Now on Netflix, Televisión Española's El Ministerio del Tiempo / The Ministry of Time. My mother and one of my sisters have been watching this, and now I'm into it! Season One, Episode 5 (2015): Cualquier tiempo pasado / Every Past Time. In this episode, members of the Ministry of Time go back to the Spanish Civil War (1937) and to 1981, and another one goes back to around the turn of the twentieth century to meet a young Picasso, in three different attempts to attain or forge a receipt for Picasso's Guernica, which another time traveler is trying to thwart in 1981.
A fun series, perfect for anyone wanting to learn about Spanish culture, history and language. (English subtitles included). The secret Ministry of Time has multiple portals and can access Spain's past -- but only inside Spain. People are recruited from various ages, then cross-trained for time travel. Imagine the possibilities! The active viewer has to engage -- and use critical thinking. It's mind-expanding on multiple fronts!
A woman from the 1800s must consider the different attitudes and social mores of the 21st century, and, then, say, go to the 16th century, and come back again. A soldier from 16th century Flanders muses over changes in technology, communications, transportation, and gender roles. The viewer must empathize to grok these different and changing viewpoints. On the sly, certain people go back in time to "fix" personal memories. But if they do anything drastic, the present may be changed (enigmas of time, paradox, anomaly). Painter Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) badly wants to meet Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). They do meet, and discuss Francisco Goya (1746-1828), among other things. Keepin' it real -- a real cool time! All aboard for funtime!
This has got to be one of the greatest fortune cookie readings ever: "Love because it is the only true adventure." Excellent! A little research reveals the most probable source for this particular fortune: Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943). I found a reference to the original one-word longer sentence, from which this is derived, dating back to at least 1981.
As for the design of the modern fortune cookie, it seems to date back about a hundred years, and to within the USA -- probably in California, but Brooklyn has a traceable history of fortune cookie production going back quite a little ways, too. Do you have a fortune cookie ritual? Must you eat the whole thing to "make it so?" And, what else about fortune cookies, if anything, inspires your imagination? Today's Rune: Signals.
Jim Carroll was great: sharp, funny, dark and usually late for his performances, at least the ones I saw. Man, that first one at The Pier in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1981 when he fronted The Jim Carroll Band seems like yesterday, exhilarating and permanent. He and the rest of the band had come down from New York City in a van and been pulled over by police in Virginia. "I thought they'd make me squeal like a pig," he quipped in that strange cracked voice of his, referencing the horrors of Deliverance. It's funny now, too, that tickets were only $5.00 apiece if memory serves. Woo-hoo, minimum wage had just gone up to $3.35 per hour that January!
1981 must have been the year my mind hit the open seas, as it were, because it keeps popping up as a top subject tag. That show at The Pier was The Jim Carroll Band's "First U.S. Summer Tour," so we all lucked out with that one.
And so it was again that when Jim Carroll came to Detroit as part of his 1998 Spoken Word Tour, I jumped at the opportunity to turn out one more time for the poet-singer. I'd only been living in Detroit since the summer of 1997, come to think of it. In any case, the tickets cost $12.50.
On the night of February 21, 1998, it was cold and the street grates were spewing steam along the edges of Woodward Aveue. At some point, I found myself waiting, huddled in the Magic Stick, drink in hand, until he arrived, with three other folks in my party.
The Magic Stick, part of the Majestic Theatre complex built in 1915, holds about 550 people max, so any good act is worth seeing there (as is the main Majestic space, with a capacity of 1,000).
Once Jim Carroll showed up, he launched into reading and recitation, clowning and gravelly voice impressions of William S. Burroughs and others. The dude was cool and, dare I say, transcendent of time and place.
Eventually, Jim Carroll (1949-2009) inspired me to get around to contributing to "Essays on Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries," for Nonfiction Classics for Students (Cengage Gale), Vol. 5, 2003. Among other things. Thank you, Jim -- you rock!
Man, 1981, 1998, 2012 -- it's all in here somewhere, really . . .
