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...

'Auld Lang Syne'

'Your meeting which you so well describe with your old schoolfellow and friend was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world! They spoil these 'social offsprings of the hear'. Two veterans of the 'men of the world' would have met with little more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase Auld lang syne exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet... Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians.' 

Raiding the Icebox

"First, we send a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.

Then we seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.

Then the U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.
At that point, it's only a matter of time before we bring these Molson-swigging, maple-mongering Zamboni drivers to their knees! Or, as the official planners wrote, stating their objective in bold capital letters: "ULTIMATELY TO GAIN COMPLETE CONTROL.""

Harry Callahan: Women Lost in Thought


 

"And a merry bloomin' Christmas to you, too!" 

Philip Pullman: not as smart as he thinks he is?

"Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other. He's interested in maps and plans and languages and codes."

This kind of naive essentialism (see too his take on "Narnia") certainly explains (along with the near-absence of armoured polar bears) the trilogy's falling off in the third book...

from Penny Postcards via Plep
 

Anthony Powell's Century

"Powell decided to write "A Dance to the Music of Time" during World War II. He was resigned that the war would destroy the last remnants of the world in which he had passed his youth, and sought a way to preserve it. Whether he considered it from this angle or not, only an English novelist could have preserved that world. Almost anyone else would consider it a society too sadistic, selfish, and unfair to merit preserving. In an essay on Powell several decades ago, V.S. Pritchett expressed the view that the key English value--out of which all other values grow--is cruelty. 'To stand up to the best manners of English society,' he wrote, 'one has to be rude, exclusive and tough. One must be interested in behaviour, not in emotions; in the degree to which people hold their forts--and how much money the forts cost--not in what human beings are.'"

This Is Where I Came In: The Song Cycles of Jimmy Webb--have been enjoying "A Tramp Shining" and "The Yard Went On Forever" tonight--

"The song in question was, of course, "MacArthur Park," which the pair would soon ride majestically into the Top Ten in 1968. The park itself was the now-infamous LA locale that Webb and his girlfriend would often visit during lunch, walking around the lake, doing, as he later recalled, "what boys and girls do." Though many visiting the spot have found it unremarkable in years since, Webb remembers otherwise: "It was beautiful," he insisted to writer Paul Zollo. "It was beautiful. I will always remember it that way.""

the Lion, the Witch and the War

"The Pevensies' every step is guided by Aslan, a Christ figure in lion's fur, who accepts on Edmund's behalf a death sentence from the White Witch, then rises again, with little explanation, in time to lead the uprising. Each time the kid soldiers nearly run from the battlefield, we're certain they not only defy some vague principle of empathy, but also the express commands of the hawkish lion. The magic of the movie, if one can call it that, is how precisely it conflates the duties of the do-good warrior with the precepts of the salvation minded. Peter's wafflings may placate viewers wigged out by the latest from Fox News, but they also remind us, in Technicolor, that pacifism is for cowards."
 

(check out the subtle Vance Packard advertising techniques!)

a few picks from Turner Classic Movies Print Schedule (times Pacific schedule Cdn)


Wednesday 21

6:30 PM Seven Men From Now (1956) A former sheriff hunts down the seven men who killed his wife. Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, Lee Marvin. D: Budd Boetticher. 78m. (never seen this, sad to say)

8:00 PM Budd Boetticher "A Man Can Do That " (2005) Documentary that explores the life and career of action/adventure director Budd Boetticher. C 86m.

11:15 PM Western Union (1941) An outlaw goes straight to work for the telegraph company, which puts him in conflict with his lawless brother. Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger. D: Fritz Lang. C 95m. (the bias of communication, sans pigeons)

22 Thursday

8:00 AM Great Day In The Morning (1956) The Civil War triggers unrest in Colorado. Virginia Mayo, Robert Stack, Ruth Roman. D: Jacques Tourneur. C 92m. (not seen)

11:30 AM The Tarnished Angels (1957) A newsman falls for the wife of a barnstorming pilot whose work he's covering. Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone. D: Douglas Sirk. BW 91m. (my favorite Sirk, from Faulkner's Pylon)

1:15 PM Fighter Squadron (1948) A dedicated flyer pushes himself and those around him during a perilous World War II campaign. Edmond O'Brien, Robert Stack, Rock Hudson. D: Raoul Walsh. C 95m. (not seen Walsh)

5:00 PM A Christmas Story (1983) An Indiana schoolboy dreams of getting a Red Ryder air rifle for Christmas. Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin. D: Bob Clark. C 93m. (last chance before Xmas--Bob Clark is due for serious reconsideration)

7:00 PM Holiday Affair (1950) A young widow is torn between a boring businessman and a romantic ne'er-do-well. Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, Wendell Corey. D: Don Hartman. BW 87m. (????)

