Saturday, November 22, 2008

To pass the time

I will leave Jon's personal query as to the present state of his evening aural personality aside for now. I have appreciated his broad attempts to fill in the gaping void as I have lifted little in terms of that as of late. Though I did watch part of the greatest holiday film of the current generation earlier today and, by some truly mindboggling twists it was paired against the most recent iteration of The Alamo. You know the one, where Randy Quaid plays a truly earnest (perhaps mildly deranged) Sam Houston and Jason Patrick a potently enfeebled Jim Bowie (Richard Widmark need not fear for his place as the best screen Bowie) and, of course, BB Thornton plays an unblustery Davy Crockett.
I say "mindboggling" here for entirely personal reasons. Years back, when I lived for a while in Houston TX, among the best things that I could wrangle an appreciation for (besides the brief discovery of HeatherChurch, but that is something singular and for a moment all its own) was the fact that I lived across the street from a very good icehouse and near to the Houston Angelika. Needless to say, I drank many a bucket of Lone Star and also went to a good number of films by myself. A habit I cultivated while living there and one I nourished through a return to Terre Haute for a year and then gave full vent to when I came to New York/Long Island. Among the first places I went by myself was to the NY Angelika - I can't remember the film I saw (the last film I saw there was "Tillsammans", but that was years ago with the Sambo), it was almost simply the going that was important. Living along the north shore of LI, my attentions turned to the Huntington Cinema Arts Center. It was there that I saw the brilliant Small Faces, the overlooked Jude and cemented my appreciation for Godard by way of his skitteringly unctuous Contempt and the perfectly agonizing Weekend. Brilliant evenings were filled by reclaimed prints of Touch of Evil and Plein Soleil while numbers of experimental documentaries and short films were happily waded through to find the odd gem. Why mention all of this - nostalgia I guess; I don't do it anymore. I seldom go to the movies at all anymore actually - alone or coupled. When I do go I suppose there is a firing of conditioned, if atrophied, lobes and a certain psychic salivating that still clings to and massages most all the images that I witness - and I, for one, enjoy the previews. All of which finally brings us back to the start here. Spring 2004, I went to a viewing of Kill Bill vol2 and, scenes of eye-plucking aside, among the moments of interest were back-to-back previews of the films mentioned at the start above. In my mind's eye they somehow merged to make (far too easy here) Bad Santa Anna. Of course, if that were the title of at least one of them, it might have made more money at the box-office. But never mind all of that. The point of this was to offer something to fill the time until the work of things can pick up here. As some know, I have posed a literary task for myself elsewhere and as my partner here is to shoulder it with me, we will be shifting the action scenes to these fertile - if largely empty - fields. But I have other tasks to complete before that can be addressed. Consequently, till then we have this:
A YouTube ranking of the 250 greatest wrestlers of the 70s 80s & 90s. Enjoy.
-fp

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Time Out Of Mind

Perhaps it was that exposure to Roger during my holiday, what the reason, I have noticed a drastic shift in my nocturnal music listening; Freddie Hubbard and the Decemberists have given way to Tegan and Sara, Yo La Tengo and Mana. This poppish predilection is most alien and leaves me baffled. The a.m. remains devoted to NPR/BBC and time in my truck is usually occupied with classical fare.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Cashback

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=cashback+movie&hl=en&emb=0&aq=2&oq=cashb#

I have since imagined what thematic distortions would be possibile from 18 minute distillations.

Monday, November 3, 2008

The Damned

Son, Never Mind Them Brakes.
- Jerry Reed

2007 saw Ryan Adams drift into the mainstream with his Easy Tiger album, an accomplishment linked more to its author's sudden sobriety than any actual achievement; that said, it did prove to be Adams' quickest selling album. The album appeared to lack loose drifting contours of his previous efforts (well, some of them) and appeared to have been both overproduced and calibrated by record execs.

Any portents this may have generated were dispelled this summer when Ryan released his Follow The Lights ep which is a remarkable achievement and then, now, we have Cardinology.

I fly like paper, get high like planes, if you stop me at the border, I got visas in my name. --MIA

This latest album strikes the immediate listener as loud, an echo Jeff Tweedy's reincarnation as guitar hero: all we need is the Mamba and Scientology. I can't say I loathe the album, but i fear it will settle into the lower ranks of the oeuvre, alongside Rock and Roll and 29 as evidence of just how prolific this young man has proved: sober or not.