Going Back to Memphis

Going Back to Memphis:

by the Memphis Jug Band, a jazz band featuring jug and kazoo that was active from the mid-1920s through the late 1950s.

Lyrics:

I'm leaving here, mama, don't you wanna go
I'm leaving here, mama, don't you wanna go
Because I'm sick and tired of all this ice and snow

When I get back to Memphis, you can bet I'll stay
When I get back to Memphis, you can bet I'll stay
And I ain't gonna leave until that judgment day

I love old Memphis, the place where I was born
I love old Memphis, the place where I was born
Wear my box-back suit, and drink my bottle of corn

I wrote my gal a letter, way down in Tennessee
I wrote my gal a letter, way down in Tennessee
Told her I was up here hungry, hurry up and send for me

I'm gonna walk and walk 'til I walk out all my shoes
I'm gonna walk and walk 'til I walk out all my shoes
Because I've got what they call them leaving here blues

Cancer Sucks!

Specifically non-Hodgkins Lymphoma sucks. I don't have it, but a family member does, and the fact that it's curable is the only bright spot. Admittedly, that's a hugely blindingly bright bright spot! It's a shame when you have a cure that makes you feel worse before it cures you, but it's such a blessing that it does cure you. We're feeling extremely grateful for that right now.

An online chapel with a 20-minute guided contemplative prayer video is here at ContemplativePrayer.net. Sometimes I find it helpful.

Oddly, I keep worrying about how I'm going to keep Mother from finding out. Since Mother died about 4 months ago, this makes no sense at all.

Happy Tabletop Day!

Tabletop Day is here! I know I still have my Trophy of Awesome around here somewhere, but if I can't find it I can print off another one.

I kinda looked around last year but found no local events. This year I see there's an all day International Tabletop Day celebration at the University of Memphis. This event is co-sponsored by the Memphis Role Playing Association and the Mid-South Board Gaming Club. We'll probably just play at home since the site warns about limited space and a first-come first-served policy that makes me think it'll be too crowded to suit me.

Here's the flyer for the local event:

The main board games I remember playing as a child were Yahtzee, Monopoly, Checkers, Tic-Tac-Toe, Chinese Checkers, Clue, and Parcheesi. I liked cards so much, Daddy taught me solitaire when I was fairly young so I could play cards when he got tired of it. When my kids were growing up, they enjoyed the same games, and we added some new ones along the way. We don't play games much any more. I'm not sure why that is, but TableTop is a good influence on me. I've discovered some new games through them.

Brimstone and Treacle

Brimstone and Treacle is a 1976 horror teleplay starring Michael Kitchen as a demon in human form. Denholm Elliott stars as the father of a young woman rendered helpless by an accident. Considered too disturbing to air, it wasn't televised until 1987. This is another film which shows the striking effect a stranger can have on the lives of the unsuspecting -never quite what you would expect.

BFI Screen Online says this "darkly comic religious fable remains powerful without ever being gratuitous." BritishTelevisionDrama.org says, "Brimstone and Treacle is a product of the time in which it was made, but because it was never transmitted at the time it should have been, sadly it can never be truly assessed as social commentary." Fright calls it " A deeply subversive essay on the allure—and possible beneficial effects—of evil, it’s a dark and provocative treat...."

It was remade with Sting in the Michael Kitchen role in 1982.

Caliban's War

Caliban's War is 2nd in the Expanse trilogy by James S. A. Corey, which is the pen name of 2 authors working in concert on this creative endeavor. This space opera is great fun -solid, engaging fun. The world-building includes everything I wanted, and characters were diverse and nicely filled-out. The plot included inter-personal relationships, political intrigue and action -something for everybody. I'm looking forward to the 3rd (which is ready on my shelf) and am hoping this author collaboration continues to write. Do read these in order; this is a trilogy in the traditional sense.

from the back of the book:

WE ARE NOT ALONE.

On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent inter-planetary war. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system.

In the vast wilderness of space, James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante have been keeping the peace for the Outer Planets Alliance. When they agree to help a scientist search war-torn Ganymede for a missing child, the future of humanity rests on whether a single ship can prevent an alien invasion that may have already begun...

SF Signal calls it "solidly entertaining space opera". Kirkus Reviews describes it as "Part two of the topnotch space opera begun with Leviathan Wakes". The Little Red Reviewer praises it, saying, "the plotting, pacing, characterization and dialog are spot on perfect. Striking a balance between space opera, adventure, and horror, if you’re looking for a new science fiction series to get hooked on, look no further because this is it." Wired closes its review with this:

Great characters, excellent dialogue, memorable fights, freakish experiments, and twisty-turny mysteries — sometimes you’re lucky to get a few of those in a good book series. Only an excellent book series can pull them all off, and The Expanse will definitely be added to the short list of science fiction tales that manage to do so.

