I noticed, on the walk I took on Sunday evening, that the moon – like myself – had risen a little later than the day before, and I was reassured by this. Previously I had known only theoretically that it couldn't always show up on time for nightfall, as that's not how orbits work, but my regular urban surroundings had never been flat enough to prove it. I missed the city's pavements, though. The roads between these villages are fringed instead with ditches. I assume that's so you'll crash your car if you skid, rather than drive over a vine. You've got to protect the vines.
When I got home, my laptop died – or at least coudn't be woken – and I spent the next few days trying to bring it back to life, which is why this post is actually going out on the night of Wednesday the 22nd. Now the factory settings have been restored though, here, by the light of Sunday's moon, is another quiz for you, this one from August. Match the following ten Surrealist titles:
"The Decoy"...
"Disturbing Presence"...
"Floor 4706"...
"Men Shall now Nothing of This"...
"The Persistence of Memory"...
"Hamlet"...
"The Son of Man"...
"Stage Fright"...
"The Uncertainty of the Poet"...
and finally, "Bicycle Wheel"...
to the following ten Surrealist works. And I'll post the answers in the comments.
1. René Magritte, 1964
2. Salvador Dali, 1931
3. Remedios Varo, 1959
4. Marcel Duchamp, 1913 (originally, but pretty easy to throw together, and repeated since)
It was love at first sight between me and Stath Lets Flats, but it's only after my latest accidental binge of both series (having sat down to watch one episode) that I realise just how highly I rate it, and also possibly why: Quite early on in the American version of The Office, the show reaches a point where it understands its characters well enough to trust them with absurdity; the cast's performative muscle memory is strong enough to ground anything written for them. And Stath Lets Flats operates on that level of confidence from Episode One, possibly because – as he explains in this great interview with Rachael Healy – Jamie Demetriou has known so many of its cast for so long. His show is the opposite of "actor-proof"; it's a clown show composed of details, and every detail makes me laugh out loud.
See above.
The similarities extend beyond tone, however. To quote the interview: "Emotional behaviour juxtaposed with masculine bravado, done well, is a treat." Like The Office's
Michael Scott (and unlike David Brent), Stath Charalambos is an idealist possessed by a mutant variant
of kindness – an incapacitating, all-or-nothing desire not just to be
loved, but to be allowed to love, which manifests itself most commonly in acts of unchecked selfishness. Also like The Office's Pam, Sophie Charalambos is a healthier, self-checking, but similarly yearning
heart, the show's secret focus, and the real reason we care as much about these people as we do. Originally, I had thought that the last episode broadcast – not counting this bonus lockdown cracker posted above – was the perfect ending, but having rewatched it all, I now want two hundred more, and I'm very glad there's going to be a Series 3.
Here's Natasha Demetriou providing excellent company on Adam Buxton's podcast...
Here's a brilliant interview with Kiell Smith-Bynoe... "I'd like to work in America, not crazy about living there. Tricky,
because it seems like a great shout for black actors, not so much for
black people. Tricky, mainly because I am both..."
"I apologise for the delay. In this. But we wanted to make sure. There have been pockets of disorder outside and I wanted to make sure that it was clear and safe for you all to leave the building. Okay? So I apologise for the delay. We will start very shortly. The officers are getting ready to let you go. If when you leave the building, you go to your left, that will be the safest exit. Okay? So thank you very much for your patience -"
"Is there a kettle?"
"No, we're letting you go."
"Excuse me. Sorry. Are there any evidence gatherers based around the corner?"
"I haven't seen any outside."
"Or is there any intention of perhaps holding people just to confirm identities?"
"Er."
"Or anything like that?"
"Not as far as I am aware, at this moment in time."
"Okay. I think that's my–"
"So it's not an absolute."
"I think– If you could find that and confirm it– Because it would make a big difference to some of the people–"
"I'll go outside and let you know. The problem is that there's other people got control outside, and I'm the messenger."
"I understand–"
"So I'm trying really hard to expedite this, and get everyone outside, because I know people got homes to go to."
"Can you review– Are you able to answer questions about the situation as people leave?"
"Right. As people leave, they're going to be asked to go left. They're just going into– into a safe environment, cos there's a lot– There's some disorder down there–"
"Yeah, I heard."
"And there's some disorder down that end. So we're trying to keep it sterile, so people are safe, so they can get away to the tube stations."
"Okay. Are they being pushed in a certain area?"
