12.29.2005

The Pen Is on the Other Foot - HOF Revisited

NUTLEY, N.J. -- As a writer I don't like to be interviewed.


Or should I say I'm often disappointed by how what I've said in an interview has been repeated, reshaped and reworded.

It doesn't always happen, some of my favorite interviewers have gotten it right each time. But there are other reporters I've spoken with who had virtually nothing right.

Years ago, one reporter had my age off by 10 years. Another story included almost nothing of what I said.

I guess it wouldn't surprise you that I didn't store multiple copies of these in my scrapbook.

When I look at the recent press coverage of the Hall Of Fame I see that there wasn't much. I know there were people there shooting photos upon photos - but no one, it seems, recorded the things that the inductees or their proxies said. That's too bad, because, as one of the proxies, I was in a great position to hear every word.

And folks, those were words worth hearing. No, I'm not just talking about my own words written about HOF inductee & Pulitzer Prize winner Frances Goodrich.

Each honoree spoke kindly of this town and its long-lasting influence on their success. It's just too bad the scribes weren't there to record it. For better or for worse, that is.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Order THE REAL NICK And NORA
Notable Nutley, N.J. Writers
Goodrich Filmograph - IMDb
Up from Zero : Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York by Paul Goldberger
Reginald Marsh's New York: Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Photographs by Marilyn Cohen
Old Nutley
The Petite Cafe

Earlier Posting on this subject

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

Ginger Barista

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.Ginger Barista

Gingerbread barista created in Nutley, N.J.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Spring Garden Sunrise

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reservedZamboni's morning treat

Sunrise at Spring Garden School, Nutley, N.J.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Nutley N.J.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reservedMerry Christmas from Nutley, N.J.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

The Trouble With Poetry

One book I recieved as a gift last week completes the above thought.

Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003, tells us in the second stanza of the above named poem that

"the trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry."
It is a sobering thought, also that the former national poet laureate must keep his day job as a 'distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.'

Indeed, now the reigning Poet Laureate of New York State, Collins' latest collection is a quick read that begs to be poured over slowly again and again.

His take on proofreaders and poets declares
"the poets are at their windows/because it is their job for which/they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon."
And, as odd as it may seem, despite the pay and day-job thing, this poetry being created by staring out the window, or at the sea, or the squares of buildings, is something that calls from within.

If I can just tear myself from this keyboard and wander into the rainy December morning, perhaps I shall catch something as obvious as whether or not Zamboni loves me or will call back from beyond as Collins says in The Revenant
"I admit the sight of the leash/would excite me/but only because it meant I was about/to smell things you had never touched."

Collins is a peach and The Trouble With Poetry is full of plums.

Click here to order from Amazon: The Trouble With Poetry by Billy Collins


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

The Trouble With Poetry-part two

Uncle Floyd & the Hall of Fame

Readers of New Jersey Monthly learned that 'Jersey is Funny' when the magazine named 12 funny New Jerseyans to the comedy issue Hall of Fame.

Our old buddy Uncle Floyd Vivino made the list at number 8.

According to the magazine, funnier than Floyd are: Jerry Lewis; Lou Costello; Bud Abbott, Kevin Smith; Richard Lewis, Ernie Kovacs; Janeane Garofolo; and Flip Wilson.

Not as funny as Floyd are: Joe Piscopo; Jon Stewart, Danny DeVito and Bill Maher.

In honor of Floyd's honor, we reprinted our 1977 articles about his TV show. You can find links to the four articles at Anthony's World.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008
New Jersey Monthly

12.23.2005

Thanks for Stopping By

As you may notice if you scroll all the way to the bottom of this page, we are nearing 200,000 page views since I created my web site, lo, many years ago.

The biggest jump has been lately, since this blog began.

Dec. 22 - 199,814

October 2 - 156,732
November 1 - 170,848
December 1 - 188,743

So, do keep dropping by, and don't forget to send your spiders, too.

2005,As posted earlier this year
January 3 - 65,352
February 1 - 72,943
March 1 - 81,758
April 1 - 92,158
May 2 - 102,207
June 2 - 113,329
July 1 - 123,575 (Uncle Tonoose Blog Launched)
August 1 - 133,494
September 1 - 145,760 ( 9.12.05=149,551 )


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.


September Post

I Could Be President

A few years ago there was a lot of commotion about the president being surprised by scanners at the supermarket check out. He was also derided for not knowing how much a gallon of milk cost.

Now, I've seen scanners since they came around. Heck, I help with the grocery shopping every week - and, no, I ain't looking for no medal.

But when it comes to some prices, I don't know what they are ... except for my rice cakes when I'm standing before the display.

