Have you ever gone to a movie or a play or read a book on a subject you know something about and experienced a moment when you realize the people behind the work actually know nothing about the subject?
Those moments takes us entirely out of the moment.
I know I have.
Reading Robert Kanigel’s biography of JANE JACOBS, “EYES ON THE STREET” I met those moments often, Too often.
The one with the most impact for me is found on page 289: “they’d drop by en masse at Cineforum, a former porn house, now an art movie center on Bloor Street to see Buster Keaton and Marx Brothers movies.”
It was not on Bloor Street. It was on the east side of Yonge Street just north of Bloor at the end of Yorkville which was then an exciting place to be.
Nor had it been a former porn house nor was it called Cineforum.
It was 39 steps above a pool hall.
I could have called THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS after the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film.
I called it THE PUBLIC ENEMY after the 1931 picture which had made James Cagney a star though not for that reason.
This book is like someone taking what is called today a Jane Jacobs walk.
City sponsored Jane Jacobs walks have tour guides.
A real Jane Jacobs walk doesn’t.
A city sponsored Jane Jacobs walk goes to all the conventional places.
A genuine Jane Jacobs walk goes to all the unconventional places.
This is why, for me, this book, though wonderful for what it does offer, misses the mark set by its subject.
It is wonderful for the look it offers into Jane Jacobs before I met her, particularly her youth.
I met three remarkable women in 1968.
Jane was the first.
Judith Merril, the mother of modern SF (Science/Speculative Fiction) was the second.
Winifred Barton, practically an unknown, was the third.
All three changed my life for the better.
For more on that read my self published THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED ROCHDALE.
The most impossible to see of the MARX BROTHERS films was, at that time their second, ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930).
When Universal Pictures (who now own the pre-1948 sound Paramount Pictures library) finally cleared the rights in 1970 I was able to show it.
To my surprise Jane’s daughter, Burgin, showed up alone.
Reading this book I learned Burgin’s birth name was Mary. Kanigel writes she changed it to Burgin in the 1970s.
I always knew Burgin as Burgin.
I sent Burgin home to get Jane. I held up the screening until, about half an hour later, Jane arrived. This was at Rochdale College.
I did not then know Jane as the author THE DEATH AND LIFE.
I knew her as a friend first.
Burgin later told me she had gotten tired of always coming to my programs with her mother. When Jane asked her what I was showing Burgin would say, “Nothing.”
From that moment on I dropped off flyers for my programs at Jane’s home.
Kanigel missed the opportunity to talk with someone who has been described as “Everything Jane Jacobs wrote about in THE DEATH AND LIFE.”
Too bad for him.
Jane highlighted the importance of standing up.
Ed Keenan, of THE STAR, said to me, “Reg, you are the only person in Toronto who stands up.”
Toronto is a dying city.
Douglas Hartt, my uncle, served as Director General of Public Works Canada in the government of Pierre Trudeau.
He said my work more than warranted government support. When I told him I did not want it he said, “You are crazy.”
One day he said, “There is only one person I want to meet.”
I said, “Who?”
He said, “Jane Jacobs.”
I said, “She is my friend. I will introduce you to her.”
That he refused to allow me to do.
His loss.
There is a telling moment in Robert Fulford’s THE ACCIDENTAL CITY Kanigel missed.
It comes when he describes a row of houses out to be bulldozed
Someone says, “Under the law they cat bulldoze them if the hoarding is not up.”
There is a pause.
Then Jane begins to tear the hoarding down.
At that moment everyone else does the same.
So what did Kanigel miss?
He missed the moment when everyone could say in court after the act to shift blame from themselves, “Jane started it.”
Yes, she did.
When forces in Toronto began to move on myself for the kill I asked Jane’s son Jim to stand with me.
Jim said, “This storm will pass.”
That was decades ago.
Jim said, “I had no idea it would last this long. I’m not a political person.”
Neither am I.
However when I see the need to stand up I do.
Annie Besant was an atheist. She said, “Someone ought to do it, but why should I? Someone ought to do it, so why not I? Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution.”
Annie’s right.
Henry Miller, in an essay titled AN OPEN LETTER TO SURREALISTS EVERYWHERE (published in THE COSMOLOGICAL EYE) wrote, “Whenever an English artist of any value arises he is seen as Public Enemy Number One.”
Intuitively I was on the right track when I named my first venue THE PUBLIC ENEMY.
