I was so appalled by the Spring Issue of DGA Quarterly that I had to buy it and pore through it to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Is it possible to print a multi-page article on Doctor Strangelove, analyzing several scenes and noting numerous characters by name, without once mentioning Terry Southern, the key co-author of the screenplay which nailed those scenes and colorfully christened those characters?
I understand that this mag is the house organ of the film directors’ union. Still, sentences like “Kubrick wastes no time getting his narrative going” and discussions of how the comedy is measured and paced amid scenes of suspense willfully deflect the importance of the writer, ascribing to Kubrick what any fan of Southern’s novels and other screenplays will quickly realize are this writer’s hallmark, not this director’s.
The whole tyrannical director-as-auteur theory was softened decades ago to allow for the contributions of key collaborators. Even the hyper hands-on director Stanley Kubrick gave credit where due and didn’t hog the limelight more than he needed to. He corralled stars from all fields and used their talents wisely.
The especially galling aspect of this DGA Quarterly piece (penned by Rob Feld) is that it leans heavily on quotes from Lawrence Kasdan, a writer/director who knows firsthand that movies don’t make themselves up as they go along. In other realms, Terry Southern has been sanctified for taking a meandering and unfocused Strangelove script and adding consistency and sharp contemporary satire to it. Here, he’s roundly ignored for that feat, though the monikers he coined (Brigadier General Jack Ripper, Major “King” Kong, President Merkin Muffley) jump around the page as lively as he made them.
I clearly recall the aggrieved letters which Evan Hunter, mystery novelist supreme and equally adept writer of screenplays, would write to the New York Times whenever some critic would analyze Hitchcock’s The Birds and attribute certain achievements in it to the director when they had originated with Hunter the screenwriter. Hunter’s passed away, but his mission remains. Directors are great and necessary, but they don’t do it all. When discussing Doctor Strangelove, give Terry Southern (not to mention Peter George, who wrote the novel which initially inspired the film) his due.
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Rock Gods #138: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
We got that Extinct lyric pretty much right last week:
You were smart—when you threw me over
You’ll smart—when I’m in the clover
I can change—more than you suspected
I’m unchained—can do the unexpected.
Not Blake, sure, but you gotta hear the tune, and Robert Stankus’ uh, unexpectedly good singing voice. That chance will be coming sooner than we could ever hope. An album will take a good deal longer, but that small label that signed Extinct last week wants to put “Smart” out as a radio single within the next two months.
Rich Johns and a solo set by Sidney George at the Bullfinch…
The Silvermen and D-Guild at Hamilton’s, a purported hip-hop happening though both acts are all white… Game Changers and Complicated Shadows at D’ollaire’s. Is it us, or is the big room getting too hip for its own good?…
For Tomorrow We May Die: Diary of a College Chum #93
Tests came back: dog. Our lawn writing is ruined.
Listening to…
The Black Rabbits, Hypno Switch (Rock Ridge Music. www.theblackrabbits.com)
It’s not news that I’m a big fan of the first three Jonas Brothers albums, when they were screaming youngsters and hadn’t yet “matured” into ‘70s California and faux-funk territory. So I hope I’m not embarrassing the Black Rabbits when I say that this Asheville, N.C. quartet (fronted, interestingly, by brothers: Jetson and Skyler Black) sound wonderfully Jonasesque in their mix of clean, clear, studied vocals (lots of warbly oohs and ahs) and frolicsome playing (bash, bash, bash). The Black Rabbits create songs that build from simple beats and statements into grand emotional outbursts. They stay friendly and sloppy, which is something the Jonas Brothers were never allowed to accomplish. Such informality is an especially tough trick with songs like “Hurry, Hurry,” which resemble something the Turtles might have done in the 1960s. It helps when the producers are Tom Petty’s old drummer Stan Lynch and Backstreet Boys guitarist Billy Chapin.
Hypno Switch’s title song has adorable nyah-nyah backing vocals and an opening “Hey!” that’s screamed at exactly the right moment. The penultimate track, “For Way Too Long Way,” slows down the pace, for half a song anyhow, even adding “doo doo doo”s, and the album closer “So Long, Sophia” gets positively ballady, approaching a modern INXS “Never Tear Us Apart.” Hey, the Jonas boys had their slow songs too.
Arts & Ideas: A ticket back to Box City
We walked past the corner of Chapel and Temple yesterday, the former site of Café Bottega. My daughters both lit up and proclaimed “It’s Box City!”
A long-vacant empty storefront is what it was. But for one marvelous weekend at the outset of the 2001 International Festival of Arts & Ideas a fortnight ago, Box City emerged Brigadoon-like in the economically downbeat streets of New Haven.
Mabel and Sally are not accustomed to thinking inside the box. Yet they are proud and loyal residents of Box City, which returned for the opening weekend of the International Festival of Arts & ideas. They’ve taken part in the festival’s communal construct-a-city activity each time it’s happened, diligently receiving their building permits from architecture-savvy on-site volunteers, then designing and decorating their own edifices, which get placed in a cityscape where small businesses (especially pet shops) outnumber residences seemingly 10-to-1.
