I worked on a movie called Belly that he did a track for. I remember him coming by a screening room, really short dude. He and his boy kept sneaking off to the stairwell to smoke an L.
Tuesday
February 24, 2026
Since 2002
Category: Arts and Culture
BGS: Lee Marvin Shoots from the Hip
Dig Robert Ward’s Rolling Stone profile of Lee Marvin:
“Ford,” he says reverentially. “Fucking Ford. You’ll never see skillets and steaks like that in anybody else’s picture. He’s like the Dickens. It’s all about bigger than life. That’s what the old guys understood about movies. If it’s not bigger than life, put it on television.
“We got along from the start. Maybe I knew how to deal with him. The first day of Liberty, I was hanging around waiting for Ford to come in. Everybody told me how tough he was and not to say anything or he’d single you out and get on you the whole shoot. But as he walked in, I got up and saluted him. There was a dead silence. And then I said, ‘Well, chief, when the admiral comes aboard, the first mate has to pipe him in.’ He never got on me after that. He was a great lover of the navy, and he liked me because of it. He called me Washington. Because my family is descended from George Washington’s brother, James. Which few people know or expect.”
Which is an understatement. The standard guess on Marvin might best be summed up by a writer friend of mine who said, “He looks like he carne out of nowhere. He had no father, no mother, just spawned out there in some gulch and has spent his whole life hating the world that vomited him up.” Marvin would love that, for he’s worked hard to create his image. People don’t come over in bars with a glad hand and ruin his lunch. The reason is simple: they’re afraid if they do, he’ll kill them.
Morning Art
“Red Umbrella” by Saul Leiter (1958)
New York Minute
Over at New York Magazine, Christopher Bonanos has a nice feature on the Strand:
Why is there still a Strand Book Store?
In large part because of Fred Bass. He’s pretty much the human analogue for the store’s gray column. His father, Ben, founded the Strand around the corner in 1927, and he was born in 1928. Ask him about his childhood, and he recalls going on buying trips on the subway with his father, hauling back bundles of books tied with rope that cut into his hands. (“Along the line, we got some handles.”) Ask him about the 1970s, and he’ll tell you about hiding cash in the store because it was too dangerous to go to the bank after dark. He’s 86, and he still makes buying trips, though mostly not by subway. “Part of my job is going out to look at estates — it’s a treasure hunt.” New York, to him, “is an incredible source — a highly educated group of people in a concentrated area, with universities and Wall Street wealth. The libraries are here.” Printed and bound ore, ready to be mined.
Four days a week, he’s on the main floor, working the book-buying desk in back. Stand there, and you’ll see the full gamut of New York readers. Critics and junior editors, selling recent releases. Academics. Weirdos. “Book scouts,” who pan for first-edition gold at yard sales and on Goodwill shelves. They walk in with heavy shopping bags and leave with a few $20s. Usually fewer than they’d hoped: The Strand rejects a lot, because unsalable books are deadweight. Whatever arrives has to go out quickly. “Our stock isn’t stale,” Bass says. “You come in, and there’ll be new stuff continually.” Slow sellers are culled, then marked down, then moved to the bargain racks outside, then finally sold in bulk for stage sets and the like.
[Photo Credit: Sebastian Bergmann]
“Could Go All the Way”
“It is a community activity. You need all nine people helping one another. I love bunt plays. I love the idea of the bunt. I love the idea of the sacrifice. Even the word is good. Giving yourself up for the good of the whole. That’s Jeremiah. That’s thousands of years of wisdom. You find your own good in the good of the whole. You find your own individual fulfillment in the success of the community — the Bible tried to do that and didn’t teach you. Baseball did.”–Mario Cuomo
Not long ago I looked through some old stuff and found a Mondale/Ferrero bumper sticker. I was in 8th grade when they ran and lost. I kept the sticker. Four years later I campaigned for Dukakis who also got his ass kicked. These were the years when it seemed like there’d never be a Democrat in the White House again, a time when our Governor Mario Cuomo seemed like our best hope, an improbable hope. The second coming of Adlai Stevenson. I remember a friend of mine was obsessed with Cuomo; had posters of the man on his bedroom wall.
I thought about all of that last night when I heard that Cuomo died at the age of 82.
Here’s Ken Auletta in the New Yorker…
[Photo Credit: Richard Kalvar]
Taster’s Cherce
We made this for Christmas dinner. Actually, my brother made it and deserves all the credit because it was delicious. I made some of the condiments and I think a new holiday tradition was born.
[Photo Credit: New York Times]
"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver
--Earl Weaver