Aki Kaurismaki update--

"It has been four years since the completion of Kaurismaki's last feature film.
"Has it really been that long?"
There is a telling pause.
"Back in the day, I used to make three films a year, now it is one in three years, or in four. The old vim and vigour of youth has been blunted."
That earlier pace was way too fast, Kaurismaki admits: all the "messages" have just about been passed. What is left is telling stories.
"Then again, it is better to do it when you are young, because later it is too late. You are only young once, as Henri Murger headed the final chapter of his Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." The book was the source both for Puccini's opera and Kaurismaki's own film from 1992.
Kaurismaki ponders long and hard in silence.
"No, it can't be four years. What's happened to all the years in between?"


 

(Katy Jurado)


fine, elegiac Charles Taylor on the new Peckinpah box--

"None is more affecting than Slim Pickens in what is perhaps the finest scene Peckinpah ever filmed. Gut-shot in a raid on Billy's hideout, Pickens' sheriff, Colin Baker, wanders off into the distance as Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" plays on the soundtrack. Following at a distance, his wife (Katy Jurado) is unable to bring herself to intrude on his final moments. As Pickens sits on a rock, he exchanges a fond look with her, but his eyes seem made anew, as if only in this dimming moment could they take in all the wonders of the world. What he sees--the darkening sky, the slowly rushing river in front of him--has the effect of life slipping through his fingers. This exquisitely lyrical sequence, maybe the screen's finest image of the passage into death, is one Peckinpah had been working toward since Ride the High Country. The respectful remove from which Katy Jurado watches her beloved husband die is the same distance from which Peckinpah had long given witness to the deaths of his aging heroes--not close enough to deprive them of their dignity, but close enough to make us feel the holes in the world where they were."


 

nice piece on John Fahey

"At these shows, everyone in the audience would be mesmerized, drawn in by that slow spiral of sound and transported elsewhere. It was like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz, with shards of recognized melodies suddenly separated and reconfigured in the space-time continuum, moving counterclockwise while unlocking the subconscious, spinning like swastikas do."


 

Scenes of Provincial Life--the wonderful Quicktime movies of Michael Szpakowski--in handy "vlog" form!
 

Steve Evans' "Baffler" essay on the Lilly endowment fracas, Free (Market) Verse, serialised excerpts on the web this week--

"There are several facts to hold onto here. First, the heartwarming story of Ruth Lilly’s handout to Poetry magazine was at least in part timed to draw attention away from the scandalous political payoff that had been snuck into the Homeland Security Bill and hurriedly signed into law by Bush. Second, the bequest itself was already, by the time of it was made public, the object of bitter litigation nowhere discussed in the press coverage..."

listening to beautiful Kantele music evokes hearing Betty Smith's psaltery in the mountains last spring...

"The kantele (or kannel) and rune-singing both symbolise ancient Finnish culture. In the Kalevala, Elias Lonnrot had constructed an image of a mythic kantele, made of the jawbone of a pike, as the typically Finnish musical instrument of the epic hero Voinomoinen. In the final stages of the work, the kantele is an essential part of the power of Voinomoinen's song. It was thus, through the Kalevala, that the kantele became, in the 19th century, the Finns' national instrument."




 

Rick Moranis (right), formerly of the 5 Neat Guys, has a country album out...
 

Canada's ex-prime ministers in reality TV gig

"Five young Canadians will endure public speaking and debate challenges to transform themselves into a possible national leader. The prize includes an internship in a Canadian public policy think tank.

TV reality shows have long depended on stage veterans like pop stars, supermodels and actors for celebrity judges. But this format will see former prime ministers Kim Campbell, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney and John Turner passing judgment."


 

interview with Brian Jungen--

"But here, sometimes the media tries to be so poetic and it's embarrassing. Around Shapeshifter, [one local newspaper reviewer] did this awful piece about me being the whale. My friends were killing themselves laughing. Please, please don't compare me to whales in captivity!"


 

happy 250th Mozart!
 

