Atlanta, Rock On

Whenever I hear "Rock On," that trippy song by David Essex, Atlanta comes to mind, conjured right up, the bridge in time from high school well into college, from when I was seventeen until about twenty-one.

My Aunt Sue lived in Atlanta then, as did her friends Nancy Schenck and a woman I always thought of as a dead ringer for Joan Rivers in her evil, wicked funny way. And for a chunk of that time, Linda, one of my sisters, worked as an archaeologist on new MARTA construction pathways.

Every so often, I'd head down from North Carolina to visit and check out the frisson of the Georgia music scene. And there were so many music scenes running concurrently at the time, often antagonistic to each other, even though all of them had and still have something worth knowing and absorbing by varying degrees: punk/new wave at the madhouse that was the 688 Club (from 1980 on), some grand disco that was apparently Atlanta's answer to Studio 54, country & western, soul, the Kinks at the Fox Theatre, REM, B52s, Southern rock, heavy metal and everything in between. How cool was that?  

But I digress, somewhat. Nancy Schenck is the only person I've ever met who had a vinyl copy of both David Essex's Rock On (1973) album and Golden Earring's Moontan (1973), the album that features "Radar Love" and "Candy's Going Bad."

And while this is on my mind, you can overlay "Radar Love" with "Rock On" and play them at a similar sequence and frequency, and given the right arrangement, they work in tandem like a Gysin-Burroughs cut-up.

Radio play that forgotten song  ("Radar Love")
See her shake on the movie screen ("Rock On")
Brenda Lee's "Comin' On Strong" ("Radar Love")
Jimmy Dean . . . James Dean, rock on ("Rock On")

Forays to Atlanta were joyous and productive, an energetic way to learn about various happenings and music styles while also being highly entertained in between sorties by Sue, Joan, Nancy and Linda.

Of that crew, only Linda is left. Sue died of a heart attack just after one Christmas many years later; Nancy drove into a telephone pole at a high rate of speed; and Joan died, too (separately). The 688 Club shuttered and then became something else entirely. Linda left for graduate school. The whole Atlanta adventure became like a big snowflake that melted away at the approach of the sun.

Still, from Atlanta there's always the eerie memory conjure of "Rock On," and, from time to time still, too, "radio play that forgotten song . . ."

Plus, there's still always the enduring perennial question from "Rock On:"

And where do we go from here? 

Only one way to find out, my friends, and that's to get there first . . .

Today's Rune: Journey.  

The English Beat: I Just Can't Stop It

Very pleased to note tonight's upcoming show at the Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, Texas: The English Beat. Last time I saw them or any of their successor bands (General Public comes to mind) was in the 1980s. This is exactly the kind of venue I like for seeing "medium" scale live shows -- with about a 1,400 person capacity, in a building that dates to just after the Second World War.  

Seems like yesterday, picking up a vinyl copy of I Just Can't Stop It (1980), back in Chapel Hill. I'm still digging it!  This one hit number three in the UK -- but only #142 in the USA.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.    

The Specials: Dawning of a New Era in the Concrete Jungle

The Specials' first album, produced by young Elvis Costello, came out in 1979; it inspired a lot of musicians in various parts of the world, including in North Carolina, where I lived at the time. The Pressure Boys was one band that comes to mind, right off the top of my two tone head. The Specials album was -- and still is -- an ideal backdrop for social gatherings. The music is wild enough to keep things interesting, quiet enough to keep stray thoughts from evaporating. Particularly in the USA, it's conciousness raising, because the sound draws from the 1960s, fuels it up a notch and mixes in some new stuff. Along with The English Beat (aka The Beat), it's sort of like mixing together some Kinks, ska, reggae, punk and Motown into one holistic milieu.

The Specials' lyrics reflect a sophisticated awareness of British socio-political realities in the 1970s. Just a couple of little samples from "Do the Dog" shows this:

All you punks and all you teds
National Front and natty dreads
Mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads
Keep on fighting 'till you're dead . . .

Who am I to say?
To the IRA
To the UDA
Soldier boy from UK
Am I just a hypocrite?
Another piece of your bullshit
Am I the dog that bit
The hand of the man that feeds it?

(Teds = Teddy Boys; National Front = whites-only neo-fascist party; IRA - Irish Republican Army; UDA = Ulster Defence Association).

And from "Concrete Jungle" (compare with the very different Bob Marley song of the same name):

I have to carry a knife
Because there's people threatening my life
I can't dress just the way I want
I'm being chased by the National Front.

