The Lawyer and His Soul

It was a pretty Saul-light episode of Better Call Saul last night, focusing more on Kim's struggle to get out of the doghouse at her firm for recommending Jimmy and on further development for Chuck. We get a lot more insight into his feelings for Jimmy and at first he seems totally irrational but what I like is that we see he may have a point.

Well, that's a nice thing about the show and it's what really makes it part of the Breaking Bad universe--we want Saul to do the wrong thing and this is made interesting by the fact that we're occasionally reminded why it's wrong and unpleasant. But I won't spoil the end of the episode.

I also started the fifth season of Touch of Frost a few nights ago from 1997. The première episode of the season, "Penny for the Guy", is interesting mainly for guest star Philip Stone, who you might recognise from Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining.

Even though anyone who recognises him the moment he shows up might assume he's the kidnapper and murderer Jack's trying to track down, Stone's subtlety and ability to suggest something sinister while ostensibly being just a humble widower out walking his dog is thoroughly absorbing.

The episode also introduces "Wonder Woman", Liz Maud (Susannah Doyle), an assistant for Frost and the latest in the line of occasionally introduced professional policewomen for Frost to be awkward around. Though of course Frost ultimately knows best.

The previous episode also had a female assistant for him, promoted from uniformed officer temporarily to assist Frost in investigating an assault at a university. It ends up being a killer who's become obsessed with mermaids after he accidentally drowned his sister as a kid and developed a delusion that she hadn't really died but gone to live in the sea. I thought about recommending the episode to Caitlin R. Kiernan but I wasn't sure if it would be flattering or insulting.

Well, hey, I've had a thing for mermaids since I was a kid and I'm not sure if I'm flattered or insulted. I don't know, it's kind of a weird feeling. It's like seeing a ghost on a talk show. Or a heirloom on a McDonalds menu. Maybe I'm shortchanging Touch of Frost, though. It is a basically "good guys and bad guys" show, somehow I expect Dostoevsky when mermaids turn up. There's a quote from Oscar Wilde's "Fisherman and His Soul" in the episode, which is always nice to hear.

Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of line gold in a cup of glass. Her body was as white ivory, and her tail was of silver and pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled round it; and like sea-shells were her ears, and her lips were like sea-coral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glistened upon her eyelids.

There's Always Stuff

I had such ambition for the weekend. I wanted to pencil and ink at least six pages for my comic but I ended up only pencilling two. On Saturday I ended up hosting a charity Strip Chess Exhibition Tournament for someone in Russia who only has two dollars a day to eat with--we ended up raising 108 dollars, which I'm rather pleased with. Sunday I had to drive forty miles north to a place called Carlsbad for one of the two poetry magazines I'm interning for this semester, the Magee Park Poets. I attended a poetry workshop at Carlsbad's one hundred year old Cole Library which has only recently been reopened. The topic for the workshop was "grief" and as I was the only one there under fifty and most of the people there were at least sixty I was pretty well outpaced on the topic. Most people had stories that began with sentences like, "When my husband died twenty years ago," or, "I'm grieving the loss of my eyesight." All I could say was that I was grieving the loss of literacy which I've been feeling acutely lately in my capacity as writing tutor at the university. I mentioned to those present at the workshop who were adjusting to blindness that one of my favourite poets, John Milton, wrote his best work after he went blind and I was pleasantly surprised to find that several people in the room had actually not only heard of John Milton but also liked him.

Anyway, here's the sonnet I put together in the thirty minute writing period, I see now with one more quatrain than I intended:

A vertical stripe in a gurney cools
Before a clean and blue elbow at rest
On sterile counter counting dreamless pools
A notecard with broken dry unrest
In frame behind the walls in rooms
Acknowledged late by balding sleep that wakes
A shifting seat upsets the icy thought for looms,
A Fury's cord, an oven's grill that bakes
An inverse heat, a chill so hot it burns.
Impatience aims a spike, the seat ignites
One takes a crowded trolley ride, and turns
Deferred 'til ghosts with trumpets loud recite
Foretold by soundless print but not received
Transmission caught in space by men of dreams
Now called the feed for those asleep deceived
Misled into linoleum for beans.
A peeled potato falls into the pond,
A cam'ra cracks for a shattered bond.

Afterwards, I got a late lunch at Plaza Camino Real Mall which may be my favourite shopping mall in the county. I think it's the oldest, it's also generally not very crowded when I'm there. It always feels at least twenty degrees colder there than the temperature gauge on my car says it is and there's no food court--I had lunch at a newly added Panera on the outside of the mall. A mall in Chula Vista, towards the south end of San Diego, has a dead food court in its centre and a bunch of new food places outside so this seems to be reflecting a phenomenon of people wanting to go to the mall but not into the mall. The best thing about Plaza Camino Real, though--aside from the fact that it's indoor, I love indoor malls--is that it has an enormous comic book store that seems to be rather permanent. The other comic book stores in the county seem forced to shift location all the time. I'm always happy to visit that place especially since all the customers seem like they actually read comics rather than the dull, grazing passers-by I tend to see in the other shops.