Anthony Powell at the Wallace Collection in London--


"It's possible, for instance, to imagine Powell's Barnby enlivening a portrait session much as Henry Lamb did when he enlisted his sister-in-law, Lady Violet Pakenham, to talk to Powell while he was being painted. Lamb's portraits - of Powell, of Lady Violet, of Evelyn Waugh - are the most assured and historically significant in the exhibition. Perhaps there is some correlation between Powell's at times curiously subfusc prose and the sober Camden Town colour and gestural reticence of Lamb's portrait of him."

a fine new issue of onedit is up, with poems by Jean Day, Jonathan Skinner, Kevin Killian, Buck Downs, Brenda Coultas &c. including this one from Michael Gizzi--

Clouds Nine


The best way to become a cloud--a cloud one could be
proud of--is to have a father

who's a meteorologist. Yosemite Sam upbraids a dust devil.
What would he say about

the weather on Lesbos? Or on drugs, for that matter? Leave
it to Beaver Lamarck to

form a list of cloud types. These here blew in from the
French Revolution to stack up

over this canary yellow hum cover. One never knows, do
one? Would you believe a

cicerone in his cups under a claudicated anvil fixin' to
fulgurate a lunch loaf? Nosh on

this: The concupiscent curd of a former whirling dervish. Is
Rumi in the house?

Revenge of the Mutt People

"My point here is that we rural and small town mutt people by an early age seem to have a special capacity for cruelty, compared say, to damned near every other imaginable group of Americans. For instance, as a child did you ever put a firecracker up a toad’s ass and light it? George Bush and I have that in common. Anyway, as all non-whites the world round understand, white people can be mean. Especially if they feel threatened -- and they feel threatened about everything these days. But when you provide certain species of white mutt people with the right incentives, such as free pork or approval from god and government, you get things like lynchings, Fallujah, the Birmingham bombers and Abu Ghraib.

Even as this is being written we may safely assume some of my tribe of mutt people are stifling the screams of captives in America’s secret “black site” prisons across the planet. Or on a more mundane scale of cruelty (according to CBS footage) kicking hundreds of chickens to death every day at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Wardensville, West Virginia, just up the road from where I am writing this. Or consider the image of Matthew Shepard’s body twisted on that Wyoming fence. All these are our handiwork. We the mutt faced sons and daughters of the republic. Born to kick your chicken breast meat to death for you in the darkest, most dismal corners of our great land, born to kill and be killed in stock car races, drunken domestic rows, and of course in the desert dusty back streets at the edges of the empire. Middle class urban liberals may never claim us as brothers, muchless willing servants, but as they say in prison, we are your meat. We do your bidding. Your refusal to admit that we do your dirty work for you, not to mention the international smackdowns and muggings for the republic -- from which you benefit more materially than we ever will -- makes it no less true."

Emmanuel Todd via James Wolcott--

"American neo-conservatism is not alone to blame. What seems to me more striking is the way this America that incarnates the absolute opposite of the Soviet Union is on the point of producing the same catastrophe by the opposite route. Communism, in its madness, supposed that society was everything and that the individual was nothing, an ideological basis that caused its own ruin. Today, the United States assures us, with a blind faith as intense as Stalin's, that the individual is everything, that the market is enough and that the state is hateful. The intensity of the ideological fixation is altogether comparable to the Communist delirium. This individualist and inequalitarian posture disorganizes American capacity for action. The real mystery to me is situated there: how can a society renounce common sense and pragmatism to such an extent and enter into such a process of ideological self-destruction? It's a historical aporia to which I have no answer and the problem with which cannot be abstracted from the present administration's policies alone. It's all of American society that seems to be launched into a scorpion policy, a sick system that ends up injecting itself with its own venom."

Not So Bad, Eh?

"In the end, we have a Conservative government, not because Canadians want radical change, but because they could no longer stomach Paul Martin's decaying Liberals. They supported the Conservatives only to the extent necessary to rid themselves of Martin -- and no further. That is the message voters sent on election day. Canadians, as confirmed in every in-depth values survey done in the past five years, are in their large majority, progressive and tolerant, support activist government, are appalled by the level of poverty in this country and repelled by what is going on south of the border. Any party that ignores this fundamental fact of Canadian political culture will ultimately fail."

the actor Chris Penn has died. This is a link to Cintra Wilson's great profile of him for Salon, which I posted last year. Bye bye Nice Guy.

