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Joined at the
Throat
A prequel novel to Run
Plant Fly.
Joined at the hip is two so close they function as one, bound together
through thick and thin. Joined at the throat is to be bound by song,
and also implies we may have a knife in one hand and each other's
throat in the other.
Because song is not just the do-re-mi for the choir director-- it
is all our utterances-- cheers and jeers, laughter and hissing and
muttering, our mumbling repeats of what echoes within. One head
nodding before the other's lips have finished, a bit of question,
part of an answer, call-and-response and our voices build together,
not always glad. Joined at the Throat is about intimacy,
both violent and loving. A
sample coming soon to this very location... |
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Hairstyles of the Damned
a scene from When We Were Kings
Charles Brunett, film maker
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Current Stimuli
Latest Good Reads
Hairstyles of the Damned by
Joe Meno (Punk Planet Books imprint, Aakashic Books, 2004) I
heard him read from this a few years ago, when he came through the
Northwest on a Perpetual Motion Roadshow. In case you have forgotten
the pain and joy of stepping out into the adult world, you can read
all about it.
Charles C. Mann’s 1491: New Revelations of the Americas
Before Columbus is the kind of book that people who think they dislike
history should take a poke at. Mann pieces together what the Americas
may have been like as the Europeans arrived, and weaves in many
of the current debates about specific ancient American societies
and related human migrations. He works his way through numerous
historical, anthropological, and ecological theories, managing to
incorporate the changing politics and perspectives within these
disciplines as he goes. I admire his actual writing because about
95% of the time he manages to keep it engaging, and because he lets
his sources bluntly critique each other’s ideas.
Recent Movies
When We Were Kings (1996,
Leon Gast, director) is a documentary about the 1974 “Rumble
in the Jungle” between heavyweight champion George Forman
and previous champ Mohammed Ali. I am not a boxing fan, but I was
mesmerized and inspired as I watched the two US fighters, their
entourage, and all the promotion and entertainment (B.B. King, James
Brown, and Don King among others) that packed up and went to Kinshasa,
Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The humanity of
individual experience: Ali thinking out loud about the huge cultural
difference between living in an almost entirely black country and
what he has experienced as an African-American in the United States;
the Zairians’ joy in seeing the charismatic Ali; the global
politics and economics that brings the fight to the same Kinshasa
stadium Dictator-President Mobutu used to for executions and torture
until the floors ran red with blood.
I can’t remember now how I came across a reference to director
Charles Burnett, but I have been watching everything I can find
that he has had a part in. First I watched To Sleep with Anger
(1990) in which Danny Glover shows up on the doorstep of a
couple he vaguely knows from the small southern town they all grew
up in. The older couple lives in a solid working-class black neighborhood
of LA. They let Glover move in for an indefinite visit. Glover is
Evil, far more complex than “evil incarnate” because
his very nature is evil. As he explains to someone who challenges
him, he is just being who and what he is, which means everything
and everyone goes bad when he is present. Next up was Nat Turner:
A Troublesome Property (2003), a consideration and enactment
of various interpretations of Nat Turner, from William Styron’s
to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s to that of the lawyer who interviewed
Turner in jail before his hanging. My latest Burnett film is Warming
By the Devil’s Fire (2003), a fictionalized tribute to
numerous blues masters. It mixes live footage with a moody narrative
about a young boy at the crossroads between the life and music of
conservative Christian Gospel and the blues.
Daily Music
I guess I am currently a sucker for reasonably poetic lyrics set
to pop style melodies. Challengers by the New
Pornographers is a lovely album, full of plaintive vocals and
catchy hooks. I only wish I could sing like Niko Case. For the record,
I am less enamored with other albums by The New Pornographers.
I stumbled across Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus (2005)
by Cloud Cult after hearing
them do a Seattle studio version of Bob Dylan’s “Mr.
Tambourine Man.” Pretty introverted lyrics, lots of mixed
in electric and mechanical and digital sound, which is hard to sing
by oneself in the bathtub. For a chilling and amusing example of
how sound can be digitally edited to create a virtual voice, listen
to Prez George saying things I don’t believe Prez George has
ever said, in “State of the Union” on Aurora Borealis.
Duke Ellington’s recently released Piano in the Foreground
is a sampling of the Duke’s brilliant musical reach. He fluidly
blends all manner of riffs and traditions, including stride piano,
minimalist chords, and the blues, to name a few. In one piece his
piano is orchestral, in the next pure and private solo keyboard.
What a master.
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