John Binder: 'UFORIA' (1981, 1985)

John Binder's UFOria, a low budget gem made in 1981 but not released until 1985, somehow fell through the cracks of mass consciousness. 

I was lucky enough to see the film many years ago on video, and never forgot it. It hasn't to date been released on DVD or Blu-ray, nor has it been chosen for salvation by the Criterion Collection, but it sticks with me. In fact, rather magically, I was able to see it again recently! 

UFOria makes up in dialogue, good-natured satire and an excellent cast of characters what it lacks in budgeted technical virtuosity. All the actors fit their characters seamlessly, whether they have a lot of lines or just a choice few. These include Cindy "I am gonna be Noah" Williams (Laverne & Shirley), Fred "get the net, boys" Ward (Henry & June), Harry Dean "I believe I'll have a drink" Stanton (Big Love, Twin Peaks: The Return) and Hank "just for playsure" Worden (Twin Peaks).  The whole script is quotable -- I could still remember many of UFOria's juiciest lines years after last watching it. And: the soundtrack is perfectly attuned to the characters. 

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001)

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive / Mulholland Dr. (2001). Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Martínez Herring/Harring (Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen) and Justin Theroux. 

After having seen everything David Lynch at least once, it's easier to go back and reconsider Mulholland Drive.

In short, what a cool, weird film!  Watts is also in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and Harring has since enjoyed a strong turn as a lawyer in the FX series The Shield (2006), among other things.  

What is Mulholland Drive?  Are we delving into alternate realities, psychological realms, dreams, feeling-driven memory distortions, alternate state consciousness, hallucinatory experiences, floating through the bardo, a limbo-like state, or a blend of such elements with off-kilter surrealism?  You tell me. The final response will be: "Silencio."

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Pier Paolo Pasolini: 'Medea' (1969)

Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea (1969), filmed in stunning locations and starring the great opera singer Maria Callas (1923-1977) in the title role. 

Jason and the Argonauts will be on a collision course with fate: the Golden Fleece and Medea. Chiron, Jason's adoptive father, a centaur, tries to prepare him for life when growing up. "Wherever your eyes roam, a god is hidden. And if by chance he be not there, the signs of his sacred presence are."

Medea with her family in Colchis (modern day Georgia), before the disruptive arrival of Jason and the Argonauts.

Medea and culture shock: beware the coming of the Greeks and their rival gods!

Pasolini's approach is distinctive and unforgettable! Maria Callas shines as Medea! 

At points, I was reminded of The Wicker Man (1973) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).  On the one hand, human sacrifice as part of ancient tradition, and on the other, double-exposure technique, superimposing a face (Medea, Agent Cooper) over a key scene, and presenting two versions of an event (the final fate of Creusa / Glauca). I was also reminded of Werner Herzog in the way Pasolini intertwines other-worldly music and free-floating camera work. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

James Ward's 'Adventures in Stationary' (2015): Postcards

James Ward, Adventures in Stationary: A Journey Through Your Pencil Case (London: Profile Books, 2015; first published in Great Britain in 2014). If you dig office supplies, art supplies and the like, you would/will absolutely dig this jaunty romp through the ups and downs of office artifacts, competing designs, rivalries and everything from paper clips and liquid paper to staplers. 

For this post, we shall consider only one chapter of Adventures in Stationary: Chapter 7: "Wish you were here" -- the postcard (mostly). 

"As a child," Ward notes, "I'd often send myself a postcard when I went on family holidays . . . . " (knowing it would only arrive well after his return home.) "The postcard was like a time capsule, sent from myself to myself, but the version of myself who sent the postcard was irritatingly smug. 'I'm sitting by the pool,' I'd write. 'I might go for another swim after I finish writing this. Anything good on TV in England? How's the weather?' Back at home, reading this message, I'd reconcile the sense of jealousy I felt toward the version of myself who was still on holiday with the fact that I knew things that he didn't. I knew, for instance, that he'd leave his sunglasses behind in his hotel room and that his flight would be delayed on the way home." (Adventures in Stationary, page 148).

Ward is a witty one, and clever, too: "I think postcards are probably more fun to send than to receive." (Ibid., page 149).

