Buster & Stephen

Tonight at CSUN we saw two more Buster Keaton movies : "Sherlock Jr." and "The Navigator", both from 1924. According to Professor Tim, "Sherlock Jr." bombed on it's initial release but has gone on since then to be considered one of Buster's greatest works, and it is easy to see why. His imagination and invention is on full display here, in the story of a lowly movie theater projectionist who dreams, sometimes literally, of becoming a great detective. Many of the movies great scenes are depicted as part of a lengthy dream sequence. There is use of double exposure and all kinds of other early cinematic tricks which in retrospect seem just incredible for a film made 93 years ago. In one of the most famous sequences in Buster's dream, he leaves the projection booth and goes downstairs to the theater, and then proceeds to enter into the movie he has been showing, by jumping through the screen. It is all so inventive that the word "genius" readily applies.

In "The Navigator", the cinematic invention takes a back seat to the set pieces and gags, but what a setting it is. Buster and his fiancee find themselves alone aboard a ship that has been put out to sea by saboteurs. The ship is the setting, and the 55 minute film is an almost continuous run of tightly choreographed mishaps and mayhem. Once again - as in our last Keaton screening of two weeks ago - you had a theater full of young people laughing their asses off. That's the whole deal with Buster Keaton, and I've probably already said it, but he's rock n' roll, he's current, no matter the decade or century. I've probably already said this too, but it occured to me again tonight, that Buster is a Human Cartoon. You know how in a cartoon, there are no rules? Anything that can be drawn and animated, can happen and become "real life"?

Well, that's Buster Keaton in a nutshell. He is a non-stop human cartoon, and you never know what he is gonna do next. It is no exaggeration, nor is it mere nostalgia, to say that he is the greatest cinematic comedian of all time. His movies are really something, and I am as new to them as are most of the people in the theater, and I think we are all pretty surprised.

Today was also Stephen King's 70th birthday. Do you have a mental list in your head of your very favorite creative people, be they musicians, writers, painters, filmmakers, whomever? If you do, you know who has not only been your favorites but who has meant the most to you, in a spiritual way, the artists who have "been with you" so to speak, on the inside, perhaps for much of or even most of your life.

For me, Stephen King is certainly on my list of Very Favorite Creative Artists. I am sure many people feel the same as me about SK. For me, he is way up there with people like Ritchie Blackmore, The Beatles, David Lynch and Edward Van Halen. People whom I not only admire and who have given me, and the world, so much, but who also have created a personal connection, one that makes them feel like family.

Many critics, while lauding his vast talent as a horror writer, have left it at that, that that is all he is - just a great horror writer - or some have added a disclaimer to make clear that they do not consider him a man of literature, not in a league of great American writers who have conveyed in their works a sense of the Greater American Psyche. I am not a reader of American Lit, simply because it does not interest me, not the stories nor the writing style of contemporary authors such as Cormac McCarthy or Thomas Pynchon or great authors further back, like F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I don't read any of those guys because they don't resonate with me. They are probably good writers, but for some reason, a guy who is a Phenomenal Writer is placed below such writers as a Literary Author, simply because he works in the Horror Genre.

This is all wrong, and here is why : Just read the sentences. Read the sentences, and read the paragraphs, and then the chapters, and feel the structure......and then feel the Understanding.

I submit that it is Stephen King who is The Great American Author, the one with the most intuitive understanding of The American Psyche in all it's regional forms. He is America's Great Psychologist, as well as a teller of terrifying tales and also a fine humorist to boot. In every SK book it is inevitable that certain passages will cause me to laugh out loud.

I first saw a Stephen King book on the paperback rack in the Alpha Beta supermarket at Reseda and Nordhoff. The year was 1976, probably Fall. The book was "Salem's Lot". It had a shiny cover and was a fat book, a thick book, and it was displayed prominently and caught my eye. Also, the author's name was printed in letters as large as the title. A quick glance at the summary on the back cover told me it was a Vampire story.

The entire presentation was impressive, and it stuck with me. And about a year later, in 1977, I saw "The Shining" once again on the rack at Alpha Beta. And this time I bought the book.

And I've been reading Stephen King for 40 years since. He is one of the great influences of my life, as I posted on FB, not just because of his stories but because of what is inside the words : the wisdom.

See you in the morning.