Yann Demange: ''71' (2014)

Yann Demange's second film, White Boy Rick, is set in Detroit in the 1980s. In advance of checking it out, I had the opportunity to see his first film, '71, which is set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during The Troubles.

Starring Jack O'Connell as British soldier Gary Hook, '71 is harrowing and absorbing, with an on-the-ground feel. Riot scenes in the Catholic sector are particularly exciting, followed by various chase scenes. 

The extra winning aspect is that one might be inspired by the film to learn a little more about British and Irish history. 

Sectarian fighting occurs just about everywhere, to varying degrees. 

Though Northern Ireland is no longer embroiled in The Troubles, trouble has, since the turn of the latest century, found plenty of other homes to wreak havoc in. 

In '71, Demange keeps one on edge, as befits the theme. His visceral, sometimes frenetic style feels somewhat akin to that of Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Sharp Objects), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and others.

Notate bene: 

David Bowie gets a mention in '71 -- and in Spike Lee's latest film, BlacKkKlansman (2018), too. 

Did you ever wonder what the anagrams in Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK" (1976) stand for? All but the first tie directly into "The Troubles."

"Is this the MPLA
Or is this the UDA
Or is this the IRA
I thought it was the U.K.
Or just another country
Another council tenancy"

MPLA = Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola
UDA =  Ulster Defence Association
IRA = Irish Republican Army
UK = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 
Council tenancy = public housing unit

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

"That's Like Hypnotizing Chickens"

"In North America alone there are 10 billion chickens, compared to 4 billion wild birds." Jim Robbins, The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017, page 81.

In the USA: "Until the 1940s, chickens were raised primarily for their eggs. Chickens themselves assumed a starring role in the American diet during World War II because chicken, unlike beef and pork, wasn't rationed . . . The chicken [now, as of this post] is the most industrialized animal in the history of the world." Ibid. page 83.

"Chickens can solve problems and display an ability to think about the future." They also have a sense of object permanence (when they see something go out of line of sight, said thing does not go out of mind -- they remember). Ibid., page 88.  

Interested people are attempting to save enough wild chickens to prevent the collapse of all but genetically stunted industrialized populations. "Experts liken the loss of these genes for survival to the destruction of a library without knowing what's in it. That's why the Livestock Conservancy searches out genetic diversity in chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese before these local breeds blink out, and it encourages farmers to raise those birds." Ibid., page 91. 

"Oh love love love
That's like hypnotizing chickens
Well I am just a modern guy
Of course I've had it in the ear before
'Cause of a lust for life!"

"Lust for Life" (1977) Iggy Pop and David Bowie

Images: 

Saul bij de heks van Endor / Saul and the Witch of Endor by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (1525/1526), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Close-up by Erik Donald France, June 2017.

In the field, Brugge / Bruges, Belgium, EDF, June 2017.

Gustav Klimt, Gartenweg mit Hühnern / Garden Path with Chickens (1916). Klimt died during the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918; the original of this World War One era painting was destroyed near the end of World War Two, in 1945.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Party Like It's 2033: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), directed by Frederick Francis Sears. Starring Joan Taylor as Carol Hanley Marvin and Hugh Marlowe as her newly minted husband, Dr. Russell Marvin. 

This streamlined film is so bare-bones it might seem ludicrous at first, but it works. The aliens are compelling, as is their back-story. The way they understand time and distance is plausible and cool. Ranging from spaceships to weaponry, spacesuits to mind de-scrambler and universal translator, the alien technology is nicely designed. 

A weakness in the story is in how earthlings quickly pull together implausible counter-measures, but that hardly matters. It's all imaginative good fun.

Carol is the only woman in the whole movie as far as talking parts. Most of the characters -- talking or silent -- are men, and they are almost all depicted as technocratic drones with no more flexibility than the spacesuited aliens, which in turn are of indeterminate gender (assuming they have such distinctions). 

