more movies

Winter’s a good time for a film festival. Out Takes, the gay film festival has been back in town this past week. A small festival but amongst the limited screenings we’ve seen several pleasing films.

The German farce, Fashion Victims, was fun if a little slow and in need of some sharpening. Karsten’s coming out was real, nicely judged, with he and Steven making a pleasing pair amongst the farcical goings on they get caught up in.

Shelter is a fine movie with a good deal of excellent acting to render a well constructed story. We hugely admired this film.

However the award for greatest pleasure goes to Were the World Mine. This is a totally delightful fantasy. Shakespeare well knew how to rework an old story to greater stature and quality, and while Were the World is not his Dream wholly reworked it is a splendid interpretation of Puck in small town USA 21st century style. Timothy’s situation is not so uncommon but his mastery of song, gorgeous voice [the face is pretty damn fine as well] and his proper good luck dispensing the love juice with his football-team classmates [especially his liaison with Nat], make for a most uncommon and very satisfying entertainment. The Elizabethans knew they were on to a good thing with their notion of ‘overgoing’ as the appropriate driving principle for artistic creation. This overdone version of the fairy sub-plot from A Midsummer Night’s Dream is such stuff as dreams were made on: long may it be so.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Prospero · The Tempest

the reader

This afternoon we saw the film The Reader.

See it.

It’s very good, very powerful.

piano concerto

To say the piano is one, if not the, most accomplished musical instruments humankind has produced is doubtless just about too obvious to state. But i want to point it out again. Just as i want to say how it remains my favourite musical instrument. Not just because i learned to play it once, and would love to be fluent with it still. But because I find the sounds of a piano can bind and transport me more often and completely than any other instrument. Then, when a piano is in dialogue with an orchestra in another impressive invention of art and craft – the concerto – even more power to move emotion and imagination is generated; particularly if the concerto is from the classical Romantic repertoire.

Romanticism seems by nature especially tuned to youth. In one’s teens and twenties all the stuff of the Romantic art-forms present as perfect sense, the only true interpretation and representation of the world, and we wallow in it, unresisting and happy. Then after a while, so much of it cloys and to read those emotionally convoluted poems and listen to all that soaring orchestral lushness is not so easy or necessary any more. One quietly lets the Romantics slip out of one’s life and seeks simpler, subtler stuff.

Well not slip out of one’s life entirely. There are great Romantic works that, given the opportunity now and then [now and then] can grab you still and twist the guts with their big frisson thrill. We were treated to one of these last Saturday evening. At the Town Hall the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra had invited Emmanuel Despax to join them in Schumann’s Piano Concerto. Together they made this stirring, transporting music quite wonderful, indeed wholly exhilarating to hear, so we were charmed as if hearing it in the magic of the first time all over again.

Emmanuel Despax, the young French pianist who has currently made his home in London to be near his teacher, has been rightly lauded as an already accomplished and most promising musician. His talent to make Schumann’s music speak eloquently and powerfully was abundantly clear. He showed me, and it seemed the whole audience, why we love being thrilled by this concerto. And when he conceded to the demand for more, his playing of a Chopin Etude [i think it was probably an etude, it was a piece i did not know] revealed other aspects of his power of interpretation at the piano keyboard. I would be happy to listen to this young guy play the piano quite often.

autumn

Autumn – my favourite season. Canterbury can do it brilliantly - leaves – yellow, red, russet. So can central Otago – we’ve just been in Wanaka – delightful.
Autumn charms me with its stillness and warmth – the memory of heat but with an undercurrent of chill. My breath fogs a little when i go to fetch the paper in the morning; and when the sun falls low in the late afternoon, suddenly the day’s cold.
A good season for walks – kicking leaves.
In Wanaka we walked, and talked lots with our good friend C.  Walking up Mount Iron gave us spectacular views of the lake and town. We ate superbly cooked beef and vegetables, drank delicious pinot noir [Rockburn], at the excellent Botswanna Butchery; and another night revelled messily in the tasty abundance of burgers from Red Star, watching Like Minds. [Memories of similarly huge 'special burgers' from Ashburton's Rangatira Burger Bar in the '80s.] Coffee and late breakfast at Gusto.
Warm autumn sun and still cooling air have made recent days seem gentle. Time away from work has allowed for those many walks, and spending hours with friends [C in Wanaka, G's home from Hong Kong, L & J in Ashburton], – and with books. Reading in slow afternoons has been winningly comfortable. Not having found anything to tempt me at the library [i'd left my list at home!], i’ve been re-reading early Patrick Gale – perfect. 

Neil Gaiman

 

Neil Gaiman’s writing is a huge delight. I’ve been somewhat slow to pursue his books and maybe i ought to seek and read them in quicker succession. However to come to them intermittently is perhaps greater fun and extending the treat. 

