30 September 2006

Wrong So Long

    Late Saturday morning and all's quiet as I begin writing this, save for the sounds of Van Morrison and the late Lonnie Donegan tearing through a barroom-rousing version of "Frankie and Johnny."  So maybe it's not quiet, per se, but uneventful, but who's to bother parsing particulars at this hour of the day?  The tune in question is a traditional that's been covered by every musician and his (or her) great uncle Percy over the years, including Elvis, Hank Snow and Sam Cooke, and most recently by Lindsay Lohan in Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion.  The Morrison/Donegan version, though, is a barn-burner, thanks largely to Chris Barber's trombone work and Donegan's increasingly ferocious vocals.  It alternately shuffles, wails, kicks, soars and flails, all in the best ways.  It's the sort of song that would have gotten ME dancing with full ham (yes, Heaven forfend), once upon a jaundice moon.  It's also one of those songs that on its lonely own makes buying the original album worthwhile.  Okay, probably not for those of you that esteem hip-hop as music, but chances are that if you do you wouldn't be reading this youngish curmudgeon's excuse for webspace in the first place. 


Stephen Fry by Matthew Bandusch    In other matters, there are two pieces in the NYT to check out.  One is the review of Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, which sounds like a Must-Buy.  Fry's always a delight, and I imagine, based on the account from the review, that his book might be the sort of thing I'd have assigned to a poetry course had I the opportunity.  (And alas, too late for RK to do so and order a few extra desk copies.  )  Fry's one of those few figures who possesses-- and exudes--- "a mixture of gravity and waggery,"  to use Christopher Smart's wonderful phrase, so I suspect he'd be a great--- Darwin forgive me--- poetry home companion.  This reminds me that I used to use an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?  as a preface to the study of comedy, the first part of said episode you can view by clicking here.  Ask not how I did it.  I remember now only that I did, several times.  It had something to do with the panoply of comedic devices and conventions, especially in terms of what those familiar with the Commedia dell'Arte would call the pazzi ("bag of tricks," if I remember correctly, which I confess I may not anymore).  I'm sure I did it with nearly-equal parts gravity and waggery.  Successfully or not remains another matter entirely.


    The other article of note is this one by Robert Harris, identifying an eerie historical parallelism that should raise contemporary concern.  Many of us have been prattling on about such unsettling symmetries for some time, but to little or no avail except among those already comfortably encamped among the critical, the contrary and occasionally the just-plain cranky.  I'll leave this as it stands, though.  You can infer for yourselves the estuary/Ostiary puns the Not-So-Good Doc would normally have bothered to make. 


    On a last matter, I have had reinforced to me recently that I am surely The Worst Person To See A Movie With.  Watching Lucky Number Slevin on DVD, I found myself catching on to the movie's supposed secret very, very, very early on, and not because of any particular genius on my part.  (As most of you are aware, I have no genius of which to speak.)  It was, however, one of those instances by which the film provided a subtle wink to its viewers to clue them into where it was really going, but which most viewers probably did not catch, even if the filmic wink was as bold--- dare I say "naked?"--- as it could have been.  Simple setup for those who have not seen the film, which I do suggest, because it's better than you might expect: after a prefatory vignette involving the explanation of "the Kansas City Shuffle," a general but elaborate act of misdirection, we're introduced to the movie's hero (the largely vapid Josh Hartnett), clad only in a towel before things start to unfold.  He then spends the next several minutes, including being transported to another building, so clad.  We're led to believe this is a case of mistaken identity, and Hartnett's near-nudity a device of mere comedy, which it partially is.  But, no--- the movie's too clever, and I realized quickly I was being winked at, as the movie gave me a fair chance to catch in on its game before it played it, or, more precisely, identified its genre after 70-or-80 minutes of misdirection.  Have I made it clear yet?  If not, and you haven't seen the movie yet, read no further. 


    (Last chance-- get out now if you don't want to know.)


Towel or Not Towel    The Bruce Willis prologue sets up a story of people murdered, and implies it's all merely a distractionary tale.  Of course, it's not.  It sets up, instead, the backdrop for revenge-tragedy, or rather (these being genre-mixing days) revenge dramedy.  So when we are introduced to the conspicuously naked, or near-naked, Slevin it should be a sign.  His protestations aside, the film's attempts at misdirection immediately caught, his nudity or nearness to it, is The Giant Wink (TM).  I laughed out loud at this.  Lit geeks will appreciate the correspondence with the naked washings-up of Odysseus (first in Nausikaa, then later in his account to the Ithakan swineherd in Book XIV) and, more dubiously, Hamlet after his pirate-rescue ("you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom" [almost always in 4.7]).  Coming together yet?


