Ticket to Ride analyzed by Ian McDonald in Mojo Magazine Oct. 1994

The exodus officially began on Halloween night 1994. My then current existential nightmare in Los Angeles was ending, and the trip home was about to begin. I was finally going to drive cross-country back to Baltimore. This would complete my five year California adventure. Just a few weeks before my departure, I bought a copy of the October 1994 Mojo Magazine with The Pretenders lead singer and guitarist Chrissie Hynde on the cover.

I remain a pack rat to this day and the Oct. '94 issue is still with me almost eighteen years later.

In the upper right corner is a sticker indicating that I purchased it from the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood. Today Tower Records and Virgin are no longer physically with us. Only the memories of the old brick and mortar stores that we thought would be around forever have survived.

One of the feature articles offered excerpts of a new Beatles book "Revolution in the Head" by Ian McDonald. I specifically enjoyed his appraisal of Ticket To Ride. 

As an eight year old Beatles fan, the 1965 movie Help! and the Capitol lp soundtrack brought incredible joy and happiness into my life. Ticket To Ride has always had a special place in my heart. Music fans were spoiled with the riches of creativity in the 60’s and riding the career path on the bandwagon with The Beatles provided many touchstones of meaningful shared experiences.
The bonds that I have made with music and film over the years of my life are incredibly strong.
Ticket To Ride remains one of the most powerful of those emotional bonds.

I bought Help! (or received the album as a birthday gift) when it was first released in mid-August 1965, and I was visiting my relatives in Virginia. Like A Hard Day's Night and other Beatles albums, I played Help! to death and sang along. Whenever I hear a song like Ticket To Ride, I can remember and make a welcome return to not only my youth, but to a period when breakthrough moments in pop music culture were not only amazing and delightful but refreshingly abundant.

In the clip below The Beatles peform Ticket To Ride on the Ed Sullivan Show which was recorded in August for broadcast in September '65. Looking back and listening to this clip with the hindsight of what we know about the history of The Beatles, John Lennon's live rough vocal honestly and clearly indicates the artistic acceleration of his internal maturation and an aging process that is in overdrive and fully engaged.

Happy 100th Birthday Bernard Herrmann!

Today is June 29, 2011 and it is the centennial anniversary of the birth of Bernard Herrmann who began his film career with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane in 1941.
In the same year he won an Oscar for his score for The Devil and Daniel Webster.

Jane Eyre, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, On Dangerous Ground, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Mysterious Island, Cape Fear, Fahrenheit 451 and The Bride Wore Black are just a few of the memorable and beloved scores that he composed.

Although Herrmann worked with notable directors other than Orson Welles such as Nicholas Ray, Robert Wise, J. Lee Thompson, and Francois Truffaut, it remains true that his work is most closely identified by the public with the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

Bernard Herrmann/Alfred Hitchcock rehash: What if ?

What if Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock had not suffered through a professional and artistic
unraveling of their longtime relationship in 1966 on the film that became Torn Curtain?

Hitchcock's previous film from 1964 was Marnie and it was the last collaboration he had with Herrmann and it was not a financial hit. The phenomenon known as The Beatles were selling tons of soundtracks to rabid rock and roll fans kids who were going to the movies AND buying the LPs released by United Artists for A Hard Days Night and by Capitol Records for Help! The ecstatic high of Beatlemania was making MCA Universal jealous for "the youth market" dollars and therefore they wanted to rake in the dollars with big soundtrack sales of a contemporary pop score to Torn Curtain.

Even though Herrmann promised Hitchcock that he would make a pop score happen that would change the direction of their previous work, it was not meant to be. Alfred Hitchcock was stunned when he visited the studio and heard Herrmann conducting and recording his latest work for Torn Curtain which was just as wonderful and old fashioned as his previous work had been for Hitchcock and he promptly fired him.

Obviously we will never know what might have been accomplished if they could have renewed their creative partnership. After Hitchcock dismissed Herrmann they never worked together again. Film biographies of Hitch and Herrmann retell the story of how Herrmann stopped by Hitchcock's office a few years later in an attempt to repair their relationship, but purportedly Hitch hid behind a door and would not see Herrmann.

The Wikipedia listing about Bernard Herrmann includes a quoted section from an interview with Herrmann's wife Norma which tries to correct the perception of Hitchcock turning a cold shoulder to Herrmann.  Examine the section which follows this lead-in sentence:

"In a 2004 interview with Günther Kögebehn for the Bernard Herrmann Society (titled Running with the Kids: A Conversation with Norma Herrmann), she states:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann

If you wish to consider the "What If?" question about Bernie and Hitch,
I think it might be appropriate to listen to this Elvis cut . . .

Elvis Presley - That's Where Your Heartaches Begin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeifr8lCghMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeifr8lCghM




It is best to not dwell on what might have been and return our focus as movie fans upon the brilliance of the entire career of Bernard Herrmann, and specifically upon the incredibly successful run that was achieved during their years together as one of the greatest working partnerships of a composer and a film director in cinema history.


As most cineastes know only too well, between 1955 and 1964 they collaborated on eight of the best films directed by Alfred Hitchcock at the height of his powers:

The Trouble With Harry
The Man Who Knew Too Much
The Wrong Man
Vertigo
North by Northwest
Psycho
The Birds
Marnie

A total of seven original scores by Bernard Herrmann and one picture as sound consultant on The Birds.


After the glory years with Hitch and a resurrection of his career by working with Brian De Palma on Sisters and Obsession in the 1970s, Herrmann closed out his mighty body of work with his last score for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver which was released in 1976 and dedicated to the memory of Bernard Herrmann.

Taxi Driver
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVP9dgZhddc&feature=related








Happy Birthday to Bernie!

All hail Hitchcock and Herrmann!

Bruno Alexiu's score to L'Enfer D'Henri-Georges Clouzot is now available

In 2009 I had hoped that we would see a cd release of music by Bruno Alexiu.

http://musi-cine-howlwithlaughter.blogspot.com/2009/11/henri-georges-clouzots-inferno-feel.html

As of June 15, 2011, the soundtrack to L'Enfer has finally been released.
Do yourself a favor and get it.





The cd is available through Disques Cinemusique
http://www.disquescinemusique.com/DCM_130_A.html

It is also available through Screen Archives Entertainment.
http://www.screenarchives.com/title_detail.cfm/ID/15504/LENFER-DHENRI-GEORGES-CLOUZOT-INFERNO/

Pino Donaggio's "The House" from the complete score to CARRIE on Kritzerland

In 2010 a limited edition 2 cd set of the Pino Donaggio complete score to Brian De Palma's CARRIE was released by Kritzerland. The single cd may be easier to purchase, but if you can find it, I say buy the out of print Kritzerland 2 cd set. It is a joy to listen to if you are a fan of thrillers, Brian De Palma or Pino Donaggio or Stephen King.

I am especially fond of the composition entitled "The House" on the first cd of the Kritzerland release. The version of this track entitled as "Collapse of Carrie's Home" is available on the original album single cd release. 

The music begins with an introductory section that is operatic and beautifully overwrought in just the right way and it is repeated twice. This section then moves into the lower depths and what we experience is our entrée to an eerie and haunting realm. We hear a slowly commanding and pulsing electronic force wrapped into the strings and the music inspires an awe and a disbelief in the listener (well at least this listener) at what we hear, see and imagine.

As it comes to an end in just over 90 seconds, we are left hanging and exhilirated as we await the next step in the journey. I love it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/RandiniDeAitkenese?feature=mhee

The Kritzerland site can be viewed at

http://www.kritzerland.com/

Currently the online feeds of entertainment news topics show a desire by Hollywood to emake CARRIE with a new cast. I'm sure they will do it, but how do you top what was created back in 1976 by De Palma and Donaggio? Who will be chosen to score the picture? There will always be remakes for younger audiences, but in my opinion it will take a really talented team to match or top the original film.

Why not put the effort into something new? Take a risk.

In the meantime I say stick with the original winner which is captivating and compelling: CARRIE.

An appreciation of "Red Lenses": a brief look at the Rush composition from Grace Under Pressure

Neal Peart is the drummer in the Canadian power trio RUSH and tonight he will appear on Late Night with David Letterman as one of the featured performers during "drum solo" week.

I wanted to take a look back at a song of interest to me which is a showcase for the band and specifically Peart as a master drummer.

A random recipe for a rock song:

Mix together the following musical ingredients:

·         a healthy dose of Who swagger,

·         crisply defined, flanged- guitar riffs,

·         clean rock bass, propulsive drums,

·         and lyrical allusions to phobias, fear and communists.

As you move forward in the progression of the composition, you alternate between two bi-polar musical sections:

1.      an overall stealthy, undercover-cool spy groove which suggests a sense of control which surrounds and contains within it a secondary contrary musical part

2.     an intermittent syncopated section of material that conveys absurd mania and borderline insane feelings via dance rhythms that feature drumming skills of technically precise paranoiac percussion maneuvers that builds tension and annoys the listener who desires and seeks a return to the first section.

The sound elements within the song are unique to the group and not derivative, even though at the same time they clearly reveal a love of Keith Moon and Pete Townshend of The Who.

Continue this musical "struggle" for 4 minutes and 45 seconds, and you are left with an unusual mid-1980s offering of a well-performed, slickly produced, clever rock track entitled

"Red Lenses" by Rush.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8avwgsp159chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8avwgsp159c

As listeners to the song there is no way out of this alternating cycle other than through a fade-out. 

We will hear musical changes along the way. However as we listen there is recognition and perception of an impasse.

Lyrically there is a real world-topical-op-ed-item of anxiety (please fill in the blank with your concern) to consider and reflect upon; this anxiety is of a type that we find in the world and in life where change will not occur; we can only observe and worry and wonder about it as we visit this arena of the song and then exit.  We have experienced an uneasy balance of opposing forces in co-existence, an eternal struggle of polar ideas that remain at odds with each other.

Valentine's Day 2011 - Brian Wilson's "Melt Away"

In the early 1990's when I lived in Los Angeles, I had an opportunity to go to a special event that I couldn't miss. On Sunset Boulevard across the street from what was at that time the location for Tower Records, Book Soup was presenting Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys who was signing copies of his new autobiography enitiled Wouldn't it be Nice.

It was early in the evening as I waited in line patiently with the other fans to gain access to the store.

We were allowed to enter in small groups of perhaps 5 -10 people. When it was my turn to meet Brian I asked him what music he had been listening to and enjoying and he replied "Joan Jett."

In the background about ten feet away to the left behind Brian I could see someone who was probably with the staff smiling. The mood in the room was a gentle feeling of shared quiet approval. I told Brian Wilson that I thought his track “Melt Away” from his self-titled 1988 solo album was right up there with any of his best material. Before I left, I thanked him and I shook his hand. He chose to keep his pen in his right hand and it was cradled in a resting place between his pinky and thumb on one side and his middle three fingers on the other side. It wasn’t a blood brothers gesture but with this odd but appropriate handshake, to me this was an act that sealed and confirmed the spiritual and holy and emotional bond that I have always felt with the best music that I adore, and here was a rare opportunity to honor and thank a creative master in person after years of partaking in visits to his aural kingdom of confessional studio storytelling.

His autograph was certainly legible and a bit scrawled like a child would make in the fifth grade and I could really identify with it as my penmanship has always been horrible. The signature made me recall the blotted ink of my youth, it made me remember my history of inadvertant artistic smudges using a BIC pen either on paper or the regular bluish bleeding through from the pockets of my pants or ruining the pocket of a previously white button-down shirt as the ink erupted onto what had become my personal canvas of clothing. Ah, the travails of a brutal youth.

I was so pleased to be at the book signing; I can remember my fun paying tribute to Brian Wilson as a junior in high school back in 1974. I was the MC of the Friends School talent show, and I performed “Surfer Girl “ and “In My Room” a capella with a few lovely girls named Denise and Lottchen (and perhaps Lisa or someone else?) providing complementary hand flourishes and movement and girlish eye-candy and sizzle to enhance my lovestruck teen angel performance. The gals provided a support system to my attempt to share with an audience a celebration of Brian Wilson's creativity, to go-for- it, and to transcend that sense of being a wannabe into an "I am" moment, and to reinforce the idea of the fleeting, hard-to-find, elusive symbolic "other" that us males who dig gals want to embrace. I felt satisfaction in my relaying the feelings of Wilson's songs and my cover versions uncovered my love of his work.

At Book Soup I was finally able to see Brian Wilson in person and pay tribute.

I will never forget the opportunity that I had in Los Angeles to meet one of the greatest pop music giants of my generation and to shake his hand and say thanks.

I still think that "Melt Away" is one of his best ever. Given all of the public awareness of the anguish and turmoil that Brian Wilson has had to try and cope with over his many years of personal solitude, this newer tune allowed the listener to return to a state of wonder. In this song, it was such a relief to welcome back an old friend that many people had ignored or abandoned. This marvelous musical world of Brian Wilson's carousel mind and the sonic landscape that only he can create always exists. We just need to find it. With his songs he is providing an invitation to the audience, and as always he is musically saying to anyone who cares or has the time to share in his point of view: "I'm still here, listen."

Like many of the highlights and favorite moments of his finest compostions, at one minute and eleven seconds into "Melt Away", I feel that we can receive the privilege of reaching deeply into the core feeling of a higher emotional expression, one that lies within all of us and is sometimes if not often unexpressed, and this frustration is given a welcome release as it is conveyed by the freedom and sincerity of Mr. Brian Wilson.

Note:
There are several You Tube videos of "Melt Away" available to watch although none of them are the original track as it was released on his solo lp.  See if you can find the original to listen to. I had submitted a video link to the original version and unfortunately for this posting, it was withdrawn due to copyright issues with WMG.
                            

Rando Brando pop culture dream

Another look at hustling money via character assassination.

Mark Twain has been in the news recently due to the revised reissues of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. When public figures become newsworthy, they also become targets for exploitation and character assassination. Check out this bargain bin attempt to air Twain's alledgedly dirty laundry via audiobook.

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.