I went to the Coffee Bean across the street to write yesterday's blog entry and saw a bunch of tiny birds fighting in the foliage.

So, yeah, this my way of saying I probably won't have a new chapter of comic ready by the weekend. I probably still won't have finished unpacking, either. I think it's been three weeks now with boxes of books and kitchen stuff piled in the floor of my new place. At some point I need to start making a concerted effort at finding a room mate, too. I could really use a few extra days in the week.

The Ice that Separates

How can people reach out to others if they're constantly thinking about themselves? How can people stop thinking about themselves when no-one reaches out to them? These questions pinion all the characters in 2007's Snow Angels, a film about divorce and about people persistently disappointing themselves and others. The characters are well written and it's decently shot except for a few distracting flourishes, mainly a tendency for the camera to drift away from characters in the middle of conversation, something that worked very well in Taxi Driver but feels a bit obtrusive here. The movie mainly succeeds for its screenplay and performances.

It's an ensemble film with really only one character who's not completely self-centred, Barb, played by the underrated Amy Sedaris. Kate Beckinsale's character Annie even remarks on the extraordinary nature of Barb's generosity. This is probably the reason Barb is a very minor character in the film. Mostly the story focuses on Annie and the husband she's separated from, Glenn, played by Sam Rockwell.

He takes their little daughter Tara (Gracie Hudson) to the mall and he's sweet and awkward, charming both us and Tara. He's an alcoholic who became a Born Again Christian as part of the process of becoming sober and even his odd prayer over lunch where he calls God various versions of father is charming.

Sort of paralleling Annie and Glenn's story is one of two teenagers, Arthur (Michael Angarano) and Lila (Olivia Thirlby), who are each other's first loves. As Lila tells Arthur how in love she is with his awkwardness, it's hard not to think about how Annie hates all of Glenn's flaws.

Arthur's parents are also getting a divorce. When his father says he wants to be around more for the good of their son, Arthur's mother calls it bullshit and we see it as part of her defence mechanism that she won't trust gestures like that. Meanwhile, Arthur's father, we later learn, is the one who decided to leave and Arthur accuses him of being selfish in his indecisiveness.

But one would overlook most of the characters' self-obsessions except there's a terrible accident in the middle of the film resulting in a death. And almost immediately, everyone in the film adapts the event to their own internal, endlessly self-reflecting narrative. Glenn is the most broadly ironic character as he talks about putting aside concern for oneself in order to love God and other people but finding religion has ultimately made Glenn more selfish than anyone else. He would be a pretty cliche character except for the fact that Sam Rockwell makes him so charming at the beginning of the film.

The movie's bookended by a high school marching band playing Peter Gabriel's "Sledge Hammer" and the song's lyrics seem to haunt the film particularly because we never hear them. Perhaps they ought to have listened to David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" as well and found an axe to break the ice.

Twitter Sonnet #850

A day's recorded cloud condensed to mud.
Alfalfa fragrance sriracha'd collect;
In flight the cow must kill the wire cud.
It's only late the bovine beings connect.
With wings arranged against the backing plate,
Affected ribs under the croft'll crack.
Before the grunts can caulk a bird to sate,
Arrays of cards at death's croquet are sacked.
After eagles disturb a brushless flame
The smoke misspeaks to finches shot for song
A cheap unstable metal man for fame
Denounced the overhead luggage as wrong.
A corkscrew hearing crashed into the blank.
No trial fell beside the noiseless tank.

Catering for Oneself

Is it at the end of a long dream that satisfaction in love and sex may be found? Can the two be found together? 1967's Belle de Jour superficially seems to be about a bored, wealthy housewife whose libido induces her to become a bordello prostitute while her husband is at home during the day. But this is a Luis Bunuel film and anyone who presumes from this fact that there's more going on in the movie would be absolutely right. It's perhaps the closest thing there is to a spiritual predecessor to Eyes Wide Shut; it's also beautiful and very subtly cruel in an inimitably Bunuel way.

Severine (Catherine Deneuve) is the icy, beautiful, and purportedly virtuous wife of the wealthy Pierre (Jean Sorel), who is devoted to her but is forced to beg her to do things like sleep in the same bed with him--the two normally sleep in twin beds.