A Man, a Horse, a Gun

A Man, a Horse, a Gun is a 1967 spaghetti western. Oh, I do hope I never run out of spaghetti westerns! This one stars Tony Anthony in the 2nd of the 4 Stranger movies. Dan Vadis, Marco Guglielmi and Ettore Manni are also in this film. The score is by Stelvio Cipriani and adds a lot to the watching of the movie. I'm unfamiliar with this series, but after seeing this one I'll be looking for all of them.

via youtube:

Spaghetti-Western.net calls it "an enjoyable story of greed, double cross and violence presented with odd humour and taciturn dialogues."

April Fools Day

This may be my least favorite day of the year. I truly do hate April Fools' Day! I grew up dreading it not because of the tricks the kids at school would play (I mean how upset can you get over, "Your slip is showing," "There's a spider on you," and such). No, I hated it because my mother took an odd glee in the day. And somehow I always fell for it.

One year she woke me up telling me my favorite cousins had come during the night and were sleeping in the living room. I was so excited! I rushed to the living room to the tune of laughter and "April Fool!"

Every year she got me.

Once after I married, in the days before cell phones, she called me to tell me she had tried to drive up to see us but had gotten lost on the way. At the time, we lived off of a road that was off of a rural 2-lane highway. We lived way out in the middle of nowhere, and getting lost out there would not have been hard to do. Mother said she had found a pay phone but had no idea where she was. Lost and confused, she said she had used her last coin to call me and didn't see any sign of people and no sign of civilization other than the pay phone she was using. I was headed out the door in tears to look for her before she finally said, "April Fool". She had never left her house.

I just never learned! I'm a bit slow on the uptake, ya think?

That was the year I told her I would never again see or talk to her in person or on the phone on that day. She was honestly dumbfounded -for her it was just funny little gags- but I had reached the point where I didn't want to play that game any more. I prefer jokes that we share. She had a good sense of humor, but on this type of joke we were definitely at odds.

One of the pacts The Husband and I made early on was No April Fool Jokes Of Any Kind. Call me a fuddy-duddy stick-in-the-mud if you will, but we still abide by it.

And so, on this day I offer you a soothing cup of chamomile tea and nothing else. No tricks, no jokes, no stress, no nothing except that soothing cuppa. I'm hiding from the jokesters today, Folks; and my tea and I are in a secure, undisclosed location. Shhhhh

Enjoy your beverage -with or without tricks as suits you best- in peace with Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T(ea) Tuesday linky.

Rocket 88

Rocket 88:

Recorded in 1951 at Memphis' Sun Studio, it was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm. This is the first ever rock 'n' roll record.

lyrics:

You women have heard of jalopies,
You heard the noise they make,
Well, let me introduce my new Rocket '88.
Yes it's straight, just won't wait,
Everybody likes my Rocket '88.
Baby will ride in style,
Movin' all along.

V-8 motor and this modern design,
Black convertible top and the gals don't mind
Sportin' with me, ridin' all around town for joy.

Blow your horn, Raymond, blow!

Step in my Rocket and don't be late,
Baby, we're pullin' out about half past eight.
Goin' round the corner and get a fifth
Everybody in my car's gonna take a little nip.
Ooh, goin' out,
Boozin' and cruisin' along.

Death Race

Death Race is a 2008 Paul Anderson-directed science fiction action film starring Jason Statham. It's a remake (or perhaps prequel, depending on who you ask) of Death Race 2000. This is a fun-enough action movie. Jason Statham is always worth watching, and his character here is a wrongly convicted doting dad, which is a nice touch. The action is steady with plenty of car chases and resultant explosions, but that action is about all there is.

trailer:

Moria doesn't like it but has some praise for Statham and Joan Allen, who plays the warden. SF Gate pans it, comparing it unfavorably to the original. Empire Online gives it 3 out of 5 stars and concludes, "It’s nothing more than an enjoyable, ridiculously macho B-movie romp, but it’s Anderson’s best movie since the underrated Event Horizon". EW gives it a B+ and says, "Soft sexual and racial jabs replace the more daring political commentary of the original, ... That was the anarchic '70s, baby; this is the conservative now". Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 43%.

Dog Sculpture

I saw this sculpture downtown but saw no plaque or any indication of who placed it there or who the artist was. I got a kick out of seeing these playful puppies.

Free parking is harder to find downtown than it used it be. Lately, I've given up looking and started parking here:

It's called Parking Can Be Fun, which I'm not buying, but it is fun to see a business make an effort to be a bit different.

