Angela Carter - BBC Radio 3 Interview - 1991

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Angela Carter - BBC Radio 3 - 1991 by DecorporationNotes

I was first given a copy of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber in high school by the smartest person I knew, and I am sad to say I can now no longer look forward to reading any more novels by her (having read them all in rapid succession after my first encounter).  I can, however, continue to reread the stories and novels, rediscovering the immense explorations she undertakes in the various phases of her work — from anarcho-feminist fantasy to farcical family romance and everything in between — and continue to ferret out gems like this 1991 Radio 3 interview.  In it, she displays all the power of her timeless vocabulary, iconoclastic vigor and bawdy charm (as in her description of the public reception of the political themes in her books: "One is only supposed to be pink and insouciant after a day in the sun"), and provides much insight into her methods and inspirations.   I highly recommend leafing through any of her brilliant novels or essays (Love, The Bloody Chamber, and Wise Children having positions of the greatest importance in my literary pantheon) some afternoon — with a bag of apples by your side, of course.

A Moment In The Sun

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A Moment In The Sun

by John Sayles

McSweeney's, 935 pages

"Spanning five years and half a dozen countries, 

A Moment in the Sun

 takes the whole era in its sights—from the white-racist coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, to the first stirrings of the motion-picture industry, to the bloody dawn of U.S. interventionism in Cuba and the Philippines. The result of years of writing and research, the book is built on the voices of a breathtaking range of men and women—Hod Brackenridge, a gold-chaser turned Army recruit; Royal Scott, an African American infantryman whose life outside the military has been destroyed; Diosdado Concepcíon, a Filipino insurgent preparing to fight against his country’s new colonizers; and more than a dozen others, Mark Twain, Damon Runyon, and President William McKinley’s assassin among them. Shot through with a lyrical intensity and stunning detail that recall Doctorow and 

Deadwood

 both, this is a story as big as its subject: history rediscovered through the lives of the people who made it happen."

John Sayles reading at Malaprop's bookstore and cafe on May 7, 2011.

PLAYLIST 07: SUMMER

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Caroline Quigley of Derry, age 7, was recorded in 1971 singing this famous little song from the early days of the "Troubles" in the six occupied counties of Ireland.  It stems from the bitter "Battle of Bogside" in Derry city when the residents of the Bogside (the main "nationalist" area) for three days successfully fought off the attempts of the Police to enter the neighbourhoods in 1969.  Her mother was Helen Quigley, a very fine singer and a well known member of the Republican Movement in Derry. This is a live recording made at The Bogside Inn in Derry at a special concert organised by members of the Official Republican Movement.

Flaming Tunes was a collaboration between Mary Currie and Gareth Williams, and was originally released on cassette in 1985.  The album was recorded after Gareth left This Heat in the early 1980’s and returned from the first of several trips to India.  Except for its initial release there has been no official edition of FT, although a bootleg CD from the late 1990’s included the tape in its entirety.  It was misleadingly described as "This Heat’s final demo recordings" which was a great cause of annoyance to Gareth.  He considered the Tunes album a deliberate attempt to create a music with a different mood and texture to the often harsh and uncompromising This Heat recordings, whilst giving full reign to his eclectic tastes and distinctive musical stylings.

The Tower Recordings were a group of friends in Brattleboro, Vermont. Revolving around Matt Valentine (featuring at times, PG Six, Helen Rush, Tim Barnes, Samara Lubelski, S. Freyer, Esq., Andre Vida and Dean Roberts), they were one of the more innovative groups bundled under the ever-growing umbrella of the psychedelic folk scene (or "New Weird America" as The Wire would have it). Although they have been largely overlooked in the wake of the bands who were better placed when the media began to take an interest, they’ve consistently been viewed by musicians and discerning fans alike as one of the psych-folk underground’s best kept secrets. With an encyclopedic knowledge of blues and folk traditions and a fascination with the avant-garde, they created a suitably far out sound filled with brittle acoustic picking and mind melting experimentation. The recordings often involved retiring to a suitably isolated and atmospheric location and playing with a tape rolling.  Gradually they folded, with Matt Valentine evolving and creating beautiful work under the MV & EE collective umberella.

The Books are an American duo, formed in New York City in 1999, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Nick Zammuto and cellist Paul de Jong. Their releases typically incorporate samples of obscure sounds and speech.They have released three critically acclaimed albums on the German label Tomlab, and recently released their fourth studio album, The Way Out, on Temporary Residence Limited. 

