Actor to produce Hemingway film

From Maytag Man to Hemingway…

Former Prairie Villager Mark Devine has led something of a charmed life. His acting career out in LA took an interesting turn a handful of years back, with a stint as the hunky Maytag Apprentice on those ubiquitous TV commercials. That worm turned after the Newton, Iowa-based appliance maker took a dirt nap a few years back.

The latest?

“My new venture as a producer out here,” Devine texts. “We’re doing a film on the last 10 years of Ernest Hemingway’s life called ‘Hemingway and Fuentes.’ Anthony Hopkins is playing ‘Papa,’ with Annette Bening and Andy Garcia as Fuentes, as well as directing.”

There’s more…

“I want to bring investors in as well as Kansas City, knowing that Hemingway got his start at the Star. I know there’s got to be Hemingway fans in KC that would love to be a part of this.”

A pie in the sky? No way!

Showbiz zine Variety is all over the movie, including its recent story under the headline “Bening, Hopkins join Hemingway cast; duo to co-star with Andy Garcia in film.”

Plans call for the movie to begin filming next summer once the financing is complete, Variety reports.

It’s Tipi not Teepee

Kansas City refugees Susan and Bob Hobbs may not have made the cover of the Rolling Stone but they did strike ink in the pages of the Nov. 9 National Enquirer.

Nothing outlandish, mind you.

The couple recently decided to go Native American, sell their home and move into a tipi in the woods six hours south of here in Missouri.

“Some folks envy us and say they wish they could do the same,” Bob tells the Enquirer. “Other folks think we’re nuts.”

The Hobbses plan to heat the tipi with an in-tent fire, but for power and light will employ solar panels, a cell phone and wireless Internet, the Enquirer reports. That along with raising chickens, goats and cattle for food and growing wheat and vegetables.

The floor of the tipi will be covered with rugs.

“It won’t be as warm as a house but we’ll be wearing plenty of clothes and have warm beds,” Susan tells the Enquirer. 

BTW, Susan is a graphic designer who plans to continue to work via her laptop. And the couple is chronicling their (mis)adventure on the Web site hickoryhollow homestead.com and subsidizing their experience by selling ads on the site.

“Do you like our blog? It’s easy to support Hickory Hollow Homestead ...  just click on one of our ads when you feel like shopping,” reads a pitch above an ad for Old Time Candy.

Then there’s the matter of tipi versus teepee…

Tipi would appear to be a more authentic spelling of the word that defines a “tent of the American Indians, made usually from animal skins laid on a conical frame of long poles and having an opening at the top for ventilation and a flap door.”

And while the word “teepee” suffices, it also passes for toilet paper and the art of festooning trees and shrubbery in residential yards with same. 

The Hobbses could not be reached for this column.

Nortons revisited?

Once upon a time there was a basement blues club in Westport called Blayney’s and a local blues band called The Nortons.

But a funny thing happened on the way into the first part of the 21st century. The party types that packed Westport and Blayney’s grew long in the tooth and took up golf and Fox News. And the Gen X, Y and Z crowd decided to hang in the burbs and/or drop their dough in the Power & Light District, Martini Corner, Plaza and/or Waldo. 

Adios Blayney’s and adios Nortons…

Which brings us to Sunday nights at Hannibal’s Waldo Bar & Grille and what passes for the new Nortons, the Kim Osborne Band featuring Nortons ax man John Brandsgard.

“We do some of the Nortons songs but we’ve got lots of songs,” Osborne says. “We started playing together this spring. This is our second Sunday at Hannibal’s and we’ve got twice as many people here as last week, so that’s OK.”

Osborne’s day job: “I’m a mom with four kids,” she says.

What to expect out of her powerful pipes?

“Well, I’m a big fan of Linda Ronstadt and I like Patsy Cline, Etta James and Bonnie Raitt,” Osborne says. “We do a little bit of everything – blues, rock ’n’ roll and country.”

Her signature song: Janis Joplin’s “Total Blues” and “anything by Aretha Franklin.”

The Nortons influence aside, it’s not a blues show, Osborne says.

“You know we do the Pretenders, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones – you know, everything.”

Now a little something for the trivia buffs…

The origin/source/meaning of the name Nortons? Something about it being the band’s inside joke equivalent of the word “hooters.”

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