He then takes his readers through the development of "saucy" postcards, a section that morphs into a consideration of "floaty pens" such as the "tip 'n' strip" and on to "things shaped like other things" and "stationary shaped like other stationary" (Ibid., pages 158-159). 

It's a wild world. You don't even need to live inside of Twin Peaks to sense it. 

Next is but another true statement: Adventures in Stationary can help you light your way back through the dark swirls of the digital world -- with a smile. 

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Dan Trachtenberg: '10 Cloverfield Lane' (2016)

Jack be nimble,

Jack be quick.

Jack jumped over

The candlestick.

Jack jumped high,

Jack jumped low,

Jack jumped over

And burned his toe.

Dan Trachtenberg's 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) buzzes along with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as protagonist and John Goodman as antagonist in a cool, intelligent indie-style film, just my cup of coffee. Situated somewhere in the same universe as those crazy tales from the Coen Brothers as well as that of The Americans, Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul, the first season of True Detective and even Twin Peaks, it considers the kaleidoscopic possibilities of good, evil and also, from a human perspective, dimensions that may be indecipherable. 

"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you." (The Big Lebowski). 

10 Cloverfield Lane has more than a passing connection to the Coen Brothers: Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars in the latest season of Fargo and John Goodman has appeared in five Coen films (six including his voice as an announcer).

There is a distinction in magnitude between premeditated mass evil, seemingly random evil, and situational evil. However, for anyone on the receiving end of evil (or even just a hungry bear), these distinctions may be moot. The key is in how one responds -- having to make existential choices, large or small, in the face of it. See Flannery O'Connor for more on that score. In all such cases, this is compelling stuff.

Today's Rune: Protection.  

Julio Medem: Lucía y el sexo / Sex and Lucia (2001)

Set mostly in Madrid and on the little Balearic Island of Formentera off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, Julio Medem's Lucía y el sexo / Sex and Lucia (2001) has an offbeat David Lynch vibe and a cool lead with Paz Vega playing Lucía. 

Because Sex and Lucia seems to revolve around not only Lucía but also her paramour Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa), a writer, it can be tricky figuring out what exactly is "real" in the plot and what is imagined -- or happening in a parallel world.  Lorenzo is working on a novel, or two novels, on a computer in Madrid, but he's also corresponding with a woman on Formentera via the same computer.  Do all of the characters even exist? It's worth noting that Pepe, Lorenzo's literary agent, is played by Javier Cámara -- the same guy who plays "the weirdo" in Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella / Talk to Her (2002).   

I come away from this wondering: is the island really "hollow" or "floating?" How many rock holes are there, for God's sake?

Sex and Lucia looks good -- nice work by cinematographer Kiko de la Rica. The music (by Alberto Iglesias -- another direct link to Almodóvar) fits in well, too.

Today's Rune: Signals.  

Jean-Luc Godard: Passion (1982)

In addition to sheer wackiness -- even moments of slapstick -- what jumps out from Jean-Luc Godard's Passion (1982) is the repeated appearance of tableaux vivants, staged recreations of master paintings by, among others, Francisco Goya (1746-1828). These are stunning, especially amid the tumult of other activities swirling around them.  

Passion's cast includes heavy hitters like Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla and Michel Piccoli. Their characters have noticeable features or tics ranging from stuttering to sucking on what looks like a cross between a flower and a lollipop, to deaf-muteness and harmonica playing, not to mention short hair.  One can see this kind of strangeness in all sorts of movies and series, anywhere from a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western to David Lynch's Twin Peaks.  

Tableaux vivants convey an ancient tradition. In more recent times, they have been used to circumvent censorship, starting with photographic images. In daguerreotypes in the 19th century, they were often painted to add yet another effect while (seemingly) bringing them back in line with the original paintings. 

Contemporary photographer Cindy Sherman has done a lot with the tableau vivant, carrying its uses even further by "recreating" sometimes fictional images that nonetheless feel as familiar as a moment of Déjà vu.   

Add excellent music and some semblance of traditional plot and what've you got? Another pensive, interesting and somewhat esoteric Godard film. Colorful dreams follow.  

