moon traveller herald

The great Gordon Thomas continues to write about film for BrighlightsFilm.com. Among last month's reviews is one on a new Allen Ginsberg DVD, The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg. Apparently there are alot of cool extras, including an MTV music video of Ballad of the Skeletons. We were going to get together with Gordon this weekend, but he is on deadline! Next up for the writer driven by a formative Godzilla experience: H.P. Lovecraft on film [or disk, rather]. Hey, Gordon, can I borrow that Ginsberg thing? Last month's Gordon on BrightlightsFilm.com The Gordon Thomas Brightlights archives Gordon Thomas on MoonTraveller

Gordon Thomas and I share a fascination with epics. I know a couple of years ago I made a point to watch - largely by tapping Gordon's collection - El Cid, and the Pride and the Passion, and a bunch of other things with big music, big views and Sophia Loren or Chalton Heston. But Gordon is more than just fascinated. He can write hundreds of words about this. Check out his Ben-Hur Epic on BrightLights Film. He zeros in on the author of Ben Hur, Lew Wallace, and Indiana cat. Lew Wallace appears to have been one of those great American eccentrics, a loner interested more in proselytizing than in cranking out mainstream product, but who knew his fat sermon would sprout such legs? The Ben-Hur films could be seen as archetype for the whole sword-and-sandal genre that survives in Hollywood to this day — the revenge-motivated story arc serving projects like Braveheart and Gladiator surely originated with Ben-Hur — yet, when it was published in 1880, Wallace’s novel nearly sank without a tr...

Three pennies for your thoughts ... The play or operetta or musical – your call - known as The Three Penny Opera is something of a pivotal piece. It placed the low class, the Underworld, in an artistic light, which had been done before, but this was a very modern take on hopelessness, with expressionist vim and lights-out high culture alienation courtesy of Bert Brecht, and sweet sounding dolefulness courtesy of Kurt Weill. Gordon Thomas’ latest column on BrightLights reviews a new edition of the august Pabsts’ 1929 film of Three Penny. I saw this flick once. It was truly an early talkie.. and burdened thereof. The medium was not up to handling such a musical at that point I’d guess. Visually it was a murk too, not crisp, like, say Dr. Mabuse. But Gordon says things cleared up on this thanks to Criterion's new high-definition transfer. “Its clarity wondrous, its range of blacks and middle values simply gorgeous.” Bravo! The version I saw was like an old Kinescope. Is that a word? I...

Motto for year: On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. Doug's Pool Hall -Poem - 2.2006 Blues Reunion with Jim and Dave in SF -Journal - 2.2006 The Pogues, The Orpheum, Boston, Mar. 15, 2006 -Review - 3.2006 Cuttin’d’News - Judas: God’s Man in Judea? -Essay 4.2006 Hey what about punk music? -Essay 5.2006 Art of Jeff Hull - Review 5.2006 Dr. Shroud - In June and July, a series of .. er Fragments and -Drawings 6.2006 American Primitive Vol. 2, I Got a NuGrape, Soda Pop Art - Review - 6.2006 Ben-Hur Epic: Gordon Thomas goes long Review by Gordon Thomas - 7.2006 Filene and Steffens - Essay - 7.2006 Spysmasher Serial -Poem - 7.2006 One’s 2 many…and a hundered’s not enough Ruetz and Co take NY - Journal - 8.2006 Dylan in Modern Times - Review - 9.2006 Dreamland Sea Bound A group grope - Group Poem Experiment - 10.2006 Long-buried Robert Junior Lockwood interview - Interview/Appreciation/Obituary - 11.2006

Well this week is another Dylan week, no question. Gordon Thomas - the man who not only played keyboards at my wedding but also took the photos as well -- pulled our coat to a New York Times story that uncovers the half suspected story of grafting done on Modern Times. We went through this with the Yazuka book and Love and Theft too.. Gordon Writes ... On Modern Times, Dylan sings: More frailer than flowers, these precious hours/That keep us so tightly bound On hearing these lines, I thought, well, that’s like something from an old poem, isn’t it, and, now, this just in from the NYTimes (9/14/06): Dylan’s lines are from an old poem. More precisely from Henry Timrod’s Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night: A round of precious hours/Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked/And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers No big surprise, not after hearing of the borrowings, on Love & Theft, from an obscure, but recent and copyrighted, Japanese book on the Yakuza culture. Timrod d...

Gordon Thomas writes:  While Criterion’s catalog of Fellini films is very deep, their recent Blu-ray edition of  Fellini Satyricon  is a latecomer. But no matter; it’s here, and it’s wonderful. The film is not the Fellini favorite for many – nor is it for this writer – but I’m very grateful for its arrival. There are plenty of reasons to appreciate now what was considered, at its release, the director’s folly, and just as many reasons these days to ask questions of it..... Read the whole story.....on Bright Lights site. Related Satyricon Trailer Revisite d - MoonTravellerHerald - I recently saw the Criterion Satyricon Gordon discusses, and it all came back to me..that is the nausea I felt during the first 20 or so minutes.

