A slinky, sneaky, lurid, brassy adieu to Mr. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang – composer John Barry, who died this week. A fine profile from a few years ago, in Vanity Fair, here.
A Ballet for Arrows
Uppercase Magazine #8
I was browsing a densely packed bookstore, one where the shelves are surrounded by ever-accumulating mounds of unsorted, precariously stacked books. These reefs often contain treasures, drawing your eye in a flash of detail – a fragment of type, the shard of a phrase, a swatch of illustration.
So it was with The Technic of the Baton. It was a faded and foxed pamphlet, with its title, sub-title, description, author’s biography, and publisher’s information centered across the cover, like the radiating bones of a fish skeleton. I picked it up, and while absentmindedly flipping through it, happened upon these marvelous little diagrams.
Gorgeous, right? – What struck me immediately is their depth, which makes them read almost spatially. Their proportions are nearly that of the human figure, which gives them an uncanny physical presence. Diagram no. 6 is a particularly captivating example. The arrows dance, joined at the ends of dotted arms, bending elegantly across their lengths – arcing & tracking together as they inscribe measures of time.
One of the joys of this little book is the melodramatic grandeur of its descriptions of conducting – “The performers should feel that the conductor feels, comprehends, and is moved; then his emotion communicates itself to those he directs, his inward fire warms them, his electric glow animates them, his force of impulse excites them; he throws around him the vital irradiations of musical art.”
The aesthetic stakes in play here imbue these simple gestures with considerable raw power. These filigrees of motion bind a roiling mass into a single organism, tease from it emphasis and color, and simultaneously transmit and evoke interpretations both subtle and profound.
All this, I think, accounts for the particular character these diagrams possess. At first glance, they are supremely simple, pleasing graphic constructions. But ponder them a moment longer, and they come alive, like arrows engaged in elegant ballet.
The Art Imperative, Part I
The Lives of Others is among my absolute favorite films – every time I see it I dwell on its themes and implications for days. In light of a recent viewing, three interconnected posts: this appreciation, an appeal, and some verse.
The flick is about many things: The mechanics of loyalty under duress, the immutability of human corruption, the tragedy of moral compromise, the perverse bond of the spy to his quarry. It has the scaffolding of a tightly wound Cold War thriller and the drapery of a melodrama.
At its core, though, is what it has to say about art and its role in society and, ultimately, to the human condition.
Art, it makes clear, is far from ornament – it is fundamental and necessary. It is the power to reorder our world, to interrogate it. It is a question and an answer. It allows us to explore the topography of our lives and society, the edges of what is permissible or possible. Art gives the idea of freedom where to buy vicodin in los angeles shape, tangibility.
It’s why, when oppression looms, art becomes an imperative – an act of bravery and service. Art forms a haven where freedom can pool, exist, be tended to, shepherded, and protected. It becomes elevated ground from which to fight back.
The entire film frames a simple, gigantic, sobering question – What would we do? This dilemma is what throws the three main characters into sharp relief; the surveillance drone and true believer softened by by prolonged exposure to art and the vitality of life; the self-assured, savvy director galvanized to bravery; the wreck of an actress who’s collapsing under a slurry of accommodations, addictions, compromises and betrayals. Their situations serve the plot, yes, but taken together they provoke an implicit challenge, especially to those who live by and for the arts today. What would we do?
(art by Claudia Varosio)
The Art Imperative, Part II
The mere existence of Kabul Dreams, Afghanistan’s beloved independent rock band, is an emphatic answer to the question posed in The Lives of Others. To rock in Afghanistan is brave and important work. By recording, by performing, they are carving pockets of freedom out of a very harsh and hostile landscape.
My pal Jim Daniels is campaigning to help fund their first international tour. Jim is deployed with the 344th Military Information Support Operations Company, formerly known as Psyops. He’s doing deeply good work there, among many things helping shore up the essential building blocks of society: literacy, art, order vicodin online forum & culture.
The campaign for Kabul Dreams is being done in conjunction with Dart Music International a nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas. DMI works to introduce the general public in the United States to the modern face of countries and cultures from around the world.
Art is more than an act of resistance. It is a solvent, and it dissolves away the deadening of the human spirit that oppression requires to thrive. Please support this effort. You can read more and donate here, and on Facebook, here. More on Kabul Dreams here, here, and here. Thank you.
The Art Imperative, Part III
The Power of Taste
Zbigniew HerbertIt didn’t require great character at all
our refusal disagreement and resistance
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste
…Yes taste
in which there are fibers of soul the cartilage of conscienceWho knows if we had been better and more attractively tempted sent
rose-skinned women thin as a wafer
or fantastic creatures from the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch
but what kind of hell was there at this time
a wet pit the murderers’ alley the barrack
called a palace of justice
a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket
sent Aurora’s grandchildren out into the field
boys with potato faces
very ugly girls with red handsVerily their rhetoric was made of cheap sacking
(Marcus Tullius kept turning in his grave)
chains of tautologies a couple of concepts like flails
the dialectics of slaughterers no distinctions in reasoning
syntax deprived of beauty of the subjunctiveSo aesthetics can be helpful in life
one should not neglect the study of beautyBefore we declare our consent we must carefully examine
the shape of the architecture the rhythm of the drums and pipes
official colors the despicable ritual of funeralsOur eyes and ears refused obedience
the princes of our senses proudly chose exileIt did not require great character at all
we had a shred of necessary courage
but fundamentally it was a matter of taste
…Yes taste
that commands us to get out to make a wry face draw out a sneer
even if for this the precious capital of the body the head
must fall
(art: Pax Sovietica Polish Solidarity Movement Poster, 1980s, © Stapleton Collection)
Our Lady of the Clipping File, III
Contents of studio clipping tray, happenstance, slightly nudged.
