Laissez les bon temps roule!

Let The Good Times Roll!

Today is Mardi Gras (the Tuesday which is fat) — last day of Carnival, before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, according to Western European Christian tradition. Six weeks later, Easter falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox, so Carnival wanders around the calendar. Rio De Janeiro’s famous parade and Samba competition lasts until after noon tomorrow, just because of the number of participants.

Redigitized Samba crew from Rio De Janeiro

One World View

Fifty years ago, I was in Sixth Grade and the black and white TV in Mr. Baxter’s classroom was on for over six hours while John Glenn blasted off from Cape Canaveral and made three orbits of Planet Earth before splashing down. He was the third American to rocket into Space. Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union was the first human to make a sub-orbital flight, and the U.S.S.R’s Gherman Titov had already orbited the Earth at least three times prior to Glenn’s adventure. We had watched John F. Kennedy’s inauguration LIVE  at school just over a year earlier, and were far from blasé about witnessing history as it happened.

NASA photos of Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn, and our home planet.

Ex-Senator Glenn went back into orbit for nine days during 1998 to contrast the effects of weightlessness and space flight on his seventy-seven year old body, compared with test pilot John Glenn, who was thirty-six in 1962. I saw a segment of his space shuttle mission on the Tonight Show, with Jay Leno playing an excellent straight man to perfectly-timed comedy by the U.S. astronauts. It was no act — Glenn was having a great time!

Walking on Mars and unmanned robots

(Condensed from a Daily Kos blog post by by Troubadour)
… The first question before us is, where are we?  Obviously we are preferring to be on a pretty low-latitude area of Mars on the Day side, with temperatures usually in the low negative tens to the low single-digit positives.  So dressing warmly is a must …  Since the air has only trivial pressure, a helmet and pressure suit are mandatory …
There are some fascinating ridgelines nearby, but be careful about walking toward them – in a gravity environment of 0.38 g, your momentum will carry you quite farther than you at first intended, and you may have to start moving more like someone wading in a pool, bounce-stepping rather than walking and moving your arms in slow, swimming-like circular motions … If you are unprepared, you might find yourself unable to stop in time before reaching the edge of a ridge and have to cling for dear mercy … your footsteps would sound like strangely hollow thuds, given the low atmospheric pressure in which sound translates poorly.  The wind would occasionally be visible as dust wisps, but would not be felt or heard – the air is too thin to have enough effect …

Graphic from Mars surface rovers, with a partial eclipse of the Sun by Phobos -- which zooms around Mars two and a half times every day. It out-races Mars’ rotation, rises in the west, sets in the east, and appears about a third as large as our moon.

But you would have to be careful of the dust – the invasive, pervasive, corroding dust that accumulates in pools into which may find yourself completely disappeared, or else just mired up to your foot out of communications range, or just with tenacious cakes of it sticking your suit joints.  It comes to pollute the smell of everything you do, because some will always escape cleansing and end as grit in your socks, in your harness joints, in the hydraulics of your vehicles, and so on … The Sun rises and sets in 25-hour days … You watch its silent, blue-tinted sunsets in awe and realize that you are truly far from your home …

Addenda from http://earthsky.org/space/phobos-and-deimos : Phobos, only about 22 kilometers (13.5 miles) in diameter, has less than one-thousandth the gravity of Earth. That’s not enough gravity to pull the moon into a sphere, so it’s oblong. For observers on the Martian equator, Phobos eclipses the sun nearly every day. Eclipses last only about 30 seconds … Because Phobos covers only a fraction of the sun’s disk, eclipses are never total. Deimos eclipses the sun much less often – about once a month. Because it’s smaller and farther away than Phobos, it would be barely visible against the sun’s disk.

Does mentioning Mars mean … ? It sure DOES … !

I recently learned that both hunky Taylor (John Carter) Kitsch and beautiful Lynn (Dejah Thoris) Collins acted in last year’s X-Men movie, featuring ace actor Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine.

Digitized images from Disney/Pixar's "John Carter" -- for review purposes only.

An actor’s physicality is one key to successful Comic Book adaptations — Christopher Reeve, Lynda Carter, and Lou Ferrigno exceeded their sometimes-sparse scripts just by looking right. A few notable exceptions were George Reeves getting away with playing Superman wearing pads, and Michael Keaton’s neoprene suit being snazzy enough to allow himself, Val Kilmer, and George Cloony to hide behind Batman‘s gimmickry. (My two cents: Remember the SCRIPT — nobody’s good enough to save a dull story or lousy dialog!)
John Carter is a Pulp Hero from pre-WWI culture, cut from slightly different cloth than later Spacemen and Superheroes. Superb human specimens like Kitsch and Collins, modern digital technology, and Hollywood’s experience putting fantasy on the big screen gives Edgar Rice Burroughs’ century-old creation fairly good odds for success — Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s physical presence and disarming personality helped make a surprise hit out of the Neo-Pulp  Scorpion King.

Do You Like Good Music? (Yeah Yeah) That Sweet Soul Music …

Listing of CD #3 -- Disky Records' "Revenge of the Pusherman" collection.

This anthology features more instrumentals than the previous five discs in Marcel Visser’s fine series of Soul masters. There are a lot of Latin influences in these tracks too — Salsoul Orchestra should give ya’ a clue! Freda Payne’s gut-wrenching singing is the centerpiece for me on Holland, Dozier, and Holland’s Mother Misery’s Favorite Child. Bernie Worrell and/or some of the P-Funk Mob might be playing, but Bernie told me that he was touring out of Toronto, Canada in the years 1973-74. Black Nasty’s Booker the Hooker is a vocal about addiction, not prostitution. Issac Hayes sings about a woman in Truck Turner. William De Vaughn’s Be Thankful … is an affirmative vocal. Masterfleet represents first-rate electric playing, group vocals, and social commentary again. Curtis Mayfield’s great standard Freddie’s Dead, and the Dramatics’ Devil Is Dope are more like revenge ON the pusherman.

If you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked, or in a pickle … (Remember that Shakespeare stole those same phrases)

P-Funk All-Star Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from RAUNCH Records!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Assembling The Avengers

POP Goes The Culture!

Before starting on reminisces, histories, and previews, I’m going to mention how much I enjoyed the Grammy Awards broadcast — Especially young Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters, English singer Adele, and that finale by Paul McCartney and his guitar army. Sir Paul’s voice was a little rough at first but warmed up soon enough. His band was excellent, especially the drummer, and those extended solos during The End (within the artfully truncated Abby Road medley) were absolutely fun — dispersing the pall of Whitney Houston’s tragic death.

Statistics for this site show that lots of people are coming by to view pictures and info about Mars, or Barsoom as Edgar Rice Burroughs called his fantasy version of the Red Planet.

Digitized impressions of John Carter Kitsch, Dejah Thoris Collins, and Planet Mars.

For your reading pleasure: A Princess of Mars ; The Gods of Mars ; Warlord of Mars ; John Carter’s initial blood-soaked trilogy by Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan

Comic Strips and Superheroes on Film …

As someone who grew up enjoying comic strips and comic books, I was always hoping to see my favorite features translated to TV or movies. Superman meant a television show to me before I started reading anything at all — so did Flash Gordon, Sheena, and Tarzan.
Harvey Comics did pretty well with some well-made cartoons anchored by Casper the Friendly Ghost, not to mention Popeye, but THAT touches on a subject that is too big for this essay, so I’m going to stick with live-action adaptations. Arthur Lake’s B-movie situation comedy from the 40′s, based on Blondie, was only a minor success at best, although it had a long run on the boob tube.
Old movie serials of  Dick Tracy and other comic strips from the 30′s and 40′s were generally out of fashion with Post WWII audiences, but the aesthetic of “Camp” revived interest in the wretched Batman and Robin chapter plays during the early 1960′s though! There were many reasons why, but we won’t go into them — you’re invited to read Susan Sontag’s famous essay about the subject.
Producer William Dozier observed that particular phenomenon and launched a hit prime time TV show based on Bob Kane’s Batman that was pretty darn funny, especially in its first season. Ten years later, Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of Superman proved the existence of a market for comic book movies. Both Wonder Woman and The Hulk did well on TV at the same time, but there were a few mediocrities, and some miserable failures too.

