MUSIC: FELA KUTI

There's an expression, which seems to have been particularly created for me, which goes: Your eyes are bigger than your belly. Which means, simply, you try to eat more than you actually can.

This also applies to me with regard to my acquisition of music and books. Not so much DVDs which I mostly manage to get through and don't have such a backlog. But lately I've been buying a few box sets. Now something like Bob Dylan's The Bootleg Series volumes 1-3 (rare & unreleased) 1961-1991 (and, yes, that is the full title) clocks in at a relatively manageable 3 CDs and at £7.99 I couldn't resist it. There's also a box set of Bruce Springsteen's first 8 albums (which hardly counts as I'm familiar with them and a couple I'm acquiring for the second and third times) at £14.99. There's also the massive and massively expensive Sandy Denny 19-CD set which I've only got less than halfway through. And now what have I got my hands on? I'll show you.

That isn't a track list above. It's a list of the albums and the title of the box set (in case you can't make it out) is Fela: The Complete Works Of Fela Anikulapo Kuti. All 26 CDs of it, each one containing two original albums. Plus a DVD. At around £67.00 it isn't expensive when you consider that each CD costs less than £2.50 each. Of course the packaging is as cheap as possible. Each CD is in a simple card envelope with reproductions of the original covers one on either side. What the record label has done is combine the contents of what was 3 box sets plus their respective notes and bunged them into a plain box which, if not exactly flimsy, isn't the sturdiest ever.

I do have some Fela albums already, three from the box set plus a couple of Best Of's which duplicate some of the other material but I reckon about 75% of the material is completely new to me. So, a boxful of treasures as far as I'm concerned. Whether or not I'll ever get round to listening to it all (and reading all my books and watching all my DVDs) is another matter. But I intend to.

Here are a few of the original album covers.

And finally just the man himself -political activist, musician, epic consumer of weed and women-  the maker of some of the most important, most political, and most exciting music to come out of Africa and whose funeral was attended by over 1 million people -it took seven hours for the funeral cortege to travel 20km. If you want to know more, and you should, just google him.

The rest is glorious Afrobeat. Listen to it!

TV: SKINS 5.1

Skins, as some of you will know, is one of my favourite tv drama series. It completely changes its cast every two years so effectively there have two overall storylines with the third starting last night with a new crop of arrivals at Roundview tertiary college.

Unusually, rather than presenting the various characters in strands in this first episode, it focuses on one -Franky- played by Dakota Blue Richards who four years ago starred in a major film adaptation of Philip Pullman's cult teenage novel. And here she is.

Franky has just moved from Oxford where she suffered horrendous bullying due to her transgender mode of dress and probably having two gay dads didn't help. Here she incurs the enmity of it-girl and full time bitch Mini who pretends friendship in order to humiliate her, though Mini's two friends aren't happy about what she does. Two amiable if gormless boys, also outsiders, try to befriend her and the episode ends on a hopeful note.

I'm not going to go into any detail as, if this series continues at the same standard as this highly promising start, I'll save it up so I can do a proper assessment/overview when it's all over, though I may well do brief pieces like this one to keep the pot warm, so to speak.

All I will say is that Franky is a terrific character who combines vulnerability and uncertainty with a strong will and Richards plays her superbly. It's going to be fascinating to see how she develops.

DVD: THE GOOD WIFE, SEASON 1

My good friend, Mr Anonymous (aka Barry), raved on at me for months about this tv series so I decided to give the new season a try and started with the second episode as he'd forgotten to tell me it was starting again. It seemed quite interesting but obviously I was missing a lot of nuances so I decided to pick up the DVD. 

And I watched the entire thing in a week.

Initially, it seemed a little bit formulaic -new case to win, more revelations about her imprisoned husband (for corruption) and his extra-marital affairs, new eccentric judge -but while it never did really vary much from this formula, I stopped caring because on the whole the show was just too damn good in every other respect. This is down simply to good writing, involving characters, and a damn fine cast of actors firing on all cylinders.

Julianna Margulies (Alicia Florrick) is a revelation as the main character: she's very self-controlled, trying to keep her family together (she has a teenage son and daughter), trying to decide her feelings for her estranged husband and for her new boss (who is an old friend), trying to do a good job as a lawyer and beat off competition for a permanent post from a confident younger man, and more.