Movietone is an English post-rock band.  They formed in Bristol, England in 1994.  Core members are Kate Wright and Rachel Brook (now Rachel Coe).  Brook was also a member of Flying Saucer Attack during the first few years of the band's existence, and Wright is also currently the bass player for Crescent. Other musicians have included Matt and Sam Jones (both of Crescent), Matt Elliott (The Third Eye Foundation), Chris Cole, Florence Lovegrove, Ros Walford and Clare Ring.  2003's The Sand and The Stars was recorded almost entirely live on a beach. 

Ernst Reijseger (born November 13, 1954, Bussum) is a Dutch cellist and composer. He specializes in jazz, improvised music, and contemporary classical music and often gives solo concerts. He has worked with Louis Sclavis, Derek Bailey, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Gerry Hemingway, Yo-Yo Ma, Albert Mangelsdorff, Franco D'Andrea, Joëlle Léandre, Georg Gräwe, Trilok Gurtu, and Mola Sylla, and has done several world music projects working with musicians from Sardinia, Turkey, Iran, Senegal, and Argentina, as well as the Netherlands based group Boi Akih.  He has made numerous recordings, both as solo cellist and with other groups, and has been the subject of a documentary film. He has also written several film scores, including scores for two Werner Herzog films: The Wild Blue Yonder and Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Steady On Your Aim With The Petrol Bomb

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A famous little song from the early days of the "Troubles" in the six occupied counties of Ireland. It stems from the bitter "Battle of Bogside" in Derry city when the residents of the Bogside (the main "nationalist" area) for three days successfully fought off the attempts of the Police to enter the neighbourhoods in 1969.

A famous little song from the early days of the "Troubles" in the six occupied counties of Ireland. It stems from the bitter "Battle of Bogside" in Derry city when the residents of the Bogside (the main "nationalist" area) for three days successfully fought off the attempts of the Police to enter the neighbourhoods in 1969.

The song is performed here by Caroline Quigley of Derry, age 7 at the time of recording in about 1971. Her mother was Helen Quigley, a very fine singer and a well known member of the Republican Movement in Derry. This is a live recording made at The Bogside Inn in Derry at a special concert organised by members of the Official Republican Movement.

The Twitter Fiction of Noel Fielding

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Over the past year or two, Noel Fielding (of the Mighty Boosh), has been emitting increasingly complex parables via frantic bursts of tweets, and I feel sad for anybody not reading them.  They usually begin from what is ostensibly a matter-of-fact "status update" and then progress into a drunkenly remembered narrative of insular magical logic, often involving debaucherous inanimate objects, fashion mishaps, and unicorns.  While similar to his stand-up material and the universe he and Julian Barratt created with the Mighty Boosh, these micro-fictions seem to only make sense in the context of twitter. You can follow him on at @noelfielding11.
Here is the last one, from about an hour ago:
worked on my art book today with bongo brown who is a visual wizard. There was also a spanish bull in the mix and a sausage sandwich. x.

i think the bull was famous at some point although he was well balanced and not aloof in anyway. x.

cant say the same for the sausage sandwich though. He was up his own arse. x.

And he told a really long story that didnt really go anywhere. dick head.

but he thought it was the best story ever and started rolling about the desk making a grunting sound.

i could tell Dave and the bull were both equally disgusted and rightly so. That sausage was unbearable.

i felt bad for the sausage in the end because he had no social skills and it turned out that he his wife had been sleeping around.

although to be fair to her if he tells stories like that and makes that grunting noise all the time its not surprising.

i always feel sorry for outsiders i cant help it so i offered to go camping with him in europe. Nightmare. Why did i do that?

i hate camping and that noise he makes goes right through me. Disaster.  

I feel in my heart the sausage knew this though.

I think I saw him crossing out Daves number from his phone book. in permanent marker.

Anyway to cut a long story short I turn up at the sausages penthouse flat with my ground sheet and him and @jimmylazers have already left.

So now i have to turn my chariot around and persuade my unicorns to take me back home. But they already had another job booked in.

So not only have i been double crossed by the sausage I am walking home with a ground sheet over my head. I look like a small plastic hill.

And @jimmylazers and the sausage are in the south of france in a two man tent. living the dream.

worse was to come I got back to mine and the Bull was there drunk trying on my clothes. this is like a nightmare.

hes stretched most of my good stuff. The stuff I keep for night times. Dry cleaning only stuff. He's in a track suit now doing shots.

He's so wide its ridiculous. He is dancing around the bedroom with electrical appliances hanging off him. all caught round his legs.

And my best hat hanging from one of his horns. Its bent out of shape. I will have to steam press that tomorrow.

I am standing directly on the bulls head now as he crashes about the kitchen looking for more southern comfort.

He is so drunk he is shouting to the bedroom for me to come and help him and I am standing on his head. He's out of control.

Well if you cant beat them join them. x x x.  

The guy from next door has heard all the noise and is banging on my door. Gonna send the bull out to answer the door dressed as me. Ha Ha Ha.  

Oh no the bull is bringing the guy from next door in. Unbelievable its not the guy from next door its the sausage. Wearing a pancake.  

Hes got a crepe poncho on and is throwing playing cards everywhere. @jimmylazers is here as well dressed as the pope.

This is not how I saw my evening panning out. Boom for real.  

me standing on a drunk bulls head whilst a sausage in a pancake overcoat pelts @jimmylazers dressed as the pope with playing cards.

Ive got my French Nan staying with me as well. x.  

Anyway hope you guys are having a good night x Bye x

 

Progress and Resistance in Central India, Part 3

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Arundhati Roy has republished her essays on the Maoist struggle in central India (previously discussed

here

and

here

) in her new book of essays,

Broken Republic

.  Of course, like all of her work, these essays follow the logical and poetic implications of the injustices and struggles of indigenous people in India to global and metaphysical levels, providing novel possbilities of understanding and inspiration.  I can say without having read the new edition and the third essay it contains that this is a must-read for advocates of indigenous rights, environmentalists, and anti-capitalists of all stripes.

Here is a BBC interview with Arundhati Roy about the book:

New book, "Broken Republic: Three Essays": http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/category/Non_Fiction/Broken_Republic_9780670085699.aspx

PLAYLIST 06: SPRING

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Steve Reich is an American composer who pioneered the style of minimalist music. His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and "Four Organs"). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music, especially in the US. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably the Grammy Award-winning Different Trains. Reich's style of composition influenced many other composers and musical groups. Reich has been described by The Guardian as one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history", and the critic Kyle Gann has said Reich "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer." On January 25, 2007, Reich was named the 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize, together with jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Double Sextet. (WIKIPEDIA)

South is an ambient, post-rock unit from Richmond, Virginia. Core band members include songwriters Patrick Phelan and Nathan Lambdin, along with percussionist Tod Parkhill, founder of the company that publishes Nothing Nice To Say. Musicians who have played a supporting role with the band include bassist Bryan Hoffa, Labradford contributor Peter Neff on hammered dulcimer, Jess Bittner on vibraphone, and either Via Nuon (Drunk, Bevel) or Rick Alverson (Drunk, Spokane) on keyboard. Their self-titled debut was released via Jagjaguwar, with recording help from The Technical Jed's Clancy Fraher, Brent Lambert (Carbon Leaf, Superchunk) and John Morand (Cracker, FSK). (WIKIPEDIA)

Abilene formed in 1998, and originally consisting of Alex Dunham on guitar and vocals, Scott Adamson behind drums, and bassist Craig Ackerman, they recorded and released a six-song slow-burner on the now-defunct Slowdime label. Before writing and recording Two Guns, Twin Arrows, Fred Erskine (June of '44, Hoover) joined to play trumpet, and the band evolved musically into something more dense, equally brooding, yet still ambient and subtle in nature.

The Mercury Program is an American musical group composed of Dave Lebleu on drums, Sander Travisano on bass guitar, Tom Reno on guitar, and Whit Travisano on vibraphone andpiano. They are based in Gainesville, FL. The first three members formed a trio in August 1997 and Whit Travisano joined in late 1999. The band members live in different cities across the United States. Their first two albums featured sparse, spoken vocals. However, with the release of the EP 'All the Suits Began to Fall Off' and onwards they become entirely instrumental. Their style is described as intricate and groove-led with many categorizing them as post-rock.After the release of 'Confines of Heat' in 2003, The Mercury Program took a much needed break. Then over the next several years they worked on new material in a much more relaxed manner. But in October 2006, the band got back together and recorded a new record with Andy Baker in Athens GA. This much anticipated new record, named "Chez Viking" was released November 24, 2009 on Lovitt Records. (WIKIPEDIA)

Beti Kamanga — no information available.From the album Nyasaland: Northern And Central Malawi, 1950 & 1957-58, SWP Records.

