Betty White 1922-2021

 I adored Betty when I was a kid and would watch her early tv show. And that fat orange pile of shit still walks this earth. How great it would have been if the year ended with his death. 

Desmond Tutu 1931-2021

 

Thimble Literary Magazine. Two of my works

 Posted today. 

Wayne Thiebaud 1920-2021

 The great American painter Wayne Thiebaud has passed. I adored his work, such pleasure from a piece of cake, how can that be?

Steve Bronski 1960-2021

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88sARuFu-tc

Ben McFall (1948-2021)

I am so heartbroken to lean that Ben has passed. I knew him for ever it seemed. If you knew the Strand you knew Ben. He always called me I.J. and a few years ago think around this time christmas he bought one of my postcards to give as a gift or maybe it was for him. He was the chief of fiction and I would hear him as I browsed the film shelves. He was a gem, but heaven help the person who was not pleasant when he was on duty. He could be cutting, and I never doubted his style for a minute. I am disgusted with his passing, I thought he would be with us forever. I use to love to make him laugh because he had such a great laugh. This is a miserable day.

Joan Didion 1934-2021

 Oh Fuck. 

Black Narcissus 1947

 

Nuns on the run. Not actually running but landing in an abandoned palace high in the Himalayas that was once a brothel-estatefor the rich generals and rulers of the district. The nuns are there to open a school and a hospital and are led by the young head nun, Sister Clodagh played by Deborah Kerr who has her work cut out for her. The nuns are a cross section of society more or less, some wise, one or two foolish and one played by the great Kathleen Byron is totally off her nut. Byron as Sister Ruth is boiling over with repressed sexuality and desire most of it directed at the hot honcho estate manager played with rugged male beauty by David Farrer who flaunts his hairy chest and legs in shorts and sometimes no shirt.

Byron controls the movie and indeed the life of the convent and when she is on with her wild bewildered look we can’t take our eyes off of her. She is like something out of a horror movie. The climax of the film, when Byron leaves the convent in that red dress and bright red lipstick, mad with passion for a love she can never have is one of the memorable pieces of late 40’s filmmaking.

Sister Clodagh comes from a rich Irish family who left her life behind to enter the order when she was deserted  by the man she thought she would wind up marrying. Her past life is told in flashbacks where Kerr’s ravishing young beauty is shown in full force. Also in the convent is the young and beautiful Jean Simmons who plays Kanchi a simple native young girl-woman who becomes sort of a house maid to the convent. Simmons made up in brown make-up which  might offend is at the height of her young beauty is stunning. She is an erotic bundle who glides and shimmers all over the convent, getting the look and love of the young general played wonderfully by the wonderful Sabu who is costumed in extravagant clothes that contrast with the pure white habits of the nuns.

Eroticism and repressed sexuality  runs and drips all over the convent and the landscapes. Nature plays a big part in the film, rain, snow, wind and out of control foliage add to our unease and pleasure. Powell and Pressburger based their film on a novel by the stuffy writer Rumer Godden who hated their overheated take on her work and preferred the more austere and equally marvelous Renior film of her novel “The River” made a few years later.

There is also chorography in the film. The players move and glide in and out of scenes, and move through the large beautiful rooms of the estate and through our hearts and minds.

The superb look of the film is the work of Jack Cardiff the great cinematographer who won a well deserved Oscar for this film and Alfred Junge who designed the film and also won an Oscar. 

 
The film was co-directed and written  by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger who were a dynamic and dramatic team and gave us some memorable British films mostly from the post war years, and this one is to my mind is their best. The look of the film is like a dream, made out of miniatures and matte paintings to impress and beguile us. At first you would swear that the film was made in India but it was all done at Pinewood Studios with some exteriors shot in the English countryside to step in for India. The Blu Ray transfer of the film from Criterion is superb and stunning, actually its jaw dropping. Might this be the most beautiful technicolor film ever made?  I think so.  The best film of 1947.

just look at little jimmy jordan. So tiny you can fit him in your back pocket

 

Anne Rice 1941-2021

 

Lina Wertmuller 1928-2021

 

Lauren Boebert and family

 this pile of shit is a major disgrace. Just look at this frightening photo of this boob and her children with their guns. Mommy better watch out, these kids are probably sick little fuckers. Hey Lauren keep your gun by your side. If this the best that Colorado can do? shame on them. we must remove her. 

its turning out to be a great Christmas. Burn baby burn.

 

New Feathers Anthology

Somehow I forgot to post this in the summer, so here it is in the winter. They used 2 of my collages. 

https://www.newfeathersanthology.com/new-feathers22.html

Feral Poetry

 Feral Poetry Magazine has just posted 2 of my pieces. You can view them and the entire issue at this link. 

https://feralpoetry.net/issue-eleven-the-eleventh-issue/

The Power Of The Dog 2021

 

There is plenty of meat on this sad and crushing film to get discussions about it going into 2022 and probably beyond. Set amid the sprawling landscapes of Montana in 1925, that is really New Zealand standing in for this terrain. This is another Cain and Able tale that is based on a novel by the gay and closeted writer Thomas Savage.

The narrative is about two rancher brothers one good and one not so good who live in a large mansion like house set down in this beautiful vision of the west. This house points to other films set in vast western lands in the early days of the 20^th Century including “Days Of Heaven” and “Giant” both with big mansions plopped down in vast barren plains filled with tension and remorse along with lots of dark woods and plenty of objects. Dark and light.

The dark brother, Phil is shocking in his meanness filled with homophobia and misogyny that is rooted deep into his soul and physical being. Played with great depth by Benedict Cumberbatch, Phil has many secrets lurking deep within himself that are showed to us in bright and sometimes obvious ways. Nothing wrong with that. The other brother, George is played with reserve, patience  and kindness by Jesse Plemons who unlike his brother dresses in neat suits and Eastern delight. He is not weak just sensitive and aware and who shared a bedroom with his brother from childhood until the day he wed. 

The residues of these deep sad ghosts show themselves to us rapidly and with force. Into this troubled family comes Kisten Dunst as Rose and her soft, sensitive and effeminate son Peter played by newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee, both of whom work at the town’s only restaurant, serving up fried chicken for rowdy town folks and ranch hands. Peter makes paper flowers to decorate the tables, and there is a cherished love between mother and son.

Phil belittles them both, using the paper flowers to light his cigarette and teases and taunts the boy for his ways. Jesse who is married to Dunst in real life, falls madly in love with her, and comforts her when she breaks down in uncontrollable tears because of the tossing that Phil does to her son. They soon marry and it’s a terrible time for Rose as she tries to maneuver around the house and the awful things that Phil pulls on her. Peter her son is away at school to learn to be a surgeon but he is soon back with her at the mansion of pain. He is also at the mercy of Phil who still teases and taunts him, but is soon trying to win him over by teaching him how to be a cowboy, how to ride a horse and how to be a “man.” Meanwhile Peter is accidentally discovering hidden facts and secrets about Phil and his long dead friend and mentor Bronco Henry. There is darkness within Peter also, even though he wears a white cowboy hat, while Phil is in black. These are old standby Hollywood western symbols going back to the silent days. 


The women are far and few between in the film, there are the town whores who entertain some of the ranchers and cowboys, and the two woman who staff the kitchen. Meanwhile to kill her pain Dunst is sneaking booze and is quietly becoming an alcoholic which is visible to all including Phil who holds this over his brother and Dunst. The film is full of homoerotic images and scenes: A shared smoke between Phil and Peter, A hidden box of male physic magazines, a nude swimming hole scene with the cowboys of the ranch that is right out of a Thomas Ekins painting. The title of the film is taken from a Psalm “Deliver my soul from the sword: my darling from the power of the dog. This is not an easy film to embrace or like and will confuse and bore audiences looking for thrills, and those expecting a traditional western. It’s stayed with me days after my seeing it, and that is a good sign of something worth while. One of the ten best films of the year.       

Anthony Sher 1949-2021

 Another great actor has passed. And Donald Trump a waste of humanity, a scar on our country still walks this earth. 

Lawrence Weiner 1942-2021

 Another artist has passed. and that fat orange pile of shit, that evil loser, that waste of space, that stain on humanity still walks this earth. How I long to see this headline in the Times. "Trump Is Dead."