Dust on the Bookshelf

Them! a cold war film.

I began this blog by writing about worms, but today I switch to a more terrifying insect, the ant! or a film about them at least. 

Them! is the 1954 classic black and white horror film about ginormous mutated ants who begin killing people in the New Mexico desert. 
I describe and recommend it today  as a cold war film- a movie to be enjoyed and understood in the long complex context of the 20th century global battle for nuclear supremacy and control.

I knew that I would like this movie when Dr. Harold Medford (played by Edmund Gwenn aka the santa claus in the original Miracle on 34th Street) upon finding the giant colony with his daughter-scientist Pat and local police, looked off-camera into the distant desert range and said, "We may be witnesses to a Biblical prophecy come true- 'And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation and the beast shall reign over the earth'"
Writing out this quote eliminates some of the abiguity that it creates in the film. Does the doctor refer to the beast, the one and only devil/antichrist/etc or the beasts- the animals that already roam this planet? When certain species grow giant after exposure to man-made nuclear chemicals and radiation, our self-drawn conclusion of humans as the dominant most developed species is called into question. 

This movie is truly scary! Dr. Medford's presentation on the nature of ants-- they are war-like, super strong, industrious, organized killers-- is taken in with the understanding that these characteristics apply ten-fold to the twenty foot monsters burrowing underneath American soil. If you were scared watching The Hills Have Eyes, consider viewing this throw-back film where special effects are not the driving force of fear. These ant puppets hearken back to the (definitely frightening) robot puppets on stage at Chuck E. Cheese, but it is the movie's set up, concept and the implied consequences of an army of giant vicious mutant ants that left me holding my breath, squirming in my seat, praying for the safety of the city of Los Angeles.

The discomforting last lines of the film are as follows:
Robert Graham: Pat, if these monsters got started as a result of the first atomic bomb in 1945, what about all the others that have been exploded since then? 
Dr. Pat Medford: I don't know. 
Dr. Harold Medford: Nobody knows, Robert. When Man entered the atomic age, he opened a door into a new world. What will he eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict. 

Even with American victory at the end of the movie, the message of the piece is shaming, ominous and clear: humans, with their nuclear weapons, are messing with the natural order of life and death, disturbing so greatly the world's ecosystem that all sort of choas is probable. By creating a means for global destruction, humans are setting themselves up for a destruction of the status quo- their sense of power and control based off of a constructed world order.

My message is see the film, see Them! This little girl did:

 

 

A Song for Quentin

This song is not, as some of you might expect, an ode to Quentin Compton. I am not that obsessed with William Faulkner. Instead, it is a song that if I could I would share with one of my other favorite Quentins- Quentin Tarantino.

He is the creator of one of my all-time favorite movies, Pulp Fiction. There are too many wonderful things about this movie in particular... the rapid-fire mundane yet somehow hilarious dialogue embedded in all of the wonderful motorized scenes: "a royale with cheese" "I shot marvin!" "She's dying on me man" "What does it feel like to kill a man?" "it was on the kangaroo!" "Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead" there are so many more but i stop myself...

another great feature of this move and all of QT's films is the music. Some of the lesser-known greats from Pulp  include: "Misirlou" by Dick Dale and his Del-Tones, "Son of A Preacher Man" by Dusty Springfield, "Bullwinkle Part II" by the Centurians, "You Never Can Tell" by Chuck Berry and "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon" by Urge Overkill, to name a few. Check out samples of these and others on amazon.

So in this post I place a hidden gem of a song on the steps of the Tarantino Altar. I personally believe, that, the track "Bed of Roses," by Elysian Field, must be in the next QT film, or at the very least could be. Take a listen and see if you agree.

Download 1-20 Bed Of Roses

I found this song in a 1oth Anniversary music sampler of the Oxford American (a literary magazine of Southern writing that I love- they put out an anual music issue) The moaning and twinkling of this song evoke a red convertible down a lonely highway, John Travolta's greasy hair blowing in the wind. The refrain is delicious- a cheery topic that in spite of the angelic violins suggests a grimier rougher song-past.

O, Quentin!
For you these notes
Soar o'er Somerville
To LA lands
of pulp and death.
May you lay on your own
Bed o' Roses!

