The Entertainer (Ragtime)

I rewatched The Sting recently. I have a few observations about it. Okay, mainly two. One, what a great movie, I never get bored watching it. I could start it again now and still be entertained. Two, what a great score the film has! Maybe nowadays it's actually more famous than the movie itself. Composed by Scott Joplin in the early XXth century, arranged by Marvin Hamlisch for the movie, it's just so perfectly atmospheric. So anyway, since I was thinking I share too little music on Vraie Fiction these days and since this is in my head a lot, I am sharing today The Entertainer. My brothers and I used to listen to it endlessly playing poker when we were teenagers. True story. But not with real money.

Joliet, Illinois (a crime fiction post)

 From time to time, I rewatch beloved old classic movies, because I love to revisit them and rediscover old things about them. I saw on Netflix that The Sting was available, so I started watching it again. I love, love, love this caper, it made me discover Robert Redford, Paul Newman and... poker (more on the latter in this post). Anyway, I was watching the movie and it struck me that it starts in the city of Joliet, Illinois. And that it might be the only thing I know about Joliet: it's featured in The Sting. Okay, so most of the action is set in the most famous and infamous Chicago, but I like when a work of crime fiction shed light on a lesser known place. Lesser known to someone like me who is not from the US anyway.

Poker and Blackjack

I found this box in the local toy shop. Because it does not only have kids' toys and games. Don't worry, I did not buy it. For two reasons: at £16.99 the price was steep and wel, I'm not a gambler anyway. I did, however, play both blackjack and poker, but never for real money. Blackjack with a friend, and barely any, but I grew a fascination for poker after watching The Sting. My brothers and I used to play for hours with some friends, while listening to the movie's score. I don't think we played very well, or following the rules much if at all. I don't think we ever played Texas hold'em. But we had fun all the same. I'd love to play it like this again, just for fun, with music in the background. Anyway, I saw this box and it gave me a solid trip down nostalgia lane.

Pari-Manie

Durant notre enfance, mes frères et moi ainsi que nos amis de notre rue avons beaucoup joué aux jeux de société. C'était une autre époque, avant l'invasion des jeux vidéos. Il y en a un en particulier, pas très bon, que l'on a malgré tout beaucoup aimé: Pari-Manie. Il n'était pas très bon, parce que c'était un jeu de société composé d'une série de jeux de hasard: le poker, le blackjack, les dés, la machine à sous, etc. Je l'avais demandé et reçu en cadeau à Noël à la suite d'une publicité assez mauvaise que vous pouvez voir sur YouTube. J'imagine que j'étais facilement impressionnable. Toujours est-il qu'on a passé des après-midis et des soirées à jouer à Pari-Manie. Sans doute parce que c'était simple à comprendre et que même jeune on est attiré par l'appât du gain et le risque de parier, même si ce n'est pas des vrais dollars. Je rejouerais bien juste pour voir.

Card games and me

Fellow blogger Debra from She Who Seeks is learning bridge and reading about it on her blog made me think of my own troubled report with card games. To sum it up, I generally suck at them and consequently I really don't like playing them either. I don't remember playing bridge, but I do have memory of trying to learn cribbage (or crib as we called it) with a friend (cribbage? How lame is that? Even the name sound dull!) who for some unknown reasons was really into it and being so darn hopeless that we stopped playing altogether. He turned out schizophrenic, which might explain why he thought crib was so the epitome of cool and sophistication. I also remember reading the rules of Canasta, I believe it was at school, and finding the name very dull as well. Then there was solitaire or patience as I knew it, which I quite liked, because it was simple to understand and well, you could play alone. When it comes to cards, what I like the most are the look of the cards themselves, if that makes sense. Jacks, Queens, Kings, Aces, they look quite elegant and sophisticated (unlike a crib board, which is really ugly).

I also vaguely remember playing or at least learning about Blackjack, which is also fairly easy to understand. And there was poker of course, which remains to this day my favourite card game, even though I very rarely play it, have never truly played it (read: I never played for money) and, furthermore I have never been very good at it. I guess not playing for money was either a blessing or it prevented me to be truly motivated and become a decent player. I will try to write a full post about poker in the near future, suffice to say for now that I started enjoying this particular card game all thanks to a certain classic movie where it is heavily featured. As a young teenager I had developed a fascination for The Sting and partially to enjoy the film more I had started learning about poker hands and so on. But I digress. I still cannot find interest in card games. But I still like the look of the cards in a deck.

Solace

I thought about uploading a piece of music for tonight, from Scott Joplin. Most will remember it as part of the soundtrack of The Sting, a classic crime movie and one of my favourite. Joplin's ragtime classics were rearranged and played by Marvin Hamlisch. My father had an old record of the score, which my brothers and I used to play over and over again... playing poker. I used not to care too much about Solace when I was younger, now I love its melancholic feel. Perfect for any quiet night.