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DECEMBER 21, 2017 T he S ag H arbor E xpress PAGE 9 VOICES A CONVERSATION WITH Alec Sokolow The screenwriter Alec Sokolow, who co-wrote “Toy Story,” the first computer-generated animated film, with his long-time writing partner, Alec Cohen, talks about the film and the Sag Harbor Cinema restoration project. B y S teph e n J. K otz \Toy Story\ has been included in the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center's \American Values\ series, joining films like \All the President's Men\ and \Casablanca.\ Isn't that heady company for an animated feature? There are serious themes in “Toy Story.” Go back to “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” the oldest recorded story that’s ever told. It’s ultimately a buddy story. In the case of Gilgamesh, he learns the importance of friendship and camaraderie, that they are more important than selfishness, empire building and war. Buddy stories are a wonderful template to explore certain themes about community and core human needs. There’s also a sort of Cain and Abel idea, a Biblical kind of idea, two toys and one boy: What’s the real value? We’re bet ter together than we are apart. Then you’ve got Woody, who is a cowboy, and Buzz Lightyear, who’s a spaceman. Those are two classic American archetypes. So I take it, you like the film? Absolutely. The movie is a life-and-career defining mo ment for me. Like a lot of things in life, you don’t realize it when it’s happening. You only realize it afterward. But I stand in awe that somehow I was involved in the birth of that film, which has stood the test of time. The charac- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ters are well defined and the themes are well defined. Isn't Sid a dark villain for a children's movie? One of the key moments is when Andy’s toys look out the window and see Sid blow up an army toy. It was important to establish this early in the film as the ulti mate evil for a toy. In “Star Wars,” there’s a moment when Darth Vader and the Death Star blow up a planet, and you get to see that through Luke and Princess Leia’s eyes. We stole that idea for Sid. So, if you look at him purely as a function of Buzz and Woody’s needs as charac ters, he was the perfect vil lain, but yes, very dark in his underpinnings. Why did you have the toys reveal their hidden lives to Sid? We had long debates TH E SU RVEY SNAPSHOT Mia and Martin Milazzo and Kate Deleski wave to Santa, brought to Sag Harbor courtesy of the Sag Harbor Fire Department, on Saturday in this snapshot captured by Lorraine Milazzo. SMALL TOWN CRANK B y L a w r e n c e L arose Watch Your Mouth The d isaster agency word dump This week 28 of you responded to our online survey. This is what you had to say. Eastern Long Island's weekly newspapers have joined together to form the East End News Project for the purpose of reporting and writing stories about one of the most important issues of the day: opioid abuse and overdose deaths in our communities. What reporting would you like to see on this issue? • Remember to be sensitive to the siblings of the addicts. They have to deal while maybe their brother or sister are incarcerated. • We need to know more about counseling and rehab centers for our addicts and help for our youths. • If you saw the 60 Minutes program on this issue, you would have learned that Congress stopped the DEA from going after the distributors of these drugs. And how about the doctors who prescribe the drugs? America is insincere about drug abuse. • Number of deaths, ages, circumstances, drug busts and name dealers with photos. The only way to convince young people NOT to go this route is to expose this. Every article can mention groups involved with drug addiction recovery. This paper's Pollyanna coverage, with little pecadillos in the police blotter white washes reality and hides a crisis. • I want to know facte: Now com mon opioid use is, especially among youth, how it links to other drugs (the gateway theory), and what par ents can do to keep their kids safe. I'd also like to see honest political linkages to the disgraceful role of the pharmaceutical lobby, and how we can combat that. No more shame: Let's learn and act. • How it's being dealt with...law enforcement etc • Open and honest. This com munity (and this country) suffer from an acceptance of a cultural and generational norm, one where alcohol abuse and \partying\ are common place; where \relief comes from taking something. No one starts with heroin. It's an end game when other substances don't take the edge off. • Other than through unwitting medical \professionals how are the drugs getting here? • I don't think reporting on it