To Live Like The Hu-Man
Now Playing: The Microphones--"Florida Beach"
A friend and ex-coworker of mine, who I hadn't seen in some considerable time, stopped by work yesterday to say hello. Her schedule makes it impossible to come by when we're open, and I really don't like her workplace (and apparently she feels the same way). So it was quite a pleasant surprise to see her. We decided to go get a beer at Ashley's, as it was happy hour, and had a very pleasant time. I felt weird the whole time, as I don't hang out around other people too much and wonder on occasion if my social skills have permanently withered. I also realized how much more pleasant life is when you're with someone else in any capacity. Thanks, Elizabeth.

Oh, and another thing. I'm not Catholic and I obviously believe that people make considerable personal transformations in their lives, especially from the way they were as adolescents. That said, do you suppose that anyone in the recent papal conclave asked "do y'all think we shouldn't elect someone who was in the Hitler Youth?" Just a thought.

Clam Chowder In The Morning
Now Playing: Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel--"Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)"
After seeing the final installment of Cinema Guild's Mario Bava retrospective, Rabid Dogs (1975), I need a shower.

The weekend was pretty pleasant on average. I checked out a bunch of movies and went for a lot of long walks, now that the weather has improved considerably. I stopped at the Old Town for a couple of beers, and now like that place even more, as it's one of the few bars I still enjoy visiting around here.

My volunteer shift at WRAP yesterday made me think about my motives for volunteering (for WRAP and Planned Parenthood). I've pretty much come to the conclusion that it's a matter of self-interest (or selfishness), that volunteering makes me feel good about myself when nothing else will. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that--after all, it's still doing a good thing--but it's a little weird, if liberating, to fully acknowledge the pleasure component, for lack of a better word. If I can feel good about myself by doing good for other people (however little of that there actually is), then I don't really think I should beat myself up over it.

I'm going to start studying for the GRE this week, either getting a prep manual from Borders or ordering a used one from half.com, and hopefully retake it sometime this summer. I'm sick of being here with no reason.

Lots of movies this weekend. Friday, Lou showed the Howard Hawks double bill. I'd forgotten how incredibly awesome Scarface was. Violence, intrigue, possible incest, an Al Pacino-like frenzy of near-overacting at the end, and Ann Dvorak as Paul Muni's jailbait sister. Fabulous. Only Angels Have Wings, about a gang of bush pilots in South America, managed to pall in comparison, even with Jean Arthur and Rita Hayworth. There's really nothing like a pre-Code movie.

Larry Cohen's God Told Me To (1975), is about God telling people in New York City to become murderers. One of the most imaginative movies I've ever seen come out of this country. Ken Loach's Raining Stones (1993) has Bruce Jones from Coronation Street as a Mancunian shlub trying to get the money together for his daughter's First Communion dress. I watched it this morning while eating leftover clam chowder from work for breakfast. An unusually heartfelt movie from Loach, I thought--although I still haven't seen Kes (1969).

Rabid Dogs concerned the getaway of a trio of psycho crooks with three hostages. It was very well-done but very unpleasant; a young woman in the audience had to leave during a particularly nasty scene, and I was almost right behind her. However (and it was probably different for me, being a guy), I try not to let myself get defeated by these things. The only two movies I remember getting the better of me (i.e., my inability to make it through them) were Rock 'n' Roll Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Ape (1962) and Agnieszka Holland's Total Eclipse (1995), with Leo DiCaprio and David Thewlis in the roles of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, respectively. With actors like that, and with a scene where Romane Bohringer lolled around Verlaine's bedroom naked but for a top hat, it still managed to be one of the most stultifying movies I've ever seen.

I think I'm going to clear my palate this evening--maybe clean my room, maybe watch The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (probably just the thing after Rabid Dogs) and have some more clam chowder.

My life is almost overpoweringly stirring.

Nothing New But Movies
Now Playing: Billy Bragg and the Blokes--"St. Monday"
Since I got a phone again, I've been able to rent movies from one of the few really, really good places in Ann Arbor: Liberty Street Video, one of the best rental places in the Midwest (from what I can tell). The staff are usually pretty nice, which is a little unsettling for a video store, but I shouldn't complain too much.

The cold continues to evaporate and the weather continues to get warmer, and I finally felt up to visiting the Nichols Arboretum once more, for the first time snice probably Christmas. As it's only a few blocks from my house, there's really no good excuse for my absence.

For some reason, though, my life has, as usual, revolved around watching obscure movies rented from LSV (whose 6 for 6 days at $6.66, while a second-grader's level of blasphemy, really can't be beat). And, of course, the ones Lou puts on over at Cinema Guild.

