Film – Brock at Cliff Cottage

2026-06-062026-06-06

Alex North (1910 – 1991)

When I read that Alex North was born Isadore Soifer, I was puzzled. Why would an American composer adopt a totally different name? North/ Soifer was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. His parents, Jesse and Beila (Bessie) were Jewish and Russian/ Ukrainian, who had emigrated to USA, around 1906. His father was originally from Bila Tserkva (about 80 km south of Kyiv). His mother was from Odessa, Vancouver’s sister city. This is an important fact for me. In Chester, his mother ran a small grocery store. His father worked as a blacksmith and mechanic. In 1915 his father died of appendicitis. In an unforgiving USA, this left the family poor. In the late 1920s, Isadore’s older brother Jacob began writing articles for radical labor publications. To shield his family from political peril, Jacob adopted the pseudonym Joseph North. Soon after, others in the family followed with, Isadore Soifer becoming Alex North.

Readers of my blog will realize that my posts broadly fall into the category of non-fiction. At times I have tried, but I cannot write fiction. It is an alien world. For me, a composer is equivalent to a musical novelist. Soifer/ North (as he will be referred to from now on) is best known for his film scores, works of fiction designed to enhance movies. These works include A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), with its jazz-based film score, Viva Zapata! (1952), Spartacus (1960), Cleopatra (1963) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). He received an Honorary Academy Award in 1986, the first for a composer.

My favourite Soifer/ North work is Unchained Melody, originally with lyrics by Hy Zaret = Hyman Harry Zaritsky (1907 –2007) working in Tin Pan Alley, a site noted for its music publishers and songwriters on West 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Manhattan, NYC flower district. Tin Pan Alley dominated American popular music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unchained Melody was used in Unchained (1955) a prison film. Unchained Melody became one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over 1 500 recordings made by more than 670 musicians, in multiple languages. I periodically listen to it, in one or more of its variants.

As a former prison teacher, I am well aware of the book upon which Unchained is based, Prisoners are People (1952) by Kenyon Judson Scudder (1888 [some sources claim 1890] – 1977). He also wrote The Twenty Billion Dollar Challenge, National Program for Delinquency Prevention (1961). Scudder was the first superintendent of the first American open prison, The California Institution for Men, in Chino, California, near Los Angeles, from 1941 – 1955. Note: Chino is the Spanish word for Chinese, which is also the origin of the type of trousers I wear on a daily basis.

Soifer/ North began studying the piano early in life. Nine years old, he switched to William Hatton Green (1864 – ?) as teacher, who grounded him in Theodor Leschetizky’s (1830 – 1915) method of piano pedagogy over a three year period of study. Leschetizky’s main legacy involved teaching great pianists. His most notable compositions are pedagogical piano pieces, that exploit the piano’s technical capabilities.

Soifer/ North befriended Samuel Barber (1910 – 1981) who was also a student in Green’s studio. At the age of 12 Soifer/ North began more rigorous music studies at the Settlement Music School (SMS), founded in 1908 by Jeannette Selig Frank and Blanche Wolf Kohn, where he studied piano for four years under the Australian/ American George Frederick Boyle (1886 – 1948). He also participated in a masterclass with pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky (1870 – 1939) during his time at SMS.

While a student at Chester High School (CHS), Soifer/ North worked as a telegraph operator to help pay for music studies, and assist the family’s finances. He graduated from CHS in 1927, and then studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1928-1929. With Boyle’s recommendation he transferred to the Juilliard School, after successfully auditioning for the German/ Polish – American conductor, Frank Damrosch (1859 – 1937) in 1929. He attended Juilliard on a four year full scholarship, but only completed three years of study. He felt intimidated by the senior piano recital, leading him to drop out in 1932 without completing his degree. At Juilliard he remained a piano student of Boyle, and also studied music composition and theory with Dutch American composer, conductor and violinist Bernard Wagenaar (1894 – 1971). He spent two years, between 1933 and 1935, studying composition at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory in Russia, while working as a telegraph operator. Soifer/ North later studied privately for a year in Mexico with composer Silvestre Revueltas (1899 – 1940) in the late 1930s; pursuing his passion for Mexican music.

Interjection: At times when researching this post, I have come across recommendations to read Under the Volcano (1947) by alcoholic novelist Malcolm Lowry’s (1909 – 1957), to gain an understanding of the appeal of Mexico. I am not in total agreement with that suggestioon, although the Mexican Day of the Dead is a feature. Día de Muertos is one of the country’s most important and iconic cultural holidays. It is celebrated the day after my birthday, Halloween, on 11-01 and 02, with a focus on honouring the spirits of deceased loved ones. Instead, I regard the novel as an analysis of alcoholism, with limited insights into Mexico. Lowry lived in Vancouver from 1938 to 1955, with some breaks. He most famously lived in a squatter’s shack on a beach near Dollarton, in North Vancouver, until it was destroyed by fire in 1944. Margerie Bonner (1905 – 1988), Lowry’s second wife, rescued the unfinished novel from the fire, but all of Lowry’s other works in progress were lost.

In 1932 Soifer/ North entered into a relationship with Jewish American dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow (1910 – 2000). She had a profound impact in orienting his career towards music composition. He worked as the rehearsal pianist for her dance group, and through her encouragement and persuasion, he began composing music for her dancers. This set him on the path of a career as a composer. His first major composition was the Anti-War Trilogy (later part of the Anti-War Series) which he composed for Sokolow’s dance troupe.

In the Second World War, Soifer/ North served as a captain in the U.S. Army Special Services division from 1942 to 1946. There, he was responsible for self-entertainment programs in mental hospitals. He also composed music for more than twenty-six documentary films for the Office of War Information. While in the service, he wrote the score for the documentary short, A Better Tomorrow (1945) directed by was the Czech-American photographer, film director, cinematographer and film editor, Alexander Siegfried George Hackenschmied = Alexander Hammid (1907 – 2004).

