Mona Lisa Must Have Had the Highway Blues...

French singer Barbara (1930-1997) gives voice to La Joconde. Turns out, she gets bored.



"La Joconde"

C'est moi que je suis la Joconde.
Je suis connue par le monde.
Au Louvre où la foule abonde
Pour me voir, on fait la ronde
Et moi, faut que je me morfonde,
La Joconde,
La Joconde.

C'est moi que je suis la Joconde.
Léonard me crut gironde.
Va quand Léonard vagabonde
Mais que voulez-vous
Qu'on réponde ?
C'est vrai, j'suis pas trop immonde,
La Joconde,
La Joconde.

C'est moi que je suis la Joconde.
Que de mots vains on m'inonde.
Critiques, artistes abondent
En intarissables facondes.
Plusieurs milliers par seconde
Disent: "La Joconde ! Ah ! La Joconde.
Venez voir le sourire de la Joconde.
C'est le plus beau du monde,
La Joconde."

C'est moi que je suis la Joconde.
Mon sourire vient d'outre-tombe.
Attendez que le vernis tombe.
Attendez la fin du monde
Et je sourirai sous les bombes,
La Joconde,
La Joconde,
Et je sourirai sous les bombes,
La Joconde,
La Joconde

In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr

By June Jordan

I

honey people murder mercy U.S.A.
the milkland turn to monsters teach
to kill to violate pull down destroy
the weakly freedom growing fruit
from being born

America

tomorrow yesterday rip rape
exacerbate despoil disfigure
crazy running threat the
deadly thrall
appall belief dispel
the wildlife burn the breast
the onward tongue
the outward hand
deform the normal rainy
riot sunshine shelter wreck
of darkness derogate
delimit blank
explode deprive
assassinate and batten up
like bullets fatten up
the raving greed
reactivate a springtime
terrorizing

death by men by more
than you or I can

STOP

II

They sleep who know a regulated place
or pulse or tide or changing sky
according to some universal
stage direction obvious
like shorewashed shells

we share an afternoon of mourning
in between no next predictable
except for wild reversal hearse rehearsal
bleach the blacklong lunging
ritual of fright insanity and more
deplorable abortion
more and
more


June Jordan, “In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr.” from Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2005).

No, Really, More Cowbell

Christopher Walken as The Bruce Dickinson.

I've been putting together a playlist on my iPod of classic tunes from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s. Maybe it's because I've been listening to the music in earphones, or because I re-watched the famous Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken not long ago, but for whatever reason, I suddenly realized just how much damn cowbell there was in that era.

But seriously. Rock and roll was cowbell crazy. No wonder SNL did their skit.

The question, then, is: How did I grow up in that time period and never notice all the cowbell around me? I had some of these records, certainly heard the songs on the radio.

Perhaps, as in Kabbalah (cow-bell-ah?), one doesn't really enter the orchard, or hear the cowbell, until one has reached the age of forty. Cowbell may have been too much for a child of the late 1960s and early 1970s to comprehend, what with having to deal with Watergate, Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the energy crisis, the breakup of the Beatles. . . There's only so much you can fit in your head.

My recent cowbell consciousness kicked off with a bang thanks to Mountain's "Mississippi Queen."

Then came Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band."

And the Rolling Stones, for goodness sakes: "Honky Tonk Women."

Or the Kinks, on "King Kong."

There's cowbell action in the middle of "Stuck in the Middle With You," by Stealers Wheel (RIP Gerry Rafferty), with a good close-up of the humble yet powerful instrument at 2:27 of the video.

And, of course, there's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," by Blue Oyster Cult, the song featured in the SNL skit that touched off what has become a veritable cowbell renaissance.

(As it turns out, Blue Oyster Cult was formed in 1967 at Stony Brook University. The same Stony Brook University where I currently work. Talk about your far-out spiritual connections, right? )

The list goes on and on. . . into infinity, I suppose.

I can't explain cowbell. I can only listen for it here and there in the world around me. "He or she who has ears to hear" and all that.

All I know is that I got a fever, and the only prescription is . . . UPDATE: And yet more cowbell...

War: "Low Rider."

