Erik's Choice

Heddy Honigmann: Forever

2012-01-26T23:59:00.091-05:00

Père Lachaise Cemetery/Le cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris becomes the nexus for Heddy Honigmann's superb documentary Forever (2006), drawing together for communion the living and the dead.

Deep emotional connections abound in this film. There are people tending to specific graves and sections, watering plants and cleaning burial sites. There are international visitations, people paying respects to a beloved someone, usually a poet, artist, writer or musician of some kind. We see the graves of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret and we also see three blind people (at home) listening raptly to Simone Signoret in Les Diaboliques (1955).

People from France, Spain, Korea, Japan, Iran and elsewhere speak about lost loved ones, or about Marcel Proust, Apollinaire, Ingres, Chopin, Jim Morrison (tangentially), Oscar Wilde, Modigliani, Sadegh Hedayat and others.

It would be hard to watch this film and not come away at least a little more thoughtful about life, death, art and spirit, about where we've been and where we're going, and perhaps more thankful for artists and dreamers.

For more, please see: http://www.heddy-honigmann.nl/hhonigmann/films/forever/index.php

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

The Mick Jagger Theme Park and Athletic Club

2012-01-25T23:59:00.138-05:00

Reading Marc Spitz's Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue (New York: Gotham Books, 2011) reminded me of some things. Haven't seen the Rolling Stones live in concert since the late 1990s. First saw them in the late 1970s. Once won a pair of tickets from a Virginia radio station by identifying a snippet of "Star Star" -- which was a sly song choice on their part because explicit lyrics prevent its ever being played on the air beyond such a brief sampling. Saw Mick Jagger in a Virginia hotel restaurant. Saw the Stones in Philadelphia, Hampton, Greensboro and Detroit.

In London in 1991, I met then 25-year old Nick Dunbar a couple of times, son of Marianne Faithfull and John Dunbar, where I was boarding in Clapham and at the Bentinck flat of Bob Dunbar and Tatiana Blagoveshenskaya Dunbar, not far from Manchester Square. The older Dunbars at one point were chatting about how it felt like only yesterday when Mick and Marianne had dropped little Nicholas off with them (he wasn't quite four years old at the time) just before the massive free concert in Hyde Park, within easy walking distance -- that is, the July 5, 1969 event just after the death of Brian Jones. I got the chills listening to their banter.

Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue also reminds me of my great uncle Wellman Lyle France, early slotted for a life in coal mining. His father, Joe France, once told him as a kid not to go where the books were at home, and when he caught him with a forbidden volume once, Joe decked Wellman with a nasty punch in the face. Joe France died at 56 and Wellman went on to college and earned a Ph.D at Purdue University after completing his dissertation, A Study of Relationships Between Tests of Physical Performance and Various Traits of Personality (1953). He also co-authored Philosophy and Principles of Physical Education (1963, 1965).

When Wellman found out I was into the Rolling Stones in the late 1970s/early 1980s, he said he corresponded with Joe Jagger, Mick's father, and wanted to make sure I knew that Mick had attended the London School of Economics. Now I know why on both counts. One was to make sure that I appreciated college, the other was because Joe Jagger and Wellman shared a common cause -- physical education and its importance. It's not by accident that Mick maintains himself for energetic stage antics.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue

2012-01-24T23:59:00.070-05:00

A compelling take on elusive, multifaceted Mick Jagger: within the cultural-historical context of the last fifty years and more. That's what Marc Spitz provides in Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue (New York: Gotham Books, 2011). Jagger the artist and hedonist is much more enjoyable to contemplate than any hypocritical politician or moralist I can think of.

As a band, the Rolling Stones turn fifty in 2012. As Spitz puts it, "Connecting with the the old blues and soul seems to bring out [Jagger's] best and probably keeps him young. Mick and his fellow Rolling Stones have become like the bluesmen they worshipped in their teens . . ." (page 291).

Spitz wisely makes selective choices in this biographical and aesthetic study. It's refreshing. I'll end here with Charlie Watt's quip made upon the occasion of Mick Jagger's knighting, performed by Prince Charles in December of 2003. "Anybody else would be lynched: eighteen wives and twenty children and he's knighted, fantastic!" (page 276).

Today's Rune: Flow.

Tết

2012-01-23T22:11:00.003-05:00

Chúc mừng năm mới: and so begins the Feast of the First Morning of the Year of the Water Dragon, the new lunar calendar, and here we go . . .

Today's Rune: The Self.

Dusty Roads

2012-01-22T23:59:00.048-05:00

Driving west on I-30 just before dusk and I what do I see? A pall, haze, smog, volcanic ash -- what is it? Dust storm! Out in Lubbock they're blanketed with such stuff and flights are cancelled. What's going on? Climate, climate change, a big dry spell, high winds, human industrial and habitation patterns -- all of it. Above: Dust storm in the Texas Panhandle in 1936. (Photo credit: Library of Congress.)

(Newspaper clippings about the 1930s Dustbowl: Library of Congress)

Which reminds me: there was a dude in Chapel Hill named Dusty Rhoades. Back in the 1980s, he used to hang around the edges of the WXYC alternative radio crowd and always seemed to be everywhere, at least for a couple of years.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Richard C. Sarafian: Vanishing Point

2012-01-21T23:59:00.072-05:00

Richard C. Sarafian's masterful road movie Vanishing Point (1971) brings many attributes to the screen, including primal excitement. It plays out like something from ancient mythology, with cerebral, mystical and existential touches featuring a souped up Dodge Challenger driven by Kowalski (Barry Newman), a Vietnam vet and ex-cop on a speed-fueled working joy ride pursued by highway patrolmen in three Western states. It's beautifully shot and an exuberent trip.

The UK version includes Charlotte Rampling as a hitchhiker and harbinger of death.

The name Kowalski brings to mind Clint Eastwood's character, a Korean War vet also named Kowalski, in Gran Torino (2008), and Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

Today's Rune: Fertility.

1968: Romney's Disintegrating Presidential Bid

2012-01-20T23:59:00.127-05:00

George Romney and Nelson Rockefeller, representing the business faction of the Republican Party, vs. Richard Nixon: that was the key battle among Republicans for the 1968 nomination. But already in 1967, Romney, Governor of Michigan and former CEO of American Motors Corporation, was found waffling and wobbling.

Tom Wicker put it this way in the New York Times (September 7, 1967): "Now, as a climax to [his] record of stumbling and bumbling, the Governor has given us a staggering confession -- the only reason he ever believed the Vietnamese war was 'necessary' was because he was 'brainwashed' by American generals and diplomats when he made a trip to Saigon in 1965."

By February 28,1968, Romney dropped out of the race, and "urged his fellow Republicans to unite behind one man. A majority of the 26 Republican Governors" at the time "favor[ed] Mr. Rockefeller." (New York Times, February 29,1968). But Nixon won the nomination and the presidency. If Romney had criticized the US-Vietnam War during the Tet Offesive of 1968 -- six months after he actually did -- his words might have found more receptive ears, even among Republicans. Indeed, LBJ, the standing Democratic President, announced that he was not running for reelection exactly one month after Romney called it quits.

As an aside, Romney was born in Mexico, and ultimately ineligible for the presidency -- if he'd prevailed.

Meanwhile, at the height of the US-Vietnam War in 1968, George's son Willard Mitt Romney (pictured above, right; photo credit: Andre Salarnier) was enjoying an extended working vacation in France as a Mormon missionary, where he supported the war from afar. How convenient for him.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

1968: Turn On & Tune In

2012-01-19T23:59:00.147-05:00

Bill Cosby of Philadelphia was big in 1968, here via his To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With album. We had some of his records, and I still remember whole sections of his routines decades later.

Gore Vidal's anarcho-satirical novel Myra Breckinridge has sold more than two million copies since its debut in 1968. I've only seen bits from the 1970 movie version starring Raquel Welch -- atrociously bad ones.

Alien life, life on Earth, space travel, computers: it's all in Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey/l'Odyssée de l'espace. Clarke worked on the text version at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan.

A seriously grim future is glimpsed in Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The movie variation, directed by Ridley Scott, came out in 1982 as Blade Runner, and has since become a classic, especially with the Final Cut version released in 2007.

Among others, Bill Cosby covers the Rolling Stones in Bill Cosby Sings Hooray for the Salvation Army Band! (1968). Let's not forget his rendition of "Funky North Philadelphia."

Among other things, Woody Allen tells moose jokes in the 1968 Standup Comic compilation, which was orginally released as three records. Nowadays, after a huge international hit with his 2011 film Midnight in Paris, he's working to bring out Nero Fiddled in 2012.

Let's not forget Janis Joplin. Not only is January 19th her birthday, but 1968 was her heyday. By 1970 she was gone.

Today's Rune: Strength.

1968: When After All, It Was You and Me

2012-01-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

"Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war." Norman Mailer (1923-2007), The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel/The Novel as History (1968).

Howard L. Bingham, Black Panthers 1968 (2009 and 2010), aka Howard L. Bingham's Black Panthers 1968. Not to be confused with Ruth-Marion Baruch, Pirkle Jones and Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Black Panthers 1968 (2002).

The Stonewall Riots were a year off. Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg's 1984 documentary Before Stonewall covers the gay and lesbian rights movement before 1969.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Zeitgeist 1968

2012-01-17T23:59:00.015-05:00

1968 mustard seeds. Chicano Power.

Jimi Hendrix: electric eclectic.

Black Power salute: Mexico.

Civil Rights: Northern Ireland.

Occupy the Factories: France.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

MLK in Detroit: The Great March to Freedom

2012-01-16T23:59:00.029-05:00

When Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) spoke at the "Great March to Freedom" in Detroit on June 23, 1963, he offered a Detroit version of the "I Have a Dream" speech. It included this line: "I have a dream this afternoon that one day right here in Detroit, Negroes will be able to buy a house or rent a house anywhere that their money will carry them and they will be able to get a job. . ." The dream stands, though reality has not caught up. King gave a slightly more refined Dream speech at the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" on August 28, 1963.

When Malcolm X (1925-1965) delivered his "Message to the Grassroots" in Detroit on October 10, 1963, he deplored the term "Negro" and advocated its replacement with "black." The change in parlance worked, with the additional choices of "Afro-American" (mostly 1970s) and "African American." Black and African American seem about equally acceptable in 2012. Contemporary use of the term "Negro” is rare as a hen's tooth.

Malcolm X from the same Detroit speech: "I would like to make a few comments concerning the difference between the black revolution and the Negro revolution," he said. And he did. He also quipped: "Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research." And he was right. It still is.

Both MLK and Malcolm X opposed the Vietnam War and would undoubtedly have opposed the Iraq War of 2003-2011.

It's 1968, Okay?