Arthur Russell (May 21, 1951 – April 4, 1992) was an American cellist, composer, singer, and disco artist. While he found the most success in dance music, Russell's career bridged New York's downtown, rock, and dance music scenes; his collaborators ranged from Philip Glass to David Byrne to Nicky Siano. Relatively unknown during his lifetime, a series of reissues and compilations have raised his profile in the 2000s. (WIKIPEDIA)

Inspirace (1948)

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Karel Zeman (November 3, 1910, Ostroměř near Nová Paka, then Austria-Hungary - April 5, 1989, Zlín, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech animator and filmmaker. He is considered the co-founder of the Czech animated film. (Wikipedia)

Inspirace (Inspiration, 1948) was created from blown-glass figurines that were re-heated & re-heated to reposition for the stop-motion cameras. (Wild Realm Reviews)

Corto clásico del pionero checo Karel Zeman, hecho con figurillas de vidrio.

Caledonia Dreamin'

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A decent (by virtue of being the only one) BBC Scotland documentary about Scottish pop music since 1980.

part 1

BBC Scotland documentary about pop music in Scotland, from 1980 to present day.

part 2

Scottish music documentary

part 3

Scottish music documentary

part 4

Scottish music documentary

part 5

Scottish music documentary

part 6

Scottish music documentary

part 7

Scottish music documentary

part 8

Scottish music documentary

Leslie Monsour: Laurel Canyon, 2010

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A video of my mother-the poet, author, singer, songwriter Leslie Monsour.

Here is a video I made recently of my mother playing guitar, singing, and chatting with me at her home in Laurel Canyon.  She sings a song by Agustin Lara, a song she wrote to lyrics from a poem by Rhina Espaillat, a song of her own, and a Robert Burns song.  You can find out more about her work at www.lesliemonsour.com.

The Shadowgraph

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Schlieren photography is a visual process that is used to photograph the flow of fluids of varying density. Invented by the German physicist August Toepler in 1864 to study supersonic motion, it is widely used in aeronautical engineering to photograph the flow of air around objects. Its role is changing due to the increasing use of computational fluid dynamics, which reduces the need for all such experimental fluid flow measurement techniques.The basic optical schlieren system uses light from a single collimated source shining on, or from behind, a target object. Variations in refractive index caused by density gradients in the fluid distort the collimated light beam. This distortion creates a spatial variation in the intensity of the light, which can be visualised directly with a shadowgraph system.

Shadowgraph is an optical method that reveals non-uniformities in transparent media like air, water, or glass. It is related to, but simpler than, the schlieren and schlieren photography methods that perform a similar function. Shadowgraph is a type of flow visualisation.

BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR

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Such lists make no sense, and we all know it.  For one thing, only the films made with guaranteed distribution deals — fewer and fewer, these days — are released in theaters the same year they have their "premiere" at a film festival.  If I saw a film at a festival this year but it isn't in a theater in my city until next year, when did it "come out"?

Secondly, films come out in theaters and on DVD months or even years apart depending on where in the world you live.  A few years ago, New Yorkers, Londoners and Parisians could imagine they had seen just about every film in the theater that was worth seeing, and cinephiles in Hong Kong could procure a DVD of just about any film as soon as the filmmaker had burnt a copy for a festival — but this is also rapidly becoming a thing of the past.  The only chance anyone has of seeing the bulk of the most interesting, innovative and important films in a given year would be to globe-trot from Venice to Cannes to Toronto to Sundance to Edinburgh to Rotterdam to Tokyo to Thessaloniki to Ann Harbor, ad infinitum.  

These facts make any list of the "best films of the year" highly suspect, because it takes either a genuinely or willfully ignorant person to believe they have had a chance to see all of the likely contenders — let alone be surprised by a first-time filmmaker or experimental work.  Most people's best-of lists look like an advertisement for their local megaplex, fully accepting and promoting the pretense that the studios and cinema corporations are going to serve up the coincidentally most important and most profitable films of the year in global cinema.  At the very least, these lists should come with a lengthy introduction of acknowledged biases and shortcomings — to not do so is at best misleading and indecent, at worst ethnocentric and damaging to the struggle of independent filmmakers to have their films seen.  Slightly less idiotic but still outrageous are the claims that any given year was "a bad year for movies" — which operates under the same pretense that the best films were the ones that had the movie stars, the huge budgets or the theatrical distribution in say, Los Angeles.

My generation seems to be far more enlightened and mature about their music than their films.  I have never seen a friend or a reputable magazine claim that the Grammy's represented the best albums of the year, or that all one had to do was tune into their local corporate pop radio station during their commute in order to be exposed to the best that the music world has to offer.  In both cases, most adults I know seem to distinguish between "popular culture" and the rest of it — but in the case of film, a lot of people I know and many contributors to cultural discourse that I come across make little or no effort to seek out the non-commercial, the international, the independent and the original.  In short, I don't know many people who would say with a straight face that the latest Beyoncé record represents the finest achievement in the art of music this year, yet I am inundated with similar claims for Black Swan, Toy Story 3, The Fighter, etc. 

