Three is a Charm

Three cool things have gone down lately:

(1) Ian saw his first movie in a movie theater! That's right, at the ripe old age of 2 and 11 mos. We caught a matinee last Saturday of Toy Story 3 (in 2D) and he loved it. Sat through it entranced, and with hardly a moment's fidgeting. Had his first taste of movie theatre popcorn, too. G'ma was there to document the occasion with photos. Luckily there was only a handful of people in the theatre to be annoyed with the flash (we waited until the credits.) I loved the film, by the way. The ending packs a surprisingly emotional punch. ****

(2) I stopped in at the Portland Art Museum's exhibit featuring R. Crumb's comic book rendering of The Book of Genesis. What a mindboggling work that is. The most fascinating thing is he depicts it with (as you would expect) unflinching honesty and without the faintest touch of ridicule. I know there will be loud detractors from every critical vantage point on this, but I for one found it mesmerizing--even awesome. The scope and ambition of the project and Crumb's integrity are impressive. Go and see this. Every page of Crumb's book is framed and on the wall, and every word of every chapter of Genesis is there to read. And while you're there, go to the basement and see the masters' drawings exhibit. Ingres, Rembrandt, Durer...can't do better than that.

(3) Had lunch with K at Creme de la Creme, a French food cart fashioned from an old school bus, parked up in an alley near 33rd and Hawthorne. It's connected to a Seattle restaurant/bar called Gainsbourg, run by an old Spokane acquaintance of mine JJ Wandler. K had a brie and cucumber sandwich and I had a yummy croque monsieur. Check them out sometime.

Here's a taste of Crumb's Genesis work: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/18/arts/20091018-SALK_index.html

& here's his official website:http://www.crumbproducts.com/

Here's Creme de la Creme's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Portland-OR/Creme-de-la-Creme/119698068062042#!

And here you can explore other facets of the Portland Art Museum: http://portlandartmuseum.org/

~CD

Now Spinning

Giovanni Fusco. Music for Michelangelo Antonioni. 2006.

I love Antonioni's films--even the ones like Zabriskie Point and Beyond the Clouds that nobody else seems to like--and, though I know he's not known for electrifying soundtracks (with the exception of Blow-Up) I thought I'd get this CD of music drawn from three of Antonioni's films: L'avventura, L'eclisse, and Deserto Rosso. The pieces range wildly from simple mood melodies to larger orchestrated stuff--always interesting if not inspiring. The poppier pieces are quite fun, especially "L'eclisse Twist," the opening tune from that film--very wild, even campy. Completely out of tune with the film's action and story and, therefore, somehow--I know not how--completely appropriate. The liner notes to this are by Michael Talbott, a SF area musician with a band called The Wolf Kings. The notes are remarkable for their free dissing of the filmmaker and the hyperbolic assessment of Fusco's importance as a film music composer ("equally essential" to Antonioni? I think not.) I looked up Talbott's band, by the way. They're good but would be more impressive if Nick Drake had never existed. ***

Herbie Hancock. Takin' Off. 1962, remastered 2007.

Wonderful debut. I'm exploring this stuff more deeply now. Everyone knows "Watermelon Man," but the pleasures of this record go well beyond that. ****

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Well, I can't call myself a "consummate dabbler" if I don't dabble in things now and again. So on Wednesday my friend Sasha (see the "You Should Know About" link to the right to view her fine jewelry and paintings) joined me to make CHEESE! This meant that, first, I'd have to drive out to my mother-in-law's farm 40 minutes away in Warren, pick-up two gallons of fresh goat milk (Ada is the goat's name, a beautiful nubian) bring it home, and pasteurize it--itself quite a process. That done, we decided to make one gallon into "farmer's cheese". We cooked the gallon, bringing the temperature up to 180 degrees, pulled it off the heat, then added lemon juice to make it curdle. We ladled the curds into a colander lined with cheese-cloth, allowing the whey to gather in a bowl under the colander. We then tied up the cheese-cloth corner to corner and hung it from a short wooden rod over the sink, allowing the whey to drip-drip-drip for a couple hours. At the end of it, we had a nice, tightly curded, creamy chees not unlike ricotta. We left one container plain and added assorted herbs to other batches. In the evening we ate it on crackers with a fig tapenade to die for from River Wave Foods (purchased at a local farmer's market) and an orange fig spread imported from Croatia. The other gallon we are reserving in order to make it into chevre one of these days. Great fun!