The image reminds one of Hollywood movies from a decade earlier when the Hays code forbade the sight of a man and woman in one bed together, ludicrously obliging scenes of married couples in twin beds. There's no mandate for this in a 1967 French film, and since it seems to be in an effort to placate Severine's needs, it seems to imply she embodies the kind of ridiculous prescribed morality of the Hays code. Considering the fact that she's secretly a prostitute, it indicates the hypocrisy of censors as well.

But it's not just a film industry that's indicated. Subtle surreal moments in the film--like references to cats being let out appearing in one person's dream and then showing up in reality from other people--seem to indicate the film is the audience's dream as well. Which is of course the nature of film. Perhaps it's also an indication that the kind of divided sexuality Severine believes herself trapped in is only another level of unified sexual fantasy.

Or that the innocence she seems to embody for Pierre and his friends, the rarefied air she needs to escape from in her activities as a prostitute--is itself another sexual fantasy. The implications aim square at Bunuel's favourite target: the bourgeoisie.

Thursday Morning

Last night I dreamt about two beautiful women working in a hotel, one was in her 30s, pale, with black hair tightly drawn into a bun, the other was in her early twenties with messy, short red hair. They were in the lobby reading a letter from a mutual friend. The mutual friend, a lesbian who became a nun, was talking about going to a girl's house after noticing she had a garden where she grew organic produce despite the fact that it was the 1940s. The future nun went inside to inquire about the garden from the shy young woman who couldn't respond before her grandfather came into the room looking angry and as though he'd been woken from a nap. He wore loose brown pants with suspenders, a white shirt, and had a thin black beard. He had big round eyes and looked slightly like a deceased grandfather of mine. He told the future nun that the way to marry his daughter was to bring a broom. The nun told him that she was just curious about the garden at which point he gestured at a vast collection of cassette tapes on shelves covering all four walls of an adjacent room, explaining that the best thing to listen to while gardening was the True Romance soundtrack.

The nun segued into a story about how Tom Hiddleston tried seduce her once when she had to stay in his apartment during a wedding. He wasn't an actor at the time but he was trying to get in good with actors' circles. So he had built a wall in the centre of his apartment on the advice of a prominent actor and it had left him with very little room. He also had a pastel blue plastic toy car he kept on the mantel on the advice of the same actor. He was very furious with the nun when she refused his advances.

When the two women in the hotel finished reading the letter, the redhead noticed it had come from Nunnery 666. "You'd think they'd skip that one," said the redhead. "Like hotels skip the thirteenth floor."

"We have a thirteenth floor," said the woman with black hair who seemed to be someone in authority. She insisted on taking the redhead up to the thirteenth floor to prove it. There didn't seem to be anything unusual up there, though it was deserted. The woman with black hair was naked at this point for some reason and for some reason a credit card was required to take the elevator back down. The redhead tried hers first but did something wrong and nothing happened. The woman with black hair angrily took the card away from her and swiped it. A recorded voice asked a question in a language I didn't understand. The woman with black hair was angry and refused to answer, saying, "That's racist!" A red arm, like a human arm without skin so you could see stringy red muscles, grew out of the door, grabbed her, and strangled her. The redhead carefully took the credit card back and said, "Brian Austin Green!" and the elevator doors opened.

Twitter Sonnet #849

Collected eye rotary lashes point
Together past the figure sleeping late
And standing to, a warping bar or joint
Enclosed the last suspicious second mate.
The bo'sun scrawled unseen a check athwart
The mizzen shroud, a black remittance writ
As ignorant the lobster cooked retort
To hammocks nicked by sick and glassy wit.
The leaden bread encamped in bowels too turned
To hinder water's trespass in the hold
Where rusted bilboes break the skin was burned
By tails of tar entrails rotund and cold.
A broken glassy wave o'erturned the keel.
A calm reclaimed the hand and made it real.

Staying Frosty

Okay, so I've made Touch of Frost seem like a nice enough series with an interesting star. But what about sex? I didn't even mention whether Detective Frost could make a living as a gigolo if he wanted to. Fortunately he himself addresses the question in the season four episode "Fun Time for Swingers" which aired twenty years ago this January.

It's the first episode I can remember to be set during summer so Jack isn't wearing his trademark beige trilby, red scarf, and dove grey overcoat. It must be exceptionally hot in the fictional English town of Denton (apparently not meant to be any of the real Dentons in England) because all the cops are in shirt sleeves except Frost's latest in his Partners of the Week, a puritanical Scotsman played by the late Russell Hunter who talks about discipline before pleasure and wears a three piece suit.

I see from his Wikipedia entry that Hunter starred in a series with Edward Woodward, which is fitting since he kind of reminded me of Woodward's character in The Wicker Man in this Touch of Frost episode.

