12/31/07 - Looking At Photographs

Three of my favorite images from the book "Looking At Photographs:100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art" by John Szarkowski (1973).



The book has fallen out-of-print but is worth tracking down. For the photos, of course, but also for the text, which provides perceptive ways of seeing and basic historical context.


text excerpts by Szarkowski

New Orleans, 1968
by Lee Friedlander




"The larger, dark figure reflected in the shop window is (obviously) the photographer.... The small figure in the bright square over the photographer's heart is also the photographer, reflected in a mirror in the rear of the store."

"It would of course be possible to draw a diagram, with lines and arrows, and shaded planes, to explain crudely what the picture itself explains precisely. But what conceivable purpose would this barbarism serve?"



At the Cafe, Chez Fraysse. 1958
by Robert Doisneau




"Regardless of historic fact, however, a picture is about what it appears to be, and this picture is about a potential seduction. One is tempted to believe that even the painters of the eighteenth century never did the subject so well. The girl's secret opinion of the proceedings so far is hidden in her splendid self-containment; for the moment she enjoys the security of absolute power. One arm shields her body, her hand touches her glass as tentatively as if it were the first apple. The man for the moment is defenseless and vulnerable; impaled on the hook of his own desire, he has committed all his resources, and no satisfactory line of retreat remains. Worse yet, he is older than he should be, and knows that one way or another the adventure is certain to end badly. To keep this presentiment at bay, he is drinking his wine more rapidly than he should.

"The picture, however, precludes questions of the future. This pair, if less romantically conceived than the lovers on John Keats' urn, are equally safe, here in the picture, from the consequences of real life.


Untitled. 1962
by Garry Winogrand
(this shot MUST have also been part of Winogrand's 'Animals' exhibition)




"Consider Garry Winogrand's picture: so rich in fact and suggestion, and so justly resolved; more complex and more beautiful than the movie that Alfred Hitchcock might derive from it.

12/27/07 verboten

12/24/07 - City of Heaven

Much of what I post about here probably seems dire or stark to a lot of people. Even though, for the most part, I consider what I read, watch and listen to to generally be uplifting. Mixed in with a little despair, for sure, but with a whole lot of hope and maybe even a little redemption, if ya look hard enough.

Would this get through to any of the luckies who've never really felt 'out of sorts' or ill at ease with the world for more than a day or two? I don't know, but there are times when I hear something that seems like it's from a place I've never been, from depths I've never felt, and I'm stopped in my tracks until i can figure out where it comes from.

Today I was listening to the 2CD Smithsonian/Folkways compilation "Voices of the Civil Rights Movement".



Voices of the Civil Rights Movement


I'd played the first of the two discs (the one that's heavier on sermons, chanting, clapping and call and response) a few times last summer and was about to file the collection away when I noticed blood curdling howls in the background of a solo gospel/piano song on disc 2 called "City of Heaven" by Cleo Kennedy.

I restarted the 9 minute long track and listened to the voices in the audience; noticing how they became increasingly affirmative as Cleo K. belted out her number.

"yes sir"
"sing it, sing it"!
"amen"
"HA HA. YEAH"!

Then, six minutes in, that voice in the background started howling. And this time I could understand that it was saying... YES. YES. YESSSSSSS.

Intense. True. Optimism not masked by elements of existentialism.

Forty+ years have passed, anon. congregationalist, and I am humbled.
------

SFW40084
Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966
Various Artists


Notes - This double-CD reissue documents a central aspect of the cultural environment of the Civil Rights Movement, acknowledging songs as the language that focused people's energy. These 43 tracks are a series of musical images, of a people in coversation about their determination to be free. Many of the songs were recorded live in mass meetings held in churches, where people from different life experiences, predominantly black, with a few white supporters, came together in a common struggle. These freedom songs draw from spirituals, gospel, rhythm and blues, football chants, blues and calypso forms. The enclosed booklet written by Bernice Johnson Reagon provides rare historic photographs along with the powerful story of African American musical culture and its role in the Civil Rights Movement. "The music of the spirit with the history of the flesh." — New York Daily News

12/23/07 Street of No Return - David Goodis

For years I've been shuffling a pair of David Goodis' books closer and closer to the top of the stack that I hit when I can't think of anything else to read.

