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I remember arriving at Albi on a local train. The conductor spoke in drawling French, deliberately enough so that I could more easily understand him with the help of a small dictionary. The walk into city center from the station was a hike, a good way to take in the basic layout with amazement at the history evidenced in its architecture and settlement patterns. Beautiful and alive.
Some of Albi's history has been violent -- the Albigensian Crusade, a power struggle pitting the Catholic status quo vs. Cathari "heretics," ended up with the proto-Protestant challengers crushed and many examples made via autos-da-fé, culminating in public burnings at the stake -- but that was eight hundred years ago.
Photo caption: Panorama of Albi, at [an] early time in the morning, featuring the old city and Sainte-Cécile cathedral in the middle, the bridge of 22nd of August 1944 on the left, and the Pont Vieux (old bridge) on the right. Photographer: Benh Lieu Song. Date: June 27, 2009 (Wikimedia Commons).
Today's Rune: Growth.
Woody Allen's new hit Midnight in Paris triggered a bunch of good memories about traveling around Paris and the French hinterlands. Given that Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (played by Vincent Menjou Cortes) appears in the film, it reminds me of tramping through Albi in the South of France and exploring the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec à Albi. Fantastic, both! Albi has a nearly 1000-year old bridge and other spectacular architecture -- and the city only has a little more than 50,000 inhabitants. Upon arriving, you know you're not in Kansas anymore, certainly. The museum is spectacular. I'd recommend it and all of Albi to anyone roaming around the region. Here's a link to the official website: http://www.museetoulouselautrec.net/
Pictured at the top of this post is a scan of the booklet by Jean Devoisins I picked up in Albi about twenty-five years ago. Just above is an image of Toulouse-Latrec's Femme qui tire son bas (1894).
Today's Rune: Growth.
Diners are nifty-fifty-two-skidoo eateries and meeting places. Pennsylvania diners tend to have a Populuxe feel, like dining-cars-on-a train greeting 1950s car culture. Diners as restaurants persist in the present but they also inspire a clear glimpse at the American rhythm of the last century. Diners also now stand in for five and dime and drug store grills that have been largely superseded in the last fifty years by fast food chains such as McDonald's and its rivals. (Let's face it: today's drive-through windows are not a sociable environment by any stretch of the imagination -- they inspire wasting gas and are for hurried, harried lifestyles. But that's for another post).
Diners are places where you can take the time to unwind a little from the stresses of modern life, yet still feel connected. Stackpole Books recently released Diners of Pennsylvania: 2nd Edition (2011) by Brian Butko, Kevin Patrick and Kyle R. Weaver. It's a great book for any diner and pop culture fan! This storied Pennsylvania nonfiction publisher had a stand at the recent ALA conference; I picked up a book card for this and also the fall catalog. Here's a link to the official website: http://www.stackpolebooks.com/
Today's Rune: Partnership.
The dude pictured above: in New Orleans, about twelve hours after I saw Daniel Ellsberg speak a week ago Sunday. Seems about right for July 4, 2011.
What the US (and the entire globe in general) has been getting better with over time: ending slavery, extending voting rights and civil rights in general. Works in progress: more equitable, civil and sustainable societies.
But the USA still has some intensely warped priority problems to sort out. In 1790, the entire legally defined population amounted to 3.9 million people. In 2011 in the USA, the prison and probation population exceeds 7.2 million people in an overall demographic of 312.0 million. Why is this so and how did it come to this? And who in their right mind really thinks that laying off firefighters, police, teachers and social workers will make things better in the long run?
The USA, being a form of territorial democracy, has always had its share of extremely short-sighted, deeply irrational people, well represented in government. 150 years ago, the Confederacy reared its ugly head; today we have the Tea Party Republicans. Tomorrow, God knows what else. It's a constant struggle, acknowledged or not.
The good news for anyone reading this is, many still abide and reflect, many hold forth hope and fight for a better tomorrow. And for that, among many other things, I am grateful.
Today's Rune: Protection.
Daniel Ellsberg spoke on June 26, 2011, to members of the American Library Association in New Orleans. I wooshed into town in time to attend his early Sunday morning lecture, which succinctly covered the Pentagon Papers, American foreign and military policy from 1945 to the near future, the US-Vietnam War, Iraq, Afghanistan, WikiLeaks, and more. I thoroughly enjoyed his cogent, well-argued presentation.
Bottom line: US policmakers overall tend to do the same blindered things over and over again as part of a consistent whole, without worrying too much about the historical consequences. Ellsberg sees most of US war making since 1945 as a big mistake, more about serving corporate military-industrial-political interests than anything else.
Ellsberg, now eighty, has a lot of energy and focus and makes many good points. Here's a link to his website: http://www.ellsberg.net/
Today's Rune: Flow.
John Dahl's Red Rock West (1992) is a small-scale neo-noir treat featuring two now deceased character actors (J.T. Walsh and Dennis Hopper), plus Nicolas Cage and Lara Flynn Boyle, with small but notable roles by Dwight Yoakam and Timothy Carhart. Stylish and peppered with subtle humor, the film has an almost ancient primal-mythic arc but is set in the centemporary American West. Cage's character Michael, a Marine veteran and survivor of the 1983 Beirut embassy bombing, has a bum leg and a lot of choices to make; Hopper's character, Lyle from Dallas, is also a Marine veteran, but of the Vietnam War era; he has been hired to do something nasty in the town of Red Rock West. Boyle's Suzanne (pictured above) is married to Walsh's Wayne. Besides some mordant quips about marriage, Red Rock West rolls out stylish scenes, twists and turns, the kinds of things Oliver Stone later built upon in making U Turn (1997).
Dahl's subsequent movie, The Last Seduction (1994), features Linda Fiorentino as one of the most entertainingly conniving femmes fatales I've yet seen on a screen. More recently, Dahl directed several episodes of True Blood and Dexter.
Today's Rune: Fertility.
Quentin Dupieux's Rubber (2010) follows a tire that comes to life (or animates, as it were) and causes havoc with psychokinetic power. Is this film absurd? Yes. Is it occasionally meandering? Yes. Did I like it? Yes. Does it show that story line can make sense even when taking liberties with its projected audience? Yes. The plot will seem very familiar, because they all are to some degree. Three standouts in the actor pool: Stephen Spinella, Wings Hauser and Roxane Mesquida.
Link to official website (including trailer) here: http://www.rubberthemovie.com/
Today's Rune: Journey.