(L to R) Sleek Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman; Rough Lou Ferrigno as Incredible Hulk

Tim Burton’s visualization of Batman‘s “Dark Knight” interpretation by Frank Miller in the late 80′s marked a point where Hollywood steadily adapted comics and graphic novels for mass entertainment. Some efforts were good, some were bad. Some made money, some didn’t. I personally liked Tank Girl, and Lois & Clark. I was glad to see Sam Raimi doing Spider Man with understanding and humor. The X-Men franchise thankfully worked out at first, as did Daredevil — Partly because of the latter’s success, Frank Miller became famous in his own right with Sin City. I’ve left out many films,  even though there is so much to say, because I wish to write about a recent branch of this metaphorical tree that has totally surprised me!

Have You Heard About … ?

Chinese cinema master Ang Lee made a somewhat messy version of Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, but the sequel (by someone else) was alright. I never expected that anyone would attempt to turn Marvel Comics’ Iron Man into a movie at all, much less make that old “super-capitalist” funny. Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. sure turned the trick — twice !! I shook my head in surprise once more this year and saw the movie Thor. How could I resist Kenneth Branagh, Anthony Hopkins, and Natalie Portmann !?! It worked well, and even played to bigger audiences than Marvel’s Captain America, which I already KNEW could be a hit in the right hands. At the end of Iron Man One, actor Samuel L. Jackson, playing Nick Fury, asked Ol’ Shellhead (as we 60′s Marvel fans called him) the following question: Have you heard about the Avengers Project?

An intentional campaign, rather than mere sequels?

I watched the preview of Marvel’s upcoming movie version of The Avengers during Superbowl XLVI, and was very impressed by its promise. The rest of this essay is primarily my personal reminisces about Marvel superheroes when they were new, with a little bit of scholarship, and some musings.

The Avengers #1 (1963) -- the 2012 movie also features evil Loki (left) fighting against his brother Thor (right), Iron Man, Hulk, plus heroes to be named later.

While watching the movie trailer, I laughed out loud when Loki said: …  I have an ARMY! then Iron Man (without armor) replied: … we have a HULK!

The Marvel Comics Group fell on hard times during the so called “Comics Implosion” of the mid-1950′s. Ironically, they became a subsidiary of Superman‘s publishing company. Editor Stan Lee and dynamic, formerly independent, art director Jack Kirby (who drew most of the covers in this essay) launched a campaign to compete with their putative owner’s titles during a revival of the Superhero Genre in the early 60′s.
The Avengers repeated the long-successful  comic book formula of combining several marquee characters in a single magazine — DC’s similar Justice League rivaled its own Superman in monthly sales at the time.

Historically speaking, the most important achievement of "The Avengers" was re-introducing Captain America, who dominated the magazine for several years.

As a young teenager, I actively sought out related features if I enjoyed certain stories. Marvel’s Sci-Fi anthologies first introduced me to the artists Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, The Incredible Hulk caught my attention as a unique super hero/antihero, and The Avengers magazine acted as a gateway to the rest of Marvel’s fantastic universe. Half a decade later I met a now-famous book dealer while trading for old comics — the first ten issues of The Avengers. I have all of them today, reprinted in a hardbound book.

Two of my favorite cross-over issues with The Avengers featured Spider Man, and the epic battle between Ben Grimm and Hulk in the pages of Fantastic Four.

2012′s Avengers movie fills up its cast with characters from various periods in Marvel’s creative history:

Marvel's Sgt. "Nick" Fury of WWII became a secret agent during the Cold War. (L to R) Cover by Jack Kirby (Dick Ayers, inks); Art by Jack Kirby with Jim Steranko.

Private Gabriel Jones was Marvel Comics’ first recurring African American character. He’s blowing a bugle in the leftmost image above (look hard).  One could easily tell Sgt. Fury from Nick Fury by his eye patch! Graphic artist Jim Steranko greatly influenced comic book art in general during his comet-like career in the late 60′s/early 70′s.

(L to R) Col. Nick Fury 2012; Sgt. Fury circa 1966 (Art by Dick Ayers)

It’s totally fine with me that Jones metamorphosed into Fury over the decades. There are few better character actors than Mr. Jackson, and good acting is crucial to the success of Comic Book Movies.

The Black Widow and Hawkeye have been supporting heroes and villains in the annals of Marvel Comics since the mid-60′s. The former started out as half a team of Soviet operatives unimaginatively named Boris and Natasha.
Hawkeye was seduced into the Widow‘s criminal web while performing for a carnival midway. Natasha Romanoff eventually earned a promotion to heroine. “Origin” artwork below by (L) Jack Kirby, and (R) Don Heck, the latter drawing most of the Avengers stories until 1968.

Scarlett "Black Widow" Johansson and Jeremy "Hawkeye" Renner in 2012's movie.

Who Wants To Be A Superhero? — Before Reality TV Existed

Early Marvel Comics tried to be unconventional, at least relative to the confines of the Comic Book Medium. A quirky Sci-Fi story of a incredible shrinking man in an ant hill inspired the Marvel Bullpen to change that character into a superhero, who they first called Ant Man. He was a scientist named Hank, his wife was named Janet, and they called her The Wasp. (Both were All-American suburban WASPs too, I might add.) They possessed none of the sophistication of Nick & Nora Charles, but were enjoyable as amateurs in a super-world that was totally new to them.

(L to R) Art by Jack Kirby/Dick Ayers; Art by Don Heck

Hank was a charter member of The Avengers as Ant Man and Giant Man. Jan was always a Wasp –  but their own series didn’t last. For a while they weren’t even in The Avengers anymore. Don Heck and Stan Lee wrote/drew them back into the super-ensemble, where the couple lingered on through many times and changes, but without whimsey or wonder.

If you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked, or in a pickle … (Remember that Shakespeare stole those same phrases)

P-Funk All-Star Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from RAUNCH Records!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Ragnarok Is Coming — Götterdämmerung!

Seventy One Years Ago

Color comics were printed all over the world by local handwork before computers.

Notice the date on this color insert — January 12, 1941. My mother and father weren’t even in High School, and Pearl Harbor was around eleven months away. Somebody found this no-longer-news-paper in an old farmhouse, and eventually gave it to me when they found out I was once a scholar concerning comic strips and their history.

NEW Paper — But Still On Newsprint !

The Salt Lake UnderGround Magazine arrived in my mailbox this week. Editor Angela Brown is heavily promoting SLUG’s Blue Dress Birthday Bash — the cover features two men wearing blue frocks, and the center section is a whole parade of music-men dressed in couture bleu.

Do what the editor says: When Perry White told Clark Kent to jump -- he FLEW!

Besides Salt Lake’s “Blue Men,” SLUG Mag covers its favorite subjects: Beer — (including a full-page back cover saying  If you like our mountains, then you’ll love our Busch;  Uinta Brewery touting BABA (… the BLACK SHEEP in our family …); The Beer Nut advising us to Make Beer Not Bombs; A full column of beer reviews, and those dam’ cheap drinks throughout the ‘zine. Skateboarding, Snowboarding, Music, Tattoos, Piercing, etc. — Holy Earlobes, Batman! The Blue Boutique full-pager said Sexy gifts for your Valentine.

(L to R) Blue Boutique's first spokesmodel as a Rock musician circa 1988; Current ad for a great camera store with a Valentine's Day theme.

SLUG has been printing more and more stuff about Classical Music and Visual Art. Hmmm — Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (formerly Salt Lake Art Center) is now featuring its initials U.M.O.C.A. Time eventually has a big say in whether ideas like this are good or bad. I readily think up a number of bad jokes when I see that acronym acting as a word, like coffee with chocolate.
Columnists Princess Kennedy and Mike Brown are pretty funny, as is the anonymous Ask A Cop; Somebody’s always trying to provoke whomever handles the Dear … um … editors page. They got a tirade in return that partly went like this: … there are a lot of women in Salt Lake making great local music. We love the hell out of Subrosa, whose most recent lineup featured three women. Spell Talk has recently added a great female guitarist. Pretty Worms released three awesome 7”s last year, all with a female vocalist. Daisy & the Moonshines, Uncle Scam, ESX, Bellrave, Chainwhip, IX Zealot, INVDRS, Dani Lion, Moon of Delirium, Dick Janitor, The Suicycles, Dances With Wolves, Erin Barra, The 321s, Handicapitalist, The Folka Dots, ABK Band …
Speaking of that weirdly appealing letters feature, there’s a moving, double page appreciation of one of its stalwarts who somehow passed away. I’ve read a lot about that sort of thing on the SLC Punks page on Facebook too. I do see some of it on my High School page on Facebook as well, and realistically have to expect more, but outside of that, those others are so much YOUNGER than me!

Facebook Hostess Mamie Van Doren Celebrated Another Birthday

(L to R) Mamie Van Doren in 2012, and advertising "Beat Gerneration" circa 1959.

