The hit Canadian TV series Our City Tonight interviews T-Boy Editor Ed Boitano

• T-Boy Society of Film, Travel & Music: Travel Nightmares: Travel Lessons Learned
• Attention Seniors 65+! San Diego Zoo is free the whole month of February 2023.
• Twenty-three minutes of New Orleans – By filmmaker Jay Bogas
• T-Boy Society of Film, Travel & Music: T-Boy Society of Film and Music’s Favorite Museums
• The 10 problems that could ruin your 2023 holiday. (telegraph.co.uk)
• T-Boy Society of Film, Travel & Music: Favorite State for a Food  Experience
• Lithuania’s Hill of the Crosses – By filmmaker Captain Ron Stowe
• Walt Mundkowsky: Time Capsule Cinema: Petulia – (Traveling Boy)
• Bearing Witness: Selected Works by Chiura Obata – (southernthing.com)

The post See the World in February with Traveling Boy appeared first on Traveling Archive.

BEATLE BEAT TRIVIA HODGEPODGE

A T-Boy staffer was listening the other morning to “Breakfast with the Beatles,”  and DJ Chris Carter (more than a serious Beatle-ologist) said years ago a friend posed this question to him: “If you encountered a visitor from another world and could play only ONE Beatles song that would explain their overall greatness, what would that song be?” Carter said his friend “then shoved a note into my pocket and said, ‘I already know what your answer will be and I wrote it down on that piece of paper.’” Carter continued, “Well, the pressure was on… so I went through all the mental deductions like, can’t use anything off Sgt. Pepper for example because those songs would only be representative of their psychedelic era…etc.”  Anyway, he came up with a song and it was indeed what his friend had written down on the note.

I was initially floored by his answer, but it made perfect sense and was the best choice the more I thought about it. (I likely would not have arrived at this on my own).

THE ANSWER

Ready For A Nap?

Weary travelers can rent sleeping pods and shower time in the Nine Hours hotel at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport
Courtesy Chris Weller – Business Insider

There aren’t many frills at the Nine Hours hotel, but when you’re only staying for a nap or a layover between flights, soft sheets and a dark space are pretty much all you need. Nine Hours is a Japanese chain of pod hotels started in 2009, with each chain designed to accommodate people for between one and nine hours depending on their needs. For $44, guests gain access to a private pod, sleepwear, and access to the bathrooms and lounge. Or for $7 you can just take a shower.

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The Shortest Path to Real-Life Conversations

Which language would you like to learn? Try it out for free!

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John Heard – RIP

Actor John Heard (1946–2017) passed away on July 21, 2017. He was 72-years-old. Though much has been made of him as a ‘character actor’ in trifles like Home Alone and Big, there are many who have been enamored by him for his earlier leading roles. In particular, his acting in Ivan Passer’s Cutter’s Way is regarded as a true Shakespearian performance. In the film Heard plays a cynical, hard drinking, conspiracy driven Vietnam War veteran who lost an arm, leg and one-eye on the battlefield. Romantic roles included Joan Micklin Silver’s Head Over Heels (aka Chilly Scenes of Winter) and Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People. Between The Lines (JM Silver again), Trip to Bountiful, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and his portrayal of Jack Kerouac in Heartbeat were also among critic’s favorites.

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Clear Your Schedules: Events Throughout Buenos Aires Fill Up The 2017 Calendar

South America’s Capital of Cool Abounds with Festivals Throughout the Year

Buenos Aires, a city renowned for its vivacity, cuisine, passionate people and unique culture gets even more thrilling and interesting in 2017, with a top-notch lineup of festivals and events. Travelers visiting Buenos Aires this year will have many things to see and do including agricultural festivals, tango competitions, design and fashion events, and gay parades. Festivals are also a great way to meet the Porteño locals, who are known for their warmth and welcoming attitude.

Upcoming events in the City of Many Passions during the second half of the year, include:

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Happy Summer Months from the staff at TravelingBoy

We have designated this Summer to think of those who suffer from great sorry and misfortune. Here are some of our favorite charities.

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Star Wars Resort Coming to Disney World

Disney World vacationers will one day have the opportunity for an all-encompassing Star Wars experience, from hotel to theme park.

Every Star Wars fan knows the park attraction is coming in 2019 (the 14-acre land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando now has an official name, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge). A Florida resort is coming, too, and Disney touts it as a “one-of-a-kind experience where a luxury resort meets a multi-day adventure in a galaxy far, far away.”

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John Lennon’s Typewriter

SFO’s mini art exhibit has a gem right now in current exhibition.

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TIME CAPSULE CINEMA

The Battle of Algiers – A Look Back

By Walt Mundkowsky

Directed by: Gillo Pontecorvo
Writing Credits: Franco Solinas and Gillo Pontecorvo
Music by: Ennio Morricone and Gillo Pontecorvo
Cinematography by:  Marcello Gatti
Cast: Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi

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Hands down, this Canadian gem is our pick for the most hilarious, madcap travel show on the cybersphere.