2012-01-15T23:59:00.086-05:00

1968 is a year that keeps reverberating. Like the eclectic music coming out that year, it's hard to absorb. The Tet Offensive and a series of massacres in Vietnam, MLK's assassination. The Prague Spring and the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat, related because Václav Havel was a fan of the band, an inspiration for engaged artists and protesters behind the Iron Curtain.

I remember, as a little kid in 1968, a lot of excitement about Jean-Claude Killy, France and the Winter Olympics. Only later did I read about Opération Canopus, the first French thermonuclear test detonations that made France, in 1968, the fifth nuclear power after the USA, USSR, UK and PRC. Since 1968, the governments of India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have joined the club, with Iran's hoping to tag along shortly.

Today's Rune: Journey.

The First Supper

2012-01-14T23:59:00.043-05:00

Let's rewind from the Last Supper to the First. Do you remember an early childhood experience dining with family or friends? I remember many a family meal at a dining room table, and extended family get togethers that often included an outdoors component. Lost in the mists of time are very early meals experienced as an infant or tiny kid.

In Pennsylvania, we had gatherings that included grilling, corn on the cob, and regular meals made by my Mom that included meatloaf and mashed potatoes, green beans and applesauce lightly sprinkled with cinnamon. I remember early on my Dad having snacks of sardines and mustard, something even to this day I've never tried. How about you?

Today's Rune: Journey.

Friday the 13th

2012-01-13T17:17:00.000-05:00

A baker's dozen, twelve apostles plus Jesus. Here in Leonardo da Vinci's L'Ultima Cena, which he completed shortly after Columbus first arrived in the Wesern Hemisphere (weird to think in its own right), Judas knocks over the salt as Jesus reveals a betrayal in the works. Isn't that a woman on Jesus' immediate right, even though it's supposed to be John the Apostle?

More immediately, does Friday the Thirteenth disturb you in any way?

Today's Rune: Defense.

Everything's All Left and Right

2012-01-12T23:59:00.004-05:00

Here, Godard (with co-director Jean-Pierre Gorin) plays off the 1968 Paris-and-global uprisings to ask a bunch of pointed questions about the socio-economic structure of modern societies. One of the coolest techniques of Tout va bien / Everything's All Right (1972) is the use of slow cutaway tracking shots to show power relationships in a meat factory. It's like a play influenced by Bertolt Brecht.

The questions raised are entirely universal and relevant in 2012. So now let's ask: what is most important in determining a person's worldview, right here and now?

a. Geography
b. Language
c. Culture
d. Education (self- or institutional)/Literacy
e. Age
f. Gender
g. Family
h. Religious views
i. Race
j. Ethnicity
k. Zeitgeist (Spirit of the Times)
l. Sexual orientation
m. Diet

n. Calendar year/season

o. Housing
p. Income/monetary valuation
q. Strength of social-health safety net
r. Health status
s. X, y, z variables
t. Violence, safety
u. Water availability
v. Food availability
x. Shelter availability

y. Forms of governmental authority

z. Mobility, freedom of movement

Today's Rune: Journey.

The Velvet Underground: The Book Before the Band

2012-01-11T23:59:00.006-05:00

There's something a little off about The Velvet Underground (1963), Michael Leigh's initial book on sex practices in the USA, and in the 2011 reprint. First, who is (or was) Michael Leigh? Is this a nom de plume? In the text, it's claimed that he's a journalist. The tone is a weird mix of cornball, hambone and earnestness, like episodes from the 1950s(+) series Dragnet. Is this a big joke? The 2011 foreward is signed "Candice Black" -- the name of a fictional character in Oliver Stone's W. (2008) played by reporter Anne Pressly, now deceased.

On the one hand, The Velvet Underground goes to great gleeful lengths in describing the wild sexual practices witnessed in various historical epochs and cultures, with particular emphasis on the "velvet underground" of married Americans with families, jobs and homes (the Eisenhower nuclear ideal, but in a funhouse mirror); on the other hand, it deplores (or pretends to deplore) scofflaws and the failure of autorities to crack down on them, especially those who flout "decency" laws.

Leigh illustrates how "swingers" corresponded and joined clubs around the USA, sending photos, arranging meetings and throwing key parties, in which partners swapped among each other as randomly as if they were spin-the-bottle-for-your-next-partner games. He also brings up prostitution, homosexuality, S & M, amateur pornography, erotica and co-ed college gatherings during spring breaks. All of this predates "the Sixties" and "the Swinging Sixties" in that Leigh's examples reach back into the 1950s and end, for the most part, in 1961, at the tail end of Eisenhower's and the beginning of JFK's presidency. The rumble before the quake, perhaps. It's worth noting that Andy Warhol's Silver Factory period began in 1962; Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was published in book form in 1963.

Today's Rune: Gateway.

The Rolling Stones: Some Girls

2012-01-11T11:24:00.000-05:00

Some Girls (1978) was the first new Rolling Stones release I really remember diving into headlong. The deluxe 2011 re-release contains the original album on one disc and a bunch of bonus tracks on another. More on the latter soon. The album itself is a wry and ribald masterpiece, a shorter, driving sequel to the Exile on Main St. double album (1972), with a comparable exploration of musical styles, including then-current ones. Though recorded in Paris, this is most definitely a New York City album. Love it -- sounds quite rough and rowdy, even more ideal for 2012 than it was for 1978.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Facial Recognition

2012-01-09T23:59:00.081-05:00

People can recognize faces, shapes, forms and movements from afar -- often, if not always. Sometimes perceptions can be thrown off by internal mood, illness, atmospheric conditions, or time of day; or by the occasional look-alike, decoy dummy, Doppelgänger, Vardøgr, daydream, hallucination or apparition. Seen any of these lately?

New and recent field studies suggest that birds are quite capable of refined facial recognition accuracy, in addition to their having effective long-range navigational systems. Makes sense as far as survival goes. As does their adaptability to human settlement patterns, which also plays a role in their decision-making: should I stay or I should I go? Backyard haven or backyard danger zone? Shall we try a wait-and-see attitude? On some level, birds must be computing these calculations, via evolving and instinctive response capabilities.

Interacted visually with any birds or people lately?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Social

2012-01-08T23:59:00.073-05:00

The way people communicate is quite varied. If I wanted to be, I could be live-connected to scores of people. But I prefer some buffer, some boundary most of the time. Live chat to me is like someone getting too near to my person, like some cross-cultural faux pas. A little distance is a good thing -- time to think and respond better.

What works for me on a regular basis:

Mobile phone/cell phone with caller ID. Yes.
In person, face-to-face: Yes.
Texting (sporadically): Yes.
Mail (snail mail, physical mail): Yes.
Other physical forms of shipping: Yes.
Email/courriel/Le courrier électronique: Yes.
Blogs/Web logs with interactive comments: Yes.
Facebook: Yes -- with voluntary limits on tagging and personal/family information.
Twitter: Ditto.
Linkedin. Ditto.
Digital photography. Yes.

Sporadic-to-rarely:

Landline/fixed line telephone (at work or when visiting only).
Instant Messaging (IM).
Courier dispatches.
Fax/Facsimile/télécopieur/téléfax.

Have used in the past but not in the 21st century:

Overseas cable message.
Telegram.

How about you?

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Performance: The Movie

2012-01-07T23:59:00.089-05:00

What happens when co-directors shoot a film in 1968, it's edited and re-edited and otherwise played with and not released until 1970? With Performance, when the first-time directors are Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg and the primary actors are Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michèle Breton and James Fox, well: you are given an interesting and bizarre kaleidoscopic mess that might better be experienced in an altered state. Seen in an unaltered state, Performance may not appeal to too many contemporary tastes.

Visually, Performance shimmers at times, then alternates with splashes of underworld violence. The contrasts are a bit eerie. The film is embedded with literary, artistic, poetic and religious-philosophical "hyperlinks." The music is cool and the whole shebang influential. But can anyone actually enjoy this? Probably not in one continuous sitting without some sort of escape plan.

More to consider here -- at some point.

Today's Rune: Journey.

The Republican Contenders

2012-01-06T23:59:00.004-05:00

Here's my quick take on the Republican contenders for president of the US, up against Barack Obama and each other in 2012.

Frontrunner: Mitt Romney. Here's a guy not particularly well-liked by many in his own party. This would be a problem for him if he won the election, no doubt. Says he would expand the military by 100,000 personnel, and somehow prevent Iran from developing and acquiring nuclear weapons. Socially, his Mormon background would be somewhat balanced by experience as governor of Massachusetts and Detroit nativity. Presidency might be something like George Bush the father.

Ron Paul. Constitutionalist, not liked by many in his own party because too libertarian. I agree with him that civil liberties need to be safeguarded, the empire is over-extended, and the War on Drugs is bullshit for the most part; but I disagree with him on many specifics beyond these principles. May run for president outside the Republican Party when the chips fall. At 76, this is it for him as far as presidential runs.

Newt Gingrich. Latter day Catholic, mostly in it for himself. A hypocrite and all-around ass, pretty much a joke at this point except for potentially, like a termite, chewing at Romney's wooden legs.

Rick Santorum. Cartoon Catholic, cardboard stances on most issues. Angling for a VP spot. How does Romney-Santorum sound to him? A complete dip in the league of Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle. I am all too familiar with his spewings from my time living in Philadelphia in the early 1990s.

Jon Huntsman, Jr. Not unlike fellow Mormon Mitt Romney, though maybe a little sharper, and a little less popular among Republicans.

Rick Perry. Evangelical Christian, narrowly provincial outlook. Bought and paid for in Texas, total dip on the national stage. Why he's bothering to stay in at least through South Carolina may say as much about the nature of South Carolina's Republican milieu as it does about Perry's ego, and Perry's financial backers.

Wild cards: If something happens to Romney; billionaire gadfly candidates (Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump) enter the fray (for a second time in this cycle, if Trump does it).

It's no secret that I'm going for Obama. Your thoughts?

Today's Rune: Gateway.

More About Eve

2012-01-05T23:59:00.008-05:00

Above: the cover of an Eve Arnold book featuring photos from the 1950s. Here, in "I LIKE IKE," the usually staid Eisenhower looks oddly Satanic; Dick Nixon was his VP at the time and lost to JFK in 1960, only to win the US presidency in 1968. Meanwhile, Fidel Castro still lives on in 2012. As Chuck Berry puts it in a 1964 song he wrote in the hoosegow, "C'est la vie, say the old folks, it goes to show you never can tell." Along similar lines, let's not forget the 1956 song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)."

Today's Rune: Defense.

Farewell, Eve Arnold

2012-01-04T23:59:00.006-05:00

Fare thee well to Philadelphia-born Eve Arnold (1913-2012). She took a lot of cool photos, of James Brown, Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Cuban woman at bar, Malcolm X, Marsha Hunt, Gordon Parks, and many more around the world.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Blowin' in the Wind

2012-01-03T23:59:00.044-05:00

And so, with Iowa, the 2012 US presidential election begins in earnest. It's a wild start. Rick Perry blown out of the cornfields, and Michele Bachmann close behind. "You'll vote next time, hippie." Rarely was the truism more true that every vote counts.