"Who?"
"If people leave–"
"If people leave, they'll be directed towards the safest–"
(A second officer: "To Green Park.")
"Towards Green park."
"Okay, so they won't be stopped on the way and–"
"Well hopefully they're not going to be. Hopefully, they're not going to get stopped, because that's why it's taken so long. To make sure everyone's got the right message."
This transcript's been in my drafts for years.
It's an exchange, from a decade ago, between a police officer at the doors of Fortnum & Mason and a guy inside who wanted to leave. But they weren't being let go, it transpired, and there was indeed a kettle outside. I assume the guy asking was a protestor with UK Uncut,
although there were many inside who weren't – my friend Boz, for example. As I wrote here: "Boz was there recording sound for an afternoon play
for Radio 4. He was first held outside the jail, in the rain, for ten
hours, because the 24 hours you're allowed to detain someone for only
officially starts once they're inside. He was then put in a cell, and asked every 45
minutes if he needed anything. He would ask for a glass of water, but was never brought one. This carried on throughout the night, at regular 45 minute intervals, them asking if he wanted anything, him asking for a glass of water, meaning he was never allowed to sleep." The draft in which I'd put this transcript was headed:
"Fascism in England Will Always Take The Form of Missed Communication."
I wasn't sure what I wanted to say beyond that.
But I think it's still a fair lookout, and that – I suppose this is the point I really wanted to make – those currently expressing online how baffled they are by this government's "incompetence"
might want to reconsider what it thinks its job is. I made this transcription long before Boris Johnson – an anthropomorphisation of missed communication – became Prime Minister of course, but maybe he isn't being swayed by libertarians so much, as simply using their arguments to reframe his actions. And I'm not just suggesting a policy of "herd immunity" is fascism, necessarily, nor the crowding of refugees at the height of a pandemic into an army barracks slated for demolition. But maybe the word "malice" is appropriate. And malice isn't incompetence either. I think it's still a fair lookout.
Beaneath this hilarious hat is Marie Dressler, star of stage, screen, and Tillie's Punctured Romance, the world's first feature-length comedy film (or "photoplay", as it was billed on the poster, this being a medium so young nobody had yet settled on a name for it.) Made in 1914 by Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, I finally got round to watching this the day after Biden's inauguration, newly bouyed after a good night's sleep, and freshly in love with the promise of its place of origin. This was also where I'd got up to in David Cairns' invaluable run-down of the early works of Charlie Chaplin, as it was his first feature too.
And here's the new favourite, joining hot acquisition Dressler, and Sennett's star fixture – and the woman who gave him more than one break – the brilliant Mabel Normand, for a lovely curtain call at the film's end.
While not top billed, Chaplin is definitely one of the film's stars, and if you're normally turned off by him, you might still enjoy to a surprising degree his turn here as the gold-digging, Fairbanks-'tached louse – Bialystok in the body of Bloom – whose pursuit of Dressler makes him the butt of many jokes... literally, in fact, this being Keystone, and butt placement being key.
Chaplin played a lot of heels before he turned auteur, I'm learning, and it suited him. Here, he hopes to marry Dressler's Tillie Banks for her millions despite, simultaneously dating fellow grifter Mabel Normand, having met the heiress when, playing fetch with her dog, she accidentally threw a brick in his face. Bricks in faces are an early Keystone staple, I'm also learning, and knew no gender boundaries: Mabel Normand could take a brick to the face as well as anyone. Custard pies were a later refinement, but not I feel, necessarily an improvement.
The third act.
I laughed a lot at this film. It's full of excellent violence, but also, as with Tille squeezing behind her unnamed suitor to join in the eavesdropping above, the ticklish interplay of people who are just too close together. Here's another example: future comedy star Charlie Chase who, given essentially the role of an extra on Mabel Norman's right, seizes his moment with laudably shameless man-spreading.
Watching the film within a film (noticeably more realistic than the film which it's in –
ARGH, WHAT DOES THIS REMIND ME OF? Answers below, please.)
Everyone in these Keystone comedies is slightly in each other's way, I realised. It's how so many of the jokes happen – the patting of the wrong knee, the cane in the arse, the plank in the face – but it's also just a good way to maintain comic tension. I also realised I enjoy this as a comic device every bit as much as I enjoy someone being interrupted.
