 |
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...
An excerpt, “Crosscut,” was selected as Finalist in the 2009 Oregon Quarterly's Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest. |
|
Literary laureate: Doris Lessing and fellow novelist Ben Okri at the Wallace Collection gallery
31.01.08 London Evening Standard
a scene from When We Were Kings
Charles Brunett, film maker
|
Current Stimuli
Latest Good Reads
Ben Okri, Stars of the New Curfew
I got Okri's name from an interview with another writer, who cited this collection of Okri's for its successful blend of very harsh reality with indigenous religious perspectives. These stories are an almost hallucinogenic portrayal of modern Lagos, writing that portrays the horrible and the desperate with absurd beauty, as the supernatural interacts with the urban.
Phillip Roth, The Plot Against America
I must admit I have not been much of a Roth fan before this novel. Perhaps this is because my first exposure (ha) was Portnoy's Complaint at age thirteen. Let's just say it didn't speak to me at the time. The Plot Against America has U.S. voters electing Lindberg over FDR. Freedom of the press does not follow. It is not unlike some of Ishmael Reed's perspectives on political power and racism as they mix with the American Dream-cum-Nightmare. Capital City by Mari Sandoz also comes to mind as a novel about the appeals of fascism in an era that includes progressives.
Patrick D. Smith A Land Remembered
A florid Floridian historical novel. Smith's style reminds me a bit of Robert Heinlein as he moves through the rise and fall of a dynasty. Are you surprised the empire involves cattle, citrus, and real estate, or that the original Floridians (Seminoles) fare poorly? Now I know at least one etymology for "cracker." Clue: it has to do with whips. This interview with Smith has background photos worth watching.
Recent Movies
(I have some new picks to add, and will do so shortly.)
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 have some new picks to add, and will do so shortly.)
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.
|
