Uncouth Reflections

Linkage

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

The real Pussy Galore.
A great rant from Fred Reed.
Steve Sailer takes a look at the excruciatingly slow progress of California’s High Speed Rail.
Some girls are just born wild.
Elon Musk: genius … at milking the system.
Some California winemakers have finally begun to rebel against wine critic Robert Parker.
Is the era of thongs-as-everydaywear over?
Was modernism giant Le Corbusier really an “out and out fascist“?
How bad is the air in New Delhi? Frighteningly bad.
Why has the New York Times decided there are no limits to growth?
A good Reddit AMA with Karen Staughan, aka the videoblogger GirlWritesWhat.
GoneWild’s great poster the DiggityDank celebrates her 32nd birthday. NSFW.
A history of the compact disc
What is color?
Don’t forget to visit our NSFW Tumblr blog, where some of us share the nutty things that get our juices flowing.

Posted in Linkathons | Tagged color, Fred Reed, karen straughan, robert parker, Steve Sailer, thediggitydank, thongs, wine | 6 Comments

“Filthy Cities”

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

I recently enjoyed (if with some reservations) the three-part BBC documentary series “Filthy Cities,” which recently became available on Netflix Instant. Medieval London, revolutionary Paris and industrial-age New York City are the filthy cities covered by the show, which asks the question: What did old cities do with the animal shit, human waste and workplace effluents that they produced in huge quantities?

The history itself is BBC-progressive and conventional, and I sometimes found the re-enactments (done in the style of shakeycam torture porn) so stomach-turning that I had to take breaks from watching. It’s not hard imagining the filmmakers amusing themselves figuring out historically responsible ways to gross their viewers out. But it’s a great topic, and the story and information are presented with the kind of gusto, cleverness, confidence and flair that has so often made me wonder: How did England manage to develop such a distinctive and stylish brand of documentary television?

Related

An interview with the series’ writer and host, the bright and hunky Dan Snow.
An amusing review of some recent books about innards and guts.

Posted in Television | Tagged BBC, cities, dan snow, documentary, television, urbanism | Leave a comment

Where’s the Tape?

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

Is it just me, or do rolls of Scotch tape come with less product these days?

Posted in Personal reflections, Shopping | Tagged tape | 3 Comments

Quote Du Jour

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Blowhard, Esq.

Blowhard, Esq. writes:

As Paleo Retiree likes to say, “It was the 70s.”

“We’d like to undress him and watch his fashion turn to passion,” drool the editors of Playgirl, under a photo of — Calvin Klein! What is the blue-eyed, blue-jeaned designer doing in the pages of feminists’ answer to Playboy? Calvin’s on their list of the 10 “most sensational, sexiest” men in the world. Along with Woody Allen, O.J. Simpson, Ted Kennedy, Jerry Brown, and such.

— The gossip page of Women’s Wear Daily, October 12, 1979

I’m not the only one to notice this.

Posted in History, Media, Sex | Tagged Calvin Klein, O.J. Simpson, swingin' 70s, Ted Kennedy, Woody Allen | 2 Comments

The Sombre Sadness of Right Angles

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

The train reached Ogden at two o’clock, where it rested for six hours. Mr. Fogg and his party had time to pay a visit to Salt Lake City, connected with Ogden by a branch road; and they spent two hours in this strikingly American town, built on the pattern of other cities of the Union, like a checker-board, “with the sombre sadness of right-angles,” as Victor Hugo expresses it. The founder of the City of the Saints could not escape from the taste for symmetry which distinguishes the Anglo-Saxons. In this strange country, where the people are certainly not up to the level of their institutions, everything is done “squarely” — cities, houses, and follies.

— Jules Verne

Posted in Architecture, Books Publishing and Writing | Tagged Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne, Salt Lake City | 5 Comments

Monologue o’ th’ Day

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

It is said film is all about the action and given the current state of the box office who could argue?

Still, a nice turn of phrase in film can be appealing. Good dialogue is not all that uncommon but good monologues–few and far between. The better ones can often be found in films adapted from the stage or from screenplays written by dramatists. As in this case–Christopher Walken from Harold Pinter’s screenplay for Paul Schrader’s The Company of Strangers. His mannered reading about his father starts about a minute in but the lead-in is worth seeing for context.

Some additional monologues to come. Suggestions welcome.

Posted in Movies | 1 Comment

Marty Stuart

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

I’m pretty sure I’d never heard of Marty Stuart until very recently, but in the last month I’ve become a huge fan.