How did I end up seeing the locale debut of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Oxford New Theatre in June 1981? Well, who knows? The interest was there -- me and fellow schoolmates would discuss the lines and the spin on things throughout high school and maybe even into college. It was entertaining and interesting stuff. My sisters had the record, the 1970 one with Ian Gillan of Deep Purple in the title role.
Anyway, I'd been staying in a cheap hotel room in London and took a train over (or "up") to Oxford, about an hour trip. Walking to the show, I found the New Theatre (aka The Apollo) ringed by demented Calvinists aiming to prevent anyone from seeing it. Failing in that, they were circling with crazy signs, the kind you might see at a "Pro-Life" protest outside of a Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia. I thought, Up the Junction! In I went, damn the torpedoes.
During the performance, there were lasers I'm remembering, electric instruments, energetic vocal deliveries. FanTAstic, as someone duly quipped then. Or as another said: BRILLiant.
It was a little chilly outside afterwards, and the "nutters" were still there, "barmy on their crumpets" as before. I weaved and dodged and hopped the first train once back at the station.
As it turned out, wrong train. Not going to London at all. Nope, going to Worcester. In the parlance of the day, Shite! Last train out. Next return from Worcester to London leaves in five hours. Sleep on a bench. Get questioned by a copper. No, I'm not a member of the IRA. Down to the station. Cup of tea? No, but a cup of coffee sounds good . . . Sent on my merry way.
Starts raining. Walk around. Read a sign noting this: here in 1651, Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army rode victorious over King Charles II and his allies. Well, ain't that something.
Ah, yes, still have a cigarette. Light it. Smoke it. Back to the train station. Food cart. Open. Coming back to life. Climb aboard -- London. Ready. Steady. Go.
Ah, what a treat! Joan Jett, then of the Runaways, sparkles among the talking heads (though Kim Fowley is sharp, as well) during a fraught 1977 discussion about how to receive "Punk and New Wave." In shows from 1981, these three guests come off as erudite and charming: Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop and Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics). Tom, despite his hangups and preconceptions, gives them their due, and all perform live. Elvis' appearance comes just a couple of weeks after he played in Chapel Hill. Iggy has a tooth missing and a cut lip, drinks a little wine and schools Tom about Apollonian and Dionysian energies. That is, in between frenetic performances of "Dog Food" and "Five Foot One." The show ends with "TV Eye."
It's been about two hundred years since Francisco Goya (1746-1828) began, in his sixties, Los Desastres de la Guerra / The Disasters of War series. Anyone thinking of electively plunging into war might want to study it carefully. Here is a scan of Plate 12, Para eso habéis nacido / This is what you were born for.
The present "low level" "all-volunteer" conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan percolate through the collective American psyche from time to time, but mostly we seem to have adopted an Anglo-Orwellian outlook: stay calm and carry on.Wars and S'mores -- it's all good! As long as there's no draft, who cares who, why or how we're fighting?
Soon, I'm going to send off a copy of my journal from 1981, covering my first European trip (when I was twenty) with a history class that took a good close-up look at World War I battlefields, among other things. (It'll go to Wilson Library's Special Collections at UNC Chapel Hill). Here's a snippet from the journal about a typical day on the Western Front, six decades after the end of the Great War. Dr. Jim Leutze conducted the class, a double credit summer semester experience I'll not forget anytime soon.
Off we went through the Somme countryside to the section known by the British and Canadians as the “Battle of Albert.” Dr. Leutze gave a brief lecture about the Great War’s impact on the British Empire atop the Newfoundland Memorial. The cream of a generation fell in the ground in front of us and places like it. It is a rolling pasture interspersed with small forests and crisscrossed with the still visible trenches and lines of barbed wire stakes; the area of No Man’s Land down to the Somme River and over is completely pockmarked with shell holes. Flocks of sheep incongruously roam part of No Man’s Land now, and out in the field stand the shriveled remains of the only tree still left from 1916. That “Age of Innocence” is really appalling to me. I could never submit to the arbitrary whims of a government in peace or war without at least questioning them, though if born a generation ago I’m sure I would do so “patriotically.” Given a cause I believed in, perhaps I’d fight, but for something as stupid and senseless as the First World War, forget it.