Above cartogram of the 2008 national election results courtesy of Mark Newman, Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan.

For more, here's a link to his study:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

The USA "House" is not so much divided as enmeshed and weird with inhabitants at each other's throats. Blue = Obama, Red = McCain in 2008.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

George Washington's Teeth

2012-01-02T23:32:00.000-05:00

Started off the first weekday of 2012 with a root canal and am glad to have it over with. Over the break, saw a George Washington exhibit that focused a lot on his improvised replacement teeth and so today was glad to to be able to avail myself of modern dentistry. Among other things, Washington developed a prodigious whiskey distillery and, not unrelatedly, put down the Whiskey Rebellion; the spirits helped him through many a toothache. Today, I was given shots that numbed the whole area and even now I feel little to no direct pain, a far cry from a similar procedure even as recently as twelve years ago.

Had any memorable dental work in your life? Do tell . . . By the way, the two best dentists who've fixed my teeth recently happen to be women.

Today's Rune: Defense.

Lee Miller: Through the Mirror

2012-01-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

"She worked hard for her luck." So observes, aptly, Lee Miller's fellow photographer and running buddy David Scherman in Sylvain Roumette's Lee Miller: Through the Looking Glass (1995). This documentary, running less than an hour, left me wanting to learn much more even than I'd previously read about Miller (1907-1977), who worked at both ends of a camera and with the likes of Man Ray, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, as well as, during the Second World War, Scherman. During her stint as a war photojournalist, she took shots in and around Dachau and Munich in 1945, and was photographed by Scherman in Hitler's abandoned bathtub as the Third Reich collapsed.

Fascinating film, thanks in large part to the interest, preservation efforts and observations of Anthony Penrose, Lee Miller's and Roland Penrose's son.

Here's where to go to see much more -- the Lee Miller Archives: http://www.leemiller.co.uk/

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Looking Out My Back Door: Farewell, 2011

2011-12-31T19:04:00.001-05:00

2011 is already gone in most parts of the world, but it hangs on just a little bit longer from where I'm posting. Big wheel keep on turning / Proud Mary keep on burning.

Mississippi keep on flowing
Fukushima keep on blowing.
Arab Spring taking wing.
Sing on.

Fare thee well, Amy Winehouse, and all the other dear departed.
Farewell, 2011.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Carrie Fisher: Shockaholic

2011-12-30T23:59:00.002-05:00

Thoroughly enjoyed Shockaholic (2011), Carrie Fisher's newest memoir. There's a little something in it for just about anybody. There's the pop culture stuff: musings about celebrity and wreckage, "the shine" and the pit. Senators are in there, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Fisher's parents Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. This is all intertwined with Carrie Fisher's personal complications, and depression, and her turning to Electroconvulsive (aka electroshock) therapy (ECT) for survival: "I wish I could explain . . . the seemingly unending, ongoing, relentless, inordinately intense, pathetic fixation I have with my feelings . . . demanding my attention and externally taking my emotional temperature." (Shockaholic, pages 16-17).

ECT probably saves her life, but at the expense of memory gaps: a lot is forgotten of the weeks or months before and after each treatment. I had a college student like this years ago who needed a map and detailed notes to find the way to class. Luckily it was a writing class, so subject matter could come from anywhere, and said student was a good writer. With Carrie Fisher, depression is kept at bay, and she can still write, too -- in a pithy, self-deprecating and effective manner. If you're looking for something a little different, Shockaholic is a quick, interesting read.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Sam Peckinpah: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

2011-12-29T23:32:00.012-05:00

A lot of foreboding, death leaping out of the shadows, tragic existentialism and the excitement of long-shot possibilities on the road: that's some of what comes to mind watching Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). If you're thinking of a Mexican vacation, best to skip this one until after your return -- it's visceral, unpredictable and wild, just like the Mexico of my memories surrounding the events witnessed while visiting my grandmother, great uncle, uncle and cousin in the late 1970s.

Let me add that Warren Oates and Isela Vega are great. Somehow I'm reminded of Deadwood, Taxi Driver, Once Upon a Time in the West, Bonnie & Clyde and God knows what else.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Son House: The Music, Part II

2011-12-28T23:59:00.066-05:00

Keep your ears on the tracks, the Son House train is comin' in again (continued):

From "Levee Camp Moan" (long version, 1965), which brings together elements from Son House's earlier renditions (1941-1942 sessions) of "Levee Camp Blues" and "Government Fleet Blues" -- you can hear that immediately, simply by playing them one after the other.

You know I had a job on the levee
I had a good looking woman who lived in Hughes . . .
You know that pretty little thing
She kept me with the government fleet blues

You know on every pay day
She'd be standing around the landing crying . . .
She be saying why don't that big boat hurry and
Bring home that man of mine?
. . . But when I done not get the check
She told me she couldn't use me no more . . .

From "John the Revelator" (1965 versions):

Tell me who's that writin'?
John the Revelator . . .
Who's that writin'?
John the Revelator wrote the book of the Seven Seals

Now God walked down in the cool of the day
And called Adam by his name
But he refused to answer
'Cause he was naked and ashamed . . .

Imagining the emphatic accompanying slide guitar, a snippet from "Death Letter Blues:"

I got a letter this morning . . .
'The gal you love is dead' . . .
'Hurry, hurry, the gal you love is dead.'
I grabbed up my suitcase
Took off down the road.
When I got there
She's laying on the coolin' board . . .

Gives me the chills every time. We're most definitely not in Kansas anymore with Son House.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Son House: The Music, Part I

2011-12-27T23:59:00.061-05:00

Someone asked me to name a handful of Son House tracks to look for, so here we go. There are different versions of his songs ranging from the Grafton, Wisconsin recording sessions in 1930 and the Library of Congress field recordings (1941 and 1942) to live and studio recordings from his reemergence period, 1964-1970s. Though I'm tempted to reach for "American Defense" (1942) and such lyrics as "This war may last you for years," better to go for the 1965 studio* recordings, I think. In any case, Son House lyrically is often sly, sardonic and deeply strange; there are also wailing blues befitting both a preacher's jeremiads and a booze-infused bluesman. Snippets:

"Preachin' Blues" (alternate take):

Yayss I'm gonna get me religion
I'm going to join the Baptist Church . . .
Yeay I wanna be a Baptist preacher
Just so I don't have to work . . .

"Grinnin' in Your Face" is weird and eerie, somewhere between an apparition and a nightmare. From the alternate take:

Don't you mind people grinnin' in your face . . .
You know they grin in your face
They'll jump you up and down
Just as soon as your back is turned
They'll try to crush you down.

You know your mother will talk about you
Your sisters and your brothers, too
Don't care how you try to live
They'll talk about you still . . .

Yeah, just bear this in mind:
A good friend is hard to find.

(To be continued)

*The Father of the Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions.

Today's Rune: Movement.

You Might Find Out Later that the Road'll End in Detroit

2011-12-26T23:59:00.076-05:00

Got a lot from Daniel Beaumont's Preachin' the Blues: The Life and Times of Son House (Oxford University Press, 2011), having now finished it: his having killed two men -- more or less in self-defense (not one, as usually thought); his marriages to Carrie Martin and Evie Goff, the latter with him when he died in Detroit; and various special women friends like China Lou (who happened to be Charley Patton's daughter), Sara Knights, Louise Johnson, Louise McGee and Daisy Mae Ketchum. Most interesting, perhaps, is Beaumont's take on Son House's religion and spirit. The man was a preacher through and through, who gave up public religion for the blues rather than the other way around as was more often the case with other blues artists.

Beaumont reveals details on Son House's time based in Rochester, New York, from 1943 to 1976, and on his time working at the Cutchogue Labor Camp on Long Island in 1955, when he stabbed an intruder in the heart with a kitchen knife. The author also ran down various people who sought out the again bluesman after his relaunch in 1964.

As for the music and intense performances, we'll save that for another time.

Today's Rune: Joy.

Baker's

2011-12-25T23:59:00.006-05:00

Lived to see another Christmas, yes! Among my all-time favorite venues anywhere in the memory bank: Baker's Keyboard Lounge, 20510 Livernois Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. God willing, I shall return there in 2012. With a little added luck, next choice is THE VILLAGE VANGUARD, 178 7th Avenue South, New York, New York. Oh, yeah.

How about you? Anywhere in particular you'd like to revisit in 2012?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Soulful Christmas 2011

2011-12-24T23:59:00.005-05:00

Merry Christmas during this wild red-letter 2011 season -- what a year! Cheers to all and to all a good 2012! Watch out for the
pepper-spray~~!

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Fellini: Giulietta degli Spiriti

2011-12-23T23:59:00.007-05:00

Giulietta Masina married Frederico Fellini near the end of the Second World War and remained in that interesting social compact (unconventionally) for fifty years, at which point Fellini died; Masina died five months later. Giulietta degli Spiriti/Juliet of the Spirits (1965) takes an indirect look at their relationship near its halfway point, or so it would seem. As one character states in the movie: "The interpretation is up to you. What can we say?"

Masina plays Giulietta/Juliet, a mostly self-contained middle-aged woman with a strong Catholic background; when confronted with her husband's infidelity, she falls through a metaphorical rabbit hole. This is Fellini's first color movie, and all its heightened effects work together to radiate a world of the spirits. Colors are wild and vivid; sounds echo; the camera moves and all is in motion. The sharp images, incandescent hues and frequent use of shadow create a dreamy, sometimes hallucinatory feel for Giulietta's derangement of the senses. The characters are, well,

Felliniesque . . . Diane Arbus in color. It's a luxurious and unrushed ride.

What I see immediately after viewing Juliet of the Spirits are a series of artistic "hyperlinks" to other movies: back through time to The Wizard of Oz and Fritz Lang; over the rainbow to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal; and coming our way through such visually stunning films made between 1965 and 1986 as Rosemary's Baby, Barbarella, The Exorcist, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Carrie, The Shining, Stardust Memories, and Blue Velvet; and even closer, to the great HBO series of recent years. Interesting company, indeed; with, however, almost no violence at all in Juliet of the Spirits. The music at times reminds me of Woody Allen, for sure; the Italian dialogue is beautiful to listen to, even while keeping up with the subtitles.

To me, the coolest thing in the movie is the furiously fluttering artificial fire that surrounds Juliet as she is being (pretend) burned to death in her childhood school play rendition of a Catholic martyr, a striking image that visits her from time to time.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

The Life and Times of Son House

2011-12-22T23:59:00.005-05:00

With nearly a hundred years of recorded blues music in the cultural memory bank to draw from, I'm finding it rewarding to delve into the 20th century side of things. Daniel Beaumont's Preachin' the Blues: The Life and Times of Son House (Oxford University Press, 2011) synthesizes available sources and adds new material to present the fullest take on Eddie James Son House, Jr., yet, within the context of the American blues arc. I'm thoroughly enjoying it -- not only the accounts of House, his music and background, but also insight into his friendships, running buddies and two-way influences. Willie Brown is there, Charley Patton, Louise Johnson and Robert Johnson. Let's not forget Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, too. The road for Son House (1902-1988) ends in Detroit, where he is buried.

