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Old Blue: A Christmas Memory

“Old Blue” was the name of Uncle Dickie’s toy train. It was Lionel’s Blue Streak set, number 295W, which featured a swanky engine named the “Commodore Vanderbilt” and three articulated passenger cars: a coach/combine (part baggage car and coach), a full coach, and a rear observation car. The streamlined engine, tender and passenger cars were painted shiny blue and white and the soft silhouette and smooth lines of the train gave it an art deco look appropriate for its age: my grandfather Bill had given it to uncle Dickie for Christmas, 1939.

As a young lad I used to wait with great expectation for Christmas Eve at grandfather’s house. There were lots of aunts, uncles and cousins and of course the welcome prospect of beribboned presents. A splendid dinner was always prepared by grandmother and aunt Viv: “The two best cooks in the county,” according to grandfather, whose life’s obsessions were gardening and eating. But best of all was the wonder of watching Old Blue circle around a tall, bright Christmas tree, its engine and passenger car lamps softly glowing, and the engine belching thick white smoke chuffs in strict unison with each chug.

Uncle Dickie was my favorite uncle and a real pal. He was tall and lanky and had inherited grandfather’s good looks and easy laugh. He enjoyed a bit of mischief now and then (in which I was usually complicit) and was an accomplished prankster, which irked grandfather. It seemed as though Dickie had a new lady friend each month who he’d introduce to the herd of relatives assembled for grandmother’s ritual Sunday supper. He drove a 1940 Pontiac Torpedo Eight which he’d hot rodded to grandmother’s dismay. He had an enormous collection of comic books, all in pristine condition, and had carefully preserved in their original boxes every toy he’d ever been given, including Old Blue, which he took out of its tin plate box just once a year for its annual Christmas run. It was a family tradition.

On June 25th, 1950, North Korea invaded the South. Uncle Dickie and his brother Bill were drafted within two months of each other. Bill was a gunnery instructor at Fort Jackson, SC. Dickie was sent to Korea and assigned to the U.S. 7th Division. He was killed during a crushing Chinese advance at the battle of Chosin Reservoir on November 29th, 1950. He had just turned 20. Survivors of that battle called themselves “The Chosin Few.”

The Christmas eve gathering that year was a somber affair. The tall tree was there in the corner of the parlor by the big chestnut leather wing chair that was grandfather’s. But Big Blue wasn’t. A curtain of sadness hung over the evening and an empty chair and place setting were at the dining room table. The table conversation was muted and the warmth of the holiday season had turned cold.

The next day I awoke early without the usual anticipation that infuses children on Christmas morning. But as I came down the stairs I saw something familiar and wonderful under our tree: it was Old Blue. My mother told me that uncle Dickie had written her that the battlefields in the mountains of Korea in winter were so cold that men and machines and blood plasma froze. He was afraid, she said, and that if anything happened, “see that Barney gets Old Blue.” “Men go off to war,” she said, “and some don’t come back. That’s just the way it is.” And then tears came. I had never seen my mother cry before. That bittersweet memory is now 68 years old.

Old Blue has been chugging under my Christmas tree ever since.

© 2018 Barnstable Carmody

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Invincible Ignorance and the Windrip Syndrome

In July of 1925 high school teacher John T. Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. The trial fueled the  controversy between advocates of evolution theory and religious fundamentalists, who argued the word of God as revealed in the Bible was literally true. The case put science on trial.

Ninety-six years later, the debate goes on. Recently a mega church pastor said the theory of evolution inevitably leads to atheism and ultimately to the decline and fall of society and everything godly, good and virtuous.

Another example is a quote I recently uncovered on the Quora website: “The evolution story of creation is Satan’s lie, so he can send billions of people straight to hell. Unbelief in Jesus Christ is an unpardonable sin. Satan is the father of lies, the great deceiver. A self-creating universe is scientifically and mathematically impossible.” [From [email protected]]

There is a creationist museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. It promotes a pseudoscientific explanation of the origin of the universe based on a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation myth. According to creationists, the earth, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, is 6,000 to 10,000 years old (I have socks older than that); humankind coexisted with dinosaurs; Noah’s ark—a life size model of which is part of the museum’s exhibit—included dinosaurs in its water borne zoo; and that the Grand Canyon was carved by rapid erosion in a matter of days or weeks by the withdrawal of the great flood waters. (In fairness, some fundamentalists have abandoned the “young earth” hypothesis.) As for Noah’s ark, I’ve always found it amusing that fundamentalists of one stripe or another fail to consider the logistical issues of transporting two—or more, depending in which Noah story you believe-- of every kind of creature, plus water, feed and manifold tons of dung. (Noah and his family must have spent a lot of time shoveling shit.) The Christian response: “God can do anything.”

