Avoid Darwin Porter and Danforth Price's latest book. Run from it.
There I said it. Wasn't easy. It's time for Rebecca and my annual summer read. We're not looking for heavy reading, just something you could enjoy on vacation or sitting on the beach. We like gossipy reads which is why we've often, over the years, noted a book by Porter and Prince.
Some of the duo's books are better written than others but we've enjoyed all we've read. Until now.
The book in question is The Fondas: Henry, Jane and Peter and it's a sequel to Henry Fonda: He Did It His Way which I read last year and really enjoyed.
I did not enjoy this book.
I started reading it the first week of August. And, after three days, told Rebecca I was putting it down for a bit. I was not enjoying the book and thought I must be in a mood or coming down with something because, not only was I not enjoying it, I was actively hating it.
This book never should have been published.
I realize some will read that sentence and wonder if it's really salacious and I'm some fan of Jane or Henry or Peter who just can't handle the contents.
I wish it were salacious. I wish it had any kind of life to it.
In terms of Jane -- the only one more people today will really care about -- there's nothing that's going to shock you. The authors claim that Jane Fonda snubbed Rosemary Murphy on the set of Julia. That's about it for the 'shock value.' Most reading this will ask, "Who is Rosemary Murphy?"
In Julia, she plays Dorothy Parker to Jane's Lillian Hellman. This was their second film together. The first was Any Wednesday. In that sixties comedies, Jane's character is sleeping with Jason Robards every Wednesday when he doesn't go home to his wife Rosemary Murphy. On the set of the sixties film, Jane was charming and funny but, a decade later, on Julia she was cold. I've already spent more time on this than they do in the book -- if that gives you an indication of how mild and sad the book is.
The book is riddled with factual errors and Rebecca's grabbing that part in her review. It's also riddled with errors. "19760s" is how a decade (the seventies) appears in one sentence. People show up to be quoted and you see " indicating that a quote is beginning but time and again there is no " to note that the quote ended. This makes for a great of confusion.
Did anyone edit this book?
If they'd read it before it was published, they could have fixed a lot of this.
But I honestly don't think this even qualifies as a first-draft. It's too damn dull.
And there are way too many cops out.
The authors don't have time to note this or that. They're the ones who chose to write a two-volume book about the Fonda family. Jane and Peter aren't adults but they do appear in the first book. And we get cop outs throughout the second volume, the one I'm reviewing, about how this or that can't be covered because it's beyond the scope of the book. At one point, in the Jane section, for example, they ignore a major private life issue -- that Jane's spoken of and even written of -- and say that there's not space and that they're going to focus on her film career.
Okay.
So focus on that.
If you're going to do that, I assume you need to note Monster-In-Law. A hit film. No. Not in the text. There's a photo caption but it's not noted in the text. Nor is Jane's role in The Butler. 2015's Youth is ignored -- that's a film Jane was nominated for a Golden Globe for. They also ignore The Morning After. It gets a sentence. Agnes of God gets maybe three sentences.
Why is that a problem? Those two 80 films are well known. And you've got Jane Fonda talking to the press for decades now about how as soon as she was done attending the premiere of Agnes of God, she went back to her hotel suite and drank to get drunk (I forget what the booze was) because she plays a blackout drunk in The Morning After. None of that is in the book.
Nor is the fact that Jane's so brilliant in The Morning After that she was nominated for another Best Actress Academy Award for her performance.
You're skipping discussions of Golden Globe and Academy Award nominated acting performances -- or even acknowledging those nominations -- and you think you wrote a book about the Fondas?
They ignore Jane's return to Broadway with 33 Variations -- which means they ignore the fact that she was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress in 2009.
You're writing about Jane Fonda and your cop out for ignoring various events in her personal life is that you're focusing on her career yet you're not noting performances she gave that garnered Tony, Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. And C.I. texted me to check regarding Emmy nominations?
Nope. She was nominated in 2013 and 2014 and 2017 for an Emmy and none of that is in the book. Equally true, she gave one of the most amazing TV performances in 1984 -- I remember watching that movie when it aired -- in The Dollmaker and she won an Emmy for Best Actress in a Limited Series or TV movie but they ignore that. Jane bought the rights to film the book in the 70s and worked non-stop to turn it into a film. She's told this story to the press over and over. No, no, no. Just like Barbra Streisand with Yentyl, she faced resistance. So she met with ABC the morning after she won her second Academy Award for Best Actress and proposed it as a TV movie (Roots, she always says, awakened her to the power of the TV medium) and she had a go. To get the accent down, she lived with families Dolly Parton knew or found for her. She gained forty to fifty pounds for the role.
But the authors ignore this as well.
"Marcia, you just ignored even naming the film Jane won her second Oscar for!"
That's because Rebecca's covering that. The authors even get that wrong in their book.
Just skip the book. It's so bad that I may not read another of their books. It cost $22 and change for the digital edition on Amazon and I feel like they robbed me.