Today's Rune: Movement.

Angela Y. Davis: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday Redux

2011-12-21T23:59:00.018-05:00

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: Wholeness.

Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues Redux

2011-12-20T23:59:00.004-05:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Govenar's Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues (Chicago Review Press, 2010). Govenar scoured city and country to find every bit of information he could; he dug through company records, conducted numerous interviews and sifted through a mountain of liner notes and articles. Combined with an extended engagement with Hopkins' recorded output -- even a reasonable sampling -- this biographical study will give anyone interested a good feel for the iconic bluesman. One also glimpses how the music show business worked from the 1940s into the 1980s, in the studio and on the road.

Some keen observations by Ed Pearl, owner of Ash Grove, a West Coast oasis for live performances at 8162 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles that ran from 1958 to 1973: "He [Hopkins] knew his limitations . . . and he was happy to be part of his community, but he knew there was a bigger world out there. He thought people should be equal and he thought . . . poor people should have more. And everyone is a child of God. He was against the Vietnam war" (page 194, from 2008 Govenar interview). Another noteworthy aspect of Lightnin' Hopkins' life: his thirty-five year relationship, until his death, with Antoinette Charles. She was a love of his life, and strong, if not the only one; given that she was married to someone else for the same duration, with kids, it was the same for her.

As Govenar points out emphatically, not all of the bluesman's recorded output is of equal quality. Delving into his discography (and there's a comprehensive one included), it's a good idea to choose carefully. The most recent collection I've been listening to features him on electric guitar (Hopkins' preferred style): Lightnin' Hopkins, Rainy Day In Houston (2000), recordings from 1955, 1961 and 1968. This one has three of my favorite of his topical tracks: "War Is Starting Again," "The World's In A Tangle" and "Vietnam War."

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Pat Paulsen in 1968 as Mitt Romney in 2012

2011-12-19T23:03:00.000-05:00

Today's Rune: Journey.

The Velvet Underground Revolution: Václav Havel, RIP

2011-12-18T23:28:00.002-05:00

As of this post, news is rolling in of the death of Kim Jong-il, North Korea's "Supreme Leader" -- a time of peril and, we can hope, opportunity. Time will tell soon enough. Earlier came word of the death of writer Václav Havel, first president of the Czech Republic.

When I was in graduate school at Temple University in Philadelphia, Havel, upon receiving the Liberty Medal, gave an acceptance speech at Independence Hall, where the original American Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. It was a warm day and I had to drag myself over from West Philadelphia in time to hear him speak. He was eloquent and "heavy." Here's a snippet from "The Need for Transcendence in the Postmodern World," which he delivered in English on July 4, 1994:

It logically follows that, in today's multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinion, convictions, antipathies, or sympathies -- it must be rooted in self-transcendence:

Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe.

Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world.

Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction. . .

This speech was given less than five years after Havel became President in the wake of the Velvet Revoluton of 1989. Havel, being an artist as well as politican, was a huge fan of Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and others. From Velvet Underground to Velvet Revolution to Philadelphia Freedom.

We must hope that something as good as Havel's way develops on the Korean penninsula, now or soon.

Today's Rune: The Self.

Louise Brooks: Tagebuch einer Verlorenen

2011-12-17T23:59:00.022-05:00

Tagebuch einer Verlorenen / Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), directed by G.W. Pabst and starring Louise Brooks, delivers on Margaret Böhme’s hugely popular 1905 novel, Tagebuch einer Verlorenen, Von einer Toten.

Against the backdrop of socio-economic class and gender roles, it follows Thymian (played by Louise Brooks) on her zigzag arc. This is a real cool silent movie, beautifully shot (and restored).

Thymian's diary is like a character in itself, and well-employed in moving things along.

After she is impregnated by her father's assistant and refuses to marry him, Thymian is cast from her father's house largely at the behest of his new housekeeper-girlfriend. Her baby is taken away and she's sent to reform school for wayward women; next stop, a bordello. And on from there.

Diary of a Lost Girl works as entertaining drama with comic touches and as a biting satire of the kind that would resurface in novel-based talkie movies like Peyton Place (1957) and hit songs like "Play with Fire" (1965) and "Harper Valley P.T.A." (1968). Primary target: social hypocrisy. Relevance: universal.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Christopher Hitchens, RIP

2011-12-16T23:59:00.012-05:00

Fare-thee-well, Christopher Hitchens, always a joy to see in action, to read, to often disagree with. My favorite recent quip of his that springs to mind: "Cheap booze is a false economy" (Hitch-22, 2010).

Gore Vidal landed the last good shot in their back-and-forth quibbling: "Hitchens identified himself for many years as the heir to me. Unfortunately, for him, I didn't die" (2009). A salute to them both.

Today's Rune: Protection.

Ingmar Bergman: Persona

2011-12-15T23:59:00.016-05:00

Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) takes you through a funhouse mirror of person-to-person interaction. Where does one end and the other begin? How many layers of personality and personae are we made of?

In Persona, Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) and Alma (Bibi Andersson) become alternately intertwined and unspooled through a maddening but effective technique: the half-talking cure. One talks and talks and the other remains virtually silent, responding with looks and mostly non-verbal gestures and movements. The result, combined with sections of fast cuts, semi-subliminal images and bursts of wild music and set against a backdrop of changing light and ambience, stuns and makes you wonder.

Personae shift and shimmer depending on circumstance. A lot of times this has to do with audience. For instance, I'm not going to use profanities in front of undergraduate (or younger) students, whereas in much freer (and therefore very limited) circumstances I swear like a sailor -- and enjoy it.

Life is theatre: keep stage and audience in mind wherever possible. Life is a movie: there are things like flexibility, lighting, presentation and various effects to consider. Choices. Options. Actions. Let's roll it. Alma: "To change oneself. My trouble is laziness." To change yourself, it helps to know yourself; sometimes it's easier to know someone else's contours better than your own. Consider photos and mirror images vs. our interior mutterings and self-conceptions -- there's usually a disconnect there somewhere, or a no-connect, which is probably why it's so exciting when we do connect, or reconnect, or make entirely new connections, with other people as well as with ourselves.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Is it Over?

2011-12-14T23:56:00.006-05:00

And so the US is seemingly pulling its last combat troops out of Iraq after nearly nine years of invasion and occupation. It's been so long many were born into this debacle and have no idea how it all happened.

After the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 -- in which Iraq's military was badly defeated in response to its invasion of Kuwait -- no fly zones (NFZ map above courtesy of wikimedia) were created by the US, UK and France to keep the battered Saddam Hussein regime's remaining armed forces in check. One aspect of the NFZ: Kurds were to be more protected in the north and Shiites in the south from continued Hussein regime revenge attacks. Hussein's Iraq had earlier fought a brutal eight-year war with Iran and was still its primary enemy, so its eastern flank had to be covered, too.

Into this mix -- which had the effect of keeping Hussein's government penned in while remaining a counterbalance to Iran -- came the events of 9/11/2001. The George W. Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, even though there was no direct link between Iraq and 9/11; the attacks had been devised and managed from Afghanistan, where bin Laden was based under the auspices of the Taliban.

France, Turkey and several Arab states refused to participate in the invasion of Iraq (France did and does participate in Afghanistan operations). The US-led invasion of Iraq by a "coalition of the willing" removed Saddam Hussein from power, but emboldened (and made nervous) the Iranian government, which is still even now moving toward a nuclear weapons capability and engaged in a shadow war with its opponents.

Was the 2003 invasion of Iraq a wise move? Could the US afford such an adventure? Was it worth the cost in blood and treasure? Five and half years after the start of the invasion, the US economy took a nosedive, as did the economies of many of its allies. Today, the Obama Administration welcomed home some of the last US troops to be pulled out of Iraq.

Looking back, Turkey's position has risen. Some may not now remember or know that Turkey refused to allow US ground forces to invade northern Iraq through its territory. Now the Turkish government is in a stronger position to influence events in the entire region, including Syria, Israel-Palestine, Egypt and Iraq. The Turks and Kurdish elements continue to fight along the borderlands, as well. The Iraq War -- wiser to avoid than to plunge into.

I was opposed to an invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003, protested in the streets along with many many others to no avail and continue to think it was a terrible decision.

Today's Rune: Strength.

Jean-Luc Godard: Weekend

2011-12-13T23:59:00.122-05:00

At times jarring but with occasionally merciful interludes, Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend (1967) is probably not the movie you'd want to see when seeking pleasant entertainment or respite from the world-as-it-is. In fact, Weekend is often brutal, a focused reflection of the modern world (right up to now), a devastating critique, an assault on the senses epitomized by noisy traffic jams and discordant honking, kicking and screaming people, burning vehicles and sporadic gunfire. Tortuous, but thoughtfully so, underscored by a memorable soundtrack and dynamic intertitles.

Now that I've gone through Godard's and Luis Buñuel's films of the 1960s and 1970s, it's striking to me how much the two directors seem to play off each other's imagery and verve. Buñuel's "search trilogy" -- La Voie Lactée/The Milky Way (1968), Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie / The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) and Le Fantôme de la liberté / The Phantom of Liberty (1974) -- come across as meditations and visions inspired by Weekend, which itself was at least partly riffing from Buñuel's earlier El ángel exterminador / The Exterminating Angel (1962). Buñuel is a little less harsh in delivery, if not content.

Today's Rune: Protection.

Heterodoxy

2011-12-12T23:59:00.002-05:00

Heterodoxy, any challenge to orthodoxy, the accepted status quo. Usually, rebels -- and people with a lust for life, to hell with the accepted rules. Joan Jett's "I don't give a damn about my bad reputation." Artists, thinkers and those who prefer to be more than to have. Often (usually), just my type. As long as mass murder isn't part of the heterodoxy, I'm usually willing to at least listen to such ideas. How about you?

Today's Rune: Harvest.

The Way of Saint Francis

2011-12-11T22:35:00.003-05:00

I've always liked the traditions of Saint Francis of Assisi. Not only did he (Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone, who lived between circa 1181 and 1226 A.D.) develop a peaceful and open worldview, but it turns out his appreciation of the environment and its animal denizens may be as scientifically valid as it is valid philosophically, poetically, ethically and spiritually.

Have you seen or read about the recent studies of birds and rats? The bird studies (of crows and pigeons) indicate facial recognition -- these birds seem to be able to detect familiar human faces and can determine between friendly and hostile based on earlier interactions, while rats empathize with other rats, helping them escape miniature prison cells and generally lending a paw to those in need.

