#Stephen O'Connor

[alchemisoul]

"How can I tell you what I think until I've heard what I'm going to say?"

- Stephen Fry

"I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say."

- Flannery O’Connor

[cinematicjourney]

The Butcher Boy (1997) | dir. Neil Jordan

[l-ultimo-squalo]

Deep Rising (1998)

[ilromagnollo84]

Trícia Helfer / Erin O'Connor

Eugenia Silva / Eva Herzigova

'Marchesa Casati' Collection

Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring Summer 1998

By John Galliano

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #18:

Bob Dylan's Dream / Lord Franklin

At some point in 1988 I discovered that there was music in my childhood home.

We'd grew up largely without it. I had an ancient, AM-only, dial radio at the head of my child sized bed, but that was strictly for listening to Vin Scully call Dodger games. At some point around 83 I spun the corroded dial experimentally and heard Borderline followed by Thriller. It was terrifying, and I did not repeat the experiment.

Therefore, as a child, the only song I remember singing along to was this ditty, which always immediately preceded Vinny declaring that it was "time for Dodger Baseball!"

Of course, I heard snatches of music outside our home. When Dolly, Emmylou and Linda put out Trio in 87 my mom bought the tape, shoved it into our red and white Vanagon's deck and kept that thing on repeat for years. And on the fourth of July I'd watch the annual Beach Boys Special at friends' houses while we lay about, sunburnt from head to toe and waiting for rock hard burgers off the grill. And yes, I'd sit in the park every summer and try to figure out how to eat KFC while the US Navy Brass band played. But all that music was around me, not in me.

Then, in 88, my buddy Matt's parents got cable, so MTV happened and we learned all about girls, I guess, from Straight Up Now Tell Me. By that point Buffalo Soldier, Shout, Brass Monkey and Take My Breath Away where spinning at elementary school dances and all the cool kids were bravely listening to Guns and Roses.

But I wasn't cool. I recognize this fact must be a surprise to all of you given the incomparably cool nature of this august blog and the meteoric rise of my Gordon Lightfoot musings among the cognoscenti (I have no doubt that among my legion of 14 followers cheesebot47 is Obama and dannhann is Bruuuuce while bloggin - I see you gentlemen! Thanks for my grand total of two heart emojis!), but I feel that my uninterrupted lifelong run of uncoolness needs to be acknowledged nonetheless. As proof I offer up the following evidence: my initial attempt at getting into music in 88 was buying the cassette single for Chicago's Look Away:

Yeah, definitely not cool. Even my father thought the song spewd chunks and the only song he ever sang to us as kids was Home on the Range. Baby! Look away!

So I did hear music at age 12. But my home had none to offer, and I'd yet to hear anything that really spoke to me, that shouted its way into my soul.

Then, somehow, furniture got rearranged or I opened my eyes a little wider and found a hitherto unknown cabinet in our living room. There weren't fur coats inside, or mothballs; nor did it take me straight to Mr. Tumnus. No, it was better than that. Instead, when I looked inside, I found The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

That's right: there was a record player in my home that I'd never noticed before, and records sat underneath it. No one had touched anything in there for a decade or more. But I knelt down and figured out what to do with it somehow and the next thing I knew I was listening to Blowin' in the Wind.

Picture me on my 12 year old knees, all 80 pounds of me watching the record spin, holding my breath. What was this noise? Why did it sound so glorious? And why, oh why, wouldn't it play smoothly?

You see, from the first moment Dylan began slapping at his 6 string and asking how many roads a man must walk down, the filthy, bruised record and the turntable's utterly battered needle refused to meld. I could hear only snatches of Blowing in the Wind before the whole thing popped and bolted and before you knew it there was a broken harmonica blast and Dylan was already telling me that he'd learned the next song somewhere down in the U-nited States. Then everything erupted again and it wasn't long before the needle leapt and dragged into full skid before thudding to a stop.

And yet somehow, one song on my parents' long forgotten and utterly ravaged copy of the Dylan's first masterpiece was largely intact and skip-free: at age 12 I joined Dylan on a train going west; I too dreamed a dream and weathered many a first storm. But Bob Dylan's Dream did not make me sad. Rather, it took my breath away.

And it still does.

I suspect each of us has a specific, elemental melody that insistently tugs at us; like an invisible tether, there's a combination of notes and pacing out there that's ineffably linked with our individual soul. Somehow, wonderfully, the borrowed melody Dylan used for his Dream is that tether for me.