10:15 PM Maytime (1937) An opera star's manager tries to stop her romance with a penniless singer. Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore. D: Robert Z. Leonard. BW 132m. (any time is a good time for a big sweet slice of operetta)

2:30 AM Festival of Shorts #13 (1998) A compilation of MGM's holiday shorts including Jackie Cooper's Christmas Party, Silent Night, Loew's Christmas Greeting, Holiday Greetings 1941 and Mario Lanza Christmas Trailer. BW & C 21m.


24 Saturday


5:00 AM Lady In The Lake (1947) Philip Marlowe searches for a missing woman in this mystery shot entirely from the detective's viewpoint. Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan. D: Robert Montgomery. BW 103m. (one of the great strange films)

5:00 PM The Shop Around The Corner (1940) Feuding co-workers don't realize they're secret romantic pen pals. Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan. D: Ernst Lubitsch. BW 99m. (linzertorte and a hit of coffee, memorable double bill of this and Anthony Mann's "Roman Empire" at Vic D'Or's in the 80's )

7:00 PM Christmas In Connecticut (1945) A homemaking specialist who can't boil water is forced to provide a family holiday for a war hero. Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet. D: Peter Godfrey. BW 101m. (good Xmas eve choice--Brooklyn Ruby puts a little reality in the eggnog)

9:00 PM Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family. Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor. D: Vincente Minnelli. C 113m. (also a good choice, sentimental but smart)


25 Sunday


7:30 AM Quo Vadis (1951) A Roman commander falls for a Christian slave girl as Nero intensifies persecution of the new religion. Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov. D: Mervyn LeRoy. C 169m.

10:30 AM King Of Kings (1961) Epic retelling of Christ's life and the effects of his teachings on those around him. Jeffrey Hunter, Siobhan McKenna, Robert Ryan. D: Nicholas Ray. C 171m.

1:30 PM The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) All-star epic retelling of Christ's life. Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Claude Rains. D: George Stevens. C 199m. (really not a bad line-up if you're stuck in bed or in a hotel or something though they might start to blend together)

an oldie, but nice to see it in the proper "Harmonium" order so quickly into the Collected (begun on a whim on the ferry, also new a water damaged but not too badly copy of Bernadette Mayer's "Memory", which I'm saving for a train or bus trip) with W looking sideways from the stars--

The Snow Man

Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.


photo via Greenpoint Picture Tour - Page 1 - The Old Gang in The Olden Days--a good group!

Lavender and Old Lace by Myrtle Reed: XII. Bride and Groom

"'You ain't changed nothin' here, Jane,' he continued, hurriedly, 'there's the haircloth sofy that we used to set on Sunday evenins' after meetin', and the hair wreath with the red rose in it made out of my hair and the white rose made out of your grandmother's hair on your father's side, and the yeller lily made out of the hair of your Uncle Jed's youngest boy. I disremember the rest, but time was when I could say'm all. I never see your beat for makin' hair wreaths, Jane. There ain't nothin' gone but the melodeon that used to set by the mantel. What's come of the melodeon?'

'The melodeon is set away in the attic. The mice et out the inside.'

'Didn't you hev no cat?'

'There ain't no cat, James, that could get into a melodeon through a mouse hole, more especially the big maltese you gave me. I kept that cat, James, as you may say, all these weary years. When there was kittens, I kept the one that looked most like old Malty, but of late years, the cats has all been different, and the one I buried jest afore I sailed away was yeller and white with black and brown spots--a kinder tortoise shell--that didn't look nothin' like Malty. You'd never have knowed they belonged to the same family, but I was sorry when she died, on account of her bein' the last cat.'"
 

Irish Poetry Ulster Scots--

cat melojiin (melodeon)--broken/useless (equivalent of banjaxed) "thon oul trasher (thresher) is cat melojiin"

fans of quirky alt-folk would do well to check out the site of Deserted Village records, which has info about and mp3's of bands like The Magickal Folk of the Far Tree, United Bible Studies and Murmansk. Title of the week: "The Cat's Melodeon"...

interesting Deerhoof: Pitchfork Interview

" I completely disagree that there's ever a lack of newness. Anything anybody ever does is new, it's never happened before. Everything. If I take a sip of this water, I've never taken a sip of this water before, at this moment. There's no way in the world that you're gonna convince me that the world of indie rock or the world of rock or the world of music is in any way lacking in life because music is not lacking in life. Music is everywhere, all the time, and it always has been. Even before human kind. Birds have voices too, and any animals. Everything that happens in a new day sheds a different light not just on our albums but on everything. That's why it's so fun to go back to much older music, and see-- it's amazing to me that there is music that still means something to somebody years later. Decades ago or centuries ago. No panel is necessary. Music does not need to be saved."
 

from Fit 5 (The Beaver's Lesson) of The Hunting of the Snark: an agony in eight fits, by Lewis Carroll; illustrated by Henry Holiday

"As to temper the Jubjub's a desperate bird,
Since it lives in perpetual passion:
Its taste in costume is entirely absurd--
It is ages ahead of the fashion:

"But it knows any friend it has met once before:
It never will look at a bride:
And in charity-meetings it stands at the door,
And collects' though it does not subscribe.