Soifer/ North managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes. One of these became the famous song Unchained Melody. Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, Soifer/ North is the first of only four film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the others being Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter and pianist Ennio Morricone (1928 – 2020), Argentine/ American pianist, composer, arranger and conductor Boris Claudio (Lalo) Schifrin (1932 – 2025) and Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (1933 – 2024) an American record producer, composer, arranger, record executive, conductor, trumpeter, film/ television producer, and bandleader. Soifer/ North’s frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde Canadian/ American composer Henry Brant (1913 – 2008).

Soifer/ North’s best-known film scores include: A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, Viva Zapata!, The Rainmaker, Spartacus, The Misfits, Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Dragonslayer and Under the Volcano. His music for The Wonderful Country makes use of Mexican and American motifs.

His commissioned score for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is notorious for having been discarded by director Stanley Kubrick (1928 – 1999) late in the production process. Although Soifer/ North subsequently incorporated motifs from the rejected score for The Shoes of the Fisherman, Shanks and Dragonslayer, the score itself remained unheard until the American composer Jerry Goldsmith (1929 – 2004) re-recorded it for the American record label, Varèse Sarabande, in 1993. In 2007, Intrada Records released the 1968 recording sessions on CD from North’s personal archives.

Soifer/ North was also commissioned to write a jazz score for Nero Wolfe, a 1959 CBS-TV series based on Rex Stout’s (1986 – 1975) Nero Wolfe characters, with Canadian actor William Shatner (1931 – ) as Archie Goodwin and Kurt Kasznar = Kurt Kasznar (born Kurt Servischer; 1913 – 1979) as Nero Wolfe. A pilot and two or three episodes were filmed, but the designated time slot was, in the end, given to another series. Soifer/ North’s unheard score for Nero Wolfe and six recorded tracks on digital audio tape are in the UCLA Music Library Special Collections. He wrote the music for various other TV shows, such as the anthologies Climax! and Playhouse 90.

Though Soifer/ North is best known for his work in Hollywood, he spent years in New York writing music for the stage; he composed the score for the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman. It was in New York that he met Elia Kazan (1909 – 2003), director of Salesman, who brought him to Hollywood in the 1950s. Soifer/ North stopped working with Kazan after Kazan’s 1952 testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the 1950s Soifer/ North was unable to work in Hollywood for several years because of suspected communist affiliations.

Soifer/ North was one of several composers who merged the sound of contemporary concert music into film, in part marked by an increased use of dissonance and complex rhythms. In contrast, some commentators note there is a lyrical quality to much of his work. They claim this may be connected to the influence of Aaron Copland (), with whom he studied in 1936–37. His classical works include two symphonies and a Rhapsody for Piano, Trumpet obbligato and Orchestra. He also composed music for the 1976 television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, its sequel Rich Man, Poor Man Book II as well as the 1978 miniseries The Word. North is also known for his opening to the CBS television anthology series Playhouse 90 and the 1965 ABC television miniseries FDR.

In 2016, the Library of Congress added North’s 1951 recording of his score of A Streetcar Named Desire to its National Recording Registry. The American Film Institute ranked North’s score for A Streetcar Named Desire at number 19 on their list of the greatest film scores. His scores for the following films were also nominated for the list: Cleopatra (1963), The Misfits (1961), Spartacus (1960), Viva Zapata! (1952), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

Note about names. Back in 1990, my father gave me my original birth certificate. The name on it read, Richard Edwin Salter. I was over forty years old, and my original name was unfathomable. Since then I have learned to accept that biologically, I am a Salter, with origins in Essex County, Ontario. That flatland origin, initially came as a shock to me, too. I think of myself as a mountain, or at a minimum hill possibly cliff-face, person, living close to a fjord, not a Great Lake. Biologically, I am the youngest of five half-siblings, all brothers.

My first name also creates some challenges. I assume that it is related to Isaac Brock (1769 – 1812), notable for commanding the fortress at Fort Amherstburg, which is also located in Essex County, Ontario, about 28 km south of my assumed place of conception. Of course the name of the badger = broc, in Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The American badger is Taxidea taxus, while the European badger is of different origins, and is known as Meles meles. We suspect one of the latter is living on our property.

Then I remember some of the girls in my class at elementary school, trying out assorted surnames. For me, it seemed that many of them felt that they were required to destroy part of their soul, when (not if) they married. At one point, I remember suggesting to Trish that we could choose a more neutral surname. Marmot, named for those playful creatures that inhabit McArthur Island, in Kamloops, British Columbia.

2026-05-302026-05-30

Film music

A sound mixing console, a necessity for adding music to video productions. Image: adamsuchyx, 2021-09-18.

I like music, sometimes. However, I am selective about what I listen to, and when. I often feel that more music has been imposed on me that I appreciate.

Take the situation on board the ferry, originally the Alakai, now the USNS Puerto Rico, promotionally referred to as The CAT. Soon after the ferry departed Yarmouth, Nova Scotia headed to Bar Harbor, Maine, it was announced that the bow of the vessel, where we were sitting, would be overtaken by some entertainer who would provide live music. We attempted to escape him, moving to seats in the middle of the vessel. Here all of the screens were showing some Disney movie, while loud-speakers ensured that music from the film was all that could be heard.

I consulted a crew member, and was told that the aft section of the ship was probably the quietest on offer. We moved there for the duration of the voyage. There is a difference between situations where people have music imposed on them, and those situations where they choose to being exposed to music. So, the rest of this post is about people who choose to watch a movie or a television program, with an expectation of listening to music. The purpose of film music is to enhance the dramatic narrative and emotional impact of scenes.