“I had wonderful teachers in the first and second grades who taught me everything I know. After that, I’m afraid, the teachers were nice, but they were dopes…I have a lack of ideology, and not because I have an animus against any particular ideology; it’s just that they don’t make sense to me…they get in the way of thinking. I don’t see what use they are…University and uniformity, as ideals, have subtly influenced how people thought about education, politics, economics, government, everything…We are misled by universities and other intellectual institutions to believe that there are separate fields of knowledge. But it’s clear there are no separate fields of knowledge. It is a seamless web.”-Jane Jacobs
Yes, it is.
–Reg Hartt 2024–09–07
Dopes: Wonderful school teachers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-8WF_Ke1_8
We are mislead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcipVOZsdJw
Incompetent by time we are prepared: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUQYpbqHXE4
Jane Jabobs on writing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlhX3oQkmOE&t=24s
Speak about what you want
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymeD-jRVZV8
The economy of cities
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_M8cuMK_zY
Death And Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVHvqTNxtFw
Cities and wealth of nations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEabVr7IQ_Y
Toronto alternative-theatre founder stands up to bullying threats – The Globe and Mail
“Reg Hartt had an incredible impact on the city. No one else is doing it. No one else has ever done it.”–Rob Salem.
I honestly believe Reg Hartt is the greatest teacher I know for only he teaches the evil of teaching. Well, not only he. For confirmation of everything he has been saying all along read David Mamet’s book TRUE AND FALSE.”—Emo Philips
“REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph over the banal and soporific of the original and provoking.”—Michael Valpy, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“Reg Hartt speaks like Neal Cassady drove a bus.”—Joe Fiorito. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/09/15/fiorito_we_gotta_have_hartt.html
“REG HARTT is what living in a metropolis is all about. He personifies the city as a meeting place of ideas, as a feast of experience and discussion and debate, as a triumph of the original and provoking over the banal and soporific.”—Michael Valpy, THE GLOBE & MAIL
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford recently came to the rescue of Reg Hartt, an individual who had run afoul of the law. Hartt’s violation? As explained by city authorities, he was illicitly running “a place of assembly.” Hartt’s actual crime? He is a non-conformist in a city that makes just about all commercial activities illegal, including those in the home, unless some city bureaucrat says otherwise.
Hartt has been a credit to Toronto for decades. His Cineforum, which screens noteworthy films for small study groups in his living room, has long won acclaim from critics in Canada and abroad and endorsements from Canadian icons such as author Pierre Berton and urban guru Jane Jacobs. Lonely Planet lists 463 Bathurst St, his modest abode on a major Toronto thoroughfare, as among the top 30 sights to see in Toronto and in the top 30 of sights to see in Ontario. That’s quite a credit to the city. Yet although neighbours don’t complain, the city’s Municipal Licensing and Standards department periodically shuts him down.
Lawrence Solomon: Jane Jacobs rules as Ford strikes a blow for film freedom | National Post
A city that sees value in rules, but no value in letting Reg Hartt bend them, has no right to claim Jane Jacobs’ legacy, writes Edward Keenan.
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/06/27/cineforum-deserves-a-happy-ending-to-its-saga-keenan.html
The city should drop its misguided fight against Reg Hartt…
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2016/06/28/the-city-should-leave-cineforum-alone-editorial.html
“I am a friend of Reg Hartt.
“So is anyone who can appreciate a man who teaches the way Neal Cassady drove a bus.
“I mean that, where you have style wrapped around content and tied with a ribbon of beat improvisation, there you have angels.
“Harvey Pekar was an angel.
“And I’ve never met anyone with wings who did not have an ego. Nor is this an easy town for a man who is larger than life, and does not care to suffer fools.
“You might like to know that the friends of Reg Hartt included the non-fool-suffering Jane Jacobs, who knew a thing or two about what, and who, makes life worth living in the city; that’s good enough for me. His philosophy as a teacher of film? “My programs are designed for people without money.” Yeah, but how does he earn enough to pay the rent? “The Lord said, ‘I will take care of you.’ The I Ching says the same thing.” A long time since I met anyone who throws those bones.
The city will do what it will.
And you will permit me an observation: if Martin Sheen can come to town and stand on the picket line with striking hotel workers, why won’t our senior cineastes stand up for Reg Hartt, as the city moves to strike him down?