Edgar Winter Group: "Frankenstein."

Head East: "Never Been Any Reason."

Three Dog Night: "Black and White."

Bachman Turner Overdrive: "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet."

Blood, Sweat & Tears: "Spinning Wheel."

Electric Light Orchestra: "Do Ya."

Electric Light Orchestra: "Evil Woman."

Crosby, Still, Nash & Young: "Carry On."

"As we were saying yesterday..."

I see from my previous post that I promised to add new material to ZONE the weekend of August 1-2, 2009.

That didn't happen.

And despite a 20-month hiatus, I still don't have anything interesting to post!

But I may start putting up some short pieces now and then.

For now, a film recommendation: The Lincoln Lawyer. Matthew McConaghey finally lands a good role in this gritty, 1970s-flavored trial-mystery thing based on Michael Connelly's book. With Marisa Tomei. Directed by Brad Furman, who I didn't know before this.

Andrew O'Hehir, from Salon, my new favorite film critic, says this:

Furman's film has a funk 'n' soul late-'70s feeling with a dynamite soundtrack to match, as if it were a forgotten West Coast project from early in Martin Scorsese's career. . . . Furman fills up the movie with delicious supporting characters and a baked-L.A. vibe so strong you can almost smell the weed, smog and hot asphalt. . . . It's rare enough to see a Hollywood movie made with this much attention and personality, let alone one that balances comedy and darkness as well as this one does. Not everybody makes it out of "The Lincoln Lawyer" alive, but this is a colorful and generous entertainment, not a plunge into the abyss. If its charming, roguish and not-quite-depraved hero can be redeemed, there may be hope for the rest of us.

Read his full review.

Connelly's a very good writer, the real heir, in my eyes, to Hammett, Chandler and Ross Macdonald. I'm glad to see one of his books and characters treated well by Hollywood. The last attempt (Blood Work) was a mixed bag.

Your Gold Teeth I & II

Will try to actually post something this weekend. For now, more summer music...

Steely Dan and their pair of "Gold Teeth" songs. A good example, I think, of a band in transition.

"Your Gold Teeth," from their second album, Countdown to Ecstasy (1973), features the Dan's first extended excursion into a more jazz-inflected sound. The driving groove is still propelled, however, by the Latin percussion and heavier rock guitar common in their first albums, with definite hints at "Do It Again," the big hit from their debut LP the year before.



"Your Gold Teeth II" comes from the band's fourth album, Katy Lied (1975), the center point of the band's career (or at least the first part: 1972-1980), which captures both the grungier rock sound of their earlier work ("Black Friday") and the more sophisticated and often elegant jazz tones of the future ("Doctor Wu"). The musical journey Fagen and Becker embark on here will ultimately lead them to the soundscape of Aja, their masterpiece from 1977.



Enjoy.

Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009

UPDATE: [BELOW] "Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did." Glenn Greenwald says what I wanted to say but didn't.

Walter Cronkite, one of the true giants of American broadcast journalism, passed away last night at the age of 92. Often cited in public opinion polls in the 1970s as "The Most Trusted Man in America," Cronkite was, for me, the embodiment of what a broadcast journalist should and could be. A consummate professional, he told us what was happening with a blend of integrity, humanity, warmth, and a rare and genuine gravitas.

After growing up in Houston, Cronkite attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he worked on the student newspaper The Daily Texan. Though he left UT in his junior year to become a newspaper reporter, he maintained a connection to the school throughout his life. His personal papers are housed there at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, and he also served as the voice of numerous recruiting ads for the school. While a lot of famous people have attended UT, I've always felt especially proud that Walter Cronkite was a fellow alum.

Maybe because I grew up watching Cronkite on the CBS Evening News, and his voice seems to resonate in various childhood memories, I felt a real loss upon hearing the news of his death. Not a loss for him, because he lived a tremendously rich and full life, but a loss for the rest of us. It's the simple, powerful feeling that a great and good man has passed from the world.