Here's a link to River Wave Foods: http://www.riverwavefoods.com/

Recently Viewed

Performance (1970). Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicholas Roeg.***1/2

I DVR'd it the other day and watched it in several installments when the two year-old weren't looking. What a fabulous movie. I'd seen it some years ago but couldn't recall it well and was glad to happen on it again in the cable listings. It stars James Fox as Chas, a gangster enforcer who offends his superiors and is forced to hideout in London. Until he can get his fake passport and plane tickets arranged, he takes a basement apartment in a building owned by Turner (Mick Jagger), a burned-out rock star in retirement who occupies the upper floors with gal-pals Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton.This is the dark and kinky side of "swinging London," I suppose: deviant sex, androgyny, hallucinogenics, identity crises, criminals, and...murder... As the title informs us, it's all about "performance"--how we perform, the audiences for whom we perform (including ourselves), and the scripts that guide our performances. Where and who is that self behind the performance? Where does "self" end and performer begin? And how can a bullet penetrating a man's skull dislodge a portrait of Jorge Luis Borges from his brain tissue?

Guest of Cindy Sherman (2009). Directed by Tom Donahue and Paul H-O (Hasegawa-Overacker). ***

This wacky documentary follows the adventures of a hapless surfer-dude cum public access cable geek, Paul H-O, whose iconoclastic program, Gallery Beat, brings him into contact (and frequently conflict) with the New York City art scene. Eventually he meets the photographer Cindy Sherman who, to the astonishment of H-O and about every art snob she knows, agrees to do one, then two, then...a whole series of interviews for the goofy program. Soon we learn why: she likes H-O, a lot. In short order, the two are dating and then, seemingly, in love. The documentary, for the most part, follows the twists and turns and ups and downs of this unlikely relationship, with a special emphasis on H-O's increasing marginalization as Sherman becomes the center of attention at NYC art parties and he gets cropped out of the pictures. Clearly, the relationship is doomed to fail, but it lasts 5 plus years, surprisingly, and both parties involved come off as decent folk whose love just couldn't withstand the pressure and demands of art superstardom. Here's a rather good review of the film--good enough to elicit a comment response from the filmmaker himself!: http://blog.spout.com/2009/03/24/guest-of-cindy-sherman-review/.

~cd

F for Father

Had a fantastic Father's Day on Sunday, despite lousy PacNwst June weather--sheesh, when will summer get here?. K gave me the Wild Wild West box set (man, did I marry WELL!) and Ian gave me Orson Welles' F for Fake. I suppose the first needs no introduction, other than to say it was the COOLEST EFFING WESTERN EVER TO GRACE THE SMALL SCREEN (not to mention it was the godfather of steampunk). The second, of course, is an oddball film "essay" on the art of fakery featuring master art forger Elmyr de Hory, master literary hoaxer Clifford Irving, and master cinematic smoke and mirrors man Orson Welles. It's too confusing a film to explain so I'll just refer you to wikp and let you sort it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_for_Fake. I should say, however, the DVD extrees are fabulous--a documentary on de Hory, a documentary on Welles' unfinished films, a 60 minutes interview with Clifford Irving, and audio segments of the Howard Hughes televised phone interview exposing Irving's autobiography hoax. What a smorgasboard! After turning in grades on Monday (what a horror-show that was!) I went directly home and geeked out on Welles et al. until a certain mysterious mooing sound was heard at the front door.doop-doop, doop-doop, doop-doop DEE doop dee doop doop-doop....
~CD

