cowering in abject fear because of the storm and darkness but when I walked in the door after a 3:30 commute through a raging blizzard, I found them singing Christmas carols by candlelight.
My property suffered more damage from this nor'easter than it did the hurricane. Mrs. Wife and I were lying in bed reading when we heard a few pops and then a long, loud, slow-motion, unmistakable cracking. Timber! A massive tree in our back yard split nearly in half. It missed Casa de Unbearable, but not the wooden fence surrounding my back yard. It's a mess. Good God, what next?
In order to get to work the following morning I had to brush several inches of snow off my car and clear debris from the driveway. The city was a slushy mess but most of the snow was gone by midday. Here are few Central Park shots.
The park was closed because of the storm damage. You could only walk around the outside perimeter. It looked kind of spooky without any people in it. I Am Legend stuff.
* * *
The third storm of the week was the emotional fireworks and pathos put on display by Al Pacino as broken down real estate shark Shelly "The Machine" Levene in David Mamet's scorching Glengarry Glen Ross. 
Pacino's name is above the title, author and director because he's the guy who puts asses in seats, but the entire cast is great, especially oily John C. McGinley. I question the director's choice for pacing. Mamet's dialog should be thrown at you with machine gun rapidity. Here, the delivery is more measured. When I see one of Mamet's works, I don't want to have time to think.
posted by The Unbearable Banishment at
7:16 AM
11 Comments:
Luckily you live in Gotham.
You are made of steel.
Hang in there....
These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you would be throwing them away. They're for closers.
Sausage: You know the show! In an interesting bit of casting, Pacino played hotshot agent Ricky Roma in the film. This time, he's the old, beaten-up Levene. And, yes, I do quite feel fortunate that I fell into this town. It all happened quite by accident.
Snow in November? What the heck, New York is turning into Russia. Why doesn't everyone just migrate to Florida during the winter? Millions of birds can't be wrong. Did you prefer Pacino in The Godfather or Dog Day Afternoon?
What doesnae kill yis makes yis stronger. What a stupid expression.
Good to see you are weathering the storm, pardon the pun.
Did you know that Map in his younger days (pre-war) was a dead ringer for Pacino?
GB: Actually, I've seen snow on Halloween. It's not as rare as you might think. I'm not crazy about Florida. Too many bugs. And in a twisted, self-abusing way, I'd miss the snow. As far as Pacino, I think he's pretty much the same guy in everything he does. Same goes for Nicholson. They're great at what they do, but they don't have the range of, say, Daniel Day Lewis or Johnny Depp. Yeah, that's right. I said Johnny Depp.
Chef: Well, the daughters certainly take it all in stride, that's for sure. Wait until they're old enough to shovel a walk. They'll sing a different tune. I'll Photoshop some hair on a photie of Sir Map and see how he looks.
Pacino is Pacino is Pacino.And, yes, of the crop of "younger" actors, Depp has more ...deppth (sic)
Love the emptiness of the Central Park pics!
True! :¬)
You have been tried and tested enough. Let that be an end to it.
At least there is always art , Mamet and the theatre - thank Heaven.
Dinah: You can enjoy an empty Central Park at 2:00 a.m., but I wouldn't recommend it.
map: You still have an air of the dark gangster about you.
Pat: We got off easy. Some power outages. A few fallen limbs. Many, many have had their homes wiped off the map.
When there was a bad storm here last year I took the girls up to the park to watch it, as it said in their book that at that point in the Beaufort Scale that small trees would be uprooted. Bit of a let down really, just a few twigs flying about. Yours sound worse.
The picture of Central Park--that looks as though it was taken from the exact same vantage point as your film recently, is that correct?
Mamet is supposed to be machine-gun, i'm guessing the "director" decided he wanted to do something different, still think i'd be a bit bummed to see it done any other way... McGinley is under-rated and as oily as they come.
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