    It's the trope of the mythical naked--- read in: natural--- man, the avenging force that returns with nothing but himself, that's in Slevin thoroughly joked-through.  The return of the natural man, is always revealed after the hero has proven his capacity for subterfuge (i.e., assuming an unnatural identity, like putting on antic disposition, or concealing his identity, as Odysseus does most famously in his battle with the Kyklopes in Book IX).  The nemetic justicer arrives, apparently and usually of his own construction, as the naked man alit with nothing but his purpose, and of course he inevitably succeeds, wreaking, or rather capital-D delivering, vengeance.  But as soon as I saw Hartnett-cum-Slevin facing Morgan Freeman in his towel (his rag in a bundle, a la Fitzgerald's translation?), I was in on the game.  Everything else was just filling the context, as with The Usual Suspects.  There, btw, the tip-off, was Kevin Spacey's description of his piss, after we had seen the only ostensibly objective view of the crime scene in its preface. 


    The Giant Wink:  Movies that know they're being smart can never resist tempting you to catch onto them.  They're like high-minded murderers daring the perfect crime.  They either leave clues cheekily, or they leave one more clue than they intended to leave.  I'm willing to believe Slevin meant to that clue; it's aware enough to have done so intentionally.  And while it's not a great movie, it's definitely a better one than I expected it would be, and creditable for its cleverness beyond itself.  Good on it.


    Argh, I've rambled, perhaps too much like the movie I just explained earnestly trying to show how clever I am.  (Key word: earnestly.)  Too much gravity?  Too much waggery?  Or just a brain too much Fryed?  Northrop or Stephen, take your pick.


    It has now taken me so bloody-f0rking long to write this entry that "Frankie and Johnny" has come back up on the playlist.  Oh, this brain o' mine, and it's been doin' me wrong so long.... Now where is that skiffle accompaniment when I need it? 

29 September 2006

A Conundrum

    Submitted for your consideration, in lieu of a legitimate blog entry, the following, a ponderable for perverts and philosophers alike (though usually they are one and the same):  Is it ironic if a woman with large breasts chooses nursing as her career?  Is it ironic if she doesn't?  Discuss and comment. 
 
    Of course, any of you with a similar male question are invited to post it, too.  This blog receives all ironies with equal laughter. 

26 September 2006

Romancing The Tome

  Take a guess who's right in this "debate."  One is clearly right, while the other leans on reductively stereotypical, to say nothing of sexist, blather.  But natch--- one can't say that nowadays, can one?  And people wonder why I'm cynical. 

25 September 2006

A Way Of Putting Things

    Allo, gadies and lents.  Alas, there's not much to report, the NSG Doc's life being about as exciting as Jim Jarmusch movie.  Except for playing around with his comptuer and trying to get it operating as efficiently as a machine several years out of date can, most of his time has been devoted to two things: catching up on movies and struggling with how to respond to a lingering issue of some distress.  To the latter, mercifully, I have become much more calloused.  (Sorry if what follows seems cryptic, but it must be for reasons of discretion.)  I have decided not to let the matter get the better of me, or poison me any further than it already has.  There's no point, I've realized, attempting to undeceive those who've too much invested in their delusions; they'll merely marshall whatever misprisions they must to maintain them.  One might as well present a dinosaur bone to a Creationist.  Best to accept in the interim whatever I must just to extricate myself from the spirit-sucking clamour.  I'll know the truth, as will the people about whose opinions of me I truly care.  Let the petty and the vapid believe what they're going to believe.  It may well be all they have.  (For that they should more be pitied than chagrined; they'll out themselves sooner or later.)  I have better things to do with my time than indulge in acrimonious behaviour better suited to the schoolyard than the (abstractly) august institution to which I've earnestly, and probably misguidedly, devoted myself for most of my adult years. 
 
    But that's too morose (or moribund?) and cynical a way of putting things.  One of the odd things about being in my position is that I'm past thinking about myself, or at least about defending myself.  Instead I think of the good fortune I have had to deal with some of the brighter and brightest young minds in my vicinity, and to be able to part of their learning.  Not fake learning, by which one passes exams, but genuine learning, in terms of the permanent desire to expand understanding.  In this way, I've been astonishingly lucky, and for which I'm beyond grateful.  Like the hungry man at the table, I can't say I've had enough, but I've probably had my fill, so to ask for more would be gluttonous.  Financial dimensions aside, I've been well-rewarded, in fact generously so.  Probably disproportionately so.  This is also something one only realizes when one sums it all up.  My apologies for not doing so earlier--- and my thanks now that I finally do.
 
    As for me, as Mr Cohen has said, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet.  And you know what?  I don't care.  I give up, completely and entirely.  I'm just getting lost tonight in that hopeless little screen. 

     No wonder I've been watching so many movies lately.....