I find it useful to think about the differences between the way we speak about film and the way we speak about any other art form, as it betrays the extreme value and burden that is placed upon moving images as the official conduit of mass culture.  If anything, film is discussed in similar terms to literature — we have our genres, our light fare, our masterpieces, our classics, our gender-specific categories.  What we don't have in literature, however, is the commonplace serious assertion that John Grisham's The Confession was the most noteworthy and finely written novel produced anywhere in the world in 2010.  While we are happy to describe such books as guilty pleasures, we stop short of giving them the ultimate praise for their "entertainment value", and yet in film, there is a pressure to only consider a film as great if it was able to "entertain" us.

We do not ask our paintings to "entertain" us, nor our sculptures or other fine arts, and this is perhaps due to some strict ordering of our experiences of all things "narrative".  More sinisterly, and accurately I fear, it is clear that "entertainment" is an extremely loaded term — one which carries with it the desire to see reflected back at us our own supposed desires, fetishes and foibles.  We want to see the film that everyone else has seen, that has made an obscene amount of money or cost an obscene amount of money to produce, the one which titillates us with it's giddy fetishizations of women's bodies, in part, I believe, because we seek an experience that is essentially masochistic.  This is the success of the culture industry: to have replaced our desire for emancipatory, ecstatic, beautiful and meaningful cultural experiences with a matter-of-fact hopelessness — that "good film" is either boring, too difficult, or simply a pretentious fallacy — which is gratified with increasingly exaggerated and distorted representations of violence, meaninglessness, fear and bigotry. 

I can't blame people who have no time or access to find the thousands of truly beautiful, enjoyable, and important films made around the world every year because their stores, their cinemas, their reviewers and their friends make no mention of them.  I haven't been able to see many of the films that have played around the world this year that I would want to see.  I do, however, blame reviewers.  They have a clear choice — to pretend along with the studios that the films that win at Cannes are in fact to boring to be enjoyed by "normal" people, or to actually do their homework and attempt to look at the culture of their time in a historical and economic context.

I also take our Facebook, twitter, blog and forum reviews seriously as non-professionals since we all know that such opinions have a greater and greater aggregate effect all the time in relation to the official reviews and awards.  Let's acknowledge that we haven't been able to see the best films of the year because they were under-funded, censored, unrecognized and hidden from us.  Let's acknowledge that we have been lazy about finding them and supporting them.  Maybe then we will get pissed off enough to change this sorry, sorry state of affairs.

PLAYLIST 05: WINTER

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Tara Jane Oneil is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, audio recording engineer, and visual artist based out of Portland, Oregon. O'Neil has collaborated with a diverse community of friends and advisers, scoring theater productions and short films, playing improvised shows, and working with dancers and painters. Her previous bands include Rodan, Retsin (with Cynthia Nelson), The Sonora Pine, The King Cobra, and Drinking Woman. She has played live and on recordings with Mount Eerie, The Naysayer, Come, Mirah, Ida, Sebadoh, Jackie-O Motherfucker, K., Michael Hurley, Papa M, and Amy Ray. Solo she has released several albums as Tara Jane O'Neil, formed the Ecstatic Tambourine Orchestra, and crafted soundtracks for film and theater.

Ólöf Arnalds is an Icelandicsinger/songwriter and indie musician who has been active within the Icelandic music scene for quite some time. Apart from doing her own music as of lately and being a touring member of Múm since 2003, she has cooperated with bands and artists such as Stórsveit Nix Noltes, Mugison, Slowblow and Skúli Sverrisson. Between 1988 and 2002 Ólöf studied violin and classical singing, and in 2002-2006 she studied composition and new media at Iceland Academy of the Arts. In 2007 her debut album Við Og Við was released by 12 Tónar. The album features a set of songs performed mostly in a traditional troubadour style.

Adam de la Halle, also known as Adam le Bossu (Adam the Hunchback) (1237?-1288) was a French-born trouvère, poet and musician, whose literary and musical works include chansons and jeux-partis (poetic debates) in the style of the trouveres, polyphonic rondel and motets in the style of early liturgical polyphony, and a musical play, "The Play of Robin and Marion", which is considered the earliest surviving secular French play with music. He was a member of the Confrérie des jongleurs et bourgeois d'Arras.

Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist, known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, and his Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony).

Edvard Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist who composed in the Romantic period. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt (which includes Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain King), and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs a self-made compositional technique called tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from Gregorian chant.