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GELFAND’S WORLD - In the first third of the year, a great powerful presence will blot out the sun, causing the ground to grow cold and shadows to shake. No amount of wailing and praying will bring the sun back until the presence has moved on. This will happen on April 8.
(OK, so we stole from Mark Twain a bit. It's in the spirit of New Year jollity.)
Speaking of evil presences, will this be the last year for Putin? The Russian economy will continue to tank, and Putin will be stressed both bodily and politically. At what point will the Russian people decide that they have had enough?
The D.C. federal court will begin the Trump criminal prosecution a bit late, but before the November election. But before this (in about a week from now, actually), the civil fraud trial against The Donald and his children will come to a verdict, and the Trump group are not going to be happy about it. I don't think it’s really going out on a limb here to suggest that the Trumps will be hit for something more than the $250 million that was originally projected. Will it be as much as $500 million? Stay tuned.
Nevertheless, a substantial number of Americans will continue to protest that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, in spite of all evidence and testimony to the contrary. The big question in the early part of the year will be whether DJT actually needs adult diapers.
The slow grinding of the mills of justice will continue: At some point, there will be enough political pressure that abusive calls and death threats made against government officials will be investigated and prosecuted. A smaller number of January 6 rioters will be charged, but more than zero. Those already charged and tried will continue to be sentenced to prison. The net effect will be that the tactics of bullying used by the Trump side will dwindle.
Fanciful notions
A more general-purpose influenza vaccine will be developed, requiring only one shot and perhaps a booster every 5 years or so. The NIH will fund research on a Norovirus vaccine, something that is long overdue. (Anybody planning to go on a cruise ought to want this vaccine.)
The Los Angeles City Council will gain wisdom and strength, and put its financial house in order. OK, just kidding about this one.
The congress and the telephone companies will finally do something about all the spam telephone calls. Diplomatic notes will be exchanged. The phone companies will begin to work towards a system in which callers can be identified.
Welcoming in the New Year and the Preservation of an Old Gem
I reclaimed an old tradition on this New Year's Eve by going to the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo. This is a compact space with a giant Wurlitzer theater organ taking up much of the stage. The auditorium holds 175 or so seats. The place was founded by Bill Field and Bill Coffman half a century ago. You can read about it here. They would do a version of an old-time nickelodeon show, with projected sing-along slides, silent movies, and musical accompaniment on the Wurlitzer. Some of the great artistic accomplishments of the 20th century were done as silent films, so this was a worthy addition to local and international culture.
With the passing of Bill and Bill, the Old Time Music Hall has rebuilt itself as a nonprofit which is run entirely by volunteers. The theater also makes use of musicians from the Los Angeles Theater Organ Society. For the December 31 - January 1 show, organist and pianist Mark Herman was at the keyboard. The crowd were jolly and upbeat and at the appointed time, reacted raucously to the New Year countdown with noisy fanfare.
We must mention the contribution of those volunteers, who ran a flawless event. They took a well deserved curtain call at the end.
As the countdown clock was projected on the screen, One wag suggested that the clock should have shown Harold Lloyd hanging from the minute hand, as he did in the classic movie Safety Last. Ah well.
Those who haven't had the pleasure of attending a silent film presentation won't understand how much fun it is to revisit the original Felix the Cat or to watch Buster Keaton in action in one of his short comedies. A rare treasure will be shown next Saturday, in the Buster Keaton feature length film The Cameraman.
As I have mentioned in these pages, there is a Los Angeles contribution to world culture which includes the silent film era (beginning, roughly speaking, about 1910) and continues as the sound film era to the present day. Not the least of that contribution is the development of film music, which includes both artistic contributions and technological development. Since the 1940s, audiences have become accustomed to symphonic quality music in their movie houses, something that would have been hard to imagine as late as 1927.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
