"Waltz of the Water Puppets"
Listening to Billy Bang's most recent album, Vietnam: Reflections. It's hitting me just right for Sunday, 8:27 AM. Henry Threadgill's flute solo on "Reflections" evokes a mental image of a mother lovingly placing a C4 vest around the shoulders of a soon-to-be-martyred son or daughter. (Of course, I'm mixing conflicts, and my evocation might not meet with the artists' approval.) A warm, stabbing sound... If only John Kerry had stood up to dissenting goons with a straightforward recounting of post-Vietman radicalization. Christ, tens of thousands of GI's returned pissed-off and fucked-up by the experience. His actions on returning were hardly atypical... (Sorry, I'm rambling.) Anyway, Bang's new music really gets under my skin, an Agent Orange salve that softens hands and lightens the bags under weary eyes, at least before one's skin melts into a yellow-green puddle of goo. I'm doing it no justice, but take my word for it.
Forgiveness trumps anger, and begets empathy. (Wish I could remember this lesson.)
Re Bertolucci's La Commare Secca: every frame makes me want to deliver a basket of fruit (or cash, or Kentucky bourbon) to a shut-in. Rent or buy for yourselves. You'll understand immediately.
From David Thompson's accompanying essay:
The title La commare secca comes from a quotation that appears at the end of the film—“E giu la commaraccia secca de strada Giulia arza e rampino,” which can be translated as, “And already the skinny gossip of Giulia Street raises her scythe.” It was used by Pasolini in his novel Ragazzi di vita and was taken from a sonnet by the nineteenthcentury poet Giuseppe Giocchino Belli, who wrote his blasphemous and obscene verses in Roman dialect. The story is essentially a police enquiry into the murder of a prostitute, whose abandoned body by a Roman highway is revealed in the opening shots. An off-screen police officer interrogates a series of men present in the park where the prostitute was waiting for a client—a petty thief trying his luck in the city, a smug pimp under the thumb of his aggressive fiancé, a naïve soldier from the south killing time, a smooth-talking waiter from Milan, and a couple of awkward boys looking for money to buy food for a dinner with their would-be girlfriends. As each of them tells his version of events, we see the truth behind (and often in contradiction to) their verbal testimonies through extended flashbacks covering the day and night of the murder. (Bertolucci has denied the direct influence of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon [1950], which he had not seen, though he was certainly aware of it.)
Now, go and fuck up the life of someone you love!
Happy Father's Day,
TS
Forgiveness trumps anger, and begets empathy. (Wish I could remember this lesson.)
Re Bertolucci's La Commare Secca: every frame makes me want to deliver a basket of fruit (or cash, or Kentucky bourbon) to a shut-in. Rent or buy for yourselves. You'll understand immediately.
From David Thompson's accompanying essay:
The title La commare secca comes from a quotation that appears at the end of the film—“E giu la commaraccia secca de strada Giulia arza e rampino,” which can be translated as, “And already the skinny gossip of Giulia Street raises her scythe.” It was used by Pasolini in his novel Ragazzi di vita and was taken from a sonnet by the nineteenthcentury poet Giuseppe Giocchino Belli, who wrote his blasphemous and obscene verses in Roman dialect. The story is essentially a police enquiry into the murder of a prostitute, whose abandoned body by a Roman highway is revealed in the opening shots. An off-screen police officer interrogates a series of men present in the park where the prostitute was waiting for a client—a petty thief trying his luck in the city, a smug pimp under the thumb of his aggressive fiancé, a naïve soldier from the south killing time, a smooth-talking waiter from Milan, and a couple of awkward boys looking for money to buy food for a dinner with their would-be girlfriends. As each of them tells his version of events, we see the truth behind (and often in contradiction to) their verbal testimonies through extended flashbacks covering the day and night of the murder. (Bertolucci has denied the direct influence of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon [1950], which he had not seen, though he was certainly aware of it.)
Now, go and fuck up the life of someone you love!
Happy Father's Day,
TS
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