Side note: I'd already been thinking about the invasion of space when Blackadder III turned up on televison and I suddenly noticed how close Hugh Laurie was standing to Robbie Coltrane. Everyone in those middle two series of Blackadder stood weirdly close to each other, which might be why those two series were the funniest. Would Upstart Crow feel more like Blackadder, I wondered, if everyone just got up in each other's face more? (And might this be a part of the secret of the success of Ghosts? Of course, the modern aspect ratio requires a larger cast.)
Normand, unbothered.
Anyway, the headline is: I laughed a lot at the first ever feature-length comedy, over a century after it was released. Maybe it's non-reputation is down to critics who didn't think it was Chaplinny enough. Too anarchic. I've no idea. The other headline, I guess, is that the first ever feature-length comedy starred two women. So maybe it's down to that.
Here's the excellent, historic, pioneering Tillie's Punctured Romance. I love it.
An excellent oral history of Galaxy Quest can be read here.
A lot of great things are also said in the documentary about its making, Never Surrender. What's left unsaid yet still pleasingly integral to the documentary's structure is how important Enrico Colantoni – who plays the alien Mathesar – might be to letting all the love in.
Somehow, immediately upon seeing him, we know Mathesar's not only a genuine extra-errestrial, but that this is not his real body, and that's a strong start. The alien-as-innocent isn't a new idea, but they'll normally be played as a
kind of child-friendly robot butler. This is not how the Thermians are played. They have the monotone of a B-movie aggressor, but it's playful rather than haughty, a sign of vulnerablity – as if human speech is a frequency they're constantly having to tune in
to. Nothing Mathesar does in the movie will signal anything we've seen before, yet we will understand him perfectly, even painfully.
Like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, Colantoni successfully imagines the expression of emotion in a body only one day old. Below is the scene screenwriter Robert Gordon said was the moment that he
finally knew what he was doing, before going on to write what David
Mamet apparently descibed as one of only four perfect movies ever made. If you haven't seen Galaxy Quest, it's a very safe film to watch with someone for the first time – as my support bubble happily attested – so if you haven't seen it, like Mamet, I recommend it, but maybe don't watch this next clip. If you have seen it however, you know what's coming, because every decision Colantoni makes here is unforgettable.
Tim Allen's definitely great too, isn't he, faced with this, and suffering what Alan Rickman apparently called "a sudden attack of acting" (though, arguably, Allen seems more comfortable playing a version of himself than Alan.) Maybe Mamet was right. Everyone does seem to get everything right. Like Casablanca, this is one of those films that's Great because it's great. Casablanca though, on top of everything else, had an actual War going on to help with the emotional heft. But Galaxy Quest, on top of everything else, has Enrico Colantoni.
So went the opening titles of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and this maybe should have been the show's mantra when it returned to Netflix, because the reboot seemed a little overthought. Can anything be more obnoxious, though, than taking a thing made with care and talent, and pointing out the one thing that you think is wrong with it? Let's see! For those of you don't know what MST3K is, the old opening provides one of the most charming eighty seconds of introduction I know (if you're reading this on a phone and see no video, try clicking "web version")...
There you go: Some nasty bullies have shot an employee called Joel into space, and the show's going to be pretty much just us watching terrible films, with him and the robots that he built to keep him company telling jokes over it. However, despite the show's popularity with children – evinced by the drawings and letters Joel would read out at the end of every episode – absolutely no mind seemed to have been paid over who else would get these jokes; if someone in that week's stinker looked like New York theatre director André Gregory, or Frank Zappa's drummer Jimmy Carl Black, they'd get a mention. This might have been one of the things audiences took comfort from the most, though – the idea of being let in on something – because, ultimately, what the old show felt most like was being allowed to stay up late, with a parent or older sibling, and watch whatever was on because you couldn't get to sleep. Joel kept those robots company in the dark. That was the tone, and those were the stakes.
I've adored the show for decades, and I'm sure it's had an influence. In fact – it's honestly only just occurred to me – yesterday's post was quite an MST3K-y "bit", a little esoteric but comfortable with its own pointlessness (Jesus... maybe all my videos are!) When the show's brilliant creator, Joel "Robinson" Hodgson, was replaced on the Satellite of Love by another softly-spoken Gizmotic employee, Mike, and the robots were recast, and the mad professor's mother took over persecution detail, the show's tone remained beautifully unaffected. That, to quote another science project, was its triumph, and there are possibly hundreds of full episodes on youtube if you fancy more than a sample.