I first read Stardust. There the mix of a traditional wizarding-fantasy with much that was almost contemporary and seasoned with frequent ironic or dry wit, made for very entertaining reading. [The film is accomplished with joyful regard for Gaiman's satirical intent.] Having read just a few more of Gaiman’s books – most recently Anansi Boys – i realise this style, a charming humour that cuts our human pretensions down to size while travelling through a world that’s familiar but just on the surreal side of reality, is Gaiman.

Anansi Boys was very enjoyable for this curiously happy mix which is Gaiman’s characteristic form. Take, for instance, the conjuring of the spirit world around a kitchen table in old suburban Florida.

“Now,” said Mrs Dunwiddy, “the devil grass, the St John the Conqueror root, and the love-lies-bleeding.”

Mrs Bustamonte rummaged in her shopping bag and took out a small glass jar. “It’s mixed herbs,” she explained. “I thought it would be all right.”

“Mixed herbs!” said Mrs Dunwiddy. “Mixed herbs!”

“Will it be a problem?” said Mrs Bustamonte. “It’s what I always use when the recipe says basil this or oregano that. I can’t be doin’  with it. You ask me, it’s all mixed herbs.”

Mrs Dunwiddy sighed. “Pour it in,” she said.

Such blithe, irreverent and typical fun. You really can’t resist so much unlikeliness when the people are so real. So why, when i read the reviews originally, i thought this was not a book i’d like, i now can’t quite fathom. For it has, as the blurb so succinctly puts it: ‘dark prophecy, family dysfunction, mystical deceptions, and killer birds. Not to mention a lime. – Anansi Boys. God is dead. Meet the kids.’

When we travelled to Europe last i needed a book for the plane and decided on Neverwhere – we were bound for London after all. It was a perfect choice. A compelling read it took me deeply away from the tedium of long flights into the marvel of its invention. I’m hugely impressed and think it my favourite of the Gaiman stories i’ve read so far. [Though in a different way The Day I Swapped My Father for Two Goldfish (especially when read by the author himself - not something every writer can or should be allowed to do, but Gaiman is excellent at reading his own stuff here) is very fine too.]

St Germain

St Germain.

No, not the musician, though his work’s very fine.
Nor, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, though this is a most pleasant corner of Paris. 
Nor yet one of the many so named French villages.

But rather, the recently-new, French restaurant here in Christchurch. Two brothers, Frederic & Vincent, from Brittany “have come to New Zealand to follow their dream. The sole aim of St Germain Restaurant is to provide authentic French food and wine in an elegant and cosy atmosphere, and give you a tase of French gastronomy.”

If you’ve paid any attention here to one of the themes of my posts you’ll know C and i love food. We experienced the food and service at St Germain for the first time on Saturday night in the company of two of our close friends, and we are all captivated. The brothers have created a hugely pleasing place: the food we ate was wholly delicious, their service impeccable and the atmosphere warmly inviting. We shall want to return often.

boys on film

“Harvey gave me his story and it saved my life, and I just thought it’s time to pass it on. The only thing I really knew I wanted to say was to tell those kids out there that they’re gonna be all right.”

Milk is good. I was drawn in more and moved by the telling of Harvey Milk’s story than i had expected to be. There was a good deal about what happened in his achieving election and then his death that i’d not known – and virtually nothing about his character and charisma, at least as it’s depicted in the film.

But what has just now blown me away and made me cry are the words of Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn in their Oscar acceptance speeches and after in their press conferences. I hadn’t been aware of Lance, who he is, that he had written the script, and not known his history. He spoke with charming gentleness, but in words that convey so much that young gay men, and others, need to see and hear being said. Sean with an equal but different civil force, mocked selfish bigotry into its proper place and challenged the reluctant.

I’ve had in mind that i wanted to write about gay boys in the movies for some months. And this isn’t quite what i had intended but it fits and is fitting. Though what i most wished to say was how satisfying the appearance of gay guys has been recently. A better take and window on reality even if in movie or televisual fiction. Jack cares  for Ianto, and they are allowed to hold and kiss and exchange in-jokes. Maxxie is cared for by Tony when Anwar is too preoccupied and is then in due course allowed to score brilliantly in the boyfriend business.

Also, and though not the movies but definitely now, Josh writes with astonishing verve in his blog, Always hard. If this is genuinely the work of an adolescent gay boy it is amazingly accomplished writing. The selection and construction of the posts plus the controlled self revelation, detail and wit are remarkable. I find myself wondering quite often if this is the work of a much older professional writer [amongst other things i can't quite fathom how his mates haven't made the connection - someone in his group must read teen blogs], but i hope it’s not and that Josh really is Josh.

