Exciting new arrival! Our first piece of original art
by David Heatley, sent to us personally by the artist himself!
I can totally relate to this scene. And there's some extra Heatley on the other side!
It's amazing to me how artist like him can get so much feeling
and expression out of their pens and pencils. If you're not familiar with David Heatley, you should check
out My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down and Qualified!
2020 May 25 • Monday
For our 623rd Soundtrack of the Week we're
listening to more songs, this time by the redoubtable Serge Gainsbourg:
Serge Gainsbourg et Le Cinéma.
Only three of the pieces on this record have vocals, two by
Gainsbourg himself and one by Juliette Gréco, so this shows
off Gainsbourg's talents as a composer, especially for jazz combo.
Credit must also go to occasional co-composer and
more than occasional arranger Alain Goraguer. (Goraguer
arranged all but four of these pieces. Michel Colombier handled
the remaining four.) "Angoisse" starts with a bouncy jazz guitar intro that's
completely surprised by a slow burning trumpet entrance.
Then we settle into a mid-tempo jazz groove, the guitar comes
back and it all fits together and makes sense. No vocals,
just a really coo, jazz atmosphere. This mood continues, though slightly more relaxed
and featuring saxophone as well as trumpet, in the next
piece, also instrumental, "Black March". Next up is "Les Loups Dans La Bergerie (Final)",
a serence and romantic chamber piece and so far the
most "soundtracky" sounding track. Near the end
it seamlessly morphs into a jazz combo and starts to swing. After that the Afro-Cuban percussion comes back
for the bouncy and swaying "Cha-Cha Du Loup", something I think
I remember hearing on a Gainsbourg compilation back in the '90s. Juliette Gréco sings the next track, "Strip-Tease",
a crystalline yet shadowy number which has Gréco's wonderful
voice unobtrusively supported by guitar, bass and percussion. The last number on the A side is called "Some Small Chance",
another scintillating small combo jazz piece, this time with
vibes and piano helping to set the mood. The second side starts off with another cool jazz tune,
"Rendez-Vous À La Calavados. This one has a West Coast feel to
it with really nice alto playing and the pleasing addition of conga. "Wake Me At Five" is an interesting blend of jazz, dramatic
underscore and somewhat dirty blues/rock electric guitar. It's
something of a gem, certainly unusual! After that comes "Solitude", features the piano and is
an emotive and swelling cue, one of the few that really
suggests a conventional film soundtrack sound here. After that we go back to a more driving, large combo
swing with conga sound for the danger jazz sounds of
"Crazy—Horse Swing". A pretty fast and impressive upright bass line
introduces the last vocal number here, "Comment
Trouvez-Vous Ma Soeur?", kind of a perky novelty
song and not a favorite of mine, to be honest. "Érotico-Tico" is another one I remember liking
from long ago, sort of a bossa lounge number very
tastefully arranged and with a great feel. Then there's the somewhat Mancini-ish "No Love for Daddy",
with lush strings and elegant piano playing wrapped
around what sounds like a classic jazz standard. Some weird-sounding electric keyboard along with
spaghetti western electric guitar, drums and vocal
bursts bring the record to a close with the aptly
named "Rocking Horse". This one is really a surprise!
2020 May 22 • Friday
Raw Courage (1984) is a really solid independent
thriller, the kind that nobody makes anymore. Well written and
intelligently shot and edited with an effective synth score by
Johnny Harris, it takes a simple idea, fleshes it out with
distinct and believable characters who are given deft
and convincing portraits right at the beginning of the movie
and just gets the whole job done really well without
overdoing it or running longer than it has to.
One is twenty-two years old and frustrated at not being able
to escape from his father's control or even move out of the house. Another is in his thirties and on the brink of stepping into
a real serious relationship and partnership, for what sounds like
it would be the first time, with his girlfriend. The third is a middle-aged man, married, two kids, haunted
by a few anxieties, among them whether he can keep up with the
two younger runners.
Once they turn off the highway and head for the mountains,
they're surprised and captured by a bunch of survivalists on
a training mission, prepping for whatever it is preppers prep for
with only knives and basic provisions.
