Double Trouble: Natacha Atlas + Buzzcocks

Natacha Atlas, "Kidda" (1997).



Buzzcocks, "I Believe" (1979) -- Kierkegaard vs. Kierkegaard.

Friday's most definitely in the pipeline . . .

Tall Tales and the History of Reality or: Never Two Without Three

I love to make discoveries about place names, to get at origins and stories about them. Take Tarrant County, "home" of Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas, USA as of 2011 in the "Common Era." I don't write this facetiously but more as a reminder that what we now call part of Texas has at one time or another been under the sway or claim of various prehistoric groups, France, the Comancheria, various tribes, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America; in other words, what seems eternal may not and probably will not remain so in the long run. In fact, the present Governor (Rick Perry) has "threatened" to secede from the Union -- for the second time!

I checked two sources about Tarrant County's namesake and it turns out they are at considerable odds about even basic "facts." First, take Michael A. Beatty's County Name Origins of the United States (2001): Edward H. Tarrant (1796-1858) - a native of North Carolina, Tarrant moved with his family to Tennssee at an early age and served in the army under General Andrew Jackson in actions against the Indians and in the War of 1812. In 1835 he immigrated to Texas, became involved in the Texas Revolution and served in the congress of the Republic of Texas. Tarrant served with the Texas Rangers guarding Texas' northwestern frontier and was a brigadier-general on May 22, 1841, when forces under his command attacked Indians on Village Creek, six miles east of today's Fort Worth. The attack was successful and helped open the present Tarrant County County area of Texas to White settlers . . . This county was created on December 20, 1849" (p. 539).

Compare the first with the second version, put forth by the Handbook of Texas Online:

TARRANT, EDWARD H. (1799–1858). Edward H. (possibly for Hampton) Tarrant was born in South Carolina in 1799. It appears that during the War of 1812 he was living in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. By the early 1820s he was in Henry County, Tennessee, where he was elected a colonel of militia in the new frontier environment. In 1825 he helped organize the first Masonic lodge in Paris, Tennessee, and by 1827 he had become sheriff of Henry County. He was a resident of Henderson County, Tennessee, from 1829 to the early 1830s, when he moved to Texas, possibly by way of Mississippi. Tarrant apparently established his household of relatives, hired men, and slaves in Red River County, Texas, by November 23, 1835; on February 2, 1838, he received a league and labor of land from the Republic of Texas as part of a uniform grant made to all heads of families resident in Texas on March 2, 1836. There is no record of his participation in the Texas Revolution. . . Tarrant practiced law, engaged in farming, and took a leading role in the militia's activity against the Indians while he was chief justice; when he resigned from the post on May 30, 1839, he was one of the most prosperous men in Red River County. He was elected by popular vote on November 18, 1839, as commander, carrying the rank of brigadier general, of an organization of Northeast Texas defenders known as the Fourth Brigade. His Indian-fighting career culminated in the battle of Village Creek in May 1841. In 1847 Tarrant ran for lieutenant governor, but he was defeated by John Alexander Greer . . . [TARRANT, EDWARD H.," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta11), accessed April 05, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association].

How about the Battle of Village Creek in 1841?  Here is the Handbook of Texas online version, considerably more detailed and very different from the first version: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/btv01
Certainly this sentence is interesting: "The Texans were routed. Tarrant, learning from the prisoners that the villages were home to over 1,000 warriors, decided to withdraw."

Moral: two sources are usually not enough to figure out "the history of reality," not by a long shot. This is where archaeology comes in, among other approaches. At this point, I don't even know if Tarrant was orginally from North Carolina or South Carolina or born in 1796 or 1799 . . . and so on.  

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Walker Percy: A Documentary Film by Win Riley

If you're interested in Walker Percy, writers, writing, novels, essays, New Orleans, philosophical exploration, religion, arriving at a Catholic worldview, Existentialism, families with a history of suicide, life on Earth, humanity, "the possibility of the search," Shelby Foote, or any of the above, you would very probably like Walker Percy: A Documentary Film by Win Riley (2011). I certainly did.