All the cops sweating and fanning themselves while they work reminded me of Kurosawa's great procedural film noir Stray Dog but I think it was mainly meant to amplify the sex in the episode. It has its fair share of ultra-violence, too, as the show seems to be continuing its goal for the fourth season to make the show a grittier, more modern, cop show.

I love how subtle Frost's weirdness is sometimes, like how he at various times in this episode compulsively starts explaining to Hunter's character what it takes to be a gigolo. David Jason has a pretty amusing chemistry with Hunter and his character who doesn't actually come on very strong in his disapproval of the hedonists in their investigation of a gigolo's murder. The fact that Hunter's character doesn't browbeat despite being a hardliner about his own affairs makes Frost's compulsion to defend casual sex funnier and ironic when he can't disguise his disapproval of a gigolo he interviews.

The episode begins with a naked woman committing suicide by jumping off the top level of a parking garage, which is certainly the high water mark of lurid for the show so far. In the morgue, Frost is a bit callous discussing the affair, as befits a modern cynical detective but still expresses sympathy for her. Of course, the implication is that the woman was destroyed by indulging in casual sex; despite the debate between Frost and his partner, the makers of the show are bound by a certain morality. Frost's advocacy for casual sex and adorably awkward ponderings on the life of a gigolo are thus rendered a sort of obligatory representation of the opposite view. But the show doesn't really feel committed to the argument, the episode consequently feeling sort of muddled and cosily amoral.

A Game of Nudes

I have to say, an acoustic cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" is a pretty inspired choice for a Game of Thrones trailer.

Looks like Daenerys has been enslaved by people who didn't care to take her valuable looking necklace. Or is she a foot soldier now? But all in all, a good trailer. I even like the kind of tacky cleavage tease for Melisandre. I think this season what we really want to see is Cersei getting payback so that "I choose violence" line is pretty nice.

Speaking of nudity, I was surprised to see most of the more obnoxious news feeds this morning filled with Bette Midler whom the media has decided is in a Twitter war with Kim Kardashian based on one tweet:

"Kim Kardashian tweeted a nude selfie today. If Kim wants us to see a part of her we've never seen, she's gonna have to swallow the camera."

Kudos to Midler's publicist. How many people in the media make vaguely or directly disparaging remarks about Kim Kardashian that don't get any play? Kardashian has released a statement about how her body is empowering and I certainly agree there's nothing shameful about someone posting naked pictures of themselves if they want to. I don't think Midler was aiming for that level of philosophising, though, as indicated by her follow up and only other tweet on the subject: ".@KimKardashian: I never tried to fake friend you. Looks like anyone can take a selfie but not everyone can take a joke..." It was barely a joke; more like a limp comment by someone at the party trying to do everyone the courtesy of looking vaguely engaged with the discussion. I doubt Midler really gives half a rat's ass what Kardashian does or doesn't do.

Speaking of commercials, last night's Better Call Saul was pretty good.

Jimmy getting in hot water over recording a commercial without the senior partners' permission is nice. I like the way this shows the different ethical sensibilities of Jimmy irresistibly manifesting themselves. I love that the show has us wanting Jimmy to be happy about his relationship with his brother and simultaneously has us wanting him to succumb to the Saul side.

The violence in the Mike plot was pretty good.

The Popular Honesty

He seems to speak without a filter, he makes crude jokes, he doesn't seem especially bright but most people get the impression he has a certain common sense wisdom, his straight talk that bucks convention is a refreshing novelty in political and commercial arenas dominated by pandering phoniness. He's human, relatable, A Face in the Crowd, the subject of the 1957 film of that name directed by Elia Kazan. While it makes a few innocent, false assumptions about what makes a star and what breaks one, the film is mostly an insightful portrayal of a common, canny loud-mouth who becomes a powerful, populist, some might say fascist, leader in the public arena.

Demagogue in Denim is the title of the book Walter Matthau's character eventually writes about Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes. Andy Griffith plays Rhodes, some might argue, as the polar opposite of his Andy of Mayberry character he would later become famous for. And yet it is the warmth and charisma, the impression that he's a simple fella with simple wisdom with everyone's best interest at heart, that makes him such a credible Lonesome Rhodes, the same things that won sympathy from the audiences of The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock.

Patricia Neal plays Marcia, the small town radio host and moral centre of the film. We meet her interviewing the lowlife inmates sleeping or lounging in the county jail as she explains to her audience on the portable tape recorder that the greatest songs and performing talents in U.S. history came from the bottom of the social ladder. So she's here for her show, also called A Face in the Crowd, to find such a talent. Her first attempt to get Rhodes' to speak to her is rebuffed by the man sleeping with his back to her and another man warning her that Rhodes is "mean".