In 2007 Millipede Press (of Colorado) reissued a couple of Goodis titles and when I found a copy of one, 'Street Of No Return', on clearance for a stinking 1.00! I knew i had to crack it open before it, too, got buried.

millipede press



"Once upon a time Whitey was a crooner with a million-dollar voice and a standing invitation from any woman who heard him use it. Until he had the bad luck to fall for Celia. And then nothing would ever be the same"

The chapters of the book that introduce Whitey as one of a trio of Skid Row alkies read like standard hard-boiled fiction. But when it becomes clear that he is not just an outcast from society but also an outsider on Skid Row who seems to have landed there just as much by choice as by hard luck, Goodis' characterizations get more intriguing.

"I bet you're full of secrets"

"Who ain't?" - Whitey

After discovering how Whitey carried himself through a 24 hr long bad patch that included confrontations (okay, beatings) from both the police and a Puerto Rican gang during the midst of a race riot in urban Philadelphia; what appeared at first to be simple stubborness or personal weakness seemed more like an arbitrary persistence bordering on craziness. Leading to justice (if not a happy ending. In the traditional sense, at least.)

No happy endings for the cops either in this story (remember, this IS 'Street of No Return') but Portney, the outsider cop who's accused of being a "freak", also takes a stand.

"You're a freak, Portney. You hear what I'm saying? You're just a freak"

"Really, is that what they call it"?

"You hear that? He ain't even ashamed."

"In the final analysis, we're all in the same boat. We're all ashamed of something"

"That's right, get witty again. Cover it up with a gag"

"No gag... it's fundamental truth".

All in all, not a bad story and I dig the soft spot that Goodis has for characters of all social classes who are strong enough to endure their compulsions and maintain a sense of dignity and decency.

I'm a little leary of what might be a Goodis tendency to sanctify those who 'play to lose' but I'll resolve that one after reading 'Cassidy's Girl' and 'Nightfall', both of which have again found their way to the top of the stacks.

12/04/07 - Bettye LaVette - Dakota- Minneapolis

Because of snarled traffic I had to walk two miles thru a snowstorm to make it to this show. I arrived in time to see Bettye hit the stage wearing a sleeveless top; wiping sweat off of her brow by the third song. Some people age and hurt... Bettye looks and sounds better every time she passes through town.

For late 2007 she's made a few changes in her band (I think this was the first show with the new bassist and guitarist). And revamped her set to include a bunch of songs from her recent LP 'The Scene of the Crime' ('scene of the crime' being Memphis-- where she recorded an LP in 1972 with David Hood and this new one in 2007 with David's son Patterson (from Drive-By Truckers).

After opening the early set with The Stealer she followed with ten or so songs over the course of the next hour. Every Bettye set includes at least one song that is a show stopper; this time it was Elton John and Bernie Taupin's 'Talking Old Soldiers'. Other songs from the new record that were performed were Choices, You Don't Know Me At All, They Call it Love and Before the Money Came (Ballad of Betty Lavette)--during which she made a run through the audience and sang to the booths and tables at the perimeter of the club.

Bettye's records are usually good, sometimes great, but as a live performer she's the fucking utmost. One of a handful of singers who never fails to blow me away.

12/02/07 - Stranger on the Third Floor (dir Boris Ingster )

Some say that "Stranger on the Third Floor" is one of the first (1940) films that can be considered a precursor to the 'film noir' style of film making.



Sure, some of the guys wear trenchcoats and the film does have a few scenes that use shadows and perspective ala the 'german expressionist influence' that's acknowledged as a hallmark of 'noir'. But the lead characters lack the complex personality quirks that make it difficult to differentiate between "good" and "bad" in some of my favorite movies.



There isn't much to like about the intended 'protaganist' here. Michael Ward is a conventional, attractive man with a job and an adoring girlfriend.



He's introduced in the film as a star witness; testifying in court against a man who hysterically proclaims his innocence... as he's hauled away to jail.



while Michael is free to, in a bashful, roundabout way, propose to his girlfriend;



seemingly as an excuse to get away from an annoying boarding room neighbor whom he has professed to wanting to kill for, among other things, SNORING TOO LOUD.