Tasty n Sons

Ian was off to the zoo today with his pre-school buddies on a special Saturday outing. This left K and I to do what all Portlanders love to do most: Go out to breakfast! We chose Tasty n Sons on NE Williams, a weirdly named offshoot of Toro Bravo, a fine Spanish restaurant up on NE Russell. We ate tapas, essentially: potatas bravas w/fried eggs, bacon wrapped dates, candied yams, sweet biscuits w/ strawberries and cream, and shakshuka (a red pepper and tomato stew with baked eggs). All was swell except that they left the lamb sausage (optional) out of the shakshuka. However, to compensate, they removed the dish from our bill, which was much appreciated. We quite liked the place--typical of new NE Portland (I will not call it NoPo!), with its neo-modern/industrial decor. If you go, prepare for a wait. Luckily there are coffee shops and boutiques in the immediate vicinity, including Pix, an excellent bar/dessert/coffee place.

Here's Tasty n Sons' page: http://www.tastynsons.com/. Why oh why would anybody put even an ironical "n Sons" in the name of their restaurant? Puts it in a league with TGI Fridays, Corky Romano's Macaroni Grill, and Stiffy McFriggin's Wiener Emporium. Are there not enough wonderful Spanish expressions to choose from? Or is it that the pretzel-knotted ironies of uber-hipness have finally brought us to a kitschy appreciation of the stripmalls we so loathed back in the 80's?

~CD

Pee, Poo, Belly, Bum, Drawers!

Here's a fun article on British rudeness from John Walsh in The Independent. Officially, he's writing about "Rude Britannia," a pop art show at the Tate Britain, but the article meditates, generally, on the nature of British bawdiness. The writing is awfully funny, and the author registers, finally, a phenomenon I've been commenting on for years: The peculiarly British fascination with bums! Here's my favorite bit:

God we're rude, aren't we? The British are so rude. We're obsessed with bums, tits, willies, lavatory humour, vicars, knickers, smells, foreigners, fat tummies, fat slags, Fat Les, fat wrestlers, Benny Hill, Carry On Up The Khyber, Viz, Private Eye, men dressed as laydeez, women dressed as anarchic schoolgirls, sitcoms that offer howling tsunamis of verbal abuse, from The Young Ones to The Thick Of It. We love to see an irate, fictional British hotelier smacking his Spanish waiter around the head. We admire the host of BBC2's Newsnight when he roasts politicians with scarcely believable belligerence. We quiver when a middle-aged, redheaded quiz-show hostess tells her guests how thick, ugly and badly dressed they are. We lap up radio shows in which grouchily opinionated men insult members of the public who hold views contrary to their own. We celebrate Christmas by buying our loved ones "lavatory books" with titles like Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Complete Shit In Pants?

Never mind the buttocks. Enjoy it all here: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/naughty-by-nature-why-has-britain-become-so-rude-1995950.html.

~CD

Something I didn't expect to hear today:

"Oh no, clouds! How am I going to tan? I'm, starting grad school next week."

A Little Dylan Thomas

I read "Fern Hill" aloud to my literature students today and nearly burst into tears. More proof that as we get older and our life experiences change and evolve, our relationships to works of art change too. You know, you may have read "Fern Hill" dozens of times in your life, and you may think you know it, but that's not how poetry works. What you knew two years ago about the poem and the world is not the same as what you now know. There's no "been there done that" (bleh) for great art. It's always there offering you something new if you care to look.

So...here, look again: http://sss-mag.com/fernhill/poem.html

Or, if you like, have a listen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XG1B_7r4y8

Enjoy.

~CD

Recently Viewed: Intervista

Intervista (1987). Directed by Federico Fellini.

One of the DVDs I picked up at the nearby Hollywood Video that's closing down is Fellini's Intervista, the maestro's second to last feature film made in 1987. It's a fun, almost plotless romp--hard to take too seriously as a "stand alone" work. What I mean is, it only really makes sense as a commentary on Fellini's previous films; he called it a "chat with friends" about his life in movies. The frame structures of the film are extraordinary: It's a film by Fellini starring Fellini as himself, a director making an autobiographical film about his early days as a journalist visiting a film set at Cinnecitta studios in Rome; however, added into the mix is a Japanese film crew who are themselves filming Fellini in the process of making the film. Confused yet? How about this then: Fellini is also in the process of making a film adaptation of Kafka's novel Amerika for good measure. So then, it's a film about a documentary film being made about two films being made one of which is, itself, about the world of film-making. Basta! My head hurts.