While I admit it’s a giant leap from creationist thinking to the QAnon conspiracy, the two are not unrelated: both require the willing suspension of disbelief and an abject refusal to subject alleged facts to careful scrutiny.

Spawned by the internet, QAnon is, on the face of it, an absurd far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles operate a global child sex trafficking ring and conspired against Donald Trump during his presidency. The cabal’s members are said to include, without citing any proof, Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and high-ranking government officials. Ridiculous, you say? A poll by taken by NPR and Ipsos found that 17 percent of Americans believe the core falsehood of QAnon—that Satan-worshiping elites are trying to control politics and media—is true. Once a laughable fringe phenomenon, it has gone mainstream largely through social media. In 2020, QAnon supporters flooded the internet with false information about Covid-19, the Black Lives Matter protests and the presidential election. And they recruited legions of new believers to their ranks. QAnon has also seeped into the offline world. Followers of the movement participated in the deadly Capitol riot of January 6th, and other QAnon believers have been charged with violent crimes. A terrorism bulletin issued by the Department of Homeland Security in late January, 2021, warned of increasing violence from domestic extremist groups, including conspiracy theory communities like QAnon. While I don’t like generalities (are all generalizations false?), I’ve reluctantly concluded that around a third of the country is just plain dumb, afflicted by a cult-like devotion to irrationality and suffering from a highly communicable disease I call invincible ignorance. Those who suffer from this highly contagious infection share at least a few of the following characteristics:

They are white evangelical Republicans.

Many are racists who resent that white Americans of European background will shortly become a minority. This phenomenon is called the browning of America and explains why Republicans  seek to deny blacks the vote through legislation and gerrymandering.

They own guns. Some are prepared to use them.

They are poorly educated.

They elected a misogynist, moronic megalomaniac to the presidency in 2016.

They believe that the great Miralago gasbag was deprived of the presidency in 2020 by an elaborate set of ludicrous conspiracies, including one in which Italian military satellites were used by Jews to alter the count of American voting machines by a laser attack.

They distrust experts. Case in point: Dr. Fauci.

They are anti-vaxxers.

They refuse to wear masks, claiming that mandates violate their individual rights.

They are anti-science, anti-intellectual and anti-elites, who they define as ivy league/seven sister (read “Northeastern”) liberals.

President John Kennedy once said, “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” Ignorance is the greatest threat to our fragile republic. It spawns hate, division, prejudice and intolerance. It is a malignant force seized upon and exploited by tyrants. It is the reason why dictators lock up intellectuals, censor artists, close schools, burn books and condemn experts.

Yet invincible ignorance is nothing new; it has just gotten much worse under Trumpism. In a 1980 essay, Isaac Asimov wrote, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

A 1935 dystopian political novel by Sinclair Lewis describes the Hitler-like rise of one Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a demagogue who is elected President of the United States, after exploiting fear and promising draconian reforms. Windrip imposes totalitarian rule. Liberal opposition to his regime ultimately leads to civil war.

The title of the book: It Can’t Happen Here.

It can. And it will.

© 2022 Barnstable Carmody

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The Roland Atelier series was the best home organ--a synthesizer, really--ever made. My apologies to lovers of the old Hammond tone wheels.

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America is 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, 4th in labor force and 4th in exports. It ranks first in defense spending, the number of people incarcerated per capita and the number of people who believe in angels. It is the only Western country that still has the death penalty and doesn't have a national health care system.

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In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy, sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.

Edith Wharton

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Mary Ann. February 7, 1937 - August 20, 2020. My best friend for 51 years.