You know the survivalists are bad news because M. Emmet Walsh
is the commanding officer.
But at first it isn't a problem. While what the survialists
did was basically abusive, they're not really interested in the
runners and this could be the end of it, except for the fact
that the runners can't stand by and watch these weekend warriors
abuse and torture one of their own members. Things get heated and the runners leave, after lying about their
route. Some of the more violent survivalists catch up to them on motorcycles
and attack them.
Let's just leave it there. Suffice it to say that after that
it becomes a true test of survival. The entire troop
is now pursuing the runners to kill them. It's genuinely tense and suspenseful and the filmmakers make
great use of the New Mexico locations.
If you like this kind of thing then I bet you'll enjoy this gem.
2020 May 20 • Wednesday
Roger Moore is always thought of as James Bond
or The Saint or, uh, whoever he was in The Persuaders
and maybe you've seen him kind of walking through a couple
of crappy movies but he could be a really good actor
when he got the chance and The Man Who Haunted Himself
is a good movie that wouldn't work without a solid performance from
its star.
He has a strange episode while driving on the highway
one day. It seems like a kind of possession. He unbuckles
his seatbelt and starts driving incredbily fast and
recklessly, resulting in an accident that almost kills him. While on the operating table, he seems to have two heartbeats. And after that, once things should be back to normal,
his friends and colleagues report seeing him and having interactions
with him that he knows can't be possible. His friend plays snooker at their London club with him when
Pelham was actually in Spain. But everybody at the club saw them play. People Pelham has never met before are reacquainting themselves with
him. And during a tense business conflict with a rival company,
Pelham seems to be working for both sides. Is there an impostor, a doppelganger, or is Pelham
going insane? He undergoes psychiatric evaluation and treatment. To say more would ruin the movie. It's a good story, pulled off by excellent camerawork, a
versatile and impressive score by Michael Lewis—and by Moore,
who is in almost every scene and has to make the movie work
by nuanced control of his voice and facial expressions.
2020 May 18 • Monday
The 622nd Soundtrack of the Week is this album
of Waylon Jennings songs (with a bonus track of a Chet Atkins arrangement
of The Beatles' "Norwegian Wood") for the movie Nashville Rebel.
It opens with "Silver Ribbons", a relaxed and loping country
song in which the title is a metaphor for railroad trains
and the elecrtic guitar subtly suggests the sound of the whistle.
"Don't ask me where I'm going / Don't ask me where I've been /
Those silver ribbons will take me there / There and back again."
A Hobbit reference? Before Jennings's character becomes a Nashville rebel, I guess
first he's a "Nashville Bum", talking about chasing all the
"big wheels" in Nashville trying to catch his big break while
living on "ketchup soup". There's some nice guitar playing
and the song is humorous while also serving as exposition. "Green River" is a beautiful slow song about remembering
lost love. Waylon Jennings was really a marvelous singer
as well as a great guitarist, as anybody knows who has listened
to the live bar band recordings he made way before he
was famous. Then we get to the title track, with clever lyrics and
a steady rolling rhythm as well as a tremendous electric guitar sound.
"I've got things to do / And things to say / In my own way." After this comes another slow and dreamy one with a lovely
steel guitar intro, "I'm a Long Way from Home". It's a while
before the words come in but the band does a great job
of expressing the title before Jennings opens the song by
singing the title and then proceeding to dissect the
pain of being lonely and homesick. Side B opens with one of the Deodata tunes, "Corteguay".
It's a piano-driven groovy lounge number, not a bossa, I think,
but a different Brazilian rhythm. Maybe a mid-tempo samba?
It's very nice, whatever it is. The last song on the A side is "Tennesee", which Jane Dowden,
associate producer of the film and author of the liner notes,
asserts "introduces a new feeling to the Jennings style".