The stand-out moment is when Fellini gets Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg (on hand for the sheer joy of reuniting them) to sit together and watch the Trevi Fountain scene from La Dolce Vita. Pure sentimentality, yes, but of the most delicious sort! And that Nino Rota piano music tinkling in...bellissima!

~CD

SATC2

I've never been a SATC watcher to any extent, but I know enough to know I'd probably hate it. I can't imagine how awful this new film must be--but that's just based on reviews, of course. Here's a review of it that takes film reviewing to a whole new level of high art. Enjoy. (Thanks to JP for the link).

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burkas-and-birkins/Content?oid=4132715

~CD

Bourdizzle

Quite liked this interview with Anthony Bourdain. At times his TV persona grates on me, but here he shows us how intelligent, insightful, and articulate he really is. Who knew?

Enjoy: http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/thewrongstuff/

Thanks to Dr. Dentriticus Minimus for this blog's title.

Recent Viewing

Baba Yaga (1973). Directed by Corrado Farina.

I saw this some ten years ago, back when we were living in Chicago and frequenting the amazing Facets video store. (Now we live in Portland and frequent the even more amazing Movie Madness!) So when I happened by a closing Hollywood Video store the other day and saw they were selling their stock for cheap, I rummaged around the racks and found this (other finds: The Passenger, Nostalgia, Le Boucher, The Piano Teacher.) Baba Yaga is based on one of Guido Crepax's 60's-70's "Valentina" comics which feature his fashion photographer cum sexual adventurer (and Louise Brooks look-alike) Valentina; in essence, the stories are something like Barbella meets Blow-Up. In any event, this film is a horror-mystery-thriller featuring Carroll Baker as the titular Russian witch/lesbian who seeks to make Valentina one of her minions (or something--it's never exactly clear). The film is largely silly, but it's fun to look at and listen to--cool jazzy rock, sexy dream sequences, funky clothes, great 70's interior decorating. The DVD's extras are better than the film: a cool short on Crepax and Freud, and a fun interview with the director who has the audacity to dis Danger Diabolik and Barbarella--two much better films. Euro-trash horror of fine vintage. **1/2

Here's Crepax's Valentina (with clothes on, which is unusual):

~CD

Recent Viewings: Hancock

Hancock (2008). Directed by Peter Berg.

I’m late to this film, but such is the life of a (relatively) new parent. Hancock is the story of a down and out, alcoholic, and generally ass-holish super hero (Will Smith) who is reviled by the public whom he once served honorably. Hancock has Superman-like powers, but none of the good PR. When he crosses paths with a hapless PR agent (Jason Bateman), Hancock agrees to a program of rehabilitation—both of his personal and public life. Complications ensue, of course, for it is soon revealed that the PR agent’s wife (Charlize Theron) has, how shall we put it, a “history” with Hancock. I won’t spoil the fun. It’s a good little movie—very funny at times and a good chance for Will Smith to play another grouchy part (he’s been doing a lot of that lately, but this is far far more entertaining than the dreadful I Am Legend [shudder].) Yes, we’ve seen stories like this before--the once novel notion of wayward super heroes is par for the course these days-- but the film is saved by fine performances, action sequences that complement rather than dominate the story, and strong laughs. *** ~CD

RIP, Dennis Hopper

Rebel without a Cause, Giant, Easy Rider, Cool Hand Luke, True Grit, Apocalypse Now, The American Friend, Blue Velvet, River's Edge, Hoosiers...

Easy Rider alone woulda done it, eh? What a loss. Thanks for the memories.

Trivia: Favorite quote? "Fuck you, you fucking fuck." (Bet you can't guess that one!)

CD