Are the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq causes you still believe in or ever believed in? How about the U.S.-Vietnam War? The Panama Invasion of 1989? How about the Invasion of Grenada in 1983? Should universal conscription be re-introduced? Who gains? Who pays? Who loses? The answers to these questions are vital, not pointless: Para eso habéis nacido.
It's "a little" mind-blowing when you come upon a new word or idea, isn't it? Take astrology. It's hard enough to keep straight the order and supposed attributes of the twelve most accepted astrological/zodiac signs, even to keep up with casual conversation among those who are into it. My friend Evan has always maintained that though it would seem to make no sense, especially the terminology, nonetheless there is a connective truth to "reading the stars." We're talking the full chart, Sun Sign, Moon Sign, Ascendant, all of it to a mathematical equation. Born under certain stars. In any case, imagine discovering a "new" sign, one called Ophiuchus or Serpentarius. Even more so, discovering that it is precisely my sign, in addition to Sagittarius. Holy shit! When I was a little kid, the difference between "states" and "countries" became clearer through adult mentorship and books and maps, I suppose, but for some reason until a little older I still tagged Connecticut as a separate country, rather than a different state in the USA. Even now, a map comes in handy to see how states and countries fit into mental maps of the world. Many -- maybe even most people -- seem to have no idea how the puzzles of geography fit, even on symbolic maps. For me it has "always" been like this, despite intense study through the years. Also as a kid, I took a train ride to Horseheads, New York, for what reason I had no idea "at the time." But what struck me as most strange then was not the train ride, which I loved, but the destination's name. Only in adulthood did I come across its Iroquois origin, dating back to wartime (the American Revolution). So "anyway" it "turns out" I was born under the signs of Serpentarius, Ophiuchus and Sagittarius, and I am left-handed -- the bend sinister. Same date (but under different status quo calendars) as John Milton (Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained) and Red Foxx (whose "real" family name was -- Sanford). Among others. As a kid, I also dug Milton Berle, Batman, the Green Hornet and James Bond. Go figure. How about you? Above image: Louis Malle's My Dinner with Andre (1981), written and "starring" André Gregory and Wallace Shawn.
I. I took this slide transparency shot in 1981. What does it look like to you? Anything jump to mind?
II. August 9 is Nagasaki Day, a commemoration of one of the Disasters of War. It was certainly not a highpoint in human evolution when the crew of Bockscar dropped Fat Man on the city of Nagasaki, killing or mortally maiming 80,000 people, mostly civilians, on August 9, 1945. Always worth noting -- Nagasaki is too often overshadowed by Hiroshima.
As fate or luck would have it, the city of Kokura escaped atomic attack twice: first as a secondary target, secondly as the primary target.
World demographics pie. We're gonna be seven billion in a very short while . . . Europe, the USA and Latin American all put together ain't that much of the cake, as you can see. Add Africa and still you can see where it's really at . . .
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston and Tim Holt, John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) adapts to the big screen B. Traven's novel, Der Schatz der Sierra Madre (1927) / The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1935).
Set in Mexico during the mid-1920s in the rough wake of the Mexican Revolution, three Americans seek to break out of exile and poverty by striking gold in dangerous mountain country. The film begins in Tampico, with two of the dudes catching a job at a nearby oilfield, working on a derrick. Yes, even then oil was a coveted and exploited resource. After their oil work fails, off for gold in them thar hills. In the backdrop, Mexican bandits (holdovers from the Revolution?) and federales, town folk and rural Indians, campfires, guns, trains and burros.
As for the B. Travens the German novelist, even now no one seems quite sure of his "real" identity.
This was the first movie I ever saw on TV; must have been four years old, with my Mom and friends (maybe relatives) sitting around gabbing. I remember Bogart, the grit and wildness of the story; though in my memory, his character is stuck on the end of the bridge, dying. This is not quite how it plays out. There is a tunnel cave-in, but no bridge scene such as I remembered -- maybe it's another Bogart movie blending in the memory banks?