Only real gripe I heard about Box City this year is that nearly all the building materials were new, when this is a real opportunity to indulge in some creative recycling of boxes, paper and various decorations.
Box City lives on in the girls’ bedroom, since they arrived at the appointed apocalyptic moment when Box City was being demolished on Chapel Street, and brought their buildings home with them.
Who knows, maybe next year the whole Arts & Ideas festival will take place in Box City rather than New Haven.
Rock Gods #136: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
New club in town—for a week. Old Firehouse 28—aka Community Stage—has a hot festival. The programmers are the DJs, writers and crew from college station WCOH, putting the music where their mouths are.
“We thought, ‘We’re always talking about the music, why don’t we make some?” explains station manager Mac Lennon, who changed his summer vacation plans to help ignite the harmonic Firehouse conflagration. Likewise, COH publicist/treasurer/“Hill Herald” DJ/Jill-of-all-trades Anna Air stuck around campus just for this.
Some of the bands are indeed COH-connected: Stein of Wine, The Slakes, Deputy Op and the Bearded Wordies all have membered who’ve mumbled through the station’s mics. Other fest participants hail from all over: The Waterhouses, Rush Stage, HerKansas, several dozen acts in all scattered over a 10-day schedule.
Headlining the final night are Humble Harry and Grace in Name Grace in Nature.
Some other collegians, the type who prefer to write their ideas down and not sing them aloud, are setting up symposia, holding trivia matches and giving a club tour of the community.
Nothing this fast and loud has been seen at Firehouse 28 since it had fire engines in it. Expect regular reports from us on this phenomenon, but be sure to stop by the firehouse yourself for a full schedule, and to congratulate them on what a swell job they’ve done setting up the space.
The alarms are sounding over yonder, but don’t neglect the trusted established music joints like the Bullfinch (which this week features Tranny Mall, Veer/Tell and Two or Three Beccas), Hamilton’s (with The Red Cats, Wood Fringe and The Culvers upcoming) and D’ollaire’s (hello to The Graumans, Bonaventure and Edit2Jeff)…
For Tomorrow We May Die: Diary of a College Chum #91
Called Mar’ s dad Lar the lawyer, who made us call the police about the bones.
Rock Gods #135: Adventures in Our Little Music Scene
Folks, Wednesday’s bill at the Bull was the kind of thing that never happens in real life. Because in real life, rock bands worth even the tiniest dose of respect might be informed by club managers that their former bassist’s new band would be opening for them on a night when a guy who works at a label in a big city has been specially invited. In real life, the leader of the older band might even have heard that his old bandmate and former friend-since-birth had even started a band of his own. But it’s a Wednesday in a small city, and all bets are off. A band was needed mid-week for no pay, the drummer was drinking at the bar and mentioned they might be ready, and history was made. Yes, somebody walked off with a record contract last night. And no, it wasn’t The Blats!
The artist formerly known as Bloody Stink now goes by his birth name of Robert Stankus. The rap on Bobby was that he couldn’t play bass well enough to be a Blat, but it turns out—to these ecstatic ears at least—that he was really meant to play guitar, and to play a much more prepared sort of music that his ex-friend Scott’s rangy blues-punk-rock. Out of eight songs in the debut set—first gig anywhere, remember—I deem four good and two great. (I’m still hummin’ one of ‘em, the one with the chorus that says something like “You’re smart,” or maybe “you’ll smart” or maybe both. It’s the kind of pop/rock that’s unfairly gone out of style. Which befits the band’s name (which I’m guessing is also a complex pun on Bloody Stink’s transformation): Extinct.
Some (presumably more comfortable) multi-bills at area clubs, all tomorrow: The Warm-Blooded, Egg-Laying Feathered Vertebrates with Rhamphor Hynchus and Middle Awash at The Bullfinch… Ancient history (i.e. lots of “classic” covers) with Cabbage Palmetto and Audax at Hamilton’s… Family night at D’ollaire’s with The Leakeys, The Huxleys and (sorry, can’t stretch the theme any further) Poison Dart Frogs…
For Tomorrow We May Die: Diary of a College Chum #90
Found bones in the hole. Whole house up late, scared.
Listening to…
Iceage, New Brigade.
My first impression of this instantly disarming album is that it’s staggering great. I only hesitate because it moves faster, both musically and intellectually, than you can keep up with. It’s a tricky job, listening to this layered, frenetic masterpiece.
You could say Iceage mashes together every great punk band of the past 40 years or so, from Buzzcocks to Wire to Nirvana.
Because I was away, I just missed a chance to see Iceage live in New Haven on June 23 at the offhand venue Popeye’s Garage. I regret it, but at the same time I’m not sure I could have handled it.
Now, I may well wake up some morning and decide that Iceage sucks. That’s punk for you. For now, I’m intoxicated.