Meanwhile, it's 2013 and Barack Obama is about to be sworn into a second term and on top of that, The English Beat are coming to play Dallas. Yes!

Today's Rune: Signals.

Buzzcocks: Whatever Happened to Those Burning Books?

One of the great joys of doing a paid internship in London in 1991 was easy access to beautiful, fantastic music and theatre venues. I made the most of it. One of many great shows was put on by The Buzzocks at the Town and Country Club in Kentish Town, Camden, London (now the HMV Forum), 9-17 Highgate Road NW5, on June 16, 1991. The Town and Country was in the former Forum, a gorgeously appointed Art Deco cinema building built in 1934 with a 2175 capacity that has gone through various reuses ranging from bingo to dance hall to music club. As of 2012, it continues as a major music venue that now holds 2350 people.  

The Buzzcocks (or just Buzzcocks) formed in Manchester in 1976 and have been playing for decades, with breaks of various duration. Style? A blend of The Ramones and The Kinks plus Squeeze. High energy and high emotion, funny and elegiac, catchy ditties, with generally "thin" vocals by Pete Shelley.

Note: Karl Marx (1818-1883) lived at 9 Grafton Terrace in Kentish Town from the 1850s until his death. "To discover the various uses of things is the work of history" -- Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 1, 1867.

Today's Rune: Journey.   

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.    

Marianne Faithfull: Dreaming My Dreams, Part I

Thoroughly enjoyed Marianne Faithfull: Dreaming My Dreams (2000), a brief overview of the life and times of Faithfull with interviews, evocative archival footage and more contemporary live performances. "Yes, I guess I do have vagabond ways," she sings, noting also this: "The way I choose to show my feelings is through my songs." Her mother was of the Austro-Hungarian nobility, a group whose status quo was forever destroyed in the Great War of 1914-1918. Her father was a multilingual English spy during the Second Great World War who afterwards joined the Braziers Park School of Integrative Social Research in Oxfordshire (Link to website here: http://www.braziers.org.uk/). Marianne's parents had a rocky relationship that ended in divorce; she was sent to Catholic school, and when she was sixteen, she met John Dunbar at a mixer; he asked her to dance, and soon "a whole doorway opened" as she entered his social world in the early 1960s. He knew William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, looked the part of London hipster on the rise. Things moved quickly from there on out. She met the Rolling Stones and Andrew Loog Oldham, their manager, who directed Mick Jagger and Keither Richards to write a song for Marianne that turned out to be "As Tears Go By," a huge pop hit first for her (in 1964) and later for them (in 1965).

She had more hits, sounding both jaunty and sad, a mix of pop folk and the Kinks. When she became pregnant, she married John Dunbar -- "a completely doomed period of domesticity." Her son Nicholas Dunbar was born in November 1965. Though she mused about living a scholarly family life in Cambridge, John was into the arts scene in London, and Marianne soon found what felt like her perfect match with Mick Jagger.

[To be continued]. 

Today's Rune: Partnership.     

Wim Wenders: Falsche Bewegung / Wrong Move

Falsche Bewegung (1975), as with all of the Wim Wenders works I've seen, plays out like a quintessentially independent film. Here, a small and finely acted ensemble cast of characters roams through city and country by rail, foot and car over the period of less than a week. Wilhelm, a self-styled struggling writer in his thirties, is pushed out of the nest by his mother. It's unclear, but I suspect his father was killed in the Second World War. In any case, Wilhelm takes a train for Bonn and soon two vagabonds hitch up with him, seeing he has some money to spare. They are a German father, World War II veteran who'd been a runner during the 1936 Olympics, and his young mute daughter Mignon (French for "cute" or "dainty"). Down the line they are joined by Therese, a stage actress, and Bernhard, a young monied Austrian who dallies in poetry. These disparate characters look to Wilhelm for guidance or leadership, but he seems capable of neither. "It Ain't Me, Babe," he might as well reference, but he's no Bob Dylan. Bernhard takes them to his rich uncle's estate -- when they arrive, it is unclear if the man really is his uncle. Slow antics ensue, angst pervades the air, they move on. Wilhelm eventually goes to the top of a mountain and wonders if he's made the "wrong movement" of the title. Perhaps they all have.

Loosely based on (more inspired by) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1795/6 novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre / Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Falsche Bewegung has the tonal feel of Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) and Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood (1952).

Main actors on the road: Rüdiger Vogler (Wilhelm); Hans Christian Blech -- my favorite in this film -- as Mignon's father, Laertes; Hanna Schygulla (Therese); Nastassja Kinski (Mignon), barely in her teens, in her film debut;  Peter Kern (Bernhard); and Ivan Desny as the latter's "uncle."

