Touch the spark, sound the tone

[sovay]

1. I was just supposed to meet derspatchel for lunch at Christopher's. We left Porter Square Books something like five hours later. It's not like I never meet people to whom I do not have to explain Anna Russell, but it's still strangely cheering when it happens.

2. Tomorrow I leave for D.C., to spend the weekend with a combination of rushthatspeaks, B., strange_selkie, darthrami, and my god-daughter whose second birthday is being celebrated on Saturday. The one downside: I am going to miss Mission of Burma at the Brighton Music Hall, which I'd been planning on before I saw how the dates lined up. I haven't heard them live since 2010. They had better start playing a lot more local shows.

3. I haven't heard that it's traveling to Boston, so I really don't want to miss the International Center for Photography's Weegee: Murder Is My Business, especially after seeing The Naked City (1948) in the fall. It doesn't seem impossible that I should be able to get to New York before September, though.

4. I imagine most of you have seen this already, but it is still extremely cool: "What would the trunk of a tree sound like if a cross section of it were played like an LP?"

5. There are about a dozen essay-ish posts I want to make on various things I have read or watched, but I don't think any of them are getting written this weekend. The rest of this sentence fell over into self-recrimination, so I think I'm going to bed.

It's finally snowing. It's rather lovely. Why does it have to be the day I fly somewhere?

Comments

[sovay]

But i went an untold number of Human sexual response/ Zulus shows back in the day.

Lucky. I have only the recordings. (Now I'm going to have "Marone Offering" stuck in my head for the rest of the day.)

I never saw Mission of Burma in their first incarnation: they broke up when I was two. I discovered them in the summer of 2007 with "Spider's Web" and "2wice" and then connected with someone who was both a long-time fan and a friend of theirs, so I saw quite a lot of them onstage until this past year, when circumstances and finances prevented.

Naked City is on my list. just haven't gotten to it yet.

I finally caught it on TCM in September, after hearing about it for years. It's an odd mix of genres and styles, both in terms of acting and cinematography—it's not that it can't decide whether it wants to be a documentary, a police procedural, or a film noir, each with its own atmosphere and morality, but it doesn't change up when the viewer expects it to—but it completely deserves its reputation.

Is there a character based on Weegee in the film? or is the look of it "Weegee like"?

The visual style is based heavily on Weegee's photography and the title is taken from his 1945 book. I don't know his work nearly as well as I'd like to.

The other day i saw a lovely scene of snow flurries in the sunshine at thorndike field area near Alewife station. reminded me of a 15th century dutch landscape painting somehow - but damn i did not have my camera with me...

We had that here on Thursday: snow from a near-clear sky. It was beautiful and I didn't photograph it, either.

Land of the glass pinecones

[tiereu.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify. Human Sexual Response was little before my time. i saw their incarnation: The Zulu's (late 80's) - i'm getting up there, but not ancient ...yet. now i have "land of the glass pinecones" stuck in my head.
http://youtu.be/swXqa_jkfvs
thanks for the film info. I can pick up "Naked City" dvd at the Arlington library.

[sovay]

i saw their incarnation: The Zulu's (late 80's) - i'm getting up there, but not ancient ...yet.

I never have any idea how old anyone is on the internet.

now i have "land of the glass pinecones" stuck in my head.

Live version! I haven't got that. Thank you.

I can pick up "Naked City" dvd at the Arlington library.

Enjoy! I get a lot of movies from them . . .