Today's Rune: Protection. 

Suor Sorriso / Sister Smile

Bold is a good word for Roger Deutsch's Suor Sorriso / Sister Smile (2001), an Italian language film based on the life arc of Jeanne-Paule (Jeanine) Marie Deckers, aka Sœur Luc-Gabriel, aka Sœur Sourire.

Sister Smile takes the original "Singing Nun" (played by Ginevra Colonna) out of Belgium and moves her decades forward in time, dropping her into Italy at the turn of the latest century.  Despite a framing narrator, the film never explains why. Kind of crazy cool that way.

My initial response: Sister Smile feels in tone like some kind of almost demented blend of Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973) and The Wicker Man (1973). Medievalish, something eerie suspended between an Andy Warhol and a David Lynch movie, with odd production values also looming somewhere in between, a psychological-spiritual disaster-quest played out on the astral plane. 

Trippy and memorable, just not for "family night."

Today's Rune: Strength.   

Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Samouraï (Take I)

Watch carefully and you may be blown away by Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967). In the memorable dreamscape of this noir masterpiece, Alain Delon rocks the house stealthily. 

As with several of Melville's movies, you can "see" the continuity in filmmaking history, from American gangster sagas and crime dramas before and offerings by, say, David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino afterward. And in keeping with Melville's experience in the underground during World War II, again there's only a matter of degree in differentiating the types of operational tactics used by police and criminal, organized or otherwise. 

In Le Samouraï, the police employ all sorts of surveillance and interrogation techniques, while criminals use evasive maneuvers and stonewalling to avoid lockup or death. This near-equivalency comes by direct comparison: while Costello (the hitman played by Delon) uses a large set of special keys to steal cars, police use a large set of special keys to break into and enter Costello's apartment to plant a bug. 

As is often the case with Melville, Le Samouraï showcases a dazzling effort that works the mind and senses subliminally as well as superficially.

Today's Rune: Signals.     

Federico Fellini: Lo sceicco bianco / The White Sheik

As a fair amount of people know, the term "Felliniesque" conjures up weird, strange, grandiose types of characters, often mixed together in the same scene. And so it should come as no great surprise that Lo sceicco bianco / The White Sheik (1952), Federico Fellini's first feature film as solo director, includes a fair number of weird, strange, grandiose types of characters. It's fairly absurd and the stakes are not particularly high, but it's got mucho gusto. 

Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) brings Wanda (Brunella Bovo) to Rome for their honeymoon. He has everything tightly scheduled to the point that says control freak, to the point that she even has to "ask permission" to take a bath. But in fact, Wanda (having assumed the ludicrous pen name "Passionate Dolly") has a huge celebrity crush on "The White Sheik," (Alberto Sordi) a pop culture star in picture books (fotoromanzi / fumetti), and she wants to see him (the actor portraying The White Sheik) in person. So, while she's supposed to be taking a long bath, one wacky thing leads to another, and there's your basic set-up.

And so . . . Will the newlyweds manage to remain married for more than a few days in the early 1950s? Will the neophyte husband "fail" his constantly propinquitous relatives? Will they all get to meet the pope, as planned? And for God's sake, what the hell is going to happen next? 

And so again, nothing earth-shattering outside of the arc of a marriage or two. But: Fellini fans will delight in all the little flourishes, shot in black and white. Even an open-minded "general" audience might enjoy it. Who knows? Crazier things have been known to happen.

You can see the influence of The White Sheik on just about any surrealist-tinged director ever since, including American directors ranging from Woody Allen (see To Rome with Love, 2012, for instance) to David Lynch. And there's a clear connection to another Italian director I've written a fair amount about, too -- Michelangelo Antonioni. That's because he came up with the original story idea and first draft for The White Sheik.

Today's Rune: Journey.   
  

Michelangelo Antonioni: L'eclisse / Eclipse (Part III)

Full circle to Part I: "Michelangelo Antonioni's  L'eclisse / Eclipse (1962) is an excellent antidote to the speed of life. Everything, even the Italian stock market, is slowed down and looked at with observant eyes. Antonioni seems to particularly enjoy contemplating rustling leaves, the way the wind moves things around, the way a fan blows air onto a woman's hair, a person's clothes. Fantastic black and white shot compositions, deliberately slow pace, intense interactions among people and architecture and space, both interior and exterior. You soon come to realize this is reminiscent of a horror film, only without horror, unless by horror you mean human existence itself. This is David Lynch country without any physical violence."