She has celebrated about eighty of them, and was maybe ten years old when Chester Gould drew that Dick Tracy episode at the top of this post. Congratulations to this Hollywood legend! Speaking of goddesses and demigods, it’s about time for the main event:

Götterdämmerung (Approximate running time 5 hrs. 50 min)

The Met’s new version of Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle, comes to its resolution on Saturday — Directed by Robert Lepage, with Fabio Luisi conducting.

(L to R) Tenor Jay Hunter Morris as Siegfried; Soprano Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde

… dead Siegfried threateningly raises his arm … Brünnhilde enters and calmly orders a funeral pyre to be built on the banks of the Rhine. She denounces the gods for their guilt in Siegfried’s death, takes the ring from his hand and promises it to the Rhinemaidens. Then she lights the pyre and leaps into the flames. The river overflows its banks and destroys the hall … In the distance, Valhalla and the gods are engulfed in flames.

Back to Newsprint — Wagner drew his water from a very deep well:

Art by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta circa 1968 -- Inspired by the Norse Eddas too!

While watching the Super Bowl, I noticed an advertisement for Marvel Comics’ upcoming movie about The Avengers — featuring Iron Man, Nick Fury, The Incredible Hulk, and Mighty Thor. Although he made his living as a commercial artist, my friend Jack Kirby (who created all those characters) was a much better storyteller than Richard Wagner. He drew as well as contemporary Jazz musician Harry James played trumpet, and was a loving family man who survived combat in WWII to see his children grow to adulthood.

If you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked, or in a pickle … (Remember that Shakespeare stole those same phrases)

P-Funk All-Star Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from RAUNCH Records!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

People Get Ready, There’s A Train A Comin’

February’s Quickening Moon (this year)

The "Budding Moon" -- first one of the Chinese year.

The Budding Moon … similarly reflects the early signs of new life. It has long been marked with a Lantern Festival, when every village and town is lit up, not unlike the candles and bonfires of Imbolc and the later Candlemas. The Japanese Setsubun festival marks the start of Spring, while the Shinto celebrate Toshigoi-no-Matsuri … Greeks and Romans marked with month with their own celebrations of the passing of Winter … In Judaism, this is Tu B’shevat, the New Year of Trees …
The Aztec festival of Izcalli, “Rebirth”, came right around this time. The Iroquois Midwinter Ceremony actually fell around now, as well – five days after the new Quickening Moon – in which the people stirred last year’s ashes and played the Peach Stone Game as symbols of the renewal of the world. The Yoruba (and later Santeria) feast of Oya, Orisha of Death and Rebirth came in this month, and this month marked the second of three Navajo Sings — preparing for the coming agricultural season, and honoring Changing Woman …
For Egyptians, this month brought the feasts of Nut, the sky-goddess that birthed the sun each morning, and Horus, son of Isis and Osiris and symbol of resurrection. Hindus celebrate the … waxing Quickening Moon as the Vasant Panchamia festival of the goddess Saraswati and Spring … during the waning moon the Maha Shivaratri commemorated Shiva’s dance of creation, destruction and recreation. (Text thanks to Jaxpagan  — © Kos Media, LLC  — Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified)

Real Books

Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday was February 7  — Here’s what George Orwell said (circa 1939) about the prolific old Victorian writer: In the case of Dickens I see a face that is not quite the face of Dickens’s photographs, though it resembles it. It is the face of a man of about forty, with a small beard and a high colour.
He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry — in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.

Madonna wrote and recorded a song called Music …

… and she sang it in her Superbowl medley. The half-time performance was SLICK, and loaded with the outrageous theatrics I expected. The New York Giants beat the New England Patriots, and by that I mean BEAT UP — the game was a street-fight, like last year’s championship. Defensive play set the pace, and although there were some amazing flurries of passes and catches, both offensive squads kissed the astro-turf too many times to run away with significant advantages.

Digitized evocations of 80's music icons Madonna and the late Wendy O. Williams

Speaking of Punk-Rock and SLUG

"Punk" concert advertisement from the 1980's

From Online SLUG Mag  Events: KRCL’s Night Out … has moved to the 3rd Wednesday of the month! Join KRCL 90.9 FM and the Downtown Alliance on Wednesday, February 15th at The Rose Establishment (400 West ). Snuggle up with your sweetie or ease your lonely heart to an indie soundtrack from Afternoon Delight DJ Courtney Blair.
Music and drinks flow from 5:30-7:30pm. Come meet your friends, make new ones, hang with the KRCL crew, and of course, listen to some great music. For more info visit: krcl.org/krcl-night-out/

One of the Three Donizetti Queens

Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti (1830) Italian libretto by Felice Romani, after Pindemonte’s Henry VIII & Anne Boleyn and Pepoli’s Anne Boleyn. Anna Netrebko sings the part of Anna. Ekaterina Gubanova is her rival, and Ildar Abdrazakov sings Enrico VIII. Conductor: Marco Armiliato.
Hmm — I might have seen James Levine’s final performance last May — he must be really off his feet to miss so many shows! After checking into things: Fabio Luisi was elevated to the post of Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in September 2011, when Music Director James Levine withdrew from his scheduled fall 2011 performances — In December, (Levine) ruled himself out of performing again before the fall of 2013. I’m wishing you the best, Mr. Levine!

I'm re-visualizing "Anna Bolena" as a Horror Movie starring Scream-Queen Deluxe Barbara Steele with Vincent Price as Henry VIII -- she's dangerous when crazy!

Ms. Netrebko’s  singing was fascinating and brilliant, but the plot was total rubbish. Donizetti wrote a wonderful Mad Soprano part in Anna Bolena, but he wrote a more famous Mad Soprano for Lucia di Lammermoor (1835).  Verdi’s great predecessor wrote three other operas about British Royals — Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart), Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth (Kenilworth), and Roberto Devereux (about one of Elizabeth Tudor’s legendary lovers).

Cel – e – brate Good Times — C ‘ MON !

Panels by Keith Knight -- February 2012 © Kos Media, LLC -- Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified.

Don Cornelius died this last week — Soul Train was one of the USA’s greatest social embassies EVER!

That’s why we have to always reach out to friends and put our best love forward. God bless his family and God bless his soul — Stevie Wonder

My deepest condolence goes out to his family and to the multitude of his friends in this time of sorrow and grief. The world has lost an icon of the broadcasting world, and I personally have lost a dear friend — Dionne Warwick

Don Cornelius was simply a genius and the contributions he made to music and our culture are second to none — Patti LaBelle

Disc 2 (of 3) -- Collection by Marcel Visser, Disky Records, Netherlands.

Noteworthy in this volume is Bill Doggett, the great bandleader who helped-out the young talents who recorded at King Records in the shadow of James Brown — like Maceo Parker, Phelps Collins, and William (Bootsy) Collins; Curtis Mayfield singing his classic Move On Up; Future mega-stars Earth Wind & Fire playing Sweet Back’s Theme by polymath Melvin Van Peebles, from Sweet Back’s Badassss Movie, his ground-breaking independent film.

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Elizabethan Theatre.)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from RAUNCH Records!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Super Bowling In the SLUG Alleyways

Salt Lake UnderGround Magazine — Down from the Mountain

SLUG Mag is ONLINE and on free newsstands around the 2 Million-strong Wasatch Front of Northern Utah. No, I don’t live there now, but I visit often because of my friends and family. Who knows though? It is quite different now from what it was like when I grew up in Planet Zion. This essay will later address just ONE era of changes, but let’s see what thousands of undergrounders are doing in 2012:

SLUG #278 -- Battling beauties and dudes in blue dresses.

SLUG Mag EXCLUSIVES:

House of Party Rock Presents: Afrojack 01.19 @ Park City Live
(Condensed from the music review by Mama Beatz)
Park City Live (located in the Main Street space formally known as Harry-O’s) opened their doors during the launch of Sundance Film Festival. The weather in town was perfect enough that I could wear a dress and not regret it … Walking into Park City Live, one would think the President was in the building. Security in all black was at every corner, white flashes from photographers taking pictures and bright lights from the stage …

Actually, Paris Hilton was “in the building,” according to the article — her boyfriend was the star of the show, and it was the Sundance Festival. You will read a lot of personal asides from me in this post: I’ve seen many great musical performances at this location on Park City’s Main Street — including a series of Reggae concerts starring Morgan Heritage, Israel Vibrations, Roots Radics, and Jimmy Cliff, who ended them all on a magnificently-sung high note!

