Saturday, December 8, 2018
Madison Square (NYC)
Friday, December 7, 2018
Thousand Islands
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
This Week's Playlist and Podcast
 | ||
| The Goon Sax |
Strange Light, Goon Sax
Permanent Damage, Rhett Miller
We’re All in Love, New York Dolls
Dance of the Lotus, The Joy Formidable
Ballad of Easy Rider, Amy Rigby & Wreckless Eric
Heaven No How, Michael Hall
In the Wilderness, Those Darlins
Don’t Cry Alone, Buttertones
Everybody’s Talkin’ About Sadie Green, Memphis Jug Band
Little Mule, Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs
Still Waiting, Mekons 77
Why Don’t You Do Right, Lil Green
Jasper’s Theme, Tony Molina
Raindrops, Dee Clark
Crippling Self Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence,
Courtney Barnett
Stepchild, Solomon Burke
Nothing, The Music Lovers
Shulie-A-Bop, Sarah Vaughan
Your Very Eyes, Shoes
One Less Thing, Liz Phair
Street Fighting Man, Rolling Stones
Surgeon’s Girl, Wire
Too Many Shadows, The Heart Throbs
Right Side of My Brain, Veronica Falls
Running on Empty, Jackson Browne
(Looking for) the Heart of Saturday Night, Madeleine Peyroux
Cry, Pere Ubu
Under the Ladder, Crippled Pilgrims
Talk to You, Small Faces
2:10 Train, Rising Sons
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Yardbirds
Goodnight Baby, Imaginations
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
My Favorite Photographer, Today
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| Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Grand Prix of the Automobile Club of France, Course at Dieppe 1912 |
Monday, December 3, 2018
Shameless Self-Promotion
Last month, Lexington Books published my first book, entitled Music Wars: Money, Politics and Race in the Construction of Rock and Roll Culture, 1940-1960. This is a project that I've been working on seriously over the past six years (and on and off for quite a while before that). I'm very pleased with how it turned out and I'm hoping some fellow historians and other academics may find it useful as a resource for courses they teach on 20th century American History, popular culture, or the popular music industry. Recently, my colleague Aaron Weinacht interviewed me in order to test the equipment he will be using for a podcast he is launching soon for the New Books Network. His editor felt the test turned out well enough that they have actually posted it to their website. If you're interested in hearing me talk about the book, just click on this link. If our conversation whets your appetite for more, the book can be ordered from Lexington Books or Amazon.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Primate Portraits
Saturday, December 1, 2018
Movie Marathon (Thank You FilmStruck!)
About two years ago I subscribed to a new streaming service
called FilmStruck, a collaboration between the folks at Turner Classic Movies
and the Criterion Collection. What a
goldmine for a movie lover like me—nothing but classic, foreign, and arthouse
films spanning the full history of the medium and drawing from virtually every
country with even the hint of a film culture.
Over those two years I was able to revisit a lot of old favorites, but
even more importantly explore new things that I previously missed or never had
access to, like for example the work of Spanish director Luis Garcia Berlanga
and the early work of Wong Kar Wai from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, a month ago the word came down
that the service would be ending as of the end of November. At that point, I
had about 65 films in my queue that I had anticipated watching over the coming
months; but now I only had about thirty days to see them before they vanished—not
to mention all the other wonders I had yet to discover in the collection. So I decided I wasn’t going to miss out and
determined to watch everything on my watchlist in the limited time I had left
to do so. In addition to those, the
programmers actually kept adding new films even after the announcement of their
closure, so more things were popping up that I wanted to watch (not to mention,
that as I discovered certain filmmakers, I wanted to watch more of their work,
so I kept adding to my watchlist). I
ended up watching 90 movies in 30 days, a pace I’m frankly surprised I was able
to maintain, but certainly glad that I did.
Not everything was great, but much of it was (I re-watched a number of
Berlanga films, sampled the oeuvres of Aki Kaurismaki and Yasujiro Ozu, was
bowled over by the quality of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s less
well known (at least to me) productions, caught up on a bunch of Harold Lloyds,
took a crash course in British kitchen sink dramas, and—this is almost
embarrassing to admit—saw my first batch of Eric Rohmer directed
features). Anyway, I figured I would commemorate
this achievement by listing the films I watched over the last month, as a thank
you to FilmStruck in appreciation of what they represented to film fans like me.
I’ve already heard that the Criterion
folks are going to launch their own service next year, so maybe I’ll get the chance
to see those Jacques Becker and African features that disappeared from my queue
before I got around to watching them.
Anyway, here they are, in the order I saw them with directors and
country of origin listed (I’ve also marked special favorites with an *):
Casque d’Or
(Jacques Becker, France)*
Wichita (Jacques
Tourneur, USA)
Who Is Polly Maggoo?