Not that strange, really, but certainly cool to think about. I can attest that birds in Texas seem "happy" (and relieved) every time I fill up a bird bath during the ongoing drought. They are watching from nearby trees and bushes, no question. There's little doubt they'd have been very happy to see Saint Francis coming around -- something anyone can emulate at least to some degree even now.

Saint Francis reminds me of the Buddha in his consistently kindly actions, something to consider for a future post.

Today's Rune: Movement.

Memoranda from 1920

2011-12-10T23:59:00.069-05:00

MEMO
BOOK
1920

NAT. FEINBERG
Fine Custom Tailoring
1184 Russell Street
DETROIT, MICH.

What messages does this Memo Book 1920 deliver to the 21st century? We still have memo books and calendars and we are looking into remaking urban spaces and walking cities. Seems as if we could benefit by returning to custom tailoring and local manufacturing.

A neighbor gave me this little artifact after the death of one of her relatives, presumably the original owner, about ten years ago. There are two names listed in the addresses section, in pencil:

Carol Turner and Ophelia F. Baker (Balker?]: Friends, girlfriends, relatives, choice customers -- a story there somewhere, no doubt. Every artifact has a story to tell, but not every aspect of any artifact can be deciphered easily. Therein remains the mystery.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

The Long Art

2011-12-09T23:59:00.082-05:00

"Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult." Hippocrates (ca. 460 B.C.-377 B.C.)

Or, as Gore Vidal has compressed it, "Life is short, but the art is long."

Some things have persisted through a lifetime, and remain there seemingly as always. Cuba. Israel-Palestine, North Korea/South Korea. James Bond. The Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. Space shots. Civil rights, human rights, gender issues. China.

Some things have morphed. Vietnam. Ireland/Northern Ireland. Germany. The Cold War. The Soviet Union. Eastern Europe. The Balkans.

And the ball keeps spinning. Some plots thicken, some plots thin. Cuba is changing. Korea will, either in a violent spasm or in some unexpected manner. Palestine will become a nation.

In my lifetime, though these things seem slow, they have changed, even as the population has increased, half again as big in the USA alone (though half as small in Detroit and, probably, New Orleans). South America has changed, Africa has changed, and both continents will change at a quicker pace. All of Africa, not just North Africa, perhaps following the Arab Spring, may begin throwing off dictators. Who knows? What will happen in Mexico? How will the drug wars end? How about Iran, India and Pakistan? And so on. I remain as curious as a cat about all of it, but with vegan meals added.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

The Wild Ones Revisited

2011-12-08T21:23:00.002-05:00

Belle Isle sojourn, Detroit, in the early 1930s. Love is a many-splendored thing. I wonder what Frida Kahlo is thinking as she fiercely eyes an apparently napping Diego Rivera.

From the artists of the Great Depression to the artists of the Great Recession, a salute!

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

La double vie de Véronique

2011-12-07T23:59:00.085-05:00

If you're feeling time move too fast and want to slow things down for a while, watching this will do the trick: Krzysztof Kieślowski's La double vie de Véronique / Podwójne życie Weroniki / The Double Life of Véronique (1991).

The lush, gorgeous and reflective cinematography by Sławomir Idziak is worth the whole shebang. The film's dazzling consideration of color and light, translucent and transparent surfaces, distortion and shadow is central to the story of two women who could be identical twins, one Polish (Weroniki), the other French (Véronique). So is the ethereal soundtrack, puppetry and various memorable inside/outside settings. All done at a s-l-o-w pace.

If identical twins are separated at birth, how might their lives be similar and how will they be different? And more eerily, why (and how) are certain people (not just twins) deeply connected in ways we can't really understand?

Today's Rune: The Self.

La nascita di Venere

2011-12-06T23:59:00.064-05:00

Venus, as painted by Sandro Botticelli seven to ten years before Colombo/Columbus made it to the "New World," could step into this new world of 2011 and walk down a Manhattan sidewalk with ease. Despite hundreds of changes in style and fashion through the intervening years, why is that? And how can an image created more than 500 years ago retain its potency?

Botticelli's La nascita di Venere/The Birth of Venus looks almost like Pop Art, as many others, including artists (see Andy Warhol's remake), have noticed for quite a little while.

Here's a snippet from Roger Scruton's observations in Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011, page 127): "Botticelli's Venus is, from an anatomical point of view, a mishapen caricature, held together by no skeletal structure or muscular tension, a helpless apendage to the face that looks out so wistfully, not at the viewer but past him -- and yet who cares?"

The original is in Florence -- I've seen her with my own eyes.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

The Postal System: Use it or Lose it

2011-12-05T22:09:00.004-05:00

International mail, interstate mail, local mail: I love it all when it's personal. Technology is forcing change, however. The basic idea -- inscribed paper sealed in a stamped envelope -- has persisted for centuries. The digital age, though, makes other means of communication easier, faster and cheaper.

From time to time over the years, I've polled various people as to approximately how many letters they've sent or received in a given time slot vs. using alternatives like text messaging, email, phone calls, tweets, etc. Since about the year 2000, most people I've asked have switched heavily to almost exclusively digital formats. Written letters permit a bit more reflection, but they take longer to get there.

As long as there still is an international postal service, why not utilize it? Surely there are people who would enjoy a letter from time to time?

Another thing to consider: university manuscript collections and archives may treasure some of your letters, even choice ones from the relatively near past. I've already got one set being catalogued in North Carolina. Institutional archives are a good place to send letters because they have professionals who can preserve fragile items far better than most individuals. A backup method is to scan at least samples of letters and notes, or do both. That's my stamp for the day . . .

P.S. I haven't lived at the above address since the mid-1990s, but if you'd like to send old school mail via a current postal address, contact me by (yes, you guessed it) email and I'll give it to you.

Today's Rune: Defense.

Greetings from 1911 to 2011!

2011-12-04T23:59:00.002-05:00

I. Greetings from 1911 to 2011! Have you made great advances in the way we live? Are the zeppelins and heavier-than-air-ships still zipping around the skies? Was the RMS Titanic a hit? Are the masses and classes treated equally now? Can women vote, too? Has humanity become more enlightened, if not perfected? Has peace broken out all over?

II. Greetings from 2011 to 2111! Has climate change forced people underground like moles? Have we replanted the world like Johnny Appleseed gone global? How's that Martian colony coming along? Did we make it without a Third World War? Has the world population exceeded eleven billion and counting? Has veganism taken hold as the preferred diet? Do bees still exist in the wild?

Today's Rune: Journey.

Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies

2011-12-03T23:50:00.003-05:00

Arne Glimcher's Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies (2008) has been assailed by critics from various angles, but I disagree with their spirit. This film brings back the time, barely a century old yet gone forever, right before the first of the first two world wars. There is a lot of footage from early silent pioneers such as the Lumière brothers, and it's wonderful, short enough even for an ADHD attention span.

Of course Picasso and Braque were influenced by the movies -- their exhuberance about everything around them, including the first successful attempts to represent time in motion through moving pictures -- must have felt impossible to contain. These were people fully alive and very observant and on the move all at once.

Moving pictures transformed the way we as human beings can reflect about ourselves -- before photography and movies, one had to rely on paintings, etchings, sketches or verbal descriptions, at best, to "see" a subject beyond the imaginary projections of written description.

Today's Rune: Defense.

The Poetics of Space

2011-12-02T23:59:00.004-05:00

Gaston Bachelard's La poétique de l'espace (1958) / The Poetics of Space (1964, 1994, translated by Maria Jolas). Here's a book that probably cannot be fully absorbed but rather acts as a touchstone into other ways of perceiving. For me, it's a textual equivalent corresponding to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St (1972), Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti (1975) and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (1964-1965). Perpetually mindblowing and otherworldly, yet grounded in this world.

Bachelard roams through architecture small and large via the scrim of poetry, fiction, daydreams, memories, dreams, light, shadow, color, sound and touch, scent and imagination. Our abode, if we are lucky enough to dwell in one, "shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace." "Imagination augments the values of reality."

The English version I picked up in Philadelphia was published by Beacon Press, "under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations."

Bachelard's poetics dovetail nicely with feng shui ("wind-water"), another way of considering the harmonics of space.

Do you have favorite nooks and crannies?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Casino Jack

2011-12-01T23:59:00.092-05:00

Casino Jack (2010), George Hickenlooper's final film, with Oliver Stone-like glee details the shenanigans of numerous real people including Jack Abramoff, money-grubbing greedmeisters who, up until the very near past, operated like clones of Spiro Agnew in the corridors of American power. Some will recall that Agnew, Richard Nixon's Vice President, took cash bribes for years while castigating his enemies as "pusillanimous pussyfooters" and "nattering nabobs of negativism" -- until he was finally caught and brought low and later finally departed this world for good. As for Casino Jack Abramoff, he is played like a partly sympathetic villain by Kevin Spacey, much as Oliver Stone projected some humanity onto Nixon (in Nixon) and George Bush (in W.). The system, however, reeked in Nixon's day and reeked again among Abramoff and his numerous cronies and allies, people like Tom "Dancing with the Stars" Delay, Grover "No New Taxes" Norquist and John "Panama Jack" McCain.

Though convicted in 2006 for fraud and various other public misdeeds, the real Casino Jack is already on the loose again in 2011, supposedly wanting to "clean up" the system now that he can directly suck its blood no longer. Not to say he won't be cruising for payola in other ways. It may only be a matter of time before he, too, Dances with the Stars. The only thing that astonishes me about Abramoff is that he is still only 53 years old.

Today's Rune: Protection.

Withnail and I: It's 1969, Okay? All Across the UK . . .

2011-11-30T23:59:00.002-05:00

Bruce Robinson's Withnail & I (1986), set toward the end of 1969 in England, delivers punchy banter and sly humor, a sort of virtuoso verbal blending of Don Quixote, Sergio Leone, Oscar Wilde, Zorba the Greek and Spinal Tap with Richard E. Grant in the title role. Mad props!

Robinson's latest film is The Rum Diary, based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel.

Today's Rune: Gateway.

A Census for Your Thoughts

2011-11-29T11:59:00.073-05:00

Early US leadership put many Enlightenment ideals into practice. One major Enlightenment ideal was to become more rational, using scientific methods where possible, becoming pragmatic and visionary at the same time. The census was a case in point and is built into the US Constitution. Prior to the development of the democratic republic, with its built-in representative election schedules at local, state and national levels, the need for accurate population statistics was not considered quite as crucial from the perspective of, say, a king, who was for most practical purposes satisfied with an estimate. The problem with estimates, though, is that they may be off-kilter, and often were, once actual counts were attempted.

True to Enlightenment ideals, the implementation of the US census was clever, practical and visionary. In retrospect, the US census is also of great help to historians, providing useful social data, especially for studying certain characteristics of the "common people."

The population in 1790?
About 3.9 million.
In 2010?
About 308.8 million, including more than 3.9 million with significant Native American ancestry.