Fernando De Fuentes' ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa! / Let's Go with Pancho Villa! (1936) is the All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) of the Mexican Revolution. Both are based on novels (Rafael Muñoz's ¡Vámonos con Pancho Villa!, 1931, and Erich Maria Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues, 1928/1929). Both are archetypal war stories, in a way that goes all the way back to The Iliad: Enthusiastic men -- in this case six guys -- volunteer for war, are developed enough to engender empathy, become disillusioned and, since by then it's far too late to escape their fates, decimated. Here, the men join up for the adventure and a vague sense of justice and are promised, along with their peers, land and liberty. But in the end, what land? What liberty?
A great film made when the Mexican Revolution, which looks on screen like a mix between the Wild West and the First World War, was still fresh. Troop trains, revolutionaries with big hats, bandoliers and horses, federales with rifles and machine gun nests, artillery, trenches and bugles -- it's all there. One scene has federales holed up in a fortified position, sweeping the approaches with a search light -- that scene sticks, as do many others. The entire cast is good, especially Antonio R. Frausto as Don Tiburcio Maya, the 40-something leader of Los Leones ("The Lions") de San Pablo.
If you like war or anti-war movies, early sound film or Latin American history, this one's for you. If you're looking for comedy, mellow or sophisticated special effects, not so much.
Incohate but palplable: is it just me or is there new life flickering in the Zeitgeist? Reminds me of the 1970s, certainly, with many people reeling economically but in heart and mind, very much alive and kicking. The recent re-release of Exile on Main St (1972) by The Rolling Stones adds to the old feeling: what goes around comes around! Culturally, that's a good thing: things have been pretty anemic since the day Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. Iron seems to be coming back into the system. And politically, Barack Obama is more clever than Jimmy Carter. This socially creative period may persist longer than last time around -- if we're lucky. It's been a long time since I've felt this excited by new (or resurrected) stuff . . .
Here's a snippet from The Kinks 1979 song, "(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman," off the album Low Budget:
There was a gas strike, oil strike, lorry strike, bread strike Got to be a superman to survive Gas bills, rent bills, tax bills, phone bills I'm such a wreck but I'm staying alive . . .
Indeed. Keep fighting the good fight! And keep an eye on the crafty banks: I noticed a new ATM fee yesterday ($1.50). They'll try to weasle every nickle and dime they can out of their "valued customers," no matter what reforms have gone through.
An effective parable of human nature set during the First World War, Philippe de Broca's Le Roi de Cœur (1966) / King of Hearts (1967) takes a multilingual route to sanity. Characters are French, Scottish, English and German caught between lines in the last year of the war. Centers around the escaped inmates of an insane asylum and a Scottish soldier they crown King of Hearts.
I showed this one in my The Great War and the 1920s class, and the students seemed receptive even in the early 21st century. The story unfolds in a way that is not clichéd and still carries water. Makes me think of the Dadaist artists and writers escaping the war -- unlike many of their peers who were wasted as cannon fodder in protracted trench warfare. And to what end?
Great actors, including Alan Bates, Geneviève Bujold and Pierre Brasseur.
Walking around Goliad, Texas, near the 18th-century Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía, came across a Mexican cemetery, and this Mary shrine, at dusk. Eerie grounds, to be sure. This was formerly Mexican territory (Coahuila y Tejas), site of the Goliad massacre, 1836, and birthplace of General Ignacio Zaragoza -- the guy whose victory at the Battle of Puebla still inspires Cinco de Mayo celebrations.
Another vision of Mary: in Detroit, near a battleground of Pontiac's War against the encroaching British and Americans (1763). As a result of Pontiac's fairly successful "uprising," the British tried to adopt a policy toward the tribes more along the lines of the French who'd been there immediately before them. Here, Mary still abides, more than 300 years after her arrival in Detroit.
If you're easily annoyed by writers and artists "yakking," as Jack Kerouac might put it, you may want to avoid Curt Worden's One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac's Big Sur (2008/2009). On the other hand, if you like Kerouac and are patient, this documentary will be worthwhile.
First, what is the Gypse Curse? "May you get exactly what you think you want" is one variation. Be careful what you wish for. Becoming famous may be hazardous to your health -- or to someone else's health: just ask Mel Gibson, or Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and all down the line. Keoruac definitely has a station down that line. Don't get off there if you want to get out alive. But no one does anyway, so why the hell not?