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2010/09/15/fiorito_we_gotta_have_hartt.html
https://reghartt.ca/cineforum/?p=33438
Paul McGrath, THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Some audience members were visibly distressed by the frequency and force of Hartt’s interjections into the program but it is clearly his chosen way of doing things, and the payoff in information is worth it. He has many good stories to tell: about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s transformation into Mickey Mouse, Disney’s most enduring character; about the furor that greeted the creation of Tweety Pie, which subsided only when the artists painted him yellow; and much valuable technical information for the animation students. He has some interesting tales about Mel Blanc, Warners’ resident genius of voice characterization, as he continues the series with a full scale look at the Warner work of Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, and others. It’s the best work of its kind you will see anywhere because, except in rare oases in the United States and Eastern-Europe, they don’t make them like that anymore.
JULIA SCUTARU, retired journalist, Bucharest, Romania: “In Toronto, I discovered by chance, Cineforum. Pure chance but a fortunate one. In that small room exhaling culture, passion and dedication, I watched the movie TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, an important historical, political and social document., and real artistic achievement….As a journalist (in Romania) I worked in the cultural field, including film reviews. Therefore I came to the Cineforum not just as a movie lover, but as a knowledgeable professional…We live in an era authoritatively dominated by brainwashing and political correctness…I admired Reg Hartt’s courage and passion put in searching out and defending the human truth, the artistic truth, the historical truth; the Truth and unveiling it…Discovering Reg Hartt and his Cineforum was one of the most important events of my visit in Toronto.”
DAVID BEARD, owner CINEBOOKS, quoted in THE TORONTO STAR, Nov. l, l979
“This man has devoted his whole life to bringing the film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him.
GREG WILLIAMS, MA (Ph, D. Candidate), President, University College Film Society, and Chairman of the Subcommittee for film, U. C. Symposium: I wish we had more time to chat together last night about our respective (and mutual) interests in film.
‘Cineforum’ has attained the status of an institution; it represents an achievement of which you should rightly feel proud.
“I can only hope the ‘University College Film Society’ will someday approximate its success and that I will, personally, match your inspired delivery as a master of ceremonies.
“As a newcomer to the business of arranging film programs, so far I am your equal perhaps only in enthusiasm. Thus I find your presentations to be not only exceptional in their content but also edifying in their execution. As an academic (in the field of English) I am also impressed by the high scholarly standard that pervades your informed and witty introductions,
“I frequently wonder if you have ever considered writing a history…some very good books have been written…but no text has dealt with it in a definitive way. A marshaling of your knowledge would, I am certain, produce a very fine volume indeed.”
DOUGLAS ELIUK, education officer NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA, formerly Canada’s Cultural Attache to America. “(REG) Hartt is acknowledged as a phenomenon in the film community. He is someone who does not rely on government grants, subsidies or institutional protection to generate his film activities. He depends entirely on his intelligence, talent and resourcefulness. His events are produced with care and good sense, in a clean and friendly atmosphere and with an almost avuncular consideration for his fans, As a film officer for the National Film Board of Canada for 30 years, I have seldom seen anyone who added so much substance and passion to the cultural fabric of our society as he has done with his lectures and presentations.”
PETER MOORE, British Artist.
“I am a Brit artist. I love Toronto. I have sometimes heard it said that Toronto is boring. It is a comparatively well ordered city. Maybe that is why some imperceptive people think it boring. The thing is I keep having amazing successes in Toronto. My friend Bob Welton who decided he was much happier in Warsaw than in London used to say in London everything is possible and nothing is probable. I just find in Toronto not everything is possible but lots of things, important things, are quite probable. Does this make sense?
“ANYWAY, a wonderful surprise in Toronto is Reg Hartt’s Cineforum. I was walking down Bloor Street with my friend Alan, a composer, a Torontonian who, searching for fulfillment in London, has realized that everything he wanted existed in his original home, Toronto. It was my birthday. He said, “What do you want to do for your birthday?” I said, “I want to go and see that!”
“I was pointing at a mysterious poster for TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, (the film of Hitler’s l934 Nuremberg rally). I’d always wanted to see that.
“So we went and I found myself in the most perfect place on earth to watch a film. With the film was an unexpected treat….a brilliant, unbiased, sensible and stimulating introduction by the amazing Reg Hartt.
“So once again, in German mode, we went to see Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS. Reg had somehow spliced on to the film his own soundtrack. Now this was interesting because a while later we went to the Art Gallery of Ontatio where the same film was shown-much bigger screen-and with piano accompaniment. It was interesting to compare the two showings. Reg’s came out winning.”
http://www.artisgallery.eu/pm/
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