CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

He last saw "Humoresque" in 1946

That was 1946. I was about 16 then. AND WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION? I loved the movie and I haven’t thought about it since until I looked and saw that it was playing here tonight. It’s interesting – about two-thirds of the way through the movie, I remembered what the ending was. It is a great movie. WHAT MOVED YOU MOST ABOUT THE MOVIE? As I look back, how great the music was at the time. Not just John Garfield, Joan Crawford but Oscar Levant. By the way, that was him in real life the way he was. He complained all the time he couldn’t sleep. Those were his lines that were really him. Ross Reese at the screening of Humoresque, at the Chestnut Hill Library Tuesday night film series. Watch video here.

Spider bit her on the cheek and...

As she slept, a young woman was bitten on the cheek by a spider. But it wasn't a spider and if it was, it wasn't any ordinary bite. It became inflamed and, alarmed, she went to the emergency room. The doctor, too, was alarmed. An x-ray revealed that whatever bit her had laid eggs and they were beginning to hatch and work their way out through her skin. Or so it was according to a story retold with convincing feigned veracity by Linda Lee, a folkore PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania who was giving a talk on urban legends at the Chestnut Hill library. Watch video here.

Personalizing grave monuments

Gallagher Memorials has been at the corner of Ivy Hill Road and Cheltenham Avenue, across from Holy Sepulcher Cemetery for more than 100 years. In that time, the use of marble has given way to using granite, imported from as far away as India or China or quarried as close as French Creek, Pennsylvania. Granite lasts much longer, “forever,” according to Manager Larry Conroy. Computer assisted technology now allows personalized engraving of scenes or depiction of hobbies dear to the deceased or even a carving of the departed’s own visage.

Watch video interview here.

 

Daughters of Confederacy honor civil war dead

AS A YANKEE- WE GENERALLY ASSOCIATE THE CONFEDERACY WITH SLAVERY. IT’S HARD TO OVERCOME THAT. “I understand that. Yes, slavery was a very hot topic back then you could say, even twenty years prior to that, even, especially in the Kansas-Missouri border states, the abolitionists and all that went on out there. It was fought more- states’ rights started everything, I feel. The South wanted to do things their way and the North wanted to control that and that’s what fueled the fire for South Carolina to secede from the Union to begin with. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING IN THE UNION TODAY? “I love it.” THINGS WORKED OUT FOR THE BEST? “Who knows what it would be like? Nobody can say it would be better or worse but it’s still a great country.” Kimberly Mauch, president of the Turner Ashby chapter, No. 184, United Daughters of the Confederacy of Winchester Virginia, is the blood descendant of four men who served, and some of whom perished, in the Confederate forces in Missouri: her great-great-great grandfather Blair McGee and his brothers Daniel and Hugh, and her great-great grandfather W.C. Jarret. The pins on the ribbon she wears bear their names. She began to take a particular interest in her civil wartime heritage when she was eight years old. To be eligible to join the Daughters, she needed to muster evidence of her blood connection and of her ancestors’ service. She was able to do this partly through the narrative of one of her forbears' slaves, collected during the 1930s by the Federal Writers Project, part of the Works Progress Administration. Confederate Memorial Ceremony, University of Virginia Confederate Cemetery, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Jim Reed restores 1943 telephone

HOW OLD WOULD YOU SAY THIS PHONE IS? “It’s stamped inside. I think it’s like 1943.” HOW IS IT THAT YOU CAN FIX THIS PHONE THAT I TRASHPICKED SO IT STILL WORKS WITH MODERN TECHNOLOGY? “It’s definitely a statement about how our technology creeps along slowly. Luckily our technology is backwards compatible which means they’ve added new technology but haven’t phased out the old stuff yet although I think they always threatened that your old phones wouldn’t work. But it never happened.” Jim Reed, Chestnut Hill. Watch video interview here. 

Tales of a hippie bus driver

In the 1996 Olympics, the Lithuanian basketball team arrived without uniforms because they were too poor to buy uniforms so the Grateful Dead offered to buy them uniforms and what they bought them had the Dead insignia, the skull, playing basketball and it was tie-died. I got this at the Olympics in 1999. A lot of Lithuanian social clubs sell this t-shirt. CAN YOU MODEL THE BACK? I don’t know what it says back there…For 8 years in California I worked for a hippie bus company. We did cross country trips, national parks, we went to Baha, Alaska, all through Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala. WHAT’S A HIPPIE BUS COMPANY? They take an old coach and pull out all the seats, set it up with bunk beds, tables that collapse down in to bunk beds. And the back, say two-thirds of the whole bus is all one big foam covered platform. You take off your shoes and leave them there and crawl back onto the platform. They called them camper tours. They had another name for them I can’t think of right now. AND THESE DAYS YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE CONVENTIONAL? Just a tiny bit. Anita Fackenthal. Watch video interview here.

Virginia Bryant Shows 1800s Gothic Revival House

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WHAT THIS HOUSE WAS? “Well there are four houses here that are seemingly identical, originally and they’ve all had different additions put on and changes made to them. I’ve been in all four of them so it’s interesting to see how different they are and how alike they are. They were originally built in the mid- nineteenth century and then at various times in the next 50 years there were additions and changes…there was probably just two rooms in the front, straight up, two stories and then the addition in the back almost doubled the size of the house, I would say. They probably added central heat when they put the addition on and a modern kitchen and a bathroom.  See this part here is the addition, where the walls meet there -where the front bumps out a bit, where the drainpipe is. THREE STORIES? Two and a half stories we would call this. AND HEATED BY? Originally it was probably heated by fireplaces or coal stoves inside and now of course it has forced air heat and central air.” Virginia Bryant, Eichler & Moffly real estate agent at listing, Gravers Lane and Millman Street.

Click here to watch video interview.