For any of those conservative fantasists who think the US can roll the grandfather clock back to 1790, they may want to think again. There is no going back. Feel free to look back all you want, though.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Five Thousand Balloons Descending from the Clouds

2011-11-28T23:59:00.088-05:00

In terms of air travel, a lot has happened since 1783, when the first big balloons went up at well-attended demonstrations in France (such as the one pictured above).

I took a heavier-than-air-ship tonight and traveled many hundreds of miles, in fact, over the course of a few hours, from a height of many thousands of feet above the land. Is this something to take for granted?

Here's what Ben Franklin observed about balloons (i.e. Luftballons) in a letter to Jan Ingenhousz, a Dutch scientist, dated January 16, 1784:

It appears, as you observe, to be a discovery of great importance, and what may possibly give a new turn to human affairs. Convincing sovereigns of the folly of wars may perhaps be one effect of it; since it will be impracticable for the most potent of them to guard his dominions. Five thousand balloons, capable of raising two men each, could not cost more than five ships of the line; and where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defence, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?*

*(Franklin, letters; this one came to my attention via Jack Fruchtman, Jr.'s Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends, 2005, page 217).

Of course, airships have not convinced sovereigns of the folly of war at all. Nor have zeppelins, dirigibles, blimps, aeroplanes, jets, rockets, missiles or remotely-piloted drones. They've simply made more things possible from greater distances, at greater velocity.

At least one government in 2011 -- that of the USA -- can launch some form of airstrike anywhere in the world within sixty minutes of initiation, or so it has been said.

What next?

Today's Rune: The Self.

Je me souviens

2011-11-27T22:36:00.002-05:00

Sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is an ample filling of memory. Je me souviens, amarcord, I remember, we remember: it's been a great trip.

It's sometimes astonishing to think how little of the past is remembered, absorbed, or understood on a conscious level, and how little we can really know about the details of the future. But being surrounded by people with quite a bit of shared experience can be so refreshing, renewing, and memory-inducing -- especially in a peaceful and stable environment. And here in Saxapahaw it has been that way. Any number of memories have been induced by conversation, of course, and also by sights and aromas, things like the enclosed wooden cabinet lined with hundreds of small vessels and containers filled with spices and other food-related accessories. I'd never thought to ask until now, but turns out this finely refinished cabinet just around the corner from where I'm writing goes back at least three generations to Mary Daley St. Bonnet McGinnis, one of my maternal great grandmothers. This is just a small sampling.

I could also write about escorting one of my sisters in the cold of winter from Durham, North Carolina, to the Twin Cities, Minnesota, many years ago now, and once having arrived, going back to see where our whole immediate family at the time had lived when I was a little kid in the late 1960s in Mendota Heights (St. Paul). But I'll save that one for another post. If I remember, in the near future, as sharply as I do right here and now.

One thing's certain: this revelry expands my memory.

Happy Cyber Monday to all, but meanwhile, to all a good night!

Today's Rune: Gateway.

Atlantic Cousins, Visionary Friends

2011-11-26T23:49:00.003-05:00

In Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends (2005), there are many clashing ideas and viewpoints that carry over or morph into those of 2011-2012.

Flashback. One clash in Atlantic Cousins (pages 88-89) comes over voting rights, even before the US Constitution. In the wake of the American Revolution, Presbyterians make a power play in Pennsylvania, pushing through a "Test Act." Test, you wonder? A "test" of religious belief that favors the Presbyterians. In order to qualify to vote, one must, among other things, attest to the divine inspiration of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Blocked from voting even among otherwise qualified adult males are: deists, Jews, German anabaptists, members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), gnostics, agnostics, atheists and more. Richard Price, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Ben Franklin and numerous other civil rights proponents work to overturn the Test Act as effectively as possible. Franklin returns from his 1776-1785 stint as American ambassador to France in order to become President of Pennsylvania, whereupon the Test Act is repealed (the full details must be serpentine).

Earlier, in England in the late 1600s, the Parliament had passed similar Test Acts in order to block Catholics and "Nonconformists" from holding important political offices. Those versions weren't overturned in England until 1828-1829.

In 2011-2012, the same kinds of cultural-political and economic power games continue in the USA and globally. Same shit, different century -- united by the glue of human nature. It's worthwhile to remember, though, that there were cool people then and there are cool people now, fighting for many of the same sorts of Enlightenment-style ideas.

Today's Rune: Whole.

Orange Crush: Black Pepper-spray Friday

2011-11-25T23:18:00.004-05:00

Orange pepper-spray, Black Friday, Christmas just around the corner of time. What a world. Meanwhile, another excellent day in and around Saxapahaw capped off by Mongol (2007), an absorbing flick I'll post about soon, if all goes as planned.

Has everyone gotten a chance to see the "pepper-spray cop meme" galloping around the globe quicker than a Mongol messenger (such as the example above)? Love it.

A lot going on here, there, in Egypt and everywhere. I spent $5 on a book about Ben Franklin and his correspondents that looks pretty cool, and certainly of continued relevence, given Franklin's defense of human rights, evolving opposition to slavery, mentorship of free libraries, stewardship of the postal system and championship of free speech, freedom of assembly and civil society in general, all while remembering to have an electrifyingly good time while he was at it. To all that and more -- cheers!

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Bringing It All Back Home Again

2011-11-24T22:38:00.002-05:00

Coming at you from Tar Heel Land, Bob Dylan in the background, luxuriating. Lots of conversation, most lately about Dylan through the years as a sort of cultural yardstick, and Patti Smith, and Van Morrison and a bunch of other stuff. The Rolling Stones Some Girls (1978) brings about a boatload of memories as well. Get the oars out . . .

I've written a little about Saxapahaw before; it seems to get cooler even again, with new music and art venues, the all-important post office, excellent food, and only about twelve miles by back road to Carrborro, my old stomping grounds morphing into Chapel Hill. Greensboro, Durham and Raleigh are all within easy reach. The land here is lush and rolling, much greener and more wooded than in North Texas. The roads are in better shape, too, but gas costs about the same -- about $3.20 per gallon for regular unleaded.

Today's Rune: Journey.

Elements of Choice

2011-11-23T16:46:00.000-05:00

Choose light, dark or vegan. You could choose light and dark, but not light + dark and vegan without making it non-vegan overall: it's a choice between that or vegan. Or you could skip Thanksgiving feasting altogether, making it a Thanksgiving fasting.

On Thanksgiving Day, I'll probably sample everything on the table. How about you?

To get to that particular table, I'd prefer to go mostly by train, but time is of the essence. Instead, I've chosen to walk to a car that I will drive to a parking lot to take a shuttle to a corridor to a jet plane through space and time to a distant location to be picked up by a sibling to be driven to a distant house where I will undoubtedly choose to sleep through the rest of the night, if all goes as planned. By tomorrow at this time, a seat at the table.

Meanwhile, cheers to all!

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

"Choice is Deliberate Desire"

2011-11-22T23:45:00.001-05:00

Delving into Michael Allingham's Choice Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford Universty Press, 2002), it's hard not to start thinking about the choices we are making all the time, or that are made for us. How so many free choices are really gambles. To at least some extent, we are all gamblers!

Modern life. Any kind of insurance. How much should the deductible be vs. the payment plan vs. the possible payout? How much is risk aversion, a requirement of law, prudence or a feeling of safety?

The dentist. My dentist says I need two crowns, an expensive proposition for anyone who is not a millionaire. What do I do? I think, no I don't -- you are trying to choose for me in order to make more money. Instead, I choose to deal with each crown as necesssary, certainly in a more fiscally paced way. It's a gamble that I can wait as long as I want.

Driving, or more accurately, speeding. Who doesn't make a quick calculation such as, ah, everybody's speeding, what are the chances that a traffic cop will bust me? Just in case, let's keep it to "only five miles over the limit."

A nuclear Iran. The Iranian leadership has chosen to develop nuclear power, which will evidently enable Iran to develop nuclear weaponry, as well. ("Choice is deliberate desire." -- Allingham, page 21). The leadership of many other nations does not like Iran's choice, and in turn some choose to obstruct and delay and (try to) block Iran's choice. The leadership of Israel, managing its own nuclear arsenal, could choose to attack Iran. Likewise, if Iran completes a nuclear weapons system, Iran's leadership could choose to attack Israel. What are the chances either way?

Any way you cut it, choice theory is pretty damned interesting. Given how many daily choices we all make, large and small, we should probably think about the process more often.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Freedom of Assembly Redux

2011-11-21T21:56:00.001-05:00

Globally, wild times. From a culturally longer perspective, 2011 is one of those banner years like, say, 1968 or 1848. From inside the middle of it, 2011 seems not quite 1776, 1789, nor 1917/1918.

Like a renewable wedding with history, 2011 features something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The new includes the velocity and amplifying effects of information technology combined with a much larger world population and physically changing global climate. Borrowed and indeed old are many ideas resurfacing from the past. Blue is the tinge of anxiety about the future, perhaps the realization that the perfect society, the perfect world is unattainable, that we're all mortal beings, flawed agents of choice and destiny.

2012 is coming fast, and with it, more upheaval, conflict, debate, choice and destiny. And the wheel spins on even as the latest status quo dissolves.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Flimflam

2011-11-20T23:59:00.005-05:00

Gadzooks, how much flimflam spam and scam can we spic and span? Advertisements come at us from every direction. Are they the most influential way to communicate?

What ads look like phony-baloney in 2011? I'd start with all the meds, pills and medicine man hogwash. Then I'd proceed to insurance and financial companies, anything to do with automobiles, energy corporations, beer-related fantasies and . . . well, you name it. But above all, consider your Adam's Apple!!

Hey, must be good: it's toasted.

Liar, liar, pants on fire: No wonder we're skeptical.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

The Real Glory

2011-11-19T23:59:00.007-05:00

The title and soundtrack may be incongruent, but Henry Hathaway's 1939 adaptation of The Real Glory, a 1937 novel by Charles L. Clifford, sheds a lot more light on American foreign policy than was probably intended at the time. Though set in the Philippines in 1906, parallels to American frontier fighting and US military adventures in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan shout out to be heard. But is anyone listening?

The Real Glory stars Gary Cooper as a sort of action-doctor, along with David Niven as Lt. McCool. They are based in a small village enclave on Mindanao, part of a cadre training "native troops" (as they are called in the movie). The biggest threat to happiness apparently comes from the Moro* people, Muslims who'd fought against the Spanish for nearly four hundred years, and now (in 1906) the Americans, and later the Japanese, and later still, the Filipino central government (through the time of this post).

One American officer complains that he could not possibly train the local "constabulary force" in ten years, let alone sooner.  Another quips: "From now on the little brothers will have to stand on their own feet -- if they can."