23 September 2006

Basquet Weaving 101

    Here's an interesting piece: Stephen Oppenheimer claims that the primary occupants of the British Isles weren't Celts (or Jutes or Angles or...), but Basque explorers.  Not sure how convincing his argument finally is, but it's an intriguing suggestion. 

21 September 2006

Hare and There

    Some of you, I fear, may be worrying about the NSG Doctor's failure to respond to emails of late.  He's working on it, albeit with the speed of a tortoise rather than a hare.  In the interim, accept his apologies. 

Mild Mild West

    Two articles that should be read in tandem with one another: this one from the Washington Post, and this one from David Warren Online (link courtesy RK, whose translation of the Pope's controversial speech in Regensberg deserves attention and consideration).  As ever, the prattling palaver in the so-called West has shied away from the most important issues-- freedom of speech, freedom of thought-- in favour of tsking and clucking away about all the wrong ones (should he have quoted Manuel Paleologos, should he apologize et cetera).  I'm not sure which is worse, the West's cluelessness or its timorousness. To resurrect a phrase from an old friend, the Western world's case of cranial-glutimal ensconcement seems to have become terminal. 

18 September 2006

Sorkin Strikes Again

    Those of you that didn't catch the premier episode of Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip missed something special, specifically Judd Hirsch's beautiful tirade against contemporary media.  The whole thing's an homage to Peter Finch's "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore" bit from Network (which the show acknowledges), and it's about as invigorating a pre-credit set-piece as I've ever seen.  YouTube will probably have to remove it shortly, but until it does, you can watch it below (larger version here).  Let's hope Lorne Michaels has a similar outburst soon; it would surely be the best thing to happen to Saturday Night Live in twenty years.
 
 
 

17 September 2006

It Gets Pretty Strange After That....

    Playing around with YouTube some more--- oh, how much I've missed with my years on dialup--- I've been discovering all kinds of stuff which I'd resigned myself to never seeing (or seeing again).  Tonight I've been finding all kinds of Van Morrison goodies, including concert and video footage that seemed lost to the sands of time.  Especially neat: versions of "Wavelength," "Bulbs," "These Dreams of You/Cyprus Avenue" and "It's All In The Game."  Also worth checking out:  a recent and intimate (to say nothing of folky) version of "Saint Dominic's Preview" (I think from the Jools Holland show), a truly great song that deserves more recognition than it gets.  See also the duet with Ray Charles on "Crazy Love" that eventually became the closing track of Charles' Genius Loves Company, and this version of "Fast Train" from the Montreux Jazz Festival featuring the great Solomon Burke. 
 
 
    (Two asides.  First: yes, I'm probably just cataloguing this stuff here for myself for easy locating in the future.  Call it one of the few instances of this blog actually acting as a kind of log.  Second: it's a pretty staggering thought, don't you think, for you to be presented an award by your personal hero?  Very few of us will ever know what that's like.  Then again, how many people have heroes anymore?  Worth contemplating, non?)
 
    From that search, though, I stumbled upon tons of clips from (to my estimation) one of the best TV shows of all-time, the immortally hilarious WKRP In Cincinnati.  Sadly, the show will probably never find release on DVD because of its rich use of then-contemporary music which now requires extensive licensing fees to reissue.  Most of my readers here are probably too young to remember the show, but I'd suggest that, references and sartorial horrors aside, it remains as fresh and sharp as anything on the tube today.  Case in point, the clip below (larger version available here), surely one of the most famous third acts in TV history, and one which me and my peers have had seared permanently into our memories.  Suffice it to say that it has to do with the station manager's plan for a Thanksgiving promotion. 
 
   
Watching those clips, though, I'm reminded how much I miss that show; even some of the show's most minor characters, like Mrs Carlson's impishly impudent butler Hirsch, remain more vividly defined than leads on other shows.  See also some of these gems, including a tipsy Mama Carlson singing Gershwin, the jingle for the aptly named Ferryman Funeral Home, and the last act and epilogue of what turned out to be the show's finale. Some brilliant TV comedy in those clips, all perfectly performed. G-d, I miss that show.
 
    Also found the video (alas, at AOL with an annoying commercial) for Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time," surely the only song in recent memory to be composed in sonnets and simplified cinquains.  It's also a great video in its own terms.  I especially like the small playful touches, like backup singer Perla Batalla's finger-play over Leonard's shoulder, and Leonard's "you-expect-me-to-sing-now-so-I'm-not-going-to" moment in the coda.
 
    Anyway, such are some of the discoveries of the NSG Doc finally getting familiar with the advantages of high-speed net service.  And he uses it to find stuff mostly twenty years old or more?  Yes, yes he does.  Oh, the modernity! 

