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

[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.