(above w/ Steve Buscemi & Harvey Keitel)




 

essays on Canada and the Early Cold War, 1943-1957--

"The political scientist Denis Stairs substitutes Metternich for Kant as the inspiration behind Canadian policy. Steeped in a European realist tradition, Canadian politicians and diplomats acknowledged the fundamental importance of power and geography in determining a state's foreign policy. " Security politics," Stairs argues, "were geopolitics ." A classic balance of power analysis, reinforced by Ottawa's experience with the Great Powers during the Second World War, determined Canada's pragmatic approach to reconstructing international order after the war. Canadian interpretations of Soviet and American behaviour in the initial phase of the Cold War, the focus of Stairs 'work ,were also shaped by traditional geopolitical considerations. Hence, for Canadian diplomats, carefully controlled calculations of power and national interest - not ideology - were crucial in developing an effective diplomatic strategy in the Cold War context."

 

Diefenbunker

"Visit one of the most unique sites in Canada. A huge four-storey bunker, buried deep under a hillside and meant to house crucial elements of Canadian government in a nuclear war, is now open to you. Exhibits and recreated areas provide a startling glimpse into Cold War history.

This National Historic Site of Canada, located outside the capital city of Ottawa, is an underground nuclear bunker built in secrecy during the height of the Cold War between 1959 and 1961, and was meant to house the top officials of the government and military during the risk of nuclear attack.

Tours of this incredibly unique facility take visitors through a time warp to 1960s era government rooms, living quarters, cryptographic areas. Visitors enjoy a guided tour of the entire facility, over 100,000 square feet in size, four stories underground. Some of the focal points will include the Prime Minister�s suite (above), the War Cabinet Room, the CBC radio studio, the Bank of Canada vault, and the Emergency Government Situation Centre."


 

live from the Diefenbunker...

Nanaimo has a Diefenbunker, next to the College, all closed up.

(above: Motorola Diefenbunker Phone) 

laurels to CPAC, the Canadian Public Affairs channel, who had the best election coverage, with real-time door-to-doors, etc, & their polling was not only the most accurate, but they would break it down carefully--last night's results were little surprise to those who caught this feature. Their website has a live feed, podcasts & a very slick Flash/Tetris election results display.

 

best election round-up is at the Tyee--congratulations to our member Jean Crowder (above right), re-elected with a huge majority, whose superb performance as NDP health critic helped to bring more Island ridings into the NDP fold, including Victoria which elected Denise Savoie (above left) in an upset.




 

the old Kelvinbridge Station from Hidden Glasgow -- Subway pre- and during modernisation - in colour!

I distinctly remember riding the old Glasgow Subway c. '71; I'd already ridden the tube in London so it seemed toytownish and no big deal to me as a 12 year old but can it really have been so tiny and Edwardian and Brothers Quayesque as this? Through such a Lucozade lens? Flocking on the chairs, pink of the four page evening paper with the soccer and horse results? Old guys carrying tobacco in those rubber wallets? I think it was. Before the patina of industrialisation was powerwashed off the innocent granite, the skylights bricked off, the terraces re-inforced...

Sir, You Bastard in the OED...


from def. for "square one"


"G. F. NEWMAN Sir, You Bastard 279 A couple of wrong answers and Sneed knew he'd be right back on square one"
 

Victoria earlier in the month like Nanaimo today! shocker from Weldon Hunter's blog--

"Little Half Way

for Alex Gigeroff

Fresh trees should have
ridgetops like smoke,
iron branches in winter.
I built a tall fire and fed it
with these boughs (wind
has torn like that for me).
The spiraea moonlight dove
into the scene and illuminated
a birdshit fleck on my hat.
The old people moved near
to another. The woods
were oven-warm."





All the storm fallen branches left--even when cleaned up--big stacks of needles & caught on the road behind & up from our house perhaps a dozen quail feasting on the bugly richness--so oven-warm certainly.

kudos to Lori Emerson for assembling this very extensive page of bp Nichol sound files. We miss you Barrie!
 

