Intrigue in St. Joe Cinema

(The title of this post may be a bit of an exaggeration.)

Screenland Cinemas has removed St. Joe's Plaza 8 Theater from their website. What could this mean?

Plaza 8 has always been the black sheep of Screeland's regional empire. It plays second-runs of the most mainstream Hollywood movies, while the Armour, Crossroads, Crown Center, and Grinders locations lean more towards artistic, indie fare.

About a year ago I had a conversation with the manager of Plaza 8, John Shipp. Figuring that they already have access to the reels of all those great movies they're showing in KC, I tried to convince him to bring special, limited screenings of more artistic indie films to Plaza 8. Great idea, no? They could probably even charge a few bucks above their normal rate of $2/ticket. They don't appear to have gone for it...

Plaza 8 is still an awesome place for an inexpensive date or a matinee. The popcorn is good, they charge a lot less for concessions than most places, it's never crowded, and the A/C is cranked! If you're lucky, you can even find a seat with both armrests still intact! ;)

GENIUS IDEA FOR NEW T-SHIRT

"Free Tim Riggins"

[Thing is, in order to get it you have to have just watched the episode of Friday Night Lights I just watched (5-10). Speaking of which, wouldn't Billy Riggins, or the actor who plays him, make a great George W. if they ever make another movie about him? On this note, a few weeks ago I posted about portrayals of academia on TV shows, and this season of FNL has a doozy. Tammy, visionary high school guidance counselor, is somewhat magically offered the job of Dean of Admissions at "prestigious" Braemore College (I kept thinking they were saying "Bryn Mawr" until I saw the crest) in upstate New York. I did think that the affable college president who offers her the position was pretty authentically portrayed, though...]

GENIUS IDEA FOR NEXT 4TH OF JULY

Get Vik Muniz to design the fireworks.

 He made a "cloud" out of an airplane's wake:

The Mona Lisa out of peanut butter and jelly:

 He recreated Guido Reni's Atalanta and Hippomenes with pieces of junk:

 And made this image out of sugar:

 Imagine what he'd do with flames, fire, rockets, and colored light...

R.I.P. Cy Twombly (1928—2011)

(Peonies)

Gratuitous Vacay Photos

 Natural Bridge in Eastern Kentucky

"The Squeeze" — a path up onto the bridge.

Our B&B in Savannah, GA

 Shop where SCAD students sell their work.

 

Images of a lovely weekend in Savannah, GA, one of the most charming American cities I've ever visited.

 

 Thousands of fiddler crabs in the  mud, named for their one large pincher. Pawleys Island, SC.

 Some barnacled shells we collected on the beach.

 Scream for ice cream. Georgetown, SC.

Hangin' out.

New Work by UChicago Composer Jacob Bancks

My dear friend Jake recently sent me his most recent composition, Litany of the Sacred Heart, for voices, clarinets, and strings. It's a devoted and imaginative setting of (mostly) sacred texts. I was struck by the soulful spareness of much of the piece—the overall tone if it reminded me of the gentle, understated quality in the chanting of Benedictine monks I recently observed at Conception Abbey in nearby Maryville.

Here are a couple intriguing excerpts from the premiere which featured, among other excellent musicians, Jake's lovely wife, Kara, masterfully on clarinet.


Repetitions of Cor Jesu (“Heart of Jesus”) and miserére nobis (“have mercy on us”) anchor this middle section as pizz vines around. The end of this excerpt begins a harrowing depiction of hell. 


The fragile beginning of a setting of the Thomas Aquinas hymn, O Salutaris Hostia.

GARAGE SALE

Unloading some choice merch at a yard sale today with our friends the Corders and Yusts. We'll be going again tomorrow from 8 to 3. Location: corner of 25th and Folsom. Sold a ton today, but still lots of good stuff left including a steal on a comfy beige couch. (Be sure to ask for the Teleharmonium discount! ;)

Here are some pics. If you see anything you gave us for sale here, please forgive. (You know how it is. ;)

Becky's jewelry board.

Parting, sadly, from the bass amp I got when I was 15 or 16. It's been a good ride, my friend. Hope you find a new home that plays you more and takes you out of the basement now and again. (And preferably one that can get down on some sweet jams from time to time.)

Books that didn't make the cut (or did).

Table with decorative items.

EXCELLENT SUMMER CHILL-OUT POETRY

Two amazing poems by the English Romantic, Algernon Charles Swinburne, both published in the same 1866 collection. The first, "August", I fell in love with over a year ago and made into a song for the forthcoming SLBM album. It's intoxicatingly mysterious. The second, "The Year of Love"—which I stumbled on a couple days ago—provides an illuminating counterpoint. 

In "August", the four continuously-referenced apples seem to represent something. In "The Year of Love", it's made explicit—four loves over four seasons. In "August", the wind "blew and breathed and blew/Too weak to alter it's one word", and I always wondered what that one word was. In "The Year of Love"—"eyes made strong and grave with sleep/And yet too weak to weep–"—it's crying (often code for sex in Romantic poetry, no?—but what isn't...). Many other delicious parallels. (Click on poems above to enlarge.) 

Gratuitous bizarre detail from the biography in the Swinburne Penguin edition:

1868:  Frequented a flagellation brothel...Read a French translation of the Mahabharata, with excessive enthusiasm...

EXCELLENT SUMMER CHILL-OUT MUSIC

Chicago buddy Tommy Slax just posted this gem of a krautrock bedroom recording, "We Can Probably Live on Mars." (You know it's a good tune when you can't understand any of the words but you still sing along.)

ORCHARD IN JUNE

We stopped by the Weston Red Barn Farm yesterday on our way to KC. I've seen the orchard at several different times of the year, but right now it's spectacularly lush—mainly apple trees but a few scraggly old peach trees at the back of the orchard overgrown with vines. Here are a few looks I stole with my flip.

HOUSE PROJECT

We're finishing some of the moulding in our house with quarter round and thresholds on the floors. I've heard my cousin (Gideon, the architecture writer) talk a bit about the ways in which architecture can purposely conceal things and even misrepresent aspects of a space and its construction. In this project, it's pretty clear that the primary purpose of the quarter round is not decorative—it's actually to cover up the rough-looking spaces between the floor boards and the wall, creating an illusion of neatness, exactitude, and clean angles and borders where no such things exist. 

Ugly gaps between floor boards and wall:

Gaps hidden with new quarter round:

 Nasty gap between tile floor and wood floor:

Gap concealed by new threshold:

Air compressor nail gun (Thanks Neil & Sarah!):

 

GENIUS IDEA FOR COUNTRY SONG

"Chicken Fried Chicken"

This Dada-esque song was inspired by the chicken friend chicken I saw in the freezer at the grocery store this morning. Only 2 words in the whole thing! I think it could go on even longer, don't you?



This track uses the free iZotope Vinyl plugin for that old-timey sound.