Some Came Running

Helen high water

I know, I know; it appears that SCR is devolving—some would call it evolving, actually—into a kind of tony cheesecake site, but I assure you, it's all just a coincidence and the next image to post on this blog is sure to be something with less potential prurient interest. But in case you were wondering (and I have to say I really think you were), yes, that is young Helen Mirren above, younger even than in Powell's Age of Consent, doing a bit of faux-burlesque in the extraordinary object known as Herostratus, the subject of today's Foreign Region DVD Report, at The Auteurs'.

"Some Came Running," at leisure

Display case, "No Wave 1976-1980," KS Art

As I deal with the varied vicissitudes of being out (for the time being) of a day job, I've been trying to do a bunch of stuff that I might not have done were I still, you know, in a day job. Hence, last Thursday night, I met up with my similarly day-job-less pal Louise W. (who I met in geometry class at Jefferson Township High School in 1977; she was a freshman, while I was a mathematically-challenged senior), with blankets in tow, to get a sweet spot on the lawn by the Prospect Park Bandshell for the opening night of the Celebrate Brooklyn! series of concerts at said bandshell, featuring Mr. Isaac Hayes. We were soon joined by a host of day-job-possessing pals, including Kenny-Evans-wedding maid of honor Rubina H., wedding usher Patrick K., my buddy Mario of DVD Palace fame, and more. (My Lovely Wife, alas, was tied up in rehearsals for a play.)

It was a beyond-perfect night for such an event, which was hilariously prefaced by a bunch of goofy speeches from varied representatives of the municipality. Hayes was pretty awesome. He can't rock the gold-chain "Black Moses" vest like he used to—he instead wore a long black-and-gold robe—and he had three electronic keyboardists emulating the sounds of a 21-piece orchestra, but close your eyes and it was Hot Buttered Soul and Live at the Sahara Tahoe all the way, except without the stage patter. It was as if South Park had never even existed. "Lord, ain't nobody making music like this no more," one delighted old-schooler exclaimed a couple minutes into "I Stand Accused." Damn right, as Hayes says on one of his most famous hits. Speaking of which, the extended version of the theme from Shaft with which he closed the show had enough wacka-wacka for ten porno movie soundtracks...

Late afternoon Friday I hied down to Manhattan's Leonard Street, with a two-fold purpose. First, to attend a book party/gallery reception celebrating No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980 by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and longtime critical gadfly Byron Coley. An essential photo collection and text for anybody who looked in terrified wonder at the back cover of No New York, and subsequently listened in terrified wonder to its grooves.

Contemplating Coffin Joe

One of the most entertaining essays in the below-mentioned collection Exile Cinema is Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin's ecstatic appreciation of Brazilian horror auteur Jose Mojica Marins and his cinematic alter-ego Ze de Caixao (Coffin Joe). (Maddin, incidentally, has the unique distinction of being both a contributor to the book and one of its subjects.) Good cinematic fetishist that he is, he gets himself into a right tizzy over Mojica's, or maybe Ze's, lower lip (before comparing it to a liver): "...resting easy as it does on those coarse black chin whiskers, fat and satisfied like a satiated cutworm or like the vulva of a woman who's been quite willingly stuffed into a hyper-realistic cow costume and rolled into a busy bullpen."

Yowsah.

And as you can see from the screen grab above, from 1964's seminal, and how, At Midnight I'll Take Your Corpse, that lip is a formidable sneer instrument.

So imagine my slight shock when, around 1994, on encountering Mojica/Ze in the flesh, I found him an almost ...avuncular figure.