This morning I ran out for milk and orange juice. A gallon of 2 percent lowfat milk and two half gallons of pulp orange juice, if you're keeping track.

Going in I didn't know if ten bucks would cover it.

So, I took a twenty out and headed to the far reaches of the nearby Acme store.

I past not one, but two wily coyote's shopping in the contraption aisle before I got to the farthest corner where they store the milk, bread and juice.

I didn't need any bread, except to pay with, so to speak. But there were so many orange juices my head started to spin.

So, getting back to my earlier point, I didn't know going in how much a half-gallon of pulp orange juice would be. It was $3.99

But I don't know if that's high or not. But that doesn't really matter, because I had two things on my list and pulp orange juice is one of them, and I grab two @ $3.99.

The milk was next to the orange juice. Did you know that a gallon of 2 percent lowfat milk costs $3.99?

My math may be a bit rusty, but that's half as much as pulp orange juice. You can't mix them becuase orange juice is lousy in your coffee.

With my Valued Customer card I got a $1.49 off on each orange juice and the bill came to $8.99

In the long run, $10 would have covered it, but I didn't know that going in.

I bagged my OJ & milk and headed for a cup of coffee ($1.30) and a buttered Italian roll, and a copy of the Friday edition of the Wall Street Journal, and some Mega tickets for tonight's drawing.

That too, totalled under $10.

And that is how I started the first day of my vacation, more or less.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

12.21.2005

Merry Christmas Countdown

For all you folks who can't wait til Christmas gets here, here is a web site that is right up your alley.

My Christmas of 1947 By Salvatore Buttaci

Check out the "Official Countdown to Christmas" in the upper right hand side!


Anthony's Classics:

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved

Anthony ready to take on the Wild, Wild West with his old pals Sky King, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans!

A Coal Miner's Kids' Christmas

Married to a Christmas Nut

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Yes, Anthony is far too young (ha-ha) to remember the Christmas of 1947 himself!

12.19.2005

A Walk of Note

What do penguins and polar bears have in common ... besides this recent MUTTS cartoon by Patrick McDonnell?

Mutts by Patrick McDonnell - used without permission; for educational purposes, click art to enlarge

Actually, polar bears live in the Arctic Circle at the North Pole and penguins live around Antarctica near the South Pole. The only time these critters are near each other is at the zoo or in a terrific cartoon by New Jersey's favorite animal comic artist Patrick McDonnell.

McDonnell's strip is known for its 'little pink sock' and 'belly rubs' which is not a bad thing to be known for!

There's still time to pick up a book of his Mutts cartoons, or stationery or other stuff - online or at your local bookstore.

But HURRY, before he takes that dog for another walk and who knows how long he'll be gone this time?


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino

Mutts by Patrick McDonnell

12.13.2005

NLT's 'It's A Wonderful Life'

Sunday evening I saw a reading of "It's a Wonderful Life" at the Nutley Little Theatre.

Even though I knew the story and everything that was coming in each plot twist, I had a real good time. The theatre remains one of Nutley's best kept secrets.

The stage is in the attic, or loft, of an old barn. In all the times I've been there, this was the first time I walked onto the stage and looked back past the bright lights and up at the rafters. That's how it is when you're early and there's nothing on the set you can break or put out of place.

In the close-up, minutes before the show, you can see the black painted eaves and sense how small the stage of the little theatre is - about the size of an average living room.

And the seating area is not much bigger, of course, that's why it's called the Nutley Little Theatre. It's not named after some farmer named Little who donated his old barn.

At this performance, the stage is virtually bare, except for bits of this and pieces of that. There were some barren boxes and some pieces of sets between shows.

Along the back wall was a hula-hoop. Some odd props from some other show and a dial telephone adorned the otherwise nude stage.

Yes. You look at the U-shape tape marks on the floor, and the partial walls and the windows without glass and you realize it is a nude stage, not naked. It's posed mid dressing between the last show and the next.

Think of this stage as an actresss getting ready for her next scene, changing clothes behind a screen - and the screen falls down.

At midstage, the recessed partitions are made of an unpainted sheet-rock wall, stacked on the floor are step-stool boxes in black or brown & with cut-out handles for easy moving on a dark stage - but solid, so you could stand on them or schreech upon them a soliloquy from the proscenium.

Stage left, (that's on stage facing the audience, to the actor's left) a cut-out window has panes of black. So we wonder is it black paint or are the panes clear through and the black on the wall behind? At intermission, when no one is looking, we shall poke a fist into the blackness.

Another faux-window, stage right, is constructed of framed unpainted 1x1 lumber.

Along the wall, stage right, along the aisle where the audience slips in and out of the front two rows there is a rod, painted black - like the wall and the support boxes.

Near the stage, where the rod ends is a length of chain dangling, unaware that its role in the slave trade scene from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" is long ago and far away.

Fourteen chairs formed a semicircle facing the audience. There were two pairs of chairs, one set of five matching chairs, one set of three matching chairs and two stools (one for Clarence and one for Michael the head-angel, actually). And a few unrelated seats to make the total right for the number of readers we expected.

This cold December night the scent of warmed cider fills the air like a Little Tree air freshener. That can only mean one thing: Time for the reading of the script from the 1940s radio show version of Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life".

Oddly, no one mentioned the connection between Nutley and the film version of this show. Maybe next year.


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

Nutley Little Theatre

A Funny Thing Happened in Nutley

Nutley = Bedford Falls

12.12.2005

Cold Metaphors

The coldest, iciest, hardest snowball will float when you toss it into the river.

A fleet of ice cubes or a fleet of ice bergs.

... like landing a flea of a toothpick floating in a bathtub (LANDING ON AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER)

12.10.2005

Phideau's True Cost

If you didn't see the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal, then you might have missed the Green Thumb column by Ron Lieber 'Calculating the True Cost of a Pet'

Among other statistics, Lieber says that a small dog that lives 15 years will cost about $12,000.

A large dog, such as Zamboni, our chocolate Lab, for instance, will cost more than $23,000 should he live to be 12.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.Zamboni defends the keyboard

Of course, I know MY pet is well worth the price of a new car! How about yours?

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

Support this web site, shop at Amazon through this link, thanks




The Zamboni Files

Wall Street Journal

12.09.2005

Lost Dog - Mixed Blessing

The other day while I was waiting for the bus, there was a black untrimmed poodle-ish dog running around near the Wendy's on Franklin Avenue in Belleville.

The pooch crossed the busy street at least twice. This little black dog sure seemed like one wrong move and this cute little pup would be on the wrong side of a fast moving car.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.Which way is this dog heading?

The dog crossed busy Franklin Avenue. I watched as it stopped at each house sidewalk and took a few steps up, sniffed and stopped, seeming to say THIS ISN'T MY HOUSE, and head back to the sidewalk and started out again.

A good-hearted couple pulled over and tried to catch the dog. Then they left, and came back on the other side of the street to try again.

The last I saw them, I was on the bus and they were chasing the dog - which had no collar - down Berkeley Avenue.

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

12.08.2005

Nutley = Bedford Falls?

Wouldn't it be curious to compare the film It's A Wonderful Life and the small town atmosphere with the town where one of the screenwriters grew up, good old Nutley, N.J.

Until we get to that point, local blog viewers might want to note that Sunday - the Nutley Litle Theatre will present a treatment of the seasonal favorite.

The Reader’s Theater group of Nutley Little Theatre will perform a reading of the Frank Capra holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” on Sunday, Dec. 11, 7:30 p.m., at the NLT Barn, 47 Erie Place, Nutley.

Vicky Chalk of Nutley will direct the production, which is free and open to the public. Reader’s Theater features dramatic readings of new and established plays, supplementing NLT’s regular, fully staged performances.

Those attending last month's Nutley Hall of Fame induction heard first-hand from a number of dignitaries that Nutley resident (the late) Frances Goodrich wrote the screenplay for the orignal film classic of "It's a Wonderful Life." Goodrich also won a Pulitizer Prize for writing the stage play "The Diary of Anne Frank."


Earlier blog on Hall of Fame


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

Nutley Little Theatre

12.01.2005

Vote Early & Vote Often



The Weblog Awards 2005

Hurry - nominations are closing soon!

Finalists will be announced Sunday, Dec. 4. Voting begins Monday Dec. 5 and ends Dec. 15.

You'll have to register (it's free) to nominate me in the comments
(they really don't make it easy - to keep out the pests, you know)


UPDATE: Uncle Tonoose was not one of the finalists in the awards ceremony. You can still look over the site and the finalists and vote for your faves.

WE CAN'T MAKE IT ANY EASIER
THAN THIS TO
VOTE FOR GIGGLECHICK:

gc_vote_design.jpg

COMBAT! The TV Show

COMBAT! the TV show was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up. I had (and still have) the board game that went along with the show.

I loved watching the show when I was a kid in the early 1960s. And now I'm watching all the DVDs. Somehow I signed up and Amazon sends them to me automatically, faster than I can watch them, actually, but I don't mind.

I've done some work over the past few years regarding our towns' war dead ... and now when I watch these shows it's from a much different point of view.

Recently I interviewed a paratrooper who landed outside St. Mere Eglese and he was telling me about his stay in Bastogne 61 years ago this month. I hope to put some of these chats into the Veterans History Project.


Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

CombatFan web site

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