C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters @ Kingsbury Hall 01.28
(Condensed from the theater review by JP)
If you’re familiar with the work of C.S. Lewis, then you’ve heard of The Screwtape Letters. The book was recently adapted for the stage … It’s now on tour throughout all the places in America where this sort of stuff flies well––like Salt Lake City. The Christian contingent was out in full force … the long, single-speaker monologue was thoroughly entertaining as only monologues can be … The character of Screwtape (Max McLean) is never joined by the nephew he writes to … Scenes are separated by lighting changes and the whole set consists of a backdrop of bones, a raised study floor and a chair.
… McLean’s production was on his way to Phoenix, so the (after-show) chat ran about 15 minutes, then it was onward for the bones backdrop and the best man I’ve seen to embody a demon in quite some time. There are only two engagements each day in most cities, then the show rolls on …

I once read EVERYTHING by C.S. Lewis, even Elizabethan Literature (Excluding Drama) — The Screwtape Letters is as much a satire on working at an office or college as anything else, and is totally SILLY. ‘Nuff Said!

I wonder why Demme was at an ALTERNATIVE film festival?

Neil Young and Jonathan Demme Q&A at Slamdance
(Condensed from the article by Jory Carroll)
It’s not often that music legend Neil Young makes a stop in the red-state of Utah. It’s even more unusual that the 66-year-old Canadian came to Park City for two days, and didn’t even pick up a guitar. As part of this year’s Slamdance Film Festival, Young joined Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme in a lively, two-hour Q-and-A with indie filmmakers and fans to discuss their latest film, Neil Young Journeys.
… The two talked at length about their history together, future plans and their clashing views about certain aspects of the film and music industry … With questions coming from the audience, both Young and Demme were sincere in their remarks, voicing their opinions without any bullshit.
… Journeys is the third movie in a Neil Young trilogy Demme has directed, which also include 2006’s Heart of Gold and 2009’s Trunk Show. But what set Journeys apart from the other two films was its heavy focus on Young’s personal life …

I’ve seen Year of the Horse by ultra-alternative filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, which teaches the viewer a lot about Young’s road band Crazy Horse.

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists
(Condensed from the review by Johnny Logan)
… From the prankster beginnings of early hacktivist groups and the awkward birth of Anonymous from the loins of the website 4Chan, documentary filmmaker Brian Knappenberger follows the sometimes slow, sometimes mind-blowing-ly fast development of the hacktivist movement. Through interviews with former and current Anonymous members, footage taken by the activists themselves and some very impressive editing, We Are Legion presents a surprisingly historically correct version of past events that no newsroom would approve of … If there’s a single ounce of civil disobedience in your body, this documentary was made for you …

The roots of SLUG — Digging through the concrete and asphalt of PUNK

My friend Raven gave me a gift for Imbolc, or Candlemas — registered me for the Facebook group SLC Punks, although I only had tenuous contact with that particular scene when it started in the Late 70′s / Early 80′s, and even less after I was married.

SLAM -- Salt Lake Area Music

I lived in Europe during the Sex Pistols’ first media blitz, but “Punk-Rock” was more of a rumor before it became something tangible, like bands one could find, or records one could buy. The following summer, Amsterdam’s Festival of Fools presented the seminal New York Punk-Rock band Television, featuring Richard Hell, but my group was working out of town at a satellite venue in Delft that night, otherwise I would have been on hand to see them. Musical and social expression are valuable aspects of any culture, especially my own — I supported that stuff back then and still do now!

My friend Dave Fagiolli played sax for "The Atheists."

The Roxy was a basement club, located next to Sam Weller’s Zion Book Store, that acted as Punk-Rock’s first incubator space around Salt Lake. There were concerts by The Ramones and The Police at a short-lived joint called Abby Road, but “Punk” is inherently a local and COMMUNITY phenomenon, whether one lives in London or Salt Lake.

When Dave was in "The Atheists," I was making drawings, and we both hung out at the Cosmic Aeroplane -- The color poster was by our mutual friend Neil Passey.

The Cosmic Aeroplane was one of the centers of Alternative Culture in Northern Utah, as well as basic scholarship! I’ve written about it before, but its importance cannot be over-stated. Besides Punk-Rock in its record bins, there was an Occult section on the shelves, Feminist Studies, handmade jewelry, and the mother of all SLC head-shops in the downstairs — with lovely Lisa, of the band Shot In The Dark, behind the counter. I witnessed a whole new generation of younger artists and musicians growing up before my eyes in the aisles of that wonderful store.

The Alternative Blue Mouse movie theater was next door to the Cosmic Aeroplane, and they played host to an art gallery:

Images from the gallery handout by Pat Eddington

I was involved with several group shows at the Blue Mouse Gallery and can’t remember more than a few, but the WITCHCRAFT exhibit generated some interest! I’d made a number of prints that tapped into the psychedelic streams beneath the consciousness of Hippies, Punks, New Wavers, and New Agers.

One of my graphic pieces in the "Witchcraft" exhibit.

As the 1980′s began:

I changed my career to High Technology and rode that metaphorical horse for over 25 years. Although my blond hair grew very long every now and then, I mostly kept it cut — sometimes ultra-short, sometimes just practical and short. I’d already invested in suits that looked sharp in the New Wave scene, kinda like older English musician Joe Jackson, but gradually shifted to T-shirts and jeans, since I always wore lab coats at work. Over time, I got more and more into wearing Gallery Black, which I still favor today. (If I ever looked GOTHIC, that was a coincidence, and relates to a whole other time!)

M.E. at 10,000 feet elevation -- When New Wave was NEW!

Jazz, Blues, Funk, and Reggae were always more to my taste anyway, but I maintained contact with Art and the live music scene by my spontaneous association with a popular band called Double-Oh Four — taking photos and making drawings from selected results:

Wanda Day and 004 started their careers playing at the Punk-Rock Roxy Club -- their Beat-Crazy SKA music was a related genre. (Drawing by M.E.)

Because of my friendship with Wanda, I visited a few more Punk-Rock venues like Central City, the Painted Word, the Indian Center, and even the dangerously-crowded Speedway Cafe once. She was in a band with “Aldine Strychnine” called Kaos Kids — Aldine was/is an excellent electric guitarist, and leads many a discussion on Facebook’s SLC Punks page.

I’ve previously written a webpage about the SLC Punk scene, if you wish to READ MORE.

Did Madonna Kill New Wave and Punk Rock on the Radio?

Hail NO! Punk was never even given a chance in the Mass Media, but the so-called New Wave did alright, although Amerika and Salt Lake caught onto it very late. Madonna’s first run of hits marks a convenient “end of the beginning” point though. As far as numbers go — more people now listen to Punk and participate in that ever-evolving international scene than ever — it remained vibrant through decades of Faux-Conservatism that threatens to put everybody out on the street, not just rebellious teens and tweens!

Digitized impression of Madonna starring at halftime during Superbowl 46 (XLVI)

Bob Segar sang Rock and Roll Never Forgets, and he’s right — Madonna Chicone looks fabulous! Forty hours of physical workouts per week, studies in Kabala, and three children seem to do her good. She created more than enough hits to fill up ANY halftime show, plus I’m expecting fancy dancing and outrageous theatrics tomorrow night!

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Elizabethan Theatre.)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from SLOWTRAIN!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Planet Zion and Looner Park City

Can you see YOUR House from here?

Satellite mosaic Planet Earth in January -- Thanks to Phil Plait's site

Even at this size and resolution, I can see the Great Salt Lake and trace my way northward towards Montana. I can also spot the mountains to the east, where Park City is hosting the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals right now.

What does SLUG have to say about these festivals?

Let’s start with Slamdance, which features new filmmakers:

Condensed from a review of Roller Town by writer Johnny Logan
In his feature film directorial debut, Andrew Bush brings in an interesting satire of disco, roller-skating and the (late)  ’70s. Roller Town takes place in a part of the past where everyone roller-skates and everything is awesome … brings out some great satire and excellent comedic relief, but there are a few spots in the film (which was written by Bush, Little and Vrooman) that feel like three friends got together and dumped their inside jokes into a screenplay.

Gratuitous digital graphic of Raquel Welch as a Roller Derby Queen in "Kansas City Bomber." James Caan's "Rollerball," and Linda Blair's "Roller Boogie" didn't add very much to the genre either.

That being said, the film has some remarkable comedic moments and several very well done supporting role performances … Oh, and stay through the credits—they get interesting.