So we’re not there yet, not where we really need to be [tho' to be just a little pessimistic, will the world's economic gloom foster increasing intolerance again as a diversion when people find their situations less expansive?] but we do seem to have been getting a lot lot closer to live and let live.

world music

Late last night Radio NZ Concert presented a recording of Zach Condon and Beirut performing at the Womad festival in 2008. I much enjoyed the opportunity to hear this band play again their charming, spirited and contemporary take on traditional East European folk [Balkan gypsy] music. The sounds seem to me invariably cheerful in their quirky enthusiasm. The energy the songs and tunes convey are not always so geared-up one might say they were exuberant [though at times they are], but there is always an energy and a joy in the music-making even when they might perhaps be described as ’soulful’. Condon clearly enjoys himself making this music and he has an extraordinary voice. Often when he embarks on a musical phrase i wonder how on earth he is going to continue the notes to achieve a satisfying, or even possible, sequence – and yet he does, and it’s wonderful, and pleasurably haunting.

I urge you to seek out his and Beirut’s music making. You can find them on MySpace Music , while on YouTube you’ll find lots of videos of their performances and there is a very good copy of a video of a track from their Lon Gisland EP at Alma Ha’rel .com . 

Late night radio is a great source of interesting music and i’ve come to especially love listening to the world music offerings from Charlie Gillet in his weekly show from BBC World. This programme is something else i commend to your attention: and if you miss it on Radio NZ National on Tuesday evenings after the 11 o’clock news Charlie’s site on BBC Worldservice has each programme available for re-listening for the following week – with details of every recording he plays, and all previous play lists.

arabesques

As soon as i picked up a copy of Robert Dessaix’s Arabesques in the Darlinghurst Bookshop i knew i had to have it. This is a beautiful book: well bound with a striking dust jacket design; the layout and typesetting done with great care; printed on paper of some substance – some pages are of a heavier paper with a few sections differentiated on a pale grey bond; there are many captivating illustrations; plus a ribbon bookmark. Then too it is a book by Robert Dessaix and we’ve much enjoyed those of his books we’d read earlier. Nor, now that i’ve finished reading – and i’d been saving it up as a treat to indulge in during the summer holiday – am i disappointed. i have had a wonderful week or so of trailing with Dessaix as he mixes travel and musing into corners of France and through cities and towns of Northern Africa that were home and escape to André Gide. 

Dessaix subtitles the work, A Tale of Double Lives. This refers firstly to its dealing with his own travels in North Africa and parts of France, and those of André Gide which in some senses Dessaix is retracing. It also refers to Dessaix’s discussion of his and Gide’s having lived initially and then escaped from a double life to be more truly themselves. Both, Dessaix is claiming were helped to this finding of their real selves by their experiences in and of North Africa – the places, the people and the Islamic culture.

As before Dessaix writes in a richly literate way that i enjoy. His descriptions of people and places are engaging and he takes time to present and discuss interesting ideas. Here, much more so than in his other writing that i’ve read, he reveals his own history and thoughts. All of these make for a most worthwhile book. Arabesques is not a biography but it is biographic and i’ve been pleased to learn more about Dessaix the man and the writer.

Amongst the ideas Dessaix discusses are how one may come to find out one’s real nature or person [taking himself and Gide as examples] and whether there is some epiphanous moment when we arrive at this realisation. Religions and their trappings make repeated appearances. There are frequent excursions into the reasons we might travel [as opposed to tour]; and similar examinations of aspects of friendship and love [sexual and platonic as well as such other shades of distinction we might care to discern] – particularly between older and younger men. Dessaix explains aspects of his arrival and acceptance of himself as a gay man and filters this through the influence André Gide’s writing and homosexual experiences have had on him. The author is growing older – this book has given him space and form to look at some of his reactions to this circumstance – and recognising my own journey here, his observations reverberated with me.

summer

Wanted to make another post before the end of the year [but summer, and we have had proper summer these last several days - sun out of clear blue sky] seems to have induced indolence. i’ve ranged over a number of things i might write about and find none of them really compel me. When i try to put them into words what appears here on the screen is just cliche so i’ve scrubbed them.

Nor am i going to do an end-of-year review-of-the-year. The things that were important have had their posts and they are still here to return to if you or i want to do so. 2008 was a perfectly fine year as years go – some joy, some grief: standard issue, but on the whole quite pleasing. [You see how these cliches will worm their way in!]

There were a number of things i had intended to write about but somehow they missed their moment. Maybe i’ll get to them in 2009 – or not; there is bound to be lots else taking our attention. One event i will mention that sadly follows from the current economic recession is our friend Grant’s having to close his gallery. However in the closing show C and i found a work we bought as a Christmas gift to each other – Kazu Nakagawa’s ‘untitled dictionary’, two views of which appear below. This buying an art work at Christmas was something we did for quite a number of years and then for reasons i now forget we fell out of the tradition – perhaps we’ll revive it. Whatever comes of that notion, Kazu’s piece is a delight to have now, being very pleasing both to see and to touch.

Greetings of the season; enjoy summer, and may 2009 bring much that gives you pleasure.