Hit & Miss

The Times’ Mike Hale gave a lukewarm review to Hit &Miss, the English made television series “about a hit woman who’s a preoperative transsexual” calling it an “unsuccessful attempt to graft ‘The Crying Game’ onto ‘Party of Five.’" (“She’s Living A Double Life In More Ways Than One,” NYT, 7/10/12). In terms of shock value the scene Hale describes “of the impressively trim body of Chloe Sevigny, and a plainly displayed penis” may rank with Sevigny’s famous fellatio scene with Vincent Gallo in The Brown Bunny. Hale takes the series creator Paul Abbott to task for self-consciously trying to combine “two projects—one about a hit man and one a about a transsexual mother.” Actually this new television series reads like an essay on surrealism. At the very least it has three of the central tenets of the surrealist project: aggression, humor and sexuality. In dreams such elements can meld seamlessly. The incongruity of the two sources of inspiration, family life and assassination, only strengthens the strategy. Back in the sixties the British created an immensely popular television series, The Avengers, a spy series that was basically a surrealist dream. Hopefully Hit & Miss, whose very title exudes  Lautreamont’s famous definition of beauty (that the surrealists glommed onto) as the  “chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table,” will live up to its British predecessor.

Diasporic Dining XXII (Escalation)

Escalation is when you say, “I had lunch with Marty Scorsese,” and your envious old college buddy, who has just arrived in town from Des Moines, says, “No way! Gag me with a spoon! How cool is that???” And you go on to describe the meeting you had with Scorsese at The Waverly Inn. “Funny, I don’t know what the hoopla is all about. I thought the mac 'n' cheese with truffles was mediocre and the only celebrity I saw was Chloe Sevigny, whose fellatio scene in The Brown Bunny was a bore. I’m as voyeuristic as the next person, but once I’ve got the idea I don’t feel the need to revisit the same territory. Actually Scorsese spotted me at the gym. I still like to work the speed bag and I think he was planning to do some kind of boxing film, not really a sequel to Raging Bull, but something about this middle aged Jewish guy who is generally upset and goes to the gym to work out his aggressions. You know how these directors are—I looked perfect for the role and he figured I was going to be another Cathy Moriarity, but then the script was changed and I didn’t get role. Anyway, we went back to Scorsese’s place for a nightcap after dinner and he introduced me to his former wife Isabella Rossellini and showed me his Oscar, and now here I am.”