Adam

up for the Operation Homecoming opening at Film Forum today. It was reviewed in various NY publications today. I hope those of you in NY might find it interesting and will check it out!

I'm in Amsterdam today. Just went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was closed for construction when I was last here in 1999. Saw the whole thing, and rather liked the Van Gogh & the Expressionists which is the featured exhibition right now. Then I went to the Bodies in Motion show, which is now here, and which I missed in Los Angeles. Over priced & over crowded, but still quite interesting. Now to the airport...

Here's the flier for Film Forum

Hi all, A bit of self-promotion. I co-produced two documentaries last year. One is called "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience." It's about soldeirs experiences of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as reflected in their own writings. It will be opening at Film Forum in NY on Feb 9 and playing for a week. I hope everyone there can make it. More news to come, of other cities where it will be playing, festivals, etc. It's rooted in a program by the NEA that created a bunch of writing workshops at military bases. Here's a link about that NEA initiative: http://www.arts.gov/national/homecoming/index.html Tickets at Film Forum: www.filmforum.org I promise that it won't be a waste of your time. Some writings were published in the New Yorker last summer. A larger assortment was published as a book by Random House last September. The film drew upon the submissions by soldiers for the book. Not propaganda, as some critics feared when it was originally announced. I think it's a remarkable portrait of troops at war, the complexities, doubts, and fears - written with honesty. I'm biased, of course, but response has been pretty overwhelming thus far. The 80-minute version of the film (which will be in theatres) includes 11 pieces of writing, with different visual strategies, along with interviews with the writers, and with more established American writers who are also veterans. In the latter group are Tim O'Brien, Yusef Komunyakaa, Tobias Wolff, Joe Haldeman, James Salter, Anthony Swofford, Richard Currey, and Paul Fussell. The visual approaches range from poet Brian Turner reading directly to camera, to archival footage, to an animated "graphic novel," to a still photo sequence shot by photographer Antonin Kratochvil. There will also be a 53 minute version airing on PBS as part of a series "America at a Crossroads." the series deals with America's relationship with terrorism, war, Islam, and other variations. Here's the website for our show & the series. The PBS version has two fewer pieces of writing, and various other trims. http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/about/s...homecoming.html ---- The other film is "The Old Weird America: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music." I'm currently at the Rotterdam Film Festival with that one. One more screening - tomorrow 2/2. It's available in the box set from Shout! Factory, but we are trying to get some festival and television play. Beasts of entirely different natures. But I hope you all can check them out. I think you might hear a bit about Operation Homecoming in the weeks to come.

This one doesn't seem to be of interest to folks. Should I change it?

Nels Cline - The Inkling

The Nels Cline Singers - The Giant Pin

Instrumentals

up

There is already a good thread with nice discussion of Nels Cline's "New Monastery" album. http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...Cline&st=30 I debated putting the new Ben Goldberg album (the door, the hat, the chair, the fact), but decided it might be nice to look at Cline's earlier work on Cryptogramophone. There is also the album undr his own name, The Inkling. Heck, feel free to discuss Destroy All Nels Cline as well, which is on Atavistic. I hope someone else will consider discussing the Goldberg album http://www.cryptogramophone.com/ The Nels Cline Singers - Instrumentals Devin Hoff - bass Scott Amendola - drums, perc, loops, processing Nels Cline - electric 6, 12 & baritone guitars My copy was used and is missing the booklet, so I don't know the recording dates, but it was issued in 2002. Devin Hoff is also on the Goldberg album. And I don't own The Giant Pin or The Inkling yet. I keep hoping to buy it at a Cline gig, but it hasn't happened yet. The Nels Cline Singers, as you can see, has no vocal singers. It definitely has moments that head towards loud improvised rock. But as usual, I don't have many comments yet. I'll post more, and hope some of you will own it and have thoughts about the Singers and Cline.

I don't get it Jim. Do you find Michelle Phillips attractive?

It's in the high 60s or maybe 70 Fahrenheit here today and sunny and beautiful. It seems like the Arctic cold front has now moved on.

I just bought a ticket RT from LA to Amsterdam for about $650. It was $499 plus taxes & fees. Did it through the American Airlines site directly - better fares than show up on Expedia & Travelocity. Amsterdam is never that expensive, if you are buying a decent amount ahead of time. $1200? No way.

I believe they do spell it correctly, based on the spelling of the city of Concord California.

RIP. I'm shocked. She looked good at UCLA last year. My condolences to her family.

I have it, but I'm also good friends with Googe, the bassist from the band. Want me to ask if he has any?

FYI, all the Criterion Hitchcock's are OOP and fetching big bucks on ebay. Really? I have all 3. And 'Rebecca." Maybe I'll watch them someday and sell them. Nah. There are so many Mizoguchi, Naruse, and Ozu films not available on Region 1 DVD. But it seems like Criterions new series of boxes, without many extras, may finally start catching up with some. I'm looking forward to the early Bergman box. And if Eureka also continues with those boxes, that would be great. Not Region 1 (but I have an all region player), but at least there will be available English-subtitled editions.

i own the DVD but haven't watched it. Crazy, i know, but that;'s why I'm trying a self-imposed ban on the purchase of DVDs. But I was at Cinephile today in West Los Angeles and saw a few DVDs from a line akin to Criterion - the Eureka/Masters of Cinema line from England. Europe region encoded, but the full nice treatment. they just came out with a Naruse box set with 3 films and a book that I just know I will get someday. And the Criterion Rohmer box, also with a book!

