Discover Johann Sebastian Bach [1] through Nina Simone “Love Me or Leave Me“[2] (from 1:40 to 2:50). No, really.
Click the numbers to listen to the music.
Oblique “namesake” connection: Moodymann’s “I’d Rather Be Lonely”
Category Archives: European culture
Haunted telephone booths
This film is the 47th entry in the category World Cinema Classics.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9cbKYGvfmo&feature]
La cabina (1972) by Antonio Mercero
A remarkable score which reminds of Bernard Herrmann ‘s screeching violins in Psycho (of course, it may as well be Herrmann’s original Psycho score set to a “La Cabina” slide show1). Very accomplished trailer. This film generally cited as an example of Surrealism and cinema.
Tip of the hat to the apparently defunct site Wayney of Chaotic Cinema, skeleton preserved at my wiki.
Update: 1. Yup, that’s what it was Youtube
Brigitte Bardot and music (wmc #35 and 36)
Brigitte Bardot photographed by Michel Bernanau in 1968
Brigitte Bardot participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including “Harley Davidson”[1], “Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plait“[2], “Bubble gum“[3], “Contact“[4], “La bise aux hippies”[5], “Je Reviendrais Toujours Vers Toi“[6], “L’Appareil A Sous[7]“, “La Madrague[8]“, “On Demenage“, “Sidonie“, “Je danse donc je suis”[9] “Tu Veux, Ou Tu Veux Pas?“, “Le Soleil De Ma Vie“[10] (the cover of Stevie Wonder‘s “You Are the Sunshine of My Life“) and notorious “Je t’aime… moi non plus“.
Click the numbers to listen to the tracks.
“Je t’aime moi non plus”, which I’ve mentioned here, is World Music Classic #35, and the philosophical “Je danse donc je suis”[9] (I dance therefore I am) is World Music Classic #36.
May 1968 remembrance day
Paris May 1968 revolt, photo credit unidentified
“Beneath the boardwalk, the beach.”
European media have started to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the May 1968 revolution which spread from Paris to the rest of Europe. Ironically, May 1968, coincided with the gradual demise of the Situationist International, the Marxist movement, an important precursor of May ’68.
Similar events took place two years later in the United States, with more tragic consequences.
Happy Walpurgis Night
The Vision of Faust (1878) by Luis Riccardo Faléro
See Walpurgis Night
Tip of the hat to John Coulthart
What is philosophy, or, when there is no longer anything to ask
Unidentified photo of see also Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
“The question [What Is Philosophy?] can perhaps be posed only late in the life, with the arrival of old age and the time for speaking concretely…It is a question posed in a moment of quiet restlessness, at midnight, when there is no longer anything to ask. It was asked before; it was always being asked, but too indirectly or obliquely; the question was too artificial, too abstract. Instead of being seized by it, those who asked the question set it out and controlled it in passing. They were not sober enough. There was too much desire to do to wonder what it was, except as a stylistic exercise. That point of nonstyle where one can finally say, “What is it I have been doing all my life?” had not been reached. There are times when old age produces not eternal youth but a sovereign freedom, a pure necessity in which one enjoys a moment of grace between life and death, and in which all the parts of the machine come together to send into the future a feature that cuts across all ages…”–Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (1991). Trans. What Is Philosophy? (1996).
World music classic #34
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=perVFDDy_xg&]
“Theme De Yo Yo” is a musical composition by American jazz band Art Ensemble of Chicago with vocals by Fontella Bass. The composition was part of the soundtrack to the 1971 French film Les Stances à Sophie and was first compiled on the 1995 Soul Jazz Records free jazz compilation Universal Sounds Of America.
AEOC recorded this album when they were staying in Paris in the early 1970s. Did they also record at that time “Comme à La Radio” (Brigitte Fontaine; Areski)?
Words to describe the track are: fierce.
Introducing French imprint Chute Libre
This post is part of the cult fiction series, this issue #4
Norman Spinrad on French collection Chute Libre
Chute Libre is/was a French publishing imprint directed by Gérard Leibovici. They published, amongst others, the translated work of the new wave of science fiction authors Philip José Farmer, Norman Spinrad, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny and Theodore Sturgeon.