I hope to write in more detail about this thoughtful production, but in the meantime, here's a link to the official website:

http://www.walkerpercymovie.com/about.html

Individual people can order it directly via here (which I did recently) for $20.00 (or $250 for institutional purchases):

http://www.walkerpercymovie.com/buythedvd.html

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Global This in Russian and German

Now let's turn to two more global-reaching cultural perspective generators, one Russian and one German, both broadcasting in English and other languages. Above: yes, that's David Bowie on the cover of Esquire Russia. Want to check it out? Try here: http://esquire.ru/

First, let's take RT, begun in 2005 as Russia Today. RT being to Russia Today what BP is to British Petroleum (and that orginated a century ago as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company). That is, it has joined Logo Land in the world of competition.  

Philip Seib: "In times past, 'showing you are somebody' often meant flexing your military muscle, so relying on television rather than armies can be considered progress."

In introducing Russia Today/RT, Seib in turn quotes Svetlana Mironyuk: "'Unfortunatley, at the level of the mass conciousness in the West, Russia is associated with three words: communism, snow, and poverty. We would like to present a more complete picture of life in our country.'" (Seib, The Al Jazeera Effect, p. 38).

Seib goes on to describe Russia Today/RT: "The product is professionally slick and features a subtle but distinctly Putinesque view of the world. Many news consumers presumably recognize how the game is played and judge the information they receive accordingly." (Ibid., p. 39) Judge for yourself, if you wish: http://rt.com/

The German "product" comes via Deutsche Welle, which literally means German Wave.  Pertinently in The Al Jazeera Effect, Philip Seib quotes Cristoph Lanz: "There are more viewers watching it [Deutsche Welle] in the English language than German . . . If you have a mission statement to reach out to the world, then you have to reach across the language gap" (p. 40). DW has a drop-down menu for translation into thirty languages. Here's a link:  http://www.dw-world.de/

Even becoming aware of all these alternatives, I'm starting to feel like Thomas Jerome Newton, the Bowie character and alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth who simultaneously scans across huge banks of TVs, mesmerized by our world's goings-on. Once you're in, there seems to be no way out -- might as well enjoy the ride.

Above: Marianne Faithfull, "Broken English" (1979).

Today's Rune: Harvest.

France 24

After revisiting Philip Seib's The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics [and Culture] (2008), I'm exploring other international networks in addition to Al Jazeera. It's very important to garner multiple global perspectives, something that is hard to find on American corporate-controlled media. It's hard to be be serious about the world when every commercial news story is punctuated by inane ads for pharmaceuticals most people don't need and cars most can't afford, or dominated by shrill politicos who like things on TV exactly as they are - a lot of stupid chatter, a lot of screaming, and a lot of breaks for more ads. That is, ample proof of the truth in two prophetic statements made in the 1960s: Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the message" (1964) and Andy Warhol's "in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" (1968). 

In The Al Jazeera Effect, Seib quotes Ulysse Gosset, one of the developers of France 24, a global network available free via the internet and broadcast in English, French and Arabic: "Today's news channels are part of the global battle in the world. It's as important as traditional diplomacy and economic strength. . . If we have a real desire to communicate around the world, we need to do it with the right medium, and that's English." 

Seib also quotes Alain de Pouzilhac of France 24: "Objectivity doesn't exist in the world. Honesty exists. Impiartiality exists. But objectivity doesn't exist." Pouzilhac discusses worldview and intent and the role of France 24 and French values: "paying more attention to the less well-covered parts of the world, encouraging debate, and emphasizing cultural as well as economic development . . . 'It's the opposite of what the U.S. does. The vision from Washington tries to show that the world is unified, whereas we will try to demonstrate the opposite: that the world has a lot of diversity. Diversity of culture, diversity of religion, and diversity of opinion.'" (pages 36-37).

