Enough About Human Rights!

Moondog's Viking of Sixth Avenue is just brilliant.  His musical aesthetic stands alone in Earth's aural universe.

I'm forever in Jon's debt for introducing me to Moondog some years ago.  He gave me the Viking of Sixth Avenue CD a few year's ago and now I own the double LP.  All is well...


Click HERE to access a YouTube posting of "Enough About Human Rights."

All That Heaven Allows

"...I certainly believe that happiness exists, if only by the simple fact that it can be destroyed."  -- Douglas Sirk


Just watched another excellent Sirk, American Melodrama, All That Heaven Allows - Criterion Collection.  

Poignant scene in which children purchase a TV for their widowed mother after squelching her happiness with another man.  This is not Sirk's best film, but highly recommended for people familiar with his works.

Wintering with Charlie White

Charlie White from Monsters

Quotation of the Day

"But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse." 

— Cormac McCarthy from Suttree

Best Live Howlin' Wolf Performance

Howlin' Wolf from Ivalle Noel on Vimeo.

Smokestack Lightning

I'd recommend Howlin' Wolf/Moanin' in the Moonlight as a starting point for your Howlin' Wolf collection.

Tom Goes to the Mayor

The animation style took some acclimation, but once accepted, Tom Goes to the Mayor - The Complete Series acts as a comedic soul salve.  If you can appreciate comedy that is weird, disturbing and sadly beautiful, I would strongly recommend renting and later purchasing this relatively unknown masterwork.  


The following is a transcript from a scene in the "Saxman" episode featured in season 2.

Saxman Scene Context:

The morning after Saxman, a local homeless musician, incapacitated Tom with his smooth, saxy, Kenny G grooves.  Tom meekly attempts to question Saxman about the previous night’s events while attempting to create a jingle for local mattress company.

Dialogue:

Tom:  You know what, Saxman, let’s take five.  Um…  There’s actually been something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest this morning.  Uh… Did you and your friends happen to come in the house and have some kind of jazz jam last night?

Saxman:  Wha’?  In the house?  No, I slept like a baby right out there in my pup tent.

Tom:  Huh, that’s weird…  It’s nothing.. . There’s just some piles of BM in my bedroom.  I…  Just ah…  Something…   I don’t know,  you know what?  Forget it.

Charlie White

The above image, one of my favorite art works, is featured in Charlie White's seminal work, MONSTERS.  This beautifully subversive, mind altering work is highly recommended.

YouTube Gem

Nerdy perhaps, but necessary nonetheless

So do we share similar interests in film? Here's my current top 10 favorite films list:

1. Blue Velvet (Special Edition)
   
2. The Night of the Hunter
   
3. A Clockwork Orange (Two-Disc Special Edition)
   
4. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
5. Funny Games
6. Irreversible
7. Eraserhead
8. Woman in the Dunes
9. Taxi Driver
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey