"My duck does a wonderful trick. My duck can lay an egg!"

Via EDH in the comments to "Signs that people are tired of thinking about politics," which highlighted the Washington Post article about the amazing fact that a bird laid an egg. And who better than Shirley Temple to epitomize the desire for distraction from politics?

"I'd rather see a movie that helps me be a nicer person, not a sharper arguer."

Writes Chip Ahoy (in the comments to the thread about the "Obama's America" movie). I thought this was a nice topic, this topic of niceness.

Is there some movie that could help Chip Ahoy be a nicer person? The answers don't need to be Chip Ahoy specific. I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with a movie that oriented me toward greater niceness. I can think of movies that might help you become a better person, but it's usually in the sense of becoming bolder, more independent, more resolutely opposed to evil and oppression. But nicer? Can you think of a movie in which the central character, someone you identify with, is especially polite and the politeness isn't basically something he must overcome in order to succeed.

A-ha! The answer: Every Shirley Temple movie.

"Imagine if Obama's gaffe about 'clinging to guns and religion' had been uttered by John McCain, about his own base."

It would look like this...

But, actually, to be fair, that is worse than the hypothetical McCain scenario. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was caught on tape insulting a particular individual — Gillian Duffy — calling her a "bigot" right after talking to her, and her reaction to hearing about it (and then listening to it) is caught on video.

More of Gillian Duffy's amazing real-time response here. (I like when she gets a cell phone call and the reporters can't believe she'd take a phone call while she's on live TV.) Brown has now given Duffy an in-personal apology, but as you can see in that video she says she doesn't want that. She wants to know why her comments were counted as bigotry.

IN THE COMMENTS: Class factotum said:

Josephine the Plumber has been born.

Hey! Wait a minute! Josephine the Plumber? Jane Withers!



When my mother saw those Comet ads, she's always exclaim about how mean Jane Withers was to Shirley Temple. She was the child actress who was most emphatically not Shirley Temple:



And the actor in the wheelchair is Charles Sellon — or as I insist on calling him, Mr. Muckle. Now, open the door for Mr. Muckle:

Babu Sassi, the man who lives in his crane, at the top of the Burj Dubai, the tallest building, and hasn't been down to the ground for over a year.

BLDGblog is entranced:

Whether or not this is even true – after all, I never think truth is the point in stories like this – 1) the idea of appropriating a construction crane as a new form of domestic space – a kind of parasitic sub-structure attached to the very thing it's helped to construct (perhaps raising the question: what is the ontology of construction cranes?) – is totally awesome; 2) further, the idea that crane operators are subject to these sorts of urban rumors and speculations brings me back to the idea that there might be a burgeoning comparative literature of mega-construction sites taking shape today, with this particular case representing a strong subgenre: mythic construction worker stories, John Henry-esque figures who single-handedly assemble whole floors of Dubai skyscrapers at midnight, with a cigarette in one hand and a hammer in the other (or so the myths go), as a kind of oral history of the global construction trade; and, finally, 3) there should be some kind of TV show – or a book, or a magazine interview series – similar to Dirty Jobs in which you go around visiting people who live in absurd places – like construction cranes atop the Burj Dubai, or extremely distant lighthouses, or remote drawbridge operation rooms on the south Chinese coast, or the janitorial supply chambers of inner London high-rises – in order to capture what could be called the new infrastructural domesticity: people who go to sleep at night, and brush their teeth, and shave, and change clothes, and shower, inside jungle radar towers for the French foreign legion, or up above the train tracks of Grand Central Station because their shift starts at 3am and they have to stay close to the job.

This is, of course, a wonderful subject for movies and books. Perhaps you can help me think of some. I thought first of one of my favorite movies, the one where Shirley Temple lives in a lighthouse. Then I thought of "Bartleby the Scrivener" -- spoiler alert:

Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my office, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat of a ricketty old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean, reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; under the empty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, with soap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts and a morsel of cheese. Yet, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelor’s hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous—a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!

"I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted," said the famous photographer Annie Leibovitz.

"Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it. The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."

Vanity Fair got millions of hits, and Disney says: "A situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old" ... whose father was right there the whole time.

Here's the slideshow at Vanity Fair. Judge for yourself. I think the photographs were intended to get the attention they got, but don't actually cross the line into scandalous. The girl is beautiful. Deal with it. Bare shoulders are not nudity. But to say "very little makeup" when there is red lipstick... well, that's disingenuous.

ADDED: Compare this, from another era. Scroll to 2:51 to start.

A profound movie experience.

I'm watching one of the first movies I ever saw... from back in the days when TV played "The Early Show," "The Late Show," "The Late Late Show," and -- if I'm not mistaken -- "The Late Late Late Show." I only watched "The Early Show" back in the 1950s, when I was a child, and only when my mother called my attention to something. I now realize she was being highly selective. Perhaps the second movie I ever saw in my life -- the first was "The Little Fugitive" -- was the Shirley Temple movie "Captain January."

This dance, with Buddy Ebsen, is supremely charming:



"Come Along and follow me, to the bottom of the sea..." Did that influence Robert Zemeckis in "Back to the Future" to make the prom theme "Enchantment Under the Sea"? There's a scene right after the dance where a bunch of crusty old sailors teach Shirley how to spit. That had to be the source material for the spitting scene in "Titanic."

And speaking of influences, I can see how much this influenced me. Shirley is angrily defiant as she stands up to the prissy female truant officer who doesn't like the feisty attitude she's learning from the men. The truant officer wants to put her in an institution, away from Captain January, the kindly lighthouse keeper who found her after a shipwreck.

You should be taken home and spanked! What kind of man is this Captain January to allow you to run around?

This is some heavy dialogue for a young child to hear. (Shirley has just been looking at a picture she thinks is her dead mother and has tried to sing the song "Asleep in the Deep.")

Helen: How can anyone sleep in the deep?
Capt. January: That's the long last sleep, Star.
Helen: Does everyone have to die?
Capt. January: Yes, everyone does.
Helen: Even you and me?
Capt. January: Yes, when the time comes.
Helen: Do you think we'll make it till Christmas?
Capt. January: Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if we did.

Yes, Shirley reminds you of death, then tries to cheer you back up with Christmas and short term hopes.

ADDED: Want to see more Buddy Ebsen? Here -- "Broadway Melody of 1936"-- he dances with a full size woman (his sister Vilma).

The courtroom and the coffeeshop.

I'm scheduled to judge the 12 o'clock argument, the final round of the Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition, and I arrive at the Capitol two hours early.




No, I didn't find some crazy new way to screw up the jump to Daylight Savings Time, I just wrote 10 a.m. down in my calendar long ago, for some unknown reason. I procure a paper copy of the bench memo and head across the street to Starbucks.

The barista is chatting to someone about Daylight Savings Time and the effect on the clientele: "These are the 8 o'clock people at 9 o'clock. Or maybe it's the pre-church crowd? But what do I know about church? I mean I've heard" -- sweeping gesture -- "of this deity" -- gesture -- but what do I know?"

There's an astrology column taped to that circular section of the counter where they present the coffee drinks. A man waiting for his latte scans the column and expresses pleasure that he's supposed to have a good day. He's a Virgo he tells us. The barista exclaims that, ooh, he's a Virgo, and an older woman, also waiting for a coffee, says that her son is a Virgo. I read the Virgo message and point out the introductory clause: "It says you're going to have a good day assuming you first complete your duties."

Over at the fixings stand, I see this:



"Restore yourself." Not -- as I think it would have read a few years back -- "Indulge yourself." "Restore yourself" is less hedonistic, a bit spiritual. He restoreth my soul. But what would you have to be if what restored you -- what brought you back to yourself -- was a vanilla sunshine cupcake and a macchiato crisscrossed with gooey chocolate? Macchiato means "stained," and this plays havoc with the religious imagery "restore" evokes for me. But then it's restore yourself. No deity -- you may have heard of one -- is going to restore you. It's up to you to restore yourself -- to your truly stained condition -- at Starbucks, where God seems rather alien -- something heard about one time -- but astrology belongs taped to the part of the place that is most like an altar, where the barista bestows the restorative liquid upon us.

The woman whose son is a Virgo comes over to sugar her coffee and asks me if I'm "with that gentleman," meaning the customer who liked his horoscope. She seems to have appreciated my humor, though in expressing her appreciation, she uses the word "assumptuous." I say no I'm not. "I don't know anything about what unperformed duties he might have." I imagine the alternate universe in which I am with that guy and I'm reading the introductory clause of his horoscope to needle him about his duties -- the undone things that stain his soul.

I find a seat. I read the bench memo and do the acrostic.



I scribble some notes on the blog post I plan to write. I make a note to connect the Starbucks material to a conversation I'd just had with a colleague of mine over in the Supreme Courtroom.

"You know there was a big controversy a few years back when Shirley Abrahamson used this room for an aerobics class."

"Oh, yeah, I vaguely remember that. Well, you can't have that. This is a temple of justice. But then, we do worship the body in this culture of ours. So maybe..."

But the noon hour approaches. Time to get back to the Supreme Court.



The problem -- here's the PDF of the record on appeal -- is about a student group, a conservative religious group, that loses its state university funding because it excludes a gay student from membership. The university had conditioned the funding on the group's acceptance of a nondiscrimination policy. We judges try to ask a lot of hard questions to give the students the opportunity to show what they can do. Both teams do a fine job. The two young men who win -- they're from Washburn University School of Law -- can be seen, unblurred, in this picture I took when I first arrived at 10.



Rushing about so much she's a complete blur is Julia Ledbetter, the Moot Court boardmember in charge of the competition. Somewhat less blurred is my aforementioned colleague, the wonderful Stewart Macaulay.

Madison-related ramblings.

Tonya's back from Italy, and about to turn right back around and go to South Africa. She's got some cool pictures from Italy (I especially like the dizzying staircase with the convex mirror and the pink umbrella). Strangely yet typically, her interest in photography is Dave Matthews-related.