What about the Sundance Festival? — Oh my goodness, those movies look (bleepin’) depressing! Here’s one that might brighten up a dark theater, but don’t count on it:

(Condensed from a review of About Face by writer Jimmy Martin)
One of the great aspects of the Sundance Film Festival is the variety of documentaries in the programming. Whether it’s an entrenched war documentary or a simple glimpse at the history of an unfamiliar subject, attendees are delightfully bombarded with various engrossing options.
Portrait photographer turned director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders points a video camera instead of his usual photography setup at a group of the most celebrated models in “About Face” to discuss the history of the profession … Christie Brinkley, Jerry Hall, Isabella Rossellini … (to name a few) … offers an unexpected darker gaze into the elitist world of fashion …

Check out more of SLUG Magazine’s festival coverage HERE

Ch-Ch-Changes

Direct — directly from my heart to you!

I've heard this album on rare vinyl -- buy it on readily-available CD

Direct — directly from my heart to you!
Oh, you know that I love you
That’s why I feel so blue

First-rate singer Etta James passed away from Leukemia last week, and Johnny Otis, the brilliant bandleader who discovered her talent, died at the age of 90.
Miss James is probably most famous now for her classic single At Last, covered by A-list talent Beyonce Knowles, who had been portraying Etta in a movie about Chess Records. There is more to know about her than I can even begin to say.

Oh I think, I will love the man always
I think, that I will love the man always
Yeah, we’d be so happy together
But you’re so far away

(Quoting) “Johnny Otis discovered many legendary Rhythm and Blues singers such as Esther Phillips, Willie Mae “Big Momma” Thornton, Etta James, and the Robins (who later evolved into the Coasters), all of whom were at one time featured vocalists in his band. He also discovered Sugar Pie DeSanto, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Jackie Wilson, and Little Willie John. He produced, and with his band played on the original recording of “Hound Dog” with “Big Momma” Thornton. He produced and played on Johnny Ace’s “Pledging My Love”, and produced some of Little Richard’s earliest recordings. On his own Blues Spectrum lable, Johnny recorded and played with Rhythm & Blues pioneers such as Big Joe Turner, Gatemouth Moore, Amos Milburne, Richard Berry, Joe Liggins, Roy Milton, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Charles Brown, and Louis Jordan. Johnny played the drums on Charles Brown’s first major hit “Driftin’ Blues” in 1946. He also recorded with Illinois Jacquet, and Lester Young. One of the many highlights of his long career was when he performed as a drummer with the great Count Basie Orchestra.”
Read more about this great man at http://www.johnnyotisworld.com/index.html

One of the many things Mr. Otis did was give the late, great Blues violinist Don Harris his nickname “Sugarcane” Harris, who achieved wider fame by singing (Little) Richard Penniman’s song Directly From My Heart To You with the Mothers of Invention –

Well I need, I need you by my side
Oh I need — Yes I need you by my side
Oh I love you little darlin’
Your love I could never hide

Johnny’s son Shuggie Otis is an acknowledged master of the Blues as well, plus sits on the bridge of P-Funk’s Mothership as a Vulcan Ambassador!

You just KNEW I was going to talk about Mars again, didn’t you?

Planet Mars, as photographed by the Rosetta space probe in 2007. (Mosaic by Emily Lakdawalla on the Planetary Society Blog.)

Besides the CO2 icecaps, there are clouds in the thin atmosphere, and a tiny little dot above the green belt that happens to be Phobos, the slightly larger of Mars’ two moons.

Fantastic Mars and Martians

Illustration of Otis Adelbert Klein's "Outlaw of Mars" circa 1963, and Pixar's contemporary Martian airship from their "John Carter" movie.

I see some influence in these two images, but coincidence isn’t totally out of the question. Klein’s imitations of Edgar Rice Burroughs were published in the early 1930s, and reprinted during the paperback boom of the early 60′s. I wrote better fan-fiction than Otis Adelbert Klein did when I was in 7th grade, but that’s not bragging. In fact, I STOPPED writing imitation Burroughs tales because I could see how embarrassing  those efforts could be — due to my frustrating attempts to plow through Klein’s Outlaws of Mars and Planet of Peril.

Speaking of Edgar Rice Burroughs

Towards the end of the 1960′s, I glanced through a somewhat lurid fan-fiction version of Tarzan and the Forbidden City of uncertain age and origin. The author was obviously smitten by Queen Atka of Ashair — the purple prose describing details of her sensual form and luxurious trappings adorning her anatomy seeped into the ultraviolet, and I needed protective lenses before reading any more. Those passages weren’t exactly pornographic, but obsessive for sure. Queen Atka was a villain too — irredeemably distant and cruel, unlike H. Rider Haggard’s charismatic She, or Burroughs’ conflicted La, High Priestess of Opar — his first and best “lost empire” creation, or adaptation, or stolen idea, as you please, from The Return of Tarzan.

H. Rider Haggard was a pulp fiction king, and E. Rice Burroughs always acknowledged his influence. Beautiful drive-in movie queen Ursula Andress was the star of this Late Sixties version of "She." It was an abject failure, but not because of Ms. Andress.

I’ve already mentioned that Tarzan and the Forbidden City was the only example of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ enormous output of books circulating widely during the 50′s. Burroughs died in 1949, and his customary distributors went out of business about the same time. This artistic orphan had an intricate publishing history, though — The plot first appeared in a 1934 radio play called Tarzan and the Diamond of of Ashair, ghost-written by Rob Thompson, with Burroughs as de facto Executive Producer. In 1938, Argosy Magazine printed it as The Mystery of the Red Star of Tarzan — extensively re-written by the editorial staff. E.R.B. published his own take on the story as Tarzan and the Forbidden City in hardback form later that year (Number 20 in the series). About ten years afterward, it was the first Burroughs softbound book, but wasn’t a commercial success. Another decade would pass before paperbacks made his name great again (and unearthed the long-buried scribblings of Otis Adelbert Klein).

My first exposure to "Tarzan" in print during the 1950's -- Publications by Whitman with artwork by Don McLoughlin (cover) and Jesse Marsh, who illustrated the interior of this version of "Tarzan and the Forbidden City." (Thanx to ERBzine)

Whitman not only published Dell comic books featuring Tarzan, but also the once-famous “Big Little Books,” targeted for children, that exploited popular characters from movies, radio, and newspapers. John Coleman Burroughs, who drew John Carter of Mars as a syndicated strip before the end of WWII, ghosted a story called The Giant of Mars as one of Whitman’s “Little Books.” A much-abridged version of Tarzan and the Forbidden City was also a part of this low-cost series, and I believe that the relatively full-sized, but still-abridged Whitman hardback I read in 3rd or 4th Grade was an intentional commercial descendent. It boasted endpapers and interior illustrations by Jesse Marsh, whose work was very familiar to me because of — Tarzan‘s Dell Comic Books!
Among the Tarzan series, it most resembled the Hollywood movies that caused Burroughs’ pride to sink, yet made his bank balance rise. It acted as an isolated oasis in his publishing drought of the 50′s because Burroughs shopped this sprawling yarn around to every market and medium he could find.

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Elizabethan Theatre.)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from SLOWTRAIN!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Singing in the Snow, Just Singing in the Snow …

The Superbowl’s coming — what else do I know?

The Sun has had a major storm, and it is causing spectacular Auroras over both poles, but it is overcast where I live, so I can’t see them, even if they showed up over these latitudes. The deer are ranging away from their normal cover to graze, so it is easy to see them in the early evenings.

Redigitized NFL cheerleaders in Patriots' colors -- The Giants have no cheerleaders.

In two weeks the New England Patriots will meet the New York Giants in Indianapolis for the Superbowl XLVI (That means forty-six — love those Roman Numerals). I followed last year’s playoffs more closely because of those amazing games by the ever-underdog Green Bay Packers, and although they only lost ONE game in the regular season, and had two weeks off before hosting their next game, with home-field advantage throughout the tournament — they lost their first playoff game this year. The Packers were likely banged-up and exhausted after all those previous victories. The NFL playoff games I’ve seen so far were marked by viscous and effective defensive playing. Both New York and New England have teams who are made up of veterans with Superbowl rings — especially their quarterbacks, who’ll try to survive in the bulls-eye of each defensive squad.

Enchanted Baroque Opera

The Metropolitan Opera broadcast this week was The Enchanted Island (2012), a new work created from pastiches of Baroque operas. Pastiche comes from the same root word as Paste, as in Cut and Paste, which makes the idea very appropriate for our digital age. Music by Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Fredrick Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, André Campra, Henry Purcell, Giovanni Battista Ferrandini, and Jean-Féry Rebel, with William Christie as the conductor. Jeremy Sams is librettist, from an idea by Peter Gelb. The plot builds on an old melding of Shakespeare’s  Midsummer Nights Dream and The Tempest by John Dryden in the XVIII Century.