L'eclisse can be seen as a sort of Zen meditation on modern life. And it can be seen as an existentialist film. More subtly, it can be see as a surrealistic film. In addition, it's a mystical and poetic work. In all of these ways, Antonioni expresses something rarely delivered on the silver screen. 

One can see imprints of L'eclisse in other works -- David Lynch's Blue Velvet comes to mind. The way Antonioni uses space and signs in L'eclisse -- consider his use of crosswalks, for instance, and what people make of them -- can be seen in HBO's Enlightened, the series written by Mike White and starring Laura Dern (of David Lynch fame). L'eclisse is a movie that can be studied carefully and enjoyed repeatedly -- and obviously has been by certain other artists.

Even the stock market crash depicted in L'eclisse reverberates from 1962 through 2008 to 2013. "Where did the money go?" Vittoria (Monica Vitti) asks stockbroker Piero (Alain Delon). "Nowhere," he says. Chew over that a while. For those who lost 40% of their retirement investments in 2008, you know exactly what he means. The money vaporized. And, years later, it began to reappear, like a conjuring trick.

Today's Rune: Fertility.   

Michelangelo Antonioni: L'eclisse / Eclipse (Part I)

Michelangelo Antonioni's  L'eclisse / Eclipse (1962) is an excellent antidote to the speed of life. Everything, even the Italian stock market, is slowed down and looked at with observant eyes. Antonioni seems to particularly enjoy contemplating rustling leaves, the way the wind moves things around, the way a fan blows air onto a woman's hair, a person's clothes. Fantastic black and white shot compositions, deliberately slow pace, intense interactions among people and architecture and space, both interior and exterior. You soon come to realize this is reminiscent of a horror film, only without horror, unless by horror you mean human existence itself. This is David Lynch country without any physical violence. Wonderful stuff so far. 

As far as plot, not much has happened yet. Vittoria (Monica Vitti) leaves Ricardo, her compadre (Francisco Rabal -- who is terrific as the title character in Luis Buñuel's 1959 outing Nazarin, among many other films). Ricardo tries to change her mind and seemingly fails. She wanders around, shows up at the stock exchange, a noisy madhouse -- until a long moment of silence is delivered for a stock broker who has just died of a heart attack. Vittoria's mother is there, absorbed by stock trading and money. So is Piero (Alain Delon), a stock broker aquaintance who wins a gamble. They go outside, and Vittoria wanders through a section of Rome.

[To be continued].

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Beasts of the Southern Wild: Take One

In the case of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), believe the hype. Take Werner Herzog's visionary imagery and a dose of David Lynch, torque the mix with Amos Tutuola's fantastical energy and add equal parts originality. Presto and eureka, you've got Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar's big bang for the modest buck. Loved it. Fragments of shimmering dreams resulting from seeing this are still swirling in my head. Wow.

Today's Rune: Signals.    

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: West Franklin Street 2

This is the "ghost entrance" to Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. This portal worked magically in the mid-1980s. I was employed as an officer runner here at the time and, near the end of Algonquin's operations at this West Franklin Street location, as de facto shipping manager. We stored most books in the very nearby warehouse of The Chapel Hill News (aka Weekly). Go through those shadows now and you'd find repurposed offices and new people working in them.  

Across the street, to the right, was Pyewacket (at 431 West Franklin), a nifty-fifty eatery and social focal point adjoining "The Courtyard" area in the back. Now there appears to be another restaurant in the old Pyewacket space -- Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe.

By November 24, 2012, when the above image was captured, a mural of flowers had sprouted on the back walls. New since I worked there. The wooden frames weren't there before, either. The rail fence on the right was. I remember one day seeing Michael Jordan in a convertible at the adjacent spot in the roadway, making some kind of commercial.

