"After an uncredited part as a masseuse in the Peter Sellers comedy 'What’s New Pussycat?' (1965), written by Mr. Allen, and a voice-over in 'What’s Up, Tiger Lily?' (1966), Mr. Allen’s directorial debut..."

"... Ms. Lasser had full-fledged roles — with character names and screen time — in Mr. Allen’s next three auteur efforts, which he wrote, directed and starred in. In 'Take the Money and Run' (1969), she was a bank robber’s neighbor, impressed by his fame. In 'Bananas' (1971), she was the hero’s activist girlfriend who drops him because he shows no political leadership skills. The next year, in 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask),' she played a woman who could achieve orgasm only in public. In the middle of all that filmmaking, in 1970, the Allens divorced...."

From "Louise Lasser, Star of TV’s ‘Mary Hartman,’ Is Dead at 87/She began her screen career in Woody Allen movies (he was also her husband), but she was best known for her portrayal of the Ohio housewife in the pigtails and puffed sleeves" (NYT).

"We have reviewed video footage from the area which suggests that the cover was dislodged after a multi-axle truck turning onto 52nd Street from 5th Avenue drove over it.... manhole covers can get displaced by heavy vehicles...."

Said a representative from Con Ed, quoted in "Donike Gocaj, grandmother who ‘dropped’ into NYC manhole, hauntingly screamed ‘I’m dying’ — as witness claims there was nothing blocking it off" (NY Post).

A bystander: "She was just in the hole screaming that she was dying. Over and over she was like, 'I’m dying, I’m dying.'"

ADDED: Here's something I wrote in the comments to a post of mine that was about the only time Martin Heidegger laughed: 

Woody Allen famously said "If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy."

There's a Woody Allen movie where he suddenly falls into an open manhole. Can't remember which one, but I saw it in the theater in London (for some reason), and the audience that hadn't been laughing at any of the numerous verbal jokes laughed heartily. Slapstick is a universal language. And yet some people reject slapstick. They think it's cheap or mean or something. Why would you laugh when someone falls?

Thanks to tcrosse for reminding me of that old quote.

ALSO: Was it Woody Allen who said that or Mel Brooks?

"Over his long career, Mr. Allen has made two films — 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' in 1989 and 'Match Point,' 16 years later — about deceitful men who murder women and get away with it."

"The evasion of consequence has been an enduring source of fascination. In the end, perhaps Mr. Epstein provided Mr. Allen with something even more valuable than cachet: potential material."

Writes Ginia Bellafante, in "Woody Allen Is Not Sorry About His Friendship With Jeffrey Epstein/The nonagenarian director is taking a slightly different tack than many of the other powerful people associated with the disgraced former financier" (NYT).

Woody is in some of those photos the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee bestowed upon us the other day. We're told: "The images suggest that the two men, both children of postwar working-class Brooklyn, were better acquainted than previously believed. They also indicate just how taken the culturally privileged can be with the financially extravagant, felony sentencing be damned."

That is to say, Woody liked going to the lavish parties at Epstein's gigantic house in Manhattan. 

"[Theo] Von introduced C.K. to Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, where he began working to address his addiction..."

"... to masturbation. He practiced abstinence—it was, he said, a 'crazy idea to me. . . . Don’t have sexual release for several months in a row'—but, eventually, he 'got out of the cycle.' His emotions started coming back. 'I saw everything really differently,' he said. 'I saw that everything that had happened with me was because of me. And, by the way, that’s great news, because that means you could do something about it.'... [And] this is what enabled him to write his book. He recently finished a second one. 'I’m writing novels because I don’t jerk off every fifteen minutes,' he said. 'It’s really all it is.'"

Writes Tyler Foggatt in "Louis C.K.’s Next Chapter/In a new standup special, and a début novel, the comedian navigates murky, post-#MeToo terrain: not quite exiled, not quite welcomed back" (The New Yorker).

That reminded me of the old after-sex punchline. Attributed to Balzac: « Là… encore un roman de perdu ! » (“There… another novel lost!”). There's a line in "Annie Hall": “I read a thing about Balzac. He used to, uh, after he’d have sex he’d go, ‘Oh, there goes another novel.’”

"Annie Hall" reference in the Supreme Court oral argument yesterday.

Link.

"As time went on I made movies for an audience of one, Diane Keaton. I never read a single review of my work..."

"... and cared only what Keaton had to say about it. If she liked it, I counted the film as an artistic success. If she was less than enthusiastic, I tried to use her criticism to reedit and come away with something she felt better about. By then we were living together and I was seeing the world through her eyes.... For all her shyness and self-effacing personality, she was totally secure in her own aesthetic judgment. Whether she was criticizing a movie of mine or a play of Shakespeare’s, she held both to the same standard. If she felt Shakespeare had gone wrong—it didn’t matter who or how many sang his praises, it was her own feeling that she went with, and she didn’t hesitate to put the knock on the Bard...."

Writes Woody Allen, remembering Diane Keaton (Free Press).

There's also this, about bulimia:

Spot the error in the People magazine headline: "Woody Allen's Ex-Wife, Mia Farrow, Shares Tribute to Diane Keaton Despite Complicated Past."