Redigitalized David Daniels as Prospero, Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax, and sexy Danielle de Niese as the stuff dreams are made of in the new/old opera "Enchanted Island."

David Daniels, Luca Pisaroni, Joyce DiDonato, Danielle de Niese, Lisette Oropesa, and great-hearted Placido Domingo all have tuneful roles in this patchwork piece, which was first presented on New Year’s Day of 2012. The English lyrics and ridiculously intricate scenario didn’t get in the way of dozens of beautiful melodies by some of the finest composers of the Baroque Period.

What Hath SLUG Wrought?

Who REALLY has the cheapest drinks in town? Does anybody really REMEMBER who had the cheapest drinks in town?

I received the snail-mail SLUG, and was immediately struck by how much BETTER most of the articles looked when they were laid-out in magazine form, compared to the admittedly clean and functional Internet version. The income-producing ads and reader-producing features visually played as formidable team-mates on every page.
I’m going to throw down MY impressions on some double-pagers that caught my eye: Suited lawyers and tattoo artists; An Ethiopian Restaurant and “Local First” beers; Princess Kennedy playing around with Bond Girl imagery, but trying to deliver some very sober facts about owning handguns — contrasted with Roller Derby and a creative venue calendar; Fanciful cartoons of columnist Mike Brown, along with busted skateboarders in a bail bonds advertisement; The excellent interview with Paul Rachman covers two pages in print, with pictures from his Lost Rockers project; Outlaw filmmaker Damon Russell’s relatively short interview looks great framed with gritty B&W photos and facing a colorful full-page gallery ad; Turn the page for a great read about Lynn Hershman Leeson and the Women Art Revolution, which looks equally good online; A wintery photo on one page — a cartoon illustrating bike-riding through snow on the other page; Another snowy skateboard photo as image and essay, along with the laugh-inducing Dawn of the Shread full-pager;

Illustration: Ryan Perkins -- for the excellent article about winter bike-riding by Esther Merono. She recommends plastic bags, several pairs of cheap gloves, and great care. Snow has challenges, but riding on ice-covered roads is NEVER a good idea IMHO.

The cover story about “Bones Brigade” is well-integrated with related full-page graphics by major sponsors; Most compelling of all is the inspirational two-page spread about graffiti artist Tempt One, stricken by MS, but experimenting with his eye-writer; Blue Boutique wishes everyone A Sexy New Year with a blonde model in a “Lingerie Barbie Doll” / “Mirror Ball” image — ironically she faces a great rundown about a Horror-Art collective called Zero Friends; A gallery stroll mixes well with SLUG Mag staff picks of new/used CDs from the venerable Graywhale chain of local stores;  Now THIS looks like SLUG — Beer making supplies, a head shop, booze reviews, Ask A Cop, a sexy realtor, tattoos, and Brad Collins’ Raunch Records/Clothes/Etc.

The online SLUG is superb at posting current reviews from the film festivals that are drawing crowds in and around Park City, though! CHECK OUT SLUG’S FESTIVAL COVERAGE .

The second installment in the Craft Lake Artist Workshop Series — held at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in the UMOCA Studio:

Partial image from http://www.slugmag.com/events.php?id=469

Holly Jones will be teaching us how to make cut-out chandeliers. Each participant will be painting, decorating, and wiring their own chadelier to take home. The workshop begins with a short tour of the UMOCA Exhibits. $5 materials fee — first 5 people craft free — we always encourage using Trax, the Temple Square stop drops you off just a few steps away. For more information: info@craftlakecity.com

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Elizabethan Theatre.)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from SLOWTRAIN!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Mountain Madness & Hysterical Histories

I’ll hardly even mention Mars — either the planet or mythical Sci-Fi stomping grounds!

Orbiting the metaphorical world of Salt Lake/Utah Valley is the satellite enclave of Park City, Utah — Planet Zion has a number of moons named Alta, Sundance, Brighton, et cetera, where the life-forms hike in the summers, and ski/snowboard/snowshoe in the winters. In mid-January there are festivals devoted to movies too. Inhabitants of these worldlets love socializing — with good food, good drink, good music, dancing, and the good things that follow the pursuit of happiness.

From a cabaret drawing by M.E.

I observed Park City change from a decaying mining camp to the nexus of many sprawling mountain communities on the east side of the Wasatch Mountains. At the age of 15, I played the jukebox next to Bucket A Go Go on Main Street, but not the 45 RPM single by Buzz & Bucky of the same name, and also golfed with my father and brother at the brand-new Park City Resort, above the crossroads at Mount Aire Cafe. For awhile, it was notorious for the C’est Bonne, an adult entertainment club, which more or less introduced professional strippers to Northern Utah, but the late-summer Park City Art Festival pushed that image aside, starting in the early 1970′s. Soon afterward, a mid-winter Park City Film Festival struggled to establish itself — generating a lot of good will with the public, but always on a precarious financial  footing, until Robert Redford lent his talents to the project and renamed it the Sundance Festival.

A "Night of the Thumpasaurus People" at Park City Resort, partying like it was 1999 -- which it WAS!

I’ve enjoyed some grand times in and around Park City, and attended the festivals more often than I can specifically remember. I’ve written about one particular instance in 1999 and invite you to read the articles HERE and HERE — They are mostly about Funk Legend Bernie Worrell and the extended P-Funk family, but there are some asides about the Bleh Witch Project, and a very nice lady named Grace Qi who works in the IT business now.

SLUG Magazine is on the film festival scene THIS year!

Condensed from SLUG Mag #277:

Film Festival Circus: An Interview with Paul Rachman by Jeanette D. Moses 
For the past 17 years, Paul Rachman has made the trek to Park City every January to be a part of what he describes as the film festival “circus” that overtakes the small mountain town. His ties to the film festival community run deep … Rachman helped found Slamdance Film Festival in the mid-’90s … Lost Rockers, the current feature length documentary that he is working on … will be next on his list … The film tells the story of eight musicians who Rachman says, “were on the cusp of super stardom and then fell through the cracks.” There is Jake Holmes who wrote the song “Dazed and Confused,” … There is Gloria Jones, the soul singer who … fell in love with Marc Bolan of T. Rex and moved to England to be with him … It also features Chris Robison, who … wrote, recorded and released some of the first gay rock records … Bobby Jameson, David Peel, The Lightning Raiders and Cherry Vanilla are also covered. “It’s a very different type of rock documentary. Music documentaries are usually about the stars, the big scenes, the big albums. This is about people who didn’t make it, but were awesome,” says Rachman.

MY $0.02 — David Peel and Cherry Vanilla

I totally enjoyed David Peel and the Lower East Side’s first album Have A Marihuana — bought several copies as gifts, and they were huge hits at many a college party in 1969-71.
Via Facebook, I’ve become acquainted with Peel’s bandmate Harold C. Black, who readily tells about life as a street musician in New York City, with Tiny Tim (before he was tiny), and the blind percussionist Moondog.

(Top to Bottom) Billy Joe White, Harold C. Black, and David Michael Rosario (David Peel) -- re-digitized from a publicity shot for their second Elektra album "The American Revolution" -- Art direction by the brilliant William S. Harvey

These guys signed with Elektra Records for two albums and made friends with John Lennon, who signed them to Apple — they made an album called The Pope Smokes Dope, which was talked about much more than it was heard.

Kathleen Dorritie of New York was known to me and the wider world as legendary Cherry Vanilla — a Rock Music publicist associated with David Bowie’s Main Man company, and an outrageous performer in an era that specialized in outrageousness. Her poetry book Pop Tart Compositions was part of the 70′s Zeitgeist too, and she’s made a long career as a writer, performer, manager — plus a muse to many a musician.

Redigitized impression of Cherry Vanilla in performance circa 1976

If you want some scoops from the lady, and pleasures via her own mouth, she’s offering her autobiography Lick Me — How I became Cherry Vanilla on her very interesting web site.

