Thursday

Ipanema, Brazil, photo by Pablo Porciúncula/AFP/Getty Images, posted at theguardian.com:

RIP Shelley Duvall, 75, who succumbed to diabetes complications. Raised in Houston, she worked as a department store model and salesclerk. She was discovered by talent scouts at a local party and came to the attention of Robert Altman, who would cast her in seven of his films. She was a natural. There are 57 titles under her name at IMDb, career spanning 1970–2023, when she returned after a 20-year screen absence. Her most notable role, of course, came in The Shining (1980), in which Stanley Kubrick did a world record 127 takes of the baseball bat scene. She was also in Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Thieves Like Us (1974), Nashville (1975), Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976), Annie Hall (1977), 3 Women (1977), for which she won Best Actress at Cannes; Popeye (1979), as Olive Oyl, a role she was born to play; Time Bandits (1981), Roxanne (1987), The Underneath (1995), The Portrait of a Lady (1996). She also has eleven credits as a producer and three as a writer of children’s fare. Here’s a quote attributed to her: “Acting isn’t difficult. You just do it. Everybody in life acts anyhow, President Nixon, The Pope, even John Lennon.” Married once for seven years, she was childless. She was in a relationship with actor/composer Dan Gilroy from 1989 until her death. Well done, Madam. Thank you. Photo from Google Images:

Russia is fighting population decline. Here’s one of its methods of addressing it, from a nypost.com editorial excerpt: “Russia’s war in Ukraine has involved the large-scale abduction of children, particularly orphans, who have been forcibly transported to Russia and adopted by Russian parents.” Mad Vlad the abductor.

Wow headline from foxnews.com: “Woman swept away from beach and rescued 37 hours later — 50 miles offshore.” I’ll be surprised if a movie is made of it.

The breeze blowing through the shade again took the sting out of the heat at today’s session of the Anti-Inflation Book Shop. My thanks to the woman who bought a Russian paperback, and to the local home attendant who donated a work of non-fiction.

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