Of course at that point I couldn't put any words together to describe what was happening to me when I listened. I was just fired up. What's more, I found that each time I replayed the record a bit more of it would emerge intact: the tortured needle harvested bits of dirt and debris from the grooves each time it passed through. Sure, I had to bully the record through several skips, but eventually I could track most of the record.

Next, somehow, probably at my friend Eric's, I found a blank tape and a turntable connected to a tape deck and was able to transfer my chopped up record into something I could carry around in my pocket like a talisman. There was a world of music out there, just for me. I had not found it yet, but I had a map.

And so I did what came naturally: I took the world's worst version of the The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan to my next Dungeons and Dragons game. Doing so made total sense to me. I was clearly 12 years old.

I emailed my personal dungeon lord, Jon, this week and asked him to recall what happened next. But Jon remembers nothing, which is surprising, because something definitely happened. The moment I pressed play on my brutalized copy of Freewheelin' in the middle of Jon's personally scripted orcfest he freaked the hell out, unplugged the stereo and carried my character sheet out to his dad's Weber, ranting all the while about how if I ever brought such crazed and unbearable sounds to one of his games again my character (I think he was named Illure...) would get doused in lighter fluid and would serve as a fitting holocaust to every god one could name. And Jon was true to his precociously literate 12 year old word: a few months later, when I brought not Bob Dylan but instead swiped cans of beer to D&D, Illure did indeed taste Jon's threatened flames and I was altogether banned from D&D henceforth. My buddy Jon: always totally awesome.

It's too bad about Illure. But I wouldn't change a thing.

So let's talk about Lord Franklin. Dylan openly acknowledged that he borrowed the tune for his Dream from Martin Carthy's version of the original. Let's drop the needle on the song's gold standard: Pentangle's version from their wrongly maligned Dollar Bin treasure, Cruel Sister.

Listen to John Renbourn, just above a whisper, recall his sighing dream. Bert Jansch's weary concertina trembles and pulses and Jacqui McShee's accompanying voice arches above and beyond until Renbourn finally produces the world's smallest and gnarliest electric guitar. Wow. What a song; what a version. That's my personal pulse friends; that's my tether.

Who knows how far back this melody actually goes; its primary known source, the Irish song Cailín Óg a Stór, is least 400 years old, but surely people were humming this thing under their breath long before any peer of Shakespeare thought about claiming ownership of it in print. Maybe my ever so great grandmother had some hand in its creation; or maybe yours did. I'll bet people all over the world have been warbling this melody in their own tongues for time out of mind.

Take a listen to the Carthy version that first inspired Dylan:

You can hear the song's racing pulse in Carthy's fleet picking beneath the swaying, stately melody. Maybe that tension of paces is part of the song's allure for me. I love slowly sung songs that still contain lurching threats of violence, terror or despair. Think Danger Bird or This Monkey's Gone to Heaven; think Mr. Bojangles.

Sure, Jerry's telling us his story with a smile. But he's not okay. He's grieving deeply as he sings, channeling his old prison mates' terrible loss for his dog.

Cailín Óg a Stór is a root stock that's been grafted beyond Franklin's tale and Dylan's dream. Happily, Stephen Stills' own take, a reworking entitled I Suck, remains unreleased. But check out Fairport Convention's A Sailor's Life. Hear the incomparable Sandy Denny spin that glorious melody in a new direction.

It takes some real guts to completely reconsider a song this elemental, but people are forever doing just that. Check out Renbourn's own masterful and hilarious version from the 90's. Just look at the guy sweat as he giggles then dives deeply in.

All of these examples help make Dylan's Dream particularly audacious. Forget telling timeless tails of terror on the deep; Dylan instead takes us to a scene from his own childhood: there they are, gathered about an old wooden stove, the first few friends he had. They never much thought they could get very old; but they have, they are all aged now, just like me and Jon, and all our long ago friends from 88.

Only art is timeless, Lord Franklin reminds us. Only art can never die.

Rest in Peace Sinead.

[brokehorrorfan]

Uglie Kids Club has unleashed The Mummy shirts designed by Hollie Matney. It comes in black ($28), gold ($28, limited to 30), and four different limited tie-die variants ($32). Expected to ship in 4-5 weeks, pre-orders end this Sunday, May 15.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco, directed by Piotr Pawłowski, set design by Tadeusz Kantor, 1961 Photo: Wojciech Plewinski

* * * *

"The Tao that cannot be named is the intelligence of the universe; whatever is happening right now.The mind that realizes this is the don’t - know mind, which is opened to all possibilities because it doesn’t believe it’s own thoughts. What more is there to say. Except that there is a radiance about people who have settled into the depths of not- knowing.You can see it in their eyes.It doesn’t depend on what happens or doesn’t happen. They have found the inexhaustible treasure , in the most obvious place of all." The Second Book of the Tao - Stephen Mitchell + “Remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself.” ~ Flannery O'Connor

[guillotineman]

[spookytuesdaypod]

spooky tuesday is a (now not so new!) podcast where we’re breaking down all of our favorite slashers, thrillers, monster movies and black comedies on the new scariest day of the week.

we’re back, baby! on the heels of our holiday hiatus, spooky tuesday returns with a brand new episode and a very special guest. this week, we’re joined by debut author ellen o’clover — a bonafide romance expert — as we break down all of the possible ships (and we do mean all of them) in the mummy (1999). hailed by the masses as a so-called “perfect film” and possibly brendan fraser’s best work, this monster movie has its fair share of scary moments, undead obstacles, and eye candy (and we’re not just talking about how rachel weisz takes our breath away in every single scene).

give spooky tuesday a listen on apple podcasts, spotify, iheart radio, or stitcher

[rookie-critic]

Rookie-Critic's Film Review Weekend Wrap-Up - Week of 3/26-4/2/2023

This was a bit of a short week. I'm really winding down from my big run of pre-Oscars binge-watching, and have been enjoying the last couple weeks of casual theater outings and video games. This was an interesting and eclectic trio of indie films, though.

Rodeo (2022, dir. Lola Quivoron)

This was a character study that showed a lot of promise. A deeply flawed protagonist that you still wanted to succeed. A very interesting niche subculture as the main subject matter of the film in the form of a group of underground motorbike and ATV riders, and a gripping handheld-camera shooting style all showed so much promise for this French drama from last year. However, I was massively disappointed in the film's ending, which seemed to throw away all of it's potential for something wildly and unnecessarily abstract. It felt like we were coming up on a climax that was going to be a great payoff for all of the film's plot threads, only for the film to fizzle out within a matter of five minutes instead. Roll credits, go home, nothing to see here. It's not as egregious as something like Smile, which not only threw away it's character development, but actively shattered a very pro-healing-from-trauma message in the process. This is relatively harmless in comparison, and the rest of the film was quite good up to that point, so I'll just say that I didn't hate it.

Score: 6/10

Currently available for pre-order on Blu-ray & DVD through Music Box Films.

The Lost King (2022, dir. Stephen Frears)

This was a harmlessly good time. Sally Hawkins, as always, is an absolute delight and commands the screen with her every movement. She is convincing and demands that you empathize with her character Philippa Langley. I am aware that this film has a fair bit of controversy wrapped around it in how it handles fact vs. fiction in this true story. The film paints a very villainous picture of the University of Leicester, and there are claims that this portrayal is wildly hyperbolic and inaccurate. Granted, everyone I've seen complaining about the portrayal is either a graduate or an employee of the University of Leicester, but on the flip side Philippa Langley is an executive producer on this film. I'm choosing to believe the way the film portrays things as accurate. It is a little on the nose, and I'm sure they weren't as cartoonishly evil as the film conveys, but I can see academia treating a woman suffering from ME as horrendously as they do in this film, and I can't see a director as seasoned as Stephen Frears (whose directed movies like Philomena and High Fidelity) making a film that's blatantly propaganda. I enjoyed The Lost King, it maybe wasn't the best, but people interested in the history of it will surely find a lot to like here.

Score: 7/10

Currently Only in theaters.

A Good Person (2023, dir. Zach Braff)

This a very mediocre film that is saved by two spectacular performances. I've never seen either of Zach Braff's other films (I consider Garden State to be a pretty big blind spot in my viewing history), but man, just based off of this, I'm not super impressed in his ability as a writer/director. The dialogue in the film is packed with filler and faux-drama, and the whole thing just seemed so unforgivably on the nose that I just couldn't get behind the characters for most of the film. The movie is obsessively concerned with you sympathizing with both of its central characters that at two separate spots in the film they each say the actual line "I'm a good person." It's would be eye-roll inducing if Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh weren't acting their asses off, and they do act their asses off. It might honestly be the best performance I've seen out of Pugh, and I'm so bummed that she delivers it in a film that is so undeserving of it. I'm being incredibly harsh on this, so I will point out that I didn't hate it, and if the script wasn't sabotaging the film so often, it would be great, even. Braff touches on a lot of important, timely topics here, and occasionally gets you to care about what he's saying. I'll even admit to falling for some of the emotional manipulation and tearing up a couple times. Would I watch it again? Absolutely not, but I'm positive there's an audience for this out there. Maybe you're one of them.