In this zany episode, the Travel Guys take on a Mediterranean Cruise.

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How to Resolve Fights over Reclining Airplane Seats

An investigation into the economics of reclining
Courtesy of Christopher Buccafusco & Christopher Jon Sprigman, Evonomics

Not since the Battle of the Somme has such little space been the subject of such intense conflict.

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Countries That Require Visas for Americans

The State Department’s Office of American Citizens Services and Crisis Management (ACS) administers the Consular Information Program, which informs the public of conditions abroad that may affect their safety and security. Country Specific Information, Travel Alerts, and Travel Warnings are vital parts of this program.

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Stay Informed, Stay Connected, Stay Safe!

The Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) is a free service to allow U.S. citizens and nationals traveling abroad to enroll their trip with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

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Man Tried to Bite Flight Attendant, Jumped From Plane

The man then made his way to the galley, pried open the door and jumped. He appeared in federal court Friday on a charge of assaulting/intimidating a flight crew member.

Tipping Etiquette Around the Globe

As North Americans, tipping is a reality, and we are sensitive that the wait staff receives their due. We generally like to tip at the amount of 15% to 20%. After all, the wait staff in North America depends on it.

But if you are confused about tipping in other destinations, we determined what’s best to tip outside of North America.

• Africa: 10% to 15%
• Australia/New Zealand: None (the wait staff is well compensated in their hourly salary
• Caribbean & Central America: 10%
• China: None. (Tipping is against the law)
• England: 10%
• Germany: 10%
• Ireland: 12%
• Italy: None (except for great service, where you round out bill)
• Japan: None. (tipping is considered rude, but you always offer your chef a beer)
• Middle East: 15%
• South America: 15

We Are All Terminal – We Just Don’t Know Our Expiration Date

Addressing the elephant in the room about your own death is something most couples avoid doing together and it is a big mistake.

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10 Strange Laws from Around the World

Courtesy SmarterTraveler

From a stiletto ban in Greece to the pinball crackdown in South Carolina – give travel a unique flavor.

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Top 25 Most Interesting Webcams

Selected from hundreds of nominees by a panel of EarthCam producers, EarthCam announces the most unique and compelling webcams of the year.

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The post Catch-up with the Latest Traveling Boy News appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Director

Writing Credits: Lawrence B. Marcus (screenplay), John Haase (novel), Barbara Turner (adaptation)

Cast: George C. Scott, Julie Christie, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Knight, Arthur Hill, Richard Chamberlain

Music: John Barry

Cinematography: Nicolas Roeg

The Knack and How to Misuse It

A Look Back at Petulia
By Walt Mundkowsky

No doubt about it, Richard Lester has “the knack”: considerable intelligence, explosive visual invention, unequalled cleverness with a camera. Petulia, his latest, parades these virtues – and reveals the defects which prevent him from becoming a major artist. Petulia starts with an almost insurmountable disadvantage. It is based on a novel – Me and the Arch Kook Petulia – by John Haase, who was aptly described by John Simon as “a male Californian Rona Jaffe.” The story is tired soap-opera material.

We start at a fancy party. (Big Brother and the Holding Company are playing at a charity dance titled “Shake for Highway Safety.”) Archie Bollen, a middle-aged surgeon who is divorcing his wife, is one of the party’s hosts. Dancing with her husband is Petulia Danner, a working-class English girl from Bristol – her mother was a prostitute, she claims – who has married into San Francisco high society. The party bores Petulia (“Highway safety is so blah”), and she finds Archie interesting, so she propositions him rather awkwardly. (“I’ve been married six months and I’ve never had an affair.”) Petulia is the very embodiment of chic – upswept blonde hair, white ostrich feathers, jewels, etc. – and Archie half-heartedly accepts. They drive to an electronic nightmare of a motel, but she changes her mind. She continues to stalk him, though, finally breaking in on him and his mistress, shouting, “All that crap about the humanitarianism of the medical profession –” Out of resignation – or something – Archie takes her to bed. He leaves the next morning to spend the day at Alcatraz with his two sons. When he returns, his flat is a shambles; he finds Petulia on the floor, beaten into a bloody mess. Petulia and her father-in-law conceal the circumstances surrounding her injuries. Her husband was the assailant, but she goes back to live with him even though he has done this before. Archie is left helpless. Many months later Petulia enters the hospital where Archie works – to have a baby. Again he offers to save her from her unfortunate marriage. She turns him down, and the movie ends with one of her “kooky” rejoinders. “When I lie dying, wondering what my life’s been all about, you won’t even cross my mind. No, wait – I lied – ” She adds gravely, “I’ll never forget you, Arnold.”

