Paddy Chayefsky: Marty

Vote the 24th best picture of all time and written by a guy who once lived in KV.
That's something.

Paddy Chayefsky: Part 2 Of Interview

Some of the interesting comments posted on youtube with this clip

man what i would give to sit down and talk with this man...such a brilliant mind, constantly spouting strong, intelligent thoughts and ideas...

I wonder what Paddy would think of the Internet. I'm sure that he would praise it as a means for anyone to not only express themselves but also be able to search and find information and not necessarily rely on the old established outlets that only give you a limited perspective on a story. But I'm sure he'd have other opinions about it as well. I wish he were still alive today and still writing powerful satire.

And he's not the only one who has been saying it for a long time. There's McLuhan and Postman and Chomsky, they all speak of the isolationist, apathy inducing effects of the medium configuration. I wonder why we haven't been paying attention to these dozens of very important intellectuals telling us about the dangers of our post literate televised culture? Guess.

The uncritical interaction with mediums and ignorance of process over content is the root of most of our current problems.

Granted, but to be fair I think that in many cases, guys like Chomsky and McLuhan were so far ahead of the curve that at one time their ideas sounded quite bizarre. Many if not most people found McLuhan's books totally incomprehensible, and large chunks of them are still beyond a lot of people even today. What will this world be like when we've caught up with McLuhan (assuming that ever happens)?

Who's Who In Knickerbocker Village History: Paddy Chayefsky

Meeting and interviewing Phil was great but it had to take back seat over meeting a fellow KVer at the Brooklyn College adult course on LES history. I was talking to the class about Knickerbocker Village and a gentlemen raises his hand and says,"You should read the Knickerbocker Village blog." The gentlemen was none other but Cliff Gromer's old pal Gene Reiser. Only a short while ago Gene sent me a pic of the KV water tower sign to post. Gene was a wealth of new KV history info. To me, the prize was the fact that Paddy Chayefsky once lived there. I have to get more specifics from Gene, but I would guess Chayefsky lived there sometime after he returned stateside after WW2
from a biography

Sidney “Paddy” Chayefsky (January 29, 1923 – August 1, 1981), real name Sidney Aaron Chayefski of Ukrainian Jewish parentage, was an acclaimed dramatist who transitioned from the golden age of American live television in the 1950s to have a successful career as a playwright and screenwriter for Hollywood.
He was born in the Bronx, New York. He studied at the City College of New York and Fordham University and served in the army during World War II, during which he was awarded a Purple Heart.
He began writing for a living in the 1940s. His work on Marty, first as a live production for television in 1953 and then for film two years later, gave him his first major success. The film, starring Ernest Borgnine, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Chayefsky’s work on that and other teleplays inspired comparisons with Arthur Miller, and he received an Academy Award for his work on the screenplay. He focused on screenplays after the success with Marty, with films such as The Goddess (for which he received an Oscar nomination) and The Bachelor Party. In the 1960s his writing credits included The Americanization of Emily and Paint Your Wagon. He went on to win two more Oscars for his work on The Hospital (1971) and the film for which he best known, Network, for both of which he also received Golden Globe awards. His last screenplay was based on his novel Altered States, though on the film he was credited under his real first and middle name, Sidney Aaron, because of disputes with the director. He is known for his comments during the 1977 Oscar telecast after Vanessa Redgrave, when she went to accept her award for Best Supporting Actress in Julia, made a controversial speech denouncing Zionism by the Israeli government. He made a comment during the program immediately after hers in which he stated that he was upset by her using the event to make an irrelevant political viewpoint during a film award program. He said, “I would like to suggest to Miss Redgrave that her winning an Academy Award is not a pivotal moment in history, does not require a proclamation and a simple ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed.” Paddy Chayefsky died in New York City of cancer in 1981 and was interred in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York