And maybe so! It features the piano and is a more laid back,
late-night saloon sort of song, very gentle yet with
impressive of depth of emotion and perhaps a touch of
Roy Orbison about it, as well as some gospel and blues influences. The B side kicks off with the "Norwegian Wood" cover, which I
assume not to be from the film. It's a very cool arrangement, sounds
like it might have clavinet on it or something
and of course very nice guitar playing as well as a very effective use of
a backing chorus. I usually hate that last addition but it works very well
here. The rest of the record is all instrumentals! "Hoodlum" is a really cool uptempo number with
divebombing and soaring steel guitar flourishes.
Now this is really something! Up to now everything
has been great but relaxed and laid back. Now the
energy is kicked up a notch, though to be honest
it might go on a little longer than it should,
since it's fairly simple and repetitive and without
much in the way of "events" other than the steel guitar. The next instrumental is "Spanish Penthouse",
in which the band create a somewhat Spanish flavor
and the acoustic guitar carries the day.
Again it might be a bit on the long side
for what all happens in it. Perhaps these tunes were
source music. "Lang's Theme" is a slinky number with some more
frisky steel guitar action. I think the rhythm might
be a hully gully? Gotta love these guitar sounds.
Everything sounds great, in fact. After this comes "Rush Street Blues" a swinging blues
that again has amazing steel guitar playing.
The steel guitarist really takes center stage here. Who is it?
I'd love to know the names of all the musicians. The record concludes with the serious-sounding
and not-country "Lang's Mansion", basically a piano
piece with upright bass and violin in supporting roles.
There's a valedictorian feel to it, which is appropriate
enough given that's the last piece on the record.
And a great record too!
2020 May 15 • Friday
All Together IPA is another excellent beer from our
favorite brewery, Other Half.
But even more important than that, this is part of a global
effort to support people in the hospitality industry. Other Half
has made the recipe for this beer simple and freely available
and over 700 other breweries are crafting and selling it,
with some of the proceeds being donated to charities. (Other Half is giving the money to the Restaurant Workers
Community Foundation.) So if you like beer, this is likely to be the easiest and
most pleasant way you can help some people who are struggling
right now! I put on my mask and biked over to Other Half within an
hour after first hearing about it. It wasn't more than an
hour after I got back home that I was drinking it.
2020 May 13 • Wednesday
Make With the Brains, Pierre, by Dana Wilson,
was an interesting and unusual book, and hardly the "mystery"
that its front cover proclaims it to be, but a
curious novel that occupies an authorial space whose borders
include Nabokov, Camus, Kafka
and, uh, someone who wrote about Hollywood.
I guess you could
say that it's a book that lives in the same housing development
as Lolita, L'Etranger, The Castle and The
Last Tycoon.
Pierre Bernet is a Frenchman in Hollywood who has been barely
getting by working in the film industry in one way or another and,
when we meet him, has more or less bottomed out. On the first page we're told that there are two men waiting
for him outside of his apartment building, to kill him.
He intends to leave and allow this to happen, as soon as
he receives a certain phone call. Pierre also alludes to a "thing" in his bathroom. From here the story flashes back so we can see how Pierre
arrived at this point. It involves his neighbors, a woman he
loves, a couple of big time movie stars, a powerful producer
and ends up being the story of a few crimes, though the crimes
themselves are not really what the book is about. So why is it good? Because of the writing. It's consistently
sure-footed, elegant and surprising. It first really got my
attention when Pierre first meets the powerful film producer
character and we see him through Pierre's eyes at a crowded
bar, "guarded like the termite queen by all the other termites". At one point, Pierre describes his friend Jerry arriving
"with the punctuality of an eclipse" and also drawing on
a cigarette "like a man breathing salt air". And later, a note of parody, and an example of the tone throughout,
in which a European observes American culture with bemusement
and admiration: In Lolita there's a scene where Humbert is in
a children's clothing shop to buy some items for Lolita.