Petulia is another commercial dilution of Resnais’ fragmentation techniques, after The Pawnbroker and Point Blank. With Hiroshima mon amour Resnais inaugurated the cinema flashback –“flash” being the operative word. He showed just how suddenly and strikingly a memory can intrude. Lester makes extensive use of this: From start to finish he intercuts brief shots – Archie in the operating room, Petulia falling to the floor as her husband breaks her rib, an overexposed sequence of Petulia and her husband (a vastly inferior imitation of the brilliant tracking shot which floods the screen with light at the end of Resnais’ L’année dernière à Marienbad), Petulia breaking a window. Resnais’ jumps through time and space always underline the theme that runs through his films: what John Ward calls the “Bergson-Proust dichotomy of Time the destroyer and Memory the preserver. But as Bergson points out and as Resnais never tires of affirming, memory does more than preserve; it also creates.” Lester’s scrambling of the time sequence in Petulia carries none of these philosophical implications; he is merely using a narrative device which has become fashionable.

Lester’s style largely derives from his early work as a director of TV commercials. In fact, A Hard Day’s Night, The Knack and Help! looked very much like stretched-out TV commercials, with their abrupt zoom shots, lack of story line, and quick, elliptical editing. The frenetic cutting wrecked A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. As John Russell Taylor said, “… slow-burn comedy chopped up into little bits does not become fast, snappy comedy; it remains obstinately little bits of slow-burn comedy, but prevented from working satisfactorily even in their own terms.” But this conflict between style and subject was an advantage in How I Won the War – it permeated the movie with biting tension. In Petulia he has found a good vehicle for his approach – upper-echelon California. Here San Francisco is a TV ad brought to life. Lester’s sharp commentary on contemporary values brings to mind what Tony Richardson (in The Loved One) and Mike Nichols (in The Graduate) have tried to do with similar settings. (Talking about intentions there is risky, as it’s hard to find two more confused and muddled films.) Admittedly, Lester’s target is not small, but he hits the mark with some regularity. The automated motel, the rows and rows of tract homes, the supermarket, the charity ball, the hospital where Archie operates become, in Lester’s hands, set pieces of well-lit bleakness.

Lester uses the comments of bystanders on the edges of the story very effectively – much as he did in The Knack. They serve as a kind of chorus, remarking on the main action. When Petulia is carried out of Archie’s apartment after being beaten, the neighbors comment, “Oh Harry, come and look what’s going on! – She’s dead. – What happened to you? – She’ll have a heck of a time washing that blood out of her hair.” This empty speech and Lester’s clever use of locations combine to make important statements about the stifling world the film’s characters – and we – inhabit.

But Petulia must be considered a failure, in spite of its many merits. Its story simply fails to convince. “Petulia, you’ve turned me into something crazy,” says Archie. And again at the film’s close: “Did I change you, Archie?” –“You turned me into a nut.” We are obviously supposed to believe that Petulia and Archie have switched positions at the end – that he has become a “kook” and she has become responsible. Archie says that “one day” he “just got very tired of being married.” “You’re a lonely screwed-up mess,” Petulia tells him. When the film ends, Archie seems no less tired, lonely or screwed up than he was at its start. And Petulia has not gotten more responsible; she has become pregnant. Stanley Kauffmann correctly observed, “The only serious change in Petulia is that at last she is satisfying her starved maternal urge, which is not the same, necessarily, as undergoing a change of character.”

Haase’s novel was “adapted” by Barbara Turner; the screenplay itself is credited to Lawrence B. Marcus. The supposedly flip dialogue is strained (“My name is Petulia.” – “I’m not surprised”), and the script does nothing to alleviate the novel’s basic problems. The film’s events seem too pat, too manipulated.

As Archie, George C. Scott gives his finest movie performance since Dr. Strangelove. His characterization is so strong that the film seems mistitled – it is Archie’s story rather than Petulia’s. Julie Christie, on the other hand, cannot transform the script’s manifold flaws. Richard Chamberlain is surprisingly pointed as the weak, sadistic husband, and Shirley Knight (Archie’s ex) is both frightened and scary. Petulia’s reactionary father-in-law is the villain of the piece, and Joseph Cotton seemingly channels the silky, venomous tones of William F. Buckley, Jr. Prized in the theatre, Arthur Hill and Kathleen Widdoes have little to do.

Petulia is technically superior. (Scott reported that Lester spent more time with the camera crew than with the actors.) Nicolas Roeg employs the full armory – focus racks, zoom shots, all types of camera movement, filters – and his vivid Technicolor palette emphasizes the contrasts in Lester’s time shifts. Antony Gibbs edited The Knack, and he keeps things moving along. The flashbacks are never unintelligible, while the few action sequences (the roller derby, Archie and his sons romping through Alcatraz, an auto-pedestrian accident) are stunning. The music is reticent and subdued; John Barry can be much more than his Bond scores.

Richard Lester has been called “one of the film’s New Men.” Perhaps he is, but dazzle alone will never satisfy.

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