Fast forward twenty years or so, and turn on Netflix, and Mike is now Jonah, the robots and persecutors have again been recast, but the show is still guys telling jokes peppered with obscure references over "cheesy movies", and the material is still strong, and as tonally similar as one should expect given the different century. However. While the tone of the jokes is similar, the tone of the show itself has changed, and nothing illustrates this change more than the new introduction. I'll let it explain...
"I should really JUUUUST RELAAAAAAAAAX"
... Or rather, not explain. Do you see what I meant about overthinking? I loved the reboot, and I'm sorry it got cancelled, but I think this might be why. Not because "cheap-looking" isn't a word in Netflix's vocabulary, but because, honestly, how Jonah eats or sleeps are not the first questions I have after watching this. What did I just watch, for example? Which bit was the "simulation"? The shadows in the window of the moonbase? But there's also that screen. And what's Jonah's job exactly, that has him flying off and rescuing people? And is it related to the woman who's trapped him on the dark side of the moon? Who's she, and why, having trapped him there, does she then pipe him up to the Satellite of Love, which isn't a satellite now anyway, because it's moored to the moon, by a pipe? I mean, none of this matters, I know, but why, therefore, have any of it? Even more confusingly, perhaps because it was realised this introduction itself needed an introduction, every episode sees it preceded by a "cold open" set
on the satellite itself, from which Jonah is routinely extracted by
the same pipe that then deposits him in the shuttle, making this not in fact an introduction at all, but literally what happens to Jonah narratively at the beginning of every episode. No wonder he looks so confused. This new subject's energy isn't that of a space-bound Moominmamma either, like Mike or Joel, but of a champion doing all he can to live up to the old show's reputation. This is the energy of pretty much everyone involved; they're all so excited the show's back, and they're here for the fans, and this is wonderful, but it's also almost the exact opposite of the care-free energy of the original.
I mentioned the show's material earlier. I'm not sure if the writing on a show should even be called "material" - I'm not sure that metaphor works, garment-wise. The material decides how comfortable an item of clothing feels, so the real material of a showisn't the writing, but the tone. And the tone felt really different. Who should have worn the jump-suit then? Some great young improviser who canstill project a strong enough air of not giving a shit to calm down a couple of robots. I can't help thinking of Lauren Lapkus, but maybe she hadn't listened to enough Zappa. Anyway, I'm watching a lot of things in the dark at the moment. That's my point. I have not yet made any robots. Here's your moment of Lao...
First I should say, following yesterday's post, I received a nice update this morning about my aunt. According to her brother, Unce Martin, she's had a good sleep and is now eating and "(as the school reports used to say) ‘showing improvement’", which is fantastic. My mother's side of the family are juggernauts.
I didn't head out this afternoon expecting surprises, although there are still streets in NW1 I haven't yet walked down and courtyards to chance upon. I just wondered how empty they'd be. Most people I passed were wearing masks, which had become rare outdoors, but they do keep your face warm. I thought of a new translation to the first line of The Odyssey: "Let's have a story about a windy man!" But how would the reader know which pronunciation of "windy" was meant? That's the only problem.
Things were a lot quieter than in Defoe's day I think. I was coughing quite a bit, but I've now come to recognise this epiglottal build-up of fizzy pizza-flavoured throat-pop: it took me five Christmases to realise it doesn't mean I have food poisoning, I'm just wearing my belt too tight. And I don't have to have eaten pizza to taste it. I forgot that only one of the spires of Saint Paul's has a clock in it, like the eyes of a broken robot pirate. Here's a statue I like. Look at them shimmy.
I missed the hose on the other side. Another reason I like this, I suppose, is because it's a statue of a team. A lot of people get heroism arse backward. Odysseus might be to blame for this, but its root isn't the journey of the indivual. Human beings evolved as a team. That's why we have language. We hunted as a
team, gathered and ate as a team, and sitting round the fire is how we
managed to stay warm enough to spread across a planet. Only once we'd
got the hang of this, I think, could we find ways to be alone. Solitude isn't getting back to nature, it's a benefit of civilization, and I hope, now that another lockdown's been announced, you can still find it if you want it, or still enjoy it if you've now no choice.
... inasmuch as it's the apex of unadulterated fun and laughter in the dark times.
