World music classic 37

“I’m looking for the party people, to get down”

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMEEYPc87OQ]

“Wicki Wacky‘” (1974) by Fatback Band

“Wicki Wacky‘” (1974) is a single released on Event Records by the Fatback Band. It was featured on their album “Keep On Steppin’“. The proto-disco song is noted for its driving hi-hats and was a blueprint for subsequent four-on-the-floor dance records. Other notable songs from Fatback include the 80s groove “Is this the Future,” currently unavailable on Youtube. Enjoy and let me know how you like it.

I love abecedaria

I love abecedaria and I’ve wikified the following abecedarium by  Peter Wollen: “An Alphabet of Cinema,” which was posted over at Girish‘s. Wollen delivered this piece as the Serge Daney memorial lecture at the Rotterdam film festival in 1998. It was then published in the New Left Review in 2001, and also appears in Wollen’s essay collection, Paris Hollywood: Writings on Film (2002).

“A is for Aristotle … the first theorist of film”; “B is not for Brecht, although of course it could be. Or even for B-movies, much as I always loved them. It is for Bambi”; C for Cinephilia; “D must certainly be for Daney, but it is also for Dance—Vincente Minnelli and Gene Kelly”; E for Eisenstein, a “ruined filmmaker, an image-maker ‘haunted by writing’ (Daney’s phrase), by the shot as ideogram, obsessed with the synchronization of sound, movement and image”; F for film festival; G for Godard, “for anti-tradition”; “H is for Hitchcocko–Hawksianism—and a pathway towards avant-garde film”; I for Industry and Ince; J for Japan; “K is for Kane, the film maudit par excellence”; L for Lumière; M for Méliès; N for Narrative; O for Online; “P is personal—for The Passenger, a film directed by Antonioni, which I wrote with my script-writing partner Mark Peploe”; Q for Bazin’s Qu’est-ce que le cinéma?; R for Rossellini, Rome, Open City, Renoir, and Rules of the Game; S for Sternberg, Shanghai Gesture, and Surrealism; T for Telecinema, Third Dimension (3D), and Television; U for Underground film; V for Voyeurism; W for Snow’s Wavelength; “X stands for an unknown quantity—for the strange fascination that makes us remember a particular shot or a particular camera movement”; Y for Les Yeux sans Visage, Franju’s Eyes without a Face; Z for the final frame of the zoom shot, Hollis Frampton’s Zorn’s Lemma, and for Zero.

Via An Alphabet of Cinema

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.

What’s on

Peellaert and Khnopff

A juxtaposition of Guy Peellaert for David Bowie‘s “Diamond Dogs” album cover, 1974 and Fernand Khnopff, “The Caress” via gatochy

The age of maturity by Camille Claudel

“The age of maturity” (1894) by Camille Claudel

The man is Rodin, the imploring woman Camille Claudel and the woman who is leading Rodin away is his wife Rose Beuret. This sculpture was made after the break-up of Rodin and Claudel, after which she went “mad” and was locked up by her family and influential brother for life.

“Talk about genetic deficiencies”

This film is the 46th entry in the category World Cinema Classics.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esl2NNOtHQE&]

‘Dueling banjos’ scene in Deliverance (1972) by John Boorman

Four Atlanta men go on a trip the remote American wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded over by the upcoming construction of a dam and lake. The trip turns into a terrifying ordeal revealing the primal nature of man, his animal instincts of predation and survival, and even his potential for violence.

In what remains one of the most disturbing scenes in film history, Bobby (played by Beatty) is forced at gunpoint to strip naked, his ear twisted to bring him to his hands and knees, and then ordered to “squeal like a pig” as the mountain man sodomizes him, while Ed is bound to a tree and held at gunpoint by the other man.

Other 1972 films that may one day be featured as classic include Silent Running, Deep Throat, The Last House on the Left and Last Tango in Paris.

See also: Unusual Westerns

May 1968 remembrance day

Paris May 1968 revolt, photo credit unidentified

Photo of Situationist Graffiti, Paris '68.

“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.

Adam Kotsko’s blog on the newest The Roots album, and, on Kotsko

The Roots:

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcz2E4Rs2OU&]

Rising Down “Get Busy” by The Roots: “one of the better large-label releases of 2008.[1]” –Brad via Adam Kotsko

On Kotsko

Blogging about blogging: “To some extent, I agree with Adam Kotsko that “Meta-blogging is the greatest vice yet developed by humankind.” –Adam Kotsko quoted in the The Reading Experience.
“Over the past three years, I’ve become a habitué of The Weblog, a “virtual neighborhood” created by Adam Kotsko, a graduate student in theology, and de facto in continental philosophy, who lives in Chicago.” —Scott McLemee

http://www.adamkotsko.com/weblog/

His favourite erotic site

Regarding my comment in the previous post to Paul Rumsey, I thought I’d quickly give you a pointer to the work of Glen Baxter, which makes me laugh out loud every time. This particular volume – I’m unaware if it’s one of his better ones – can be yours starting from one dollar cent. In fact, I like his work so much, that I’ve just decided to canonize it. He fits perfectly in the fantastique and also nobrow categories (mixing Karl May-ish explorers and Kafka! [1]).

Trundling Grunts – Glen Baxter [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]

A 2005 collage novel

This post is part of the cult fiction series, this issue #5

Graham Rawle Woman's World

A page from Graham Rawle’s Woman’s World

A collage novel is a form of experimental literature. Images or text clippings are selected from other publications and collaged together following a theme or narrative (not necessarily linear).

The dadaist and surrealist Max Ernst (1891–1976) is generally credited as the inventor of the collage novel. He published the collage novels “Les Malheurs des immortels” (1922, text by Paul Éluard), “La Femme 100 Têtes“ (1929), “Rêve d’une petite fille…” (1930) and “Une Semaine de bonté“ (1933–1934).

Recent examples include the 1970 novel A Humument[1] by Tom Phillips and Graham Rawle’s 2005 Woman’s World.

See also: cut-up technique, appropriation