(William Klein, France)
Sweet Movie (Dusan
Makavejev, Yugoslavia)
Cleo From 5 to 7
(Agnes Varda, France)*
Drunken Angel
(Akira Kurosawa, Japan)*
Leopard Man
(Jacques Tourneur, USA)
Every Night Dreams
(Mikio Naruse, Japan)*
La Balance (Bob
Swain, France)
Barrios Altos
(Jose Luis Garcia Berlanga, Spain)
Sylvia Scarlet
(George Cukor, USA)
Bob Le Flambeur
(Jean-Pierre Melville, France)
The Horses Mouth
(Ronald Neame, UK)*
History Is Made at
Night (Frank Borzage, USA)
River of Grass
(Kelly Reichardt, USA)
Record of a Tenement
Gentleman (Yasujiro Ozu, Japan)*
Ariel (Aki
Kaurismaki, Finland)*
Mackintosh Man
(John Huston, US)
Boring Afternoon
(Ivan Passer, Czechoslovakia)
Capricious Summer
(Jiri Menzil, Czechoslovakia)*
Slightly Dangerous
(Wesley Ruggles, USA)
Five Corners (Tony
Bill, USA)
Palermo Shooting
(Wim Wenders, Germany)*
Border Radio
(Alison Anders, USA)
A King in New York
(Charlie Chaplin, UK)
Rude Boy (Jack Hazan
& David Mingay, UK)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can
Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand))
Mr. Freedom
(William Klein, France)
Two Way Stretch
(Robert Day, UK)
Mannequin (Frank
Borzage, USA)
Rupture
(Jean-Claude Carriere & Pierre Etaix, France)
Saute Ma Ville
(Chantal Akerman, Belgium)
La Boutique (Luis
Garcia Berlanga, Argentina)
Obsession (Edward
Dmytryk, UK)
Once Upon a Tractor
(Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, USA/UN)
The Acquaintances of a
Lonely John (Benny Safdie, USA)
Peppermint Frappe
(Carlos Saura, Spain)
The Last of Mrs.
Cheyney (Richard Boleslawsky, USA)
Old Joy (Kelly
Reichardt, USA)
Le Petit Soldat (Jean
Luc Godard, France)*
The Deadly Companions
(Sam Peckinpaugh, USA)
Tiger Bay (J. Lee
Thompson, UK)
The Passage (Kitao
Sakurai, USA)
Safety Last (Fred
Newmeyer & Sam Taylor, USA)
I Know Where I’m Going
(Powell & Pressburger, UK)*
Nacional III (Luis
Garcia Berlanga, Spain)*
Smithereens (Susan
Seidelman, USA)
The Golden Coach
(Jean Renoir, France)
Love and Anarchy
(Lina Wertmuller, Italy)
Down By Law (Jim
Jarmusch, USA)*
Anne-Marie
(Raymond Bernard, France)
My Night at Maud’s
(Eric Rohmer, France)
The Loneliness of the
Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, UK)
Claire’s Knee
(Eric Rohmer, France)
The Outrage
(Martin Ritt, USA)
Sword of the Beast
(Hideo Gosha, Japan)
Feet First (Clyde
Bruckman, USA)
Le Cercle Rouge
(Jean-Pierre Melville, France)
Miracles of Thursday
(Luis Garcia Berlanga, Spain)
Shadows in Paradise
(Aki Kaurismaki, Finland)
Wrong Arm of the Law
(Cliff Owen, UK)
Tie Me Up & Tie Me
Down (Pedro Alamodovar, Spain)
The Cross of Lorraine
(Tay Garnett, USA)
Floating Clouds (Mikio
Naruse, Japan)*
The Match Factory Girl
(Aki Kaurasmiki, Finland)
Leningrad Cowboys Go America
(Aki Kaurismaki, Finland)
Joy of Living (Tay
Garnett, USA)
Tom Jones (Tony
Richardson, UK)*
Patrimonia Nacional
(Luis Garcia Berlanga, Spain)*
A Day in the Country
(Jean Renoir, France)**
Pearls of the Deep
(Menzel, Chytilova, Jeres, Nemec, Schorm, Czechoslovakia)
Days of Glory
(Jacques Tourneur, USA)
Come and See (Elem
Klimov, Russia)*
WR: Mysteries of the
Organism (Dusan Makavejev, Yugoslavia)
Deprisa Deprisa
(Caurlos Saura, Spain)*
What Did the Lady
Forget (Yosujiro Ozu, Japan)
Wooden Crosses
(Raymond Bernard, France)*
Cimarron (Wesley
Ruggles, USA)
This Sporting Life
(Lindsay Anderson, UK)
Vagabond (Agnes
Varda, France)*
Odd Man Out (Carol
Reed, UKK)
Toni (Jean Renoir,
France)
The Joke (Jaromil Jeres,
Czechoslovakia)*
Rendez-vous (Andre
Techine, France)
The Other Side of Hope
(Aki Kaurismaki, Finland)*
The Miracle of
Marcelino (Ladislao Vayda, Spain)
A Brighter Summer Day
(Edward Yank, Taiwan)*
Rocket from
Calabuch (Luis Garcia Berlanga, Spain)*
A Canterbury Tale
(Powell & Pressburger, UK)*
Fallen Angels
(Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong)
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