I wasn't sick and I wasn't in some phase when I originally put the book down. I was having an honest reaction to a really bad book. I'll be honest, I didn't finish it. I got through all on Henry, all on Jane but by Wanda Nevada in the Peter section, I was just too bored to continue. It's a bad book on every level.
Go read Rebecca's tae.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
John Rees from the Don't Extradite Assange campaign said, “This
event in the Wistaverse is a valuable opportunity to unite people
across the world who believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the
press to show their support for Julian and set a signal that will be an
important precedent for human rights everywhere. No matter where you are
in the world, you can virtually join this event.”
The
event will include the participation of and speeches by Julian Assange
himself (pre-recorded), his wife Stella Assange, Kristinn Hrafnsson, the
co-founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, and other high profile
guests, including British politician Jeremy Corbyn.
The event
will take place in the Wistaverse, the world’s first platform for
virtual protest in the metaverse. The Wistaverse is a not-for-profit
protocol located in the Sandbox on the Polygon blockchain. Users who
organize protests do so on their own initiative, independent of the
Wistaverse’s creators. The protocol enables a platform for protest for
causes with universal importance and gives access for everyone to
participate, regardless of geographical location or possible physical
disabilities.
Jules, one of the founders of Wistaverse, said: “We
are excited that the Don't Extradite Assange campaign has decided to
use the platform to host such a key rally shortly after the launch of
the Wistaverse this May. At that time, the inaugural protest was an
event organized by Amnesty International in support of abortion rights
worldwide. Now, we trust that the event this Saturday will set a signal
and focus all eyes on freedom of speech to support that cause. The new
Web3 technologies are enabling unprecedented participation and the
opportunity for everyone to shape worldwide governance.”
The
rally will take place in a virtual auditorium designed to look like the
Royal Courts of Justice in London where Assange is set to face his
final appeal in the UK court system. It aims to build for a real life
protest at the same venue when the court date is announced.
The
speakers at the rally will appear either as characters inside the event
or with filmed contributions shown on screens inside the arena created
by the event designers.
The Wistaverse uses metaverse technology to
allow each individual attendee to be represented by an avatar that can
hear the speeches and watch other material inside the virtual rally and
interact with other attendees. It protects users’ identity and enables
universal participation. The rally is open to anyone with a computer.
The rally will be on Saturday 26 August at 5pm BST/ British Summer Time, when information about how to participate will go live on the event’s dedicated website on the Sandbox.
For more information contact:
For Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign: media(at)dontextraditeassange.com or
Silvi: email: ps13(at)tuamail.com Tel.: +44-798-480-9125
For the Wistaverse: jules.wistaverse(at)gmail.com & Wistaverse(at)transformgroup.com
For details, visit: www.wistaverse.com & Dontextraditeassange.com
About Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign
The
Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign has been established in the UK by
WikiLeaks in order to focus campaigning efforts on preventing the
extradition of journalist and publisher Julian Assange to the United
States where he faces 175 years in jail. Through his publications he has
exposed war crimes against humanity, government corruption and mass
surveillance.
Visit: Dontextraditeassange.com
John Rees from the Don't Extradite Assange campaign said the benefit of holding a metaverse mass protest is that, "no matter where you are in the world, you can virtually join this event.”
He told Yahoo Finance UK's The Crypto Mile that this "first of its kind" event would not replace physical protests on the streets of major cities, but would complement the ongoing campaign.
"We have had the metaverse environment designed as a replica of the real Royal Courts of Justice, so that people attending this event will get the idea it would be a good thing to turn up outside the real court on the day that Julian appears," he said.
Rees said he is hopeful they will get thousands of people to virtually attend from across the globe.
"This is a pioneering form of political action, and if it works I'm sure we will not be the only ones to repeat it," he added.
Sceptics have wondered aloud whether a protest in an obscure corner of the internet – it uses a gaming platform called Sandbox – can have the same impact as real-world disruptive action.
“The answer to that is protest is also mainly a social event where people with a common vision get together,” one of the Wistaverse’s co-founders, Jules Alcazar, told The National.
“Having everyone together in one place is also a great opportunity to go fund-raising. It’s about keeping momentum, it’s finding what activism can do.”
He believes the metaverse also has an edge over social media activism, which is “very limited”, “not immersive” and a “very poor way of experiencing it” because its algorithms relentlessly feed back bias.
There are forecasts that the metaverse, championed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a virtual-reality world encompassing education and health care, could one day be worth $5 trillion to $13 trillion.
‘He put out information people didn’t want being put out but it was all truthful and I don’t know how you fault a guy for putting out the truth,’ mused Kelly Slater in an Instagram soliloquy one March eve.
Just as seamless as Slater’s transitions are from the tube to the open face, so too are his analyses of complex geopolitical, health and social issues.
Typically one should have domain-specific expertise, some skin in the game, to credibly navigate these deep waters — but 11 surfing World Titles and a few compelling exchanges with high-profile pod bros works fine too in 2023.
Way less student debt too, this method. And more barrels.
Slater’s sentiments did not go unnoticed by Kym Staton — director of the forthcoming opus delving into the character assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces a 175 year prison sentence if extradited to the US for the crime of leaking classified information.