The People That Time Forgot (1977), was the sequel to The Land That Time Forgot (1975). The first starred Doug McClure, the second starred Patrick Wayne, and both featured some entertainingly unconvincing rubber dinosaurs. I really like that sort of thing, myself, especially since it looks like not a drop (?) of CGI was used. I'd been warned that People would be awful, but was surprised to actually like it. The supporting cast--Sarah Douglas, Thorley Walters, Dana Gillespie, and Shane Rimmer--were great, and there's kind of a lost-world quality that arises from the movie's place in the wake of Star Wars, which came out in the same year. To me, People stands for all the endearingly old-fashioned special-effects movies that got pulverized by Lucasfilm's corrosive popcorn majesty. For that, I'll love it always.

60s German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder is an acquired taste for me, but I was surprised to enjoy his The American Soldier (1970), about a noirish Vietnam veteran-cum-hitman. There's probably never been a weirder ending (oh, sure there has, but you've gotta have some reason to go see it).

Cinema Guild this week showed Lisa and the Devil (1973), Mario Bava's second outing with the bodacious Ms. Elke Sommer, who looks great in this. The movie really could have been retitled Spanish Castle Magic or something, and could have roped in people expecting to see a Hendrix documentary, as it sort of involves magic and takes place in a Spanish castle. It's good to see, by the way, that my powers of wit haven't deserted me. Telly Savalas adds another triumph to his pre-Kojak entertainment career (this came right after Horror Express), and the movie is completely wacko, although it isn't quite leavened by the joyous misanthropy of Five Dolls For an August Moon.

Tonight, it's "Cinema Guild--After Hours" in Auditorium 2 of the Modern Languages Building for a mini-tribute to Howard Hawks, with the original Scarface (1932), which I've seen, and Only Angels Have Wings (1939), which I haven't.

Projectorhead, an organization of the U-M Film Studies Department (I think), shows movies for a time every Thursday in the same space. Last night, they showed The Merry Widow (1934), an Ernst Lubitsch comedy with Jeannette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier. Ever since my mom took us to see Naughty Marietta (1935) at the old Varsity Theater in Baton Rouge, I've always wanted to see more of MacDonald's stuff. Sonia (MacDonald) is the wealthiest widow in the Ruritanian country of Marshovia, so wealthy that her fortune composes just over half the gross national product. When she tires of Marshovia and decides to go have fun in gay Paree, the frantic King Achmed sends the ultra-suave Count Danilo (Chevalier) after her to try and win her (and her money) back. Edward Everett Horton is great in his usual role as a dithering fusspot (in this case, the Marshovian Ambassador in Paris). Great fun, with well-written songs (including composer Franz Lehar's famous "Merry Widow Waltz") and entertaining contrived situations, double entendres, and assorted numskullery.

Man Talk, Sweetie
Now Playing: Holly Golightly--"Stain"
I'd volunteered a while back to help man the Planned Parenthood booth at the U-M Take Back the Night rally on the evening of April 8 and began to regret doing so as I trudged home from work. It had been another long day, and I'd been given the shaft by two members of the motorized community--the AATA busdriver who'd driven past my stop as I stood there in full view, and the jackass who almost ran me over at the intersection of Geddes and Observatory. He wasn't even talking on a cellphone!

I ended up going, and was rather glad I did, even with the drum circles (for which I think I'm temperamentally unfit) and being harangued to withdraw from the cult of masculinity (I think I know what that is, but I'm not sure). There were musical performances and a number of speakers, some of them survivors of sexual violence themselves. That part was pretty inspiring, even if I was too exhausted from work to join the rally on the march, which took in a good chunk of the downtown area. The evening made me think about what it means to be a male feminist, especially one like me (and this is starting to sound like a really bad Michigan Daily editorial, for which I sort of apologize). Usually, males describing themselves as feminists are seen as granola-huffing hippies or completely emasculated drones desperate to prove their worth to their girlfriends. I'm neither, am proud of being a feminist (which I generally interpret as being in favor of gender equity), and if you have a problem with that, that's just too damn bad.

On a pretty unrelated note, I finally saw Psychomania, the 1971 Don Sharp classic that British Horror Films accurately describes as "the best film ever made about zombie bikers in Surrey." Bonkers from beginning to end, and a hilarious screen swan song for poor George Sanders, who committed suicide a year later. A must-see; I mean, if you can't have fun watching a movie about an undead motorcycle gang, how can you have fun?

"Oh maaan! What are we waiting for?"

Just Another Diamond Day
Now Playing: The Kinks--"Sweet Lady Genevieve"
That's two Vashti Bunyan references in as many days--there's clearly something wrong with me.

