Centurion is supposed to be historical fiction about the disappearance of the Legio IX Hispania in the third century in something like the Battle of Teutoberg Wald but it kind of lapses into … semi-fantasy. There is a lot of snow and awesome alpine scenery and fun costumes. Basically the only reason to see Centurion is for Dominic West in one of his typically movie-stealing supporting roles (as “General Titus Flavius Virilus” — really!) and Etain, the “guerra picta” played by Olga Kurylenko. Etain doesn’t speak, takes the wolf as her attribute animal, and endures a strange sort of Penthesilea-like death. She has fantastic Pict ordnance and body decorations.

I was sort of half-waking up, half-dreaming about the movie when the song “Signs” came on dataheaven.us… I haven’t paid much attention to Bloc Party previously but I was blown away by this particular song. Maybe it was just the combination of sound and imagery but it really shook me up.

What do these two things have in common that together they should make such a resonant impression? I don’t know.

Here is the link to “Signs” on Soundcloud, and a snippet of lyric: “I  could sleep forever these days because in my dreams I see you again.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxuZ-zcL3E0

]]> http://italiangreyhounds.org/errata/2012/03/18/yeah-whatever/feed/ 0 http://italiangreyhounds.org/errata/2012/02/08/franz-marcs-birthday-aphorismen-82/ http://italiangreyhounds.org/errata/2012/02/08/franz-marcs-birthday-aphorismen-82/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:19:54 +0000 Archivist, University of Polyleritae http://italiangreyhounds.org/errata/?p=782 [...]]]>

“I saw what the moorhen sees as it dives: the thousand rings that encircle each little life, the blue of the whispering sky swallowed by the lake, the enraptured moment of surfacing in another place. Know, my friends, what images are: the experience of surfacing in another place.”

{ Ich sah das Bild, das in den Augen des Teichhuhns sich bricht, wenn es untertaucht: die tausend Ringe, die jedes kleine Leben einfassen, das Blau der flüsternden Himmel, das der See trinkt, das verzückte Auftauchen an einem andern Ort, – erkennt, meine Freunde, was Bilder sind: das Auftauchen an einem anderen Ort. }

Franz Marc, Aphorismen 82, 1915.

The images are Vier Füchse, a postcard from 1914, and Liegendes Pferd, a water color from 1911.

One of the things I like so much about Marc is that no matter how much you know about him, there is always something you don’t know, that, when you find out about it, is completely non-disappointing in terms of the fascinating blend of wackiness and gravity expected from Marc.

I especially like this photo because everyone — Maria Marc on the left and Russi Marc on the right — looks happy. Helmuth Macke was staying with the Marcs in 1911 so maybe he was the photographer. One for the road.

It seemed like about 100 people and hipsters showed out which mainly included the filmmakers and casts and their friends. Still it was fun in the way that comic events are more entertaining with a group who is into it.

The films are archived online here. Of course I was one of the animals in Dumbo. Jim Reiman made this film but his voices for the various characters are what blew me away. Adam Kitzerow and Deon Blackwell are especially hilarious in Top Gun and Robb Fladry has incredible fun original music for Weekend at Bernie’s. The Sweded Apocalypto and The Shining were pretty madcap, too.

I think it would be fun to work on a version of There Will Be Blood.

 If Cut Copy had 24 albums I would probably listen to Cut Copy all day and all night all the time…as it is hardly a cycle goes by that I don’t hear all or parts of Bright Neon Like Love (2004), In Ghost Colours (2008) or Zonoscope (2011).

Though Melbourne-based Cut Copy is most often washed with the ‘referencing the ’80s’ brush I think it is more apt to say the ‘reference’ is less by way of the [film versions] of Less Than Zero than The Informers – a time and place that never existed removed by memory. And while Cut Copy’s hooks and basslines are superficially poppy, the intentionally stuttering four and eight count measures are demanding of engaged listening.

Zonoscope in particular seems symphonic in the way it is presented as an arc, even without some of the ambient noise segues so prevalent on In Ghost Colours. If IGC was lyrically about the limitations of primary relationships to conquer doubt and isolation, Zonoscope is immersed diametrically in stealthy hope and crushing disappointment that is more internally oriented/externally directed.

Although these three albums are very distinct — mostly owing to the decreasing emphasis on guitars to propel melodies — Cut Copy’s mainstay continues to be danceable, or at least move-able, complicated synth pop of incredible harmonics and density. Dan Whitford is able to pack an epic amount of yearning and escalation into both arrangements and vocals; the devastating release of Hanging on to Every Heartbeat begins at the 2:00 mark of the 4:30 song. The descant, and the change in meaning of the chorus, almost makes me sick it’s so upsetting, and that’s a pretty good shake-up from what begins so cheerfully.

Zonoscope re-presents Cut Copy in a sort of Symbolist ethic, with an interest in the macabre and in hermetic, already-nostalgic technology. Here is a link to listen to  Hanging onto Every Heartbeat. Also Cut Copy will play out at the Firestone in Orlando on October 1!

Though Keane is mostly known in the U.S. for the single “Bend and Break” from 2004′s Hopes and Fears, the 2006 more electronics-driven follow-up, Under the Iron Sea, is also a pretty good album. I had only heard UtIS on iTunes and dataheaven.us and so had not until recently (when I saw it in the library) become aware of the fantastic cover design(s) by Sanna Annukka.

Franz Marc holding a cell phone, 1915.

Here is a mysterious photograph from Franz Marc – Paul Klee: ein Dialog in Bildern, a volume beautifully illustrated with the artists’ postcards to each other and some interesting photographs. Klee seems more vulnerable and less arch than you might expect in these letters and drawings. Marc, maybe predictably, sort of absorbs and reflects Klee; yet the images and texts on the cards seem both entwined and quotidian. One of the photos is this fascinating unsourced image, captioned “Franz Marc im Unterstand, 1915/1916.” It’s hard to tell what kind of shelter this is…it appears shell-shocked and comfortable at the same time. There are some binoculars and map cases hanging, and an eerie prophetic broken mirror. FM is smoking, of course, but the captivating question is what is he holding?

It looks like a cell phone, the kind you would expect FM to have, not a Blackberry or an iPhone, just a functional Nokia with Alpenlaendische Volksmusik ringtones. Photography professors, librarians, and two photo archivists who specialize in early 20th Century images looked at this photo and everyone was perplexed about the photo shows. That’s just how FM rolls.

What do you think this object is?

This book (which is confusingly cataloged with lots of commas instead of the conjunctions and articles that appear actually in print) forms the combined catalog from three retrospectives from 2010 at
the Franz Marc Museum in Kochel am See;  the Stiftung Moritzburg (“Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt” in Halle, the craziest city in Flemish Brabant and the planet); and  Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.

The item you requested:  Von der Möglichkeit : das Phanomen der selbstschonferischen Möglichkeit in seinen kosmogonischen, mythisch-personifizierten und denkerisch-kunstlerischen Realisierungen als divergenztheologisches Problem

Dachfenster im Pinakothek der Moderne, München

is ready for you to checkout at the Tampa library’s Circulation Desk.”

Königsplatz, München

Glyptothek

It would be impossible ever to say what the most exciting thing about visiting Munich was since it was all the most exciting thing, but one of the most most exciting things was visiting the Propyläen and Glyptothek “temples” of the Königsplatz featured in Dario Argento’s Suspiria. (The scaffolding behind the Propyläen is at the Lenbachhaus.)

Suspiria just celebrated its 35th anniversary. Here is the spectacular scene in which Daniel (Silvio Bucci) crosses the square with his German Shepherd dog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s31J26AEQN0

David Gordon Green (George Washington, Pineapple Express) is doing a remake of Suspiria, and of course Argento purists hate this — on its face this film is desperately not in need of a do-over — but Green has said his version will be shot in Munich, and, I mean, George Washington and Pineapple Express are great, so, I’m for it…