Nabokov deploys an extended metaphor:
When Pierre goes to a fancy club with Marjorie Dean,
famous movie star, Dana Wilson shows herself to be
capable of the same sort of flourishes: (Of course in Lolita it's not isolated but part of
an Edgar Allan Poe "Annabel Lee" motif.) But Make With the Brains, Pierre is a really good back with a
bizarre title. It would later be
reprinted in paperback with the title Uneasy Virtue,
which is astonishingly dull and not at all appropriate to
the text. (Make With the Brains, Pierre doesn't resonate
much with the content either, but you're not likely to
confuse it for any of a hundred other books.) The first line is "The long shadows of the sinking sun fall
over the stop signal at the crossing" (and it's worth noting
the different tense used here).
I watched him. In his ugly face, his eyes were like dirty,
frozen water. His expression was cruel. He seemed carefully
to avoid getting sober. Drinking like a fish, he did not get
drunk like an ordinary human being. His surface was hard, but he
had not entirely drowned his conscience.
You enter the big hall, walk over the copper bas-relief of a
ship, and there are dozens of elevators waiting for you A man
with a kind of castanet directs them. I envy him his job. To be
clad in a uniform, to look very efficient and to be paid for
making a noise with a rattle is something to be proud of. You have
to be born with the knack for a job like this; and when you finally
die, honored and respectable, your funeral paid for by the town,
you can truthfully say: "I didn't live a useless life. I rattled!"
I realized I was the
only shopper in that rather eerie place where I moved about
fish-like, in a glaucous aquarium. I sensed strange thoughts
form in the mids of the languid ladies that escorted me
from counter to counter from rock ledge to seaweed, and the
belts and the bracelets I chose seemed to fall from siren hands
into transparent water.
I kept in the background but the eyes of the guests were focused
on me. A fat woman, sailing along like a galleon complete with
pennants, arrived in a favoring gust of wind and anchored close
to us. She greeted Marjorie with a heavy broadside of compliments,
but her round curious eyes stared at me.
2020 May 11 • Monday
The incomparable Antonio Carlos Jobim
brings us our 621st Soundtrack of the Week:
The Adventurers.
"Children's Games" is a short piece that features the
guitar and flute, in 3/4 or 6/8, with a light and airy
feel to it. For "Rome Montage" Jobim comes up with a lovely
tune that sounds a bit like "Skylark" to me. The
arrangements by Eumir Deodata (who also wrote a couple
of the songs on this record) are terrific. After that we get "Bolero",
a gorgeous acoustic guitar duet. It's killing me not to know
who the musicians are on this. Both players are excellent. "Dax Rides" finally drops the needle on some irresistibly
deep and swaying Brazilian grooves, starting out
sunny and relaxed and then executing an unexpected segue
into a darker, more driving feel. The last piece on the A side is "Dax & Amparo (Love Theme)",
another one with lovely acoustic guitar playing, this
time with velvety support from the strings and winds. Side B opens with one of the Deodata tunes, "Corteguay".
It's a piano-driven groovy lounge number, not a bossa, I think,
but a different Brazilian rhythm. Maybe a mid-tempo samba?
It's very nice, whatever it is. Jobim returns to dramatic feel of the main title
for "The Long Trek", which features the harp and
has a sweeping and expansive sound. Harpsichord and Spanish or Mexican-sounding
guitar kick off "Search for Amparo", to be joined
by another guitar which trades off with the harpsichord
to express the melody. It's a lovely and tender piece.
Eventually the orchestra comes swelling in. And then there's the old standard "That Old Black Magic".
Besides the two Deodata pieces, this is the only non-Jobim
composition. While the piece is done in a fairly standard
big band arrangement, the rhythm section is percolating
in unusual ways, giving this familiar tune a very different
way of moving. Things sound like they're getting intense and climactic,
perhaps even dangerous, in "Bitter Victory:,
though the mood also sweetens to something sounding
more like triumph than tension. It's an aptly
named cue. "El Lobo's Band" is the second Deodata composition
and is actually a marching band number and sounds just
like what you'd expect. Presumably this is for a marching
band you see on screen. It doesn't have to be, of course,
but I'm betting it is. Finally we have "A Bed of Flowers for Sue Ann",
a short but richly romantic piece, with some writing
for strings and winds that I think Mancini himself would
approve of. It's also a reprise of the "Rome Montage" theme. A wonderful score by one of the true greats.
