The Luna Park Gazette

Sometime during 1930s, film director Howard Hawks was hosting a dinner party when the subject of dialogue came up. Hawks, who director such classics as The Big Sleep, Red River , and Bringing Up Baby , took out a copy of The Front Page , a 1928 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, to demonstrate the snappy exchanges between characters. The director, according to IMDB, read the part of newspaper editor Walter Burns, while a female guest read the part of Hildy Johnson—even though the character was a man. Hawks realized the dialogue sounded much better coming from a woman and so he nailed down the film rights, switched the genders and created His Girl Friday , a 1940 comedy classic starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. I’ve seen this film countless times on TV, but I only just found out that after my mother saw the movie in the theater, she wanted to become a reporter just like Rosalind Russell. I discovered this latest fact about my mother yesterday when we were out ce

So, what was I doing in Boise? Boise is the capital city of The Gem State, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Founded in 1863, Boise has roughly 236,000 residents and the downtown area is 2,704 feet above sea level. Downtown Boise’s attractions include the Idaho State Capital,the Egyptian Theatre, and the Boise Art Museum. Sister City to Guernica, Spain, Boise’s most notable people include the actor William Petersen, the musician Paul Revere and the baseball player Bill Buckner. I’ve never been to Boise and I’ve no immediate plans to visit—nothing personal, of course. But Boise has been on my subconscious mind apparently, as The City of Trees played a part in one of two rather weird dreams I had this week. In the first, I was a reporter on a Boise newspaper, and I was friends with a woman who coached a local high school basketball team. I was under the mistaken impression that she was gay and, thus would remain a friend. Only it turned out I was wrong. We wound