I am very fortunate to interact with such diversity in all three of these forms every day: the more interaction, the better, in person, through social media and via freely available global services such as France 24. There's nothing to fear but fear itself, and always more to learn. Here's a link to the English language edition:  http://www.france24.com/en/

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Angela Y. Davis: Blues Legacies and Black Feminism

Already with her in spirit despite differences in gender and race, I learned a lot from Angela Y. Davis' Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday (Vintage, 1999, Random House, 1998). Building as it does on Daphne Duval Harrison's Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s (Rutgers, 1988), this work has deepened and broadened my perspective, certainly. In addition to rendering a compelling analytical study of the three major recording artists enumerated in the subtitle (who were also very popular live performers, all with enduring impact) -- and with due consideration and attention given to race, gender and class -- Davis also provides her own very helpful transcriptions of the lyrics of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.

Davis' introduction concludes:

"Finally, I hope this study will inspire readers to listen to the recordings of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday both for pleasure and for purposes of research, and that it will occasion further interdisciplinary studies of the artistic and social contributions of blues and jazz women." (p. xx).

Toward these goals, I've been working on two St. Louis and Chicago-based blues singers of the 1920s and 1930s, Luella Miller and Mary Johnson, mostly listening to their recordings and transcribing their lyrics as sung. Some of the initial results have been posted on this blog. The work of Davis, Harrison and others gives these kinds of studies impetus, direction and added relevance.  

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

Aleksandr Askoldov: Commissar: Take Two

I'd like to try to place Commissar in some kind of context. Aleksandr Askoldov directed only this one film -- for which he was banned from making any other -- but his cinematographer, Valeri Ginzburg, had already worked on movie productions since the 1950s; he continued to do so into the 1990s.

The look and feel of Commissar (remembering that it's in black and white) reminds me in a very good way of works by a number of other great filmmakers and their production teams. For example, Fernando de Fuentes' Mexican Revolution tales; Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini (intense, sometimes surreally-tinged studies of families and people in various tense situations interacting with each other); and Sergio Leone via integration of music, sound effects and action. The story itself has a similar framework as Philippe de Broca's Le Roi de Cœur (1966) with protaganist hiding inside a town or city in between lines, leading the audience to question the sanity of mass humanity. King of Hearts is set in World War One, immediately preceding the Russian Civil War period in which Commissar is set. Whether it influenced Askoldov directly is hard to say: such feelings and worldviews among artists seem to have been part of the convulsive 1960s Zeitgeist, time ghost or spirit of the times -- even before the era's 1968 global crescendo and regardless of country or dialect.   

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Balancing the Books

Every reader I know confronts this issue: how many books can I realistically read in a year? A not unrelated matter: how many books shall I hold onto at one time? As with everything else in life, it's a matter of balance.

After several moves from place to place over the years, boxing books up, unboxing them and shelving them again and again, some time ago it seemed a better balance to keep the size of my library limited in scale. My balancing goal is to maintain a cap on the number of volumes at about 500. Beyond that, extra books must go back into the cultural stream.

I've come to that point again, having to choose which titles must be given up to make room for the new ones.

Above: T.Coraghessan Boyle, The Inner Circle (Viking, 2004).

Below are the other ones I'm sending back into the wider world at the weekend, so far. I enjoyed reading them, and hope others will, too, if they haven't already.

Marly Swick, Paper Wings -- Advanced Uncorrected Proof (1996).
Verso of Proof. Interesting tidbits include this: "$25,000 National Marketing Campaign" (can you imagine that now for a literary novel?); "National Advertising in Hungry Mind Review" and "Midwest Regional Author Tour." These days, authors must do a lot more to edit, publish and market their own work. Spent well, $25,000 would go a long way.


Nanci Kincaid, Pretending the Bed is a Raft: Stories (Delta, 1997).


This was adapted into a good indie movie: Isabel Coixet's My Life Without Me (2003), starring Sarah Polley, Deborah Harry (i.e. Debbie Harry), Maria de Medeiros, Mark Ruffalo and others.

Antonya Nelson, Female Trouble: A Collection of Short Stories (Scribner, 2002).

Antonya Nelson, Talking in Bed (Scribner, 1996).













Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith, Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life (2009).

Because I work in a large library, keeping the size of my personal book collection capped, though demanding diligence, does not require a major psychic sacrifice. Still, I'll miss having these volumes around.

Today's Rune: Partnership.