I finished off a nice little sketchbook that Tony Visco picked up for me when he was in Florence a couple years ago.
It was a decent little wire-bound sketchbook with a stiff front and back, and it fit easily in a backpack or book bag. The paper was all right for sketching and jotting down notes. I kept it close at hand in case inspiration struck me. If I ever get to Italy, I would certainly pick up another one.
As I have written before, I like to have noise in the background as I doodle. I usually turn on a movie or television show that doesn’t require my strict attention. I don’t have cable television and free broadcast television is hit or miss depending on what floor I’m on. My entertainment mainstay has been the Roku internet streaming box hooked up to an old but still happily working flat panel television. My go-to station on that box for free or extremely low cost entertainment is the Pub-D-Hub channel. I’ve managed to find more terrific movies that I have never seen nor even heard of by randomly poking around their library than I have ever received through internet search engines or word-of-mouth recommendations. Such is the case with Edgar G Ulmer’s Ruthless from 1948.
According to the synopsis:
A poor boy who saved a rich girl from drowning is adopted by her family but he grows into a money-hungry ruthless businessman who would step on others to get to the top of the social ladder.
Okay. Sounded interesting. I was game. I gave it a try.
As the film streamed to my television, I realized it was full of familiar faces. It starred the heel from Mildred Pierce, the young George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life, and the immortal Sydney Greenstreet who I would watch in anything. The cast kept me watching what turned out to be the Wall Street of an earlier age. It wasn’t the most satisfying story, but the characters lived up to the title. It was entertaining and was the perfect accompaniment to my scribblings.
As I watched, I finished off the Italian sketchbook. On to the next sketchbook!
Nice finish! I occasionally catch one of the old movies, they are a LOT better than most of the crap on today…
Much, MUCH better, and I seem to be finding great ones I have never seen all of the time.