But soon Rhodes is coaxed--really, bribed--into taking out his guitar and composing songs on the spot. And, on the spot, Marcia gives him the name "Lonesome" and very quickly a star is born.

It's easy to see, thanks to the earnest quality of Griffith's tenacity in the role, that Rhodes has great instincts for how to woo a crowd and when he tells every kid in town to use his rich boss' pool on a hot summer day, and they do, he starts to realise the power he has.

Frequent comparisons are made to Will Rogers by characters in the film itself though I found myself thinking of Adolf Hitler, coming up with Mein Kamph in jail and then transforming his petty resentments and projected feelings of injustice into a platform of popular motivation. A big voice that seems to invite everyone in except the people who of course can't be invited.

We never see Rhodes coming out against a particular group of people or even advocating violence. In his first television programme he brings out a black staffer--everyone remarks how ground breaking it is to put a black person on television--and implores his audience to send donations to the woman because her house has burned down and she has seven kids. Does he really care for her or is this just another tactic to cement his popularity? Marcia isn't sure but she brings us along with her conflict as she's not sure if she should trust her instinct to love this generous and entertaining man or hate this selfish manipulator.

Although Rhodes does some rather nasty things in his personal life to people, I think the filmmakers were rather wise in avoid direct hints of any malevolence in terms of his public policy. It's good to force the audience, through their avatar, Marcia, to make decisions about him without any explicit tip offs, allowing the audience to be seduced, too.

Twitter Sonnet #848

The second harmonica was the first.
All chairs were sorted wrong for gutter balls.
If dinner's taken in the alley cursed
The plywood breaks and Phoebus makes some calls.
Tricorn frostberries fall with grey petals.
Romana gathers gold below the wall.
A dusty dress conformed to slim metals.
A slender hand arranged a crystal ball.
Unique detractors pall in bins of red.
A false and thin planet recedes through drapes.
The bending asphalt makes a heated bed.
From mantelpieces no glass or beast escapes.
Eyes blackened under piston rain receive
Divine deluge like just devils conceive.

In the Clouds

I had to go across the street early one morning because I'd forgotten to buy coffee the previous day. I got some photos of a plane passing over the market.

I live somewhat close to an airport now and planes pass over all the time. Somehow it doesn't bother me. It hasn't woken me from sleep yet. It is slightly surreal; there's a Bruegelian quality about having these human activities crowded together into the same landscape. Here I am eating breakfast; a short distance away a businessman is getting in from Ontario or somewhere.

I'm so glad I'm finished moving stuff. I still have unpacking to do, something I've put off a bit until I've had the book cases to put stuff in. My last place had a lot more storage space despite being a smaller apartment, now I have to make up for it. I bought a couple book cases at Ikea on Friday and assembled one of them yesterday. The bottom two shelves are now filled with books I read or am in the process of reading for Dekpa and Deborah, my comic set in the seventeenth century. Oh, and in case you're wondering when the next chapter for that is coming, I have no idea. Maybe two weeks from now. My two desks I normally keep together had to be parted because of the snafu with my cable internet so I have to use my computer in the living room. I don't like having it so far from where its fans can lull me to sleep and its scheduled tasks can wake me up in the morning. More importantly, it's irritating not having it nearby to play music or to give me google image searches when I'm drawing. I'll probably try to make do with my laptop.

I started watching an Italian movie from 1973 called Malicious (Malizia) last night but finally gave up after ten minutes or so because the subtitles were so bad.

I suspect this was an Italian DVD that boasted English subtitles as a special feature and no-one working on the DVD knew enough English to verify the translation.

It's not the first time I've come across a file like this. I may look for a better subtitle file, this seems like a good movie, but last night I took the subtitles as an excuse to let Fallout 4 suck four more hours out of my life. To-night, I'm going to try to keep myself away from the video games.

The Subject is In

Now for a real Saturday on Setsuled's Blog--I have Doctor Who related things to talk about. I finally had time to listen to an audio play, 2006's The Reaping. A Sixth Doctor story, it's a rare one for teaming him with Peri, his onscreen companion for the bulk of his television run with whom he had infamously bad chemistry. Individually, Colin Baker as Six is shrill and overblown, Nicola Bryant as Peri is shrill and whiny, together they're like an S&M rap battle between two people with no rhythm. And yet I actually found The Reaping kind of interesting.

Written by Joseph Lidster, who also wrote for Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, the story brings the two back to Peri's home year and place and she's reunited with her family and friends. I must be a hard core Doctor Who fan that I was actually curious to hear more about Peri's family who were introduced as a sort of Dallas trashy, wealthy American family in Planet of Fire. Peri's mother wasn't introduced on television so Big Finish Audio took the opportunity of casting Claudia Christian.

She's best known for her role on Babylon 5--a series I still haven't gotten around to watching--I'm more familiar with her for appearing in nearly every video game I've played in the past five years--which, mind you, isn't many--Skyrim, Guild Wars 2, and Fallout 4. I don't think I've actually seen her in anything, I just hear her.

Casting a real American as Peri's mother further emphasises Bryant's bad accent but it was an interesting story, a Cybermen story with a few genuinely creepy moments. Though a scene where Peri's father somehow passes a message through time on a VHS tape of a party is never quite explained. But it was still kind of neat.

Speaking of audio plays, the trailer for the Tenth Doctor's upcoming audio adventures has been released:

I'm glad they went with Donna, she's my favourite of Ten's companions. David Tennant's exuberance seems likely to make the things enjoyable even if they end up being badly written.

Oroonoko Unchained

The closest equivalent to Quentin Tarantino in the 17th century may have been Aphra Behn whose 1688 short novel, Oroonoko, has a lot in common with Django Unchained. They're both somewhat pulpy melodramas, fantasy versions of the slave experience heavily influenced by the artist's philosophy, and in both cases the artist has had no first hand experience of slavery (with Behn there's some debate as to the closeness of her second hand acquaintance with the subject). Oroonoko, though, has a great deal less interest in slavery as an institution and seeks instead to use the alien world of the slave trade and the West Indies to create an allegory in support of Behn's royalist ideals. The charm of the novel is entirely in the romantic conception of monarchy that runs through it. There's a prettiness about it and an appreciable amount of sexual excitement.

The story begins in modern day Ghana. Little is known about that part of Africa in the 17th century but it's doubtful the reality was anything like the mixture of Middle Eastern fantasy and distinctly English courtly sensibilities on display in Oroonoko. The title character is a prince who falls in love with the beautiful Imoinda. Unfortunately, before they can consummate their relationship, the king takes her as his latest wife.

Actually, the polygamous household would be accurate for West Africa at the time though the portrait Behn paints of harem-like chambers smacks more of general fantasies of the middle and far east. Also rather unlikely is the French tutor (exiled to Africa, Behn vaguely tells us, for certain heretical ideas) and the courtly atmosphere where detailed knowledge of English and European custom is considered a mark of refinement.

The story eventually moves to Surinam where Behn may have resided. Located on the northern coast of South America, the colony shifted between English and Dutch control in the 17th century. Oroonoko, who's described as having a Roman nose and straight hair, impresses even the white masters with his aura of authority, Behn's subscribing to a belief in the divinity of kings turning Oroonoko into a demonstration that a true king will seem so even in such circumstances.

. . . no sooner came into the Boat, but he fix’d his Eyes on him; and finding something so extraordinary in his Face, his Shape and Mein, a Greatness of Look, and Haughtiness in his Air, and finding he spoke English, had a great Mind to be enquiring into his Quality and Fortune; which, though Oroonoko endeavour’d to hide, by only confessing he was above the Rank of common Slaves, Trefry soon found he was yet something greater than he confess’d; and from that Moment began to conceive so vast an Esteem for him, that he ever after lov’d him as his dearest Brother, and shew’d him all the Civilities due to so great a Man.

The narrator of the story is a woman, possibly similar to Behn, who tells us how Oroonoko, now under the slave name of Caesar, became a faithful protector of women, saving them from wild animals of the strange wilderness. Like many popular European fantasies of the time, the West Indies are described as a paradise; "It affords all Things, both for Beauty and Use; ’tis there eternal Spring, always the very Months of April, May, and June; the Shades are perpetual, the Trees bearing at once all Degrees of Leaves, and Fruit, from blooming Buds to ripe Autumn: Groves of Oranges, Lemons, Citrons, Figs, Nutmegs, and noble Aromaticks . . ." The invocation of Eden is more explicit in her descriptions of Native Americans:

The Beads they weave into Aprons about a Quarter of an Ell long, and of the same Breadth; working them very prettily in Flowers of several Colours; which Apron they wear just before ’em, as Adam and Eve did the Fig-leaves; the Men wearing a long Stripe of Linen, which they deal with us for.

Behn may have culled her lengthy descriptions from many accounts--I was reminded of some from Exquemelin. Her direct contact with a native community described in the novel has the distinct quality of a particularly royalist sexual fantasy;

By Degrees they grew more bold, and from gazing upon us round, they touch’d us, laying their Hands upon all the Features of our Faces, feeling our Breasts, and Arms, taking up one Petticoat, then wondering to see another; admiring our Shoes and Stockings, but more our Garters, which we gave ’em, and they ty’d about their Legs, being lac’d with Silver Lace at the Ends; for they much esteem any shining Things. In fine, we suffer’d ’em to survey us as they pleas’d, and we thought they would never have done admiring us.