Additional Inquiries
…and, after several additional inquiries, Officer Welch and I returned to the Magic Garden and questioned Rainbow, princess of the Super-Fairies again. She remained a tight-lipped and difficult witness, repeatedly insisting her glitter wand was ornamental and had no magic properties. (or, holy moly – I really dig my new macro SLR lens…)
Domestic Patterns
A photo from a tracking study of the motions of common household domestic tasks from an old issue of Better Homes & Gardens.
Egg Scale
Egg Scale, Oakes Mfg Co, Tipton, IN., gouache on board, 9″ x 12″
New painting, at long last finally done, no thanks to a rudely tumultuous Fall. Feh, arggh!, hurm… goodbye to all that, etc…
Now then – back towards then end of the summer I spotted this odd counter-weighted armature thingy in an antique shop in Duanesburg, New York. It’s an egg scale – with the weight of one egg, it shows what a dozen of that size would weigh. I love how unwieldy it looks. Most scales have a straightforward, rational design that embodies the notion of balance, calibration and measurement. This scale seems jury rigged, off kilter and improvised – in contrast to the abstract, timeless, geometric purity of the egg that it actually measures.
Diorama
Diorama, Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, digital…
Damned Flappers
I’ve had an itch to read Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned lately… mostly because I’ve had the phrase echoing in my noggin, thanks to an odd propensity of my iphone to play the the similarly titled song by Ultravox!
Anyway, poking around online for a suitable edition led to some fine discoveries. First and foremost are the two volumes above, designed by the able Megan Wilson. In fact her whole Vintage Classics series is gorgeously rendered – spare and powerfully evocative. Browse them, and more, on her site, here. I found Beautiful and the Damned over at the Caustic Cover Critic, an excellent Australian book design site. Its author, James Morrison was kind enough to refer me to Mme. Wilson’s work. The editions above are available, priced to move, here & here.
Ultravox!: The Wild, The Beautiful & the Damned [download]
[audio:https://shepelavy.com/audio/Ultravox_Wild_Beautiful_Damned.mp3]
Neil Krug & Joni Harbeck
A most excellent series of handcrafted hemp-soaked vignettes by photographer Neil Krug and his wife, model Joni Harbeck. Krug had long harbored a desire to shoot in a style that would evoke Bob McGinnis’ paperback cover paintings. One frisky late night while fooling around with a Polaroid camera, some expired film, an Indian headdress and a cigarette, the couple stumbled on something close – a sunburnt, grainy buy vicodin in spain instance of pulp. This led to a formal series, Pulp, which drew on Sergio Leone westerns, weathered thrift store records, Italian giallo flicks, and woolly late night b-movies for inspiration. The project culminated in a hardbound LP sized book, available this month, here. Both their Flickr pools and websites are worth visiting – here, here, and here – as is an interview with both, here.
For Your Pleasure, 2010
OFF!, in which the Circle Jerks’ Keith Morris, 55, records the de facto sequel to Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown EP 32 years later – proving just how elusive pure punk is, creating a flat-out total work of art, and this year’s best record. The irrepressible egghead’s Small Craft on a Milk Sea has this year’s best title and a suite of exquisite ambient constructions, of which “2 Forms of Anger” is the “loud one.”
Of Montreal’s False Priest was a flamboyant mess sloshing around the precision glam of Coquet Coquette – my favorite song of the year. “Silver Jenny Dollar” is a cat’s cradle of baroque obliqueness from Dan Bejar, this time with loungy doo-wop whoah whoahs – the high point of the otherwise okie doke New Pornographers disc, Together. (Thanks as well, New Pornos, for the tip-offs on Outrageous Cherry and Circle C – the northern lands do hold obscure and wonderful mysteries.)
The 40 years that separate the hand crafted psych of Kelley Stoltz and Big Boy Pete mean little – fitting then that these two consummate craftsmen have found each other. Their co-recording of Pete’s “Baby I’ve Got News For You” anchors Kelley’s uniformly excellent To Dreamers.
Bless you, whoever finally digitized “Magnetic Shoes,” a one and a half minute spray of power pop silly string that ruled my Walkman in high school. “The Day the Earth Stalled” and “Diego Garcia” are ace sides from old heads… The Psychedelic Furs played the best show I saw this year; honorable, too, going out like they came in, playing blistering sets in smaller halls, rather than jiving for tourists at casinos.
You are a talented man Mr. Murphy. Good to have you back Mr. Foxx.
Music Go Music? Melodramatic Scandinavian pop, shot through with heavy doses of prog, and alternating between pulsing euro disco and lush orchestrated pop – recorded in 2008, released in 2009, discovered in 2010, and my most favorite new band in ages…
I developed a weakness this year for what Robert Christgau, in a helplessly admiring review of Quarterflash’s 1981 debut, called “music for stewardesses.” “Goodbye To You” is a prime example of the form and its enduring awesomeness needs no further annotation.
Thank you Roky, for returning, and Captain, for being.
DOWNLOAD THE COMP, HERE. Happy New Year!
Seasons, Merry, Best, Etc…
Happy, etc…, to you and yours over the holidays. I’ll leave you with some remarkable photographs by Matthias Heiderich, a young photographer and musician based in Berlin. I stumbled across his Flickr stream the other night and was floored – warmth and emotion paired with abstract geometries and chilly ambiance. Take a moment and treat yourselves to more of his work, here. Sometime next week, I’ll post 2010’s For Your Pleasure… a download-able mix of my year in music. Then onto 2011. ‘Til then, then…
Blake Edwards: 1922-2010
Few movie directors have given me more sheer pleasure than Blake Edwards, who died last week. I adore the widely underestimated 10 (1979), which over the decades has developed an undeserved and cheap reputation as merely a Bo Derek ogle-fest. Actually, it’s a sophisticated mid-life crisis farce, and perfectly illustrates the best of Edwards’ sensibility – witty, sharp, smart, brilliantly physical, elegant, bracingly vulgar, lusty, and really, really, really funny. I never tire of watching the Party (1968), Edwards’ monument to Peter Sellers’ gifts as a mimic and physical comedian (the inclusion of the fetching Claudine Longet doesn’t hurt either)
He is just as rewarding in other modes besides comedy – Experiment in Terror (1962) is a tightly wound little thriller with an ace soundtrack; Darling Lili (1969) is a fascinating passion project, a epic melodramatic spy musical starring his wife-to-be, Julie Andrews. Lili was mangled by studio interference, an experience that then inspired S.O.B. (1981), one of the great venomous Hollywood satires, starring the magnificent Richard Mulligan, from TV’s Soap.
Above all, though, I cherish the first two Clouseau flicks, The Pink Panther (1963)and Shot in the Dark (1964). (Even the trailers for these films, here & here, are fantastic.) They are supreme achievements – cathedrals of hilarity – that elicit laughter so pure, so hearty that they re-affirm, I think, something of the miracle of human existence.
Marilyn Monroe: Cover to Cover
These covers are taken from the book Marilyn Monroe: Cover to Cover. It was published as basically a collectors guide, featuring a comprehensive, chronological survey of magazine covers featuring Monroe. At first it seems like a janky, quickie affair, a slim paperback with a shabby downmarket cover design. Actually, it turns out to be extremely rewarding read. Its considerable cultural and aesthetic interest derives from seeing the visual evolution of both Monroe herself and magazine design in general.
There is something in the direct, immediate nature of magazines that makes the images more vital and nuanced than the usual, canonical, perpetually reproduced “Stations of Marilyn Monroe.” In Cover to Cover it’s fascinating to watch the fluid transitions in lesser known photos from ingenue to pinup to starlet to studio player, to star, to personality, to icon.
The book also makes a real significant contribution to the record of magazine design. It’s a surprisingly far flung, international collection, spanning the late 40’s to the early 60’s. It documents many distinct, cool modes – spare, modernist, highly graphic tabloids and newspaper inserts; roughly composed semi-professional fanzines; lush lurid highly-saturated Hollywood gossip rags; and high-circulation general interest slicks.
What’s really impressive, lasting and artful is when the best of both intersect – when an indelible image is pared with a striking layout, like in the examples above… The book, now out of print, can be had, here.
The Outfit
Splash pages from Darwyn Cooke’s masterful comic adaptation of Richard Stark’s hard-boiled noir, The Outfit. In and of themselves they are wonderful pieces of art – gestural, sketchy, but deliberate, brilliantly composed, and thoughtfully detailed. The whole book, though, like it’s predecessor the Hunter, is fantastic, distinguished by innovative graphic storytelling techniques. The most striking is a bravura sequence detailing a series of simultaneous heists, illustrated in successive retro styles that evoke Noel Douglas Sickles, the UPA Studio, and classic Hanna-Barbera. Examples from it can be seen here, as part of an in-depth interview Cooke conducted with the Comics Alliance. With the now classic New Frontier, Cooke transcended his inspirations. With the Parker series he’s securing his reputation as one of comics defining talents.
Chanel No. 5
The scent of Chanel No. 5, when deployed, begins with top notes of bergamot, lemon, and neroli, blooms into a heart of jasmine, lily of the valley, rose, and orris; it finishes with a base of vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla, and amber, and fades to musk, civet, with traces of oak moss, and cinnamon – figured this was a good thing to share, just in case it comes up… (photo Hayley Haynes)