"Its flavor when cooked is more exquisite far
Than mutton, or oysters, or eggs:
(Some think it keeps best in an ivory jar,
And some, in mahogany kegs:)

"You boil it in sawdust: you salt it in glue:
You condense it with locusts and tape:
Still keeping one principal object in view--
To preserve its symmetrical shape."

The Butcher would gladly have talked till next day,
But he felt that the lesson must end,
And he wept with delight in attempting to say
He considered the Beaver his friend.

While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks
More eloquent even than tears,
It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books
Would have taught it in seventy years..."

and of course on the west coast not the pork and bean but the straight out Pig War, which seems to have attracted its own reenactor community--

"The Pig War occurred between the United States and the British Empire in 1859. The outbreak of hostilities was contained to a small island in the Oregon Country, on what is now San Juan island in Washington State. To be sure, the only casualty was a pig, a "British" pig shot by an "American" farmer. In its death, the pig illuminated the sticky fact that both nations claimed ownership of San Juan island. The cartographical ambiguity was resolved immediately, however, when both nations sent armed troops to the island, in preparation for war. Ultimately, there was no gunfire, no war. The troops co-occupied San Juan island for years, until Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany decided that San Juan island fell under the rightful and just rule of the United States of America. "

My idea was always to make a lowbrow F-Troop/Carry On type comedy set during the Pig War, highlighting national differences in a hilarious manner...it writes itself.

 

from the history of that vast county in Northern Maine, the Aroostook War, an earlier lumber/border dispute, involving secret maps, etc...

"The Aroostook War, also called the Pork and Beans War, the Lumberjack's War or the Northeastern Boundary Dispute, was an undeclared, bloodless North American "war" that occurred in the winter of 1838 and early spring of 1839...The majority of early Aroostook River Valley settlers were from "over-home", that is, from the St. John River Valley and were typically British citizens. The population swelled in the wintertime when lumbermen were freed from farmwork to "long-pole" up the St. John River to the valley. These migrant lumbermen were a particular point of tension for the Americans. Some eventually settled permanently in the valley and improved their land claims. Most settlers found themselves too remote from the authorities to apply formally for land, and since the boundary was ambiguous it was uncertain which government was in authority, anyway. Disputes heated up as factions maneuvered for control over the best stands of trees in the valley."

 

whatever you do, avoid Cute Overload! except in emrgencies...
 

this is a real find, "Parallelograms", an amazing album from 1970, recorded by dental hygienist Linda Perhacs (who didn't quit her day job or ever play live) with the help of Hollywood soundtrack composer Leonard Rosenman, very subtle, sophisticated multi-tracking & arrangements, her voice a secure Joni in its upper register and close to Lani Hall/Nick Drake below, an air of Tim Buckley's Blue Afternoon...
 

always nice to see a proper iconic wise old owl (nice vest!), from a bookbinder's business card (on Court, entrance Joralemon) from the Fulton Street Trade Card Collection via metafilter
 

my picks from the Turner Classic Movies Print Schedule times Pacific, schedule Canadian (for rights reasons there's some we don't get up here), this week

12 Monday

2:30 PM Some Came Running (1958) A veteran returns home to deal with family secrets and small-town scandals. Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Dean Martin. D: Vincente Minnelli. C 136m. (near-best from all leads)

13 Tuesday

8:00 AM 3:10 To Yuma (1957) A sheriff must run the gauntlet to get his prisoner out of town. Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Felicia Farr. D: Delmer Daves. BW 92m. (from an Elmore Leonard story)

3:00 PM Possessed (1947) A married woman's passion for a former love drives her mad. Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey. D: Curtis Bernhardt. BW 108m. (haven't seen it, but...)

8:00 PM The Haunting (1963) A team of psychic investigators moves into a haunted house that destroys all who live there. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn. D: Robert Wise. BW 112m. (still scary)

12:00 AM Sabotage (1936) An unhappily married woman discovers her husband is an enemy agent. Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, John Loder. D: Alfred Hitchcock. BW 77m. (from Conrad's Secret Agent)


14 Wednesday

3:00 AM The Brothers Karamazov (1958) In this adaptation of the Dostoevsky classic, four brothers fight to adjust to the death of their domineering father. Yul Brynner, Maria Schell, William Shatner. D: Richard Brooks. C 146m. (stolen by Albert Salmi as Smeryadkov)

6:00 AM Othello (1922) In this silent film, a famed general is led astray by jealousy and an evil underling. Emil Jannings, Lya De Putti, Werner Krauss. D: Dimitri Buchowetzki. BW 80m. (never seen it, but...)

7:30 AM A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) Shakespeare's classic about two pairs of lovers and an amateur actor who get mixed up with fairies. James Cagney, Dick Powell, Mickey Rooney. D: Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle. BW 143m. (Mickey Rooney as Zukofsky's Puck)

2:30 PM Julius Caesar (1953) An all-star adaptation of Shakespeare's classic about Julius Caesar's assassination and its aftermath. Marlon Brando, James Mason, John Gielgud. D: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. BW 121m. (Brando steals it...)

15 Thursday

5:00 AM Jezebel (1938) A tempestuous Southern belle's willfulness threatens to destroy all who care for her. Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Fay Bainter. D: William Wyler. BW 104m. (all the Wyler Bette Davis movies are great)

11:00 AM The War Lord (1965) A medieval knight's efforts to defend his lord are complicated when he falls in love. Charlton Heston, Richard Boone, Rosemary Forsyth. D: Franklin J. Schaffner. C 121m. (strange kind of prequel to Planet of the Apes)

5:00 PM The Man From Laramie (1955) A wandering cowboy gets caught in the rivalry between an aging rancher's sons. James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp. D: Anthony Mann. C 102m. (they have a nice print)

16 Friday

4:30 AM A Dispatch From Reuters (1940) An entrepreneur builds an international news agency. Edward G. Robinson, Edna Best, Eddie Albert. D: William Dieterle. BW 90m. (has scenes of pigeons)

6:00 AM Manpower (1941) Power linemen feud over love of a sultry nightclub singer. Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft. D: Raoul Walsh. BW 103m. (this used to be on CBC twice a year--some good Warner Brothers weather)

9:15 AM Experiment Perilous (1944) A small-town doctor tries to help a beautiful woman with a deranged husband. Hedy Lamarr, Paul Lukas, George Brent. D: Jacques Tourneur. BW 91m. (never seen it...)

3:00 PM Winter Meeting (1948) A repressed poetess and an embittered war hero help each other cope with their problems. Bette Davis, Jim Davis, Janis Paige. D: Bretaigne Windust. BW 105m.

11:00 PM It's A Wonderful World (1939) A runaway poetess helps a fugitive prove himself innocent of murder charges. Claudette Colbert, James Stewart, Guy Kibbee. D: W.S. Van Dyke II. BW 86m. (poetess double feature, haven't seen either)

17 Saturday

5:00 AM He Walked By Night (1948) After killing a cop, a burglar fights to evade the police. Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts. D: Alfred Werker. BW 79m. (unseen noir...)

7:00 PM The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946) Three returning servicemen fight to adjust to life after World War II. Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy. D: William Wyler. BW 170m. (Wyler again, with Gregg Toland)

18 Sunday

9:00 PM The Unknown (1927) In this silent film, an escaped killer pretends to be a sideshow's armless wonder. Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, Norman Kerry. D: Tod Browning. BW 50m. (never seen this...)



 

interestingish essay on the present perilousState of the Art crisis crisis--

"In the 50's and 60's, young, aspiring art critics were confronted with an intellectual divide. They could write about art out of their particular passions and responses, or they could adopt Greenberg's vision. The first, the belletristic option, allowed for the exercise of personal style, the careful inspection and precise expression of one's own reactions, and it found adherents among poet-critics like John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara, and individualistic, iconoclastic intellects like Susan Sontag. But freedom came at a price. The problem with belletrism was a lack of any shared perspective, a floating subjectivity. It depended on little more than hedonistic responsiveness. Greenberg offered coherence and solidity."

enjoying "The Minimalism of Erik Satie" by the Vienna Art Orchestra, one of the great HatHut records, a genre as much as Impulse! or ECM (has anyone heard Phil Minton as Pound?) Thinking about Satie, we need a device for removing the musicians from live albums or the piano from Glenn Gould. Did applauding the solos begin with Jazz at the Philharmonic? And wouldn't it be great to hear what people were talking about that was so important that they felt they had to do it over top of Charlie Parker. And shouldn't some backwards masking expert be transcribing Gould's humming? It might be the previous record backwards or morse code or something.