Sad news. Peter Falk, the great American actor with the glass eye and the peculiar drawl, best known for playing Columbo, arguably the best-loved TV detective of popular culture, has died. He was also a character actor known for taking challenging roles in art-house films, such as Wings of Desire, A Woman Under The Influence, and Husbands. His first TV role was in 1957, and his last was in 2009. In that 53 years, nothing he did equalled, in terms of sly charisma, the brilliance of Columbo, the highwater mark of intelligent adult entertainment drama on US television during the 1970s and 1980s; it was certainly always a special night when a Columbo show was on. What I loved about the shows (as did my father) was how the unassuming, seemingly bumbling rumpled detective, who always smoked a cigar and referred to his wife, was actually a genius, more than a match for the psychopathic narcissistic killers he would eventually outwit - usually brain surgeons, conductors, authors, magicians, and other megalomaniacal professionals. In short, he was an updating of Father Brown, removed from the ecclesiastical English context and transplanted to America. Falk will be much missed. His Columbo will live forever.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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martine
Oh just one more thing.....
That will always make me smile.