The last few days, I've been following the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing - wechoosethemoon.org is a terrific site - and it's interesting that Cronkite passed away during this time, because I have some wonderful reminiscences of the Apollo missions - lying on the floor of my old house, a kid totally enthralled by the events taking place on TV - and it seems to be Uncle Walter's voice that narrates those marvelous moments.

Cronkite loved the space program, and in the clip above, speaks eloquently of what it meant in an often dark and chaotic time in our history. Incredibly, his was probably the voice that first told millions of Americans about the darkest and brightest moments of the 20th century: World War II, the Nuremberg Trials, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Vietnam, the Lunar Landing, Watergate, and Three Mile Island.

Here are some clips of Cronkite reporting these events. It's like a tour of 20th Century History.

The Assassination of JFK. (November 22, 1963)

Editorial on Vietnam. (February 27, 1968)

The Assassination of MLK. (April 4, 1968)

Apollo 11 Landing on the Moon. (July 20, 1969)

Death of LBJ. (January 22, 1973)

Three Mile Island. (March 30, 1979)

Other interesting videos are Cronkite in his own words and President Obama remembers Cronkite.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald eviscerates our flabby, obsequious contemporary "news" media in his post on Cronkite: "Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did."

"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .

"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- David Gregory, MSNBC [and current host of Meet the Press], May 28, 2008.

. . . .

Tellingly, [Cronkite's] most celebrated and significant moment -- Greg Mitchell says "this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vietnamese, perhaps even a million" -- was when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn't trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false. In other words, Cronkite's best moment was when he did exactly that which the modern journalist today insists they must not ever do -- directly contradict claims from government and military officials and suggest that such claims should not be believed. These days, our leading media outlets won't even use words that are disapproved of by the Government.

Despite that, media stars will spend ample time flamboyantly commemorating Cronkite's death as though he reflects well on what they do (though probably not nearly as much time as they spent dwelling on the death of Tim Russert, whose sycophantic servitude to Beltway power and "accommodating head waiter"-like, mindless stenography did indeed represent quite accurately what today's media stars actually do). In fact, within Cronkite's most important moments one finds the essence of journalism that today's modern media stars not only fail to exhibit, but explicitly disclaim as their responsibility.

"And that's the way it is."

Bruce Cockburn on a Coastal Road in Maine

The music I most enjoyed while driving along the coast of Maine on our journey last week. . . .

Bruce Cockburn's great 1976 album, In the Falling Dark. This is the title cut.



and the lights lie tumbled out like gems
the moon is nothing but a toothless grin
floating out on the evening wind
the smell of sweat and lube oil pervades the night
and the rush of life in flight at the speed of light

a million footsteps whispering
a guitar sounds -- some voices sing
smoke on the breeze -- eyes that sting
far in the east a yellow cloud bank climbs
stretching away to be part of tomorrow's time.

earthbound while everything expands
so many grains of sand
slipping from hand to hand
catching the light and falling into dark
the world fades out like an overheard remark
in the falling dark.

light pours from a million radiant lives
off of kids and dogs and the hard-shelled husbands and wives
all that glory shining around and we're all caught taking a dive
and all the beasts of the hills around shout, "such a waste!
don't you know that from the first to the last we're all one in the gift of Grace!"

(Ottawa 9/3/76)

The Song Stuck in My Head When I Woke Up This Morning

Fats Waller & His Rhythm
"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter"

Recorded 11/07/1934.



Music by Fred Ahlert, lyrics by Roy Turk

I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter,
And make believe it came from you,
I'm gonna right words oh, so sweet,
They're gonna knock me off my feet,
A lot of kisses on the bottom,
I'll be glad I got 'em!

I'm gonna smile and say, "I hope you're feeling better,"
And close with love the way you do;
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter,
And make believe it came from you!

Gonna smile and say, "I hope you're feeling better,"
And close with love the way you do;
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter,
And make believe, make believe, make believe it came from you!

100 Favorite Films

Every so often, I sit down and make a list of my favorite films. Here's the most recent edition - 100 Films in alphabetical order.