14 September 2006

Modern Love and the Chiquita Chuckle

    How near are we to this?  Perilously, I suspect.  Insert here which ever old saw you like about truth and fiction. 

    Also from YouTube, this soon-to-be-classic scene from Weeds in which the ever-candid Uncle Andy tutors his recently self-aware nephew on the techniques of the only acceptable form of love these days.  I can just picture Gilbert Highet turning around in his grave with the ferocity of the Tasmanian Devil.  (For the record, about the sock reference: lad in scene was caught earlier in the episode disposing of the evidence down the toilet.)   Any chap out there not mortified by this is almost certainly an Uncle Andy himself.

07 September 2006

The Little Things

Modern Times cover    Enjoying what remains of my tranquil time, the NSG Doc has been catching up on his culture.  For a dreaded recent event, a friend enabled me to pick up Bob Dylan's latest album Modern Times, along with the Johnny Cash Legend of... CD.  The Dylan has been described as his best album since the seventies, and the Cash anthology has inexplicably been some time in the getting.  Then last night decided to screen some of the film pap I've missed in not-so-modern times, including Red Eye, Ocean's Twelve and The Island.  Last looks atrocious, but who can refuse a study in Scarlett?  Not I.  Have also been perusing Leonard Cohen's much-anticipated The Book of Longing, which is a staggering disappointment.  A volume twenty-five or so years in the making that yields so little?  It's embarrassing, really.  Maybe I'll write more on it later, but it hardly seems to warrant the effort.
 
Trouble, on the spines of giants     Also, the cats have discovered that they can now access a window they previously could not.  They are, predictably, amused by this.  At right (click on the thumbnail for a larger version): Trouble discovering a brand new perch and demonstrating his typical impatience for the camera.  (His tail would have to be pointing at Carroll, wouldn't it?)   Bibliophiles among you might enjoy playing spot-the-book. 
 
    Today is one of those warm and sunny September days that remind me how few warm and sunny days remain before autumn sets in.  Just nice to be able to let the air in and take it easy as I trundle through all of the mundane tasks that need doing.  It's all surprisingly soothing.  The calm before the storm, I gather.  Who says cynics can't appreciate the little things?

05 September 2006

Office Space

    Not much of an update, good readers, as the NSG Doc has been reordering his bedroom/office (more the latter than the former).  The task probably does not sound like much, but in fact it took the better part of two days worth of work:  reordering books, rewiring devices, moving furniture within a very cramped space, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning (though it likely doesn't seem it).  For the first time in years, there is something called floor-space.  I didn't think such a thing could exist.  Those of you with large libraries should appreciate why this is an accomplishment of Johnsonian proportions--- or why I think it is.
 
    (Photo, by the way, only hints at the number of books.  Beyond those stored on walls not within the camera's ken, there are others stacked and double-stacked upon one another, and yet more hidden away in tiny crannies like bottles in an alcoholic's house.)
 
    So for now, there is order, or an idea of it at least.  And I'm exhausted.  Relaxing with a few lagers and savouring for the first time having my desk at a window, such as it is.  Jenny, obviously, is already past mere relaxing. 
 
    A strange question came to me today as I was sorting through those nefarious books: why didn't I go into Renaissance all those years ago?  In retrospect, I should have, I really should have. 

03 September 2006

All The Useless Things

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us    I've been thinking a lot lately about Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII, Edward VI and eventually ("Bloody") Mary Tudor.  Don't ask me why.  I love this image at right (click on it for a larger version), though, from John Foxe's The Actes and Monuments..., aka The Book of Martyrs, a text that became crucial to the survival of the Anglican Church during its post-Henrician turmoil.  Oddly enough, between Cranmer, Foxe and the eventual translators-writers of the King James Bible, you essentially but not completely have the three pillars upon which the Anglican house somehow managed to remain standing: the English Book of Common Prayer, The Book of the Martyrs and the English Bible.  (Crude and grossly simplified, yes, but not untrue, I think.)  Cranmer reminds me, though, that when all is said and done-- and the dances of pragmatism and peaceability have been called capriciously to an end-- you can still choose how you're going to burn, at least on mundaner planes.  Somehow, I find that wonderfully steeling, especially when the gloves are off.  Now what's that line from Mr Eliot again about ashes on an old man's sleeve? 
 
    (Post-script: Not sure about the title of this entry?  Then see here.) 

01 September 2006

Gettin' Jiggy WiFi

    Brief note: the N-S-G Dawk has finally jumped into the high-speed age (sans wires no less!), so lots of things are in the midst of changing, including his central email.  Those of you that are clever lads and lasses and can figure out the best address to reach him at now.  Hint:  he does run a blog via Google....
 
    Apologies to those who've sent emails or other greetings related to, um, well, an insidious recent event.  Sooner or later I'll get caught up.  Best, everyone.