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Brother Richard’s Reflection

“Yes there is fear. Yes there is isolation. Yes there is panic buying. Yes there is sickness. Yes there is even death. But they say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise, you can hear the birds again. They say that after just a few weeks of quiet, the sky is no longer thick with fumes but blue and grey and clear. They say that in the streets of Assisi people are singing to each other across the empty squares, keeping their windows open so that those who are alone may hear the sounds of family around them. They say that a hotel in the west of Ireland is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound. Today a young woman I know is busy spreading fliers with her number through the neighborhood so that the elders may have someone to call on. Today churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary.

All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting. All over the world people are looking at their neighbors in a new way. All over the world people are waking up to a new reality--to how big we really are. To how little control we really have. To what really matters. To love. So we pray and we remember that, yes there is fear. But there does not have to be hate. Yes there is isolation. But there does not have to be loneliness. Yes there is panic buying. But there does not have to be meanness. Yes there is sickness. But there does not have to be disease of the soul. Yes there is even death. But there can always be a rebirth of love. Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now. Today, breathe. Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic, the birds are singing again. The sky is clearing, spring is coming, and we are always encompassed by love. Open the windows of your soul and though you may not be able to touch across the empty square, sing.” - Brother Richard Hendrick from Ireland

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Classic class. Doesn’t exist anymore.

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The Inestimable Advantages of Age

In internet journalism—if you can call it that—there’s something called the “list article.” If you’ve spent any time surfing the web you’ve probably seen many of them with titles like these: “Ten Things your Anesthesiologist Won’t Tell You” or “Five Signs You Have Frulubulu Syndrome” or “The Six Best Retirement Towns in Bulgaria.” So I asked our imperious editor (who has a sour disposition on even the best of days) if I could do a column listing the advantages of old age. “I don’t like it, Barney,” he said gruffly, “but at least it’ll be short.” Like most people, I ignored him. So if you’ve reached that certain age, here are a few advantages of the “golden” years:

You don’t have to compete. America is a highly competitive society, but you don’t have to play the game anymore. It’s not that the game is over; it just doesn’t matter as much.

You are revered and respected. In Greece, Korea, China, Japan, or India that is. If you’re looking for the respect and deference you richly deserve as a senior here in the States, forget it (unless you’re a native American).

You know a lot more than you used to. Even if you’re the dullest sword in the armory, you’ve accumulated a wealth of experience and probably picked up at least a smattering of wisdom by osmosis. The ancient Romans made use of their elderly and had faith in their wisdom and experience. Cicero said, “For there is assuredly nothing dearer to a man than wisdom, and though age takes away all else, it undoubtedly brings us that.”

You don’t get as many headaches as you used to. Researchers have found that migraines tend to decrease in frequency with age. So there you are: not everything gets worse.

You’re probably happier and more even tempered compared to your young and restless years. Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer and co-workers interviewed about 1,200 older people for the book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans. “Many people said something along these lines: ‘I wish I’d learned to enjoy life on a daily basis and enjoy the moment when I was in my 30s instead of my 60s,’” he says. Elderly interviewees are likely to “describe the last five or ten years as the happiest years of their lives.” Perhaps this is why George Bernard Shaw reportedly said, “What a pity that youth is wasted on the young.”

The kids are gone. This may be bittersweet, or perhaps not. But beware the boomerang syndrome. The kids you got rid of may come flying back to the old nest, with spouses and grand kids in tow. So don’t turn that spare bedroom into a home theater quite yet.

Finally, you’re not dead. Considering the alternative, be thankful for every new day. I’ve noticed that even the most devout folks are not especially anxious to get to heaven. Perhaps it’s because they suspect that heaven doesn’t exist—or that hell does.

My late friend Jack the Quack MacCowan, MD, was the wisest man I ever knew. His sharp mind and rapier wit remained undulled with the passage of time. I remember when, after too many “wee drams” of Bruichladdich, he said, “Barney, youth is a joke that God plays on the old.” Some joke.

© 2017 by Barney Carmody

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“City of the Big Shoulders.”

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What really troubles me is why so many Republicans are defending the indefensible.

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Pizza and sex, even when comparatively lousy, are still pretty good.

Joey Ratzinger

#pizza #sex

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“A bird in the hand...” A Lilac Breasted Roller, native to Kenya and Botswana.