Score: 6/10

Currently only in theaters.

[sasa-chan]

Alex Rider (2021)

Season 02, Episodes 05 "Threats" & 06 "Heist"

[vintagewarhol]

[claudia1829things]

Top Five Favorite Episodes of “THE CROWN” Season Four (2020)

Below is a list of my favorite episodes from Season Four of the Netflix series, "THE CROWN". Created by Peter Morgan, the series stars Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh:

1.  (4.08) “48:1″ - While many nations condemn apartheid in South Africa, tension mounts between Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II about their clashing opinions on applying sanctions against the country.

2.  (4.02) “The Balmoral Test” - Thatcher and her husband visit the Royal Family’s Balmoral Castle but has trouble fitting in with the family.  Charles, the Prince of Wales finds himself torn between his heart and family duty.

3.  (4.06) “Terra Nullius” - During the Prince and Princess of Wales’ state visit to Australia, Diana, Princess of Wales struggles to balance motherhood with her royal duties, while she and Charles cope with their marriage difficulties.

4.  (4.10) “War” - In the season finale, Thatcher fights to maintain her role as Prime Minister amid a growing challenge to her power.  Charles grows more determined to separate from Diana as their marriage unravels.

5.  (4.01) “Gold Stick” - In the season premiere, the Queen welcomes Thatcher as Britain's first woman prime minister.  Charles meets a young Diana for the first time.  And an IRA attack brings tragedy to the Royal Family.

[watchingalotofmovies]

The Mummy

The Mummy    [trailer]

At an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Hamunaptra, an American serving in the French Foreign Legion accidentally awakens a mummy who begins to wreak havoc as he searches for the reincarnation of his long-lost love.

A good-old fashioned action adventure. The chemistry between Fraser and Weisz is just so good, a rarity these days.

You got to love all the "family-friendly" killings.

I had forgotten that the mummy moves suspiciously like a terminator.

[camyfilms]

THE CROWN 2020

Because I care about her! Morning, noon, and night I care about her!

[dollarbin]

Dollar Bin #2:

Jerry Jeff Walker's Viva Terlingua!

There are certain truths we hold as self evident. Anyone who ever takes their valuable time to read the nonsense in this blog knows that Blood on the Tracks and Damn the Torpedoes belong in every middle aged white guy's record collection. Similarly, they know that Eric Clapton, post Cream, is not worth listening to and that you are better off never having seen Van Morrison live in my lifetime, and I'm older than you. It's easy to know the truth. Neil Young has no faults, unless you wind up marrying him. Beer is good for me.

This second installment of the Record Bin makes the case for a lesser known truth: Jerry Jeff Walker deserves intentional, honored space in your very own dollar bin. Indeed, he deserves to take up significant quality time in your life! We'll use his best known record, Viva Terlingua!, as our basis of proof.

But first, if you don't already have its perfectly shambolic opening notes running in your head, give a listen:

Walker tells us exactly what we need to know in that opening riff and his "Ahhhh..... Buckeroos": we are mid-story already; he's just back from a smoke break in the pig pen and he's picking up where he left off, sliding some seemingly insignificant musings at us and his anxious producer Mike, musings which actually contain the meaning of life, at least according to Jerry Jeff.

This whole record sounds like a legendary party we are forever sad to have missed. Come to the end of the record and you'll wish the party would keep going - and then it does keep going, with the band diving back into yet another chorus of London Homesick Blues. Are these people still drunk?

I don't know about you but other music which strives to conjure up a live drunken hoedown - I'm thinking of Rainy Day Woman and the frat boy early take of Madame George - always sound a little sinister. Getting stoned, as in rocks being thrown at you, doesn't sound fun no matter how much those Nashville Cats scream, nor does getting raided by transphobic cops. But I'm forever fired up about the party inside Viva Terlingua. Burritos! Tacos! Everclear!

