We will write a song by all the light that's left

[sovay]

tl;dr the verdict from my doctor is that between the construction and its complications, the sleep deprivation of this summer has been so severe that my body actually has gotten out of the habit and needs to be reintroduced. Fortunately she believes it can be done. Have some links.

1. Canadians! Per my previous post about the sudden move on the part of the Canadian Coast Guard to destaff two crucial light stations in British Columbia, there are now two petitions which can be signed in support of reconsidering the surprise decision, one to the House of Commons and the other to the Union of Canadian Transportation Employees. For people of whatever nationality who wish to spread the news on Tumblr, sanguinarysanguinity has done the good work. Please sign if you can, signal-boost if you can't. Relevant people were not consulted and that stretch of coast hasn't been called the Graveyard of the Pacific for its offhand navigability.

2. When Alain Delon died, nearly every obituary seemed to refer to his trenchcoat in Le Samouraï (1967) as Bogart-inspired. This is blatant Alan Ladd in This Gun for Hire (1942) erasure.

3. Via selkie: "Goodbye gender studies; hello, Greek literature." Does the entire ancient world have bad news for New College of Florida. Aristophanes will have to take a number somewhere behind Athene and Axiothea and we haven't even gotten to the Bacchae.

I couldn't get a good scan of my favorite photo of Donald Swann out of Robin Muir's John Deakin: Photographs (1996), so I took a picture and am telling myself that the generation loss only adds to the scuffed-up Deakin aesthetic.

Comments

[garonne]

Goodbye gender studies; hello Greek literature

I’m no Classicist, indeed my meager knowledge of Greek literature is mostly via osmosis only. But wow, even I know enough to have laughed aloud when I laid eyes on that tweet!

This is blatant Alan Ladd in This Gun for Hire (1942) erasure.

Yes! Haha.

Actually I don’t see much similarity at all between Le samouraï and Bogart's Chandler films (which I guess is what they're referring to) nor between Delon's and Bogart's portrayals. I mean, can you imagine Delon's character in either of the bookshop scenes? I don't know if I'm missing something or if it was just a case of the obituary writers latching onto the only film noir actor they thought people would have heard of!

[moon_custafer]

If any actor and any movie drew inspiration from the first of those bookshop scenes (hmm?) it was Harrison Ford as Deckard in Blade Runner, pretending to be from "the American Federation of Variety Artists, from the Committee on Moral Abuses."

[sovay]

I’m no Classicist, indeed my meager knowledge of Greek literature is mostly via osmosis only. But wow, even I know enough to have laughed aloud when I laid eyes on that tweet!

I can only hope some of his students do the same.

I mean, can you imagine Delon's character in either of the bookshop scenes?

I really can't. (I subscribe to moon_custafer's theory, though.)

I don't know if I'm missing something or if it was just a case of the obituary writers latching onto the only film noir actor they thought people would have heard of!

The only thing I can think is if Melville himself linked the character of Jef Costello to the screen persona of Bogart, but I have no evidence that he did and I still wouldn't see it. Even Mitchum would be closer.

[poliphilo]

Melville was in love with American popular culture. He knew Bogart wasn't the only man who owned a trench coat.

I agree Mitchum would be closer, but Ladd closest of all.