The garage is centrally located and easy to get in and out of.

King Kong (1933)

The Husband is having some health issues lately and has taken comfort in some old movie favorites. Thus: King Kong, the original 1933 monster movie/love story. This has always been one of his favorites, but it's been a while since I watched it. It never gets old.

Moria opens by calling it "perhaps the greatest of all fantasy films, it is certainly the greatest monster movie ever made." 1000 Misspent Hours says, "The most important thing to keep in mind about King Kong is what a revolutionary movie it was." DVD Talk says, "I hold no grudge whatsoever against Peter Jackson's 2005 remake but there's no substitute for an original work of popular art -the '33 Kong is the one that activates the subconscious, stirs one's imagination and remains a masterpiece of spectacle, horror and adventure." Classic-Horror.com says,

One of the outstanding things about King Kong is that it truly and successfully has something for everyone. It has at least a little bit of everything—action, adventure, horror, sci-fi, drama, love, even humor—and they somehow combine well despite the disparity. ... There are few films that everyone should see, but this is one of them.

Senses of Cinema says, "The continuing success of King Kong is due not only to its spectacular special effects, but also to the exemplary economy with which the filmmakers handled the screenplay, filming and editing." Empire Online calls it a "collossus of a film" and "a brilliantly structured adventure movie". Time Out praises "the remarkable technical achievements of Willis O'Brien's animation work, and the superbly matched score of Max Steiner." FilmSite.org has quite a lot of information, including a lengthy description of the plot. Roger Ebert considers it a "great movie" and says,

But "King Kong" is more than a technical achievement. It is also a curiously touching fable in which the beast is seen, not as a monster of destruction, but as a creature that in its own way wants to do the right thing. Unlike the extraterrestrial spiders in the "Alien" pictures, which embody single-minded aggression, Kong cares for his captive human female, protects her, attacks only when provoked, and would be perfectly happy to be left alone on his Pacific Island. It is the greed of a Hollywood showman that unleashes Kong's rage...

Rotten Tomatoes gives it a critics score of 98%.

When We Were Orphans

When We Were Orphans is a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Not judged his best book, it was still shortlisted for the 2000 Man Booker Prize. It's considered a detective story, and I'm shelving my copy with my mysteries.

Reading some authors is to me like sitting in a row boat and going down the river. I'm swept along gently by his prose. I think this author is especially good at foreshadowing that doesn't give away too much.

from the back of the book:

Renowned London detective Christopher Banks was born in Shanghai at the beginning of the twentieth century, and lived there relatively happily until he was orphaned by the disappearance of his father and mother. Now, more than twenty years after leaving Shanghai, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the criminal expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate his understanding of the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels back to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of recovering all he has lost, only to find that the Sino-Japanese war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition - and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him. Masterfully suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one's past.

Kirkus Reviews ends its review by saying,

Elegiac, meditative, ultimately emotionally devastating, and the purest expression yet of the author’s obsessive theme: the buried life unearthed by its contingent interconnection with the passions, secrets, and priorities of unignorable other lives.

The Guardian says, "The single problem with the book is the prose, which, for the first time, is so lacking in local colour as to be entirely inappropriate to the task in hand. One can't only admire a book's structure."

Salon.com closes with this:

The reason to read the book is Ishiguro’s gorgeous, perhaps matchless, prose. And that’s more than enough until (maybe with his next novel) Ishiguro manages to build a fictional vessel that can contain his formidable command of both the architectonic and the surreal.

There's a reading group guide here.

Hell-Fire Austin

Hell-Fire Austin is a 1932 Western starring Ken Maynard. It's only about an hour long, and how can you resist a horse named "Tarzan"? It's a bit cute for my tastes and I'm not a fan of singing cowboys, but still, there's a horse called "Tarzan"!

via youtube:

Online reviewers have pretty much ignored it, but that's not uncommon for Westerns this old.

Makin' Coffee

Makin' Coffee:

an Allan Sherman song parody of Makin' Whoopee.

Lyrics excerpt:

Each weekday morning at 10:15
I see my favorite vending machine
It stands there waitin' and percolatin'
Just makin' coffee
...

I never get coffee from vending machines these days. Are there still coffee vending machines around? I can't remember the last time I saw one, much less one that had a tea option. (Vending machine hot tea was dreadful!) Now coffee seems readily available in carafes on hot plates, and the vending machines have soft drinks and bottled water. And tea? Never!

These days I hear more talk of the best way to make coffee so that the flavor is enhanced, the best quality coffee, the best machine for making coffee or grinding beans, etc. And with tea, I hear talk of the highest quality leaf and the best blends. Sometimes I think the coffee and tea of my youth is lost. If vending machine coffee/tea is an example of what was typical back in the day, that may be a blessing!