À bout de souffle [Breathless] (1960)
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre, The Wrath of God] (1972)
El ángel exterminador [Exterminating Angel] (1962)
Animal Crackers (1930) ***
Ansiktet [The Magician] (1958) ***
Apocalypse Now (1979) ***
L'armée des ombres [Army of Shadows] (1969)
L'atalante (1934)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Ball of Fire (1941)
The Band Wagon (1953)
Bande à part (1964)
La belle et la bête [Beauty and the Beast] (1946)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
La bête humaine [The Human Beast] (1938)
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Bob le flambeur (1956)
Born Yesterday (1950)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Bringing Up Baby (1938) ***
Capitaine Conan (1996)
Casablanca (1942)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Crna macka, beli macor [Black Cat, White Cat] (1998)
"Dekalog" (1989)
Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)
Desire (1936)
La dolce vita (1960)
Double Indemnity (1944) ***
La double vie de Véronique [The Double Life of Veronique] (1991) ***
Down by Law (1986) ***
Du rififi chez les hommes [Rififi] (1955)
8½ (1963) ***
Les enfants du paradis [Children of Paradise] (1945)
El espíritu de la colmena [Spirit of the Beehive] (1973)
Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain [Amélie] (2001)
French Kiss (1995)
Galaxy Quest (1999)
The Gay Divorcee (1934)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
The Godfather (1972)
La grande illusion (1937)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Help! (1965)
Der Himmel über Berlin [Wings of Desire] (1987) ***
His Girl Friday (1940)
Holiday (1938)
Intervista (1987)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Jean de Florette (1986) ***
Kagemusha (1980) ***
Key Largo (1948)
The Lady Eve (1941)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947) ***
Life of Brian (1979)
The Maltese Falcon (1941) ***
Manhattan (1979) ***
The Matrix (1999)
Le mépris [Contempt] (1963)
Midnight (1939)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail [Mønti Pythøn ik den Høli Gräilen] (1975) ***
My Cousin Vinny (1992)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
North by Northwest (1959) ***
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) ***
Orphée (1950) ***
Out of the Past (1947) ***
Pépé le Moko (1937)
Paris, Texas (1984) ***
The Philadelphia Story (1940) ***
Pierrot le fou (1965)
Le quai des brumes [Port of Shadows] (1938)
Quai des Orfèvres (1947)
Quick Change (1990)
Ran (1985) ***
The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) ***
Roman Holiday (1953) ***
Sabrina (1954)
Le salaire de la peur [Wages of Fear] (1953)
Le samouraï (1967)
Shichinin no samurai [The Seven Samurai] (1954)
Silk Stockings (1957)
Simple Men (1992) ***
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Det sjunde inseglet [The Seventh Seal] (1957) ***
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Swing Time (1936)
Tengoku to jigoku [High and Low] (1963)
The Thin Man (1934) ***
Three Days of the Condor (1975) ***
Tierra (1996)
To Have and Have Not (1944) ***
Top Hat (1935) ***
Touchez pas au grisbi [Grisbi] (1954)
Trois couleurs: Rouge (1994)
The Unbelievable Truth (1989)
Vincent, François, Paul... et les autres (1974)
White Christmas (1954) ***
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Yojimbo (1961)

***Films that also appeared on my list of Favorite 50 Films done in 1995 and Favorite 100 Films done in 2004 (1-50 and 51-100).

By Director

Akira Kurosawa (5) - Kagemusha (1980) ***, Ran (1985) ***, Shichinin no samurai [The Seven Samurai] (1954), Tengoku to jigoku [High and Low] (1963) , Yojimbo (1961)

Jean-Luc Godard (4) - À bout de souffle [Breathless] (1960), Bande à part (1964), Le mépris [Contempt] (1963), Pierrot le fou (1965)

Howard Hawks (4) - Ball of Fire (1941), Bringing Up Baby (1938) ***, His Girl Friday (1940), To Have and Have Not (1944) ***

George Cuckor (3) - Born Yesterday (1950), Holiday (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940) ***

Federico Fellini (3) - La dolce vita (1960), 8½ (1963) ***, Intervista (1987)

Krzysztof Kieslowski (3) - "Dekalog" (1989), La double vie de Véronique [The Double Life of Veronique] (1991) ***, Trois couleurs: Rouge (1994)

