Hollywood Insiders

 The London Review of Books sends me free articles every once in a while and sometimes I even read them. This morning we had John Lahr talking about his experience of attempting to establish himself as a Hollywood Player. Fox had bought a novel off him, hired him to write the screenplay and teamed him with the director Sidney Pollack- known to his associates as "King P". Lahr and Pollack produced the first draft of a script and then Pollack, having collected 50 grand for his work, dropped Lahr and moved- or was moved- to a more attractive project. Lahr was assigned a less distinguished director- and the beancounters said the story- which was a quintessentially New York story- would have to be rewritten to move the action from New York to L.A. because filming in L.A. would be cheaper. Finally the project got the green light and everything was wonderful until a new studio chief came in and turned it off. Lahr had had his ego buffeted by every wind that blows and returned to London with nothing to show for it. Reading the stories of Hollywood insiders (and Lahr's essay pivots on the review of a collection of insiders' stories) you wonder how the studio system ever produced anything worth watching.

Writing about Pollack, Lahr cattily remarks that there's nothing like a confidence artist to instil confidence in a person. Pollack directed a number of big glossy movies that haven't worn too well (at least that's my impression) but also did a bit of acting. His leonine mid-level illuminatus in Eyes Wide Shut is unforgettable.

Heat And Death And Gulls

 It's a long time since it rained. The long established plants are flourishing in the heat and the newly installed ones are withering. Sooner or later I expect the media to start scaring us with tales of shrinking reservoirs but until they do I shall be wandering round of an evening with my leaky hose pipe, getting my socks and trousers soaked.

The Eastbourne Death Cafe met last night. Ailz and I got there an hour early to have a confab with the convenors- because we're junior management now- and eat an expensive, non-vegan meal. There were enough attenders to fill three tables. My table (the one I was wrangling) talked about suicide pills and preparing for death and spiritualism and churchyards and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. At one point we were in danger of wandering off into Biblical criticism and I had to twitch the reins...

Here's a word that was new to me: commensal. It means something like "table-sharing"- and it's applied to those animal species that have struck up a kind of relationship with humans and like to eat/steal our food. I had it introduced and explained to me by Marianne Taylor in her enjoyable book about gulls. BTW, you should always call them "gulls", not "seagulls". Serious bird people get exasperated if you call them "seagulls" though I'm not sure why...