#birds #African bird #Lilac Breasted Roller

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Reflections on the “F” Word

While I disapprove of the word’s overuse and find it annoying much of the time, it remains one of the more interesting monosyllabic expletives in the English language for a variety of reasons. Just by its sound it can describe, pain, pleasure, hate and love. In language it can function as many parts of speech: a verb both transitive and intransitive; a gerund; a noun or pronoun; an adjective; an adverb; and an interjection. It’s a versatile word from a grammatical perspective and one that can describe with pointed emphasis a wide range of emotions, feelings, states of being and circumstances as these examples found on the web will attest:

• Ignorance: Fucked if I know. • Trouble: I guess I’m fucked now! • Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot. • Aggression: Fuck you! • Displeasure: What the fuck is going on here? • Difficulty: I can't understand this fucking job. • Incompetence: He‘s a fuck-off. • Suspicion: What the fuck are you doing? • Enjoyment: I had a fucking good time. • Request: Get the fuck out of here. • Hostility: I'm going to knock your fucking head off. • Greeting: How the fuck are you? • Apathy: Who gives a fuck? • Innovation: Get a bigger fucking hammer. • Surprise: Fuck! You scared the shit out of me! • Anxiety: Today is really fucked.

Roots Linguisticians really have no clear idea where the word comes from. A few myths and folk etymologies have sprung up in the absence of a definite origin. The most common derive it from “fornication under consent of the king” or “for unlawful carnal knowledge,” and as with almost every other etymology based on an acronym, neither is true.

In English, swear words tend to have Germanic, rather than Latin etymology. We know where “shit” comes from—no pun intended. It has a Germanic root with obvious connections to words in other languages: Dutch schijt, German Scheiße, Swedish skit. It also shows up in Old English, as the verb scittan. The experts can trace a clear, linear etymology for it. Alas, the same can’t be said for “fuck,” although the search for its roots makes for an interesting etymological expedition.

It may be a native English word, from a Proto-Germanic verb along the lines of fukkon, which could in turn be from the Proto Indo European root pewg-, meaning “to jab” or “to hit”. Under this etymology, its origins are as clear as shit’s. But this explanation may rest more on speculation than fact.

Germanic words of similar form (f + vowel + consonant) and meaning ”copulate” are many. One of them is ficken. They often have additional senses, especially 'cheat,' but their basic meaning is 'move back and forth.' Most probably, fuck is a borrowing from Low German and has no cognates outside Germanic.

Early records of “fuck” are chiefly from Britain’s north, especially Scotland, so it may have begun as a northerner’s verb. Not all, but many of the words that exist primarily in Scotland and northern England, for example, bairn, gang, aye, kirk, etc., are from Old Norse. The Viking invasions left their impact on English as a whole, but especially in northern Britain where their settlements were concentrated. (Even today residents of North Britain use words and speak in accents that betray their Norse roots and mystify Americans and their English cousins to the south.)

Swedish fokka (“copulate”) and Norwegian fukka (“copulate, strike, push”) are now only dialectal terms, but given that they both mean “fuck” and are apparently related, they may go back to an unattested Old Norse verb. If this etymology is to be believed, then the Old Norse version of fukka came to Scotland first, before dispersing to the rest of the English-speaking world.

Another theory traces the Modern English verb to Middle English fyke, fike ("move restlessly, fidget") which also meant "dally, flirt," and probably is from a general North Sea Germanic word (compare Middle Dutch fokken, and German ficken). This would parallel in sense the vulgar Middle English term for "have sexual intercourse," swive, from Old English swifan "to move lightly over, sweep.” But the OED remarks that these "cannot be shown to be related" to the English word. (As an aside, the Old English verb for "have sexual intercourse with" was hæman, from ham "dwelling, home," with a sense of "take home, co-habit.")

Speaking of the original Oxford English Dictionary, its editors omitted as taboo the “F” word when the "F" entries were compiled between 1893 and 1897. Dr. Johnson also had excluded the word, and “fuck” wasn't in a single English language dictionary from 1795 to 1965. The Penguin Dictionary broke the taboo in the latter year. Houghton Mifflin followed in 1969 with The American Heritage Dictionary, but it also published a “clean” edition without the word, to assure itself access to the public high school market.