When Michael returns home one night and hears no snoring in the room next to his he reaches the conclusion that his noisy neighbor might be... dead???

After an unnerving nightmare where he is suspected of murdering his neighbor and subjected to a trial which exaggerates flaws similar to those of the trial that he participated in earlier...









The body of the neighbor is found and Michael's nightmare begins to come true. He's taken into custody but lucky him; his lovely wife hits the streets, frantically looking for evidence that would exonerate him.

The ending of the film is no less antagonizing to me but two things in its favor make "Stranger on the Third Floor" recommendable: it's brevity (65 minutes) and the amazing and understated performance of Peter Lorre as a homeless neurotic.


"they put you in a shirt with long sleeves and poor ice water on you"

>

11/29/07- George Cartwright/Gloryland Ponycat @cedar cultural center-minneapolis

Cedar Cultural Center can feel like an icebox in the winter when the audience is less than crowded (this is usually the case for the shows that I am most interested in) but this week George Cartwright's Gloryland Ponycat did a good job at raising the temperature, once they got warmed up themselves.


george cartwright and alden ikeda

The first couple of pieces were loose improvisations that relied heavily on George's soloing to stay on course. No complaints; he's a wonderful soloist who's worked with people such as Tom Cora and Davey Williams (as members of the band Curlew), Christian Marclay, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock, Fred Frith, LX Chilton and Mark Dresser.

But the four-piece version of Gloryland Ponycat has the potential to be much more than the backing band of a soloist.


adam linz and george cartwright

The band really got it together during thier cover of Bob Dylan's Oxford Town (featuring Andrew Broder of the band Fog on vocals) and then ventured out a little further during a medley of Henry Grimes compositions (For Django and two others).


alden ikeda


andrew broder

The last piece of the set, Panther Burn, was also a highlight. George told the story behind the meaning of the song--one which had nothing to do with the music of Tav Falco. This was another song where Broder contributed some interesting guitar sounds that blended well with Cartwright's sax. These guys are on to something good.






Gloryland Ponycat
george cartwright-saxophones
adam linz-bass
alden ikeda-drums
andrew broder-guitar vocals

11/27/07 - Stakeout on Dope Street (1958) dir- Irvin Kershner

Stakeout on Dope Street starts out promising. During the first couple of minutes a narcotics bust gets disrupted as one of the arresting officers is shot by a hidden assailant. The suspects don't get far, though, and the backup squad shows up before they can gather up their stash.


When the dope ends up in the hands of three dorky high school age kids who have no idea what to do with it all excitement in the film ends abruptly as they bumble around and try and find a way to convert it into cash (mostly so they can buy things for their girlfriends, natch).

At this point the dialogue amongst the actors couldn't be flatter and the only thing that maintains the edginess of the earlier scenes is the entertainingly dramatic narrative voice-over.

"narcotics addiction is a hungry evil. feeding from the sickness and desperation of other vices... extortion. the numbers racket. prostitution. blackmail. each a means of feeding a habit." etc.

Eventually the boys seek out the expertise of the towns resident junky , who agrees to distribute the dope in exchange for a cut of the profit.



Danny, played by Allen Kramer, is the real star of the film.

When the $$ starts stacking up and the boys think of ways to spend it...


"they passed the earlier part of the afternoon looking at clothes, sporting equipment, BONGO DRUMS and other racy items for kids their age."

Danny takes a few minutes to warn them of the perils of addiction and how agonizing detox is. The surreal images that accompany the seven minutes of monologue/flashback (some of which was shot in San Quentin prison) must have scared the crap out of anyone who saw this film when it was first released in 1958.


"you need a fix to keep the monkey quiet"


"in here you dont get a fix.. you get a bed and you get a basin"


"one minute you're on fire.. and then your swallowed up like a giant snowball"





Not long thereafter, guns are pulled and the level of drama that was set in the beginning of the film is reached again.


Wiping out the scenes that include the wholesome all-americans would leave only about twenty minutes worth of hard stuff. But those twenty minutes are unquestionably worth sticking around for.