does a damn thing. It's not reaching the people that need it. I'm not claiming to have any answers but energy directed toward writing articles about it seems misguided. I s o loved that hor rible, old, stinky movie theater. I so loved that place, and the fire was such a shock. about what the rules were with the film. One of them was the toys are alive and functional only when the humans can’t see them. And can you break any rules and i f so, how many times? We decided we could do it once. So at the very end, Woody looks at Sid and talks to him. Think if Sid was an actual human being and he had the experience of a toy talking to him and he had to go back to his family and try to explain! What does the Sag Harbor Partnership's cinema project mean to you? I so loved that horrible, old, stinky movie theater. ,1 so loved that place, and the fire was such a shock. It was just such a loss to me. When I moved here full time, that the ater was one of the places I knew to give me comfort — the movies that were going to show up there, the foreign movies, the independent movies, that Sag Harbor had this funky little cultural place that had this crazy cultural his tory. It was just so sad. And now I look at what April [Gornik] and the group have done. Even from the peanut gallery where I sit, I’m just in awe of it. There is this heartbeat of culture in Sag Harbor. I feel it as a writer. I feel it as a person. I feel that Sag Harbor is just oddly funkier and cooler than some of the other surrounding towns because o f its history and its culture. Now, there’s an opportunity to show the movies that might not get screened elsewhere. The idea I can be part o f this in the smallest way that helps get that theater back up and running is really (tool to me. It hits at my core. Toy Story” will be shown as part o f the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center's “American Values ’’ series at Pierson High School at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Mr. Sokolow will be on hand to answer ques tions about the film. Admission is free. For more information, visit sagharborcinema.org. B erhaps the bright lights of Hanukkah and Christ mas have pulled our attention away from the country’s continued lurching toward totalitarian ism. Silly us! Thankfully the Thought Police came up with a list of banned words for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid. These words include “science-based,” “transgender,” and “vulnerable.\ Oh, and “fetus,” which only refers to everyone, everywhere at some point...so you know it’s a dangerous word. Some have called this “Fake News,” but it’s a little more nuanced: CDC’s policy analysts were encouraged to avoid these words in their attempts to get funding. You know, because words like “entitlement” and “diversity” scare the bejeesus out of some people. At first blush, this Orwellian censorship seems nefari ous and intellectually compromising. But since we live in intellectually com promised times, there’s a few more words we should ban. Here’s a start: DEDUCTION Deduce this: the parity party is over! Deductions are over. Like to help peo ple in need, give to various charities? Good for you, but that’s your problem. No more line item. Same for those mov ing expenses if you just scored a new fracking job in Laramie. For everyone else, your best bet is to legally change your name to Lockheed Martin and itemize yourself silly. RETIREMENT Forget it. Forget you ever knew this word. It’s meaningless and superflu ous. The loss of State and Local tax deductions, the reduction in Medicare and Medicaid. Social Security will be taken back next. Rather than bemoan what might have been, buy some sensible shoes: it’s a long day on your feet as a Costco greeter. HEALTH CARE This is one of those words that should be eradicated be cause people commonly misinterpret what it means. Many mistakenly think they are going to receive care and get healthy. Not so. The current system is designed to teach people patience while their blood pressure spikes, being grateful for what you receive rather than what you paid for, and taking proper care o f Pharmaceutical CEOs. DISEASE CONTROL Disease has long been battled with methods that are “science based” and “evidence based,” if you’ll forgive the used to two newly banned words. And guess what, we still have disease! Clearly there is no control. In the future, ini tiatives at the Department o f Health and Human Services will be “emotion based” to create a comprehensive plan of “disease observation.” This will be followed by a “feelings based” review and unintentional self-annihilation on RETIREMENT Forget it. Forget you ever knew this w ord. It's m eaningless and superfluous. grand