Josh Charles (Will Gardner) is an actor I've never come across but he's terrific as one of the (financially vulnerable) firm's three partners. Overtly charming, you're never sure if he's genuinely nice or wearinga false face. Is his interest in Alicia genuine or opportunistic. Christine Baranski (always good value) is the second partner (the third is mostly absent) and less than altruistic.

Chris Noth (Peter Florrick) is appropriately charismatic as the disgraced and imprisoned D.A. but again his motives are always suspect. Is he innocent of corruption, has he repented his liaisons with prostitutes, does he genuinely love his wife, etc?

And then as the firm's investigator Kalinda, there's Archie Panjabi an Anglo-Asian actress whom I was vaguely familiar with but can now state I think she's brilliant. And hotter than hell. Her character is intensely private, strong, cynical, with lots of contacts. Her sexuality is a matter for much speculation (particularly in the lesbians in the media website AfterEllen). Panjabi steals scene after scene and well deserved her Emmy for Best Supporting Actress.

Here she is in a scene with Chris Noth and Joe Morton. Look at her body language -both men are very strong characters and Kalinda isn't the slightest bit intimidated.

I could go on listing the various other key characters and how good the actors are but that would get boring. Suffice to say that the rest of the cast is uniformly strong. Alan Cumming arrives late in the series, but to good effect, as Peter Florrick's new manager.

This is a genuinely rivetting show packed with characters whose motives and allegiances are uncertain, a murky swamp that the vulnerable heroine has to negotiate in more ways than one. The various crimes/trials themsemselves are always interesting and, again, often morally ambiguous. One minor quibble is that the law firm tends to be on the side of good a little too often for plausibility and they also win a little too often. But despite that I really do highly recommend this show.

Oh, and here's a picture of Kalinda with, perhaps, her object of desire, FBI agent Jill Flint. And in the scene that this is taken from it becomes clear that Kalinda is most definitely Flint's.

CATS: THE WORLD'S CUTEST KITTENS?

Normally I keep animals in my Cat Rescuing blog where they belong, but I couldn't resist showing you a few of photosI took yesterday of these kittens. If you want to see more, you know where to go.

DVD: GALAXY OF TERROR (1981/2010)

I watched this on VHS back in the 80's and thought, at the time, it was rubbish but good fun. Has my opinion changed?

Well, I think you get the idea.

Despite it being a cheap Roger Corman produced quickie, there's a strong cast including Erin Moran, Ray Walston, Sid Haig, and Robert Englund (who has been appearing in horror movies for longer than I thought including two once upon a time video nasties Dead & Buried, and Eaten Alive, both worth a watch). The behind the scenes people are pretty good too with an experienced director and writer, plus the then up and coming James Cameron in charge of production design. According to the making of, Cameron already displayed the easy charm and people-handling skills for which he was to become so well known. The film does look good.

The story, as you'd expect, is completely stupid. When the Mystic Master of the Universe (or something like that -his head is shrouded in a glow which is how you know he's the Mystic Master) learns that a ship has crashed on a certain planet, he sends a rescue/recovery team immediately and it's obvious he knows something they don't. Like he doesn't expect them to come back. So they set off, argue a bit, one of them is obviously a spy (or something) for the MM, and fill in a bit of screen time. Then they land, find a few bodies in the ship and set off for this massive building to check for survivors. Inside the massive building the are confronted by things which reveal their deepest fears which include a giant beetle, an alien-looking thingy, in Robert Englund's case -he suffers from low self-esteem- himself, and a giant phallic maggot which rapes one of the women to death. Corman insisted on the rapist maggot against the wishes of the writer and director but when the film came out the scene made sure it got talked about and it is quiet well done in a manner which manages to be horrifying and yet not quite tastless. Anyway, there's a lot of suspense and a fair bit of gore before the totally stupid confrontation between our surviving hero and-   Well, you may want to watch this yourself, and I wouldn't blame you if you did.

There is an interesting bunch of extras including interviews with cast and crew and behind the scenes shots.

As I said at the beginning, I thought at the time that it was rubbish but fun.

Still do.

A PERFECT MOMENT

Is this a perfect moment?