Film music is not random. It begins with a film score = music written specifically to accompany a film or a television program. For me, this term should also apply to computer games. These games produce the most income for their producers, exceeding that of people engaged in live theatre, television and radio programs, and film (movie) production. Cues = individual pieces of music timed to begin and end at specific points during the film. Thus, a score is a collection of a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces.

Musical scores are written by one or more composers under the guidance of a film director. Music is performed by an ensemble of musicians, which may include an orchestra = a large group of musicians, band = a small group of musicians, instrumental soloists, a choir = large group of singers, individual vocalists (often referred to collectively as playback singers). At some point this music is recorded by a sound engineer.

I am skeptical to this description. Film scores encompass an enormous variety of styles of music. depending on the nature of the films they accompany. While some scores are orchestral works rooted in Western classical music, many scores are also influenced by ambient, blues, jazz, new-age, pop as well as the modern standard rock music. In addition, there is a wide range of ethnic and world music styles.

Since the 1950s, a growing number of scores have also included electronic elements, and many scores written today feature a hybrid of orchestral and electronic instruments.

Since the invention of digital technology and audio sampling, many modern films have been able to rely on digital samples to imitate the sound of acoustic instruments, and some scores are created and performed wholly by the composers themselves, by using music composition software, synthesizers, samplers, and MIDI controllers.

In the coming weeks I intend to comment on several different film music composers, but I will start with a preview, the oldest composer on my list.

Silvestre Revueltas

One of the first and most important ethnic composers was Silvestre Revueltas Sánchez (1899 – 1940), a Mexican classical music composer, violinist and conductor. He was largely educated in Chicago, but returned to Mexico to work. His film works are: Redes (1935) = The Wave, used in a social realism film about Mexican fishermen, with a non-professional cast, directed by Alfred Zinnemann (1907-1997) and Emilio Gómez Muriel (1910 – 1985).

¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! (1936) = Let’s Go With Pancho Villa, directed by Fernando de Fuentes Carrau[a] (1894 – 1958). It is the last part of the director’s Revolution Trilogy, which also included El prisionero trece (1933) = Prisoner 13 and El compadre Mendoza (1934) = Godfather Mendoza.

El indio (1939) = The Indian, a Mexican drama film directed by Armando Vargas de la Maza (1895 – 1941) based on the novel of the same name published in 1935, written by Gregorio López y Fuentes (1897 – 1966).

Ferrocarriles de Baja California (1938). It has been difficult for me to find out much about this film. However, The Ferrocarril Sonora–Baja California is a former railway line from Mexicali, in Baja California, to Benjamín Hill, in Sonora. It interchanged with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Calexico, California, and with the Ferrocarril del Pacifico in Benjamin Hill, Sonora. The problem with this explanation is that the film, from 1938, predates the railway by ten years. The railway started running in 1948. Sections of the film score were reworked as Música para charlar = which translates something like, musical gossip.

Other compositional works include music for: Bajo el signo de la muerte (1939), La noche de los mayas (1939) = Night of the Mayas, ¡Que viene mi marido! (1940).

Reading Cartas íntimas y escritos,a recompilation of Silvestre Revueltas’ letters and other writings, by his sister Rosaura Revueltas (1908 [1910, other sources] – 1996), could result in a better understanding of the composer. Rosaura was an actress, most famously appearing in Salt of the Earth (1954), which resulted in her being blacklisted by the Hollywood system. Her recompilation is important because it was in his letters and writings that Silvestre Revueltas most freely describes his thoughts and emotions in detail, including how he composed his music and, in some cases, his reasons for it. The pinnacle of Revueltas’ compositional technique is found in his film music. He once wrote: The spirit of Mexico is deep within me. He did not exploit Mexican folklore, but developed a compositional style that resulted in something nationalistic. His compositional manner was similar to that of Sergei Prokofiev and Dimitri Shostakovich in their relationships with Russia. People who understand Spanish with an interest in film music, should consider reading Cartas intimas y escritos.

2026-03-282026-04-06

100 Years of History in 100 Films

Japanese playground equipment, photographed by Kito Fujio. Found by reading Kottke.com.

The title of this weblog post was correct, when I started writing it. It contained about 100 years of films from 1925 to 2025. In its final form it starts at 1900 and ends at 2029.

Yes, I am a creature of habit, even in terms of using the Internet. I obtain general/ political news from several sources: https://www.inderoyningen.no/ for local news from Inderøy. https://www.nrk.no for other Norwegian news; https://theguardian.com/europe for European and world news; and, https://www.news.google.com for world news with an American perspective. Yes, sometimes I also seek out Canadian news and perspectives from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada . For technology related articles, I habitually use /. = https://slashdot.org/ , I will also mention, yet again, that my favourite social media site was ello.co, until it disappeared in 2023. Wikipedia has an article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ello_(social_network) .

Then there is kottke.org, founded in 1998, one of the oldest blogs on the web. It is written and produced by Jason Kottke (1973 – ) and covers the essential people, inventions, performances, and ideas that increase the collective adjacent possible of humanity. I begin reading its content, sometimes daily for up to several months. Then one day I forget, and it quickly disappears from view. At some point, I realize that I have not read it for some time, and I search for it again. I have an aversion of remembering its name, but know that it begins with a K.

Much of this post is based on content found at kottke.org when I began re-reading its posts again, on 2025-07-16. No, I cannot remember when I stopped reading it last, but my Firefox browser found it immediately after I typed in k.

One of its posts from 2025-07-08 names the films set during a century from 1925 to 2025, found in a youtube video. I have by no means watched all of these. Because I have an obsession with dates, here they are organized by decade. I have added additional films from 1900 to 1924 and from 2026 to 2029, that are not in the video. Sometimes a film’s setting in terms of time spans several years.

