Sleeping Through The Holocaust

Number 9 off Peart Avenue
Number 9 off Peart Avenue

We walked over to Kathy’s yesterday but she wasn’t home. We met the brand new baby, Vida, in her mother’s arms on the front stoop of the house next door and then wandered around the neighborhood. This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city, so laid back it feels like vacation homes unless someone tries driving an ambulance into the bay.

I was hoping Ken Burns wouldn’t use Peter Coyote again as the narrator for his “The US and the Holocaust” series. As intense and disturbing as the material is, Coyote’s cadence puts me to sleep. We had just watched the 1999 version of The Haunting where Liam Neeson rounds up insomniacs for a sleep study in an old house plagued by paranormal special effects. Bruce Dern was the best thing about that movie but he was only in it for a few minutes. Coyote has a cure for insomnia. The Ken Burns footage of Hitler, Lindbergh and “The Radio Priest” made it clear how little has changed.

1 Comment

One Reply to “Sleeping Through The Holocaust”

  1. Once I recorded an audiobook at a studio where Peter Coyote does a lot of voice work and the engineer told me PC never wanted to look at the documentaries he was narrating. He just read the script and left it up to the editors to sync it properly. I can’t verify this but it might explain the somnambulant effect. I happen to be a fan of his (see Polanski’s Bitter Moon for proof of acting skills) and appreciate his local activism.

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