Enjoy your beverage of choice (whether from a vending machine or not) with the tea-partiers hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth.

My Babe

My Babe:

sung by Mississippi Fred McDowell, who moved to Memphis as a young man in 1926 and died here in 1972 at age 68. This is a performance from late in his life.

lyrics:

My baby don't stand no cheatin'
My baby don't stand no cheatin'
My babe she don't stand no cheatin'

My babe, she says she loves me
My baby says she loves me
Says she loves me

Kakuryu wins his first sumo tournament!

Kakuryu has won!

Here's the bout that did it for him, from Jason's All-Sumo Youtube channel:

Mainichi opens with this: "OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Kakuryu defeated rival ozeki Kotoshogiku to capture his first career championship on the final day of the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament Sunday, defying the odds to all but secure his promotion to sumo's highest rank of yokozuna." Asia & Japan Watch says, "One of the keys to Kakuryu’s recent success has been his face-off--calm and focused. Against Kotoshogiku, Kakuryu put that new attack on display, absorbing his opponent’s onslaught and keeping his cool". from The Japan News: "Chances are high Kakuryu will be promoted to yokozuna ... If Kakuryu, 28, receives the promotion, he will be the third active Mongolian-born yokozuna and fourth overall."

Happy in Memphis

Yes!

locations pictured in the video:

Rendezvous Alley
Gibson’s Donuts in East Memphis
The Pyramid
Beale Street Landing
Binghampton Park
Autozone Park
Trolley tracks downtown
Caritas Village
Mural outside Double J Smokehouse
Brookhaven Circle
Jerry’s Sno Cones
Gus’s downtown
Levitt Shell
Sun Studio
“I love Memphis” mural in Cooper Young
Tiger Lane at Liberty Bowl Stadium
Huey’s Midtown
Brooks Museum of Art
Shelby Farms – Woodland Discovery Playground
Peabody roof
Harding Academy (East Memphis and Cordova locations)

The Cotton Museum

The Daughter and I had neither one been to the Cotton Museum. It opened back in 2006 and provides historical and cultural exhibits, including displays in glass cases, videos which explore the history and influence of the cotton industry, and features that were present in the original Cotton Exchange. It's not a large museum, and we toured it in less than an hour, but it was definitely worth the visit.

The photo from Wikipedia shows more of the building that my photo does:

You can see photos of some of the exhibits and hear an overview here:

Tennessee Crossroads explored this museum:

Cotton was King, and understanding it's place in the city's history is important to an understanding of the city itself.

The Woman in the Dunes

The Woman in the Dunes is a 1964 Japanese film based on the book by Kobo Abe. Hiroshi Teshigahara directs. He was nominated for an Oscar for best director but lost to Robert Wise (The Sound of Music). It stars Eiji Okada (Hiroshima mon amour) and Kyōko Kishida. This film won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes. This is a fascinating movie -thought-provoking. It's a picture of people trapped in a life, in this case physically trapped, and what their different responses are. It's a beautiful film to watch. Sand doesn't often receive such careful visual treatment. The sound track by legendary composer Toru Takemitsu is the perfect complement to the picture.

Woman Of The Dunes from Umbrella Entertainment on Vimeo.

Time Out calls it "a tour de force of visual style, and a knockout as an unusually cruel thriller". Chicago Reader says it's "A bizarre film, distinguished ... by Teshigahara's arresting visual style of extreme depth of focus, immaculate detail, and graceful eroticism." Roger Ebert has it on his list of "Great Movies" and says, "Unlike some parables that are powerful the first time but merely pious when revisited, "Woman in the Dunes” retains its power because it is a perfect union of subject, style and idea." It has a critics rating of 100% at Rotten Tomatoes.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat

A Fairly Honourable Defeat is a 1970 Iris Murdoch novel. I've liked all her novels that I've read so far, so it's not surprising that I like this one. This book focuses on relationships and the ease with which they can be disrupted. Some people are heartless and some are stupid. Life is good; or is it? The story is told through dialog; there's not much description.

from the back of the book:

Rupert and Hilda are perfectly matched.

Their only worries are a drop-out son and Morgan, Hilda's unstable sister, just back from America.

Enter Julius, Morgan's ex-lover, determined to give Rupert and Hilda's seemingly impregnable marriage a mild jolt. He finds an unexpectedly spirited opponent in Morgan's husband, Tallis...

This is a tale of the struggle between two demonic beings, one good, one evil. The evil one wins, but the defeat of the good is a fairly honourable one...

The Guardian says this book "marvellously retells the story of Much Ado About Nothing with a modern-day Christ and Satan added, in South Kensington."