Yesterday was one of the most experientially diverse (?) days I've had in a while. Work was intensely and ferociously blah, and I felt like a convict released from prison at age eighty-five when I signed out around four.

A pity, too, because it turned into a gorgeous day. I was strongly tempted to remain home and fall asleep, but I decided to go to the WRAP office and see what could be done with the library before the tenth anniversary on Saturday.

Kim was there, as was Meredith Hochman of Planned Parenthood, also part of the WRAP board, and we all hung out and chatted--there wasn't all that much to do with the library, and what there is I'll try and finish Saturday afternoon. I also found out I wasn't the only straight person volunteering there, which was something about which I'd definitely been wondering.

After spending a rather pleasant half-hour or so (I talked and interacted with more people than I do most weeks), I rattled along to the CD release party of local songstress Kelly Caldwell, at a house on Division Street. I arrived way too early and spent what seemed like an hour hunched against the staircase by the door and scribbling in my notebook. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and I knew no one, so it seemed like the logical reflex. The good thing was that I got half of a new story finished--about 1500 words in one standing!

All was forgotten once the music started playing. "Sick Llama" opened with a batch of noise that made me feel like an extra in Eraserhead, so that was fun. Kelly Caldwell, though...

She turned the night into one of the two most enjoyable musical experiences I've yet spent in this town. Backed by members of Saturday Looks Good To Me and the Great Lakes Myth Society (I still have to hear the latter), she stood at the microphone, played the guitar, and sang ballad after ballad in a harsh yet lovely voice that reminded me of a more introspective Holly Golightly ("Stain" came immediately to mind). The songs, all melodically stunning, ranged from breakup dirges to revival-style singalongs, and had most everyone in the audience hypnotized, including myself. There were the odd ones out, of course--the party animal waving a 40 and telling everyone he was going to throw up (bearing a distinct resemblance to my brother's ex-co-worker Chris Cullotta from Godfather's Pizza in Baton Rouge). The other I can remember kept telling jokes no one else heard or understood, and I felt a little sorry for him. In any event, the show itself was a vastly more than adequate return for the anti-social agony I endured/created the hour before. I suspect there was a second set that I missed, but I had to work. A wonderful, wonderful time.

"You Try Invadin' This Planet Agin An' I'm Puttin' You In Traction!!"
Now Playing: Vashti Bunyan--"Rose Hip November"
The new series of Doctor Who will be a success, I think. There's still room for improvement as far as the story and pacing (especially as they're doing only one-episode stories of forty-five minutes each), but I think Chris Eccleston is going to be a terrific Doctor (pity, as he isn't coming back for another series). While watching Tuesday night, I mentally put the post-title words in his mouth, referencing his superb performance as DCI David Bilborough in "Cracker." Great fun--"It'll never last--he's gay and she's an alien."

Work, work, work... my dogs are barking and foaming today and I need to take a nap. I had an excellent dream last night where I was at a party, and will therefore go to the Kelly Caldwell CD release party this evening; maybe it was in the foretelling--"really, Doctor, you'll be consulting the entrails of a sheep next."

Men With "Dirty Macs"
Now Playing: New Pornographers--"Execution Day"
Sunday's Cinema Guild showing was Mario Bava's 1971 "classic" Twitch of the Death Nerve, shown under the title of Bay of Blood. The plot is incredibly simple--people show up to a deserted house, where they are all messily butchered by a variety of knaves and rascals. Twitch was the primary inspiration for the slasher genre "as we knew it" in the late 70s and 80s, which means that it was responsible for a whole truckload of awful movies. After Five Dolls the week before, this was a real letdown. If you're young and pretty and have sex, you basically deserve to die, was the message here. It reminded me of last year's midnight showing of Psycho at the Michigan Theater, part of that excruciatingly pretentious New Yorker "tour." I'd been prepared to enjoy it, but a whole lot of slasher-flick aficionados showed up towards the front of the seats, and the creepy, unwholesome simian hooting during Marion Crane's "big scene" really turned me off the genre for a while. We had a few newcomers show up who were apparently huge Bava fans and say in so many words "well, if you don't like it, you just don't get it." Fair enough, although lack of understanding won't stop me from criticizing. For me, that whole way of thinking's kind of a weak ploy to weasel out of narrative accountability. I think after shows like "Doctor Who" and movies like The Wicker Man, I've been spoiled for interesting writing and intriguing plots, and now expect those in all my movies and TV shows. I recently saw Shaun of the Dead (2004), a British comedy about a 29-year old retail worker forced to cope with an onslaught of zombies. Brilliant writing, terrific acting, wonderful characters, and not a wasted moment in the entire movie. I'd seen that the day before Twitch, so maybe that spoiled it for me. What an elitist prick I am.