1900 – Call of the Wild (1935); 1901 – The Riddle of the Sands (1979); 1902 – 西洋鏡 = Shadow Magic (2000); 1903 – The Time Machine (2002); 1904 – Our Town (1940); 1905 – Броненосец «Потёмкин» = Battleship Potemkin (1925); 1906 – When the Earth Trembled (1913); 1906 – Madame Butterfly (1995); 1907 – A Room with a View (2007); 1908 – McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971); 1909 – Lady and the Tramp (1955).

1910 – Fanny and Alexander (1982); 1911 – Morte a Venezia = Death in Venice (1971); 1912 – Polyanna (1960); 1913 – The Wild Bunch (1969); 1914 – The 39 Steps (2008); 1915 – Nickelodeon (1976); 1916 – The Color Purple (1985); 1917 – The Time Machine (1960); 1918 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008); 1919 – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

1920 – C’era una volta in America = Once Upon a Time in America (1984); 1921 – Legends of the Fall (1994); 1922 – The Great Gatsby (2013); 1923 – The Natural (1984); 1924 – Chicago (2002); 1925 – Ordet (1955); 1926 – Anastasia (1997); 1927 – Babylon (2022) & The Jazz Singer (1927); 1928 – Walt Before Mickey (2015); 1929 – Porco Rosso (1992).

1930 – Lucky Lady (1975); 1931 – Road to Perdition (2002); 1932 – The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014); 1933 – Mr. Jones (2019); 1934 – L’ultimo imperatore = The Last Emperor (1987); 1935 – The Aviator (2004); 1936 – Race (2016); 1937 – The Hindenburg (1975); 1938 – The Sound of Music (1965); 1939 – The Pianist (2002).

1940 – The Darkest Hour (2017); 1941 – Casablanca (1942); 1942 – The Thin Red Line (1998); 1943 – Come and See (1985); 1944 – Son of Saul (2015); 1945 – Oppenheimer (2023); 1946 – Godzilla Minus One (2023); 1947 – The Brutalist (2024); 1948 – Exodus (1960); 1949 – Trumbo (2015).

1950 – The Master (2012); 1951 – Brooklyn (2015); 1952 – Malcom X (1992); 1953 – The Death of Stalin (2017); 1954 – Blonde (2022); 1955 – The Notorious Bettie Page (2005); 1956 – Ed Wood (1994); 1957 – The Iron Giant (1999); 1958 – The Godfather Part II (1974); 1959 – In Cold Blood (1967).

1960 – Bridge of Spies (2015); 1961 – Hidden Figures (2016); 1962 – X-Men First Class (2011); 1963 – Jackie (2016); 1964 – One Night in Miami (2020); 1965 – Good Morning Vietnam (1987); 1966 – Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan (2019); 1967 – Platoon (1986); 1968 – Judas and the Black Messiah (2021); 1969 – First Man (2018).

1970 – Apollo 13 (1995); 1971 – Zodiac (2007); 1972 – Dog Day Afternoon (1975); 1973 – Elvis (2022); 1974 – Velvet Goldmine (1998); 1975 – Saturday Night (2024); 1976 – Dazed and Confused (1993); 1977 – Summer of Sam (1999); 1978 – Milk (2008); 1979 – Argo (2012).

1980 – American Made (2017); 1981 – Hunger (2008); 1982 – Waltz With Bashir (2008); 1983 – Heartbreak Ridge (1986); 1984 – 1984 (1984); 1985 – Bohemian Rhapsody (2018); 1986 – Straight Outta Compton (2015); 1987 – 1987: When the Day Comes (2017); 1988 – No (2012); 1989 – Good Bye Lenin! (2003).

1990 – Jarhead (2005) 1991 – Three Kings (1999) 1992 – 1992 (2022) 1993 – The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) 1994 – Hotel Rwanda (2004) 1995 – Invictus (2009) [World Cup] 1996 – Everest (2015) 1997 – Diana (2013) 1998 – Steve Jobs (2015) [Reveal of the iMac] 1999 – The Matrix (1999)

2000 – Strange Days (1995); 2001 – 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); 2002 – Patlabor 2 (1993); 2003 – The Social Network (2010); 2004 – The Hurt Locker (2008); 2005 – Transformers The Movie (1986); 2006 – The Outpost (2019); 2007 – The Big Short (2015); 2008 – Killing Them Softly (2012); 2009 – Sully (2016).

2010 – Absolon (2003); 2011 – The Last Chase (1981); 2012 – I Am Legend (2007); 2013 – The Postman (1997); 2014 – Moon Child (2003); 2015 – End of Evangelion (1997); 2016 – Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011); 2017 – The Running Man (1987); 2018 – Rollerball (1975); 2019 – Blade Runner (1982).

2020 – Reign of Fire (2002); 2021 – Johnny Mnemonic (1995); 2022 – Soylent Green (1973); 2023 – X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014); 2024 – A Boy and His Dog (1975); 2025 – Pacific Rim (2013), 2026 – Metropolis (1927), 2027 – Robotech (1986), 2028 – Robocop (2014), 2029 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

Memories:

I was born on 1948-10-31. My memories start sometime around 1953 – 1955. In fact, I don’t even know if they are real or fake memories. Some time in that period I attended a kindergarten at First Baptist Church on 7th Avenue in New Westminster. I think I have a false memory of wearing a Cowichan sweater there. These sweaters are traditionally knitted by Coast Salish women on Vancouver Island, Canada. They are known for their thick, warm wool, distinctive patterns, and durability. I think this memory comes from seeing a photograph of myself in this sweater.

I attended the original John Robson School, on Queen’s Avenue, almost across the street from the kindergarten, and across the street from where my mother-in-law Margaret Joyce Commins, née Heaps, once lived, starting when she was 6 years old in 1913. I think I have real memories from attending school, but they are often mixed with false memories, such as those involving my short career as a fashion model that happened about that time. My most questionable memory has to do with the construction of Woodward’s store in Uptown, New Westminster, if only because I managed to get paint on my clothes from the fencing. It opened 1954-03-11. Was it a real or a false memory?