2020 May 08 • Friday
At some point you've heard statistics about violence against women.
The numbers are sickeningly high, regardless of whether you draw some sort
of line between "harassment" and "assault". Who gets to decide
whether you've been harmed or traumatized?
The numbers can show the staggeringly large range of the problem—a
constant, global, undiscriminating epidemic of terror, injury and death—
but they don't tell the stories or offer a window into
people's actual experiences. The comics anthology Drawing Power: Women's Stories of
Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival, edited by Diane
Noomin, does just that.
It's not a book of despair, though. This is an honest
book that contains a wide variety of voices of
many different people who speak of their different experiences
at different ages in different places and times. And not just voices. There couldn't be a better medium
than comics for something like this. Every contributor has
a unique voice as well as unique style of art, and even
a unique way of lettering the text. This isn't something you would get in a text-only format
or a pictures-only format. Some of the stories contain brutal violence, some present
a ubiquitous fear or anxiety or dread or terror, a state of trauma
that can exist independently of personally experience trauma. But if ever a book can speak for itself, this one can. Here is
just a small sample of panels or details of panels from
some of the works included.
Drawing Power is dedicated to Anita Hill.
Mary Fleener
Sarah Allen Reed
Trinidad Escobar
Ajuan Mance
Meg O'Shea
J. Gonzalez-Blitz
Nina Laden
Minnie Phan
Kaylee Rowena
Caitlin Cass
Corinne Pearlman
2020 May 06 • Wednesday
This book has been out for a while but I just came across it:
Glitz-2-Go, a collection of comics by Diane Noomin.
Noomin's creation of DiDi Glitz is a fabulous and indefatigable
character navigating the turbulent waters of a certain section
of '60s and '70s culture, a collision of relaxation of sexual mores
and the entrance into the mainstream of feminist thought and
various counter-cultural ideas and behaviours, set against a
background of more conservative, suburban, old-fashioned
styles and practices, often specifically Jewish New Yorkish. That's probably not a great description but there's so much
going on in Noomin's work that any attempt at encapsulation is
probably doomed. The writing is perfect and the voices clear and strong but
this is a visual medium that, for me, lives and dies by the
quality of the artwork on the page. Noomin the artist is
at least as good as Noomin the writer. You almost
never see work with this much depth, complexity and detail. Consider the depth of field in this panel, as well as the
varied patterns and textures and contrasts, and marvel at the
balanced and controlled composition.
If this reminds me of anything, it's the famous Yasujiro Ozu
approach to filming domestic scenes, with the camera in
one room, filming action in another room in front of the camera,
with a third background room visible behind it. It's notable how the characters' height increases from left to
right, and DiDi's daughter is giving a Bronx cheer to the
obvious jerk that Didi is apparently hoping will turn out to
be a good guy with enough encouragement. This search for love and companionship and emotional security
and acceptance is the bedrock of many of the stories in this book. DiDi Glitz puts up a really good front of but her encounters
with men are almost always, at best, disappointing. This point
is made very powerfully in one panel where we see tears running
down DiDi's cheek after yet another night of being used for sex.
DiDi doesn't always have much luck with women either, beyond
her closest friends. She has a dismaying encounter with a lesbian
woman and doesn't fit in with a women's group that she tries joining.
Noomin has been through the wringer herself, of course, and for
some especially painful experiences, the creator is dragged onto
the page by her creation.
This story, about having no fewer than four miscarriages while trying
to have as child, is devastating. And Noomin is as much in control of
telling it and creating great art from it as she is everywhere else in this book.
The comics hall of fame should have Diane Noomin right up front
for her highly original and breathtaking work. This is one of the best
collections of the artform that I've ever seen.
2020 May 04 • Monday
Curtis Mayfield achieved film score immortality with his
brilliant music for Superfly. But for our 620th
Soundtrack of the Week we're listening to his
lesser known score for Short Eyes.