Speaking of "Doctor Who," I finally get to see the new show tomorrow night on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which we get from Windsor, Ontario. There's already been a great deal of discussion on the British Horror Films forum as to the new series' relative merit--some of it acrimonious, probably forcing away a much beloved poster, sad to say. I haven't gotten that excited about it yet, although I'm sure I'll be squawking a different tune tomorrow evening.

The weather's getting a lot nicer, and I think I'm starting to feel a little better about life. A long walk sounds like an excellent idea.

Global Warming Wanted! All Is Forgiven!
Now Playing: Super Furry Animals--"The Placid Casual"
The week has been remarkably blah in Ann Arbor. This is hardly surprising, but whoever's "in charge" has seen fit to dangle a couple of days of spring in front of our faces and then pee on us by bringing back the 40s. In an environment where I've become convinced I suffer from seasonal affect disorder, this is no laughing matter (for me, anyhow).

I've started walking again, and that definitely makes me feel better. Some of my best days here have been spent walking, and I found yesterday while tracing over the crime map in the Ann Arbor Observer that I've covered a remarkable area in and around downtown over the last two and a half years.

As is my wont, I passed the week by watching a couple of good movies: Memento (2001) and The Official Story (1985), both rented from the Ann Arbor District Library as usual.

Memento I got as a lark, but ended up enjoying it, a "Time's Arrow"-type journey, directed by Christopher Nolan, through one man's truly fucked-up life. Stricken with an intense short-term memory disorder, he can only remember things that happened a few minutes ago, apart from his life before his wife's death. Guy Pearce's excellent performance and truly weird charisma help to redeem some stilted dialogue. There's also a heartbreaking portrayal of a married couple by Harriet Sansom Harris (Bebe on Frasier) and Stephen Tobolowsky.

Another marriage with problems dominates The Official Story, an Argentinian film made shortly after the collapse of the military dictatorship that fought the Malvinas/Falklands War of 1982 and murdered all the thousands of "desparecidos" (people suspected of subversive activity) beginning in 1977. A well-to-do teacher realizes that her daughter is actually the child of such a couple, taken by her husband, a man with influence in the government. Her growing awareness of how the political situation is tearing her family apart is pretty moving, and I wish I wasn't so lazy at present so I could check imdb for a few names (for shame).

I also saw His Girl Friday (1939), which was great. I now have a huge crush on Rosalind Russell. Much better than the original The Front Page (1931), with Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou, pretty awesome to begin with. Those who like that sort of thing should check out a rare Cinema Guild evening showing on Tax Day, April 15, at 8 pm in Auditorium 2 of the Modern Languages Building at the University of Michigan. Cinema Guild jefe Lou Goldberg will be showing a pair of movies from His Girl Friday helmsman Howard Hawks--the original 1932 Scarface, starring Paul Muni (I've seen it, and it's awesome), and 1939's Only Angels Have Wings, with Cary Grant and Rita Hayworth. So many movies, so little time...

I'm not actually listening to the SFA right now, but it's the last thing I heard. I'm not sure how that thing works, anyhow.

I'm just not into the April Fool's thing anymore.

"Dead People Don't Come Back To Life"
"If the priest knows that a person who is living a notoriously evil life intends to come to Communion, the priest shall speak to that person privately, and tell him that he may not come to the Holy Table until he has given clear proof of repentance and amendment of life."

--The Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal) (1979)

I love that "notoriously."

I went to church voluntarily for the first time in seventeen years yesterday. It was out of curiosity, not belief--I've never believed going to church has any effect on behavior or morality for me (outside of acquainting me with the Bible, which I could have done on my own--and largely did), and if that's the case, then why go? I was interested to see how it would feel after all these years and Easter Sunday seemed as good a time to go as any. There were decided differences of course, between Trinity Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor.

St. Andrew's was much more architecturally impressive (like that really means anything from a theological or moral standpoint). The building dates from 1867, and the interior decorations were gorgeous. It was odd, then, that the service was largely "contemporary," whereas the liturgy in the sixties wood-panelled glory that was Trinity Episcopal was mostly "traditional." I decided not to take the Eucharist, as I don't believe in its literal or even symbolic truth. I realized during the ceremony that it can be interpreted as a metaphor for one's membership in the human community, but I suspect that many of the people who take it view it in a far more literal sense, so I thought it would be disrespectful to go up there myself (I was confirmed and everything, but it looks a lot different from my own perspective). For me, it would be like joining a minyan or reciting the shahada (and I'm sure the other participants wouldn't appreciate it one bit). Interestingly enough, I can still pretty much deliver the entire Nicene Creed from memory. The title quote for this post comes from the Easter sermon, incidentally.