Elsewhere in Madison, Nina is not able to fully approve of her country's hero Lech Walesa, who recently wrote favorably about Ronald Reagan--and the way of the cowboy ("Cowboys fight for justice, fight against evil, and fight for freedom, both physical and spiritual").



That reminds me: the TiVo--Prof. Yin, don't forget I love my TiVo too--just picked up "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." We have Jimmy Stewart on our TiVo "wish list"! That is my favorite Western movie, I think. In an early scene, we see the old, successful Jimmy Stewart about to tell the true story of who John Wayne really is, and he begins his long story with himself at the point of having just graduated from law school. So maybe that's a good one for recent law school graduates. I just checked out the first scene, but I'm going to watch the whole thing and will report back. TiVo also picked up "Fort Apache." That one was because I have Shirley Temple on my wish list. Not John Wayne. (Not John Ford.) Shirley Temple.



Anyway, I love the character names in "Liberty Valance." Not just Liberty Valance (played by Lee Marvin), but Ransom Stoddard (the Stewart character), Marshal Link Appleyard, and Maj. Cassius Starbuckle ...



That reminds me: time to go to a café!

Marrying the father figure. So if a teenage girl goes for a year believing an older man is her biological father, but then finds out it was just rumor, is it okay to marry him? I mean in a conventional family-oriented movie. That's what happened in "That Hagen Girl" (discussed here, with pictures, yesterday). Ronald Reagan was none too happy with the role of the father figure and begged for a rewrite in which he doesn't end up marrying Shirley Temple.

Reagan's misgivings about the script were borne out when the film had its first preview screening. After he rescues Temple from her suicide attempt, he admits that he loves her. But when he said the words on screen, the preview audience screamed "Oh no!" almost in unison.

So they recut it, so people wouldn't scream in horror! But that only made it an inexplicably sexless marriage.

Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple. Today is Shirley Temple's birthday, and TMC is showing a lot of her movies. I love Shirley and have my TiVo programmed to capture her work. Today, it caught "That Hagen Girl," which is only a one-star movie, but it co-stars Ronald Reagan, so--what the hell!--I started watching and made it to the end. It's bad, but awesome. Ronald Reagan comes to town, hears people gossiping about him, and doesn't like it.

He's a lawyer, and he sets up in a law office that has a nice portrait of Lincoln on the wall:

When he mouths off to a pretty young teacher, he apologizes: "I'm sorry I sounded off on you. I'm an attorney and every once in a while I talk to people as if they just belted someone with a meathook." Here's how he looks, delivering that line:

The gossip is all about how Mary Hagen, played by Shirley Temple, is an illegitimate child and the father is Reagan. Shirley was the most adorable child ever, but here she is as a gorgeous teenager:

The small town in this movie is entirely designed for the purpose of torturing Shirley Temple. Here's how to insult people in the town: "Why don't you go somewhere and catch yourself, you foul ball?" What possible solution could there be for poor Shirley? Especially after Ronald Reagan offers to pay her "tuition fees" to go to a university that they'll choose for her after she graduates from junior college. But she hangs around and has conversations like:

I've never done anything wrong ... except getting born.

I know, it seems like an injustice, but...

We remain confused throughout the movie about whether Reagan really is Shirley Temple's father, until the point where he's about to call her on the phone and ask her to marry him. At exactly that point, the townsfolk read in the newsaper that Reagan has received a medal from the President of the United States for his contribution to "the successful launching of atomic warfare." Apparently, Reagan has dropped the atomic bomb on Japan! The townsfolk decide they love Ronald Reagan, and they burst in on him just as he's about to go to Shirley. He tries to leave. They say:

But we haven't accomplished our mission!

Like you boys in the airforce, we believe in Mission Accomplished.

(Hmmm.... there's a phrase!) They invite him to speak at graduation. He suggests the subject of his speech: Mary Hagen! But she's been expelled! For going to the "tavern"! He tells them off. They leave, and immediately an official of some sort arrives and hands him a suicide note from Mary! She's "picked the lagoon," according to the note. Thunder rolls. We see Mary walking in the rain, and, wet, Shirley is modern and fabulous:

It's our dear girl, Shirley, wet and suicidal! She's looking into the water and her whole life flashes in front of her, and her whole life is the mystery of whether Ronald Reagan is her father. I watch the flashback and think: 1. Shirley Temple was so beautiful (I seriously believe Marilyn Monroe derived her vision of female loveliness from Shirley), and 2. Mary Hagen really needs to go to college in some other town! Suddenly, Ronald Reagan runs up, his trenchcoat flapping in the storm: "Mary! Mary!" We see him desperately trying to take off that trenchcoat and then a wide shot of trenchcoat-removing Reagan and the flowing river. Mary has jumped! Reagan, in dress suit and shoes, but sans trenchcoat, dives into the river.

And our man Reagan, finally, after all these years, tells her that isn't important. "It's what you are, and where you're going that really matters."

He tells her she was an ordinary adopted orphan, no connection to him at all. Yay! Reagan can marry her!