I can’t remember who I had this conversation with, but the conclusion was that “we” could not find the illustrator of this beautiful series (follow the link to the source post to find some succulent tentacle erotica), so if anyone knows who was behind these designs, please let “us” know.
Norman Spinrad provided the inspiration for the name Heldon, French guitarist Richard Pinhas‘s band (which to me is the bit the French equivalent to Sonic Youth, but 10 years sooner). The name of the band was taken from Spinrad’s 1972 novel The Iron Dream.
Chute libre is French for free fall.
Via bxzzines, see also English-language covers posted by John Coulthart and all the covers in one handy place by Mike.
Cruelty. Manipulation. Meaninglessness.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k-N6ri95Xs&]
Trailer for I Heart Huckabees
There are so many reasons to like I Heart Huckabees: the film stars French belle Isabelle Huppert, American veteran Dustin Hoffman (who I’ve actually come to like in his later years in supporting small roles such as A Series of Unfortunate Events, Perfume and Stranger Than Fiction, I’ve even come to appreciate his mouth-mannerisms, which I disliked so much), and cult favorite Lily Tomlin.
Huckabees’ director David O. Russell seems to belong to the club of smart, intellectual and philosophical North-American filmmakers which also includes P. T. Anderson, Michel Gondry (I know he’s French), Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson, and to a lesser extent Vincent Gallo, Hal Hartley, Alexander Payne and Terry Zwigoff. British film critic James MacDowell, in a semantic approach I also worked on at Jahsonic.com [1], dubbed these directors the “The ‘Quirky’ New Wave”[2], for their “quirkiness“. The denotation of MacDowell overlaps with the recent spate of what has come to be termed “Indiewood” features.
The film is indeed overtly philosophical, with special attention given to concepts such as existentialism and pure being. In my limited philosophical expertise, Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin represent good old American positivist, buddhist-inspired, self-help therapy and Isabelle Huppert, personified as Caterine Vauban (whose business card reads: “Cruelty. Manipulation. Meaninglessness.)”, represents evil French Deconstructionist continental obfuscating philosophy.
Fear not, the two strains are reunited towards the end, all to the sounds of a beautiful soundtrack by Jon Brion, who you may be familiar with via his work on Magnolia (1999) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003).
Huckabees’ is a 2000s entirely sympathetic entry for the anarchic comedy film category.
This post is a continuation of sorts of this post.
Black Surrealism et al.
A “Jackass” sits atop a tall ladder in front of the Palmetto Theater to promote “Hellzapoppin” starring the comedy team of Olsen and Johnson. The sign on the ladder reads, “I may be a Jackass but I’m not coming down until Helzapoppin’ with Olsen and Johnson opens.” The film was released in 1941 by Universal Pictures. Via here
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmw7un31UR0&]
A Cadillac commercial by Dylan centered around Bob’s radio show
Spent yesterday evening in the vicinity of the Nachtegalenpark where I listened to The Faces, Nicola Conte‘s newest compilation but most of all to Bob Dylan‘s The Best of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour. Came home and got sick. Slept for more than 15 hours.
Woke up and thought about Black Surrealism, through my first exposure to the work of Slim Gaillard and his role in films such as the 1941 film Hellzapoppin’, of which Ado Kyrou was a fan. Black Surrealism is a concept first put forward by Robin D.G. Kelley in A Poetics of Anticolonialism (1999), although he had overlooked the popular dimension of the concept.
The popular strains of any art form are often forgotten, take for example Ma and Pa Kettle, the American comic duo known for their celebration of the absurd, but much less known and appreciated than comparable films by Jacques Tati (I am referring specifically to Tati’s attack on modernity which was just as prevalent in the Kettle films).
To conclude, a recommendation: if you only buy one CD in 2008, make it Bob Dylan‘s The Best of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour. You’ll enjoy tracks such as Mary Gauthier’s “I Drink”, Dinah Washington’s bawdy “Long Big Sliding Thing” and many more. Trust me.