Watching a new episode of Glee with Little Bob my mischievous black kitten curled up and purring in my lap.

DVD: THE WARRIORS -THE ULTIMATE DIRECTOR'S CUT( DVD 2005, original movie 1979)

 

Please sir, can I have the original cut back?

The Ultimate Director's Cut is no different from the original except for the intrusive addition of  a few comic-book style illustrations of Greek soldiers trapped in hostile territory heading for the safety of the sea and again comic book illustrations when the film cuts to a new scene. They don't add anything but do distract.

Thankfully this movie is so good that it can take this unneccessary stuff. I'm sure you know the story but here it is anyway. A charismatic gang leader gets together the major gangs of New York City in an attempt to get them to work together to take over the city. The leader of another gang shoots him and opportunistically accuses our heroes, The Warriors from Coney Island, of the murder. Just then the police move in, everything is in chaos and The Warriors, whose leader is killed, have to make their way home with every gang's hands raised against them -though they don't find this out until later in the movie.

Far right is Michael Beck as Swan who takes over as leader. Second from left is James Remar as Ajax, tough, arrogant, over-sexed, and stupid. Both now unrecognisable in the 4-part accompanying documentary.

Set over the course of one night, until, depleted, they finally arrive back at Coney Island at dawn, this is a superbly photographed spectacle which manages to be both dark and full of colour. The Warriors themselves are a diverse bunch of individuals all with clear individual characters who managed to earn your sympathy if not your affection -they are a street gang.

The opening credits are, I'd argue, among the best ever filmed as, to a pounding rock score, The Warriors and other gangs begin to make their ways to the meeting place. The Warriors use the subway and there is some brilliant fast cutting from the pov of the train hurtling along the tracks with the movement of the gangs, and the interplay of The Warriors which sets the scene to perfection.

This is a kinetic action movie which is gripping even between the set-pieces. The violence itself is almost stylised -and this is a stylish film- but relatively bloodless. It's the subject matter which made it contentious at the time. Despite having seen it before a couple of times, I was surprised when I realised the ending was approaching as the time had simply flown. The movie absorbed my attention totally from beginning to end.

If you haven't seen it, it's currently available from Amazon at the giveaway price of £2.99. This also includes an hour long informative documentary made specially for the DVD featuring the director Walter Hill, the Director of Photography and other major technical staff, plus several of the key actors including David Patrick Kelly who played Luther the villain and Deborah Van Valkenburgh who played the love interest (see below).

Utterly brilliant film.

BOOK REVIEW: THE HORROR! THE HORROR! COMIC BOOKS YOUR GOVERNMENT DIDN'T WANT YOU TO READ

Previously published on Amazon. Rating: 4stars.

Scary-

-but not neccessarily for the reasons you might think.

The author, Jim Trombetta, very carefully, and over a series of short chapters, places the horror comics within the context of the times -the Korean War, anti-communism, the fear of juvenile delinquency, sexual fears, and the disturbingly easy way in which censorship can prevail (which is worth comparing to the Video Nasty censorship scandal of the 1980's) and censors always get it wrong.

There are fewer actual stories in this volume than I was expecting as many pages are given over to the wonderfully lurid covers. The art itself varies considerably in quality and even the big names listed on the back cover are a long way from the top of their game. That said, there's a lot of interesting stuff with my favourite pieces coming from the quite unique Basil Wolverton who is surely long overdue for a new compilation of his best work. Don Heck has several covers on display and are different to his pencilling work for Marvel in the 60's and 70's. Howard Nostrand and Charles Biro are also worth paying close attention to, as are several others. But all too many of the covers and stories are by artists whose names have been, usually deservedly, long forgotten.

Nevertheless, at its current nice price, this an informative and delightfully lurid and garish volume which is well worth picking up

 

TV: NEW SEASONS OF-

-some of my favourite tv shows have either started or about to start and here they are. Are they some of yours too?

Recently finished is the second series of Miranda, a British sitcom on BBC2 starring and written by the 6ft 1ins Miranda Hart. It ought to be awful -Hart mugs to the camera, everyone overacts- but it has me in tears of laughter. Hart is some kind of a genius.