Robby Müller's cinematography is superb, setting buildings and background scenery in more "real" context -- as in life -- than is typical in flashier films.  I also like the way sounds come off, as well as the accompanying music, all important elements in a Wenders film, especially given the relatively sporadic nature of dialogue and action.

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

Lindsay Anderson: O Lucky Man! (Part 2)

O Lucky Man! keeps swirling in my head. Some further observations are in order on techniques. Above: "old-fashioned" Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) and insouciant Patricia Burgess (Helen Mirren) in London.

I. Action scenes alternate with interludes, some of them pastoral and some musical, the latter featuring Alan Price and his band delivering songs that comment on or prefigure what else is going on in the film. Anyone who has heard The Animals' version of "House of the Rising Son" (1964) will be familiar with Price on some level (that's him playing a Vox Continental organ on the track). Here, Price's assembled group sounds a lot like early 1970s Kinks, at least to me. On the title track, Price sings (this is only a snippet):

If you have a friend on whom you think you can rely
You are a lucky man!
If you've found the reason to live on and not to die
You are a lucky man!

From the satiric "Poor People:"

Poor people stay poor people
And they never get to see
Someone's got to win in the human race
If it isn't you, then it has to be me.

Finally -- from "Justice:"

All life from beginning to end
You pay your monthly installments.
Next to health is wealth
And only wealth will buy you justice.

II. Throughout O Lucky Man!, people in positions of power rarely act for the common good; quite the opposite -- there is much abuse of power at all levels, from cops on the beat to the corporate top. Intimidation and torture or, as Dick Cheney and gang defined such tactics during their conducting of the "War on Terror" -- enhanced interrogation techniques -- are used to exact a phony confession from Mick Travis, for instance. On the other hand, as in Voltaire's Candide, there are sources of compassion, including various benevolent people depicted in this film (providing needed uplift, for sure). One of my favorite sections follows Mick as he escapes from a military-industrial accident on a secret facility through a wildly dangerous apocalyptic zone until he crosses a stream, hears birds singing and church bells in the distance, and eventually finds respite in a pastoral church setting.













III. Like a John Dos Passos novel, O Lucky Man! utilizes a variety of techniques to drive home the narrative and make comments on the greater world. In addition to the Alan Price and company performances, silent film style is occasionally used for emphasis, as is graffiti (still shot example: REVOLUTION IS THE OPIUM OF THE INTELLECTUALS, plus peace sign), little bits of radio news heard in the background, scrolling news headlines (exactly as we are now used to now via cable news) on a building in London;  and quotations from books, including lines of philosophy and poetry.  Let's  not forget advertising slogans and various social clichés worthy of Are You Being Served?

IV. There is more -- for  a later post.



Today's Rune: Journey.

Lindsay Anderson: O Lucky Man! (Part 1)

Happy to have seen O Lucky Man! again soon after If. . .   Both came recommended by my sister Linda back in the 1970s. Both are now availble on DVD and worth tracking down.  I'd seen blurrier video versions in the 1980s, but not since the end of the Cold War.

Many of the same actors percolate from If... to O Lucky Man! and play multiple roles. Malcolm McDowell keeps the name Mick Travis, though he is a different man, more happy-go-lucky in the cruel, cruel, occasionally wonderful world as seen through the wandering, wondering skeptical eyes of McDowell and Lindsay Anderson. Blend together Voltaire, William Blake, Tom Paine, John Dos Passos, Ian Fleming, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Luis Buñuel, The Kinks and Pink Floyd and presto, you get a sense of the kaleidoscopic vision of O Lucky Man!

I don't like to "rate" much, but that said, this has got to be in the top five percent of English language films in my book.

It's nothing less than a true attempt at exposing and understanding modern life in all its absurdities, complexities and banal evils through the scrim of capitalist society, the most efficient form -- so far -- of plundering the planet and the majority of people living on it.  All with a story line that, after the disappearance of "Oswald," takes Mick Travis North and South, West and East, though not in that order, initally as a coffee salesman.  

O Lucky Man! seems even more chilling in the 21st century than it did in the 20th, despite its comic and satirical elements.  

I am reminded of how weird things are getting every time I retrieve a milk container for my first cup of coffee in the morning: "Our farms," the Horizon "leaping cow" Organic LOWFAT MILK carton explains, "produced this milk without antibiotics, added hormones, pesticides or cloning."  God, let's hope so.



Today's Rune: Possessions.  