scale. ELITES A favorite epithet of the alt-right, coal-chewing Tiki torch crowd. They like to sneer at those who have made it up a rung or two on the economic ladder. This reverse condescension tries to shame a particular class of people, namely those who through study, hard work, and perse verance have made something of themselves. Not to be confused with the Elitists, who inherited all their money from Daddy. ETHNIC CLEANSING Cleaning is a good thing, right? Throwing Rohingyan babies into bonfires is bad; even questionable Nobel Lau reate Aung San Suu Kyi should know that. To refer to the expulsion and murder of Armenians, Serbs, Jews or any other group is not cleansing. It should be called what it is: Genocide. FAKE NEWS “The lie is the future,\ said famed striptease artist Jacques Derrida, and he could not be more right. We live in a hall of mirrors of misrepresentation and willed misinterpretation. All news is Fake News, unless it says something really complimentary about you. Then it’s real. PUERTO RICO Hurricane Maria dealt a devastat ing blow to an already struggling American territory, leaving many to wonder, “Where’s the rico in Puerto Rico? Indeed, the riches seem to be in the rearview mirror, and pobre times ahead. The island is desperate, lacking basic necessities like water, and clearly unhealthy in its deprivations. Pleas for help go largely ignored or begrudgingly granted. Hence forth it will be called Delta Airlines Economy Class. LOCAL Who died and made you an-American Indian? Pride of place is socially cohesive, but it’s kind of comical to sug gest one voice is more valid than another based on time of arrival. It’s a lot like family: it’s not exclusively genetic or geographic; it’s who shows up. Look no further than the amazing resurrection o f the. Sag Harbor Cinema, an inspir ing effort achieved by relative new comers, old timers and everything in between. Clearly this is just a start. There are a great multiplicity o f view points in the human experience. Each has a few words it doesn’t like and might be inclined to ban. Assem bling all those lists into one big gang ban will streamline our language to just the nice words. That would be double plus good. YESTERDAY'S EXPRESS a LAWRENCE LAROSE is a builder and a writer. 125 Years Ago December 22,1892 .For some time past our village has been nearly free of petty thieves, but Wednesday night of last week there was another outbreak, when Wilson’s saloon was entered, by the back door, the thief taking a small amount of change which had been left in the drawer, a few cigars and some bottled goods. lOOYaars Ago December 20,1917 The Joseph Fahys Watch- case Company was busy the first of this week cutting seven inch ice on Round and Long Ponds. The boys of the local branch of the State Guards made quite a stir on our streets Tuesday night, while walking about with their guns. 75 Years Ago December 24.1942 Seventy years ago, on Sun day, December 15,1972, the present St. Andrew Church of this village was dedicat ed. The first Bishop of Brook lyn, Rt. Rev. John Loughlin, presided at the High Mass at 10:30 o’clock and preached at the Mass again in the evening at 7 o’clock when the Vespers were sung. The church was filled on both occasions. Rev. John J. Hef- fernan, pastor 1871-1868, built the church and the present Rectory of St. An drew which was opened at the same time. 50 Years Ago December 21,1967 To open the 1967 season the Pierson Whalers trav eled to Mattituck in their first league game. With a veteran team this year composed of five starting seniors, the Whalers got off to a fine start. Robert Vacca hit for the first two points and Pierson maintained the lead for the duration of the game. In the first quarter, Vacca shqt yepy v/gll ojp the 20-foot jump shots. The big punch that attributed to the Pierson rout came from the high leaping rebounding of Earl Haye and Phil Carney and the dynamic hustling of Bob Karl and Paul Benfield. 25 Yean Ago December 24,1992 Last weekend’s nor’easter left millions of dollars worth of damage in its wake in Southampton Town alone. To assess the exact dam age and recommend what steps the town should take in addressing the storm’s aftermath, the Town Board agreed last week to hire a consulting engineer with coastal expertise. Fire Chief Ken Jones, the town’s Emergency Pre paredness Coordinator, estimated $1.45 million in structure damages, which includes roads and prop erty. Jones said 30 homes were destroyed, 29 on Dune Road in Westhampton and one in East Quogue. Also, seven homes were seriously damaged. Jones estimates that 2,000 homes, 10 major businesses and seven minor businesses were damaged. 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