Hm, okay. I've been trying to write one post per day for a year now, and every single word is going funny on me at this point. Look at that sentence above. "Inasmuch"? Get a room, syllables. Also, exactly what does "adulterating" actually involve? And why does the word "adultery" feature so prominently in it? Come to think of it, why does the word "adult" feature so prominently in the word "adultery"? I'm going to look this up – Right, that has happened: Apparently, "adultery" comes from a word meaning "to spoil", and has nothing to do with the word "adult", which is actually the past tense of the root of "adolescent". So we're adolts once we're done adolescing.
I digress. But that's fine, because so does this video. And it is so wonderful seeing John Oliver (who hasn't done too badly in America either) catch up with Andy Saltzman since their last broadcast together five years ago, clearly relishing the chance to bollock on about inconsequential nonsense like the sex life of frogs, or the naming of snow ploughs, with no danger of any of it getting a sewage plant named after him. "Nothing's changed," he says, and that's what this feels like, and it's a lovely feeling for the end of the year. I've missed this sound.
Parenthetically, and tangentially – and I really don't know what words mean any more – over on f*c*book, I saw more love being shared for Stephen Oliver's brilliant soundtrack to the BBC's Lord of the Ringsas recommended in this post, and learnt that he was John Oliver's uncle...
Come and take a walk through arguably alien landscapes.
If you consider cars aliens, that is. They're not human at least. Human landscapes are places of congregation.
Not all of these are currently open though (unless you're a pigeon).
But you can still visit huge swathes created specifically for cars: dual carriageways, business estates, cul-de-sacs of semi-detached two-storey-houses. It's fun to take a walk through alien landscapes, provided you realise that's what they are.
Pedestrians aren't unwelcome here. Not remotely. It's just you can't be anything more here. More than a pedestrian, I mean. The slowest form of transport.
I finally started watching Parks and Recreation last week, and yet, somehow, I'm already on series three. Thirty episodes in, the show seems to have reached a point the American Office wouldn't
reach until its eighth season: coasting along on extraordinary charm after losing its motor, and that's weird to feel just two seasons into a seven or eight season run. It's stopped being a show about a woman who wants to build a
park, and that's a shame, as I was really loving that show. Also, Mark Brenadanawicz has left, the one character who seemed genuinely based on observed human behaviour, so I might not finish it. Speaking of not finishing things, to honour the passing of yet another day in which I didn't even get started on finishing the latest episode of Simon Goes Full Shakespeare, for this evening's blog I have photographed a few things left even longer...
Thing One: Putting up my paintings.
Tuesday will mark the second anniversary of my moving into this flat. They're going to look great when they're up though.
Thing Two: The 2000AD Zarjaz 100-Page Xmas Mega-Special, 2019.
And all progs following.
Thing Three: Finally understanding relativity.
Special theory or General, I don't mind which. Back in December, I hit a wall roundabout page 54 of Frank Close's Nothing: A Very Short Introduction, when he started talking about electric charges without, as far as I could spot, explaining what an electric charge actually is. I mean, I know its effects. But what physically is a charge? Are "positive" and "negative" just names we gave them, and if so, what's the point of saying "opposites attract" if they're only "opposites" because we named them after opposites? Without understanding any of this, everything following has to be taken on trust, which given that it's all thought experiments, means I'm lost, and Do Not Get It. Similarly, I hit a wall in George Gamow's Mr. Tompkins In Wonderland roundabout this illustration (no pun intended):
But, since these are the books I'd chosen to read, this means I've also hit a wall in reading generally, because I really want to finish these first. But take a sentence like Close's "he made a series of 'thought experiments', more usually referred to by their German analogue 'gedankenexperiment'." Are they? "More usually"? Really?
I should move on. I know.
I can't.
Thing Four: The sky above Prague.
Viewers of my Journal of the Plague Yearreadings may remember me receiving this puzzle back in April. But it's just sky. Also though... Sorry, but "an electric charge at rest relative to you, in an inertial
frame, gives rise to an electric field, so in this situation you
perceive there to be an electric field where previously you felt
magnetism"? So, Frank, are you saying that magnets stop working if you
move them, because I'm perfectly happy to believe that, and I get that
this is meant to be weird, but I just want to be sure that's what you're
saying. Also I don't know what a field is.
Given this is a stock-taking, it's only fair on myself to end by noting that, firstly: I did get something done today – someone online was looking for plays so I ran a spellcheck on, and tweaked yet another ending for, Jonah Non Grata...
