Hollywood - Page 16

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: North America; Published: 28 October 2023; Hits: 1090

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Of course we couldn't go to LA and not visit Hollywood. So we took the LA Metro (senior off-peak): Pershing Square to Hollywood (8-9 stops) $0.35.

But it is and always has been a bit trashy.

To see more photos of Hollywood, from the LA 2012 album,
click on the pictures above

We went for a ramble down Hollywood Boulevard, over the 'star's set in the pavement, and there was Alex Trebek, the recently deceased host of one of my favourite TV shows - Jeopardy!.

Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, and Marilyn Monroe are, of course, immortalised in the Hollywood Museum.

Paulette features in 'Stardust' a novel by Joseph Kanon, set in that era, mostly in Hollywood, that I had just read. Seeing the picture seemed serendipitous!

I can recommend Stardust. It's great mystery/detective/spy story, historically detailed, beautifully written.

***

Further down is the Chinese Theatre, where those who have 'made-it' in 'Tinseltown' can leave their hand and footprints in the cement. Several of the women and one or two men had tiny feet If you can't read them here they are in the attached album at the end.

***

On the last day of our trip the plane didn't leave until late so it was back to the Broad for me and more shops for Wendy. We still had several hours to spare. Wendy having some last-minute shopping to attend to, so I decided to take in a movie. What was showing this arvo? I could catch a bus. Might it be to Barbie or Oppenheimer?

When we were in Canada in July we saw enough US TV not to miss the hype when Oppenheimer got its release (Christopher Nolan's new ‘blockbuster’).

This was another instance of serendipity, as I had just ordered Joseph Kannon’s ‘Los Alamos’, for my Kindle, having recently read his brilliant ‘Stardust’ (see above). And here we were in Hollywood on the last day of our trip. Stardust indeed!

To read my review of the movie click on the image below:

Go and see Oppenheimer, you will think about it for days afterwards.

***

Now, after six weeks, it was time to go home:

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Travel

Burma (Myanmar)

This is a fascinating country in all sorts of ways and seems to be most popular with European and Japanese tourists, some Australians of course, but they are everywhere.

Since childhood Burma has been a romantic and exotic place for me. It was impossible to grow up in the Australia of the 1950’s and not be familiar with that great Australian bass-baritone Peter Dawson’s rendition of Rudyard Kipling’s 'On the Road to Mandalay' recorded two decades or so earlier:

Come you back to Mandalay
Where the old flotilla lay
Can't you hear their paddles chunking
From Rangoon to Mandalay

On the road to Mandalay
Where the flying fishes play
And the Dawn comes up like thunder
out of China 'cross the bay

The song went Worldwide in 1958 when Frank Sinatra covered it with a jazz orchestration, and ‘a Burma girl’ got changed to ‘a Burma broad’; ‘a man’ to ‘a cat’; and ‘temple bells’ to ‘crazy bells’.

Fiction, Recollections & News

The new James Bond

It was raining in the mountains on Easter Saturday.

We'd decided to take a couple of days break in the Blue Mountains and do some walking. But on Saturday it poured. In the morning we walked two kilometres from Katoomba to more up-market and trendy Leura for morning coffee and got very wet.

After a train journey to Mount Victoria and back to dry out and then lunch in the Irish Pub, with a Cider and Guinness, we decided against another soaking and explored the Katoomba antique stores and bookshops instead. In one I found and bought an unread James Bond book. But not by the real Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming died in 1964 at the young age of fifty-six and I'd read all his so I knew 'Devil May Care' was new. This one is by Sebastian Faulks, known for his novel Birdsong, 'writing as Ian Fleming' in 2008.

Opinions and Philosophy

The Origin of Life - according to God

Back in April 2013 I had another visit from our neighbourhood Jehovah's Witnesses, a pretty young woman and her husband, recently married. Like Daniel (mentioned elsewhere on this website) before them, they had brought copies of The Watchtower and Awake; which I agreed to read if they were prepared to read my paper: The Prospect of Eternal Life.

I keep a couple of copies of The Prospect of Eternal Life for just such occasions and have also given a copy to the local Anglican minister and to various other active proselytisers in the area; with similar conditions. Of course I know it will not change their position but I do like to have the debate and amazingly so do they; it beats the usual reception they get; and they get some practice in trying to convert un-believers.

When the couple asked my position I quickly summarised that in The Prospect of Eternal Life:

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