Too Funky — Too Funky In Here

Artwork from Marcel Visser's 3 CD collection on Disky Records

CD #1 features: 1. Creative Source Harlem (Don’t you give your money to that lying, sneaking man) 2. African Music Machine Tropical (Actually a down-in-the alley instrumental jam) 3. Soul Searchers We the People (The great Chuck Brown of Washington D.C.) 4. Natural Four Nothing Beats A Failure (But a TRY) 5. Honey Cone Son of a Preacher Man (The group who made Mr. Big Stuff famous) 6. Brother To Brother In The Bottle (Brian Jackson & Gil Scott Heron’s poignant masterpiece) 7. Johnnie Taylor Who’s Makin’ Love (To Your Old Lady while you were out making love …) 8. Sandpebbles Forget It (Nasty instrumental) 9. Holland Dozier Holland Can’t Get Enough 10. Chairmen of  The Board Try On My Love For Size (Yeah, I get it — these two cuts very possibly have Bernie Worrell and/or members of Parliament/Funkadelic) 11. Laura Lee I Need It Just As Bad As You (Cheese with that whine, lady?)  12. Ike & Tina Turner Funkier Than A Mosquita’s Tweeter (Songwriter Anna Mae Bullock ISN”T whining) 13. Bar-Kays Be Yourself 14. The Moments Clap Your Hands (It’s a shame every night can’t be like Saturday night) 15. Maceo & All The King’s Men Thankyouforlettingmebemiceselfagain (When Sly’s song was new — King’s was the studio where they recorded this) 16. Soul Searchers Ahley’s roadchip (Super FUNK) 17. Eddy Senay Hot Thang (And it’s HOT) 18. Timmy Thomas Ebony Affair (Black & Proud) 19. Masterfleet Man & Child (Social commentary you can DANCE to) 20. Eddie Fisher Get Down With The Feeling (Maybe there are influences from Kool and the Gang and the Ohio Players, but it’s so damn good)

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Elizabethan Theatre.)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from SLOWTRAIN!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Road Maps of Mythical Mars

Youthful Indulgences

OK — I followed my own advice and read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and Warlord of Mars. This de facto trilogy was originally published between Mid-1912 and Early 1914 as three separate serials in The All Story Magazine. They later came out in book form during 1917, 1918, and 1919.

Wrap-around cover from the first edition of Warlord of Mars -- touting the previous two novels. Many thanks to ERBZine for the scans of antique artwork used in my treatise!

I think it is important to note that Son of Tarzan, the FOURTH installment of Burroughs’ dominant series of Tarzan stories was published as a hardbound book six months before A Princess of Mars. ERB’s rollicking tales set Under the Moons of Mars may have initiated his career as a Pulp writer, but the public favored Tarzan over all his other creations. In 1918, First National Pictures released a movie called Tarzan of the Apes starring Elmo Lincoln, beginning a very popular film franchise that endured ups and downs throughout the XX Century, and spawned successful adaptations in additional media too.
Pixar/Disney’s upcoming film John Carter marks the 100th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ introduction to the world of Pop Culture, and the first time a MAJOR studio has taken a chance with his archaic and anarchic vision of Barsoom — the red planet we call Mars.

Mercator projections of the Red Planet: (Above) From Percival Lowell's sketches from Earth-based telescopes; (Below) Derived from satellites orbiting Mars itself.

When Burroughs first began writing his Barsoomian romances the biggest name in Mars exploration was Percival Lowell, an American astronomer who strongly advocated for the prospect of not only life on Earth’s neighbor, but a high civilization that constructed planet-wide irrigation canals. Here is a link to Lowell’s book MARS (1895). Sketches and later astronomical photos showed definite polar caps, and dark areas contrasting with light areas in roughly stable patterns. The images above show that although Earthbound observations were fuzzy at best, they weren’t totally wrong.
There was never any repeatable scientific evidence for either Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli’s “channels,” or Lowell’s canals, but it was still a lot of FUN to speculate about life on Mars — H.G. Wells ascended Jules Verne’s literary throne with his novel War of the Worlds in 1898, and the Red Planet became a popular playground for the imagination. The name Edgar Rice Burroughs eventually  joined  Wells and Verne atop the step-pyramid of Pulp fame, along with H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Wallace, climbing up via word-play on the dry orchre sea-bottoms of Barsoom, or in boat-like fliers cruising its skies, with two moons careening overhead.

(L to R) Cover by top-rank painter N.C. Wyeth; Artist J. Allen St. John began a long association with Burroughs by illustrating the third Tarzan novel -- notice Barsoom's moons Thuria and Cluros in his drawing from 1920.

I can’t recall reading anything by Burroughs after about 1970, although I collected many of his various illustrators, but that means at least forty years have elapsed since my last visit to ERB’s Blood-Red Planet. So what did I think after reading those initial explorations of Barsoom?

A Princess of Mars, was compelling — when I initially read it, and even now. It made me want to see what would happen next. The action was dizzying, and when it slowed down just a little, after John Carter wed Princess Dejah Thoris, a stray thread from the middle of the story led to a cliff-hanger ending, and separation from his true love.

Gods of Mars was the first book of this series I read as a youth. I borrowed an old hardbound copy from a neighbor. There was a palpable sense of exploration in the text, and its many references to John Carter’s previous adventures fed my curiosity enough to seek and find some more Mars books — awaiting readers on the shelves of the Spencer Branch Library, located right next door to where I would later attend Junior High School.

A slight diversion

I had already read Burroughs’ Tarzan and the Forbidden City – featuring a comely heroine, nasty villains, outsized monsters, an underwater temple, a lost civilization ruled by an exotic goddess-queen, with an invincible hero making everything right by the end.
Strangely enough, this minor potboiler was the only example of Burroughs’ 50-odd books which saw widespread circulation during the Eisenhower years, because it was licensed to Whitman / Western who printed the Tarzan comic books. The book industry had changed very much after WWII, and his former publishers went out of business around the time of Burroughs’ death in 1949.

Back to Mars

Because of Whitman’s orphaned volume, though, I had my engine primed and ready for the  Pulp Fiction joy-ride promised by Gods of Mars — following John Carter through a long string of battles, predicaments, escapes, and captures — with more monsters, unknown races, hidden cities, a resourceful female ally, an old friend, an enemy-turned-friend, heaps of slain enemies, and a few surviving villains — all culminating in a return to his Martian home, where he finds his princess gone, plus most of her family missing too!
Before Gods of Mars is done, Carter leads a fleet of airships back to the south polar region from which he spent half the novel escaping, and battles three other armadas before seeing Dejah Thoris, but the bad guys recapture her, and it’s cliff-hanger time again! I think that my lack of exposure to A Princess of Mars helped maintain my capacity for surprise throughout this not-exactly-graceful sequel to a much better book.

As it was, I eagerly checked A Princess of Mars out of the library mentioned above, and had a thoroughly good time absorbing that unique quirky yarn — I might have even re-read Gods of Mars before tackling the third book.

Today we use the cliche lather, rinse, repeat for repetitive formulas, and I could say the same about Warlord of Mars, but while going through puberty I totally enjoyed those familiar rhythms of violent action, fantastic creatures, strange lands, and weird pseudo-science.
Burroughs entertained with his literary pyrotechnics like speedy Heavy Metal guitarists would entertain similar teenagers later. He was a much more confident writer by the time he concluded this mad barbaric arabesque, with his interplanetary lovers reunited in triumph after their bloody quest between South Pole and North Pole on Planet Mars. I enjoyed the metaphorical ride of rereading this three-part Pulp Epic, even if it originated in the years when my long-dead grandfather was a lad.

Prominent Western artist Frank Schoonover's illustrations of 1917-18 were quite literal, but Burroughs' words painted better pictures in his readers' minds.

Criticisms? Are you kidding? If anybody pauses to think while reading these things, the spell dissipates quicker than dry ice. When I sat down as a kid to make my own drawings of Barsoomian subjects, it became quite clear that there was no real logic behind any of that stuff — St. John’s best illustrations relied on strategic vagueness for their power.

Big Time Burroughs

Paperback books created a Post-WWII media revolution, and all of the sudden EVERYTHING written by Edgar Rice Burroughs was published in this form as the 1960′s began. One thirtieth of all softbound sales were titles by Burroughs in one year, according to Time Magazine.
What it meant to me and my friends was that we could share our enjoyment of these formerly arcane entertainments much more easily than before, and personally delve into entire series’ that Burroughs wrote about Mars, Venus, or At the Earth’s Core, if we so desired.
The character of the literary Tarzan emerged from Johnny Weissmuller’s shadow too, simply because people could buy the original books at corner stores, sporting well-designed artwork by a variety of creative modern illustrators.

(L to R) Art by: Robert Abbett; Roy G. Krenkel, pen & ink; Roy G. Krenkel, painting.