Originally titled Free The Truth: Free Assange has gracefully segued into the more enigmatic appellation, The Trust Fall. While the nomenclature may evolve, the narrative spine remains robust.
“The main aim of this film is to gather more support for Julian’s freedom. At its core, this is a political case and a mass public outcry is needed in order to pressure US, UK, and Australian politicians to do the right thing and release him,” writes Staton — whose endgame is to whip up a chorus of cheers for Assange’s parole. He’s slapping a big ol’ megaphone on this whole political mess, hoping to rile up enough people from the US, UK, and Australia to gang up on their politicians and demand, ‘Hey, do the right thing, guys! Let the man loose!’
Senator Tim Scott said the solution to the crisis in education was to “break the backs” of the teachers unions, by which he meant crushing the teachers themselves, who have engaged in massive strikes, not the stooge unions run by millionaire bureaucrats and CIA agents.
Former Governor Chris Christie said that the teachers unions were the biggest enemy of America, and boasted that he had slashed public employee pensions during his eight years in office in New Jersey.
Former Vice President Mike Pence declared that he was the only candidate willing to state openly that there had to be major cuts in Social Security and Medicare. None of the others on the stage indicated opposition to this proposal, which would devastate tens of millions of retired and disabled workers.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called for shooting migrants “stone cold dead” to stop them crossing the US-Mexico border, and said that he would dispatch US Special Forces into Mexico on his first day as president—in effect, the invasion of Mexico by the US military.
IT multimillionaire Vivek Ramaswamy condemned all measures taken to protect working people during the COVID-19 pandemic—effectively arguing that the current policy of letting the virus run rampant should have been adopted from Day One. And he called climate change a “hoax,” in response to a question that cited record heat waves, wildfires and unprecedented rainfall events.
+ Vivek Ramaswamy, 9/11 Truther: “I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the Twin Towers. Maybe the answer is zero. It probably is zero for all I know, right?”
+ Ramaswamy has been accused of hiring someone to scrub his Wikipedia page of unflattering (to the MAGA base he is so urgently courting) biographical episodes, including his receipt of a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans in 2011, as well as his role on Ohio’s COVID-19 Response Team. But his association with the son of the Dr. Mabuse of the Left hasn’t escaped the attention of the intrepid investigators at FoxNews.
+ American history according to Vivek Ramaswamy: “the US Constitution was what won us the American Revolution.” The Constitution was written in 1787, 6 years after the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 11 years after the Declaration of Independence and 12 years after the Revolution started, in 1775.
+ At the debate, DeSantis repeatedly tried to associate himself with the Navy SEAL teams in Iraq, by saying “I was with the SEALS in places like Fallujah and Ramadi.” But DeSantis wasn’t a SEAL, he was a JAG. The role of JAGS in Iraq was advise the SEALS on who they could “legally” capture, torture and kill. Or, in his own tart phrase, whose “throats they could slit.”
After California ally Laura "Lauri" Carleton was killed for displaying an LGBTQ+ Pride flag at her San Bernadino County store, Mag.Pi, the Los Angeles LGBT Center and Flags for Good announced a new banner honoring the Lake Arrowhead community member and shop owner.
“Carleton, an unwavering ally, is one of too many people who have lost their lives due to violence that targets LGBTQ+ people,” said a statement announcing the commemorative flag.
To honor Carleton’s memory and encourage allies to work for a safer community, the Center collaborated with Flags for Good to create a rainbow banner bearing the magpie symbol — after her store's name. The proceeds from sales will benefit the Lake Arrowhead LGBTQ+ Fund.
“I assure you that the Center won’t be stopping here. Right-wing extremists have brought this fight to our doorstep, and let me promise you this: we are answering their knock at our door—and we will be greeting them with the strength that our community is known for,” said CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center Joe Hollendoner in a press release. “I hope we can rely on you to join us in the fight.”
In light of national retail chains like Target and Starbucks reportedly halting their Pride displays, Carleton, 66, chose to hang the Pride Flag, a symbol of resistance for the community since 1970.
Alan Carter approached Mag.Pi in Studio City at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 23, carrying a bouquet of white hydrangeas wrapped in brown paper and polka-dotted cellophane. At 62 years old, Carter had never purchased flowers for someone he’s never met, but he was stunned this week to learn that the owner of the lifestyle boutique, Laura Ann Carleton, or Lauri to friends, was shot to death on Friday during a dispute with a man over a Pride flag outside her second Mag.Pi location near Lake Arrowhead.
“It gutted me, and I heard on the news that Mrs. Carleton also owned a store in Studio City,” said Carter. “I don’t know anyone in her family and I’ve never been in the store, though I’ve driven past it probably a hundred times. I can’t get to Lake Arrowhead, so I came here. I’m on a fixed income and really, I have no money for flowers or an Uber but I said, ‘F**k it. I’ll go without Starbucks for a month.’ I wanted to be here to say, in a very small way, thank you. Thank you for the sacrifice you made for people like me.”
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