I was just coming back to this exact same spot from a delivery errand on January 28, 1986 when the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger blew up. On the radio station I had on in my car, a reporter claimed everything had gone perfectly, but when I got to the office a few minutes later, everyone was freaking out -- and for good reason. Things had not gone perfectly at all.

David Lynch's Blue Velvet came out later the same year, in September.  At Algonquin, there was extra buzz about Blue Velvet because it had been filmed in Lumberton and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Final echo: up and down that spectral hallway pictured above, a moustached man would loudly whistle "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" as he came and went via another office suite -- for months and months in a row. Not too surprisingly, he was nicknamed "Mr. Zip-a-Dee" by Algonquin staff.  But hey, at least he wasn't whistling "Blue Velvet!" No sign of him this time around. Wherever he is now regardless, there may be a Mr. Bluebird on his shoulder -- which would be plenty weird enough.

Today's Rune: Signals.

Jean Cocteau: Le Sang d'un poète / The Blood of a Poet

                                                                                                                                              

A nifty little film, less than an hour long: Jean Cocteau's Le Sang d'un poète / Le sang d'un poète* / The Blood of a Poet (1930; premiered in France in 1932). I checked out the Criterion Collection version because it restores six minutes as a sort of "director's cut." *(In some cases, Sang [blood] is in caps for emphasis, but in others, not.)

Le Sang d'un poète employs an eclectic mix of techniques, making it a hybrid sound-and-silent film, theatre, visual art, mythlike, dreamlike, and, by all but official name, surreal. What we see on the screen is poetry in motion from a poet's imagination, and a poetic response to external stimuli. As a backdrop, there's the myth of Orpheus and his lyre -- again.   

                                                                                                                                                       

The film gives us a rare glimpse of Lee Miller (1907-1977) in motion, albeit fairly slow motion. (Indeed, in a few of the more lagging silent parts of the film that didn't include Miller in the frame, I felt free to speed the tempo up to 2012 levels). You can see here why she was treated as a Muse by Man Ray, yet also understand why she would move on from that role, too. Within fifteen years, she'd become an accomplished photographer and war correspondent, and at the end of World War II would be in Munich sitting in one of Hitler's abandoned bathtubs for a superbly iconic shot. In Le Sang d'un poète, she plays an armless statue and a mysterious card player, among other things. Costumes for the film were designed by Coco Chanel (1883-1971).

                                                                                                                                                          

Also of note is a Guardian Angel played by Féral Benga (1906–1957) of Dakar, Senegal, a stylized Mexican firing squad and a peephole into "the mystery of China" that involves opium. There is a reclining hermaphrodite in one room, a man in drag on a balcony in the center of a cluster of aristocratic types, and also a kid wrapped in what appears to be chains who flies up to a ceiling to escape harrassment and stays there, making faces.

 

There are statues that come to life, a passageway through a looking glass mirror (above), a demanding mouth in one of the poet's hands (much to his horror), hurled snowballs, what appears to be a silver cylinder flying through a room (think David Lynch), painted masks, glowing eyes, moving pictures and a cow apparently decorated with maps being led by Lee Miller. And that's not all, folks!

Today's Rune: Partnership.   

Claude Chabrol: Le Boucher

Claude Chabrol's Le Boucher / The Butcher (1970/1971) exposes the strange underbelly of a seemingly idyllic town in Dordogne in the Southwest of France. Similar to, say, David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) and Sofia Coppola's 1999 adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' 1993 novel The Virgin Suicides. However, the main focus is on two characters who meet at a wedding: Hélène (Stéphane Audran), Headmistress at the town school, and Popaul (Jean Yanne), a traumatized fifteen year veteran of the First Indochina War (Vietnam) and the Guerre d'Algérie (Algerian War) who has resumed in civilian life his occupation as a butcher. The interaction between these two is intense, but masked in part by the routine business of town life contrasted with the introduction of murder. Chabrol subverts convention by making the investigating police inspector a minor distraction rather than either plot-driver or mystery solver. 