 Link to article.

"It’s a family history. I remember my Auntie Martha had skin cancer so bad they removed her nose."

"My father had basal skin cancer and my brother had it. It’s tricky with this skin cancer. That’s why you’ve got to put the sunblock on."

Said Diane Keaton, in 2015, quoted in "What Diane Keaton Shared About Her Health Before Her Death/Diane Keaton—whose cause of death has not been shared—was open about her health battles with skin cancer and bulimia that affected her growing up" (E! News).

ADDED: "We're here to see The Nose. I heard it was running..."

Goodbye to Diane Keaton.

Diane Keaton, 1946-2025.

ADDED: I was just thinking of her this morning. On the sunrise walk, we passed a man with a dog and I said to him, "Your dog is neat." And then I wondered why on earth I'd said "neat" and I thought it's like I'm channeling Annie Hall. See: "Lines from 'Annie Hall' Containing the Word 'Neat'" (Grok)(#6 is "We're not having an affair. He's married. He just happens to think I'm neat").

Now I'm looking back over all my old posts with the "Diane Keaton" tag. I see that she came up on the second day of this blog:

Only one word?

1. "'Hypercharged' Is the Only Word for This Supreme Court" — headline for a NYT interview.

2. "The only word for this is 'transplendent'" — the Shelley Duvall character in "Annie Hall."

ADDED: This rhetoric is really a form of hyperbole. Surely there are other words... or what's a thesaurus for? I do think this device can be used well, but it can also be pretty silly. You can back yourself into a corner with a promise you can't keep, as in the perennially hilarious:

3. "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word: [????]" — Joe Biden.

Bill Maher has another awkward conversation with an over-90 celebrity he admired when he was a kid. And he's 71.

Last week it was Barbara Eden. This week it's Woody Allen.

 

MAHER: You say... in your unconvincing defense of how you're not an intellectual...  that you never read "Great Expectations," you never read "Ulysses," you never read "1984," "Catch 22, "Don Quixote"....

WOODY: That's right. I've never read any of the ones you've just mentioned.

MAHER: I've read 'em all. You want to get the skinny on them. You want to, you want to get...

WOODY: Yeah, you could condense 'em? 

MAHER: Yeah, well... 

WOODY: I hadn't the patience to read any of them. I was never a reader. I never enjoyed reading as a kid.

"A startup called Sperm Racing, run by four teenage entrepreneurs from the US, said it had raised $1.5 million to stage the event at the Hollywood Palladium..."

"... on April 25. Eric Zhu, the company’s 17-year-old co-founder, said the inaugural event would pit samples taken from two healthy young university students against each other on a racetrack 20cm (8in) long and modelled on the female reproductive system.... 'We want to turn health into competition,' Zhu said. 'Sperm is surprising as a biomarker. The healthier you are, the faster sperm moves.'... A live video feed, magnified 40 times to display the 0.05mm spermatozoa, will track the samples’ progress....The event will be run over three races in front of a crowd of 4,000 spectators, and feature play-by-play commentary, instant replays and leaderboards, according to Zhu.

I'm reading "What to expect from ‘world’s first competitive sperm race’/A fertility startup raised $1.5 million to stage the event at the Hollywood Palladium this month" (London Times).

With the sperm expected to swim at a speed of 5mm per minute, each race will take something like 40 minutes. There are 3 races... and room for 4,000 spectators. Interesting concept, and congratulations to the teenagers for getting $1.5 million and an article in the London Times, but I think success here depends on the quality of the play-by-play commentators.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "What is the key to doing good play-by-play commentary for a long race, say 40 minutes?"

"Because homes, offices and warehouses are already built for humans... humanoids are better equipped to navigate the world than any other robot...."

"I first visited 1X’s offices in Silicon Valley nearly a year ago. When a robot named Eve entered the room, opening and closing the door, I could not shake the feeling that this wide-eyed robot was really a person in costume. Eve... felt human. I thought of 'Sleeper,' the 1973 Woody Allen sci-fi comedy filled with robotic butlers.... Mr. Jang was entranced by the way that Eve moved.... 'I saw a level of hardware that I did not think was possible,' Mr. Jang said.... And because of growing shortage of workers who handle both house cleaning and care of elders and children, organizations that represent these workers welcome the rise of new technologies that do work in the home — provided that companies like 1X build robots that work well alongside human workers."

From "Invasion of the Home Humanoid Robots/Dozens of companies are building robots that look like humans. One of them is training a machine to be a butler and will soon test them in homes" (NYT)(free-access link so you can see the photos and video).

ADDED: Still waiting for The Orb.

"The left wanted to make comedy illegal.... like, you can't make fun of anything.... Legalize comedy!"

Legalize comedy
pic.twitter.com/uKr6fiRI3K

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

And then, do you think this is funny, wielding a chainsaw? I mean, he's cutting thousands of jobs. Those are real people.

