Tag Archives: 2020

RIP Stuart Gordon (1947 – 2020)

Incredibly Strange Film Show on Stuart Gordon (part one)

Stuart Gordon is a film director is best-known for his Re-Animator (1985), based on H. P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West—Reanimator” (1922).

Incredibly Strange Film Show on Stuart Gordon (part two)

The story starts with these lines ominous lines, in keeping with Lovecraft’s sinister oeuvre:

“Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in after life, I can speak only with extreme terror. This terror is not due altogether to the sinister manner of his recent disappearance, but was engendered by the whole nature of his life-work, and first gained its acute form more than seventeen years ago, when we were in the third year of our course at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham. While he was with me, the wonder and diabolism of his experiments fascinated me utterly, and I was his closest companion. Now that he is gone and the spell is broken, the actual fear is greater. Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.”

H. P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West—Reanimator” (1922)

The television documentary series Incredibly Strange Film Show did a special on Gordon in 1989 where they interviewed him in the La Brea Tar Pits

RIP Manu Dibango (1933 – 2020)

“Soul Makossa” (1972) single

Another covid-19 victim.

Manu Dibango was a Cameroonian saxophonist best-known for his composition “Soul Makossa” (1972), a crucial proto-disco recording.

I also had Gone Clear (1980) and Electric Africa (1985) in my collection.

Soul Makossa (1972) album

Only today do I listen for the first time to the whole Soul Makossa (1972) album. I already was familiar with “New Bell” (which had been covered on the electro scene) but “Hibiscus” was new to me and totally exquisite.

Now that I listen to “Soul Makossa” today, I hear in the bassline resonances of acid house. Do you hear it too?

RIP Lucia Bosè (1931 – 2020)

Toute la mémoire du monde (1956)

Lucia Bosè was an Italian actress with a long and fruitful career.

I choose to remember her by a documentary film she did not act in.

In Toute la mémoire du monde (1956), an identified photo of her is on the cover of a fictional book with the title Mars.

The cover of that book is unveiled at 9:42. The audience follows the book around the library as it makes its way to the shelves.

RIP Suzy Delair (1917 – 2020)

Suzy Delair was a French actress with a long and fruitful career.

I choose to represent her with one film, Atoll K (1951), the final film of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in which she is a marooned cabaret singer.

The film is strangely relevant today in its goofy discussion of statelessness and open borders.

There is one scene where this all comes together when they wish to establish their island as a new republic, with Hardy as president and Laurel as “the people.”

They write a constitution declaring their atoll will have no laws, no taxes, and no immigration controls.

 Atoll K (1951)

Oliver asks:

Now, what kind of government do we want?

Very little government would be good, I think.

– Without too many laws.
– And no passports.

No passports.

– And no prisons.
– No prisons.

What?

– No taxes.
– No taxes.

This is getting to be a perfect government.

And I will add…
No laws and no money.

—Atoll K, 1:02:00

RIP Kenny Rogers (1938 – 2020)

Kenny Rogers was an American singer mainly known for his work in country music.

Since I have but a flimsy a connection with that genre, my lemma on Mr. Rogers is satisfyingly brief.

However, early in his career, Kenny put out two quirky and interesting records.

“Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” (1967)

The first is “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)“, a song that reflects the LSD experience and captures the short-lived psychedelic era of the late 1960s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFZsZ7O1Z8o
“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”

Then there is “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town“, a song about the male angst of a paralyzed Vietnam war veteran and his wife who goes to town to find a lover.

The “Ruby” song concludes with the darkly ominous words “If I could move I’d get my gun and put her in the ground.” Bit of nasty femicide threat there for ya.

RIP Genesis P-Orridge (1950 – 2020)

Genesis P-Orridge was and English musician and founding member of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV.

I first learned of P-Orridge in the late 1980s during the acid house period. I remember some of their Psychic TV material from the radio shows by Luc Janssen. However, I can’t seem to find the tracks that I heard at the time.

“United/Zyklon B Zombie”

Where to begin? There is so much. Let’s start with the exceptional single “United/Zyklon B Zombie” (1978).

And let us add the album 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979) also by Throbbing Gristle.

There was a time when I actually thought that these were jazz-funk tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHPe-IzR2D0&list=PLDzS1Jgeqb3PIuSEAFkDUqa1QCAEEcFjf
20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979)

New listener, do not fear, it’s very experimental but actually not that hard on the irritation scale.

RIP Vittorio Gregotti (1927 – 2020)

And the first covid-19 victims start to come in.

Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste (1968)

Vittorio Gregotti was an Italian architect. He contributed the essay “Kitsch and Architecture” to Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste (1968) by Gillo Dorfles.

While the essay references Googie architecture and the kitsch of the roadside attraction, it fails to cite God’s Own Junkyard (1964).

It also fails to foreshadow the positive view of kitsch in Learning from Las Vegas (1972).