Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav

[sovay]

I have been having a run of the kind of days where I can't understand why my body keeps waking up at all. In the afternoon, spatch showed me a mural he had found a few days ago, which the owners of the house should be frequently complimented on, and in the evening we watched Ken Russell's Mahler (1974), which with all due thanks to gwynnega for the recommendation we turned out to love. Autolycus sleeps with his tail wrapped beneath his ears like a pillow. My ability to watch movies seems to have returned to a normal level; the time I have to write about them has not. The number of problems the institution of universal basic income would solve for me is honestly not small.

Comments

[pameladean]

Oh, that's a great mural. We also have double garage doors with a sea-blue background and a giant squid (and some angelfish) in black, but sadly the paint has been peeling for some years now and we don't have the skill to retouch it.

I wonder if we have photos of when it was new. It's less elegant than this one, but we love it. And it's kept graffiti off the garage doors for its entire existence.

[cmcmck]

Love the garage doors! :o)

[julian]

That's a mural/painting with *attention to detail*.

(*hugs*)

[yhlee]

Octopus!

I am so mad that this country cannot get it together to offer universal basic income. *hugs*

[asakiyume]

very wonderful mural!

and yes, I wish you had time and the freedom from financial anxiety that would let you do the things you really love--which you happen to do superbly.

[gwynnega]

I'm so glad you loved Mahler! It is my very favorite Ken Russell film (runners up: Savage Messiah and The Devils).

What a wonderful mural.

[sovay]

We also have double garage doors with a sea-blue background and a giant squid (and some angelfish) in black, but sadly the paint has been peeling for some years now and we don't have the skill to retouch it.

I would love to see photos! Do you know anyone who can touch it up? I had no idea garage cephalopods were a known subspecies.

[sovay]

Love the garage doors!

I would like to leave a note telling the owners how much we like them, but I am not sure if that would be viewed as weird, especially since we are not next-door neighbors, just people who walk around the neighborhood.

[sovay]

That's a mural/painting with *attention to detail*.

I love the colors, the tangle of tentacles, everything about it.

(*hugs*)

*hugs*

[sovay]

Octopus!

I love it. More people should paint their garages with unexpected and beautiful things.

I am so mad that this country cannot get it together to offer universal basic income.

*hugs*

I am so mad at so much of this country right now and it's so tiring!

[sovay]

very wonderful mural!

spatch found it because his bus dropped him off at the wrong stop! And there it was, swimming peacefully.

and yes, I wish you had time and the freedom from financial anxiety that would let you do the things you really love--which you happen to do superbly.

Thank you.

*hugs*

[sovay]

I'm so glad you loved Mahler! It is my very favorite Ken Russell film (runners up: Savage Messiah and The Devils).

We weren't sure what it was doing for the duration of the opening reverie and then it was clear that it knew exactly what it was doing and we loved it. The TCM summary was unwarrantedly snarky: "Both trifles and structure are tossed out the door by director Ken Russell in this film . . ." One of the things I enjoyed so much about it beyond the images/actors/interplay with music/David Collings! was the way its fantasies could be dialed up or down as needed, with the horrifying burlesque of Mahler's conversion somewhere over the top of the scale and then there's the moment right after he's been told to cut out physical exertion for his health and remembers himself running and it's not a symbol, it's just part of the past now. I want my life to be safe enough to see it in a theater one day.

What a wonderful mural.

I want a garage to paint an octopus on.

[isis]

That's an adorable painting! So vivid and bright, too.

I'm annoyed at you, though, because now I'm earwormed. (True fact: I have a framed original sketch - it was my grandparents and I inherited it - by yet another artist she had an affair with, though did not marry, Oskar Kokoschka.)

[gwynnega]

"Both trifles and structure are tossed out the door by director Ken Russell in this film . . ."

Mahler is very tightly structured! Which is why it can dial up and down, as you describe. Sometimes I think people hold Russell's later work against his earlier (and, in my opinion, vastly superior) films. (I've seen reviewers call Savage Messiah wretchedly excessive, and I'm pretty sure they never saw it and just assumed, because it's not!) I would love to see Mahler in a theater, too.

[sovay]

That's an adorable painting! So vivid and bright, too.

I am leaning toward leaving the owners a note to tell them what a pleasure it is to walk by.

I'm annoyed at you, though, because now I'm earwormed.

