The Best American Poetry

Let's Get This Party Started: The Attack of the Chick Flix!!!

Over at delirious hem, Jennifer L. Knox is curating a series of essays about CHICK FLIX, however you may define that category of movies.  Here's what she writes:

The subject, Chick Flix, is wide open. You can take it from a Gone with the Wind angle, to Gaslight, to Gas, Food & Lodging, to Gidget (me), to The Good Girl, through Gena Rowlands and out the other side of Looking for Mr. Goodbar. I was going to declare one chick per flick, but if two people cover Heathers or Pretty Woman, it’s not going to retread any ground. Nevertheless, I'll be posting a sign up sheet soon.

You can write a 50 word punch in the face, or a 5,000 scholarly treatise. That's why there are scroll bars. Just don’t be a bore.

The deadline is December 1 so update your Netflix queue, get out your hankies, and get started.

Details here. 

On Rita Hayworth's Birthday

"Long Ago and Far Away": music Jerome Kern, lyrics Ira Gershwin: 

Jimmy Cagney and Bob Hope dance on the table top

 

Sinatra song ("No One Ever Tells You") illustrated by Dana Andrews, et al (with thanks to Tony Rizzi)

words by Hub Atwood
music by Carroll Coats
arrangement by Nelson Riddle
vocals & collage by Tony Rizzi
Sinatra sings it on "A Swingin' Affair." When they dropped "The Lady is a Tramp" from the album (because of the release of "Pal Joey" in which he sings it), this was the song that they substituted. They. -- DL

On George Gershwin's Birthday

"Brother, if you can't paint [or write, or sing] in Paris, you'd better give up and marry the boss's daughter."

 

DE-FAMILIARIZING THE FAMILIAR by Ira Sadoff

The lyrics of two of my favorite jazz standards, “My Favorite Things” and “Tea for Two,” are cheesy, insipid, even infantile bourgeois fantasies; the original vocals seem to me to be sung in that sunny psycho-killer demented spirit:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

and

Day will break and I'm gonna wake
and start to bake a sugar cake
for you to take for all the boys to see.
We will raise a family,
a boy for you, and a girl for me,
Can't you see how happy we will be.

Let’s put aside the sexism of the Fifties for just a second, though these lyrics, written by men and sung by women, obviously exude the insularity and privilege of sexism. These lyrics also bring to mind one of my favorite Chekhov quotes from “Gooseberries,” one I use to introduce a section of TRUE FAITH. “The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness should be impossible.” For I believe the darker explorations of Coltrane and the skepticism of Monk engage more complicated feelings and deeper truths. Coltrane and Monk did not produce an art of consolation, of pure transcendence in the Christian sense (rising above the body. It seems inherent in their Modernism that truth must be embodied, that it lives in the body and the spirit grows out of struggle, out of that writhing in pain and pleasure.

 “My Favorite Things” has a simple five note theme which works off a number of variations; “Tea for Two” alternates three and four notes in its insistent theme. I can’t stand Julie Andrews’ and Doris Day’s smile-button versions of the song. But John Coltrane, in his first soprano sax album of the same title (1960), transformed the melody into a compulsive, Eastern snake-charming nudging out the melody and then leaving it by playing two notes played in many octaves. What’s marvelous about Coltrane at this stage in his development as an artist is that he authorizes the hesitation, the holding pattern, the coming to, as part of making more transparent his musical process. In this first recorded version he often returns to the theme to ground his improvisations; retrospectively the leaps and shifts of this first recorded version seem accessible and it became one of his most popular albums.

I know of close to twenty recorded versions Coltrane made of this song: each has its range of moods and tempos (in one interesting version -- where Roy Haynes replaces Elvin Jones -- oddly has more drive than most of the versions that precede it). But perhaps my favorite version is the 18 minute version at the Antibes Jazz festival in 1965 (the second Live at Antibes album on France’s Concert label, released more than 20 years after his death).

 His first solo’s relatively familiar, but the second, following McCoy Tyner’s rhythmic modal chords and trills – about eight and a half minutes in, is breathtaking in its tentative and exploratory improvisations. So many voices! He uses multiphonicsand overtones that produce wails, runs that seem like warming up, flutterings,guttural repetitions, audible searches for new fingerings andchord sequences: there’s even a momentary evocation of a samba. The solo is a series of blurrings, disassociations and crossings out of the melody: some passages are taken at break-neck speed, others almost seem like the melody’s standing still in waiting off-stage. Some moments are deeply melancholy, some seemingly frustrated while reaching for a sound, which is to say he repeats a phrase until he figures out where he wants and can only then move on. The solo’s a calling out, it’s an inner voice in church, it beseeches with dissonance and a heightened confusion (this incompletion, this longing is one way I understand the necessity of Coltrane’s shift – after meeting Alice -- to becoming a Muslim a couple of years  before this recording). You’ll find infinite fragments of the melody in this version, but The solo can’t be characterized by an act of verbal transcription. What Coltrane manages here for me, with an imagination at the height of his powers, a supreme example of wide-ranging improvisation.

Traditionally the guiding principle of jazz is to take a familiar melody, a community song, and make it your own. But Coltrane revises, steps on, ignores, follows his multiple associations, until Julie Andrews’ sing-song has been deepened, overdubbed (some hip-hop covers revise Motown songs in parallel ways), critiqued, transcended (Coltrane’s spiritual longings  in those passages where the voice peels the and melody away). If I had to pinpoint its power it would be that he de-familiarizes the familiar. This technique (yes it’s a technique – Coltrane worked hours a day experimenting with news fingerings and chord sequences) and this vision, these enmeshed threads of beseeching voices in progress. have had more impact on my changing my methodof writing than any poems I’ve read (though Ashbery and other avant-garde poets also see the work of art as continuous movement and change).

Thelonious Monk, in his 1955 version, from the album The Riverside trios (stay away from the late and tentative alternative take which Monk refused to authorize for the album CRISS-CROSS  some years later) takes a different path to the same task of de-familiarizing. He uses a more playful and accessible minimalist approach in deforming the “Tea for Two” melody. He hammers the chords almost like a child who doesn’t want to practice: the block chords are insistent, almost simple-minded, but mostly cranky. He satirizes the melody further by tripling the notes in runsand inversions  up and down the piano, managing somehow to convey the boring repetitions and burdens of family-life. The solo’s an awkward chant, in places  a tantrum. The effect is the same as in Coltrane’s late version of “My Favorite Things”: the song we fell for in our youthful desire to simplify and artificially cheer up experience has been playfully dismantled (Charles Bernstein’s awkward rhyming quatrains, drawing attention to the sing-song artifice of end-rhyme, seem to accomplish similar ironic disfiguring of conventional form).

After hearing these two songs I’d think it would be difficult for a musician to return to swing versions (¾ time) of these tunes and certainly difficult to compose a swing song in that rigid meter. As Whitman said, the door to the barn (desire) is off its hinges. In these two songs, just by example, Coltrane and Monk bring attention to improvisation’s great virtue, extending the imagination to places heretofore barely explored or inhabited.

There’s nothing wrong with artists who are conservators, those who see their jobs as finding their place inside a tradition: their virtues include the nod of recognition, consolation and identification (we are not alone: we share assumptions about continuity and universality). But my personal preference is for a work of art that takes us some place we’ve never been, that challenges ourassumptions, that unsettles what we thought we knew, those works touch my heart as a new close friend might: I love the idea of thinking, I’ve never thought of life that way before, and I’ll never quite see the world in that familiar way again.

The Boy from the Garden: Review of "Timothy Green" by Joe Lehman

             

Lin Manuel-Miranda in The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Disney’s The Odd Life of Timothy Green deserves credit where credit is due, yet leaves its viewer with a feeling of incompleteness in that it doesn’t achieve all that it could. The viewer is presented with the story of a childless couple, Jim and Cindy Green (Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner) who one night find that a boy of about ten years old has appeared from out of the soil in their garden—and he has leaves growing out of his legs (leaves, which cannot be removed) and he immediately addresses the befuddled Jim and Cindy as “Mom” and “Dad.”

        The movie wisely does not to go into a long explanation of how this miraculous event came to be, leaving this to the viewer’s imagination. The Greens don’t ask questions, they accept this gift from God or Mother Nature without hesitation and agree to raise the child as their own, all the while keeping his legs covered in long socks so as not to reveal his telltale leaves. Two things are made clear:  he is a composite of all the traits the parents had wished for in a son and he seems to be of a species of botanical origin. This is apparent by his consistent show of basking in the glare of the sun throughout the movie. The kid — the Timothy of the title — of course, is perfect. So well-behaved it is almost too good to be true. The kind every parent longs to have. He goes to school, is oblivious to the jokes and pranks that bullies make at his expense, tries out for the soccer team, proves to draw expertly with a pencil, and even shows talent with a drumbeat.

            Watching Timothy Green evokes the memories of similarly themed films as 1985’s superb D.A.R.Y.L. and 2001’s moodier A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Like the preteen-aged boys of those movies, Timothy is not quite human, and it shows in his quirky, offbeat behavior. Unlike the earlier films, Timothy Green fails to explore the full depths of this behavior, preferring to focus more on the parents and their observations of and reactions to this miracle child of theirs. This is a mistake on the movie’s part, as Jim and Cindy, despite the complexities of their characters and their obvious insecurities with being thrust full-time into parenthood (Jim is determined to become an improvement over his own less-than-supportive father Jim Sr., played by David Morse) do not sustain as much interest as the fantastical Timothy.

            Consider the early scene where Timothy is bullied in school for his noticeable differences — he is brand new to this world and needs to be told how things work and what they mean. This theme was visited in D.A.R.Y.L when the boy-robot of the title is winked at by a girl and responds by blinking with both eyes, not knowing the meaning of the gesture. Only in Timothy Green, Timothy’s relationships with other kids are not adequately explored. His friendship with an alienated girl Joni (Odeya Rush) is presented without much dialogue at all. Joni figures out early on Timothy’s secret physical characteristics, i.e. his leaves and origins. But the interplay between the two does not go much further. Joni’s presence does not lead Timothy’s character development in any new directions. This is in direct contrast to the much more dynamic relationship between Daryl and his young friend “Turtle” in D.A.R.Y.L., where Turtle teaches Daryl that, because parents don’t want their children to be too perfect, he needs to display a mischievous side once in a while. Timothy Green does not offer Timothy such opportunities for exploration.

Cuttlefish Haiku by Chef Mario Batali

-- sdh

I Remember: A Film About Joe Brainard

We're big fans of Joe Brainard and have written about him several times, most recently here. We were delighted to get an e-mail telling us of a new film about this singular artist and writer whom, we're happy to say, seems to be gaining in popularity. The film was directed by Matt Wolf and is built around archival recordings of Brainard reading from his famous memoir-poem "I Remember."

Here's what Matt Wolf has to say about his film:

I've always been a huge fan of Joe Brainard's art and writing, especially "I Remember," which is probably my favorite poem ever. When I found archival audio recordings of Joe reading the text on the online archive PennSound, I knew that I wanted to make something— to bring to life the poem, but also to tell Joe's story.  I approached his best friend, the poet Ron Padgett, after reading his very moving book Joe: A Memoir, and he connected me to great photos, films, and materials to tell the story.  I also interviewed Ron about his lifelong friendship with Joe from elementary school in Tulsa, Oklahoma up until Joe's death. When I was editing the film, I wanted to create a kind of conversation between Ron's recollections of Joe, and Joe's memories from the poem. I started to realize that the film wasn't just a tribute to Joe, but a film about deep friendship, and the unique bonds artists form with each other.

The film just became available online.   The trailer below should whet your appetite for more information about Joe Brainard.  Find out how to view or purchase the film here.

 

-- sdh

The Dark Knight Rises: Backlash attack or social commentary? (by Joe Lehman)

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises stands on its own, undiminished by the success of 2008’s The Dark Knight or even 2005’s Batman Begins. Nolan delivers a story that takes clear inspiration from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Eight years have passed since the events of the previous two films. Batman has effectively retired. Gotham City, much like Eighteenth Century France, is a land of obvious socioeconomic disparity. Though the city has been virtually crime-free due to the enacting of a Patriot Act-like law, the poor and dispossessed, as represented by an underfunded home for orphaned children and an overflowing prison, have been neglected, while the wealthy elite, represented by Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne and his friends, have been “living large,” as Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman puts it, all of them blissfully unaware of the powder keg they are sitting on. Wayne, having hung up his cape and cowl now sulks around his mansion in a Howard Hughes-like existence, tended to by his faithful butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and pursuing a romance with a lovely Wayne Enterprises board member (Marion Cotillard).

This tranquility is shattered with the arrival of the masked villain Bane and his army of mercenaries. Bruce Wayne is eventually convinced to don the cape and cowl once more in order to confront the threat to his city, aided in his efforts by the techno-savvy Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), the battle-weary Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), and a heroic young beat cop (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). It would seem that director Nolan is running the risk of leaving his film overstuffed with characters. However, Nolan manages to avoid this problem by successfully creating a narrative in which every character’s role is intertwined to the benefit of each.  This is in direct contrast to Sam Raimi’s bloated 2007 Spider-Man 3, where none of the many supporting characters seemed to relate to each other or contribute much to the larger storyline.

Of all the many characters in TDK Rises, Bane offers the most material for analysis. Tom Hardy, succeeding the late Heath Ledger’s electrifying Oscar winning performance as The Joker in TDK, wisely presents a low-key portrayal, preferring to let the movie’s subtext carry the role. Bane is more of a crypto-Stalinist representation than a larger-than-life villain. Upon the necessary elimination of Batman, Bane’s agenda, obviously inspired by countless revolutions, is to lead a revolt of Gotham’s lower classes to overrun Gotham and “return the city to the people,” preaching “we have come not as conquerors, but as liberators.” What makes Bane seem Stalinist is the ever-present reminder that he is a strongman who leads his revolution from the top down, with him firmly in control. The complicated plan in which this is to be accomplished need not be spelled out, other than that it involves the employment of cat burglar Selina Kyle (Hathaway), a raid on the Stock Exchange, the destruction of a football stadium, and the detonation of a hydrogen bomb.

There are many references to A Tale of Two Cities, including Commissioner Gordon’s recitation of the final passage “it is a far, far better thing that I do” and (for aficionados of Dickens’ book who listen closely) the introduction of a minor character named Stryver, a direct reference to a supporting character in Dickens’ novel. In one of the best sequences of the movie, following Bane’s successful siege of Gotham, angry hoards of revolting “peasants” storm the Park Avenue penthouses of the ruling classes, helping themselves to their material spoils, and herding the dethroned members of the elite out onto the street. These unfortunate aristocrats are then subjected to mock show-trials where they are forced to choose between public hanging and “exile” onto the thin ice of the frozen harbor.

Many commentators have detected a right-wing message in this movie. It can be argued that the revolting masses are portrayed as a force to be feared and disparaged and that it takes a wealthy Christ-like capitalist savior to repel the barbarians at the gate and turn back the tide of the revolutionaries’ repressive violence. Bruce Wayne/ Batman is to Gotham City’s anarchist siege what the Scarlet Pimpernel was to France’s post-revolutionary Reign of Terror—a masked counterrevolutionary hero. Indeed, it is hard to miss the real-life parallels with the Occupy Wall Street protests that have shaken America throughout the past year, which have made the country’s wealthy elite very nervous and much more likely to throw their support to Mitt Romney (who could very well be the real world’s Batman/Scarlet Pimpernel capitalist savior) in the upcoming presidential election.

Contrary to the charges of Rush Limbaugh-esque conservatism, TDK Rises comes off not as a deliberate right-wing backlash attack on the 99 Percent movement, but rather as a liberal commentary on the social conditions that lead to revolution and the vengeful excesses that follow the current regime’s overthrow. This is the same message that Charles Dickens conveyed in A Tale of Two Cities. Nolan is therefore establishing his liberal reformist credentials, where Batman represents not Mitt Romney, but instead Barack Obama, the consensus builder designated to curb both the excesses of revolutionary activity and the wealthy elite’s exploitation of the masses.

Though not as well made as the previous two films of the trilogy, TDK Rises makes for a nicely fitting conclusion to what has been a superior trilogy. The film affirms Christopher Nolan’s status as one of Hollywood’s finest directors, if not merely one of the most imaginative.