CRUISING TO CASABLANCA

Everyday I read the internet during lunch. Various newspapers, especially the Netherlandish ones (that includes the Gazet van Antwerp - Flanders is about as Netherlandish as you can get), and a few in other languages.
Plus blogs.

One of the blogs on my regular round is the Search for Emes (http://search-for-emes.blogspot.com/), which is e-kvetcher's feuilleton. He is not a very prolific writer, but an alert one. I usually read him right after Jameel (http://muqata.blogspot.com/), who is often the first blog I visit after seeing what the bears are doing (at http://dovbear.blogspot.com/ today: Hareidim throwing dirty diapers, desecrating the Holy Name, and putting on wigs).


But e-kvetcher was not in. A message directed visitors to a blog he's just discovered: http://www.vickiboykis.com/


Significant quote from that blog:

"I did not know that Landau was also a few electrons short of a balanced atom"



Which is NOT from the most recent post.


CASABLANCAhttp://www.vickiboykis.com/?p=648


This is Vicki's review of the movie Casablanca, which she finally saw after coming out of hiding. Perhaps she was in a survival shelter built prior to Y2K, more likely her parents locked her up in a cold war era bomb shelter as a child to keep her from ever smoking her first cigarette, tossing back her first whiskey, or groping her first boy scout.

She didn't like the movie.

You'll have to read her blog to find out why.



PRETTY TOLERABLE

On a personal note, I often enjoy the movie. But the story doesn't do Jacque for me, and I usually ignore it. The pleasure has naught to do with the narrative, everything to do with dated visuals.
Ingrid Bergman is an utterly delicious blonde, Humphrey Bogart is the most famous Dutch-American, and Claude Rains is everybody's wet-dream of a corrupt cop. Okay so far. Everybody in the movie smokes - that too appeals immensely. Haze-drifts add atmosphere and look uber cool - it's what everybody really needs in their home. Why don't you go buy a pack of Camels right now? Go ahead, you deserve it, mon ami.
Sourness, bitterness, fog, and really seedy places. Life can't get any better.
Yes, they take the charm down a couple of notches with a mediocre rendition of the Marseillaise, but because of the scowling Krauty types, you really don't notice that nobody can sing.
Take the opportunity during the tender moments to fetch yourself a cup of coffee or a bowl of ice-cream , and come back in time for budding beautiful friendship.

Or simply switch the sound off and invent your own dialogue. Just like you do for foreign-language films.