The Piano Blues & Boogie Woogie indeed looks like a must to me. Question regarding Chu Berry. Is this the first big Mosaic box that has "Selected" in the title? I wonder why not Complete? Chu Berry (7 CDs) Selected recordings from labels owned by Sony/BMG It's common practice when discussing major tenor saxophonists to mention both Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. However, there was yet another who brought a new voice to the jazz lexicon and whose influence was and is still deeply felt: Chu Berry. This new Mosaic set, due out in February, contains 177 selected tracks by this underappreciated artist. These performances span his formative years (including the classic Benny Carter-led Chocolate Dandies date for Parlophone in 1933) to his untimely death in an automobile crash in 1941.

Isn't adding a baby always a sign of jumping the shark? I also think sit-coms tend to have quality lives of about 5 years tops. They might have some good shows after that, but the fomula for the show (whatever it might be) is so established by season 5 or 6 that shows just write themselves, and there isn't any more of the bits of randomness or anarchy that makes shows work. i am always amazed by how different shows are in the first season, or their first trial run, from the rest of the series.

The reason I find this premise so distasteful is the assumption of the author and, obviously, others by their lists, to associate fame and celebrity with importance. Maybe some people ought to find out about the contributions of people like Benjamin Banaker, Garrett Morgan, Louis Lattimer, Hannibal, Elijah McCoy, Madam Walker, Nefertiti and other great queens and kings of Egypt, Timbuktu and other African nations, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Marcus Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Madam Walker, Marshall "Major" Taylor and too many more to list. All "the top 5 black people" aren't/were not entertainers, athletes and/or Americans. Just because you don't know their names doesn't mean that they have not profoundly impacted the world. "Black" I've read a few times in the past couple of days that after the release of the song "Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud", African-Americans in the USA basically started callings themselves "black" as oppposed to "Negro" or "colored." Or allowed themselves to be called "black." or no longer saw it as an insult. or some permutation thereof. First, for those of you who were around, do you remember it happening that way? Second, if it did, I would argue that that could be seen as Brown's biggest influence (or one of them) - allowing a people to redefine the language by which they refer to or define themselves. I would argue that he did so musically, and here is an instance of him perhaps doing it linguistically as well. Creating a new language (or languages) that a whole people use for self-definition - that's a pretty big deal. Obviously not a single-handed action, but what is?

Thanks for the photos, Clem! In this one, what is everyone looking at?

More important than a meaningless list: Is anyone going to the Apollo today to pay tribute?

Well, now Criterion is starting a "budget" line - sets of overlooked films by great directors (starting with early Bergman, pre "Seventh Seal" without the extras, and charging about $15 per disc. Here's their announcement, in their blog. http://www.criterionco.com/blog/2006_12_01...614051941207207 Personally, witha few exceptions, I buy DVDs only with special features or box sets. Single disc movie only I can rent. Criterions are probably half of what I own. Throw in the Werner Herzog boxes from Anchor Bay and from his website, some Kino boxes, Unseen Cinema, Noir boxes, and some music, and that almost covers it. Of course, I almost never get around to watching any of them.

What lousy news to wake to. RIP Godfather, King, and everything. Damn. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/...-home-headlines Soul singer James Brown dies His influence on rap, disco and funk are indisputable. He had been hospitalized briefly with pneumonia. By Greg Bluestein, The Associated Press December 25, 2006 ATLANTA -- James Brown, the legendary singer known as the Godfather of Soul, has died, his agent said today. He was 73. Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia on Sunday at Emory Crawford Long Hospital and died around 1:45 a.m. today, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles A. Bobbit was by his side, he said. Copsidas said that Brown's family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said. Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the last 50 years. A generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson, among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style. If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator. "James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told the Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close." His hit singles included such classics as "Out of Sight," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride. "I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," Brown said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society." He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male). He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers. From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business. With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling. Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. "Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90% of their music is me," he told the Associated Press in 2003. Born in poverty in Barnwell, S.C., in 1933, he was abandoned as a 4-year-old to the care of relatives and friends and grew up on the streets of Augusta, Ga., in an "ill-repute area," as he once called it. There he learned to wheel and deal. "I wanted to be somebody," Brown said. By the eighth grade in 1949, Brown had served 3 1/2 years in Alto Reform School near Toccoa, Ga., for breaking into cars. While there, he met Bobby Byrd, whose family took Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his group, the Gospel Starlighters. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B. In January 1956, King Records of Cincinnati signed the group, and four months later "Please, Please, Please" was in the R&B Top Ten. Though most of Brown's life was glitz and glitter, he was plagued with charges of abusing drugs and alcohol and of hitting his third wife, Adrienne. In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta office. Police said he asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom. Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck. Brown received a six-year prison sentence. He spent 15 months in a South Carolina prison and 10 months in a work release program before being paroled in February 1991. After his release in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music. He was soon on stage again with an audience that included millions of cable TV viewers nationwide who watched the three-hour, pay-per-view concert at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2003, the South Carolina parole board granted him a pardon for his crimes in that state. Adrienne Brown died in 1996 in Los Angeles at age 47. She took PCP and several prescription drugs while she had a bad heart and was weak from cosmetic surgery, the coroner said. He and his fourth wife — Tomi Raye Hynie, one of his backup singers — had a son, James Jr., now about 5.