Already underway after a 2-year gap because it cost too much is the very likeable, if not earthshattering, Primeval for its 4th season. There are enough changes to maintain the show's momentum while keeping its character. At one point in a recent episode, an SClub7 track was heard in the background which is a funny in-joke as Hannah Spearitt (centre) was one of the teen band's key members and it's certainly her singing on it.

I missed the beginning of the second season of The Good Wife and have sternly reprimanded the person who was supposed to remind me (hello there, Mr Anonymous). I didn't catch the first season but Mr A enthused about it and I've read enough reviews to suggest I'd like it. I've recorded this week's episode which may be the second, third, or fourth. (Update courtesy of Mr A, it's ep.2.) Is it me or is Archie Panjabi sexy as hell?

 

Recently finished is season 3 of Castle. This isn't a great show but it stars the incredibly charismatic and funny Nathan Fillion who improves anything he's in. Stana Katic is also very good as his co-lead, but the two supporting detectives are also likeable characters. All of them, however, were put in the shade in a recent (season-ending?) two-parter which guest starred Dana Delaney as a shit-hot FBI investigator. Delaney stole every scene she was in which I didn't think was even possible when acting alongside Fillion.

And here's a picture of Delaney getting kissed by Julie Benz in an episode of Desperate Housewives.

 

Benz isn't the only reason for watching the new show No Ordinary Family but she is the best one. As far as I'm concerned she is one of the most gorgeous and talented actresses working in American tv. Just check out her role as Darla in Buffy & Angel, as Dexter's girlfriend then wife in, oh yes, Dexter, as the lesbian ex-stripper with a heart of gold in Desperate Housewives (see above). She is just amazing and the fact that she doesn't seem to have been out of work since she started suggests a lot of people are of a like mind. In No Ordinary Family, she's the career mother who finds getting superspeed solves a lot of problems including a failing marriage. Only two episodes show in the UK so far and I'll keep watching. Even if it turns out pure crap, I'll keep watching just for Julie.

Skins Series 5 is starting shortly with a brand new cast. Series 3 was one of the most amazing pieces of television I'd ever since in my life (and did an extensive recap/review when I first started this blog) while Series 4 the sequel was disappointing and sailed, never mind jumped, over the shark in the final episodes. I'm keeping an open mind about this one and hoping for the best.

Last, that I can think of at the moment, is Being Human Series 3. I like this show, not a lot, but I like it. (Old catchphrase copyright Paul Daniels.) It's never quite as good as I think it should be but it isn't bad either.

Of course there is the new series of Dr.Who looming on the horizon of which I have high hopes thanks to Stephen Moffat the UK's answer to Joss Whedon.

Before I go, I just want to mention briefly the show which has just finished that I most miss. It's about those loveable rascals doing community service for minor offences. With super powers. Yes, it's the utterly brilliant Misfits, the Science Fiction answer to Skins. With really bad taste. Do yourself a favour and buy the DVD.

Nearly forgot. Sarting tonight on FX is Season 3 of-

Nevertheless, my personal tv highlight of the week was the cast of The Big Bang Theory dressing up as the Justice League of America.

SOCIETY: AMERICAN GUNS

First of all, my apologies to any American readers of this post. It's likely to prove extremely offensive to you because I approach the topic from a very different direction to you. This post is only partly inspired by the Tucson tragedy but, more importantly by a piece of information I discovered an hour or so ago.

American gun laws and the attitude of the average American to guns are, by the standards of British culture, irrational.

To me, they are bat-fucking insane.

The argument, I believe, starts as follows. It is a constitutional right of Americans to bear arms. Not that simple apparently. Wikipaedia goes into some detail about the interpretation of particular clauses concerning this. It should also be noted that the constitution was created at a time when the USA was a frontier state and conflict with other counties (like Britain) and with its own indigenous inhabitants (and we all know what happened to them) was common. I have no doubt that the right of its citizens (which didn't include slaves) to bear arms was vital to its survival. However, it's been a long time since anyone tried to take over the USA and the indigenous inhabitants stopped being a threat over a century ago. The need to bear arms is long since over. I should note that this right is also enshrined in the constitutions of 44 individual states.