Stuart is a country-western singer/songwriter/performer/photographer in the keeper-of-the-flame mode, and I think he’s terrific. He makes recordings, hosts a TV show, takes photos and does a generally great job of promoting traditional country-music entertainment values: soul, down-home unpretentiousness, courtliness ‘n’ congeniality. Though all the elements and trappings are lovingly in place — the cornpone humor, the hollers and whoops, the storytelling and rhymes, the familiar bundle of sounds (chicken scratches, twangs, close harmonies, etc), the glittering outfits, the themes (home, trains, temptation) — there’s nothing studied, meta or po-mo about his approach. Country music is a performance form to be respected and enjoyed, not mocked or dealt with ironically. His work is all about authenticity in the feelings and the experience — an early wife of Stuart’s was one of Johnny Cash’s daughters, and his current wife is the legendary Connie Smith, and if that ain’t country … — and I find it hard to resist the exuberant, un-slick, bar-band/dance-floor, honky-tonk/gospel pleasures he and his fantastic band The Fabulous Superlatives (Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson and Paul Martin) regularly deliver.

The spirits and echoes of Hank, Buddy, Porter, Buck, Merle, Johnny and early Elvis are never far away, but Marty and the boys have a sizable and distinctive contribution of their own to make. I’d love to see them live.

Here’s a little taste of their work:

Related

On my other blog I wrote about a couple of other great country-music performers, Delbert McClinton and Townes Van Zandt.
I had a good time assembling — dare I say curating? — this playlist of highlights from Marty’s show. Just because I was in the mood, I also threw in some tracks by Patty Loveless, a Nashville songbird I’ve been enjoying recently, as well as a few numbers by a smokin’ small band led by Fabulous Superlative Kenny Vaughan. Be warned: If you make some claims to playing guitar yourself, abandon them now.
Marty Stuart’s website. Check out the band’s concert schedule.

Posted in Music | Tagged country music, country western, marty stuart, Music | 13 Comments

Back to the Hands: Sign Painters, The Movie

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Sir Barken Hyena

Sir Barken Hyena writes:

This most engaging documentary comes recommended by a highly talented painter and lady friend who, though she has repeatedly rebuffed my invitations to be the next Lady Barken, I feel is beginning to weaken in her resolve.

You don’t need to be a painter to enjoy this movie, or even interested in art. Though both would all be to the good, the real point to me is a favorite around here: the need to return to and revive the old art forms, the old crafts, all the old stuff that had a human texture, a warm surface, and a depth of time on it.

How is that done? This film answers that question: by doing it, simple as that. Naturally the real world presents obstacles and inconvenience; never mind, there’s a nobility in doing things right, to last. We’ve got a whole movie here of people doing just that, from all backgrounds and ages. They paint signs because they love it and think it makes the world a little brighter, which it does.

Same thing can be done across the board. This is not a luddite thing; it’s about the spirit of the work and doing things by hand again, but computers and new tech can be adapted. But it should serve and not dictate: as it has in the movies with the awfulness of so much CGI. As a musician, I’m applying this by recording my next record without a computer at all. Which is pretty damn daring these days! But that’s one way to capture the real human touch and leave it to show, proudly, not stuffed into a digital grid.

Posted in Art | 7 Comments

Some Greek Revivals

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

I grew up in New England, where there are plenty of Greek Revivals. Some are more elaborate and use columns rather than just pediments. Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, has some very nice examples.

As does Brookline Village

and the old Cambridgeport area near Central Square in Cambridge.

But outside the cities, in what were once the rural areas, the fancy columns were often dispensed with. A Greek Revival often amounted to a dressed-up colonial in the Federal or Georgian style,

turned at a 90 degree angle, with additional classical elements.

These were the Greek Revivals I grew up with. I myself grew up in a ranch,

but one that was thankfully not in a development but stuck incongruously into a diverse mix of colonials, farmhouses, Federals, Victorians and Greek Revivals. These two nice examples were at the bottom of our street.

The simpler, farmhouse versions have an attractive modest quality to them. Sometimes adding monumental columns to a small house can get a bit grandiose.

Upstate New York’s rural areas went for the grander approach in a big way but the effect can be charming nonetheless. Of course, given the economic conditions upstate, it helps if you can look beyond the often ramshackle quality of upstate Greek Revivals or, better yet, consider their sometimes ruined state as part of their charm.

Here, for example is one of my favorites, an almost falling-apart house in the Erie Canal town of Lyons.

I included a picture of this place in a collage about Lyons two summers ago. Alas, the house now sports a red off-limits sign. Off the market but Zillow estimates its value at $63k. Any offers?

Here are some other nearby properties.

This one, in Sodus Center, is for sale by owner for $88k.

In nearby South Sodus

and in nearby Cato and Meridian.

and also in the somewhat more idyllic lakeside village of Pultneyville.

Enough traveling. Next up: ice cream!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged architecture | 5 Comments

Summer Begins Upstate

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

For $3.99 you can get a Ben and Jerry’s small cone in your typical metropolitan area.

Now I would not necessarily make a special trip, but if you happen to be in the twin-“city” area of Cato/Meridian New York, west of Syracuse, you could do worse than to drop by Happy Days in Meridian, where $2.90 buys a “medium”.