KEITH RICHARDS: UNDER THE INFLUENCE dir. Morgan Freeman

Truth: I would rather listen to the people Robert Johnson has inspired than listen to the man himself. Also true: Keith Richards makes me want to dust off Johnson and give him another listen. I saw Under The Influence on Netflix. 

"Rock and Roll had nothing on these guys" -- Keith Richards on American Country Music in general and Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins in particular. 

Yeah , but there was a time when The Rolling Stones were particularly scary. Read Sway for some idea. And Keef is big on going straight to the source. Robert Johnson didn't record much, so The Centennial Collection should do you. Plus you get a spiffy essay by Jimmy Page. If you can find it I recommend The Sun Years by Howlin' Wolf. And I recommend the recently rebuffed Damn Right, I've Got The Blues by Buddy Guy -- the album that turned everything around (for Buddy Guy, of course). 

STAR TREK: STRANGE, NEW WORLDS and ENTERPRISE: various directors and show-runners

 Most of this is from my other blog here. But it pertains. 

Somebody please explain SF hair to me. In the meantime I will enjoy Star Trek: Strange, New Worlds on Crave TV and Enterprise on Netflix. 

Star Trek always worked best as television. Enterprise is better than I remember, thanks chiefly to this list and Netflix's "skip credits"option. Leave all "Rod Stewart" jokes in the comments. 

As for Strange, New Worlds the jury is still out. Kirk, Spock and Uhura are present and accounted for but they are almost an afterthought kind of a big deal. Anson Mount as Christopher Pike is lots of fun. But please won't somebody explain SF hair to me. 

DON'T LOOK UP dir Adam McKay

I don't know how you look past your shoes and not see climate change. I should be an ideal audience. But Don't Look Up is a lousy movie. 

There is no tension, first and foremost. The script would never make it in the classroom. See Terminator 2 if you must. Or watch Adaptation. Either way you'll get some idea what I'm talking about.

You will have to look up Adaptation.  The other two are on Netflix. 

News!

I am blogging here. 

In news, Google will leave you alone for 12 months. In other news: Google doesn't give a shit about you. So you might as well keep blogging. 

I'll be back, and I'll let you know. 

Larry McMurtry, in the '60s

I am an admirer of Larry McMurtry’s work, and at some point I hope to address it. But the passage that reflexively brings McMurtry to my mind is written by Tom Wolfe, from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I expect the young boy mentioned at the end is James.

RIP Larry McMurtry, June 3, 1936 – March 25, 2021

Whither the Newspaper?

Since I have pondered the condition of the newspaper at some length this link gets its own post — Freddie deBoer sorts out why the newspaper industry is tanking, and why its writers are up in arms over Substack. He contends it ain’t just jealousy and hypocrisy at work — it’s displacement.

“Why don’t you come on back to the war?”

Thanks for the title, Leonard.

My brain’s a puddle.

Took a road trip up to Ottawa the weekend before last. Visited my brother-in-law and his wife. They’ve managed his Stage 4 past the initial prediction. He is the same man I’ve known now for almost 30 years. He is a very different man from the one I’ve known for almost 30 years.

I experienced an inner tilt during that visit, and that’s how I’ve been walking through the past 14 days — at a tilt. Can’t quite put it into words. Like my brother-in-law, I am becoming a different man. And I’m the same guy I’ve always been. 

Behind the blue-and-white velvet rope I’ve been posting pictures of my personal lye-berry. My shelves are a mess — kinda alphabetical in spots, but not really. I’m sure I’ve alienated everyone with OCD. But those are the shelves and bookstores I’ve always loved the most — the ones that almost make sense. They’re the most like life. 

Life. God help you if you’ve got OCD.

Stuff I’ve been pondering:

• I’ve been monitoring Alan Jacobs’ most recent project with some interest. I am not a little sympathetic. But, wow — I have been holding my breath. I’m kinda hoping it’ll be akin to Matt Cardin’s A Course In Daimonic Creativity. But I’m worried it’ll be another variation of Calvin Seerveld’s Rainbows For A Fallen World. (Nobody mentioned in this paragraph wants my fan-mail, I know. But I love them just the same.)
• Now that “woke” has become more-or-less universally pejorative, it is easier to spot where comic books have truly exploited their consciousness-altering potential, and where they’ve lazily defaulted into pallid pretension — into rote wokeness. Angel Eduardo asks, Does Superman Have To Be White? And Robin Sloane unpacks Gene Luen Yang’s 2016 series, The New Super-Man. I was unfamiliar with this arc, and haven’t yet given it my attention. But from Sloane’s description of it — “Redemption through ret-con; is there anything more comics than that?” — it appears Yang’s craft emulates and possibly supersedes that of Grant Morrison. Excelsior!
• ALDaily pointed me to The Apocalyptic New Campus Novel by Charlie Tyson. It’s a great piece, but the bit that stuck with me — and it is not at all the thrust of Tyson’s piece (which you really should read) — is: “Historians of the future might be forgiven for thinking that in the early 21st century, our country’s colleges were more powerful, and more nefarious, than its military. Certainly the former gets more scrutiny and attention.” And it got me ruminating. Following WWII the American Military Novel was an esteemed genre that appealed to a remarkably wide range of readers. It has all but vanished — quick: name one other Iraq 2.0 novel besides Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. I have to regard this as a bad omen.

Transference: it's strictly a one-way affair. Isn't it?

Alright — time for this gutless pacifist to get back to The War. Here’s Elvis Costello singing “Oliver’s Army.”