Lindsay Anderson: If. . .

If. . . is a film that came recommended by my sister Linda, and I first saw it as a teenager in the late 1970s. I loved Lindsay Anderson's work then and enjoyed it even more so recently after watching If. . . for a third time as a full-fledged adult.

If. . .  showcases a blistering take down of the British ruling classes in two phases: I) scrutiny of the hoary status quo -- symbolized as a public (private boarding) school -- by Mick Travis and his crew and II) an armed uprising.

Literalists would take this film as a blank check for going off the deep end, forming lunatic groups like the Weatherman, Baader-Meinhof and  Symbionese Liberation Army. Broader, deeper thinkers might eventually form a loose coalition group like WikiLeaks. More cautious (and perhaps saner) people might take from this film a valid, universally true portrait of how things work in modern society and go from there. 

Such a rebellious thematic approach, sometimes focusing only on phase I scrutiny and sometmes turning phase II into a more symbolic rebellion, can be traced directly from Jean Vigo's Zéro de conduite (1933) through François Truffaut's Les Quatre Cents Coups / The 400 Blows (1959), Anderson's If. . ., The Kinks Present Schoolboys in Disgrace (1976), The Sex Pistols (1975-1978), Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979), Alan Parker's Pink Floyd The Wall (1982) and David Fincher's Fight Club (1999, based on the 1996 Chuck Palahniuk novel). And there are others, but not much yet in the 21st century. 














The whole cast of If..., led by Malcolm McDowell in his first role (as Mick Travis), is stellar. The mostly realistic school culture scenes alternate with surrealistic ones; some scenes are in black and white, others are in color. This was a point of much conversation by my sister Linda's "Neighborhood" bunch. I can see why.

Along the way through the film, there is some discussion of the First World War (yes!) and many telling visual details can be observed, like posters of Che Guevara (the iconic Alberto Korda shot), Chairman Mao and Charlotte Rampling. The eerily effective soundtrack (featuring Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin and some other flourishes) is the same kind in spirit Werner Herzog would utilize throughout the 1970s.  Everything works together seamlessly.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

K

In Praise of K Names and Words. Take a sack full and run!  Or, add some . . .  

I. Proper K: People, Places, Products, Texts.

Kabbalah/Kabala
Kabul
Kaddish
Kafka
Kahn
Kahlil
Kahlua
Kaiser
Kalahari
Kalamazoo
Kalashnikov
Kali
Kaluga
Kamchatka
Kanawha
Kandahar
Kandinsky
Kansas
Kant
Kaplan
Karachi
Karbala/Kerbala
Karen
Karl
Karloff
Karnak
Karpov
Kashi
Kashmir
Kaspar
Kasparov
Kassite
Katari
Kate
Katherine
Kathleen
Katmandu
Kaufman
Kava Coffee ("Kava-Kava!")
Keitel
Kay(e)
Kazakhstan
Kean(e)
Keaton
Keats
Keebler
Keech
Kegel
Keith
Kellogg
Keller
Kelly
Kelvin
Kemal
Kemp
Kendall
Kennedy
Kennebunkport
Kenny
Kenosha
Kensington
Kent
Kentucky
Kenya
Keokuk
Kepler
Kerensky
Kern
Kerouac
Kerr
Kerry
Kesey
Keurig/K-Cups
Kevlar
Kevorkian
Kew
Key(e)
Keynes
KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti)
Khartoum
Khmer
Khomeini
Kibbles 'n Bits
Kindle
Kierkegaard
Kiev
Kilimanjaro
Kirchner
Kitchener
Krebs
Kruschev
Khyber Pass
Kickapoo
Kikkoman
Kilkenny
Kilroy
Kimmel
Kinks
Kir
Kirgizstan
Kirk
Kikuk
Kirlian (photography)
Kiwanis
Klamath
Klaus
Klee
Kleenex
Kleopatra
Klimt
Klinefelter
Klingon
Klink
Klondike
Knesset
Knicker
Knickerbock(er)
Knicks
Knoxville
Koala
Kobe
Kobenhavn
Koch
Kodak
Kodiak
Koestler
Kohl's
Koinonia
Komodo
Kong
Konrad
Konstantin
Kon-Tiki
Kookaburra
Kool-Aid
Koran
Korda
Korea
Korinthos
Korsakov
Kosciuszko
Kosovo
Kotex
Kraft
Kraftwerk
Krakatoa
Krakow
Krasner
Kremlin
Krishna
Kris
Kris(s) Kringle
Kristen (and variants)
Kuala Lumpur
Kübelwagen
Kublai Kahn
Kubrick
Kuhn
Kurd
Kurdistan
Kursk
Kurt
Kush
Kutuzov
Kuwait
Kwai
Kwame
Kyle
Kyoto
Kyrgyzstan
K-Ration
Special K