One suspects an actual encounter of this sort would not have been so charming.

The story is much more explicit in its descriptions of violence, particularly relating to dismemberment and disembowelling, and again I was reminded of Quentin Tarantino. But it's in the service, as the Wikipedia entry points out, of telling the audience what an incredibly unnatural and evil thing it is to execute, exile, or enslave a king, the first two being the misfortunes that fell upon two of Behn's beloved Stuart monarchs, Charles I and James II. Behn clearly has no problem with slavery--her Aristotelian conception of natural hierarchy is quite evident: "[Oroonoko] was ashamed of what he had done in endeavouring to make those free, who were by Nature Slaves, poor wretched Rogues, fit to be used as Christian Tools." It is interesting, from the point of view of a modern reader, that Behn does not tie a natural fitness for slavery with the colour of a person's skin, this reflecting the fact that ideas of racial superiority had yet to really take hold. So a black man was free to be a white woman's fantasy of perfection.

Twitter Sonnet #847

A loosely worn achievement joins the plates.
Two continents co-authored dirt and rock.
When music wanders dental soap in eights
The treble bar is on the stripy sock.
Embargoed gamine mimes returned a purse.
A shadow cast beneath display cases
Has marked the diamond watch a cutting curse.
The heather puts a horse through dry paces.
The water turns into an elephant.
With weight, the trunk was held to earthly graves.
A chocolate bar betrayed the applicant.
So mark how fire in vacuum behaves.
Italian lace released at dusk ascends.
A shadow on the heath makes no amends.

Some of Your Friends are Here

I feel like people should be making a bigger deal out of the fact that Frank Oz was Yoda and James Earl Jones was Darth Vader on last night's Star Wars: Rebels. That no-one's making a big deal is probably a testament to how disappointed people have been generally with the show but--to those of you who've been away--last night's episode was a high point in a season that's been on the definite upswing.

It was written by Henry Gilroy, the best writer from the first season and one of the few imports from Clone Wars. The producers seem to've realised he's their best asset, writing-wise, and have put him in charge of the more important episodes, arc-wise; last night, we finally got a little quality time with Ahsoka, Ezra's turn to the Dark Side was teased, and Kanan faced a belated test.

I've actually been almost not hating Kanan and Ezra for the past couple episodes. I even thought Ezra's ability to talk to animals in "The Call" was kind of charming--though I think I'm alone in that opinion. But I'm definitely happy the show has adopted something closer to the Clone Wars model of focusing on different characters every episode in vastly different locations. Last week had a very nice Enemy Mine homage with Zeb and Agent Kallus--Enemy Mine being a science fiction film released by Disney in the 80s so I wonder if this episode was Disney saying, "Look how natural it is we have Star Wars now."

Since she was brought on in last season's finale, Ahsoka has been annoyingly side-lined, having sort of a Mace Windu role as a respected master who isn't around often. "Shroud of Darkness" gives us a little bit of her getting close to realising her former master, Anakin, has become Darth Vader.

The title of the two part finale airing on March 30 is going to be "Twilight of the Apprentice". Which probably means Vader's going to kill Ahsoka but I really hope it means Ezra turns to the Dark Side and Ahsoka becomes the new star of the show in season three.

The little brat, Ezra, is the one who gets to talk to Frank Oz as Yoda in his vision--the three light sabre wielding characters each have visions in a Jedi temple. Yoda tries to give Ezra the "wars not make one great" rap he gave to Luke but the twerp is even less receptive. He insists that fighting is the only way to win and winning is the most important thing. Ezra going to the Dark Side works not only because it means we'd see less of him: it prevents him from being the generic brand version of Luke and it makes sense of what an ornery little prick he is.

Maybe if he turns to the Dark Side he'll wear a mask with a new voice and he'll be essentially a new character. That'd be nice. My preference would be to have Vader and Ahsoka team up and dismember him but I guess that'd do.

The Hazardous Chaos Behind the Symbol

Does the ultimate meaninglessness of language or symbols pull people apart or bring them together? Does the question pull a movie apart or bring it together? Jean-Luc Godard moves away from his more character driven films of the early 1960s with 1967's Two or Three Things I Know About Her (2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle), a film that mostly seems to be Godard's way of conveying his own impression of critical theory in vogue at the time and how he applies it to politics, society, and personal relationships. In so doing, he presents people who don't become characters, dryly expositing in a movie that doesn't quite become a movie. Which doesn't seem to be a mistake--Wikipedia quotes Godard himself as saying, "In other words, it isn't a film, it's an attempt at a film and presented as such." Like most of Godard's New Wave films, it forces the viewer to contemplate the artificial and manipulative nature of film or art in general, a process redeemed here by the genuinely intriguing quality of some of Godard's ideas and the beauty of his actresses but this film lacks the vitality of his earlier films.