Hiroshima mon amour

I just finished reading the screenplay Hiroshima mon amour. The French is quite pretty in its simplicity. With short clips of dialogue such as:
Lui: Tu n'as rien vu a Hiroshima. Rien.
Elle: J'ai tout vu. Tout... Ainsi l'hopital je l'ai vu. J'en suis sure. L'hopital existe a Hiroshima. Comment aurais-je pu eviter de le voir?
Lui: Tu n'as pas vu d'hopital a Hiroshima. Tu n'as rien vu a Hiroshima...
Elle: Je n'ai rien invente.
Lui: Tu as tout invente.

my copy: Gallimard (1960)

I haven not yet seen the movie, though I was shown the first three minutes or so in Jason Stevens' Faulkner class. He wanted us to see the use of montage and disordered scenes, suggesting the large influence Faulkner had on Japanese authors and screenwriters. He argued that many Japanese people related Japan's history to that of the rise and fall of the Old and New South. I do not know enough about Japanese history to write any more on this comparison. However, Faulkner's celebrity in Japan is undeniable. In Houghton Library our class was able were able to look at the transcript and photos of one of Faulkner's visit to a Japanese university. Indeed, his reception there was much warmer and more immediate than here in the states.

but the book. it ends: She says to him, "Hi-ro-shi-ma. C'est ton nom." and he calls her "Ne-vers-en-Fran-ce." What is the significance of these appellations? Does Duras suggest that for these two characters their identity is almost completely a result of where they are from? Are these locations, where they were both tremendously scarred, all they amount to, boil down to, as people? "vers" can mean "towards" in French. Is there a play on words, un jeu de mots, going on here-- the Japanese man saying "not towards France?" something like that? Maybe not. but Ne-vers is a great name for a city as the man says at least once in the script. And what a happy correspondence in English: nevers. multiple never. more than one never? what is the plural of an ultimatum like that? It somehow does not have the happy ring of "Never Never Land."

The land of Never, where she (she who is never named in the film, but through the screen play we come to learn is called Riva) was trapped in a cave, shorn like a sheep with bloody fingers from their attempts to climb the walls. she is left in the cave because she has shamed her family, for sleeping with the German enemy.

Nevers. c'est superbe comme mot. je l'aime bien.

My next task, watch this movie in full. From the snippet i've seen it's beautiful. I would love to know anyone's thoughts on the screenplay or film if you've encountered them. I'd wanted to read it for a long time. Now I will never say that I never read it. voila-- some nevers.

Ratatouille and Polenta

I did some cooking yesterday. I made two things that remind me of something other than what they are as foods: Ratatouille and Polenta.

Ratatouille.
This is an amazing dish that originates from the South of France. It is basically a lot of vegetables cooked down until they are soft. Then you eat them. The key is having time to cut them all and then having the right combination of vegetables. Here's an image to get your mouth watering while I briefly wax non-poetic about this dish.

The vegetables that I used: onions, carrots, yellow squash, zucchini, red and yellow bell pepper, tomato and EGGPLANT.
Eggplants are essential to ratatouille and are also objectively a beautiful alien-like plant.

Is anyone else inspired? afraid??

Anyways, in addition to fear, eggplants add a unique texture and pungency to the dish. Ratatouille is both colorful and flavorful, because that's what happens when you put half the produce isle in one pan.
But recently whenever someone brings up this plate, my mind immediately goes here (click image for video):

To a movie about a mouse in Paris that loves to cook. Is this a good thing? What is this? The 2007 oscar-winning film about a rodent and the culinary arts is a far cry from the previous connotation this dish held for me-- of rustic Southern France and the wives of old fisherman making due when the catch that day was minimal.. Now I think of how hard it must be to be a rat (especially one who wants to be a chef) in the haute-cuisine world of Paris, France.

What??

Polenta.

And yet I can't stop thinking about Tim Pawlenty. This man:

He seems nice enough from this picture. And I figured as the former governor of Minnesota he's probably smart enough too. Until I saw the video in which he thought Bill O'Reilly's calling him "vanilla" (re: plain) meant that O'Reilly was playing the race card. Or the video of the Republican presidential debate, after his "ObamneyCare" comment was brought up, in which he back-stepped and sucked-up so hard to Mitt Romney I thought he was just going to abandon his podium to go door-to-door for the former governor of Massachusetts.

Geez, this guy seems lame, and confusingly so. Maybe comparing him with the food that always brings him to mind will stir some clarity into this melting pot.

Polenta -vs- Pawlenty

Bland unless well-seasoned -vs- Bland and politically unseasoned

congeals over hot fire -vs- breaks down under fire

sticks to your ribs -vs- sticks it to Mitt

can be molded into a loaf -vs- easily molded and aloof

-vs- "vanilla"

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In short, two things on my mind: Disney and the 2012 Election.