II. K in General Terms.

Kabob/Kebob
Kabuki
Kakistocracy
Kale
Kaleidoscope
Kalian
Kaliph
Kamikaze
Kangaroo
Kanzu
Kappa
Kaput
Karaoke
Karate
Karma/Kharma
Kasbah
Katabolic
Katana
Katydid
Katzenjammer
Kava
Kayak
Kazoo
Keckling
Kecklish
Keel over
Keelboat
Keen
Keep
Keister
Keg
Keloid
Kelp
Kemp
Ken
Keno
Kepi
Kerb
Kerchief
Kernel
Kerosene
Ketchup
Kettle
Kettledrum
Key
Keynote (key + etc.)
Khaki
Khalif
Khedive
Kibbeh/kibbe
Kibbutz
Kibitzer
Kibosh
Kick
Kickback (kick + etc.)
Kid
Kidney
Kielbasa
Kilo
Kilowatt (kilo + etc.)
Killjoy
Kiln
Kilt
Kimbo (arms akimbo)
Kimono
Kind
Kindergarten
Kindle
Kindred
Kinematic
Kinescope
Kinetic
King
Kingpin (king + etc.)
Kink/kinky
Kiosk
Kip
Kipper
Kirk
Kirsch
Kirtle
Kismet
Kiss
Kit & Kaboodle
Kite
Kitchen
Kitsch
Kith & Kin
Kitten
Kiva
Kiwi
Klatch/Klatsch
Klavier
Klaxon
Kleptocracy
Kleptomaniac
Klick
Klieg light
Kludge
Klutz
Knack
Knackered
Knackwurst
Knap
Knapsack
Knave
Knead
Knee
Kneel
Knell
Knicker
Knicknack
Knife/dirk/kirpan
Knight
Knish
Knit
Knob
Knock
Knoll
Knot/Knotty
Know
Knowledge
Knuckle
Knurl
KO/knockout
Kommissar
Koan
Kola
Kook
Kopeck/Kopek
Korma
Koruna
Kosher
Kraal
Kraken
Kremlin (generic)
Krieg
Krill
Kroner
Kryptonite
Kudos
Kudzu
Kulak
Kumara
Kvetch

III. "Uncool K" list.

Khmer Rouge
Kidnap
Kill
Ku Klux Klan

Today's Rune: Strength.

Superman

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.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Wim Wenders: Der Amerikanische Freund

Dennis Hopper, RIP. On a related note, another favorite from the 1970s: Wim Wenders' Der Amerikanische Freund / The American Friend / L'ami américain / El amigo americano (1977).

The "American friend" of the title is a character derived from Fort Worth-born writer Patricia Highsmith's Ripliad novels. In Wenders' version, we're not quite sure what motivates the "talented" Mr. Ripley or his German anti-buddy, Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz): money, mortality, kinship? Or is it chance and opportunity? Is Zimmermann dying fast, or is he being hoodwinked into becoming a de facto hitman? What is self-reflection, projection on others, what is real and what is forgery? As art forger Derwatt (Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel Without a Cause) quips, "A little older, a little more confused. . ." At one point, Tom Ripley admits to a tape player: "I know less and less about who I am, or who anybody else is."

What makes the plot work is the added tension created by Jonathan's wife Marianne Zimmermann (Lisa Kreuzer), their son Daniel (Andreas Dedecke), and mystery man Raoul Minot (Gérard Blain). Sam Fuller (the director) adds more as Der Amerikaner, a gangster -- Fuller who said, "Van Gogh was a great inspiration for me, a guy for whom life was work and work was life. I wanted to be like him, except I didn't want to go nuts and cut off my ear."

A beautifully crafted film.  Like Sorcerer alluded to in the past two posts (also from 1977), not for the Disney and Hallmark crowd nor the easily distracted, my friends . . . but oh, what a movie! 



The Kinks play a subtle reinforcing role for the pensive Mr. Zimmerman: He mumble-hums and listens to The Kinks' Face to Face, specifically "Too Much on My Mind;" when Marianne suspects he's involved in shady business, another Kinks song -- "Nothin' in the World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout That Girl" from Kinda Kinks -- plays in the background.

Mr. Ripley has appeared in more recent movies, as well, but this one's his best showing.

Today's Rune: The Self.