Happy New Year!

Today is New Year's Eve Eve. So if I don't get a chance to say it tomorrow, Happy New Year! I hope 2020 will be a happy, healthy, safe, and prosperous year for all of us.

The Newseum In D.C. Is Closing

New York's WCBS Newsradio Eight-Eighty reported that the Newseum, an interactive museum in Washington, D.C. dedicated to the news gathering business, is slated to close its doors on December 31, 2019. The stated cause was financial difficulties which have plagued it over its eleven-year existence.

The museum, states Wikipedia, "promotes free expression and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, while tracing the evolution of communication" in a space that has seven levels, fifteen theatres, and twelve galleries.

I've never been to the museum. But if it had been located in New York, where I live, instead of Washington, D.C., I would've been a regular attendee since I'm a journalist and an avid reader of the press.

Such an important institution about journalism, an important profession, should not be allowed to disappear forever.

Maybe the Newseum can be saved and relocated to New York, where a lot of media companies are headquartered. Bloomberg, Murdoch, and other media moguls, are you listening?

Books, Books, And More Books

I am a die-hard lover of the printed word. And one of the joys of walking (or riding mass transit) in New York, especially in Manhattan, is finding reading material unexpectedly.

While walking home after shopping at Trader Joe's on Columbus Avenue, I found lying on the sidewalk the December 9, 2019 issue of People magazine that had Tom Hanks on the cover.

A few days later, on the M5 bus heading uptown on Broadway, I found a copy of The New Yorker (December 16, 2019 issue) that someone had tucked in the corner of a window seat.

Two weeks ago, next to two other books on top of a garbage can, there was a book called Life Doesn't Frighten Me, with artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat and poetry by Maya Angelou. As I was crossing the street, with the book tucked under an arm, a young policeman (a rookie?) on foot patrol did something out of the ordinary, he said to me "Good Morning."  I responded, " Good Morning." I turned around and said, "A friendly policeman! That's good!" (His partner didn't say a word.) Maybe the young cop was a Basquiat fan and when he saw Basquiat's name on the cover, it brought out his friendly side.

One of my best finds was a box of books, all paperback, also near the garbage area. The building was down the street from where I live. Fortunately, I had some plastic bags with me. I took only the books that interested me such as The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, The Alienist by Caleb Carr, The Piano Lesson by August Wilson, and Best Food Writing 2015, edited by Holly Hughes.

And yesterday, coming from my eye doctor's office in Harlem, I discovered, you guessed it, on top of a garbage can shed in front of an apartment building, a book of essays by Teju Cole that someone no longer wanted or needed. It's called Known and Strange Things, published in 2016.

These books are now permanent residents in my already book-cluttered apartment.

Netflix Saves An Iconic Manhattan Movie House

The Paris Theatre, the last single-screen movie house in Manhattan, recently closed its doors. For a long time I'd thought about seeing a movie there but never got around to doing it. When the theatre closed, I thought my opportunity to visit was forever gone. Then I read in Time Out New York magazine (December 11-24, 2019, Issue 1177), that Netflix came to the Paris Theatre's rescue by signing a long-term lease.

Netflix, reported Time Out, will use the Paris Theatre "to stage screenings and special events." And since the Academy Awards only allows films that have had a theatrical release to be nominated for an Oscar, Netflix films will have a ready-made venue.

Now if we could just convince Netflix to take over the long-vacant Metro Cinema, located on Broadway and 99th Street, at one time a venue for art-house films. The Upper West Side was once the home to many movie houses. Now there are none. Bringing back the Metro Cinema would be a wonderful thing.

And while we're at it, maybe Netflix can also revive the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, which was located near Lincoln Center. It closed down about two years ago.

Remembering Forgotten Actors And Other Entertainment People

A website I stumbled upon recently is called forgottenactors.blogspot.com. I discovered it when I was looking up info on an actor named Sam Buffington, who I had seen on television in an episode each of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Highway Patrol. Both episodes were filmed in the 1950s. I learned that Buffington, a promising talent, died in 1960 at the age of 28, a victim of suicide. Buffington was a gay man at a time when being gay was not considered a cool thing.

I began thinking that Entertainment Weekly, a publication to which I subscribe, should do a column each issue devoted to forgotten members of all branches of the entertainment industry like Buffington, actor James Edwards (the up-and-coming black actor before Sidney Poitier), et al.

There should also be a "Where Are They Now?" feature in the magazine that brings readers up to date on the whereabouts and doings of people no longer prominent in the entertainment industry.


Note: Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

There Are No Smart Phones Or Dumb Phones

Nowadays, we hear a lot about smart phones, smart televisions, smart audio speakers, smart electricity meters, smart refrigerators, smart this, smart that.  You would think these technological wonders were self-created, self-aware, self-perpetuating, self-repairing.

There is no "smart" technology or "dumb" technology. These devices are the brainchildren of humans who have created and programmed them to do whatever it is they're supposed to do. A rotary dial phone, for example, can't take a picture or send and receive text messages or record videos. That doesn't make it dumb. It wasn't designed to do any of those things. Does that make Alexander Graham Bell a "dumb" inventor because he neglected to make his phone "smart"?

Instead of calling these devices "smart," they should be called "enhanced" or "augmented" technology.

Bad Policing In Harlem

The following is a letter-to-the-editor that I sent to The Village Voice. The letter was published in the March 3-9, 2004 issue.

Dear Editor:

Ta-Nehisi Coates's valentine to the NYPD ["Black for Blue: Learning to Love Tha Police," February 18-24, 2004] brought to mind the night, two summers ago, when I needed the police. Unlike in Coates's situation, they did not deliver. After being pushed down a flight of stairs by a young man outside my place of employment, the Mount Morris Baths in Harlem, I called 911 three times. The police never showed up.

Two paramedics arrived about 20 minutes after the unprovoked attack. By then the young man and his buddies were long gone. Fortunately, the only damage was a scraped knee and broken eyeglasses, but it could have been much worse. I thought about writing a letter to the precinct commander, but then I changed my mind, thinking that it would be a waste of time. Maybe the quick response of the police to Coates's partner was because a female was the victim. And maybe because my location was that of a gay men's bathhouse, the police didn't feel it was necessary to exert themselves by making an appearance.

Whatever the reason, it certainly didn't make me think that they cared about me, the victim of a crime.

Charles Michael Smith
Harlem

Ta-Nehisi Coates replies: "Thank you to everyone who took the time to write in. Feedback is a vital part of any attempt at responsible journalism. I'd like to extend my condolences to you, Mr. Smith, for that terrible incident and NYPD's lackluster response. As your case so poignantly demonstrates, there is still work to be done, in terms of police-community relations."