a Happy New Year of The Dog, which I forgot that I was. And according to this also a Leonine and an Earth Dog, all of which seem good & I'm married to a Horse which is also recommended.

 

Back Home

Back Home, originally uploaded by johnygluebag.

nice postcard of the southern tip of Newcastle Island--I like that you can see so much of its shape under the water...

finally found a copy of the THOUSAND RECIPE CHINESE COOKBOOK by Gloria Bley Miller at Value Village last night. Recipes seem very clear and do-able...

"Pork and Seaweed Soup, Squab Soup and Ginseng Root, Abalone Soup, Ten Precious Soup, Cold Sherry Chicken, Pickled Mustard Cabbage, Basic Stir-Fried Pork, Stir-Fried Pork with Spinach and Carrots, Deep-Fried Roast Pork Squares with Crabmeat, Stir-Fried Curried Beef, Stir-Fried Beef and Rice-Flour Noodles, Braised Duck with Mushrooms, Red-Cooked Shanghai Duck, White-Simmered Roast Duck with Tangerine Peel, Stir-Fried Chicken and Bamboo Shoots, Stir-Fried Chicken with Pineapple and Lichee Fruit, Braised Ginger Chicken, Chicken Velvet, Drunken Chicken, Deep-Fried Fish Squares Szechwan Style, Simmered Crabs with Pork, Stir-Fried Scallops and Onion, Pan-Fried Bacon-Wrapped Butterfly Shrimp, Egg Foo Yung, Ham Egg Foo Yung, Pork Filling for Omelets, Steamed Eggplant, Stir-Fried Snow Peas and Mushrooms, Food of the Forest, Stir-Fried Peastarch Noodles with Shrimp and Pork, Rice-Noodle Nests with Poached Eggs, Fried Rice, Egg Roll Skins, Won Ton Skins, Sherry-Honey Marinade for Barbecued Pork, Stock-Soy Marinade for Barbecued Spareribs, Peking Meat Sauce for Noodles, Sugared Walnuts, Spiced Roasted Peanuts, Sweet Pineapple Tea, Bird's Nest Soup, Winter Melon Pond, etc."


 

end of an era--
Western Union -STOP- Ends Telegram Service


A history--

"The American public in its readiness to accept that which is novel, smart, modern, accepts the telegram as socially correct--something to be expected when one has friends who are up with the times. Invitations to social functions, greetings on an anniversary, best wishes of the season--all are delivered by Western Union on specially designed blanks which add a high note of distinction."




 

farewell Moira Shearer star of Powell/Pressberger's "Red Shoes" and "Tales of Hoffman"
 

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...