It was an enormously interesting experience--maybe I'll go again in 2015.

What better way, then, to further celebrate Easter than to drop by Cinema Guild and watch an Italian slasher film made by a devout Catholic with an almost sociopathic disdain for human nature?* Mario Bava's Five Dolls For an August Moon (1970) is one of the most bizarre and entertaining movies I've ever seen. The plot is pretty simple--several people end up stranded on an island and kill each other off, most of the reasons having to do with money and a secret scientific formula. There is absolutely no reason to care about the characters, and their sheer venality makes it fun to see them get killed off to some incredibly groovy music by Piero Umiliani. This is, of course, the staple situation of every slasher movie, but Bava somehow manages to make it classy, unlike Michael Lehmann in Heathers (1989), where some truly dark and funny satire is undercut by the script's apparent need to have Winona Ryder appear in a quasi-heroic role (and by Christian Slater's mere appearance onscreen). I was going to continue my spiritual Easter journey by going to see the Javanese gamelan performance of The Mahabharata at Hill Auditorium, but the movie had somehow drained my energies. If you get a chance, definitely check it out.

Five Dolls, not Heathers.

Here's a truly inspiring summary and appreciation of a great career. Make sure you read to the very end.

It's the first genuinely nice day of the year--I think I'll go frolic or something.

*I'm exaggerating, but only slightly.

The Kingdom of Make-Believe Lives!!
Like Jesus and Bob Hoskins, I had a fairly eventful Good Friday. Sure, I didn't threaten the political and social fabric of entire civilizations. My London gangland empire was never conquered in the space of a day by the Irish Republican Army. It was pretty eventful, though. So there.

For one thing, I got my hair cut. People don't really like you or trust you unless you're well-groomed. It's a shitty lesson that leaches away one's will to live, but it's there. Honestly--I don't like anything making a liar out of the late, great Fred Rogers.

Tucked away in the Depot Town district of Ypsilanti, Michigan, the "D.T." or "Unabomber Central" (as I'm so close to calling it) seems the size of my kitchen and living room put together. It's apparently run by the multi-talented Naia Venturi, a local artist and puppeteer. I'd been there once before, for "Chemical Traces," a marionette musical about rival unabombers in love with the same disgruntled and heavily armed postal worker.

Good Friday at the Dreamland saw the "March Manifestival," a cavalcade of fun, games, music, and a marionette extravaganza (I like puppets, so I went), following a script partially composed through audience participation. It was a little alarming at first, as the Picaroons came on and played a whole lot of folk music (including a song derived from Shakespeare that I'm pretty sure was covered by Vashti Bunyan once upon a time). I recovered much later that night by listening to Rocket From the Tombs, the Mars Volta, and the Roots.

I don't know why, but the Dreamland seems to have an obsession with the Unabomber (himself an undeniable product of the "Harvard of the Midwest"). We played a trivia game where the contestants were read a line and had to guess if it came from a U.S. president, a Nobel laureate, or the Unabomber. I ended up tying this Martin guy and then it was on to the puppets. I seemed to pull a lot of adjectives during the script-writing, including "stainless," "ruddy," "tumescent," and "cavernous," which give you some idea of the finished product. A wonderful evening, even if (because?) I had to miss the folk-dancing to catch the last #5 bus back to Ann Arbor (um, yay, I guess).

After I returned, I went to the Blind Pig to see Jamie Register, one of the people behind hiphop collective Cloud Nine Music. Local band Otto Vector played first, and I'll just employ the notes I jotted during the performance...

"Who are these people? The place is deserted--I expect tumbleweeds. The music seems kind of a hard-edged dance-pop with a very eighties vibe. It's all right, but definitely not what I associate with the Blind Pig. Kylie Minogue with guitars--that's who they remind me of! Now I can die in peace (unless someone tries to pull a Schiavo on me, in which case I won't be pleased). There are some unbelievably half-hearted moshers right in front of the stage. I'm not sure I've got the heart to stick around for the Cloud Nine guys... Sweet Jesus, this place is dead (no offense, given the date). It's just as well, of course, as I found my usual place on the stool by the wall next to the 1972 Blues Fest album (with John Sinclair pompously smirking all the way through). Still... I've never seen it like this. Yeah, this is really getting me down. Screw the headliner--I could be at home watching old 'Cracker' episodes."

And so I went.