Something's actually happening, Reg! Time to leave the silos | MARK HUGHES COBB

Know I'm still stuck in Shakes-mode when, reading notes out loud, as I increasingly in dotage do, I hear myself pronounce ac-COM-plished as a-COM-plish-ED.

Many thanks to all the wonderful crowds who made it to The Rude Mechanicals' three blessed (blessED) air-conditioned performances of "Much Ado About Nothing," before the pandammit struck again, and clipped our Saturday night. You were lovely as the show itself. And kudos to those who braved our two AC-acquipped performances of "The Tempest," after we had to partially recast and re-build it for late July, having worked April and May to get it up originally in June, before — wah-waaaah — COVID.

I'd like to thank all the members of the theater community who wished us "Break a leg!," and "Congratulations on making it your 20th summer! That's rare, especially working from no income, built just on the love and good will of those who come to play!"

I'd like to, but .... When folks talk about being stuck in silos, in closed-off cliques, I wonder who in this world they could mean?

This is the issue: Out of this city's 100,000 — and the county's roughly double that — there are maybe 200 who show for anything, support all manner of things. Hundreds of thousands stay stuck in one lane, assuming they even get out to drive at all.

When fevers of summer swell, and like the Heat Miser I feel too much, it's calming to ease down with classically cool movies, such as 1946's terminally daffy, labyrynthine and bewildering "The Big Sleep," built on Raymond Chandler's equally dense novel. The perhaps-fable tale is that the screenwriters, unable to remember who offed some minor character, called up the novelist, who told 'em "It's in the book!" Chandler later phoned back and admitted, "Yeah, I don't remember, either."

Even if you've never seen the adaptation, or read Chandler's prose, you know the style. It's the noir tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-wry/gut-full-of-rye, often parodied, though rarely well. Me-Chandlering: "Her legs swished like the frayed ends of a rope rubbed raw against the barnacled pier of my soul." "Was it something I bled?" "In and out of my life she flowed, like the tides, a pan-handling bum, or a self-satisfied cat."

Actual Chandler: “I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.”

Chandler wrote about writing: "Plausibility is largely a matter of style." Which is why my overheated Chandler-isms remain hugely implausible.

In the movie, Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers) observes: "You're not very tall, are you?"

Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart): "Well, I, uh, I tried to be."

The novel's lines stand 180 away, from Carmen to Marlowe: " 'Tall, aren't you?' she said. 'I didn't mean to be.' " In Chandler's books, Marlowe stood 6 feet, 190, which in pre-superhero-flick days would have been considered sturdy.

Bogey was in fact 5 feet, 8 inches — or Hollywood fact, which suggests more like 5 feet,  6 inches — setting him at average height, worldwide, though slightly below average in the U.S. Yes, I used to obsessively read the Guinness Book of World Records; why do you ask? Bogey wore lifts in his shoes. Vickers, bookstore beauty Dorothy Malone, and the icon's soon-to-be-wife Lauren Bacall wore flats, definitely not the style at the time.

Still, the height-change-exchange was too fun to leave out, and Bogey, team player, goofed along, because his presence loomed larger than spatial measurements.

Somewhat like "Casablanca," the movie was patched up, Frankenstein-like, from varying forces, pulling together. Folks left their silos! One of the co-writers was a cat named William Faulkner, but many of the finest lines were crafted by Leigh Brackett, whom Bogey nicknamed Butch. Brackett, a pal of Ray Bradbury's, punched up scripts from "The Big Sleep" all the way to "The Empire Strikes Back," which she worked on not long before her death at 62. Her first novel, "No Good From a Corpse," was inspired by watching Bogey as Sam Spade (creation of another hard-boiled typist, Dashiell Hammett) in "The Maltese Falcon."

Brackett and Faulkner worked separately. The lines Bogey didn't like? Turned out to be mostly Faulkner's.

Same, pal, same.

Philip Epstein, one of numerous collaborative co-writers on the 1942 "Casablanca," was brought in to layer spicy dialogue into "The Big Sleep," underlying the suggestive nature of Marlowe and Vivien Rutledge's relationship, as the latter was played by Bacall, Bogey's no-longer-private love, a chemistry that had ignited on screen in the 1944 "To Have and Have Not," another one Faulkner typed at.

Epstein added outrageously suggestive horse-racing banter, which even in 2022 would raise a blush, what with going the distance, filled saddles and all. It's so rife with double entendre the scene collapses into singularity; spacetime breaks down, 24 frames rattle to a halt, and we all stumble out to the lobby to grab ourselves a treat.

I treated myself, too, by hanging with fellas like Don Staley, whose going-away party Tuscaloosa celebrated at the end of last month. Like me, and the Heat Miser, Don can seem a bit much at times, which may be why I find his company relaxing. My own often-remarked-on intensity seems sedate next to that mover and shaker.

Don, now luxuriating in retirement in central Florida — though we all know he's never standing still — didn't suffer silos to live. At his well-attended going-away bash, held in Bebe and Bill Lloyd's beautifully rebuilt train station, now known as Druid City Social, some should-be familiar faces were not to be seen, odd considering Don's long tenure as coach and tourism chief in Tuscaloosa. Could be those missing simply had conflicts, of course, same as those who can't spare seconds to type "break a leg."

Could it be Don's "Let's all pull together" attitude pushed folks away, made them feel ... scolded? Don't know, but that wasn't Don's style, nor intention. He boosted all.

One fella at the party, who I won't name in case this rubs anyone the wrong way — the cliche is a journalist's not doing the job unless somebody's irritated — was a gentleman I would have given a standing ovation in Chattanooga, had I not been in journalist mode.

At the end of days crammed with indoor meetings talking about a world of funky art that was literally just outside, he had the nerve to suggest that now, having gathered data on how other cool cities created vibes, Tuscaloosans should stand up and do stuff. Leave the silos. Work together. Relax iron-fisted control. View things differently.

In "Life of Brian," the supposedly revolutionary People's Front of Judea — not to be confused with the Judean People's Front, or the Judean Popular People's Front, the splitters — waggles tongues in debate as Judith (Sue Jones-Davies) bursts in: Romans have arrested Brian (Graham Chapman). If the PFJ doesn't act, he'll be crucified.

Reg (John Cleese): "Right! This calls for IMMEDIATE discussion."

As Reg, Loretta (Eric Idle), Francis (Michael Palin) and others quibble over wording for a resolution, Judith erupts: "Reg, for God's sake, it's perfectly simple: All you've got to do is to go out of that door now, and try to stop the Romans' nailing him up! It's happening, Reg! Something's ACTUALLY HAPPENING, Reg!"

The pandammit stuck in everyone's craw, of course, but I'd hoped that after suffering years of being unable to come together, united in art and creation, that the community overall might become more appreciative, more open and cohesive, more supportive.

As the pandammit sadly still rolls on, but we nonetheless find ways to stumble back toward something like normal, it's beginning to seem inevitable that Tuscaloosa's silos remain eternal and immovable, like Qin Shi Huang's terracotta army.

Something's actually happening. All you've got to do is go out your door. Leave the silo.

Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com, or call 205-722-0201.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Something's happening, Reg! Time to leave the silos| MARK HUGHES COBB