Goodbye to 2010 - Hello 2011: A Christopher Walken Odyssey

Why not celebrate the end of 2010 by playing a music link in the background while you contemplate the wonders of life?

These wonders of life I believe include your blessings and experiences that you have already had and those about to be.

I just found this great picture file of Christopher Walken in space from the site called Mighty Optical Illusions. http://www.moillusions.com/





So I say check out Chris as he moves forward on his interstellar quest for more cowbell while you listen to some tunes. I dig these two for starters:

The George Russell Sextet playing an excerpt from Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIIMGBKb8CA&feature=related

and also

Iron Butterfly playing their Iron ButterflyTheme

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDoWtqIGUjY

If you hold the Ctrl (Control) key down while you click on the link, the tune should automatically begin playing in the background while Chris does his thing.

Cheers and Happy Holidays!

Losing Lennon, Dad, Donald, and Tommy - RRA's Nostalgic Road Trip 1980 - 1996 - 2010

1996 was a really tough year for me because in short order I lost three very close friends.

Strike One.

My dad died in August after battling cancer for 2 years.

Two nights before he died I attended a King Crimson show in Philadelphia with my friend Steve.

We had a great time that night. I believe it was the last night of the KC tour and through Steve's friendship with Bill Bruford, we had received back stage passes and we gave BB a ride to his hotel. Perhaps the relief I felt at getting away from my father's illness if only for one night may have lessened the heaviness of losing him two days later.

Here I am with my father in the early 1990s.

Strike Two.

Donald King, the father of my childhood friends David and Julie and Doug King, who along with his wife Ellen were classmates of my parents at the Peabody Institute of Music, passed away a few weeks later in November of a heart attack.

Donald King in our dining room Winter 1986-1987

     

Donald King and my Dad in David and Patti King's Reservoir Hill backyard late 1986 or thereabouts.

 

He always reminded me of Ross Martin (Artie in The Wild Wild West) and he was (like my father) a great cook and a talented organist and a funny guy.

Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon and Robert Conrad as Jim West in The Wild Wild West.

Strike three.

Then in December for the first time I experienced the loss of one of my earliest childhood friends. Thomas Kent Winchester died of cancer at the age of probably 43 or 44.

He was born on December 11^th  in the early 1950's. When he passed away, the date was 11 days after his birthday on December 22^nd. He was one of the people that I would always consider to be like a brother to me. Being that I have always been an eternally young and lonely, only child, I have always welcomed the bonds that I have had with friends like Tom.

We grew up together playing baseball and football and trading baseball cards. I had never met anyone like him before. He was like a mogul when it came to collecting things. He used to buy Topps cards by the box. He bought candy bars by the box. For years he got so excited about Christmas that he would find out where his parents had hidden his presents.

On his yearly pre-Christmas holiday undercover-special ops task, he would penetrate the perimeter of his parents' bedroom. He would traverse the closet door defense and then silently unwrap the gift boxes, and then he would put them back in the wrapping paper and return them to the closet vault. He did this because HE HAD TO KNOW what he was going to get, and he always liked life when it was on his terms.

His lifelong passion for collecting things like his Beatles collection and his sports trading cards came in handy. As he grew older, he began to shed his collecting bug. In his later years these pop culture possessions  were akin to stocks and bonds as they allowed him to cash in these items as needed to survive.

Like many kids in our age range, we were Beatles fanatics and we listened to their music and we really knew the catalog. The songs were religious hymns in our church of pop culture. We made Christmas ornaments together, and went shopping for albums and 45s in downtown Baltimore, and we ate a lot of pizza, and lots of other fun stuff and I’m sorry he didn’t live a longer life. He died too young, and unfortunately he grew up in a family atmosphere where there was a strong preference for smoking. Many of the photos that I have of Tom show him with a cigarette in one hand.

As fate would have it, the Beatles Mono Box arrived today on December 8th 2010, and it is an early Christmas present for me waiting to be played. It was Tommy Winchester who called me from Idaho that Monday night on December 8, 1980. He wanted to let me know that Lennon had been murdered. To hear that brutal news from him made it "official" given all the positive quality time that we had spent together, and much of it accompanied by the music of our heroes the Beatles. We had experienced a loss in our family, and we needed to share the loss of Lennon.