Burroughs’ unique gift for storytelling was based on pacing and amazement. Plots emerged, grew, and intertwined like Art Nouveau tendrils. As long as he kept a reader baffled and playing along, he prospered. Some of his ideas were better than others, of course. Contradictory or ridiculous details and indifferent characterizations were serious flaws in his work, but I think he was at his very best creating fantastic sub-worlds with broad facile strokes of language. I invite you to make up your own mind:

Online Versions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom Novels:

A Princess of Mars ; The Gods of Mars ; Warlord of Mars ;
(John Carter’s initial blood-soaked trilogy);
Thuvia, Maid of Mars ; The Chessmen of Mars
(Adventures of Dejah & John’s offspring);
Mastermind of Mars
(An totally-unrelated WWI officer wakes up on Barsoom);
A Fighting Man of Mars
(An intrepid private soldier from Carter’s armed forces);
Swords of Mars
(ONE MORE TIME! John Carter, Dejah Thoris, plus an inhabited Martian Moon);
Synthetic Men of Mars
(Sequel to Mastermind);
Llana of Gathol
(Interlocking short stories featuring Carter and his granddaughter);
… and a half-baked posthumous collection called John Carter of Mars:
Skeleton Men of Jupiter  — a magazine story by the old man himself;
Giant of Mars  — ghost-written by John Coleman Burroughs for a Whitman Better Little Book, originally entitled John Carter of Mars — the title of Jack’s syndicated Comic Strip.

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Shakespeare)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from SLOWTRAIN!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !

Incoming Satellites & Blinding Me With MUSIC !

Phobos GRUNT is due to fall out of Earth Orbit this weekend

Detail from P-G's official poster with Phobos over the Grand Canyon of Mars

The Russian rockets carrying the space-lab, with many international experiments on board, failed after the first step towards landing on one of the tiny moons of Mars. Speaking of the Red Planet:

Grizzled warrior Taylor Kitch seems to be suitably smitten by beautiful princess Lynn Collins in this digitized mashup of images from the upcoming "John Carter" move.

I’ll take any chance to have fun with Old-Time Mars — the mythic Wild West of Science Fiction from days before War of the Worlds and onward. (See below for more Barsoomian lore.)

“SCIENCE !”

Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011; A partial list — World’s lowest density material — less than one milligram per cubic centimeter; A brain-machine interface that’s bi-directional where you can actually feel the computer-generated world around you; NASA’s Dawn spacecraft entered the orbit of Vesta — the second largest body in the main asteroid belt; NASA’s Kepler Mission announced the discovery of the first planet with two suns, just like Tatooine), the first two known Earth-sized exoplanets, and quadrupled the number of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system; Heartbeat-powered nanogenerators could soon replace batteries — you may never have to recharge your phone again; UC Berkeley neuroscientists demonstrated using advanced brain-imaging techniques to turn activity in the visual cortex of the human brain into digital images; 100,000-year-old art kit found in South Africa; Online gamers solved the spatial challenge of determining three-dimensional structures of proteins in three weeks; The hunt for the Higgs boson neared its conclusion, and NUMBER ONE has to be faster than light neutrinos — which would be one of the biggest scientific paradigm shifts in history.

Out of the operatic past

The Metropolitan Opera broadcast was another excellent archival performance — Bellini’s Norma (1832) from April 4, 1970 featuring Richard Bonynge, Marilyn Horne, and the late, great Joan Sutherland in her debut at The Met. This thing was a Bel Canto extravaganza with absolutely gorgeous singing, but it had one of the stupidest excuses for a plot I’ve ever encountered. Maybe it was supposed to be an Anti-Medea, but that’s the only detail I can bear to reveal.

More Sublime

This is what I heard before the opera — Read the whole NPR article HERE

Digitized Damiano Bigi and Clementine Deluy perform Pina Bausch's choreography.

The film Pina is Germany’s official entry at the 84th Academy Awards — and a collaboration between two famous Germans of the postwar generation. The filmmaker Wim Wenders captures the groundbreaking modern-dance choreography of the late Pina Bausch, in what many critics are calling a groundbreaking use of 3-D film …
… “Dance — include me out. It was not for me,” Wenders says. “And the first time I ever saw the Pina Bausch company perform, my girlfriend really, literally dragged me.” Wenders came prepared for tedium.
“And then I found myself on the edge of my seat, crying like a baby after five minutes, and crying through the entire thing,” he recalls, amazement still in his voice after 27 years. “I was hopelessly, helplessly crying, and didn’t know what was happening. It was like lightning struck me.”
… “Pina Bausch showed me in 40 minutes more about men and women than the entire history of cinema.”
…  He worked with 3-D experts for more than a year, and by June 2009 he was ready to shoot rehearsals and show Bausch the results … And then, just a few days before the cameras were to roll, the choreographer died. It was a horrible surprise to nearly everyone; she had been diagnosed with lung cancer less than a week earlier and had, with her usual reticence, kept it to herself.
“I immediately canceled the film, because we had wanted to make this together for 20 years,” says Wenders. “And the fact there is a film after all, I strictly owe to the dancers.”

Full Disclosure: My friend Katie Duck was a long-time associate and friend of Pina Bausch.

THIS was pretty darn good too !

Lee, Neil, Kelly, and "Charlie Bird" at Crush Wine Bar 01-12-2012

The roads were kind of clear, so I took a drive to Whitefish to hear Kelly West and her excellent band worrying those ol’ blue notes in new colors.

Ultra-LOW Culture

Thanks to Internet Magic, I have been able to see some odd entertainment that hasn’t been available since the early days of television. I only knew about Captain Video second-hand, from MAD Magazine‘s satire Captain TVideo (which applied to many other cheap, inept Space Operas) and scattered written descriptions — which told of missed cues, shoddy sets, and segments of old Western movies tossed in as “Captain Video’s Secret Agents.” Well, they were neither lying nor exaggerating !

(L to R) The Dumont Network presented Jackie Gleason as well as Captain Video (Dumont manufactured TV sets); Hitch-hiking St. Pete in Ub Iwerks' "Air Race"

Cartoons too old and moldy for theaters flooded pre-school TV for almost a generation — run and re-run without regard for racism or vulgarity. The example above is a quote from Willie Whopper’s Air Race (circa 1933) by talented animator Ub Iwerks, who tried in vain to make a career outside the black hole of Walt Disney Studios. That IS the angelic St. Peter thumbing a ride in the clouds during said race and giving the bad guy THE BIRD after a rude rejection. The last time I saw this cartoon was 1965 ! (Later in his career, Ub Iwerks was involved with the robotic spectacles Abe Lincoln and Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.)

"Buck Rogers" was the first syndicated Space Opera -- I followed Murphy Anderson's version in the newspaper during 1957-58, and enjoyed his work on "Adam Strange" in DC Comics through the early 1960's.

Although there were several Space Operas in circulation during the 50′s, my earliest recollections were Space Patrol and Flash Gordon — both Buster Crabbe’s Universal movie serials and the ill-conceived TV series starring Steve Holland. If Tom Corbett — Space Cadet, Rocky Jones, or Captain Video were ever shown in my home town, I was too little to remember seeing them.

After the 1950′s

More conceptions of Warlord John Carter and Princess Dejah Thoris -- ERB's pulp yarns, newly-published in paperback form, were big hits during the 1960's and 1970's.

Online Versions of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom Novels:

A Princess of Mars ; The Gods of Mars ; Warlord of Mars ;
(John Carter’s initial blood-soaked trilogy);
Thuvia, Maid of Mars ; The Chessmen of Mars
(Adventures of Dejah & John’s offspring);
Mastermind of Mars
(An totally-unrelated WWI officer wakes up on Barsoom);
A Fighting Man of Mars
(An intrepid private soldier from Carter’s armed forces);
Swords of Mars
(ONE MORE TIME! John Carter, Dejah Thoris, plus an inhabited Martian Moon);
Synthetic Men of Mars
(Sequel to Mastermind);
Llana of Gathol
(Interlocking short stories featuring Carter and his granddaughter);
… and a half-baked posthumous collection called John Carter of Mars:
Skeleton Men of Jupiter  — a magazine story by the old man himself;
Giant of Mars  — ghost-written by John Coleman Burroughs for a Whitman Better Little Book, originally entitled John Carter of Mars — the title of Jack’s syndicated Comic Strip.

If you think it is high time, and that THAT is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out … (You’re quoting Shakespeare)

Shaunna Hall’s Elecrofunkadelica — just let it play while you read!

Johnny Melville and Jango Edwards continue to fool around the cinema.
Check out Parade of Fools for the latest on their movie!

Read my very personal review of 004’s CD State of Affairs: HERE
— Then buy one from SLOWTRAIN!

E-Portfolio for Michael Evans

Check Out the Dance Histories Section !