2026-01-172026-01-11

Rush

A German postcard of Yale, British Columbia from 1910, with a dredger in the foreground.

In the course of this post’s first five minutes of existence, it had been given four titles, not all of which were written down immediately. The first, Finding Australia, was based on an opinion post by Julianne Schultz, While Trump is moving fast and breaking things, Americans wanting to escape should come to Australia.

I realized that this was analogous to the situation my maternal grandparents found themselves in, living in Gateshead, in northern England, at a time when there wasn’t even northern soul to comfort them. Their then youngest daughter, Margaret, had died of tuberculosis in 1908, and my grandmother, born Jane Briggs (1880 – 1972) was determined to leave England. They escaped to the wild west of British Columbia, first Steveston then Kelowna. Both my aunt Mollie (1906 – 2010) and my mother, Jennie (1916 – 2021) had tuberculosis, and both were sterilized, which is the main reason why I was adopted and became a McLellan.

This situation encouraged me to reflect on other forms of escape more generally and the attraction of gold rushes, specifically. So the second title was, Finding your gold rush. It was then modified to Finding your personal gold rush, before it ended up as Rush.

Long after I had started writing this post I discovered that Jane’s husband, my maternal grandfather, Harry Andison (1878 – 1947), had lived in Yale, British Columbia. It was at the southern boundary of the Fraser Canyon gold rush (1858 – 1927). Before I knew this fact, I had regularly stopped at Yale when opportunity presented itself. It was the one location on the upper Fraser River = north of Hope, population 6 686 in 2021, a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers, that had appealed as a place to live. It was serene, and seemed to have a more moderate temperature than Lytton, Lillooet or even Quesnel.

Lynne Brown (ca. 1952 – ), in Whoever Gives Us Bread: The Story of Italians in British Columbia (2013), notes: The title of “the largest town west of Chicago and north of San Francisco” moved in rapid succession from Yale to Lillooet, and then to Barkerville. Yes, these former boom-towns became bust-towns. Less polite comments include epithets such as: the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia and a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah of vice, violence and lawlessness.

The disadvantage of a lake, and other varieties of stagnant water, is that they attract mosquitos, while swiftly flowing rivers do not. Mosquito bites always caused a severe reaction in me, so I have always chosen places to live that are relatively free of mosquitos. This is why I live close to salt water, and definitely not near a lake! For those interested, Iceland is the only European country without mosquitos.

I remember driving my mother, Jennie (1916 – 2021), from New Westminster to Kamloops, on some unremembered date. We stopped for coffee at Ashcroft on the Thompson River. She confided in me, that this was where she had always wanted to live. The population of Kelowna in 1920, a couple of years after her family moved there, was about 1 500. The population of Ashcroft in 2011 was 1 628. This helped me understand its appeal. I think the reason she never moved either to Ashcroft or to Kelowna, as a widow, was that she felt the need to live close to a near relative = my sister, Mychael, her choice of name, but adopted and named Morva Alison, born Maureen MacCormack. They lived less than 800 meters from each other, for almost 30 years, excluding the 19 years she lived with my parents as a child.

Rush has a lot of different meanings, so it gives a lot of scope for individual attention. A dictionary can help people examine how the word is used. Yes, it can be a noun or an adjective. Of course it can also be a verb, with and without an object. Many of the definitions refer to a sudden escape to something, or a release of emotion.

The wild west of the Pacific Northwest, of which British Columbia is a part, is exemplified in two complementory works. The first, chronologically is Edmund Naughton’s (1926 – 2013) western novel, McCabe (1959). After more than 50 years, I found an e-book version of the book on 2025-12-17, hidden behind an inaccurate title, Strike from the Sky, but with Naughton listed as the author rather than Alexander McKee (1918 – 1992). I had originally learned that Odhams Press had published Naughton’s McCabe with McKee’s Strike from the Sky and James Mitchell’s (1926 – 2002) Steady Boys Steady (1960). There was even a used copy available from Yare Books in Great Yarmouth, England for £21.77 plus £33.13 in postage = £54.84 equivalent to NOK 746.88 = USD 75.

Until now, my familiarity with McCabe is related to the second work, Robert Altman’s (1925 – 2006) film McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), my favourite western film. Altman is generally appreciated for his western revisionism. Yes, one is entitled to ask just how much of this approach is derived from Naughton’s work? Brad Bigelow (1967 – ), a self described champion of neglected books, contends that McCabe follows the classic western formula, at least superficially: stranger comes to town, settles in, the town adjusts to him. Then circumstances change and the former stranger is forced to decide whether to run or stand his ground. It is reminiscent of Fred Zinnemann’s (1907 – 1997) High Noon (1952).

With the publication of McCabe seven years after the film High Noon (1952), it is appropriate to ask if Naughton is looking back or forward? Is he anticipating western and other film trends that came in the next 10-15 years, or looking back at older films and, to a lesser extent, novels. Naughton’s protagonist, John McCabe, is an anti-hero like John Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s (1923 – 1999 ) Catch 22 (1961).

In Darkness at High Noon: The Carl Foreman Documents, a 2002 documentary based in part on a lengthy 1952 letter from screenwriter Carl Foreman (1914 – 1984) to film critic Bosley Crowther (1905–1981). It appears that Foreman’s role in the creation and production of High Noon has been unfairly downplayed. The film originated from a four-page plot outline Foreman wrote that turned out to be very similar to The Tin Star (1947) a short story written by John W. Cunningham (1915 – 2002). Foreman purchased the film rights to Cunningham’s story and wrote the screenplay. Unfortunately, the documentary vilifies High Noon‘s director, Stanley Kramer (1913 – 2001), rather than providing insights into the creative process used in producing High Noon.

