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A twinge of conscience is a glimpse of God
I am still sick. It doesn't feel like flu, but it doesn't feel great, either. Yesterday I walked all the way to the Clarendon Hill Stop & Shop and back on a fruitless quest for plain, salt-free Quaker rice cakes (I have been able to establish the company still makes them, so why doesn't anywhere around here sell them anymore?) and that was about it for my day. We made various experimental mixtures with Fire Cider and watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). I can't do much about the smiling Irish twee stuck around the edges of that film, but I love so much of the rest of it. Contrary to popular belief, a precautionary dose of Kraken rum, ginger beer, and terrifying medicinal New England tonic does not make the banshee any less chilling.
The internet is affording me some excellent distractions, at least. For example, I had no idea that the major archive of Edward R. Murrow's work was at Tufts University. They have digitized, if not the entire run of the show, then a substantial percentage of the personal essays broadcast on This I Believe (1951–1955). I can't find them organized in broadcast order, but exploring by name or theme is just as interesting. I started with Peter Ustinov.
The last I'd heard of Jill Tracy was in 2008 with The Bittersweet Constrain. Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ashlyme Facebook-linked to her recent cover of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" with David J. I've been catching up on tracks and EPs all afternoon.
I don't expect to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), butstrange_selkie gave me Lorde's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and it's kind of stuck in my head.
I must have run across William Fryer Harvey before, but I didn't expect to start with Midnight House (2009) by the Trysting Tree and end with Ronald Colman on Suspense (5/31/1945). The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) just came out on DVD, so I suppose I could pursue this obsession. It would dovetail nicely with seeing Peter Lorre in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) a few days ago.
I should go out somewhere today that isn't a disappointing supermarket.
The internet is affording me some excellent distractions, at least. For example, I had no idea that the major archive of Edward R. Murrow's work was at Tufts University. They have digitized, if not the entire run of the show, then a substantial percentage of the personal essays broadcast on This I Believe (1951–1955). I can't find them organized in broadcast order, but exploring by name or theme is just as interesting. I started with Peter Ustinov.
The last I'd heard of Jill Tracy was in 2008 with The Bittersweet Constrain. Then
ashlyme Facebook-linked to her recent cover of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" with David J. I've been catching up on tracks and EPs all afternoon.I don't expect to see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), but
strange_selkie gave me Lorde's "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and it's kind of stuck in my head.I must have run across William Fryer Harvey before, but I didn't expect to start with Midnight House (2009) by the Trysting Tree and end with Ronald Colman on Suspense (5/31/1945). The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) just came out on DVD, so I suppose I could pursue this obsession. It would dovetail nicely with seeing Peter Lorre in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) a few days ago.
I should go out somewhere today that isn't a disappointing supermarket.
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No, I think actually it's an entirely different movie with Peter Lorre and severed hands! If you can think of a third, it's a genre!
and also dovetails nicely with the photos Gemma linked to the other day on Facebook of the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol.
Well, then I'll have to see it no matter what.
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I recommend The Coronation of the Witch Queen (2012): I would listen to an entire album of séance music by Jill Tracy. I haven't given money for it yet, but I suspect NERVOUS96 (2011) is also worth it.
[edited for obvious] And everybody needs that version of "Bela Lugosi's Dead."
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If it helps, there aren't any cars in Darby O'Gill.
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(I've a certain level of mental cheering for Lorde both for enjoyment of her work and for the whole 'young Kiwi makes good', which doesn't come along very often).
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I also like Patti Smith's version, which is an entirely different direction of reinterpretation. The music bounces along with all the upbeat of the original, but Smith's voice knows it's a pointless, self-destructive game: nothing ever, ever lasts forever . . . She sounds wry and a little amused, as if her listeners should have figured it out already, but she knows they won't. It's not the showstopper of the album for me—that's her "Smells Like Teen Spirit—but I don't skip it when it comes around on iTunes.
(I've a certain level of mental cheering for Lorde both for enjoyment of her work and for the whole 'young Kiwi makes good', which doesn't come along very often).
This is the first I've heard of her. What else should I know?
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I am also fond of Tennis Courts, especially with the video.
An important and awesome thing about Lorde is that she is sixteen years old. I will be fascinated to hear what she sounds like in five years.
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"It's a new art form, showing people how little we care . . ."
That is a great video. I am reminded of PJ Harvey.
An important and awesome thing about Lorde is that she is sixteen years old. I will be fascinated to hear what she sounds like in five years.
I guessed she was young from her voice: not as young as sixteen. I have no idea what she will sound like in five years. If she doesn't blow out her instrument, really something.
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Lorde: released The Love Club EP last year at age 16, took out the NZ #1 with single 'Royals', which went on to #1 the US chart and many others as well. Debut album Pure Heroine came out a month ago, is doing platinum-well. Both feature beautiful teamwork with producer and often co-writer Joe Little, another Kiwi. Good grip on lyrics, possibly helped by the kind of home environment that might be created by her mum being a noted poet. Strong feminist sensibilities.
Currently she seems to be finishing up her second-to-final year at her well-known (for being one of the largest schools in the country) but otherwise unassuming Auckland state-run high school, though she did perform at short notice as a replacement performer at the largest Australian winter music festival, Splendour in the Grass.
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It's been a good day for covers.
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I do not remember any more how I first heard of Jill Tracy, except that Diabolical Streak (1999) was one of the defining albums of my junior year of college: "Evil Night Together" is the famous track, but I imprinted on "Extraordinary," especially when I heard the jazzier, original version from her debut album Quintessentially Unreal (1995). That album was writing music; it went into several stories in 2004–2005. ("The Dybbuk in Love" was the major beneficiary, but "Little Fix of Friction" got its title from "Make It Burn.") Into the Land of Phantoms (2001) is an orchestral score for Nosferatu that I keep meaning to play synched up to the film sometime; The Bittersweet Constrain is her most recent full-length album. (I can't remember if I put "The Water Flows So Slow" into any of my drowning mixes, but it's right up there.) I didn't realize she'd had any projects since then, but they're scattered all over her Bandcamp. Including a Christmas EP, which puzzles me slightly. It looks like the next album will be in the vein of Coronation of the Witch Queen (2012), which I am fine with. If you want more songs of hers, I will cheerfully spam you.
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... watched Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). I can't do much about the smiling Irish twee stuck around the edges of that film, but I love so much of the rest of it.
I've never actually seen it, being too much affrighted of the twee, but perhaps I should. In the Nineties in Chicago I met an actor whom I'm thinking I was told had played a role in it--he was travelling with a one man show based on the works of Brendan Behan, which was brilliant.
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Well, that sounds cool all on its own.
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You are very welcome. That song takes a new level in badass when it gets to the bridge.
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