One Fast Move or I'm Gone: Kerouac knew if he didn't regroup from alcohol poisoning, he'd be dead fast, he'd be gone. He went to Big Sur to "dry out." It didn't work. He died at 47 -- nine years after the Big Sur interlude. But he wrote in the meantime, including the novel that became Big Sur (1962).
The film includes good footage that I'd never seen, same with the new photos; Big Sur, New York City and San Francisco scenery; and an effective sampling of Kerouac's voice, rendered in most excellent fashion by John Ventimiglia (the dude who played Artie Bucco in The Sopranos) -- he sounds eerily like Jack Kerouac.
This woman smoking a cigar looks just like Cathy Searles, a former co-worker in North Carolina. Yes, women can vote. Yes, women can fight. And now, in Argentina, women can marry other women. Change comes in fits and starts, eh?
Above poster picked up at the main Northwestern University library in the late 1990s. They still had some on hand from their 1975 Paris Commune 1871 display. I wonder if they still have any left?
Beautiful and riveting is Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace (2004). Not only a compelling story, but surprising. The plot left me wondering -- caring -- like a cousin to Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days / 4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile (2007). These are great independent films about women set against the backdrop of specific socio-economic systems enforced by men.
In Maria Full of Grace, the Colombian-born lead, Catalina Sandino Moreno, conveys powerful emotions through her facial expressions, and with her eyes. Wonderful work.
It was like some crazy dream. Pancho Villa and his cross-border raiders rode into the town of Columbus, New Mexico, in March, 1916, blazing away, burning the town and escaping back into Mexico. Elements in the USA sprang to arms and gave chase with a "Punitive Expedition" including George Patton on horseback, bi-planes, trucks, telegrams and Buffalo Soldiers. At some harrowing points during the nearly year-long operation, American troopers crashed into Mexican federales and nearly provoked a second Mexican-American War. Pancho, meanwhile, at odds with the federalesand Doughboys, escaped capture.
Only German U-Boats provided cover and a way out for the Americans: entry into the First World War, heading "Over There" to Europe. Out of the frying pan, into the fire . . . Meanwhile, Mexico's sense of nationalism, if anything, was bolstered; perhaps most significantly, the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States was ratified in February, 1917, just as the last US troops were leaving Mexico.
Isn't the recruitment poster above quaint? Like so many others, it coaxes volunteers using patriotism and a sense of adventure:
"COME ON, BOYS, BE READY TO SHOULDER THE TRUSTYSPRINGFIELD" . . . "THE BOYS ARE NOW CROSSING THE ALKALI DESERTS AND JUNGLES OF MEXICO." WHAT FOR? THE GOVERNMENT ORDERS ARE GET VILLA AND GET HIM AT ONCE! . . . The Flag, Old Glory . . .
At the outset of any conflict, it works every time.
Mexico: Icon of the Revolution Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), General, Ejército Libertador del Sur / Zapatistas. Co-creator of the Plan de Ayala calling for Reforma, Libertad, Justicia y Ley, a universal call, still appealing a hundred years later. Land is a tricky thing, though -- private property or social space for everyone? (Photo: US Library of Congress).
Icon of the Revolution: Francisco Pancho Villa (1878-1923), leader of the Divisióndel Norte, with staff (Villistas). Like Zapata, he came to a violent end. (Photo: US Library of Congress).
Icon of Mexican Independence: 200 years ago, Father Hidalgo (Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mondarte Villaseñor) raised high the banner of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe / Our Lady of Guadalupe and began Mexico's drive for independence from Spain. He was captured, shot and beheaded in 1811, ten years before independence was fully won.
Another milestone year, 2010 represents the 100th anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution, a sprawling and intense conflict that left an estimated one to two million dead; and the 200th anniversary of the start of the Mexican Wars for Independence from Spain. In popular culture, a much bigger spotlight has shone on the more recent Revolution, which was also a complex civil war. Both left Mexico devastated yet surviving.
Recommended books include Timothy J. Henderson's The Mexican Wars for Independence(2010) and Elena Poniatowska's Las Soldaderas: Women of the Mexican Revolution (2006).
