Marianne Faithfull 1946-2025

 

End of January 2025. Paint and mixed on paper

 

oddball. New.

https://oddballmagazine.com/poem-by-kaylyn-mellace/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIHMt5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHS_6oMxfx7YfYneAy95QTbeGUnnjcOqXPdHaO6fs3779-RwKNo1rOLAn7Q_aem_VrRYAmYaEq0uQkaaqEoYMQ

Jaune Quick To See Smith 1940-2025

We lost another strong artist and contributor to our world while that evil sack of shit still walks this earth. Unfair. I pray for his demise sooner than later.

New piece January 2025. Mixed on paper

 

sold at postcards from the edge benefit auction for AIDS.

 

Bertrand Blier 1939-2025

Jo Baer 1929-2025

I met her when I was a very young artist at St. Adrienne's bar, and I couldn't stop staring at her she was so attractive.

American Primeval 2025

Now streaming on Netflix this might be the most violent series I've ever seen. Loosely Based on fact the story is placed in the Utah wilderness of the 1850's where the wilderness is indeed wild. Groups of settlers are struggling to reach peace and safety but they are soon wiped out in a horrific massacre that was instigated and carried out by the Mormon militia called the Nauvoo Legion and Paiute warriors. The story as I said is based on fact and the Mormon tribe led by the nasty Brigham Young is waging war with the United States over land and their right to literally own the Utah territory damn to all those natives, pioneers and the country itself if they try to stop him, after all he is the governor of the territory and God's messenger.

The massacre is indeed horrible and I don't think I have ever seen what the force and damage that an arrow shot from a bow can do until this series. They fly through the air like missiles, strange things from another planet and land with unimaginable force and destruction. This is not my Saturday morning t.v. of cowboys and indians that I watched as a kid.

Among the settlers trying to reach safety and her husband in Crooks Springs Utah is a mother and her young son. The mom is played by the great Betty Gilpin in a brave and tough role. It turns out that she is wanted for murder and has a bounty on her head which brings in more loathsome characters, as if we needed any more. We find out the reason for her murder later on in the series but for now she is trying to protect herself and her beloved young son who appears to be crippled and wears a brace from all the horrors and dangers that come their way.

She manages to hitch her wagon with a Mormon family and they escape the massacre along with a young mute Indian girl who has hidden herself in their wagon to escape her own horrible story. This young girl will play an important role in the coming events and the hardships that await them all. .

Gilpin meets up with Isaac Reed a rough shaggy mountain man who was raised by the Shoshone and is hesitate about being her guide. He is played by the handsome Taylor Kitsch. We don't know how he came to be raised by the Shoshone tribe, and my feelings for them is a mixed bag of disgust and admiration.

The series was created and co-written by Mark L. Smith who had a hand in writing “The Revenant” which has a lot in common with “American Primeval” this time instead of a ferocious bear we have a pack of ferocious wolves. Influenced by practically every western ever made including “Dead Man” and “The Searchers” the series has come under attack by historians most notably from Barbara Jones Brown who is the co-author of “Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its aftermath for twisting the facts about the incidents depicted in the series. This is nothing new in cinema and television. You can take it or leave it.

The director of the series Peter Berg is also a familiar actor and his direction here is vivid and strong but I don't agree with his take that there were no good or evil people, only people trying to survive. Well I saw quite a few evil people doing a lot of evil things along with a few good people doing more than just trying to survive. Most of the good cast was unfamiliar to me and the quality of the look and feel of the series is impressive especially the cinematography and the sound. As I said this is not for everyone I was stressed out throughout, but to me its the best series of the year. I know its only January.

Jules Feiffer 1929-2025

 Another great visual and literary voice gone, he was part of my teen landscape when I first started to read The Village Voice.

Untitled Box. January 2025 Mixed

 

The great Joan Plowright has passed 1929-2025

 

David Lynch 1946-2025

A terrible terrible loss, and that fat disgusting pile of stinking shit still walks this earth. Unfucking unfair. 

Bone Tomahawk 2015

 

An intense movie combining two solid genres of film making and viewing, the horror and western movie into one good B like unorthodox thriller. Set in the 1890's in the small western town of Bright Hope where we get involved with a few of the citizens including the sheriff Franklin Hunt who will soon indeed be on a hunt played with grisly relish by Kurt Russell and his worn out deputy played by the always terrific Richard Jenkins. We also come across Patrick Wilson and his wife played by Lili Simmons a doctor of the town who have problems of their own notably a broken leg that Patrick got when he was making repairs to his roof and fell off of it. Crash bam.

There are other loners including a very good Matthew Fox who plays a gunslinger and various nasty types thrown about here and there including the two low life robbers played by Sid Haig and David Arquette who set the mess in motion.

The main action happens one night when the town is attacked by a gang of cave dwellers, a tribe of Indian cannibals known as Troglodytes who kill kidnap and munch. This is no revisionist take on the western, just warning you but it is twisty and tangled. The four leads take off on terrible journey to rescue the 3 kidnapped victims taken by the tribe including Wilson's wife. Amid the vast and beautiful western landscapes these searchers and indeed the viewer are in for a terrible time and no happy ending is in theirs or our future. The stress never lets up.

This is a film I never heard of but I'm always in the market for a good western and so we found each other on Netflix. This is the first movie written and directed by S. Craig Zahler who has a great flair and imagination for the horrible and I can easily recommend this exciting and at times very bloody film to a few brave souls who like their movies spicy and hot. References abound including the Ford masterpiece “The Searchers” and horror fans will no doubt come up with their own list of influences for the movie. Streaming and screaming on Netflix.

January 2025. Mixed on paper

 

Peter Yarrow 1938-2025

 

Richard Foreman 1937-2025

 

First new pieces of 2025. Mixed on paper