Woody Allen: A Life in Film

Woody Allen (b. Allan Stewart Konigsberg, 1935) turns 71 today, which is roughly my parents' age. My favorite Allen film is Stardust Memories (1980), mostly because it co-stars Charlotte Rampling and has the most international feel to it.

Last year, I enjoyed reading Richard Schickel's Woody Allen: A Life in Film (2003), which discusses (via fascinating interviews) the role of luck and magic in life a la Match Point (2005) and Scoop (2006), among any number of other topics. I'd love to see Schickel's documentary version of the same name, produced and shown by Turner Classic Movies in 2002.

Okay, it's Woody Allen's (and Richard Pryor's) birthday and I've been tagged by Helen to post six weird things about myself. Here goes.

1. Big Bird on Sesame Street has always creeped me out.

2. I've been a James Bond and Twilight Zone fan since I was three years old, which inspired an early interest in international, eclectic and bizarre themes.

3. I'm ambidextrous, not by choice but ever since I broke my left wrist when I was eight and had to learn how to write with my wrong hand. I perceive the world as a left-hander.

4. I have a night-blooming cereus plant that is exotic and resilient; it's a "descendant" of a single shoot received as a gift from Mexico by way of London and carried back to the USA in 1991. Most of my family now has at least one plant from the same "lineage."

5. I have an addictive personality and have had at least one cup of real coffee every day of my life since I turned eighteen.

6. Also since eighteen and also in the addictive department, I've never gone more than a year without a girlfriend nor more than a few months without a date.


Today's Rune: Fertility.

Bond voyage . . . . .