Believe It or Not: Do-It-Yourself Genetics

I was in the back of a car heading for an interview with a couple of merchants I was going to be writing an ad for. In the front seats were the Sales Manager, and one of the salesmen, both there to close with the client. As I sat back in the car looking at notes and trying out phrases, the two guys in the front started a conversation about family. The Sales Manager had four kids: three girls and a boy. The salesman had two girls, and mentioned the were going to try and have another baby, hopefully a boy.

The Manager stopped for a moment. Then he plunged ahead. "You know I've got three girls, but when we decided to have another kid, we really wanted a boy. So I wondered if there was any way to tilt the odds a little. Well, there was a guy I knew who had a couple of daughters and then he had a son and I asked him and the guy said...swear to God...'high and to the right.'"

"...what?"

"High...and to the right. Well, I tried that, and, well, you've met my son."

"High and to the right? That's crazy!"

"I'm just sayin'.....it worked for this guy and it worked for me. No guarantee."

High and to the right. I've always remembered that story, not only because it sounds so crazy, but I also like the phrase because it sounds so "baseball." It always reminds me of that scene in "Play It Again, Sam" where after making love Woody Allen and Diane Keaton discuss what just happened:

"What were you thinking of when we were doing it?"

"I was thinking about baseball. It calms me down and helps me prolong the moment."

"Yeah, I was wondering why you kept yelling, "Slide!"

Anyway, the salesman and his wife did have another kid.





Boy.

I'm just sayin'....
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So, it's been quiet on the Rock. Besides the baby eagle learning to fly, nothing much of consequence has happened. The past three days we've taken Smokey to what Walaka calls "Two Cliffs" Beach, which has a seemingly endless expanse of sand. It's very flat and Smokey can run and run to his heart's content. Once he's in the water it takes a while for the water to become so deep he has to swim, and he likes that. He's becoming more used to not having his feet touch bottom and less inclined to want to jump into our arms to get out of the water. That cuts down on the bruises, cuts and scrapes for us.

Next week is going to be very busy. K's working three days next week, and for me the freelance has piled up so that I'm working every day next week on something: Video sweetening at the Agents, foley recording at the Animals, animation sweetening and training audio at home. That's good. It almost feels like a full schedule.
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Tales from the Red Envelope:

Actually, the Red Envelope's been on-hold while K's been away...and she just opted out of "The Prestige," so we await the next installment, I've been paying a visit to the Socialized Book Vendor. You know, that terribly inefficient bureaucracy where nobody owns anything...the library? Anyway, I picked up a couple of DVD's: one being an early formulative Hitchcock, "The 39 Steps," and the other being that classic film I talked about having never seen here:


"La Srada" (Frederico Fellini, 1954) Before his imagination took surrealistic flight, Fellini was still grounded in the Italian neo-realist school, and his "La Strada" takes place in the still existent ruins from the second World War--the villages and hovels where roving bands of merchants and entertainers try to eke out a living on the road. Strongman Zampano (Anthony Quinn), who breaks chains for a living returns to the family where his first assistant (now deceased) was acquired. Next in line is dim, but sweet Gelsomina (played by Mrs. Fellini, Giulietta Masina), and she hops on board Zampano's makeshift motorcycle/carnival tent/camper-trailer ("It's American!") and learns the tricks of the trade, which she takes to quickly. Eventually, they hook up with a larger circus, where they meet The Fool (Richard Basehart), who is sweet to her, but pushes all of Zampano's buttons, making the frustrated performer ever more enraged. Quinn is terrific, a bull with steam constantly coming out of his nose, Basehart shows his lighter irresponsible side rather than the stalwart authority figure he became used to playing, and Masina's performance is one of such force of personality that you can only call it "Chaplinesque," so much of it is tied to wordless expression and acting with the face. It's a melancholy circus Fellini liked to paint, supported by Nino Rota's ebullient/lyrical score but in the end shows how some chains can never be broken. Like any good fable or morality play, it saddens but doesn't disappoint.

(A week after watching "La Strada," Nino Rota's score still capers in my head.)