Jean-Pierre Melville (3) - L'armée des ombres [Army of Shadows] (1969), Bob le flambeur (1956), Le samouraï (1967)

Billy Wilder (3)- Double Indemnity (1944) ***, Sabrina (1954), Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Two Films: Bergman, Carné, Clouzot, Cocteau, Coppola, Curtiz, Hartley, Houston, Jarmusch, Terry Jones, Renoir, Mark Sandrich, Welles, Wyler

By Actors

Cary Grant (7) - The Awful Truth (1937), The Bishop's Wife (1947), Bringing Up Baby (1938) ***, His Girl Friday (1940), Holiday (1938), North by Northwest (1959) ***, The Philadelphia Story (1940) ***

Fred Astaire (5) - The Band Wagon (1953), The Gay Divorcee (1934), Silk Stockings (1957), Swing Time (1936), Top Hat (1935) ***

Humphrey Bogart (5) - Casablanca (1942) Key Largo (1948), The Maltese Falcon (1941) ***, Sabrina (1954), To Have and Have Not (1944) ***

Jean Gabin (5) - La bête humaine [The Human Beast] (1938), La grande illusion (1937), Pépé le Moko (1937), Le quai des brumes [Port of Shadows] (1938), Touchez pas au grisbi [Grisbi] (1954)

William Holden (5) - Born Yesterday (1950), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Sabrina (1954), Sunset Blvd. (1950), The Wild Bunch (1969)

Three Films: Cyd Charise, Kathrine Hepburn, Marcello Mastroianni, Toshiro Mifune, Yves Montand, Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck

By Language

Fifty-seven films were in English. Of the 43 films in other languages, 26 were in French.

By Date
1930s: 17
1940s: 17
1950s: 18
1960s: 14
1970s: 11
1980s: 9
1990s: 13
2000s: 2

Fifty-five films were from before I was born.

Other Films

It's interesting for me to see how my lists have changed over the years. I've discovered or explored more fully different directors (Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Becker), actors (Gabin, Holden, Stanwyck) and genres (musicals, French film noir and film gris). Films that meant a lot to me at one time just don't resonate as much now. Or, maybe I just haven't seen them in a long time. Here are some films that appeared on my two previous lists.

1995 & 2004
Alice in den Städten [Alice in the Cities] (1974)
Beat the Devil (1953)
The Big Steal (1949)
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. [The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly] (1966)
Dom za vesanje [Time of the Gypsies] (1988)
Manon des sources (1986)
Raising Arizona (1987)
'Round Midnight (1986)
Vertigo (1958)
You Can't Take It with You (1938)

1995
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Delicatessen (1991)
Un dimanche à la campagne [A Sunday in the Country] (1984)
Duck Soup (1933)
Europa (1991)
The Fisher King (1991)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Jules et Jim (1962)
The Grifters (1990)
Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

2004
Adam's Rib (1949)
After the Thin Man (1936)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Fanny och Alexander (1982)
Fargo (1996)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Un flic (1972)
Gilda (1946)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Lone Star (1996)
Nikita (1990)
No Such Thing (2001)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The Sting (1973)
The Third Man (1949)
Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993)
The Usual Suspects (1994)

You can also check out the series of posts I did on The Greatest Films of All Time. Twenty-one of my 100 Favorite Films were in the Top 100.

Cole Porter Birthday Bash

Cole Porter was born on June 9, 1891. Some songs to celebrate his 118th birthday. Enjoy.








Cole Porter Playlist (12 songs)



"Easy to Love"
Billie Holiday

"It's Alright With Me"
Tom Waits

"Get Out of Town"
Caetano Veloso

"I've Got You Under My Skin"
Frank Sinatra

"Don't Fence Me In"
David Byrne

"Love for Sale"
Cannonball Adderley & Miles Davis

"Well, Did You Evah!"
Iggy Pop & Debbie Harry

"Just One of Those things"
Ella Fitzgerald

"Night and Day"
Fred Astaire

"Every Time We Say Goodbye"
John Coltrane

"So in Love"
Caetano Veloso

"I Get a Kick Out of You"
Frank Sinatra