"It is a duty and pleasure to vote." 

hope to see you at Evan Lee's opening at Presentation House Gallery (333 Chesterfield Ave. North Vancouver) this afternoon--

"Evan Lee's photographs are explorations of the extraordinary within the ordinary. He has continued the research strain of Vancouver practice that seeks meaning in detail, an idea that goes back to the 1950s work of Fred Herzog and has been continued by Roy Arden, Karin Bubas, Scott McFarland and Jeff Wall, among others. Lee�s work specifically addresses the presence of "the phenomenal" in the detritus of our secular world. The exhibition is an overview of all of Lee's projects since 1998, and will debut a new body of work focussed on the forms of the ginseng root. 64-page catalogue with texts by Christopher Brayshaw, Peter Culley, Jeff Wall and William Wood will be available at the opening. Curated by Bill Jeffries.


Artist Talk: Saturday January 21, 3:00pm followed by a reception from 4 - 6pm at PHG."

 

(interior of the Ovaltine Cafe on Hastings St, best known in recent years as a frequent location for "Da Vinci's Inquest", where Gerry and I have often dined, me on Pork Cutlets w/applesauce, him generally oolichans on toast, liver and onions, something in that line...)


three daily sonnets from last November by Canada's Top Poet Gerry Gilbert; the remaining 362 of 2005 available as BC Monthly 55, PO box 48884/Stn Bentall/Vancouver BC Canada V7X 1A8, 20 dollars should cover it--


cornwall provence amsterdam landed us
radiold music hourly stops w'news
eager new buildings hide meagre old ones
beach pee in sea splash still flashes music
yesterday & tomorrow frame bedtime
sameness-seized season's spit sky's seasonings
viruses & bacteria need us
years come to some ventures in centuries
winter wanders with worrisome weather
we look before during after ourselves
staple gets paper's talkatures together
traffic splashing past amusing futures
hands give thighs that relax all over
pools & creeks filling with waternity

BEAUTIES LET NEED'S BOUNCING GREED COUNT ON FREE
STANDING GIVES BALANCE A LIVING LANDING
NOT ANSWERING AVOIDS AN ARGUMENT
DIGGING GLIB DITTIES DIGNIFIES GIDDY
JAZZ HAPPY NOT THAT MUSICIANS ARE
DAYS IN BED SLEEP ME AWAY FROM TOWN'S CROWDS
HIDING A TIDY IN NORMALADY
NOWHERE TO GO GROWS BECOMING HERE WON
WATER'S WET WEALTH WITH WARMTH WELCOMES WASHING
REST BUILDS STRENGTH FROM DIGESTION OF STILLNESS
EACH OF US ROUND-WORLDLINGS WINNING A RACE
FISH DON'T NEED SHOES RAINCOATS WHEELS OR MOUNTAINS
SOME THINGS APPEAR BIG JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE NEAR
SMELLING WELCOMES ELOQUENT ELEGANCE

when music has been played say thanks to it
a stretch portrays a direction of daze
autobios graphic presentiments
lined up big birds' flight wrote writing on sky
recording ends then might still hear singing
pub crowd enjoyment a pleasing quick glimpse
certain daylight leaks through bedroom curtain
heedin' readin' flies people high as flies
rafters rhyme before & after laughter
roots trunks branches barks & leaves form forests
clock's alarm returns nearly to early
each time's arrival a hopening cope
not spottin' a clock keeps the timin' thine
eyes mouth ears & mind find wording fitting





 

farewell to the wicked Wilson Pickett, here with Percy Sledge, Don Covay, King Curtis, Esther Phillips and some Atlantic execs. My favorite hit: Engine Engine #9, where the cowbell sounds like its floating a foot away from the bridge of your nose, and the guitar causes the dust mites to pulse themselves through the screen door.
 

via Bookslut some very big Moomin news: the years of comic strips Tove Jansson did are finally going to be collected and translated! This is something I've hoped for for many years.



 

lots more about Jimmie Rodgers here...
 

greatly enjoying the immortal 1969 Same Train, A Different Time: Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers by Merle Haggard & the Strangers

WAITING FOR A TRAIN
words and music by Jimmie Rodgers
1929


All around the water tank
Waiting For a train,
A thousand miles away from home
Sleeping in the rain,

I walked up to a brakeman
To give him a line of talk,
He says "If you've got money
I'll see that you don't walk."

I haven't got a nickel
Not a penny can I show
He said "Get off you railroad bum",
And he slammed the box car door.

He put me off in Texas
A place I surely love,
Wide open spaces 'round me
The moon and stars above.

Nobody seems to want me
Or lend me a helping hand
I'm on my way from Frisco,
Goin back to Dixieland.

My pocket book is empty,
And my heart is filled with pain,
I'm a thousand miles away from home
Just waiting for a train.

 

excellent Jeff Wall site from the Tate Modern
 

a nice Birgit Nilsson remembrance from Seattle Opera star Jane Eaglen

farewell Birgit Nilsson


"In 1959 at the Met, she famously "outsung" three different Tristans, who all pleaded illness but were prevailed upon to take her on for one act apiece so that the performance would not have to be cancelled. Once asked what was the chief requirement for singing the role of Isolde, she replied: "Comfortable shoes.""

 

Banana Nutrament has mp3's of Chicago House giant Mr. Fingers beautiful "Can You Feel It (Martin Luther King Mix)" and Coltrane's "Alabama".

 

Sir, You Bastard

Sir, You Bastard, originally uploaded by Trevira.

cover of the year so far at the flickr old-timey paperback cover pool...

good article on Henry Green


"Elope," she cried delighted all of a sudden.
"Elope," he agreed grave.
She gave him a big kiss. "Why Charley", she said, seemingly more and more delighted, "that's romantic."
"It's what we're going to do whatever the name you give it," he replied.
"But don't you see that's a wonderful thing to do," she went on.
"Maybe so," he said soft into her ear, "but it's what we're doing."

This looks proper.


NYT's "Crusty Macaroni and Cheese" - omits the roux!!


""Crusty" is no exaggeration; the two cups of cheese used to top the casserole shrink-wrapped itself around the uppermost elbows. Eaten piping hot it was a little chewy and a little crispy; after the dish had cooled just a hair, the top layer had firmed to a leathery shield. The noodles below sweated fat, which collected unappealingly at the bottom of my earthenware dish. On my first attempt, I took the high road and used the all-cheddar option presented in the recipe. Bits of cheese clung clumpily to the elbows. Cheese that's not processed-and especially cheddar-needs help to achieve an ideal state of ooziness. And without the moderation of something creamy-ricotta, cr�me fraiche, or I think, ideally, white sauce-that much cooked cheddar loses some nuance and tastes a bit caustic. "


 

valedictory deep house mix from Fleep. Thanks and here is my ancient ode to house in PDF format--

http://www.sfu.ca/west-coast-line/covers/culley.pdf

It all feels like history now, grind, grind, sift.

Vancouver artist Antonia Hirsch's cleanly designed website is up--a text seen in the very early days of this blog is reprinted, amongst much else...

 

M. Tissot, who apparently had a sideline in Bible illustration (including a nice set of Minor Prophets, suitable for trading), here introduces a note of realism by having Daniel confront a bedraggled den of half-starved and toothless zoo lions...

 

fruit of "mudlark" research this interesting picture by James Tissot, 1878, the scavenging kids just inches away from the crisp linen--


"The artist has his back to the river and an undisturbed table setting of cutlery, three glasses and cruet before him on the white cloth, with part of another setting visible on the other side of the table. Through the framing open window, he looks towards a group of four top-hatted gentlemen sitting outside in the small balcony of the western bay, and children on the foreshore..."

"The view is through the table in the eastern ground-floor bay window, with a place setting in the foreground. Men sit on the balcony in positions of power in this place of leisure. However Tissot makes social distinctions by contrasting them with the young boys, showing the children, known as mudlarks, on the shore below below. They are scavenging for coal and iron and reflect Henry Mayhew's investigative report in which he starkly illustrated the pestilence and depravity of Thames culture through such mudlarks, sewer-hunters and rat-catchers."

