The Hooverville Hexagon: Light and Shadow

 

More autumn thoughts from the team.

 

Light and Shadow

by Paigetheoracle and DG

Autumn.

Alness, Scotland

 

Western Pennsylvania

 

 Landscapes and Literature

by DG

 a wolf and a raven stared down the hill

at the gathering of primates below

something in their hands as usual

another war? asked the wolf

either that said the raven

or a coterie of writers looking for

a metaphor

I'm outta here ran the wolf

me too flew the raven

Scottish Sunset

(Paigetheoracle)

 

Quote of the Day

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

        Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Wilfrid Owen, 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'

War Memorial #4:

Cenotaph, Southampton, UK

by Bluebottle

Every day until the day I still call Armistice Day, Bluebottle will be presenting a war memorial from somewhere. Today he takes us to the Cenotaph in Southampton, UK.

This is Southampton's Cenotaph, which is the first Cenotaph to be designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Of over 3,000 war memorials in the UK, this is one of 20 to be Grade I listed. The Cenotaph was designed to be multi-tiered, with each layer slightly curved (entasis). The lowest layer originally contained the carved roll of honour names of the dead, and engraved wreath. The second layer is dominated by the Cross of Sacrifice, a Celtic-like Latin cross with longsword in front of the cross, with Southampton's coat of arms on the third layer, lions on the fourth layer, wreaths representing the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Merchant Navy and British army on the fifth layer leading to a sarcophagus and fallen soldier on a coffin on the top, sixth layer. There is also a Stone of Remembrance inscribed 'Their Name Liveth For Evermore', as chosen by Rudyard Kipling.

Southampton's cenotaph, meaning empty tomb, was the template for many that Lutyens made later, and was followed by the London cenotaph in Whitehall. The Whitehall design was originally intended to be similar to Southampton's but was not ready in time for Remembrance Day 1919 and so a simple temporary structure was erected, which received great favour and bore the template for many cenotaphs that followed. So in many ways Southampton's is a false-start. Particularly as the Cross of Sacrifice was included against Lutyens' wishes at the insistence of a committee appointed by the Lord Mayor of Southampton. This Christian symbol alienated the local Jewish community who responded by boycotting the monument and insisting that Jewish servicemen who died in the Great War should not have their names engraved on it.

Today the Cenotaph is one of the National Collection of Lutyens' war memorials and when the names
carved into the stone had deteriorated due to weather, a glass memorial wall was erected. This shows the names of 2,368 people who had died during the Great War (more than the original 1,997). This includes women who had served with the Mercantile Marine or in Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps. In addition it lists one man, Major-General Daniel Marcus William Beak, who did not die during the war but won the Victoria Cross instead. The memorial also lists the names of casualties from the Second World War (both military and local civilians,) Korean War, Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising and Spanish Civil War, as four local men had fought in the International Brigades against the Nationalists.

Nowt So Queer…

(Cinema)

by Awix

Review of an oldie-but-goodie favourite film of your confirmed-folkie Editor's.

The main problem that the 1989 movie Slipstream has to contend with has nothing to do with its script, or actors, or really its direction: it's the fact that it's a big SF adventure film from the producer of Star Wars. The fact that it does have one of the main actors of the older movie in it doesn't help much, admittedly – and, weirdly, neither does the fact that it's trying much less hard to be a Star Wars rip-off than many other films which preceded it to the screen (Flash Gordon, Moonraker, The Black Hole, Starcrash, The Humanoid, etc etc). It's just an obstacle it never manages to negotiate.

While we're on the subject of films with a sort of aeolian bent to them, Christopher Guest's A Mighty Wind, released in 2003, has a similar problem. This is a mockumentary film, broadly speaking a comedy, which opens with news of the death of revered film producer Irving Steinbloom (who is generally believed to have been based on Harold Leventhal, a legendary figure in music management who helped Frank Sinatra early in his career and went to manage or represent Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and Carly Simon, amongst many others – Leventhal was actually still alive when the film came out, and if he ever saw it, it must have been an odd experience for him). Steinbloom's family decide to hold a memorial concert for him featuring several of the acts he helped to stardom in the 1960s, and the film is essentially a record of the preparations for the concert and then the show itself.