 

In addition, Chabrol gives words and images their due. The scenery is gorgeous. Cro-Magnon paintings at Les Grottes de Cougnac (the Cougnac Grottoes) are shown in one key segment. Finally, more harrowing than any overt action in the film are certain descriptive passages, such as Popaul's recollections of war:

I've seen a corpse or two, their heads in the wind, cut in half, mouths open. I've seen three or four piled together. Kids with their eyes punctured. Indo-Chinese as old as Madame Touraint completely torn to bits. I've seen pals of mine rotting in the sun, being eaten by maggots.

From one vantage point, certainly, Le Boucher may be seen as a serious contemplation of the hidden costs of war even in remote places. In this case, a combat veteran is clearly damaged and demonstrably capable of murder on the world stage, but is he, in fact, the local murderer, too?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.       

Ritz at the Bourse: Black Lizard, January 26, 1992

I'm really excited at the prospect of new art house independent film venues in Fort Worth, Texas, because as things are, there aren't any besides weekend and sporadic showings. Otherwise, the big chains have it -- all mega-mediocre, all the time. There is great hope especially in plans for The Citizen, possibly opening next year on Magnolia over near Spiral DIner. 

But hey, Philadelphia. At least when I was living there in the 1990s, the City of Brotherly Love had everything everywhere: movie houses like Temple University's Cinémathèque (aka Temple Cinematheque) and the Ritz at the Bourse, for example. Very civilized, indeed, though I just read this update: "REPAIRS TO THE RITZ AT THE BOURSE. Construction has begun to fully replace the air conditioning system at the Ritz at the Bourse. The theatre complex is currently closed but will re-open for business on Friday, July 13 [2012]!"

In any case, the Ritz at the Bourse (Landmark Theatres) lives on, soon with new AC! Today's triggering artifact, scanned above: a ticket receipt for Black Lizard (1968). Tickets cost a whopping $3.50.   

 

Black Lizard is strange. Based on a 1934 novel by Edogawa Rampo (whose "real" name was Hirai Tarō), filtered through a play adaptation by Yukio Mishima and directed by Kinji Fukasaku, the 1968 movie is like some unholy cross between a James Bond and David Lynch film, with a little John Waters mixed in for bad measure. Cool, though.  

Edogawa Rampo -- get it? Edgar Allan Poe . . . who lived for a spell in Philadelphia, come to think of it. More on that little side adventure at some point, I suspect.

Beware 黒蜥蝪 -- Kurotokage -- Black Lizard -- The Black Lizard!

Today's Rune: Fertility.  

Give the People What They Want

Every once in a while I'll take a glance at the analytics for web trafficking re: this site and its spinoff. Mostly to see what draws the most people in with one easy shot.

Following is a list of some of the keywords that elicit interest en masse.

But before I forget, while doing this I came across the basic fact that Google has national versions of its search engine, or maybe they're language versions, or both. Examples:

For Spain, try www.google.es
France: www.google.fr
Russia: www.google.ru

Along the way, I checked out YouTube via Russian Google and what came up right off the bat? The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, Debbie Harry and Jean-Luc Godard. Seems they've got my number. It's like that David Lynch movie, Lost Highway. "Call me -- I'm already there." Yes, indeed, Blondie, I will. "Call me. Dial your number. Go ahead."

Here are the biggest all-time attractions of "Erik's Choice" since its inception in 2006, but not in specific ranking order:

Angelina Jolie as Kleopatra, aka Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra: Kleopatra VII was Greek/Macedonian, and Angelina Jolie has already played the Greek Olympia, mother of Alexander the Great, the person most responsible for Greek/Macedonian rule in Egypt via Alexandria (which he founded) and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Kleopatra died only about thirty years before the "Christian Era" or "Common Era" began -- lots of Greek culture at the time, and lots of overlap. (An accompanying picture didn't exactly hinder coming across this on the internet).

Zooey Deschanel (sometimes "as Janis Joplin").

Charlotte Rampling.

Anna Karina.

Amy Winehouse.

Meg White.

Chan Parker. 

So there you go, isn't that interesting? 

Moral 1: If you want to spike your hits, give the [bulk of interested] People What They Want! 

Moral 2: Write about topics you like that are also of interest to a mass audience.

Moral 3: Or, focus on topics so specific that your site serves as a global magnet for that topic.

Today's Rune: Signals.