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With flowers and my love, both never to come back
My dreams last night were unremarkable—a snow-covered train, a boxcar of refugees; someone had severed my legs below the knee, but they came back slowly in stages, while around me fellow-travelers in fingerless gloves passed letters in cuneiform back and forth, the last they'd heard from their families—but my mother fell asleep and dreamed she was trying to get in to talk to the zombie head of Mick Jagger.
This is the best Orpheus twist I have ever heard. It makes me wish I had more than three songs by the Rolling Stones on my computer, so that I could do it justice. Can I commission a poem from someone who actually listens to the Stones?
Since we failed to catch it in theaters, last night my mother and I rented Easy Virtue (2008), adapted by Stephan Elliott from the Noël Coward play of the same name. I am aware that the script departs somewhat from the original material, although not as much as Hitchcock's 1928 silent (a Noël Coward silent? No wonder Hitchcock threw out all but two lines of dialogue; you'd spend the entire runtime reading), but I found it very much of a piece with Private Lives, initial conditions of farce out of which some very painful questions surface without diminishing the snark. Probably the greatest surprise for me was Jessica Biel, since I knew nothing about her except that she had been in some movies I wasn't interested in; but she holds her half of the screen against Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth without a sign of strain. This is critical, since the film would simply fall down if we didn't believe in her Larita, the glamorous, Proust-reading, racecar-driving American a smitten Ben Barnes brings home, to the consternation of most of his family and the delight of the staff. Instead, it turns out that she can even sing. And as beautifully photographed as the film is, full of lenses and reflections, reminders of the tricks of prejudice and perception, it also contains jazz-age covers of songs like "Sex Bomb"—as a devotee of Max Raabe und das Palast Orchester, I must approve. Basically, delightful. I just have no idea how it provoked the dreams it did.
Happy birthday, my beautiful cousin Tristen!
This is the best Orpheus twist I have ever heard. It makes me wish I had more than three songs by the Rolling Stones on my computer, so that I could do it justice. Can I commission a poem from someone who actually listens to the Stones?
Since we failed to catch it in theaters, last night my mother and I rented Easy Virtue (2008), adapted by Stephan Elliott from the Noël Coward play of the same name. I am aware that the script departs somewhat from the original material, although not as much as Hitchcock's 1928 silent (a Noël Coward silent? No wonder Hitchcock threw out all but two lines of dialogue; you'd spend the entire runtime reading), but I found it very much of a piece with Private Lives, initial conditions of farce out of which some very painful questions surface without diminishing the snark. Probably the greatest surprise for me was Jessica Biel, since I knew nothing about her except that she had been in some movies I wasn't interested in; but she holds her half of the screen against Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth without a sign of strain. This is critical, since the film would simply fall down if we didn't believe in her Larita, the glamorous, Proust-reading, racecar-driving American a smitten Ben Barnes brings home, to the consternation of most of his family and the delight of the staff. Instead, it turns out that she can even sing. And as beautifully photographed as the film is, full of lenses and reflections, reminders of the tricks of prejudice and perception, it also contains jazz-age covers of songs like "Sex Bomb"—as a devotee of Max Raabe und das Palast Orchester, I must approve. Basically, delightful. I just have no idea how it provoked the dreams it did.
Happy birthday, my beautiful cousin Tristen!
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What three Stones songs do you have? Is one of them Lady Jane? (Clearly one is "Paint It Black")
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Look, for me, dreaming about the zombie head of Mick Jagger would have been worth noticing!
And the movie sounds great!
I had wanted to see it since I heard of its existence—Noël Coward by the director of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? sign me up! I was very pleased to find that it was, in fact, good.
What three Stones songs do you have? Is one of them Lady Jane? (Clearly one is "Paint It Black")
"Paint It Black," "Sympathy for the Devil," and "Cocksucker Blues." I want "Lady Jane," I take it?
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Lovely three-timing cad.
(I'd give it to you but I don't have it either--but I do love it)
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Excellent!
Speaking of which, have you ever seen the film Performance? It's one of my very favorites, and it seems like something you would enjoy.
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I never have, but I really want to. I've heard nothing but good things about it.
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Does he remind you of Orpheus?
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You also have me thinking about Orpheus now. You have a poem (or was it a story) with the head in the sea ... the image is in my mind but I can't recall the entire context now. Hmm ... I might have to pull out your collections again :)
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It's the starting point of "Shade and Shadow." I don't think anyone is going to pull Mick Jagger's head out of the sea, but I could always be proven wrong.
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Your dreams... well, I'm quietly amazed that you'd consider them unremarkable, excepting the fact that obviously for you they are.
Your mother's dream is wild--agreed about the Orpheus thing. I'd try to dig up some Rolling Stones, but I think everything in the house is on LP or cassette and there's no way available to me of getting those onto the computer.
Glad you saw a delightful film. Happy birthday to your cousin! Happy three-days-before-birthday to you!
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It's still appreciated. We have some vinyl, too; I could excavate it.
Happy birthday to your cousin! Happy three-days-before-birthday to you!
Thank you!
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I hope the vinyl has what you'd wish to hear.
Actually, a friend of mine here in CT regularly sings "Paint It Black" with a Celtic rock band--I just went looking to see if there was a recording somewhere of their version, in hopes of being able to give you it, but there doesn't seem to be that I can find.
Thank you!
Most welcome!
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Nine