The written form of the word is attested from at least the early 16th Century although the verb form appears to have been found in an English court manuscript from 1310. The second edition of the OED cites 1503, in the form fukkit, and the earliest attested appearance of the current spelling is 1535 in Sir David Lyndesay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits: "Bischops ... may fuck thair fill and be vnmaryit.” Apparently sex scandals in the Church were prevalent even then.

As an aside, “flying fuck” originally meant "sex had on horseback" and is first attested circa 1800 in a broadside ballad called New Feats of Horsemanship.

Censorship “Fuck” was outlawed in print in England by the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, and in the U.S. by the Comstock Act of 1873. The legal barriers against use in print broke down the mid-20th Century with the "Ulysses" decision (U.S., 1933) and "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (U.S., 1959; U.K., 1960).

In 1948, the publishers of The Naked and the Dead persuaded author Norman Mailer to use the euphemism “fug.” When Mailer later was introduced to Dorothy Parker, she greeted him with, "So you're the man who can't spell 'fuck'." (The quip is sometimes attributed to Tallulah Bankhead.) The major breakthrough in publication was James Jones' From Here to Eternity (1950), with 50 fucks (down from 258 in the original manuscript).

In a 1972 monologue, the late comedian George Carlin famously listed the "Seven words you can never say on television," to wit, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

At the time, the words were considered inappropriate for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United States, whether radio or television; and most of the words on Carlin's original list remain taboo on American broadcast television but are heard with astonishing regularity on unregulated cable as an evening watching HBO will demonstrate. But words forbidden to polite society didn’t originate with Carlin; the ancient Romans had ten words that were considered taboo (and therefore used regularly): cunnus, futuo, mentula, verpa, landica, culus, pedico, caco, fello and irrumo. I’ll let the reader translate those words for which the English equivalent isn’t obvious.

At the Movies 1939’s Gone with the Wind ends with these memorable lines:

Scarlett: Where shall I go? What shall I do? Rhett: Frankly my dear, I don’t’ give a damn.

What today is hardly regarded as even a mildly profane expression caused a sensation in the USA in 1939. Sixty-six years later the iconic quotation was voted the number one movie line of all time by the American Film Institute.

The word “damn” had been prohibited by the 1930 Motion Picture Association’s Production Code (aka, the Will Hayes Office), drawn up as the country was in the grips of prohibition and a fiery debate about declining moral standards which social critics attributed in no small measure to the alleged excesses of the Hollywood dream machine and the immoral behavior of the people who starred in its films.

Against this backdrop, producer David O. Selznick and story editor Val Lewton worked hard to keep the movie close to the book. Of the word “damn” Selznik told the Hayes censors, "It is my contention that this word as used in the picture is not an oath or a curse. The worst that could be said of it is that it’s a vulgarism." In the end, the film got special dispensation to use "damn" and "hell" in specific situations.

But before they got the OK, Selznick and Lewton solicited alternate endings. They came up with 20, more or less, among them:

Frankly my dear, I don’t’ give a straw. Frankly my dear, I don’t’ give a hoot. You can go to the devil for all I care. My indifference is boundless.

The Hollywood Production Code was adopted by the film industry to counter efforts to establish government censorship of cinema in 1930, although it was not seriously enforced until 1934 and continued in effect until 1965 when it was replaced by the current ratings system.

During Hollywood’s golden age, producers, writers and directors came up with a bag of tricks designed to do an end run around the censors whom they regarded as overly zealous, excessively self-righteous and conspicuously dumb. One technique was to write witty, sharp-edged dialogue replete with double entendres and a heavy dose sexual innuendo.  