Carol, the daughter of a general, is sharp and daring as well as resilient and reliable. We even find her doing what in more recent decades of pop culture imagery is a man's prerogative. On screen, one's now more likely to see a Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) or Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) flipping burgers and hot dogs than any woman at all. What does it mean?  I have no idea. I do hold that Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is pretty cool, though.  

P.S. Bowie and Prince are probably piloting their own spaceships now, so never fear of their eternal return. 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

David Bowie, Where Art Thou?

David Bowie, Where Art Thou? [Originally posted in 2006 -- ten years ago!]

David Bowie (1/8/1947-) is one cool dude. I've been lucky enough to have seen him in various venues over the years, but the last time was by far the best -- at the relatively small Detroit State Theater on September 21, 1997. He was in perfect pitch and riding the catchy Earthling album with its techno overtones ("I'm Afraid of Americans" is hilariously cool). He spryly moved around the stage, sometimes barefoot, seeming both very earthly and very much a Cosmonaut at the same time.

What's especially heartening about Bowie is that, yes, he can do the "I'm a millionaire pop star" thing as well as anyone, but he's chosen -- much like Prince -- to stick to his own guns over the long march. He remains true to form, and very much in touch with technology and its cross-genre artistic possibilities. I adore his music and like many of his movie appearances (must see again The Man Who Fell to Earth for one trippy example, an ultimately sad 1976 tale of a fallen alien stuck on Earth while his home planet slowly dies), but have my favorites.

It's hard to beat the dazzling concept album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), which was so at odds with the waning hippy ideals of the time, so perfectly attuned to undercurrents of global social changes and the explosion of punk and New Wave on the horizon. Then there's the electric shocker Aladdin Sane (1973), featuring "Panic in Detroit" and a sonic romp through the Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend the Night Together," among other treats. Ramble on through the eerie Diamond Dogs (1974) to the groovy plastic pop of Young Americans (1975), the lyrical and occasionally overarching Station to Station (1976), and the revolutionary "Berlin trilogy," Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977), and Lodger (1979). Bowie had already done some fine work with Lou Reed and Iggy Pop to everyone's benefit, as well. Next, there's another wild and sometimes campy romp via Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), followed by another bid for mainstream pop stardom in Let's Dance (1983). Throw in always entertaining and sometimes bizarre videos, and presto, this period would have been enough successful output for any "normal" artist's entire career.

Bowie continued, though he slowed down the pace a bit. Here's where he and Prince again moved on parallel lines, though Bowie never took the drastic step of calling himself "The Artist Formerly Known as David Bowie."

During his Reality Tour in 2004, he suffered chest pains and underwent a sudden angioplasty, and has been understandably taking it relatively easy since then. Based in New York City, he continues working; his recent comings and goings can be found on his buzzing website, complete with alien-tinged motifs, at: www.davidbowie.com Check out the BowieNet for a little adventure in cyberworld.

Viva David Bowie! May the man who shares Elvis' birthday rise again.  

[RIP David Bowie, 1947-2016]

Twenty Fifteen of the Common Era

Into Year 2015

MMXV 

14 Nivôse CCXXIII

New Year's, a wedding of Space and Time, requires: 

Something Olde

Something New

Something Borrowed

Something Blue . . .

A Sixpence in your Shoe

All such elements are jammed into my newly vamped gym jukebox iPod mix. Before last year lurched into this one, I purposely deleted my entire playlist and began a new one. It was high time.

The new stripped down core-first-round playlist, to be expanded during this year  -- already fondly known as Twenty Fifteen -- goes like this . . . playback is in random order, and sometimes I switch earphones or headphones to highlight different aspects of each track for the benefit of both the other ear and the other side of the mind . . . a good way to keep it fresh, keeping it reel-to-reel.