Westerns, novels or films, demand a deeper understanding of violence. I lack this, but gained some basic understandings in order to appreciate McCabe’s dead-eye shot, the adaptation of his Colt revolver to fire without a trigger. Unfortunately, my mind refuses to live in the past. It goes forward to the Rust (2021) film project at Bonanza Creek, New Mexico, which resulted in the death of Halyna Anatoliivna Hutchins, née Androsovych (1979 – 2021), a Ukrainian cinematographer. I see parallels. McCabe has killed one man, and in his mind this can be attributed to an accident. McCabe lived his earlier life mostly as a traveling gambler. He reminds himself that he was chased off a riverboat as a greenhorn amateur. At times he lacks the ethical values of the time. Unlike the other Euro-Americans, he tries to be fair to everyone, including Chinese and Indians (yes, the First Nation people rather than people from the Asian subcontinent) in the little mining town of Presbyterian Church where he decides to set up a saloon and, later, a whorehouse. I am uncertain if McCabe’s vocabulary allowed him to use other, potentially more polite, terms for such an establishment: House of assignation, brothel, bordello and bawdy house, may not have been available to him.

In English, there is an expression: calling a spade a spade. The idiom originates in the classical Greek of Plutarch’s (46 – 119) Apophthegmata Laconica (c 100), and was introduced into the English language in 1542 in Nicolas Udall’s (1504 – 1556) translation, incorporating some of the work of Erasmus (1466 – 1536) including the replacement of Plutarch’s images of “trough” and “fig” with the more familiar garden tool.

I had wondered if spade originated with a card suite. Their symbolic representations, colours, French names and English names are: ♣ often black, sometimes green, blue or pink = trèfles = clubs; ♦ often red, but sometimes orange, yellow or blue = carreaux = diamonds; ♥ most often red, but sometimes yellow = cœurs = hearts; ♠ most often black, sometimes green or blue = piques = spades. I was wrong.

McCabe is set in the Puget Sound area of Washington State in 1908. My grandfather arrived in British Columbia in 1910. As a cattle buyer, he was armed. Was he part of the wild west? I have no definitive answer, but tend towards a yes. When I think of westerns, I only have vague ideas of place and time. How far west is the west? Where does the west stop? What is further west than the west? Sometimes I think of the time period 1870 – 1900. However, one of my first exposures to Westerns involved the Roy Rogers show, which is set in the 1950s. I know this because Pat Brady drives what looks like a military jeep. I have written about Roy Rogers before. My other reference point for westerns is Have Gun – Will Travel, a radio and television series from 1957 through 1963, with Richard Boone (1917 – 1981) as Paladin, a gentleman gunfighter for hire. The name originates from the name of a group of twelve knights in Charlemagne’s (748 – 814) court. However, paladin has come to refer to any chivalrous hero.

I would like to update some information about Dale Evans (1912–2001). An 8 minute YouTube video discusses 5 men she allegedly disliked/hated, for various reasons, although the common thread seems to be masculine intoxication. It is claimed that she carried wounds that never healed. The allegation is that the men she disliked most were: Roy Rogers (1911 – 1998), John Wayne = Marion Robert Morrison (1907 – 1979), Clark Gable (1901–1960), Gene Autrey (1907–1998) and Bob Hope (1903–2003). That said, the truthiness of YouTube videos can always be discussed.

McCabe is far ahead of his time in his attitude towards women — or at least towards Mrs. Miller, who arrives and takes over the job of running McCabe’s second business. Though the two are partners in business and, fairly regularly, in bed, McCabe understands that he cannot take their relationship for granted.

McCabe was sensitive about being noticed in her room. He took care, though, to be discreet, and to attend to business. There were nights when he didn’t want to visit. Those were the nights when he knew she would be smoking, naked on the bed, with the wicks down in the kerosene lamps. If he came, she would look at him with eyes like violet stones in cold water — as if he were to blame for the man she had sold herself to that evening.

McCabe also exhibits a degree of emotional intelligence that’s still pretty rare in most male characters. He struggles with Mrs. Miller’s dispassionate approach to their nights together. Though frustrated that she quickly sees that he is close to illiterate and far less trustworthy with figures, he wishes they could share more than just a physical intimacy: “All my life I been walking around with a block of ice inside me, Constance, and I don’t hardly get the sawdust brushed off before you got me back in the icehouse.”

Naughton’s view of good and evil is a far cry from High Noon, too. McCabe is a gambler, a schemer, a coward and, when pressed, a killer. Rev. Elliott, who has erected the church that gives Presbyterian Church its name, is bitter, bigoted and anti-social: he would prefer that the rest of the town disappeared. When gunmen arrive to face off with McCabe, they are like Trump, transactional. They are present as representatives (some would say stooges) of a distant corporation, carrying out a simple business transaction: Snake River Mining Company can’t afford you: can’t afford a man it can’t buy out. Know that? Never tolerate that. Can afford Sheehan, damned fop they sent to you last week: margin of corruption it allows for in its budget. Company calculated the cost of Presbyterian Church; who collects doesn’t matter. More corrupt people are, easier they can be controlled; company can always send them to jail when they get to be a nuisance.

… At any rate, McCabe, they can’t afford you around. Bad example. Pile all these mountains on you, if they have to; so people thereabouts will believe it, if they deny you ever existed.

Naughton may have been the only writer of westerns to have learned more from George Orwell (1903 – 1950) than Zane Grey (1872 – 1939) — although Brad Bigwell tells us that one English reviewer cited a different influence, dismissing the book as the “Latest example of the neo-Freudian [from the work of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)] intellectual death-wishful Westerns.” Suffice it to say that McCabe merits more than just footnote status in reference to a much better known movie. It’s original, innovative, and as gripping as any thriller. As that one reviewer put it, “You don’t have to like westerns to like this one.”