Not even The Basement Tapes sound like this much fun to me. Sure, I'd love find myself in Big Pink, making shit up with Bob during I'm Your Teenage Prayer. But while we were at it, I'd have to keep an anxious eye on Richard Manuel, knowing the doom that lies in his/our future. No so with Viva Terlingua: transport me back to Luckenbach, Texas in August 1973 and I'd get drunker than I did on car bombs at my famous brother's (https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/) wedding. I'd remember every glorious moment of that night with Jerry Jeff for the rest of my life.

But let's talk about Jerry Jeff's singing. Van Morrison is my favorite screamer and Sandy Denny is the best singer in the history of white people, but who else can turn their own voice-crack into joyful art? Catch Jerry at the end of Sangria Wine: Woah-OH!-oh-oh-oh, he LOVES sangria wine. Jerry shows us just how high you can get on the stuff, his voice staggering with joy. It's not beautiful; it's awesome.

The voice-crack, I declare, is a vital ingredient to a lot of the best manrock from the 70's. It's a big part of Kristofferson's whole wonderful shtick, and I'd argue that one of the big reasons why we all love hanging out in the Ditch with Neil is because he falls apart vocally while telling us he's a vampire or while describing the sun climbing his hood ornament. Sure, Richard Thompson has shown us since the 80's that he is well poised to voice a cartoon British lion in a musical remake of Robin Hood, but I prefer him when he's searching for notes he'll never find on his first record. Apparently his song Mary and Joseph from that outing is too bizarre and off tune to even merit existence on youtube, otherwise it would appear below this sentence. But trust me, it features some Jerry Jeff level voice-cracks.

While we are at it, the voice-crack seems to be missing from modern music: a problem! Jeff Tweedy reaches for one on occasion, I suppose, and Adele has taken over for Sarah McGlachlan, turning them into graceful beauty. But who's out there Bob Pollarding themselves from amateurism to epic in one wild ride of a syllable?

Don't be fooled, however: Viva Terlingua is far more than just a jubilant rager. The songwriting and arrangements are discreetly brilliant: everyone sounds drunk, and maybe they really are, but they worked their asses off to get things straight beforehand.

Let's start with the second track, Desperadoes Waiting For A Train. Walker had already introduced the world to the relatively unknown Guy Clark with his cover of LA Freeway a few years before but Clark's Desperadoes is on a whole other level. It's the kind of song that leaves you wondering what else a songwriter could possibly have left to say afterwards about their own biography. Write a song like Desperadoes and there can't be much more in the tank. Name another song that is convincingly about the love between a boy and his grandma's drunk boyfriend. Can't be done. Find me another song that's half as sad and sweetly funny at the same time, or that's so straight-forward and concise in its story telling, yet cryptically elusive in its chorus. How are this kid called Sidekick and the weeping old man who is teaching him how to drive like Desperadoes Waiting For a Train? I don't know, but they are, and it's awesome.

The whole thing is a master class in song lyrics as far as I'm concerned, standing alongside Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones and Kristofferson's Sunday Morning Coming Down as songs that tell you exactly what you need to know about a relationship or person through surprising, crystalline imagery. They are perfect short stories.

And Walker owns the track, mournfully and righteously working through each stage of the boy's unique relationship with that driller of oil wells, that old school man of the world. Walker can flat out sing, and the slower the beat, the deeper and more aching he becomes.

Somehow, even though he was capable of writing a transcendent song like Mr Bojangles, Walker is often at his best when singing other people's songs. He doesn't cover them, he recreates them, a la our beloved late Sinead O'Connor. Check out Walker's version of One Too Many Mornings from Viva Terlingua's sequel of sorts, A Man Must Carry On. Jerry Jeff writes his own damn verse!

Finally, how about his amazing band. Take one of the album's lesser tracks, Get it Out. Leading into the bridge an organ surges, then backs off; no player on this record claims their own space for more than a perfect moment. Instead, they pass around leadership with as much care as a shared bottle of the good stuff among thoughtful friends. Later in the bridge all the players rest together and let Jerry ad his choir of drunken angels dive into some CSNish do do do dos. Together they make the blog's favorite villain, Stephen Stills, and his dopey band mates sound like they'll never even get the chance to love the one their with because everyone out there would rather get it on with Jerry and his crew.

Anyway, go and get your own copy of this record. I've bought not one, but three copies of Viva Terlingua in my life: the first for $12, which skips, the second for $5, which skips, and a final one, with full exasperation, for $1, which.... doesn't skip! Why, oh why, do I ever look outside the dollar bin?