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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
Live free or die!
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April 03, 2004
Doris Day turns 80
Doris Day was born 80 years ago today on April 3, 1924 in Cincinnati, OH.
Doris Day may be the sweetest sweetheart in the history of American cinema. She'll make you forget any silly old Julia Roberts. She certainly ruled the light romantic comedies like no other woman ever. With Six You Get Eggroll, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Pillow Talk & The Pajama Game constitute prime examples of the genre. She knew how to add just the right spoonful of seriousness to give at least some facade of dramatic credibility to even the fluffiest story.
She could act in real dramas, however. The Man Who Knew Too Much, the 1956 Hitchcock film, was certainly no beach party.
Also, dig on her early role as a singer in Young Man With a Horn, opposite a highly self-destructive Kirk Douglas in 1950. Besides dramatic acting, this features some singing.
Artistically, she may actually be more interesting as a singer. She was not particularly any kind of soul or blues singer, but she had pretty strong technical skills at not just hitting notes, but delivering a lyric.
One particularly good example of her vocal performance worth looking up comes from the album The Great American Composers-Irving Berlin, Volume II, Disc 2. Doris Day has my pick for the definitive version of the classic song "I'm an Indian, Too" from Annie Get Your Gun.
In this version it turns into a curious savage dream of the everyday housewife. Nominally it's Annie Oakley from the backwoods getting initiated into the Indian tribe. Doris Day gives it a unique sound of a housewife having a little fantasy. She enunciates so effortlessly, so light and sharp, so perfect. By the time she's singing "and I'll be busy night and day" it's gotten crossed with the modern strings to generate some vision of a surreal post modern 1950s teepee of the future.
In short, Doris Day had skills. Heck, she could even make Rock Hudson look straight.
Happy birthday, sweetheart!
posted by Al at 4/03/2004 10:28:00 PM
Marlon Brando turns 80
Born April 3, 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, Marlon Brando turns 80 years old today.
Now, the guy has often come across like an extremely self-indulgent flake. Coming along after the height of his career, many now might know him more for his, um, eccentricities rather than his actual acting.
But whoo doggies, what a good batch of acting in great movies this guy did. Everybody knows Vito Corleone, the godfather- his last major role (give or take Apocalypse Now). Secondarily, most people know his role from On the Waterfront with the famous "I could have been a contender" speech.
Can't forget that early career-making role in A Streetcar Named Desire, though. He also cast an iconic role in 1953 as the tender-hearted badass biker, The Wild One.
Not that it's all because of Brando particularly, but his performance that has had my attention a lot in the last several year is Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls with Sinatra and Jean Simmons.
He was just the kind of guy to deliver delightfully contrived faux-hipster speeches such as this bit of advice from his father:
One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you're going to wind up with an ear full of cider.
Happy birthday, Marlon!
posted by Al at 4/03/2004 09:43:00 PM
April 02, 2004
An HL Mencken prediction on race
Call me a glutton for punishment, but the inability of people to have open, rational, civil discussions of racial issues makes me nuts.
Consider this, then, an experiment in civility. How long and how near can we stay to having a calm and useful civil discourse on the following quote from HL Mencken, circa 1925?
What, ladies and gentlemen, in hell or out of it, are we to do with the Ethiop? Who shall answer the thunderous demands of the emerging coon? For emerging he is, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and there will come a morn, believe me or not, when those with ears to hear and hides to feel will discover that he is to be boohed and put off no longer - that he has at last got the power to exact a square answer, and that the days of his docile service as minstrel, torch and goat are done. When that morn dawns, I pray upon both knees, I shall be safe in the Alps, and not below the Potomac River, hurriedly disguised with burnt cork and trying to get out on the high gear.
-HL Mencken from The Smart Set
Consider this as a prediction from the 1920s as compared to how things have worked out over the last 80 years. Consider that we absolutely had Jim Crow as not just bad social attitude, but as the actual law of the land as recently as 50 years ago.
We've done amazing well, really, to be where we are. We've had pretty huge wholesale changes (mostly for the positive) in not just law but - much harder - personal beliefs and social expectations about racial attitudes in just a couple of generations.
When you hear the annoying braying of those who Most Alway Complain that everything and everyone is a white racist plot, put it in a bit of context. Less than a century ago, it would seem reasonable to a man of Mencken's erudition that there would have to be some literal major race war before the black man would begin to get proper treatment.
Even though institutional discrimination against blacks in America is near entirely gone, and social pressures at all levels favor positive attitudes, we still hear the reverberations of the centuries of sickness. When I sometimes hear hysterical black rantings that Don't Involve Valid Arguments, I consider that us now listening to people battling with the ghosts of Christmas past beats the slaughter that our grandparents or great grandparents could have faced in this reconciliation process.
Overall, seems like we're doing pretty good- even if we've got a slight case of the bends.
You will, of course, respond as you wish, but the management requests that we skip all variants of "xxx is a 'racist.'" It may feel good to sling that label- much as it feels good to masturbate. Perhaps both these forms of self-gratification are best indulged privately, however. Either form of self-seduction in this thread will be considered Bad Form.
At this point you're really not saying anything useful that way. Boring. That dead horse has been beat to death worse than Mel Gibson's version of Jesus. The point of interest will be whether someone's words represent truth, not whether you can Pin the Racist Tail on the Honkie. Thanks.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted by Al at 4/02/2004 01:39:00 AM
Actual effects of The Passion
Leading up to the release of The Passion of the Christ, there was a lot of talk about the film supposedly being anti-Semitic, and the waves of anti-Jewish feelings and behavior it might inspire. This has absolutely not happened so far, though.
The film has, however, caused a lot of people to re-examine their own behavior. There seem to have been a lot of people re-dedicating themselves to their Christian faith after having seen the film. This seems more in line with what you might reasonably expect on the basis of Gibson's intentions and what is actually on the screen- the story of Jesus.
More specifically, the movie has apparently caused some criminals to come forward and confess. Rather than causing Nazi rallies, indeed it has caused at least one person so affiliated (a Mr Johnny Olsen) to have a change of heart. He came in out of the blue to confess to some arson bombings from ten years ago.
Indeed, a Dan Leach in Houston saw The Passion and responded by confessing to a murder. The dead girlfriend had been written off as a suicide. He was free and clear- until the Jesus story pricked his conscience.
They say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. On that basis, seems like two points here for Jesus (and Mel).
posted by Al at 4/02/2004 12:13:00 AM
March 30, 2004
Tracy Chapman turns 40
Born March 30, 1964, Tracy Chapman turns 40 today. Happy birthday!
Her reputation rests largely on her first album, from 1990. She's had a couple of decent hits since then, but she's been a bit of a disappointment artistically.
That first album just by itself, though, is more of a career legacy than the big majority of singers ever make. It's just that good.
"Fast Car" was the big hit, but not the top choice for most people who have the album. "For My Lover" rates as a particular high point to me, but votes for "Talkin' About a Revolution" or "Mountains o' Things" will also be counted.
Who knows, maybe she'll come up with another great one. She's done it once.
posted by Al at 3/30/2004 02:17:00 AM
Vincent Van Gogh's birthday
Vincent Van Gogh was born 151 years ago today, on March 30, 1853.
I won't even pretend to know enough about paintings to say anything about his techniques or style, but I know what I like. I know the swirling chaos of the Starry Night simultaneously exhilirates and sobers me.
I also know that the spiritual emptiness of the Crows over the Wheatfield is about enough to make me shoot myself, as Van Gogh did in that wheatfield a few days after the painting. It's a special kind of cold.
It being springtime, however, let's conclude with a lesser known watercolour painting of bright Flowering Shrubs.
There are lots more good Van Gogh images at The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery.
posted by Al at 3/30/2004 02:15:00 AM
March 28, 2004
Madonna the "auteur" aka Jill of all trades
Some people come up with a lot of silly arguments to puff up the artistic significance of Madonna. The most common one is invocation of the word "auteur." For example, Eric Olsen says "Whatever her status as a "musician," she is an auteur and has always been in charge of her own music and career."
Obviously, being an "auteur" is really impressive, since it's a French word (as is "bidet"), but I'm not particularly impressed. What it really means here is basically that she does a whole bunch of things.
That is exactly her biggest artistic problem. She's diluted her energies and talents into a whole bunch of half-assed directions rather than concentrating on MUSIC.
I don't care about her wardrobe, all those expensive videos, the Sex book, every kind of cheap feminist posing, public statements, sexual provocations- nor will anyone else 50 years from now- much less her "acting." She's been in charge of her own career? Good for her, but that doesn't make her a great artist.
I put more stock artistically in the Monkees. Like Madonna, they're a manufactured pop construct. However, they had a better concentration on actual music. The members of the group may have been making their silly television show, and other people were working full time on pimping out their name and image every direction.
The songwriters, however, were sitting in the Brill Building writing songs. They weren't spending their days trying on new outfits, shooting cheesy videos, or conjuring up cheap PR stunts. The principle musicians concentrated on MAKING MUSIC.
Now, Madonna has (or had) some talents as a songwriter, or perhaps it was Patrick Leonard, who used to be her songwriting collaborator. Either way, somebody was writing real songs for awhile there. They were never up to best Tin Pan Alley standards- particularly in the critical area of MELODY- but they did some outstanding work. However, I haven't heard anything that sounds like a real song since the underappreciated Dick Tracy album.
When does she have time to make music? She's got to whip up a kiddie book, make out with Britney, and plant some stories about her deep, profound spiritual interest in the Kabala.
In short, she's the Jack of all trades, and master of none. She was never as talented as the Brill Building masters to start with, but she has long since abdicated any status she may have had as a significant musical act. She's just too busy being.
Olsen also says, "I like the Monkees just fine, but Madonna is in another universe of significance altogether. The fact that most of her music is derived from dance music styles in no way reduces her importance. Madonna will be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as soon as she is eligible - the Monkees aren't and never will be (for what that's worth)."
Madonna will certainly be in the Hall of Fame and the Monkees might never be, but that's reflective of the prejudices of the voters rather than any statement about their actual recorded art.
My objection isn't that Madonna's worked in dance rhythms. Hey, so have James Brown and Prince and Sly Stone- all totally worthy Hall of Fame members. They're just a lot better than Madonna on every artistic level. Prince in particular has been something of an auteur as well, making movies and working out fancy dance steps- but he's never spread himself nearly as thin as Madonna, nor let those other things detract from his MUSIC.
By the way, I'm not on any crusade for the Monkees particularly- they just make a good counter example for argument's sake. I will, however, say that on the basis of the actual recorded music, they deserve entry well ahead of many who are there now. The Dells, for example, from the current class- I wouldn't trade every song I've ever heard from them for "Last Train to Clarksville." You may wish to emphasize the contributions of Neil Diamond and Goffin/King over the nominal group members, but then likewise with, say, the Motown groups. SOMEBODY there did exceptional work.
In short, judge the artist by the actual art, not some ephemeral personnae. The songs, records, books- those are the things to judge.
Putting aside all the irrelevant crapola, Madonna's actual records, movies and books collectively aren't that big a deal artistically. Some of the early records were pretty good, but song for song she's barely competitive with the Monkees. She's nowhere even in a league with serious artists like Prince or the Beatles.
posted by Al at 3/28/2004 11:09:00 PM
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