Notes

Northern soul is a music and dance movement that emerged in Northern England and the Midlands in the early 1970s. It developed from the British mod scene, based on a particular style of Black American soul music with a heavy beat and fast tempo (100 bpm and above).

Perhaps the best known northern soul track is Tainted Love, composed by Ed Cobb (1938 – 1999), originally recorded by Gloria Jones (1945 – ) in 1964. It attained worldwide fame after being reworked by British synth-pop duo Soft Cell with vocalist Marc Almond (1957 – ) and instrumentalist David Ball (1959 – ) for their album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret (1981). The main synth used in Soft Cell’s Tainted Love was the Korg Maxi-Korg 800DV, along with a Synclavier for additional sounds. The bassline was played on a Korg SB-100 Synthe-Bass.

Then there is Mod = modernist = someone who listens to modern jazz. It started as a London based 1950s working class subculture with a focus on music and fashion. In terms of transport, mode rode motor scooters, usually Lambrettas or Vespas. To understand mods, I recommend the London trilogy novels by Colin MacInnis (1914 – 1976): City of Spades (1957), Absolute Beginners (1959) and Mr Love & Justice (1960). The first book uses spade in a different context than that previously mentioned, because it is about the adventures of Johnny Fortune, a recently arrived Nigerian immigrant, and the emergent black culture in London in the late 1950s. The middle book in particular, is about mods, specifically. In addition there is Richard Weight (1970 – ) Mod: From Bebop to Britpop, Britain’s Biggest Youth Movement (2013). MOD = Ministry of Defense, which may be the reason why the British roundel is used as a symbol for the subculture version of mod.

In my world, modern jazz is exemplified by Herbie Hancock (1940 – ), Chic Corea (1941 – 2021) and Norwegian Nils Petter Mohr (1960 – ). Then there are the old timers: Scott Joplan (1868 – 1917), Bix Beiderbecke (1903 – 1931), Billy Holiday (1915 – 1959), Ella Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996), Dizzy Gillespie (1917 – 1993), Art Blakey (1919 – 1990), Dave Brubeck (1920 – 2012), Sarah Vaughan (1924 – 1990), John Coltrane (1926 – 1967) and Miles Davis (1926 – 1991). Maybe Isaak Hayes (1942 – 2008) should also be included somewhere. I would also like to mention that for many years when my family stayed at a cabin at Blind Bay on Shuswap Lake, the only music I was willing to listen to was Rhapsody in Blue, by George Gershwin (1898 – 1957).

Rockers were the alternative subculture to the mods. To understand them, one must realize the position motorcycling held during the post-world war II period. Initially, it held a prestigious position and was positively associated with wealth and glamour. However, starting in the 1950s, the working class were able to buy inexpensive cars, so motorcycles became transport for the poor. These motorcycles were transformed into cafe racers, which were used to intimidate others (mods!) and project masculinity. In terms of clothing they wore leather motorcycle jackets, no or a classic open-face helmet, aviator goggles and white silk scarves. Also popular were T-shirts, leather caps, jeans and engineer or motorcycle boots. These boots were laceless so they would not interfere with motorcycle drive belts, with well insulated shafts and almost full lower leg protection in case of an accident. Yes, I went through a phase myself where I wore engineer boots. Today, almost all of my footwear are Allbirds.

2025-11-112025-10-20

Harry Palmer

On 2025-11-11, it is five years since James Bond celebrated his 100th birthday. I will use the opportunity to mention some facts, mostly Canadian. Herschel Saltzman (1915 – 1994), known as Harry, is best known as a co-producer of the first nine Bond films, from Dr No (1962) to The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). Saltzman was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, but raised in Saint John, New Brunswick for the first seven years of his life. Shortly after World War II began, he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Air Force in Vancouver. He received a medical discharge in Trenton, Ontario in 1943, and joined the U.S. Psychological Warfare Bureau, because he wanted to get back to Europe. In 1945, Saltzman helped Lin Yutang (1895 – 1976) establish UNESCO’s film division. Later, in Paris, Saltzman became associated with Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette ( 1873 – 1954), known mononymously as Colette, a French author, mime, actress and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her 1944 novella Gigi. Saltzman working as a talent scout for European productions on stage, television and in film, but gradually became more successful producing stage plays.

In 1958, Saltzman had set up the production company Lowndes Productions, but he did not use it for film production until 1965, and used it for eight productions thereafter, among them his three Harry Palmer films with Michael Caine: The Ipcress File (1965), Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967). The company’s last production came out in 1988, and was dissolved in 1992.

Harry Palmer, the Len Deighton (1929 – ) character, celebrated his 100th birthday sometime in 2022 or 2023, no specific date is given. I contemplated publishing this weblog post on Deighton’s 100th birthday, but planning years into the future is not always wise when one is an old man. Thus, I chose five years after my previous discussion of Harry Palmer, which was on 2020-11-11.

I have now rewatched the Harry Palmer films, but not in chronological order. I have seen them before, but not for many years. Thus, much of the content surprises me, especially the introductions. It is almost as if, I have never seen them. Then there are relatively insignificant scenes that have etched themselves into my memory.

The first one I rewatched was Billion-Dollar Brain (1967), the third Harry Palmer film, with Michael Caine (1933 – ) and directed by Ken Russell (1927 – 2011). Some of it was filmed at Honeywell’s computer facilities, possibly in Charlotte, North Carolina. It shows what a main frame computer looked like in the 1960s. Helsinki portrayed itself as the capital of Finland, while the city of Porvoo, 50 km east of Helsinki, took on the role of Riga, at the time in the Soviet Union. Pinewood studios about 30 km west of London, England, took on the task of portraying other locations, including a Texas ranch.