Open Up Like a French 75 -- drink or artillery, take your pick:

Breaking Glass  (David Bowie)

Chinese Rock (Ramones)

Editions of You (Roxy Music)

Feeling Good (Nina Simone)

Get Up Offa That Thing (James Brown)

I'm a King Bee (Slim Harpo)

The 'In' Crowd (Bryan Ferry)

Lust for Life (Iggy Pop)

See-Line Woman (Nina Simone)

Shake Your Hips (Slim Harpo)

Sound & Vision (David Bowie)

Super Bad, Parts 1 and 2 (James Brown)

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Bob Dylan)

What in the World (David Bowie with Iggy Pop)

You Know I'm No Good (Amy Winehouse)

This stuff works for me. Specifically for the time blocks spent on things like the stationary bike, moon walk or regular treadmill. 

I've picked up a whole new appreciation for "Get Up Offa That Thing" (1976) -- can listen to it, the extended version, dozens of times and hear something new. For now, it's the side track electric funk guitar parts and embedded mutter-rapped words such as "Melvin Parker [on drums] . . . North Carolina . . ."   

2015: The adventure continues . . .

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

See the Bells, Up in the Sky: Lou Reed, RIP

The death of Lou Reed (March 2, 1942-October 27, 2013) is a "Proustian moment:" the man, the music, his words and vibe, all serve as memory triggers. All day today and probably well on into the future.

From Lou Reed solo, from Velvet Underground tracks, too, I can remember people, places, trips, journeys, books, surroundings, time drifts, compadre artists and lit candles. Among other things. 

The time my buddy-pal JC and I schlepped our way to Richmond, Virginia, to see Lou and his crazy-electric band rip this joint, the Mosque, on October 9, 1984. (Life lesson: do it!) 

Birds of a feather like Andy Warhol, Nico, John Cale, Stooges, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Laurie Anderson (his widow), William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Bob Dylan, Ramones, Talking Heads, Hotel Chelsea, Václav Havel -- and outward goes the spiral.

"See the bells, up in the sky
Somebody's cut the string in two" 
-- Lou Reed, "What Goes On"

Lou Reed was sharp, pithy, jangly, often a pain in the ass, an artist. With him, beauty comes through distorted guitars and talking songs and words that stick in the mind. Rarely would Lou put up with "a saccharine suburb in the mush," to use the Iggy phrase. Love him or hate him, he was great. A fond farewell. 

Today's Rune: Joy.  

William S. Burroughs: Ghost at No. 9

A series of experimental films featuring William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), most brought to fruition by Anthony Balch, involving Brion Gysin and others. Locations include Paris, London, and New York City. Titles include: Towers Open Fire, Ghost at No. 9, The Cut-Ups, Bill and Tony and William Buys a Parrot. 

On first look, they seem a bit strange, but on second thought, they are like splashes of cold water to the face. Time to wake up from our lullaby of daily stock quotations, weather reports, unemployment figures, team rankings, local news, the latest sales, the latest political and celebrity cock-ups and other "normal indicators" of life in modern society. Everything's a cut-up.

Our natural tendency is to try to make narratives, stories, out of our surroundings. But do these "indicators" reveal anything deep about our lives? Or do they just provide a shimmering, ultimately "unreal" sense of continuity? Ask the Buddha, or The Man Who Fell to Earth.  

Or if not the Buddha or a David Bowie persona, how about Talking Heads: 

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?    

"Once in a Lifetime," Remain in Light (1980).

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Life On Mars

Was there life on Mars? Is there life on Mars? Will there be life on Mars? In reponse to the first two questions, I truly don't know the answer; but as far as the third question goes, the answer is yes. Right here, right now on Earth are people who will be, later in this century, as taikonauts, cosmonauts and astronauts -- or as all three together -- scampering around the surface of the Red Planet, exploring craters and mountains, and probably looking for good places to start a base camp and colony. That's pretty mind-blowing when you think about it.
 

And don't you know it, somebody out there will be playing David Bowie tunes on whatever crazy little delivery methods they've dreamed up in the meantime.

"Oh, man, look at those Cavemen go / It's the freakiest
show . . ."

Can you dig?

After Mars, next stop is . . .  [fill-in-the-blank].

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

The Medium is the Message: Cassette Tapes

". . . an environment becomes fully visible only when it has been superseded by a new environment; thus we are always one step behind in our view of the world. Because we are benumbed by any new technology — which in turn creates a totally new environment — we tend to make the old environment more visible; we do so by turning it into an art form and by attaching ourselves to the objects and atmosphere that characterized it, just as we’ve done with jazz, and as we’re now doing with the garbage of the mechanical environment via pop art. . . -- “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan,” Playboy (March 1969).

As an influential medium, the cassette tape took off in the 1970s, overcoming reel-to-reel and the 8-Track and challenging vinyl LPs. But behind it emerged the CD, and behind that, digital downloads. What next?

According to Kara Rose in "Cassette Tapes See New Life after MP3s," USA Today (October 3, 2011 - updated), cassette sales peaked in 1990 with over 440 million sold. New "herds" were "killed off" as quickly and brutally as the American Bison after the American Civil War, but like the Buffalo in the 20th century and with care and consideration in the 21st, cassettes have made a modest comeback. It's worth noting that cassettes cost about one tenth of what vinyl did to produce -- though they certainly were not priced that way in the 1980s. Nowadays, cassettes and CDs can be produced in small batches by musicians and their associates -- and priced competitively. The not quite "old environment" has become, as Marshall McLuhan phrases it above,  "more visible" with the passage of time. Now we have so many options that a person can barely know where to turn at any particular moment -- or so it would seem by daily observation. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.       

The Cassette Tape, Part II

Yet another commercial cassette tape, a copy of the sleeve for David Bowie's Low (1977).  It -- the format not the content -- is now an obsolete artifact. The little symbol just behind Bowie is for "Dolby sound."  The full throttle transition to CDs came in the 1990s, when sales began dropping from hundreds of millions of individual tapes sold annually to a tiny fraction, in the thousands, by 2010, a collapse as dramatic as that of the American Bison in the 1880s. The Sony Walkman for cassettes is now on the verge of extinction, too.  It was fun while it lasted. However, vinyl records are cooler, and remain in limited production. It's worth noting the American Bison has made a slight comeback in the past century.

Today's Rune: Movement.  

Global This in Russian and German

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Erik's Choice: Five Years in the Lifeworld

"We've got five years, what a surprise. . ." -- David Bowie (1971/1972).

When I began this blog -- inspired primarily by former co-worker Trent Vanegas -- I had no five year plan, and certainly would have been surprised to know then that I'd still be posting daily five years down the road.

Thanks to everyone who reads this (or reads anything) regularly, comments when they can, or checks in sporadically -- it's all appreciated.  We lived through chaotic times in 2006 and we are living through even more chaotic times in 2011. Like it or not, here we are still in the lifeworld and things keep shifting and somehow, I keep enjoying life to bits.

RIP to the many gone down in the past five years, especially those truly missed. A special shout out also to Bob Sheldon, another true inspiration, who died twenty years ago tomorrow in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, at the very beginning of the ground phase of the (First) Gulf War.   

To the living and the dead, keep on keeping on and see you when I see you . . . Cheers!

Jumble sales are organized and pamphlets have been posted
Even after closing time there's still parties to be hosted
You can be active with the activists
Or sleeping with the sleepers
While you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
One leap forwards, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?
Well, here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it
Well, it's a mighty long way down rock 'n roll
From Top of the Pops to drawing the dole
If no one out there understands
You start your own revolution and cut out the middleman
In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room
So join the struggle while you may
The Revolution is just a t-shirt away


-- From Billy Bragg's "Waiting for the Great Leap Forward" (1988).



Today's Rune: Partnership.

From Walk on the Wild Side to Midnight Cowboy: The Silver Factory

Walk on the Wild Side (1962) is, despite garish-colored promotional posters, a black and white movie. Seeing it recently made me think of Andy Warhol's Silver Factory at Manhattan's 231 East 47th Street, and the Hotel Chelsea, 222 West 23rd Street, both Warhol hangouts. El Quijote Restaraunt and Cocktail Lounge, right next to the Chelsea, has the same aura as the red Spanish-language poster for Walk on the Wild Side, El Gata Negra.

The Silver Factory developed as a synergistic Avant-garde meeting place and production nerve center for films, superstars, Pop art, music and photography. Nearly everything produced (or "transgressed") in the Factory between 1962 and 1968 challenged accepted societal "norms," either through wry artistic observation or by outright breaking "the rules." 

1968 saw pivotal changes in the Factory scene: Warhol was shot and badly injured, the Silver Factory was closed, Bonnie & Clyde had already created a stir to be followed in 1969 by Midnight Cowboy, and meanwhile the stifling Motion Picture Production Code morphed into the MPAA/Motion Picture Association of America's film-rating system, beginning with G, M (later GP, and now PG-13), R and X (later NC-17, "No Children Under 17").

Lou Reed and Velvet Underground "chanteuse" Nico, a European-born icon not unlike Capucine. Nico would go on to film a sort of music video for "Evening of Light" with Iggy Pop in 1968; the Velvet Underground's John Cale would produce The Stooges (1969), David Bowie released "Andy Warhol" in 1971, and Lou Reed went solo, his biggest single hit to date being "Walk on the Wild Side" (1972). What goes around, comes around.

Today's mystery question: Is there one great role for art, or is that up to the artist and society to battle or work out through time and context?

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.  

Liquid Sky

My friend Evan noted in a comment regarding yesterday's Bowie post how he was surprised by running into his father at a Liquid Sky (1983) showing. If you've seen the controversial film with cult following, the surprise makes sense. This incident reminds me of the buzz around other films over the years. In my family, we kids could feel the electricity in the air when my parents were going to see Last Tango in Paris (1972), though they never discussed it afterwards. Having since seen it more than once as an adult myself, I can understand their silence on the matter.

When I was a really little kid, I took the soundtrack to Goldfinger to school for show and tell. My then teacher was not amused, and raised a stink about it (too controversial at the time and for that age group, apparently). I still have the record, featuring Shirley Bassey (another January 8th birthday!) and the Bond theme -- and I still love it.

When I was a bit older, one of my sisters took me to see several "controversial" films, ranging from The Moonshine War (1970) to The Omega Man (1971) to Deliverance (1972). In turn, babysitting my younger brother years later, I took him to see wildish movies like Wise Blood (1979), Apocalypse Now (1979), Quadrophenia (1979) and The Kids Are Alright (1979). If memory serves, Wise Blood freaked him out a little (he was nine at the time, the same age I was when Vickie collared me for The Moonshine War). No worries: we're both productive tax-paying adults now, so all is well. Ha!

How about you?  Did you have a sibling or friend who sneaked you into controversial films?  I just remembered another one: by the time The Exorcist (1973) came out, I went with school friends. Lots of people were freaking out about it at the time. We thought it was cool, but joked our way through.   

 

Today's Rune: Defense.

David Bowie: The Man Who Fell to Earth

David Bowie, who is 64 as of today's post, began his big screen career with Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Based on Walter Tevis' bleak 1963 novel of the same name, the movie is eerie but worth contemplation. Bowie seems ideal as a displaced and alienated alien (ha!) lost and far away from his dying home planet, which is fast running out of water. Cheery stuff. Roeg's weird little touches make it all the more interesting -- scenes with banks of televisions watched by the Bowie character as he guzzles booze, scenes in which he can see things transgressing back in time as he traverses the same modern ground in a limousine. Probably not a good film to see if you're feeling depressed or suicidal, however.  

Today's Rune: Defense. Happy Birthday Mr. Bowie, and Elvis!

Floria Sigismondi: The Runaways

Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways (2010) makes for an ideal companion film in a double feature showing with Chus Gutiérrez's El Calentito (2005). I've thoroughly enjoyed both movies, both about all-women bands, the one set in the mid-to-late 1970s in the USA and Japan, the other set in Spain in the very early 80s.

The story line for The Runaways, based on Cherie Currie's Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway (2010) and fleshed out by Sigismondi, follows the formation of The Runaways, Currie's various conflicts (family dysfunction and guilt, substance challenges, psychological and emotional issues), producer Kim Fowley's machinations, and Joan Jett's tenacious strength.  The whole cast is memorable, including Riley Keough (Elvis and Priscilla's grandaughter, Lisa Marie's daughter) as Marie Currie, Cherie Currie's twin sister. Dakota Fanning is glittery as Cherie, Michael Shannon nails the eccentric Fowley down, and Kristen Stewart is so good channeling Joan Jett I am still amazed, having seen Jett rock out in Charlotte around 1981. 

The soundtrack is hip and effective and includes a salute to Detroit via Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5 and Suzi Quatro.  Let's not forget David Bowie. the actual Runaways and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.  If you dig the 1970s milieu at all, you will have a real cool time checking out The Runaways.

Florida Sigismondi (b. ca. September-October 1965), the strikingly visual director pictured here, seems to have more than a dash of Joan Jett's sensibility and drive herself.

Today's Rune: Strength.

Waterloo Sunset

The influence of the Kinks goes far and wide. "Waterloo Sunset" (1967) is a good example. Not only is the song widely saluted as a major achievement in songwriting by other songwriters and critics, it's also been covered by bands and artists as diverse as Def Leppard (hear below, from 2004), David Bowie and Billy Bragg; let's also not forget that Ray Davies' charms captivated Chrissie Hynde. I could probably list twenty powerful and touching Kinks songs -- and probably at some point will, mostly out of curiosity of what readers think.  What I can say for now is that the Kinks -- along with the Rolling Stones and a few other groups -- seeded the ground for my first visit to London and many of its geographic landmarks in 1981, from Leicester Square to Chelsea to St John's Wood.



Today's Rune: Fertility.

Auburn, New York: The Seward House

William H. Seward (1801-1872) was a man of his time and a man ahead of his time. He was an abolitionist before the American Civil War, a leader of the new Republican Party, and a key player on Abraham Lincoln's cabinet. The fanatics who plotted to assassinate Lincoln also tried to kill Seward; he survived multiple stabbings from a Bowie knife a month before his 64th birthday. Afterward, his crowning achievement, the Alaska Purchase.









I visited Seward's home in the summer of 1998, travelling from Detroit to the beautiful Finger Lakes Region of New York to attend the 150th anniversary celebration of the Seneca Falls Declaration (1848).  While in the area, checked out Auburn, including the Harriet Tubman Home (more on the remarkable Tubman at some point): http://www.harriethouse.org/   The initial drive via the Ontario strip was only about seven hours -- Michiganders miss out if they think "Up North" is the only direction to travel, it occurred to me then.  There's so much to see around the Finger Lakes.









Drawing Room of Seward House. Victorian decor. Photo by Bruce Walter.









North Library. Pre-electricity setup. Photo by Bruce Walter.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Pligrimage to Waterloo II

As Jodi ponted out in response to yesterday's post, ABBA had a big hit with "Waterloo" in 1974, applying the battle's outcome to a romantic disaster. As Mark (Walking Man) noted, the battle's name has become synonymous with defeat. Waterloo connects to so many things it may equal the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Here's a shot of Waterloo Station taken by my Dad in 1992, not too far from the Belgian battlefield.  There's a much bigger Waterloo Station -- named after Wellington's victory -- in London; it's heralded in the 1967 Kinks song "Waterloo Sunset," which has been covered by all sorts of artists and bands ranging from David Bowie (2003) to Def Leppard (2004).  














Waterloo keeps on giving, spilling even into contemporary American politics. Last summer, Jim DeMint of South Carolina -- one of the most right wing senators in the USA -- declared about Health Care reform: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."  Above fish-eye shot of the battlefield taken by my Dad in 1992.

Finally, here's ABBA rolling out "Waterloo" at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. ABBA plus (Iggy Pop and) The Stooges will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2010, along with Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies and Genesis. Crazy, huh?



Today's Rune: Signals.