 

Must Watch Video: Elon Musk Has Been Knighted At CPAC After Receiving The Chainsaw For Bureaucracy

» WATCH/SHARE THE LIVE X STREAM HERE:https://t.co/7NYWKPuERO pic.twitter.com/mFe0unDA7u

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) February 20, 2025

That's Argentina's President Javier Milei, handing Musk the chainsaw, so I went to Milei's feed to try to get the video to embed from Milei's feed, where I got a bit distracted. For example, he reposted this:

 

On this day, February 21 1964, the Rolling Stones released the single Not Fade Away in the UK. Originally a Buddy Holly track, the Stones recorded their version at London’s Olympic Studios and it became the band’s first Top 10 hit in the United Kingdom! 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/kkM69cBxUz

— The Rolling Stones (@RollingStones) February 21, 2025

So much masculinity: 1. Comedy, 2. Power tools, 3. The Stones.

ADDED: What is the evidence that Javier Milei loves The Rolling Stones?

"Two smart, insecure, witty singles meet at a Manhattan tennis club, consciously couple, measure their lives in psychotherapy sessions, find lobster humor in the Hamptons and disagree about whether Los Angeles is beyond redemption."

A summary of "Annie Hall." 

From the obituary for Marshall Brickman, "Marshall Brickman, Woody Allen’s Co-Writer on Hit Films, Dies at 85/The duo won an Oscar for 'Annie Hall.' Mr. Brickman went on to write Broadway shows, including 'Jersey Boys,' and make movies of his own" (NYT).

Also, he was a UW alum: "Marshall...  attended the University of Wisconsin, a school he chose casually because a friend was going there and seemed to like it."

And: "In 1964, Mr. Brickman played banjo as a member of the New Journeymen, a trio with John Phillips and Michelle Phillips. When Mr. Brickman left the group, the couple took on two new partners and created the Mamas & the Papas. That may have seemed like bad timing, but a few years later he and a friend were invited to Sharon Tate’s house in Beverly Hills and decided at the last minute to go to Malibu instead. It was the night of the Manson family murders."

In the late 1960s, Brickman was a writer on "The Tonight Show," and he created Carnac the Magnificent!

"Don't say anything robophobic."

IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said: "That's a Woody Allen bit. He was unkind to his toaster and the elevator threw him around for it."

Here:

"Anything that I can't reason with — or kiss or fondle — I get in trouble with." 

"It is very unlike me to make a public statement about anything. I don’t think of myself as an actor-vist. I’m not that person."

Said Rebecca Hall, in "Rebecca Hall: I regret apologising for working with Woody Allen/The British film star issued a statement after accusations were made against the director but now says ‘I don’t think it’s the responsibility of his actors to speak to that situation’/‘I’ve had a wild, chaotic, beautiful life’: Rebecca Hall on race, regrets and learning to be herself" (The Guardian).

"I don’t regret working with him. He gave me a great job opportunity and he was kind to me.” Hall added that she did not talk to Allen any more, “but I don’t think that we should be the ones who are doing judge and jury on this.” Her policy now, she said, “is to be an artist. I don’t think that makes me apathetic or not engaged. I just think it’s my job.”

"For years, companies avoided mentioning the remote assistance provided to their self-driving cars."

"The illusion of complete autonomy helped to draw attention to their technology and encourage venture capitalists to invest the billions of dollars needed to build increasingly effective autonomous vehicles...." 

I'm reading "How Self-Driving Cars Get Help From Humans Hundreds of Miles Away" (NYT).

If a Zoox robot taxi encounters a construction zone it has not seen before, for instance, a technician in the command center will receive an alert — a short message in a small, colored window on the side of the technician’s computer screen. Then, using the computer mouse to draw a line across the screen, the technician can send the car a new route to follow around the construction zone.... While Zoox and other companies have started to reveal how humans intervene to help driverless cars, none of the companies have disclosed how many remote-assistance technicians they employ or how much it all costs....

That's always how it's been with robots. We suspect there's really a little guy in there....

"An earlier version of this article misstated the age of Soon-Yi Previn when she and Allen began a romantic relationship. She was 21, not a teenager."

From "Woody Allen, Reputation Bruised, Finds Muted Reception to 50th Film/'Coup de Chance,' a milestone, is being released in the United States after opening in Europe months ago" (NYT).

And this is an interesting quote from Allen’s sister (and producer) Letty Aronson: "I’m happy that [the new movie is] opening. Woody is only interested in the creative part — once that’s done and he makes the film, he never sees it again. If you told him it wasn’t opening in the United States, it wouldn’t matter to him."

"Woody Allen received a three-minute standing ovation at the Venice premiere of 'Coup de Chance' on Monday night, which would have gone on longer..."

"... had the filmmaker not started to exit. After two minutes and 30 seconds of sustained applause once the film finished, Allen began to make his way toward the door, cutting the standing ovation short. The filmmaker looked visibly moved during the reaction and at one point took out a tissue. Allen was greeted in the theater by a standing ovation before the movie even screened as fans tried to catch video of him. The reception was the same on the red carpet, with fans cheering him on enthusiastically — however, just outside the carpet a group of protesters walked by...."

From "Woody Allen’s ‘Coup de Chance’ Ignites Protests and Enthusiastic Standing Ovation at Venice Premiere" (Variety).