Outnumbering the other participants in a very numerical way are The New Main Street Singers, a cheery, primary-hued nine-piece outfit who only feature one actual member of the original Main Street Singers. These days the band is led by fan-turned-member Terry (John Michael Higgins) and his wife, former adult movie star Laurie (Jane Lynch). In their spare time they lead a coven of colour-fixated witches. (It's worth mentioning that the film absolutely resists the temptation to play up the absurd nature of these characters and situations, playing everything deadly straight.)

Also on the bill are the Folksmen, a serious trio of traditional folk musicians called Mark, Jerry and Alan, and if I say they are played by Harry Shearer, Mike McKean and Guest himself, you may – if you didn't know already – start to get a sense of what this film's main problem, such as it is, may be. The Folksmen have not performed together for many years but are happy to reunite for the memorial gig.

Rounding off the list of artists are Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara), a duo who were actually a couple back in their heyday, but who broke up years ago. This resulted in Mitch having a nervous breakdown from which he is still recovering. Mickey is now married to an ex-pat British model railway obsessive and there is a little awkwardness about their reunion, particularly given the romantic nature of their most famous song. Will it all be all right on the night?

It would, of course, be theoretically possible for someone to write at reasonable length about A Mighty Wind and for it never to feature the words This, is, Spinal and Tap in that particular order. And yet I doubt this has happened. Rob Reiner may not have been involved, but most of the other significant contributors to the 1984 movie were. The Folksmen started life as Tap's support act, presumably to save money (they are the same people, after all).

But, obviously, Spinal Tap are an awesomely difficult act to follow, and so is their movie. This may be why Guest and Levy (who co-wrote the movie) hold back from going full-throttle down the freeway of comedy. This is, probably, a more textured mockumentary, as concerned with getting the details right as with delivering the jokes. There's also more of an interest in pathos and the emotional lives of the characters, particularly Mitch and Mickey. The sixties folk revival isn't as inherently ridiculous as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, too, which may well have been an influence on the film.

All of which makes for a slightly different experience, obviously, one which probably appeals more to actual folkies and people who take their comedy very seriously than a mainstream crowd. It's certainly less consistently funny than you might expect, and the fact that Guest, McKean and Shearer seem to be deliberately giving all the funniest bits to other people suggests they don't want this to be too obviously seen as a follow-up to the earlier film. Which is fair enough: when you have a seat in the House of Lords you're entitled to all sorts of things, and making the kind of film you want to is certainly one of them.

Even so, it feels underpowered as a comedy-drama as well as a comedy. There is the odd quite funny line or moment, but the bulk of the entertainment value of the film – which is not inconsiderable – comes from the attention to detail in people's haircuts and costumes and so on. Even the music isn't necessarily that funny – there isn't anything close to a killer number like 'Stonehenge' or 'Rock ‘n' Roll Creation'. But in its gentle, slightly whimsical way, it certainly qualifies as the film equivalent of easy listening.

(The exception to this is one of the film's more outlying jokes: the revelation that one character has recently undergone their egg-cracking moment and accepted their identity as a member of the trans community. It is a little odd to realise that as (comparatively) recently as 2003, attitudes were sufficiently different that one could do jokes about what would at the time have been called people having a sex change and it would scarcely have warranted a comment. As it is, this one not-particularly-good gag may be the thing that results in A Mighty Wind vanishing into obscurity.)

Anyway, this is a brief, clearly lovingly-made film about a topic the makers clearly have some affection for. And it's an opportunity to see a bunch of very able comedians having fun together. This is something which is not without appeal, whatever your opinion of folk music.

TTYL,

 Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor