I wish all my kids would stop dressing up like Richard Hell

[sovay]

Things that did not actually happen this week: me recuperating any of my lost sleep. Other things that did not therefore happen this week: me getting anything done that required my brain and was not my job. I don't even know how to describe how I feel, except it's bad.

I did manage to get to Perry Henzell's The Harder They Come (1972) last night with rushthatspeaks for their birthday. It was just as good—and its soundtrack just as legendary—as I had been led to believe. I got home and looked up star and iconic songwriter Jimmy Cliff and discovered I had seen his daughter in 2016: Nabiyah Be, who originated Eurydice off-Broadway in Hadestown. That is a family with no shortage of mythic charisma.

I am trying to figure out why Momus' "I Was a Maoist Intellectual," Alabaster dePlume's "Is It Enough," and Black Country, New Road's "Sunglasses" all seem to constellate in my head. They are all talky, satirical, self-referential songs, but that doesn't feel like an explanation. The last, however, features the best saxophone skronk I've heard since Poly Styrene or Lora Logic.

I will be spending a portion of this weekend at the HFA's all-night half-marathon; this year's theme is Dark Waters. At least I can get the sea onscreen.

ETA: spatch has just sent me an archaeological record of sea otters. And a delightful and contextually mystifying photo of Anthony Perkins on the set of Psycho (1960). I appreciate these things.

Comments

[lilysea]

an archaeological record of sea otters

Isn't it cool! ^_^

[sovay]

Isn't it cool!

It really makes me happy.

[gwynnega]

I don't think I've ever seen the film, but I love the soundtrack of The Harder They Come.

That Anthony Perkins photo is so weirdly delightful.

[sovay]

I don't think I've ever seen the film, but I love the soundtrack of The Harder They Come.

The film is as good as its soundtrack! It isn't really a noir or a neo-noir, but it has the deep-dyed casual sense of place as character, Kingston as ecosystem; it actually reminded me more of some pre-Code outlaw-as-folk-hero narratives, except that it's filmed in a kind of time-leaping vérité that assumes the audience can always fill in the steps we don't need to see; and we never figured out the use of subtitles for the Patois, because sometimes they were unnecessary and sometimes they were missing, so I would say I got about seventy-five percent of the dialogue but fortunately all of the story. It made me want to see the 1966 Django and I think there is no way Quentin Tarantino doesn't love this film. Fortunately, that did not interfere with me and rushthatspeaks feeling the same way.

That Anthony Perkins photo is so weirdly delightful.

I can only assume it was professional-grade trolling on the part of the studio, but it's adorable. (He just folds up.)

[redbird]

Thanks for the animal archeology link. I am also charmed by the notes about the need to be sure that an archeological site shows human rather than sea otter activity, or that of monkeys (as I found in this article's footnotes).

[sovay]

I am also charmed by the notes about the need to be sure that an archeological site shows human rather than sea otter activity, or that of monkeys (as I found in this article's footnotes).

Yes! Look at all those splendid creatures, leaving their marks on time.

[movingfinger]

Thank you for the link to that paper! Nice work!

Are you familiar with animal-polished rocks? (Specifically, mammoths, but many animals use rocks for rubbing, which is what led the observers to understand the mammoth polish.)

Cliff- and rock-climbing and nesting birds also leave wear, over time, on their sites.

[sovay]

Are you familiar with animal-polished rocks? (Specifically, mammoths, but many animals use rocks for rubbing, which is what led the observers to understand the mammoth polish.)

Yes, but I'm not sure I've seen it applied to mammoths! That sounds great.

Cliff- and rock-climbing and nesting birds also leave wear, over time, on their sites.

I am not surprised, but I am glad to know it.

[asakiyume]

Although I'm not in the pain you're in, I still have tremendous empathy for the empty bewilderment (... is that what you're feeling? it's what I'm feeling) at not having any brain to do anything but Job, and sometimes not even that, really. I have things to share, but no wherewithal to share them.

... I can only imagine how much worse it is with an overlay of physical misery. (I have some anxiety-induced physical misery, but not on the same level.)

The archeological record of sea otters is *wonderful*. Thank you, and thanks to Spatch.

[sovay]

Although I'm not in the pain you're in, I still have tremendous empathy for the empty bewilderment (... is that what you're feeling? it's what I'm feeling) at not having any brain to do anything but Job, and sometimes not even that, really. I have things to share, but no wherewithal to share them.

*hugs*

It doesn't feel like emptiness, it just feels like exhaustion, that I know what I want to be saying and it takes so much effort to think and write and I don't have the energy left for it when I have done anything else with the day, including sometimes leaving the house.

I hope you have wherewithal soon. And relief from your physical misery, too.

The archeological record of sea otters is *wonderful*. Thank you, and thanks to Spatch.

You're welcome! It really makes me happy. I have also, thanks to handful_ofdust, discovered the throat sac of the siamang.

throat sac of the siamang

[asakiyume]

!!

I was prepared for the deep note but not the clown horn at the end!

Re: throat sac of the siamang

[sovay]

I was prepared for the deep note but not the clown horn at the end!

I sent it to my mother with the title "honk-PHWEET." I had no idea!

[kore]

THAT IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE MOVIE SOUNDTRACKS EVER. I saw the movie a long time ago, but I actually wore out a tape of Harder They Come in college. It's still awesome.

[sovay]

I saw the movie a long time ago, but I actually wore out a tape of Harder They Come in college. It's still awesome.

I believe it. We were pretty impressed.

[thistleingrey]

The otter link is awesome, in particular. Thanks!

[sovay]

The otter link is awesome, in particular. Thanks!

You're welcome!

[thistleingrey]

Via another friend, possibly of interest: on translating Fiddler.

[sovay]

Via another friend, possibly of interest: on translating Fiddler.

Absolutely of interest! I could catch some of the nuances of retranslation when I saw the show last October, but I knew I wasn't equipped to identify or parse them all. Thank you.

[thistleingrey]

*bows*

[choco_frosh]

My knee-jerk reaction is that trading sleep for film is a bad trade; but perhaps for you trading film for sleep would make you feel worse overall. And anyway, this advice is probably too late.

[sovay]

My knee-jerk reaction is that trading sleep for film is a bad trade; but perhaps for you trading film for sleep would make you feel worse overall.

I've skipped HFA marathons in the past, but I've been looking forward to this one for months and its twelve-hour duration happens to coincide with times of night I have not actually been sleeping lately, anyway. Unless I feel really like the dead by this evening, at least it will give me something nice to look at while I feel like I am failing at everything else in my life.

And anyway, this advice is probably too late.

It's not. I appreciate the concern.

[edit] We went to one film, then we went to dinner, then we came home.