Mostly the movie follows Juliette (Marina Vlady), a housewife and mother who moonlights as a prostitute. She almost never engages in any conventional dialogue and spends most of the film breaking the fourth wall, telling the audience things about herself, making observations about the nature of language, or talking about the war in Vietnam, at one point observing how strange it is that someone in France could care about a stranger in Asia.

Here the film becomes an arena for contemplating the new media access to the horror of war in the 1960s and applying to it contemporary critical theory. What do these images of people suffering so far away mean while Juliette and the other people in the film are caught up contemplating arbitrary symbols? Juliette's little boy tells her about a dream he had where he saw a pair of twins merge into each other which he explains to her symbolises the merging of north and south Vietnam. The absurdity of a child explaining the meaning of his dream as such an explicit political allegory is placed alongside Godard's usual subversion of film language, insisting that the audience realise at all times the choices implied by the images they're seeing. When Juliette goes to a gas station, she explains to the audience how the station might have been shot from many different angles, drastically changing the tone and inferred meaning.

The film makes an explicit reference to Jean Cocteau's Orphee, one character taking down mysterious messages from the radio, even noting as he does so that he saw something similar in a movie. In this we see essentially Cocteau's interpretation of Cocteau's film for his current, personal purposes and the lure of symbols takes on sinister connotations. Relentless questions are directed at women, sexually objectifying them.

Another woman is shown at a cafe, speaking to a man off-screen, while someone noisily plays pinball behind her. The never seen man asks her if she's afraid of sex, she says no, and then he repeatedly asks her to say that her sex organ is between her legs. She repeatedly refuses and he insists it's because she's afraid which she denies. By continually controlling the conversation and remaining out of frame, he in some sense dictates the nature of the reality we perceive of her. Similarly, another scene has Juliette and a fellow prostitute obliging a client by walking around naked wearing tote bags on their heads.

Only their bodies remaining while their heads, their identities, are replaced by airline logos.

Much of this ground is covered in Pierrot le fou, which is made more charming by the chemistry between its stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. Vlady as Juliette isn't bad but she doesn't have Karina's star quality, or maybe what she lacks is a real spiritual or creative rapport with the director to naturally elevate his philosophy to a more organic place. But Two or Three Things I Know About Her is an interesting visual essay about people lost and alienated in a wilderness of symbols.

Twitter Sonnet #846

The palm was carved to hold the egg in place.
The longer string'll make the cello trip.
A fleet retires now to greener grace.
Neglected whiskey gleams at ev'ry sip.
A stone replaced the face in lights at home.
Descending spider facsimiles sing.
Perfunct'ry trumpets break heralding Rome.
A bear applauds a tired echo ring.
Judicious jade'll jumble fruit in freight.
A bean or cowrie fails at Marshalsea.
The button left for tithe'll take your weight
The caviar was bruised at Battersea.
A marshmallow rejects the clock for fat
Consensus says the Hutt's a heavy prat.

This Kind of Journey is Fast

Don't let yourself get dragged outside in Turkey on a cold night without your hat and top coat, especially if you're going to need to conceal a gun later. Joseph Cotten learns the hard way in 1943's Journey into Fear, a story of subtly but continually rising tension, well shot, and a bit brief. At just over an hour, it doesn't feel like it quite gets up to the speed of Strangers on a Train or The Third Man but is an effective anecdote of suspense.

As he would later show in The Third Man, Joseph Cotten excels at playing a man with this kind of problem: the wandering and puzzled man in a foreign country. Here he's the target of enemy agents because he's an engineer who's conducted vital work to the war effort. He's about to go home with his wife when an enthusiastic stranger played by Everett Sloane talks him downstairs for a drink and then they end up at a nightclub. One thing leads to another and not only is Graham (Cotten) prevented from going back to his hotel room, he ends up a passenger on a freighter leaving the country along with a small, strange assortment of other passengers.

But before this, he meets a Turkish colonel played by Orson Welles wearing a prosthetic nose and moustache that makes him look oddly like Stalin.

It's said that Welles secretly directed a large part of this film and perhaps some of the camera angles reflect his ingenuity but for the most part the movie's not as remarkably shot as Citizen Kane or Touch of Evil. One has the impression he was having a lot of fun in the role, though.

Dolores del Rio also has a very small part as a night club performer wearing a moderately fetching cat cowl.