Other interesting stuff to watch for: Moro strategy and tactics. The Moros, even as portrayed in the movie, are relentless guerilla fighters and raiders. They gather intelligence about the American enclave, assassinate officers with suicide attacks. They set ambushes and traps and use punji stick pits. They cut freshwater supplies to the village in order to force small contingents out into the jungle and then attack them on rough chosen ground. And so forth. The American commander responds by fortifying the village with sandbags, putting up barbed wire, and rounding up village Moros, forcing them into the village stockade. What happens to the prisoners after that we are never told.

Another line from The Real Glory: "If you believe in marriage, never say 'yes' to a soldier." The great San Francisco earthquake is referenced, and a cholera epidemic figures prominenently, as does a wise Spanish Catholic padre. The music soundtrack is very lame, but otherwise, interesting film.

*Moro sounds like Moor and Moors, and derives from the same Spanish Christian nomenclature for Muslim historical adversaries in Spain.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Dominique Deruddere: Everybody's Famous!

2011-11-18T23:59:00.003-05:00

The story in Dominique Deruddere's Everybody's Famous! / Iedereen beroemd! (2000) is like a melding of John Waters and the Coen Brothers, only gentler and more Flemish. It ruminates on public adulation of and desire for celebrity status, but is more concerned with humanizing social relationships. In a light but engaging way, Everybody's Famous! works in the manner of several other successful independent films -- modestly.

Jean, a struggling sad-faced middle-aged father (played consummately by Belgian actor Jesse De Pauw) hates the dreary factory job where he's worked for more than half of his life; he is also a musical composer who dreams of seeing his seventeen year old singer-daughter Marva (Eva van der Gucht) become a star using music he writes for her; but his relationship with Marva and his wife Chantal is rocky at best.

Things take a wild turn when Jean is laid off. Out of a chance encounter and economic desperation, he kidnaps a pop diva and everything goes haywire. Where the Coen brothers would go sinister here, Deruddere proceeds, more like John Waters, playfully forward, commenting on celebrity and wealth along the way. Much hay is slyly made of mirrors and masks, such as when Jean meets the pop diva's comically smarmy manager wearing a bizarre Michael Jackson mask, until the manager reveals that he already knows Jean's "real life" identity: he can take off the mask. Everybody's Famous! is also notable in its use of mobile phones as an essential plot device -- "way back" near the turn of the century.

Today's Rune: Movement.

Andrei Codrescu: The Disappearance of the Outside

2011-11-17T22:32:00.002-05:00

Andrei Codrescu's The Disappearance of the Outside: A Manifesto for Escape (Ruminator Press, 2001, with new preface; original edition, Addison-Wesley, 1990) does a lot of things at dizzying speed. For one thing, it discusses a lot of literature, particularly Romanian, but also Eastern European in general, and Latin American, with some on North American, too, including from the perspectives of Walt Whitman and William S. Burroughs. There is a lot about Dada, Surrealism and the Beats, about authoritarian society, communist dictatorship and also advertising, technology, propaganda and globalism.

Hopefully, more on this in the future. But in the meantime, one of my favorite lines in this dazzling text is also one of Codrescu's simplest: "Here were books."

This copy signed on March 13, 2002, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That was a real cool time. Anne Waldman was there, too.

I've been co-reading Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space / La poétique de l'espace, translated by Maria Jolas (1994 edition; orginally published in 1958). Right now, it's as if The Poetics of Space is having a conversation with The Disappearance of the Outside -- right down to "the dialectics of inside and outside" (Bachelard, page 84). A nest, a space, a house, a place -- go, dream cats, go!

Today's Rune: Signals.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

2011-11-16T23:59:00.009-05:00

Philip Kaufman's 1988 adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) begins by introducing us to a setting -- Czechoslovakia, 1968 -- and three main characters, Sabina, Tomáš and Tereza. A small handful of other characters float through the story, including Karenin, a dog.

Kaufman's film has the strong feel of a novella or novel -- it has nuance, complexity, depth and breadth. It is also visually elegant and interesting. Social relationships are explored, within the backdrop of the Prague Spring of 1968 (from which the Arab Spring of 2011 derives its name) and during and after Soviet reassertion of control with soldiers, tanks, police and repression -- including periods of exile. The Unbearable Lightness of Being has substance, and it's absorbing.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is particularly cool in how it considers personal freedom of choice and political freedoms; freedom of action and freedom of speech; and social connectedness. Existence and existentialism -- life, being, responsibility, choice and action.

Today's Rune: Strength.

Freedom of Assembly in Action and Contested

2011-11-15T23:59:00.018-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street movement -- or civil uprising -- has been unfolding for a couple of months now, spreading around from NYC. It's mostly peaceful. Responses have been mixed. Legal skirmishes have been ongoing -- city ordinances, permits, tents, parades, signs, police raids, social media, celebrities, writers, bread and circuses. It's gone global.

So far, compared to simultaneous protests in Syria, Yemen or Somalia, there has not with the OWS movement been much violence from either direction. Compare, so far, to the 1960s -- when there were countless bombings, assassinations, and numerous instances of police and vigilante brutality. Around the OWS happenings, constitutional rights are more or less intact and well-defended. But it's a big game of hit or miss so far. Some of the protesters are goofy, and some of the "official" response is heavy-handed at the local level. I dread the possibility of vigilante violence.

My impressions are not strictly from the perspective of a distant observer. I have participated directly if moderately, carrying signs, talking with OWS people, giving encouragement, that kind of thing.

It's clear what the movement is saying: social priorities are important and they are presently askew. Improvements can and should be made. It's really that basic. The message is more important than the messengers, or even the tactics.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Serious Midnight

2011-11-14T22:40:00.006-05:00

So many conflicts, so little time. If you're in the line of fire, knives and bombs, so much time. The situation in Syria pits protestors against the Bashar al-Assad regime, civilians against soldiers and internal security forces. Yes, there is war all over the planet, from Sudan to Somalia and spinning all around the globe, and this is just one of them.

The countries neighboring Syria are being sucked into this particular disaster, too. Syria's population: 23 million -- more than live in New York, fewer than in Texas.

How this Syrian cycle ends, nobody knows yet; but more will be killed by the next sunrise, and, by the following midnight, more will be killed after that. There but for the grace of God or luck or kismet go the rest of us.

Today's Rune: Joy.

Alejandro Jodorowsky: El Topo, Part 2

2011-11-13T23:58:00.001-05:00

A little more on Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, (1969-1971). In yesterday's post, Sergio Leone was evoked, and there is definitely strong imagery that seems directly related to Leone's films. Others were added to the mix. After going through the second half, I'd expand the comparison and influences (across time, before and after) to Hieronymus Bosch, John Waters, all sorts of Medieval distortions of ancient myths, the Grimm brothers and David Lynch.

El Topo also reminds me of The Canterbury Tales / I racconti di Canterbury (1972), which was created with evidently scabrous delight by Pier Paolo Pasolini, adapted from Geoffrey Chaucer's influential late fourteenth century fragments and tales. For The Canterbury Tales, Pasolini employed Ennio Morricone, who also worked on the Sergio Leone films, to do the soundtrack, proving once more that everything is connected one way or another.

Finally, after the nightmarish surrealism of El Topo, I'm happy to return to a more mundane reality, as least for a while!

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Alejandro Jodorowsky: El Topo, Part 1

2011-11-12T23:59:00.011-05:00

Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo (1970) is the strangest movie I've ever seen. Take the archetypal Sergio Leone Western, blend with Fellini, Buñuel, and Jean-Luc Godard's Les Carabiniers (1963), ingest some kind of metaphorical hallucinogen, pore over Surrealist art, and presto, that is El Topo in a single mushroom cartridge.

El Topo builds a garish shimmering bridge between Sergio Leone's Wild West and the Road Warrior world of Mad Max that would begin, in the olive of time, in 1979. It is primal myth, dueling it out with the 20th century on the astral plane. Leone's world looks positively comforting by comparison.

Today's Rune: Signals.

Remembrance Day 2011

2011-11-11T23:59:00.012-05:00

The last of the Great War veterans are passing from direct to historical memory. Little children who survived and can still remember the catastrophe are a hundred years old or more. This post is for all of them, and for us now.

The poet Guillaume Apollinaire fought in the 1914-1918 war, was wounded and survived his wounds -- only to die in the Great Influenza Pandemic, two days before Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, a date now memorialized as Remembrance Day, and as Veteran's Day.

"Ombre" by Guillaume Apollinaire (1916)

Vous voilà de nouveau près de moi
Souvenirs de mes compagnons morts à la guerre
L'olive du temps
Souvenirs qui n'en faites plus qu'un
Comme cent fourrures ne font qu'un manteau
Comme ces milliers de blessures ne font qu'un article de journal
Apparence impalpable et sombre qui avez pris
La forme changeante de mon ombre
Un Indien à l'affût pendant l'éternité
Ombre vous rampez près de moi
Mais vous ne m'entendez plus
Vous ne connaîtrez plus les poèmes divins que je chante
Tandis que moi je vous entends je vous vois encore
Destinées
Ombre multiple que le soleil vous garde
Vous qui m'aimez assez pour ne jamais me quitter
Et qui dansez au soleil sans faire de poussière
Ombre encre du soleil
Ecriture de ma lumière
Caisson de regrets
Un dieu qui s'humilie

Here's a rough and dirty transliteration:

You're here again about my memories
Of my companions, war dead
Olive of time
Memories that make one more
As one hundred furs make a great coat
As thousands of injuries make one story in a newspaper
Intangible and dark apparitions who have
Taken the changing form of my shadow
An Indian lookout from eternity's shadow
You feel me but you do you hear me anymore?
You know more divine poems that I sing
While I hear you, I still see you
For multiple shadows that the Sun keeps
You that may love enough to never leave me
And dance in the Sun
Without dust, shadow
Shaded ink of the Sun
Writing of my light
Caisson of regrets
A god that humiliates

Today's Rune: Strength.

Fellow Travelers: The Photographers

2011-11-10T23:59:00.076-05:00

Kellie Jones, Lorna Simpson (Phaidon Contemporary Artists, 2002).

Patricia Bosworth, Diane Arbus: A Biography (2005).

Susan Goldman Rubin, Margaret Bourke White: Her Pictures Were Her Life (1999).

Anthony Penrose, The Lives of Lee Miller (1988).

Cindy Sherman: The Early Works, 1975-1977. Catalogue Raisonné (2012). Das Frühwerk.

Five über-cool photographers. I dig them all!

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Emotion, Leashed and Unleashed

2011-11-09T13:43:00.004-05:00

In Emotion: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2003; originally published as Emotion: The Science of Sentiment, 2001), the author posits that, because they apparently have no emotions, Mr. Spock and the Vulcans would not have been able to survive for very long. There's a backstory, though, and the Vulcans of Star Trek do have emotions -- they just suppress them like those on-duty guards in full dress uniform marching around Buckingham Palace in London, rarely cracking a smile. Culturally, Vulcans tend to keep their emotions under wrap, even to themselves when possible, as if they're always on self guard duty. But sometimes it's not possible, such as during the seven-year "Pan-farr" mating cycle, going "deep in the Plak-tau." The Vulcans present a good, albeit fictional, case study of ritualized cultural response in keeping instinctive emotions from running amok most of the time.

"Amok Time" (1967) is the main episode of Star Trek referenced here. Thanks to Charles Gramlich for inspiring today's post header, derived from a comment he made on yesterday's: "Emotion is a hard dog to control once it gets hold of the leash."

As for the evolution of the character of Mr. Spock, in the original pilot (The Cage, 1965), he is an excitable Martian, not an emotionally restrained Vulcan!

Interesting twist, considering how things turned out.

Before Spock's reconception as a Vulcan, the character on Star Trek who displayed no emotional affect was Number One (shown here). A lot of science fiction stories play around with this idea, with characters ranging from gynoids to Invaders to Stepford Wives.

Today's Rune: Strength.

This Melody Haunts My Reverie

2011-11-08T22:30:00.002-05:00

A little bit more from Dylan Evans' Emotion: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2003; originally published as Emotion: The Science of Sentiment, 2001). Evans' work argues that feelings, emotions, moods and moral sentiment are necessary and desirable in social settings more often than not.

As far as moral sentiments go, Evans' approach seems exactly the opposite of someone like Herman Cain, one of several wealthy and outspoken Republican candidates spinning out of control in the US presidential election cycle of 2011-2012. Last month, Cain was widely quoted as saying this in response to Occupy Wall Street, the gathering protest movement that questions, among other things, growing economic disparities in the USA: “Don’t be jealous, don’t be envious . . . I don’t have much patience for someone who does not want to achieve their American dream the old-fashioned way.”

Evans has a response apparently ready-made for Cain's recent quips, even though Evans' words were first published a decade ago:

"A classic example of . . . perverse reasoning was provided by a Conservative politican a few years ago in England. In an attempt to discredit the Opposition, which aimed at redistributing wealth more equitably maong all levels of society, he accused his opponents of preaching the 'politics of envy.'" But "[i]n fact, it [envy] may prove to be crucial for our sense of justice and for motivating us to build a fairer society . . ." Furthermore, "envy is a part of human nature" and we had better "decide how we express it; either through policies of wealth distribution, or through violence and theft. Did the Conservative politican think the latter was preferable?" (Evans, page 45).

On the one hand, murderous mobs and fascist groups are fueled by nasty "regressive" emotion; on the other, reform impulses for civil rights and social justice are fueled by "progressive" moral sentiment. What changes historically (usually through conflict) all depends on which emotions and which sentiments prevail, occasionally refined by rational thinking. Let's remember from Jean-Luc Godard's Made in USA (1966): "There's no changing them! The Right because it's so cruel and brainless, the Left because it's sentimental." And there we have perhaps the key difference between today's avatars of "Right" and "Left."

Today's Rune: Warrior.

Mood, Emotion and Choice

2011-11-07T23:33:00.004-05:00

The strong link between memory and emotion evoked in earlier posts led me to Dylan Evans' Emotion: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2003), a mad dash through evolution and culture, observing various clues and passing furry fellow creatures, computers and robots along the way.

If emotion "colors" memory, actual colors radiate influence on emotions, moods and choices. As does food intake -- the full range, from coffee and alcohol to spices, chocolate, sugar, hallucinogens and everything in between.

Among humans, moods and emotions transcend specific cultures, groups and societies, though culture may inform how we respond to them, or display/hide them.

Basic emotions include joy, distress, anger, fear, surprise and disgust (Evans, page 5) and later evolutionary additions: love, guilt, shame, pride, embarrassment, envy and jealousy (Ditto, page 21). Evans contends with each, considering why they may have developed.

From the strength of his examples and from my own observations, I concur with nearly all of Evans' take on things. Some things remain open-ended, though, persisting as mysteries.

One conclusion is this: In our existential decision-making, our choosing what to do next, it's clear that emotional calibration is as key a component as logical calculation. The main thing is to be aware of emotional state, mood, and context -- if there's time to be aware. In some situations, snap decisions must be made: fight or flight in the blink of an eye, or by "instinct."

A typical writing prompt: Write about a time when you found yourself in a profoundly altered mood or emotional state. How did it feel?

Today's Rune: Partnership.

The Velvet Underground: Under Review

2011-11-06T22:22:00.001-05:00

This popcorn and cotton candy documentary doesn't do much, but it's still a fun little romp through the Velvet Underground's discography. Key players John Cale and Lou Reed do not appear for interviews; these are left to others like drummer Mo Tucker and later addition Doug Yule.

Like time spent with an old friend, it's worth watching The Velvet Underground: Under Review (2006) if you dig the Velvets. Hard to determine who directed this, part of a British series.

Some of the great Velvet Underground tracks:

I'm Waiting for the Man
Femme Fatale
Venus in Furs
All Tomorrow's Parties
Heroin
There She Goes Again
I'll Be Your Mirror
White Light/White Heat
Sister Ray
What Goes On
Some Kinda Love
Beginning to See the Light
That's the Story of My Life
Sweet Jane
Rock & Roll

What am I missing here? John Cale gave the band its initially dark, super-cool sound, and Lou Reed's lyrics tend to stick in the memory. I often think of Reed phrasing. Two lines in particular:

I could sleep for a thousand years (Venus in Furs)

and

Aren't you glad you're married? (Kill Your Sons)

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Lindsay Anderson: Britannia Hospital

2011-11-05T22:00:00.009-05:00

This, my friends, is what a crazy anarchist movie looks like. Take the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933) -- shot during the Great Depression -- and mix in Jean-Luc Godard's Tout va bien / Everything's Fine (1972) with Luis Buñuel's Le Fantôme de la liberté / The Phantom of Liberty (1974) and class-conscious British sitcoms of the 1970s, with an added dash of horror, fantasy and science fiction, plus Robert Altman and voilà, presto -- there you have it.

Hotel Britannia (1982) is neither good for casual entertainment, nor is it the first Lindsay Anderson film to check out. As Anderson himself put it (quoted in the twelve-minute extra featuring Malcolm McDowell): "you need a strong sense of humor to understand the satire in Britannia Hospital." That said, it's very relevant for a sharper understanding of the dramatic global happenings of 2011.

The initial release of Britannia Hospital fared well in France, but it suffered from terrible timing on its release in the UK (thanks to the nationalistic, jingoistic and xenophobic enthusiasm of the Falklands/Malvinas War managed by Margaret Thatcher). In the USA, Ronald Reagan was in power, gearing up with his own foreign adventures. Today's underlying economic inequities were reinforced just then, as Anderson clearly observed. But Anderson's critique, along with others, largely fell on deaf ears thanks to the draw of unleashed greed and the pursuit of power. It's quite an interesting film, albeit with an ick factor and a slapstick feel, not too far off from the Pink Panther films. Its themes go deep, and its critique of class, power and the human condition cuts deep, as well.

Snippets of Britannia Hospital such as this brief one may be more evocative than the film as a whole. This one's very telling as to Lindsay's Anderson's worldview.

Today's Rune: Movement.

That Was the Year That Wasn't: Year Zero

2011-11-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

I. So, I'm born into this calendar system and have been using it for as long as I can remember, the one that says this year is 2011. That is, Anno Domini 2011, A.D. 2011, 2011 A.D., In the Year of the Lord 2011. It often strikes me as weird and a little off-putting. I faithfully date checks, documents, diary entries, blog posts and so on using this scheme, because most of the people I interact with use it, too. But what's it all about?

II. Where's a calendar to start? With the emperor's ascension to the throne, the queen's coronation day, the start of the Revolution, the birth of a religious figure, or from the date of some Earth-changing event?

III. One thing to note about the A.D./B.C. (Before Christ) dating system is that it's off kilter. Almost nobody (among scholars and religious experts) believes that Jesus Christ was born on this coming Christmas Day 2011 years ago. In fact, there is no exact consensus of birth date. Estimates now range from 2 "B.C." to as far back as 18 "B.C.," with death (in human form) dating to between 29 and 36 A.D. In other words, "all that seems solid melts into air" once carefully considered. No wonder, as the cliché goes, ignorance is bliss!

IV. In the B.C./A.D. system, there is no Year Zero. As constructed, the years flip from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. This is truly a strange system for thinking about -- or even trying to grasp -- chronological time.

V. How often do we deliberately "do" a countdown in modern life?

a. New Year's Eve, countdown to the next year.
b. Sporting events.
c. Medical/scientific events.
d. Ultimata (ultimatums).
d. Blasting off: rockets and spaceships.

The last image has me imagining the countdown from B.C. to A.D., to the moment when Jesus blasts off into the Heavens! (The Ascension pictured above: circa A.D. 1410, Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry)

3 B.C., 2 B.C., 1 B.C.
We have lift-off . . .

Except the Ascension is estimated to have occurrred somewhere between A.D. 30 and 36.

VI. I was earlier imagining Jesus blasting off by jetpack, but it turns out there's already a Jetpack Jesus action figure! Besides which, neither God nor the Son of God need technology to perform miracles, right?

"It's Christ who climbs to the sky better than any pilot / He holds the world record for altitude" -- Guillaume Apollinaire, "Zone" (trans. Charlotte Mandell) from Alcools, 1913.

VII. Today's Rune: Harvest.

Memory Z

2011-11-03T21:44:00.009-05:00

A lot of strong memories were given their initial big bang coding by heightened emotion. So-called flashbulb memories are one type, and collective flashbulb memories find additional reinforcement through shared recollections. The JFK assassination for those old enough to remember. The MLK assassination. Landing on the Moon, walking on the Moon. The tail end of the US-Vietnam War. Watergate. Oil embargo. Iran Hostage Crisis. And on and on up to the rolling present.

Interest reinforces memory. During a year in grade school when living in St. Paul, Minnesota, in the fall of 1968, my school held a mock election, which got me interested in presidential elections. Vice President Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr., was closely associated with Minnesota, and most kids voted for him in our election. Most dissenters voted for Richard Milhous Nixon, with only a couple for George Wallace (kids orginally from Tennessee). No doubt most of us were voting the way our parents would in the real election. Humphrey won Minnesota but Nixon won at the national level. I remember every presidential election night since 1968.

Sports memory works in the same way, at least for the big series and the big wins of favorite teams. It's all about the intensity of interest fusing with emotional excitement/investment, taking purchase in our memory system.

Anything intense tends to persist somewhere in the "memory banks." Good when it's good, "post-traumatic" when it's traumatic.

For the quieter developments in life (and even for intense social connections maintained through time), artifacts like diaries, journals, receipts, photos, recordings, souvenirs, letters and postcards bring the times back: tokens of remembrance, objets de mémoire. They also help when the details of memories blur. How cool is that?

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.