Adding some more layers and tectures are strings and horns. The first song, "Do Do Wap Is Strong in Here", is classic
Curtis Mayfield brilliance, with his voice and guitar
work stunning as usual. "Sad, sick ain't no way for bail /
Kinda feel like sending him to hell / Handsome man becomes
an ugly freak." Things slow down for "Back Against the Wall", a slow and tender
soul song with an edge in the chorus that builds
for longer than you might expect. The congas are a big part of this one
and there's a great guitar solo. After this, "Need Someone To Love" sounds cheerful and uplifting,
even Gospel-tinged and with echoes of The Impressions. Side A ends with "A Heavy Dude" and it's got a real heavy
groove, featuring the drumming of Donnell Hagan and Gibson
on bongos. There are background singers who punch in on parts of the lyrics
as well, giving the song some pugnacious energy. Side B starts with the title track, which has a swinging and
syncopated feel and makes a lot of use of the background vocalists.
It kind of has a "Freddie's Dead" feel to it. "Freak, Freak, Free, Free, Free" is the name of the next
song and those words are included in the lyrics to "Short Eyes"
The transition between the two is fairly seamless, like
a crossfade. It's mostly instrumental, with just the background
vocals and some great guitar playing by Mayfield. After this comes a floaty and atmospheric song, "Break It Down",
which gets a lot out of the piano and compelling singing and
lyrics from Mr. Mayfield, as always. "Dammit, I belong to the state /
Break it down / But my mind's still free / I don't plan to give that up /
I can't give that up to no one." (It seems that this is the only song not written by Mayfield
but is credited to H. P. Denenberg and Martin Hirsh.) Then there's "Another Fool in Love", a sweet love song in 6/8,
with an old-fashioned feel to it. The record ends with "Father Confessor", which starts out
with almost a "Greensleeves" kind of feel to it. It's a short
instrumental that sounds valedictory.
2020 May 01 • Friday
The Great Jewel Robber (1950), claiming to be based on a true
story, is a much above average crime movie with a very unpromising
title.
We start with him in Toronto, where he's arrested and sent to prison.
After a humiliating and sadistic episode with the warden Gerry
escapes, makes it to New York, marries a nurse and starts a new crime
wave in New Rochelle. After picking up a new woman in Manhattan and hoping to start
up a fur-stealing racket there, he barely escapes capture and
hops a train to California, where he infiltrates the high society
set of Beverly Hills. More sex and more stealing and then, eventually, an impressive
action sequence as Gerry tries to elude police officers
who have surrounded the building he's in. Since this movie is from 1950, you know he's not going to get
away with it in the end, but it's impressively hardboiled
and fast-paced, moving smoothly from crime to crime
and keeping moralizing to a minimum. Gerry isn't really sympathetic character but this isn't a movie
about who people are as much as what people do. Brutality of one sort
or another finds everybody in it, but the idea is to deliver
excitement, not anguish. William Lava's score does much to enhance the experience,
as does the wonderfully shadowy photography by Sid Hickox. Gerry wears a standard-issue black mask when he's on the job
but Hickox has his face blocked by shadows a lot even when he's
not working, suggesting his criminality is part of his true nature.
Another arresting image comes when Gerry is betrayed by two partners
in crime who beat him into unconsciousness and steal the jewels
that Gerry has just stolen, at considerable risk to himself. One of the two is Gerry's latest seduction, who holds the stolen jewels
so that they block Gerry's face, a clear signal that the human
cost of crime is completely eclipsed by the material reward.
She also throws his engagement ring back at him before she leaves,
a ring that he had stolen from his previous fiancée. It had belonged
to her mother and meant the world to her, and she had given it to him in
true love and good faith. Oh well! At one point, police and reporters speak to the mayor of
New Rochelle, NY, and the person playing the mayor is a startlingly
different actor than anybody else in the movie, with a very odd
way of speaking and holding himself. It turns out that this person is not an actor at all but
the actual mayor of New Rochelle in a cameo. Not sure what
the ballyhoo value of this would have been, but there it is anyway.
If you're a fan of old black-and-white crime movies and film noir,
then this is a lesser known title that you're likely to enjoy. I
was very pleasantly surprised!