The argument continues: "If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns." Americans need guns for self-protection. Good heavens, how many outlaws are there in proportion to the general population? How many innocent people die from accidents with hand guns and how many die at the hands out outlaws with guns? I don't have any figures, I'm jus' askin'. Guns in this country, apart from a few strictly licensed, are in the hands of outlaws and yet the proportion of deaths from guns in this country is about 10% of that of the USA. Now I personally don't know anyone who has a gun. Is there anyone in the States who doesn't? Here's another quote: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."  Sorry, not quite: people with guns find it much easier to kill people than if they didn't have a gun to start with.

And now the quote which I found today.

US states with the most lax gun laws and highest
gun ownership have the nation’s highest per capita
gun death rates.

In other words: the more guns, the more deaths from guns. 

This is a simple and obvious correlation and the corollary is this: the fewer guns the fewer deaths from guns. This so fucking obvious that it's unbelievable that the average American can't grasp this simple concept.  

But it explains why so many nut-jobs can get hold of guns and massacre people at rally, at schools and university campuses, and shoot senators and presidents and John fucking Lennon.

Until American realises this and can overcome the vested interests of those involved with guns, then thousands more innocents will die because the sale of guns is not restricted as it is in most other western countries. Simple statistics prove this. But until then, Americans are going to keep of dying because of national institutionalised insanity.

SCIENCE FICTION: ON MY 'TO BE READ' SHELF

If cats were my first real love that has stayed with me all my life, Science Fiction runs it a fairly close second. When I was about four or five and started reading the British weekly comics, it wasn't long before I knew the type of material that I really liked and was that space stuff, starting with Captain Condor in The Lion-

-and followed not long after by Jet Ace Logan.

 

 The sublime Jeff Hawke followed later.

By

By that time I'd joined the library and, although an omnivorous reader, was always on the lookout for the space stuff and by my mid-teens, although still devouring anything and everything, was a confirmed fan of SF. When I met Susan at the age of 40 I'd amassed a sizeable collection most of which I then had to get rid of (along with a similarly large collection of comics) when I moved into her small flat. It wasn't such a big deal then as it might have been ten years earlier as I'd been reading less and less and more and more crime fiction for some years, plus anything else which took my still omnivorous fancy. I'd also found myself on the fringes of SF fandom after years of involvement when it had become the focus of my life.

Over the next 20 years I found myself reading less and less SF, though still interested, and maintaining only slenderest toehold in fandom. Now in the last couple of years I've found myself buying SF again, not a lot and very selectively. I've mentioned this from a different angle before but bear with me if I repeat myself somewhat. It started with a couple of collections from Gollancz which were both nicely produced -Robert E Howard's The Complete Chronicles of Conan, an edition which deliberately shed the post-mortem additions and rewrites by L.Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter to present the stories in their original form, and Necronomicon The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft which, excluding collaborations, is actually pretty much the complete HPL and has a nice extensive concluding essay. Any, yes, I know they are respectively Fantasy and Horror and not SF but as far as I'm concerned the three genres are heavily related (though I could equally argue otherwise). In January 2006 I bought a lovely 600 page hardback The Jack Vance Treasury. I can be specific about the date because that was when I went into hospital for four weeks and read most of it there.

I then bought several books published by NESFA Press starting with the massive 6-volume set The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny which I've written about elsewhere in this blog, before moving on to the remarkable Cordwainer Smith, Charles L Harness, an author little known outside the SF community but influential within it, and several others -I'm not doing a complete list.

In case you aren't au fait with the genre, most of these precede the 1980's and indeed some date from the 1940's. They are also almost completely short (well, shorter than novel-length) fiction which is unusual for me as I normally prefer novels. But you are correct if you suspect it's a bit of a nostalgia trip. It is, though I find little to enjoy in modern SF, allowing for a number, if not numerous, exceptions like Ken  Macleod's The Restoration Game (which I got as a freebie).

The most recent book I bought (which I picked up new in hardback and for under £9.00 from an Amazon Marketplace dealer) is this one-

The stories are selected by Wolfe himself, which makes me query the use of definitive as authors are not always the best judge of their work, who writes a brief afterword to each story.

