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!
Check Out the Dance Histories Section !