While working on this blog, Trish was working on a mystery jigsaw puzzle 2025-10-17 that turned out to be the riverbank of Porvoo. Photo by Elena Noeva. For more jigsaw puzzles see: Jigsaw Explorer.

For lack of a more encompassing term, here are some technologies that fascinated me in the films. I have deliberately not indicated which films these technologies are from, so that people can enjoy them all and be surprised when the techologies show up.

Village Swings

Kyläkeinu in Finnish with kylä = village and keinu = swing. In Estonian it is külakiik, divided the same way küla = village and kiik = swing. It can best be understood by examining the photo below, believed to be taken somewhere in the 1950s. The village swing is a large swing designed for multiple users, including adults, traditionally built on village communal land in Finland and Estonia.

In 2025-05, Alasdair and I visited the Baltic island of Hiiumaa, in Estonia. We stayed in the village of Jausa. About 8 km to the south west, in the village of Harju, there is suposed to be such a swing. I could not find it. Some days later (2025-05-30) we were on the island of Saaremaa, were we did find one, but it was nothing like what I was expecting. See below, and the post about our trip to Estonia.

A village swing on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia anno 2025.

Snowmobiles

The B12 has nothing to do with a vitamin, but the number of passengers the Bombardier snowmobile could carry. Before snowmobiles, people had to rely on sleds and cutters, such as the one shown below. Most could not carry twelve people.

A cutter pulled by a Norwegian Fjordhorse at Lake Elmo, Minnesota. Photo Pete Markham 2008-01-27.

In 1934-01, a blizzard prevented Joseph-Armand Bombardier (1907 – 1964) from reaching a hospital in time to save his two-year-old son, Yvon, who died from appendicitis complicated by peritonitis.

Bombardier was a mechanic who dreamed of building a vehicle that could float on snow. In 1935, in a repair shop in Valcourt, Quebec, he designed and produced the first snowmobile using a drive system he developed that revolutionized travel in snow and swampy conditions. It was equipped with front skis and rear tracks. Alternatively, the front skis could be removed and replaced with front wheels. In 1937, he patented and sold 12 of the 7-passenger B7 Auto-Neige = snow bus/ coach. They were used in rural Quebec to take children to school, carry freight, deliver mail and as ambulances. In 1941, Bombardier opened a factory in Valcourt. In 1951, the wooden body was replaced with a steel body.

Fluoroscope

The shoe-fitting fluoroscope was an X-ray fluoroscope machine installed in shoe stores from the 1920s until about 1970, in the stores I frequented. The device was a metal construction covered in finished wood, approximately 1.2 m tall in the shape of short column, with a ledge with an opening through which the standing customer (adult or child) would put their feet and look through a viewing porthole at the top of the fluoroscope down at the X-ray view of the feet and shoes. Two other viewing portholes on either side enabled the parent and a sales assistant to observe the toes being wiggled to show how much room for the toes there was inside the shoe. The bones of the feet were clearly visible, as was the outline of the shoe, including the stitching around the edges.

The machines were sold in Canada and many other countries,

In the second half of the 20th century, growing awareness of radiation hazards and increasingly stringent regulations forced their gradual phasing out. They were widely used particularly when buying shoes for children, whose shoe size continually changes until adulthood.

Parking Meter

It has gone many decades since I plugged a parking meter with nickles and dimes. These days there are not many places where we use paid parking. Most of the time when we do it involves a camera taking a photo of our front licence plate. After shopping, but before we enter the parking lot to drive our car away, we find a parking payment machine. We enter our plate identification, and pay the requested sum using a bank card. I am told that some, usually younger people, pay with apps on their phones.

Pay Telephone

Pay phones were shown in the original Harry Palmer films, but that was part of the technology makeup at the time. My worst experience with a pay phone in a film involved Blade Runner (1982), an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968). The film is set in a future Los Angeles of 2019. It is so dystopian, that people use pay phones!

Band Shell

King’s Square in Saint John lies in its uptown, established in 1785, a year following the formation of New Brunswick. The bandshell was a gift from the City Coronet Band in 1909. The publicity blurb described the square as a serene retreat and a living museum, in a bustling city. I don’t think any of the adjectives used apply. The bandshell was an urban retreat for pigeons. The question that plagued me, while there, was how the musicians entered the second floor of the bandshell?

Ubiquitous cigarette smoke

Despite having smoked into the 1970s, I was shocked at the amount of smoke that appeared in these movies. I tried to look at some data about smoking and found: Considering a conservative value, cigarette smoking worldwide, releases about 22 Gg of nicotine and about 135 Gg of particulate matter into the atmosphere each year. See: P. Jacob, M.L. Goniewicz, C.M. Havel, S.F. Schick, N.L. Benowitz Nicotelline: A proposed biomarker and environmental tracer for particulate matter derived from tobacco smoke Chem. Res. Toxicol., 26 (2013), pp. 1615-1631. The article referred to the quantities in millions of kilograms, which seems a strange way to express mass, when the metric system uses prefixes so: 1 000 g = 1 kg, 1 000 kg = 1 Mg, 1 000 Mg = 1 Gg. Thus, I converted the published values to Gg.

The country with the fewest smokers is Nigeria, with 2.8% of the population = 5.2% of males, and 0.4% of females. In terms of other countries, including those with people who receive weblog notifications, the values in ascending order are: Canada = 10.7%; New Zealand = 10.9%; Australia = 12.0%; Norway = 12.2%; China = 22.9% and USA = 23.6%. The country with the most smokers is Nauru with 46.7% of the population = 47.8% of males and 45.6% of females. I am uncertain if these values include the use of snuff = snus (Scandinavian). From my perspective, this is a major health issue.