Tom Winchester was a true friend and such a character like most of my friends from Baltimore, and I thought I should post a photo of "Kent" today. In his later years he preferred to be called by his middle name with the family ties to the Eastern Shore, but to me he will always be Tom.

Tom and Randy

For a short time when I first became a huge fan of The Who, I thought that TKW enjoyed the rock opera Tommy only because it had the same name that he had. I was wrong.

All I can say right now to TKW is “Merry Christmas” and to ask of him, “Tommy, can you hear me?”



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG1faQDJJvg

The link above is from The Who live at Tanglewood in 1970 performing "Christmas".


Here are two frame grabs of everybody's favorite rock drummer Keith Moon playing in the above You Tube link.



Keith is so excited about playing "Christmas" that he is jumping out of his seat three different times to maximize the impact of his sticks upon the second cymbal crash before the arrival of each part of the lyrics as the song goes forward! The Who during their peak years were undeniably POWERFUL. They were funny and ferocious, incredibly symphonic, always emotional, bombastic and in-your-face, sensitive and confessional, essential, meaningful, and heavy and timely, and that's why I loved them so.

Like all the things that I love deeply and care about, I still do.

RRA as a hybrid: one part Aurora model, one part pitchman for healthy eating. (More goofy bits for laughs)

You're getting hungry.........very hungry. I want to sell you my breakfast bar!



 

iTunes day one - Streaming Beatles First Concert November 16, 2010 12:35 PM

On Tuesday November 16, 2010 the Beatles finally made it to digital download on iTunes.
I sat down just before noon to watch some of the free streaming video of the Beatles first concert in Washington, DC.
Here are some frame grabs from the video stream that I watched that day on iTunes.

It never fails to amaze me that even as I get older, there continues to be new milestones that mark the impact of the Beatles upon pop culture.

December 1, 1974 .... I remember it well.

December 1, 2010

Tonight is the 36^th anniversary of a wonderful event. Unfortunately for my friend Chuck, he had tickets to a concert that we all wanted to see and he was unable to attend because he was going on a family trip out of state. I was able to buy his tickets and I brought my friend Mike with me to see Genesis with Peter Gabriel perform the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway at the Lyric Theatre. In the early 1970’s, rock music fans who enjoyed progressive rock were really spoiled by the variety and high quality of theatrical presentations and musical concepts. Although fans take heat from the "in crowd" when it comes to 70's Prog,  The Lamb remains one of the greatest rock concept albums ever created and one of the best shows that I ever attended. Tonight I remember the amazing time that we had. I’m sorry that Chuck could not go, and I am grateful that I could be there.

A few years ago in 2004, on the 30th anniversary of its release, I went with my friend Jamie to hear a Genesis tribute band called The Musical Box perform the complete Lamb using period instruments and pedals. It was remarkably like the original presentation. The verisimilitude was assisted by the tribute band having obtained the permission of Genesis to use the original slides and some props in the recreation. 

Picture 1 -

Although my picture below of the interior of the hand out that concert goers received when attending the Lamb concerts in 1974-75 is "blown out" and over-exposed from the flash, I find it to be wholly appropriate to the feeling that the audience had when the stage lighting pointing at the audience went off just like a pair of massive flash bulbs. This occured when these lyrics from Lilywhite Lilith were sung:

" ..two golden globs float into the room and a blaze of white light fills the air."

Picture 2 - This is my ticket stub and a (slightly) more legible view of the inside layout of the concert handout. It replicates the content that is found on the inside of the album gatefold cover.

 




Picture 3 - Back in 1974 or thereabouts, the recent Genesis catalog releases were repackaged. Here is a shot of the Genesis Collection Two box which housed a poster and the British import lps of Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound with the Lamb handout and my ticket stub just above it.











Genesis performs "The Waiting Room" a.k.a. "Evil Jam" live from the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour at the Shrine Auditorium L.A., CA in 1975
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAgL18d7F-Q


updated 12 10 2010
updated 12 11 2010

Burke and Terry in Blow Out

In the bottom of the frame grabs just above we see on the left the interior of the ladies room at 30th Street Station, and on the right the exterior location of the Liberty Day celebration at night.

These frames are a nice example of De Palma's artistry in the manipulation of a shape which reinforces the telling of the story.  

One aspect of the visual throughline in the production design of Blow Out are the colors red, white and blue and naturally the American flag. We see patriotic bunting in the hotel celebration with Gov. McRyan on the local news, and we see the flag in public and being offered as mementos for sale during the evening portion of the Liberty Day event. To my eye the design of the lines and shapes in the framing of the ladies room suggests a variation on a theme. This is an abstraction which blends into the scene but it also stands out as being an odd interpretation of the US flag.


When you see the film and observe the continuity of meaning, these two frame grabs are an instance of how De Palma can visually stimulate the viewer graphically with the immediacy of the story line as it occurs in real time, and simultaneously he is providing another building block for the viewer to reach an understanding of a character and allow the audience to experience a more satisfying emotional climax of the film.


The Burke murder of the hooker takes place in a public setting. This rendering of the American flag with a blood red upper left grid (which replaces the 50 stars on a blue square), and a wall of cold-looking closed aluminum doors with vertical lines being emphasized (as opposed to the horizontal alternating white and red stripes) are not just visual details of the location of a murder, it is also an indication of how Burke, in his delusional state, has confused his psychopathic murderous substitution of violence as sex with a paranoid vision of being a patriot. He performs his undercover tasks in the open and in the dead of night.
He is cloaked within his misguided sense of what is right. He believes he is serving to protect our flag and our country. Burke is a lethal, real-life embodiment of the goofy slasher who wears a satin red, white and blue jacket as seen in Co-Ed Frenzy, the film-within-a-film in the first reel of Blow Out.

The vertical lines in the ladies room scene, along with the framing used in the exterior of 30th street station scenes are links to Burke and his dominance, his active role as an obstruction to progress and healing, his ability to operate freely and impede others and control the flow of the film.

Jack Terry will become the true patriot that Burke pretends to be, and with Terry surging forward towards the audience with the American flag so boldly pulsing in the background, we see a triumph of the horizontal over the vertical in Terry's struggle with Burke.

In order for the viewer to feel the ultimate impact of the climax and final reel of Blow Out, De Palma has to create a chain of events that will prepare us for that moment. De Palma creates an initial link between the shower scene in Co-Ed Frenzy and Sally's scream and the verticality associated with Burke as the film moves forward from this shot of the mixing board in the first minutes of the film. These types of visuals are also an indication of the relationship between a beginning and an end, a story moving full circle, and a story line that will progress from stasis to a new location of a bottom to a new vista at a top; this is a movement through aspects of mood and structure presented dramatically, architecturally and emotionally. In order for that to occur for the viewer with the understanding of hindsight, which is a quality of introspection that is often not available to a main character like Jack Terry, the audience needs to "see" the film repeatedly or certainly more than once or twice.



updated 12 10 2010

I miss Stanley Kubrick

Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

PART ONE       THE FRENZIED CELL CALL

There's been an uprising over at the children's table.

They've taken grandma hostage. No, I can't speak any louder. I can't speak any louder because they'll find me. My cell battery is getting low. LISTEN TO ME! Send the cops over soon. They started eating the coconut custard pie and the pumpkin pie and now there’s no more pie and the biggest mess that you could ever imagine. Everybody's kinda’ bummed out, at least the few who aren’t sleeping it off, because the dessert is all gone and we're so freakin’ full we couldn't get up to stop the little bastards.

They also grabbed the stereo and said that we were gonna’ listen to their requests or else. What a happy thanksgiving this has turned out to be..........

PART TWO       BLACK FRIDAY EPILOG - A HAPPY THANKSGIVING FOR ALL AS BRAT PACK SHENANIGANS ARE CURTAILED

My wife Amanda kept shaking her head as she asked me again “What happened?”

I left the front door open; the train wreck was over but the aftermath of the crisis brought a nasal aftertaste that was pleasant. There was an aroma of burnt turkey with a spicy hint of charcoal and leaves in the air. If they could bottle a wine with that combination of grace notes and aroma, I can imagine that it might be called Estate Winery Reserve Fall Down Burgundy Emberzass. And that my friend would be truth in advertising.

My wife’s eyes were tired as her lids tried to restrain the wide open gaze that was awaiting an answer. I turned to take one last look at the cops talking on the sidewalk. “That cop on the left told the other cop that it all came down to Gladys."

When we moved into the neighborhood, we had been warned about Gladys - the snitch, the voyeur who is always on her “watch”. Her real name is Sharon Gladola and she got tagged with her nickname of Gladys because she is just like the nosy character on Bewitched.

“The parents were passed out and after eating dessert, the Farklewadd kids got into a sugar frenzy. One relative who wasn’t sleeping was scared and hiding under a tablecloth as he tried to call a friend for help. Before his cell battery died, he was able to make his next call to a security company, but the operator thought he was drunk and hung up. The kids began screaming and their restlessness exploded. There was an eruption of energy as they upended the card table in the den.  As they ran a jogging pattern repeatedly through the first floor like a NASCAR event, with each pass they upped the ante. First they grabbed the remote control for the stereo and started blasting rock music, and then one of them threw some lighter fluid into the lit fireplace, and then they ran upstairs to the second floor. Once they raised the windows, that’s when you began to smell the smoke and hear the music; it was so loud that everybody heard the music. The parents started to wake up and stagger out of the front door and they began motioning for the kids to get out of the house.”

I walked over to our living room windows to close the drapes and turn on a lamp.

“People were saying that they started making faces and doing dance moves in front of a vanity mirror and then they ran back to the windows and  they were sticking their tongues out and mouthing the words to Gladys “Hey baby – you’re next!” and then they started giving her the finger. And they weren’t just flipping her the bird, they were doing it in time to the music. That might have been when the music segued from the Ohio Players “Fire” into AC/DC “You Shook Me All Night Long” and the sirens were ringing out. You really missed it, and I can understand why you were taking a nap. You must be exhausted after making all of that great chow! It was delicious.”

Mandy looked a little disappointed. I continued my play-by-play.

“Gladys called 911 and said she was having a heart attack and that they should send the cops, the rescue squad and the fire department because a bonfire across the street had gotten out of hand. So that’s where we are now. They arrived in time to rescue the family. Gladys got a free ride to the emergency room. No one got hurt. The blaze was brought under control, and it looks like their house can be saved, and the neighborhood can survive. Everybody wins."

I slammed the front door closed and turned back to Mandy and I started mugging and rolling my eyes. I began to rub my stomach in a circular motion suggesting a great hunger for food and love. “OHHHHHHHHHHH……..Honey, do we have any-more stuffing?” I smiled at her with the biggest, oversized, vaudeville-goofy, second banana grin I could summon.

She looked at me and said “Stuffing?” After she slugged me in the stomach, I staggered a bit and took a few small steps and then sat down in the Barcalounger. I tried to discover where all of the oxygen had gone into hiding as I struggled to breathe.

Then I decided I might need to take a nap, too.

 

 

Bikini Atoll (red)

Beatles Revolver tribute RRA 2010

The Beatles Revolver album is my favorite release among the many favorites I have within their catalog.
I made a collage which allows me to share my love of the record via shapes and words and I referenced a circular photo collage concept by Robert Freeman which was not chosen to be the album cover, as well as the album title type face used on the album cover. This record was incredibly important to me as a child.

I used to invite some friends over to the house and we would practice singing along to it. In this childlike way, I was emulating my father's work as a music teacher and director in Baltimore public schools, and I was
trying to glean understanding by mimicry and recreating and bonding with the music on this release from 1966 when I was 9 years old.







My prose goes as follows:

I love Revolver
revolver evolve
evolver revolve
eve ever role lover
rev lover volver
re rover re over
revolver revolve
leo le oleo oleo lo
love 4 ever
2v
2e
2r
almost a palindrome I played it to death
nothing left to say when everything has been said
everything was right
nothing left to be said
what it's like to be dead
what it is to be sad
and she's makin'me feel like
I've never been born
revolver
evolver
leo oleo lo
lover o lover
veer over
eve rover
leo oleo oleo oleo lo
O revolve o Revolver
Evolver evolve
le oleo lo leo
nothing to say
Revolver ole!

Three Hitchcock collage pieces by RRA 2010

I made three Hitchcock collage tributes using a single frame of the faces of Henry Fonda from The Wrong Man and Tony Perkins from Psycho as building blocks to make these pieces. Both films were shot in black and white and the release dates of 1957 and 1960 act as bookends within which we find the Hitchcock triple crown of Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho.

HITCH ONE RRA 2010

HITCH TWO  RRA 2010



 

HITCH THREE RRA 2010

Zappa dedication art collages by RRA 2010

Below is my inverted colors altered version of the Zappa dedication tribute collage.

Deciphering the code - will we see the majestic return of Blow Out on Criterion dvd?

Two amazing pop culture occurrences have come to my attention in the past week.

One event was real, the other event signaled the tantalizing possibility that a classic film may be reissued on dvd to be newly adored by a patient and faithful fan base.

On Friday November 5^th as I watched the conclusion of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the unthinkable was in evidence.  My favorite jazz guitarist and personal musical hero John McLaughlin was sitting in with the house band The Roots as they played between commercial breaks and guest intros. The featured musical guest was Elvis Costello who is another favorite of mine. I could only shake my head in disbelief when the closing of the show had Elvis performing a new tune with the backing of the Roots and special guest John McLaughlin!

The other occurrence which I happened upon is a strong signal of an event yet to be confirmed. As a film fan, a cinematic dream is on the verge of becoming a reality – the release of Blow Out (which is my favorite Brian De Palma film) as a part of the Criterion Collection. Yes Randy, there is a Santa Claus.

After I made my daily online visit to the De Palma A La Mod website, I saw the post for the day regarding this dvd news. Geoff had posted a copy of the owl graphic that can be found in the latest Criterion Newsletter for November. This owl is the signifier of the coded news message.

http://www.angelfire.com/de/palma/blog/index.blog?topic_id=1059007

Now I had to go back and look at the CC Newsletter e-mail a second time. I pride myself on being a person with a discriminating eye for detail and I realized that when the latest Criterion Collection newsletter for November 2010 had arrived in my e-mail, I had neglected to read everything and “see” the entire piece.  Near the bottom right of the e-mail is a cryptic graphic that holds meaning for people like me who love film and Brian De Palma and I had missed it.

At the top of the November e-mail is a banner which shows the American flag with the Criterion “C” logo to the left.

This choice for a masthead is thematically and visually consistent with the subject of the first topic for the reader which is the upcoming release of a dvd box set called America Lost and Found: The BBS story, which is a collection of seven independent American films produced by BBS Productions. They include several Jack Nicholson vehicles either as an actor in Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, or as a writer for the Monkees movie Head. The other films included are Drive, He Said; A Safe Place, and The Last Picture Show.

http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/769-america-lost-and-found-the-bbs-story

One of the other tidbits listed midway in this newsletter is a mention of the release of Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter on dvd and blu-ray.

Although the American flag masthead and the Laughton information should be nothing more or less than elements of information about available Criterion dvd releases, I suggest that coincidentally, inadvertently or deliberately, these items of interest to me also has relevance to the visual hint of Blow Out being released.

Early on as the story for Blow Out is developed, we see exterior scenes in a mysterious night time location. John Travolta as soundman Jack Terry is recording wild sound – “new wind” - from upon a footbridge overseeing a creek near the Wissahickon Walk in Philadelphia for a low budget horror film entitled Co-Ed Frenzy.

As we watch his actions and listen along with Terry, we hear several animal sounds and we see most of the animals that make these sounds in their nocturnal environment. Among these creatures, we also see a mostly silent owl whose movements become audibly louder as it flies away from the imminent danger of the action that is about to occur.  The framing of shots allows us to link Jack Terry with the wise owl, and we can see the owl’s choice to leave. At the same time Terry’s link to the owl remains for us to consider as a dilemma continually unfolds that provides choices for Terry in his story: to choose to flee or to fight the obstacles before him.

As a film fan, when you see this nature sequence in Blow Out it is easy to draw a parallel to Laughton’s Night of the Hunter which features a night time scene with some animals and their noises observed in nature along a riverbank. The Laughton picture is just a minor reference point for film fans. There are more obvious attraction/distractions/infractions of film scene parallels or references on display in Blow Out. Brian De Palma offers this unique work of art as a powerful synthesis of elements of the components of Antonioni’s Blow Up and Coppola’s The Conversation. We can also see Welles’ Touch of Evil in the bridge sequence as well.

Although I am unable at this time in this particular post to offer up a fully rendered appreciation of my personal impressions of the wonder that awaits a viewer in watching Blow Out, let me say to the reader who has seen the film the following generalizations.

If we look at the overall changes in architectural locations and existential perspectives of the film visuals within Blow Out we will see a totality that includes these ideas: the slaughter of innocence, the hollowness of becoming victorious in slaying an enemy or overcoming an obstacle, the illusory nature of feeling safe, the ability of paranoia to dominate the psyche as it moves from the outside of the body and proceeds to the inside of the brain, and the nature of a world that has been inverted or turned inside-out. We will see Jack Terry and Burke as two different people who suffer through a battle to become the mirror image of what they see, when an exchange of behaviors allows ethics to be replaced by anger, rage, insanity and depravity.

One way of seeing the film is to consider the idea of  "just how screwed up can you become, when you try to do the right thing?" And this would apply to both Burke and to Jack Terry.

Blow Out begins and ends with an interior scene in a screening room, and as we reframe our perception of what we see on screen, as we make our path with Jack and journey through the scenes between these bookends, before we go full circle to the ending, we are making a progression from the absurd to reality and then ultimately to a final mixture of both as a concoction, a modern day sickness that has permeated Terry and the viewer into an undesirable unity of meaning and the meaningless.

Blow Out is a cinematic container with great ideas that transcend history and time – it is an existential nightmare that deals with the horrific sense of life and loss that can exist and lie beneath the surface of a work of b-movie trash art, within a high-gloss big-budget picture, or a reconfiguration of how to use spin control to offer up “the truth” in different forms of media.The film shows us the mechanics involved with creating a film and creating meaning and the solitude and commitment of the artist at work. 

After we start watching Blow Out and then take a step back and realize that the shower scene that we are watching is a film- within-a-film, after we reframe and regain our footing, we can then go forward. We can see a progression in Blow Out from establishing an initial balance to a movement below to the “bottom” in the Wissahickon scenes, and then like the best films that take you on a ride that repeatedly spirals down and up and down again, it successively takes you to different strata. This story continually ascends, until ultimately the emotion of the story conflicts between Terry and his adversary Burke reaches the film climax at the Port of History which is at “the top” and truly is “over the top” as only Brian De Palma can fashion a film.  This can be seen when Burke attacks his victim in the safety of the ladies room at 30^th street station as well as the fireworks climax. 






When we finally get there at the foot of the flag, we share a new way to experience the feeling of nausea, of feeling exhausted and exalted by that trade off that occurs when a task that has finally been accomplished comes at the expense of some other linked event. We are now feeling and sensing that gloom of “being at the bottom” at the highest point of the story.  So as a film lover of Blow Out and as a BDP fan, the rumor of a Criterion Collection dvd release is welcome. And the manner in which this cryptic release is secretly being “announced” is right in line with the story arc of Blow Out.

At the top of the layout for the e-mail is the flag banner and below it is the cover art for The BBS Story. Farther down below and to the side is another smaller cover art graphic for the BBS release and below it is the owl graphic. 

Please look at this layout from my perspective. If you take the two specific and different visual links that I am pointing out in this e-mail and add them together, and toss in the reference to Night of the Hunter, I suggest that you might see this as an invisible link between the owl graphic at the bottom, and The BBS Story cover art above at the very top which to me suggests an alternative, a new meaning. For the viewer who is familiar with the film we can make an inference of seeing and perceiving Blow Out as a parallel connection to a play on the words America Lost and Found. This speaks volumes with brevity and De Palma should be proud to see some visual shorthand being employed in the writing and layout of this newsletter! This will be a great gift to the De Palma fans who have been awaiting this dvd release by Criterion as a well-deserved confirmation of his artistic achievements. 




In reading the copy contained in the newsletter promo for Criterion's BBS Story, it seems fair to make a link between De Palma's late-60's early countercultural films like Greetings and Hi Mom! and his later day American portrait of misdirected political intentions, commercial merchandising, nefarious power struggles, media manipulation, and commitment to patriotic acts that he offers the viewer in Blow Out. This 1981 film is a natural outgrowth of the independent American filmmaking that he was doing in the 60's just like the indy works collected in the BBS Story.

As I had suggested in my blog post from September of last year about De Palma's use of shapes and numbering in production design in The Untouchables


http://musi-cine-howlwithlaughter.blogspot.com/2009/10/untouchables-and-de-palma-and.html


"This idea of a making a connection between a straight line and a circle attached to it literally or through implication can be seen in the climax of the basement in Psycho, as well as Burke's activities in Blow Out."





Low budget independent films, Independence Day, paranoia and disorientation abound. The artist in his studio seeking solitude in his creative habitat trying to make sense of the commotion and find the truth that lies beneath, the truth obscured by lies, all of these elements come together through the swirling power plays inside and outside the circles conveyed in Blow Out.

Seen just below is a collage of frame grabs from Blow Out with an American flag behind them which I assembled to post as a tribute on one of the De Palma Facebook pages about five or six months ago. 

We see on the left a grab of Jack Terry on the footbridge in the background and the owl in the foreground which will be visually similar to the rollers on the Nagra during playback in Sally's hotel room. On the right, the frame grab shows the intrinsic design of the tape recorder (which we see upside down) and the path of the magnetic tape moving against the heads and the rollers which suggests an owl, and it is also an example of circles dominating a straight line. Circles and triangles dominate the telling of the film. 

From this collage you can see where my understanding and appreciation of the film would find a focus in the layout of the Criterion Newsletter.

What else can  I say other than I am ecstatic about Blow Out being released as a Criterion dvd.

revised 11 8 2010
updated 11 30 2010

Donaggio De Palma DTK at last....

Occasionally patience is a virtue, and that which you desire and wait for will eventually arrive...

I have owned the Varese Sarabande soundtrack of Pino Donaggio's score for De Palma's Dressed to Kill for many years but I have been waiting and hoping to find a cd at a reasonable price and at last good fortune has smiled upon me. it just arrived from Australia and it sounds clean and fullbodied with no bitter aftertaste.

The Boston Stranglers is out or has been temporarily abandoned. The focus for a new Brian De Palma project has returned to making TOYER.

Well Pino, are you the one? Listening to this score and the other De Palma scores will be a pleasant way to pass the time as I return to being a fan waiting patiently with other fans for the next BDP film.

Finally! The Fury by John Williams cd has arrived...

Do you remember The Fury?

You know, the Brian De Palma film that was released before he made everybody go Psycho with Dressed to Kill.

After a long wait, I have finally acquired a reasonably priced brand new original Varese Sarabande cd
(which was released in 1990) of John Williams' re-recording of his score.

The film is available on dvd but it really is crying out for a remastered deluxe makeover with featurettes and extras.
I missed out on getting the remastered deluxe 2 cd Varese release of The Fury which featured the actual soundtrack music used in the film plus all of the re-recordings that are on this cd which arrived today. That out-of-print goodie is outside of my price range but I am fortunate to have this.

What can I say? I'm a Brian De Palma fan and a film nut and I love film music. I'm happy. Now I can add it to my inventory of De Palma musical mementos.
Two questions now come to mind as I am listening to - and savoring - this John Williams music: just who will score The Boston Stranglers, and how long do we have to wait for this next Brian De Palma movie, a movie story that seems to be a perfect fit for his talents?

Today and everyday, life is truly like the words that Ray Davies sings: "The world keeps going round."

Today is June 22, 2010. This marks the 31st anniversary of a horrific car accident which happened to me when I was 21 and somehow I survived. I was the passenger. My roommate was driving and he was killed. It is a miracle that I’m still alive. What would I have missed had I died?

• A local boy’s dream-come-true to have that wonderful record store experience in the Rotunda that allowed me to join the “Recordmasters Hall of Fame” – and we all know that if you were working there, you are automatically IN! Today the old playing field for recorded musical entertainment has been leveled and despite a few local business squatters around the country, there are fewer and fewer “brick” retailers as “click and pick” online choices are embraced by consumers who want their fix.

• My life in the film business in Baltimore and LA between 1982 and 1994.

• My return to Smalltimore in November after I missed another appointment with Mr. D in the Northridge earthquake in January 1994.

So far my life has been strange and lovely, painful and mysterious, boring and mundane, depressing yet uplifting. On a bad day, I guess I feel like everything is meaningless. On a good day I can see my life as a spiritual safari into the unknown. Thankfully it has been filled with lotsa’ fine music, film, comedy, great food, observing beautiful women and enjoying my dreams. These dreams are stories which usually are at best a zero sum game that leaves me guessing as to the meaning.

I have always felt that when it comes to the idea of appreciation, in making a connection with your love of life or your fellow human being, it is important and imperative that you tell other people how you feel about them. As I grow older the importance of appreciation through communication becomes even greater.

The bottom line is: no matter how I feel, up or down, I’m glad to still be around.

The Kinks - The World Keeps Going Round
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx0m9I6XGmY

The Tubes - What Do You Want From Life?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgjfi1DU1mQ

Rolling Stones - Dancin' With Mr. D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_S532DjrZk

Spinners - I'll Be Around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPpYEkv6BM

Grin - You're The Weight (live)
http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/concerts/player.html?type=concert&ConcertID=20053063%7C2755&StartTrackID=5

To access concerts and listen to them in Wolfgang's Vault is free, but you must first be signed up with them via a user id and password (which is also free). If you want to download specific shows, the price is indicated.

Are the stars, fate and karma now properly aligned to allow Brian De Palma to direct his greatest work to date?

Today is June 16, 2010. PSYCHO is now 50 years old. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock when he was 60. This year, Brian De Palma will be 70 years of age in September of 2010. He is about to direct The Boston Stranglers - a film based on Susan Kelly’s book which opines that the crimes committed by Albert De Salvo (who was convicted of being the Boston Strangler) were not the work of one man but of multiple stranglers operating at the same time.


New York Magazine featured a profile piece on Brian De Palma in the August 4, 1980 issue written by David Rosenthal. Fresh from his recent picture Dressed to Kill, we find BDP on the cusp of directing “Personal Effects”, a thriller that became known as BLOW OUT. I am one of the De Palma fans who believe that this film is the greatest achievement of his career.


In the final paragraphs of the article David Rosenthal provides De Palma quotes which are important to consider in evaluating his own work as well as that of Alfred Hitchcock: “Dealing with Hitchcock is like dealing with Bach – he wrote every tune that was ever done. Hitchcock thought up practically every cinematic idea that has been used and probably ever will be used in this form. But I’ll take the grammar wherever I can get it. . . . I’m starting to get even more ideas about how to develop this vocabulary even farther. I’m just gonna be 40 in September, so I figure I got about 30 more good years.”


Well 30 years have now past by. His last three films Femme Fatale (2002), Black Dahlia (2006) and Redacted (2007) were not financially successful at the box office. Once again he is in the position of needing a “hit”. I am really looking forward to seeing this new project, but like all good things, we must wait for an outcome…..


(New York Magazine holds the copyright to this August 1980 article written by David Rosenthal.)