One such example comes from the 1946 film noire The Big Sleep, a mostly inscrutable piece of detective fiction penned by Raymond Chandler. The principals, Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) and Philip Marlow (Humphrey Bogart), engage in a famous, slyly flirtatious, sexy horse-race conversation scripted by an uncredited Julius Epstein. At one point, she rates him as a potential lover, using a horse analogy to talk in a veiled way about her feelings toward men and sex. The dialogue is outrageously suggestive without using a single off color word:

Vivian: Tell me: What do you usually do when you're not working? Marlowe: Oh, play the horses, fool around. Vivian: No women? Marlowe: I'm generally working on something, most of the time. Vivian: Could that be stretched to include me? Marlowe: Well I like you. I've told you that before. Vivian: I like hearing you say it. But you didn't do much about it. Marlowe: Well, neither did you. Vivian: Well, speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work out a little first, see if they're front-runners or come from behind, find out what their whole card is. What makes them run. Marlowe: Find out mine? Vivian: I think so. Marlowe: Go ahead. Vivian: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a little  breather in the backstretch, and then come home free. Marlowe: You don't like to be rated yourself. Vivian: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions? Marlowe: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but, uh...I don't know how - how far you can go. Vivian: A lot depends on who's in the saddle. Go ahead Marlowe, I like the way you work. In case you don't know it, you're doing all right. Marlowe: There's one thing I can't figure out. Vivian: What makes me run? Marlowe: Uh-huh. Vivian: I'll give you a little hint. Sugar won't work. It's been tried.

“Fuck” began to break into cinema when it was uttered once in the film Vapor (1963) and in two Andy Warhol films: Poor Little Rich Girl (1965) and My Hustler (1965), and later in each of two 1967 British releases, Ulysses and I'll Never Forget What's 'is name. It was also used several times in the 1969 British film Bronco Bullfrog.  According to director Robert Altman, the first time the word "fuck" was used in a major American studio film was in 1970's M*A*S*H, spoken by Painless during the football match at the end of the film. Since then it’s been a free-for-all as many films have attempted, and succeeded, in desensitizing audiences to the shocking effects of the F-word.

Bad Santa, a dreadful black comedy in which Billy Bob Thornton spends 90 minutes uttering non-stop expletives is one example. Another is 2017’s The Wife, an altogether splendid film—a great story complemented by terrific performances by Glen Close and Jonathan Prices—that suffers from what I would argue is overuse of the “F” word.

It’s not that I’m a prude; I’m not. It’s not that I’m offended. I’m not. It’s not that I don’t use the word; I do. And its not that I’m for censorship (heaven forfend!). But as a lover of and sometimes lecturer on old films, I’m saddened that writers and directors ignore context and insert gratuitous profanity in dialogue when the scene doesn’t really call for it. Okay, Tony Soprano’s crew really does talk that way, and so does Casino’s Nicky Santoro. And the creative social commentary of George Carlin and Lewis Black would fall pretty flat were it not punctuated by a flurry of forbidden expletives. In their mouths the language works; in the mouths of lesser so-called comedians it’s just unfunny. And unnecessary. It’s all a matter of context.  

It probably says something about the state of English-speaking society that there are people who actually count occurrences of the word ‘fuck’ in films. Director Martin Scorsese is the undisputed Father of Fuckage. “Fuck” and its derivatives is spoken a staggering 506 times in The Wolf of Wall Street, setting a new Guinness World Record for most swearing in one film. And Scorsese has two other films that made the top ten list of “fuck”-ridden films:

1. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013). 506 times (every 2.83 minutes). 2. Summer of Sam (Spike Lee, 1999). 435 times (every 3.06 minutes). 3. Nil by Mouth (Gary Oldman, 1997). 435 times (every 3.34 minutes). 4. Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995). 422 times (every 2.4 minutes). 5. Alpha Dog (Nick Cassavetes, 2006). 367 times (every 3.11 minutes). 6. End of Watch (Dir. David Ayer, 2012). 326 times (every 2.99 minutes). 7. Twin Town (Kevin Allen, 1997). 318 times (every 3.21 minutes). 8. Running Scared (Wayne Kramer, 2006) 315 times (every 2.58 minutes). 9. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990). 300 times (every 2.05 minutes). 10. Narc (Joe Carnahan, 2002). 297 times (every 2.82 minutes).

One could imagine the closing scene of Gone with the Wind if Scorsese had directed it. Perhaps it might have gone like this:

Scarlet: Rhett, I don’t know what the fuck to do! Rhett: Franky my dear, I don’t give a shit.

#fuck #etymology of fuck #profanity #F word in cinema #censorship #Martin Scorsese #Hollywood Production Code #Hayes Office

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18 years ago. It still hurts.

#9/11 #Remember 9/11 #America forever changed