The cinetrix enjoys nothing more than reading Raymond Chandler in the hot summer sun, lolling on her back in the grass of a park. In the spirit of similar perversity, perhaps you can observe Cat Stevens' birthday today with a screening of Harold and Maude?
If you're looking to go in a different direction, Don Knotts turns 80 today. He, along with Pearl Buck and Mary Lou Retton, is honored as a famous 20th-century West Virginian in the state capitol's museum. [Don't ask me how I learned this.]
C'mon. When's the last time you saw The Incredible Mr. Limpet or The Apple Dumpling Gang? The Ghost and Mr. Chicken? The Shakiest Gun in the West?
The cinetrix has a powerful association with Don Knotts and humid summer days when you're just ready to give up and get lazy. When the cinetrix was in middle school [which was called junior high then], the last few weeks of the year would be filled with screenings of Disney live-action classics like the ones I've mentioned. The sixth-graders went away to camp for a week and would watch a different movie after dinner every night. To justify the taxpayers' expense of renting these classics, the school system would then cycle these movies through the other grades' classrooms during the day, a pretty cynical acknowledgment of how sick of each other and of school the teachers and kids were by June.
Ah, public school. Good times. Leave no child behind! Excelsior!
[It's also Papa Hemingway's birthday if you want to get all highbrow about a Wednesday.]