If it helps, it's been on mental repeat with me since last night!

(True fact: I have a framed original sketch - it was my grandparents and I inherited it - by yet another artist she had an affair with, though did not marry, Oskar Kokoschka.)

That's so cool.

[sovay]

Mahler is very tightly structured!

It is! And it teaches the viewer to read its jumping-off points, so that when later in the film it nests one reverie within another it's not confusing where we are in time at all. It's also just a very good—necessarily incomplete, but all-round—portrait of a person who happens to be a famous composer but would be interesting even if he weren't because of the detail the film devotes to his inner life. Also much of it is very funn

Sometimes I think people hold Russell's later work against his earlier (and, in my opinion, vastly superior) films.

What point do you date the falling-off from? I always think I have seen fewer films of his than I have, although I'm still missing some of the really famous ones. So far I'd put The Devils, Mahler, and Crimes of Passion at the top of the list.

(I've seen reviewers call Savage Messiah wretchedly excessive, and I'm pretty sure they never saw it and just assumed, because it's not!)

When that one comes around on TCM, I will let you know what I think of it!

I miss movie theaters so much. It feels like almost everyone I know has returned to them and I would be a lot more comfortable if they had returned with any precautions, if anyone seemed to care.

[gwynnega]

I always think of Later Russell as starting with Tommy, although I'm fond of it. Lisztomania is the first film where Russell lets himself go wild in a very not-good way. (I've never made it to the end of the film, and I have tried more than once!) I haven't seen all of his later output. I bounced hard off Gothic, but I love Salome's Last Dance.

Before the pandemic, going to the movies wasn't all that comfortable for me because of vertigo, so I'd have to feel a lot safer before I'd consider going again.

[ethelmay]

There is a front door in my neighborhood that has a carving of an octopus in a diver's helmet. (I was going to try to paste in a picture, but it doesn't seem to want to paste.)

[sovay]

I always think of Later Russell as starting with Tommy, although I'm fond of it. Lisztomania is the first film where Russell lets himself go wild in a very not-good way. (I've never made it to the end of the film, and I have tried more than once!)

spatch has seen Tommy. Neither of us has seen Lisztomania, but Alex von Tunzelmann hated it.

I bounced hard off Gothic, but I love Salome's Last Dance.

I haven't seen that one! I was shown Gothic by some friends about ten years ago and it has a fantastic cast and generated an extremely entertaining single and I did enjoy the experience, but in the way where it probably matters that it has to be divorced completely from the actual history of the Villa Diodati in 1816. Like, I think the prologue of Bride of Frankenstein may be closer.

Before the pandemic, going to the movies wasn't all that comfortable for me because of vertigo, so I'd have to feel a lot safer before I'd consider going again.

Endangering yourself for the sake of vertigo doesn't sound like a great tradeoff to me, no.

[sovay]

There is a front door in my neighborhood that has a carving of an octopus in a diver's helmet.

That's great! I'm sorry the DW interface is resisting sharing it.

[gwynnega]

That Alex von Tunzelmann article almost makes me want to try to get to the end of Lisztomania. (But not quite.)

Like, I think the prologue of Bride of Frankenstein may be closer.

Exactly!

I don't remember exactly why I hated Gothic so much. It may have been nothing more than the sad realization that it was going to be one of those Ken Russell films, as opposed to the kind that I love. (That single is great.)

[sovay]

That Alex von Tunzelmann article almost makes me want to try to get to the end of Lisztomania. (But not quite.)

At least his opinions of Wagner were consistent.

[pameladean]

I am checking out the possibility of photos.

About ten or fifteen years ago, the neighborhood organization used some of its funding to pay an artist to put murals, as designated by the homeowners, on such garages as were repeatedly tagged or otherwise graffitied. The arrangement was that the garage owners would scrub down their doors and paint the background, with paint paid for by the neighborhood organization; and then the artist would do the actual art. I think both we and whoever caused the octopus that you saw to be put on those doors were given the idea by the double-door design, which begs to have an image that appears to be passing behind the gap between the doors. And aquarium naturally comes to mind after that. And squid are large and imposing, though probably seldom found in aquaria; so the necessary fantastic note that we wanted is there also.

The artist who did the mural has left town; in fact, she did so before putting more fish and some seaweed on our doors, though we are fine with that; what's there is good.

We do know artists, but they mostly do not work outside at that scale.

P.