Another one from Ben--would make a good smokehouse.

, originally uploaded by Mongibeddu.

We have a "Veasey Banks" locally...

Wintry house in Bangor, ME

, originally uploaded by Mongibeddu.

thanks Ben!

sagacious Memo to Layton--

"Currently, the New Democrats hold five B.C. seats, and it seems unlikely at this point that the party will see any of its incumbents defeated. The NDP also has a reasonable chance to pick up six ridings currently or previously won by the Conservatives - Vancouver Island North, Nanaimo-Alberni, Surrey North, Newton-North Delta, New Westminster-Coquitlam, and British Columbia Southern Interior - as well as three from the Liberals - Victoria, Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and Vancouver-Kingsway.

Electoral history and current polls do not support the notion that the Liberals, who now have eight B.C. seats, are poised to make gains on January 23. Indeed, in addition to the three Liberal ridings which are vulnerable to the NDP, two more - North Vancouver and Richmond - might be within the grasp of the resurgent Tories.

The New Democrats, therefore, have a chance to 'turn the tables' on the Liberals by claiming that their party is best able to stop Stephen Harper from becoming prime minister."

Dave Simpson tracks down everyone who has ever been a member of The Fall


"Smith confessed to me that he used to fine drummers £5 each time they hit the tom-tom, and that on tour in Europe he would employ the "European phrasebook", sending guitarists to say things like "I am a flower" in German. Hanley's brother Paul, a drummer, remembers how one of Smith's favourite jokes was to "take new members abroad just so he could send them home". Another was to dismantle the band's equipment in the middle of a gig. "When you're playing five or six nights a week the group get slick," Smith said in his defence. For him, routine is "the enemy of music"."

from the new Doppelganger magazine's Big Trees in Seattle

"Hegel writes: "When we want to see an oak with all its vigour of trunk, its spreading branches, and mass of foliage, we are not satisfied to be shown an acorn instead. In the same way science, the crowning glory of a spiritual world, is not found complete in its initial stages. The beginning of the new spirit is the outcome of a widespread revolution in manifold forms of spiritual culture; it is the reward which comes after a chequered and devious course of development, and after much struggle and effort. It is a whole which, after running its course and laying bare all its content, returns again to itself ; it is the resultant abstract notion of the whole...""

 

mp3's, though probably not for long, of Laura Nyro live, Christmas 1970...


"I love my country as it dies
In war and pain before my eyes
I walk the streets where disrespect has been
The sins of politics, the politics of sin
The heartlessness that darkens my soul
On Christmas.
Red and silver on the leaves
Fallen white snow runs softly through the trees
Madonnas weep for wars of hell
They blow out the candles and haunt Noel
The missing love that rings through the work
On Christmas.
Black panther brothers bound in jail
Chicago seven and the justice scale
Homeless Indian on Manhattan Isle
All God's sons have gone to trial
And all God's love is out of style
On Christmas.
Now the time has come to fight
Laws of book of love burn bright
People you must win the day
America your dignity
For all the high court world to see
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul."


 

George Segal fans, Harold Pinter completists and 60's spy film fans should look out for the underrated 1966 Quiller Memorandum on TCM tomorrow...

 

(CR center, reading WCW on the bus in Brooklyn)

Charles Bernstein kindly informs us that
Charles Reznikoff's "Collected Poems" are back in print--


"Reznikoff's commitment, throughout his work, is to the neglected, the overlooked, the discounted, and the devalued, as exemplified by this poem (also from 1920):

Her work was to count linings---
the day's seconds in dozens. "

If you don't have it, run, don't walk, I say...

this otherwise admirable UK Follies Home Page doesn't mention the only one I've ever got to spend any time in, The Hermitage in Dunkeld, Perthshire, visited in 1992, which also has an Ossianic poet's damp hutch nearby. The Hermitage above naturally amplifies the waterfall sound from below for a quick submersion into the Sublime. The landscape/reading/picturesque connection so clear over there, whereas here you can never be sure...