For those who believe SF is literature this is probably the best example of single-author short-form SF you could possibly have and I would match this against any other contemporary American author's short fiction, any other. Wolfe is not a difficult writer to read but he is deceptively subtle and there is often far more going on beneath the surface of his work than is readily apparent. I've read perhaps about a third of the stories before and those many years ago. I'm going to take my time with this book and savour these fine subtle stories and then I will put it back on the shelf where it will nestle next to a NESFA collection by A.E. Van Vogt and author who, despite writing very vigorous and idea-packed stories (mainly in the 40's & 50's) is not one who would ever be acclaimed as a literary giant but who is still fun in a cock-eyed way. GW and AEVV, two very different sides of the coin that is Science Fiction.

GRAPHIC NOVEL : AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

 While I have a fairly broad taste in graphic stories and own a good selection of what you'd call the top end -massive collections by Los Bros Hernandez, Will Eisner, The Sandman in the Absolute editions, several Osamu Tezuka GNs, Maus, etc- my heart lies in the super hero genre. Admittedly I like to think it's the best of the genre but it's still super heroes and mostly published by DC. The only Marvel title I've bothered with in recent years has been Ultimate Spider-Man, the fresh alternate universe version of the character created and written by Brian Bendis (whose Powers series I also collect).

Recently, however, I've bought 13 Spider-Man collections. What happened was I came across a brief overview of a series entitled Brand New Day which completely shook up the existing Spider-Man mythos and made it fun again. So I took the bait and bought the first three. Several years ago, in a legendarily loathed storyline, one of Marvel's Satan-a-likes revamped reality so Peter Parker was no longer married to Mary Jane and never had been. Then, in the course of a massive company-wide crossover where legislation decreed that super-heroes had to be registered and reveal their identity to the government, Spider-Man does just that but also reveals his secret identity to the world. Some time after that, reality got juggled again so that no-one, not even people who've known for years, no-one knows he's really Peter. All the various Spidey titles got cancelled except for Amazing Spider-Man which became a weekly comic written by a team of writers and artists not unlike an American sitcom.

At this point I jumped on board.

The result is a refreshing take on Spider-Man which gets him out of the repetitive and predictable rut by introducing new ongoing storylines and characters. It's uneven of course. Not all the stories work and the standard of the art varies considerably but overall it was enough to get me to buy 13 of these collections. It would be counter-productive to list all the stuff that's going on. I'd be here all night writing if I tried. But here are a few of the more notable developments. 

Best friend Harry Osborne is going out with Lily whose best friend Carlie, a coroner's assistant, likes Peter. Peter moves in with a Spider-Man hating cop who likes Carlie. Lily's father is standing for mayor of NY and is regularly attacked by a Green Goblin-alike called Menace. Aunt May is working for a charity which feeds down and out and whose respectable boss is secretly a villain. When Jonah J Jameson has a heart attack his wife sells the Daily Bugle to an unscrupulous media magnate behind his back and most of the staff of the DB end up working for a low circulation socially conscious paper, including Peter. Former Green Goblin, Norman Osborne now runs The Avengers who are now composed of supposedly reformed supervillains and makes life difficult for Peter by trying to corrupt (again) his son Norman (PP's BF) and kill Spidey. Spidey saves the life of an elderly man who turns out to be Jonah J. Jameson Snr who abandoned JJJ Jnr as a boy. Snr is a nice old geezer who starts courting Aunt May and Peter discovers the two in bed together -no that is not a joke. Peter's flatmate turns out to be part of a gang of corrupt cops who hate Spidey and are framing him a serial killer by planting Spider-tracers on dead bodies. Menace turns out to be Harry's gf Lily who's taken too much of the Goblin serum and is now psycho. There's an inauguration day team-up with Barack Obama which is actually good fun and Obama is known to be a comics fan and I'd be very surprised if he hadn't read and enjoyed the issue in question. Aunt May and JJJ Snr get married and no-one dies, though personally I'd give the old geezer a couple of years max. Spider-Man-lusting heoine/villainess The Black Cat returns and gives him a quickie and Mary Jane returns who doesn't.

 

JJJ Jnr also becomes Mayor of New York.

And that was the tip of the iceberg. 

Since then there's been a multi-volume series entitled The Gauntlet which seems to have been a bit disappointing so I'm going to skip and rejoin at the end.

Basically Amazing Spider-Man has become a lively, fast-moving, eventful, fun and often funny super-hero comic. That will do me nicely.