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...

'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!