Gordon Thomas strikes! This time with a tome that can be read in a commute ... Gordon walks us through Bergman's tale of the time of the haunting of the Howlin WOlf, or as in the native tongue, D' Wolfen Biscuit Hour. A true view into this work by Bergmann - one of those death-haunted artists. read more  |  digg story

Gordon Thomas and me in the 1970s. Picture by David Hoffstetter. What did we do? Gosh, a monograph of Dylanology, a calendar with potato ink print, a hanging Groucho duck that said 'say the secret word,' a march with a giant paper mache squid down Hanover St., District 65 Union Posters .... most every day was some kind of art action.

I call this Sensible Bob because my friend Gordon Thomas said: What's with this guy being so sensible all of a sudden?" It is a wonder - wonderful we have it as he tells more about how he views art and business than in any one place. Bob Dylan's MusiCares person of the year acceptance speech begins: I'm glad for my songs to be honored like this. But you know, they didn't get here by themselves. It's been a long road and it's taken a lot of doing. These songs of mine, they're like mystery stories, the kind that Shakespeare saw when he was growing up. I think you could trace what I do back that far. They were on the fringes then, and I think they're on the fringes now. And they sound like they've been on the hard ground.  Full transcript Bob Dylan's MusicCares Person of Year Speech 2015 - LA Times And here's a neat addenda with Bill Flanagan - I was sure he was getting big laughs with the "Why Me Lord" stuff and this co...

Jeff Hull came by recently to check Jake’s portfolio. And we kind of looked at some of Jeff's own more recent stuff together. Which is on the Web via some shows he’s had in recent years. Now I am stuck as anyone reading this will agree with words. Which provide a poor translation of what goes on in true visual art. Here goes. Jeff Hull’s paintings transcend a life time; they cut through blue paradises of art think and explode, exotic, rich and watery. The ordinary world is here, and is seen in a universe of visual indications. Cells of modern mind float on the canvas, and one painting enters another. Images flop along side stones emanating molecular progressions. Color is all over the place, and you are on a magical ride. This art is feedback music in the domain of the eyeball. The sky, the ferns the beat. I see stories. I apply cut-up technique. The stuff pops up at you in spectral neural displays. Jeff’s objects comet forth. You attach what you bring. Ferns,...

This site hasn’t written about Bob Dylan for awhile. Here goes. He has a new mix out, 2008. His fave raves. Artists Choice: Bob Dylan – Music That Matters To Him . Came into some Starbucks, which is another story, but I said why buy a lot of coffee? So I go in there and buy a CD off the rack. From the Artists Choice series. Bob Dylan – Music That Matters To Zim. And unlike Theme Time Radio show, this has no theme. ‘Stuff I am listening to when you asked what I was listening to’ he explains as the selection criteria. Pee Wee Crayton, The Stanley Brothers, Sol Hoopi and others. Numbers, really. Good discs. Slick records. Unevenly: Life Like. ‘There are a lot of different ways a record can get under your skin,’ he tells Starbucks Entertainment. Anyway it was the best thing I ever got at a Starbucks. There is Pee Wee Clayton guitar intro the spitting image of Revolution by John Lennon and the Beatles. The sad café of Gus Visier French gypsy accordionist doing Flambee Montalbanaise (Valse)....

MUSIC THAT MATTERS TO ZIM - This site hasn’t written about Bob Dylan for awhile. Here goes. He has a new mix out, 2008. His fave raves. Artists Choice: Bob Dylan – Music That Matters To Him . Came into some Starbucks, which is another story, but I said why buy a lot of coffee? So I go in there and buy a CD off the rack. From the Artists Choice series. Bob Dylan – Music That Matters To Zim. And unlike Theme Time Radio show, this has no theme. ‘Stuff I am listening to when you asked what I was listening to’ he explains as the selection criteria. Pee Wee Crayton, The Stanley Brothers, Sol Hoopi and others. Numbers, really. Good discs. Slick records. Unevenly: Life Like. ‘There are a lot of different ways a record can get under your skin,’ he tells Starbucks Entertainment. Anyway it was the best thing I ever got at a Starbucks. There is Pee Wee Clayton guitar intro the spitting image of Revolution by John Lennon and the Beatles. The sad café of Gus Visier French gypsy accordionis...

“The Lord is subtle, but malicious he is not.” This inscription is ascribed to Einstein, said to bedeck a portal in his Princeton offices. It seems like a play on the quandary koan of whether or not God plays dice with the universe. Looking at this week’s news I would say, yes, the Creator has ceded to us a subtly mixed-up crazy world. But not a bad place. It was however a bad week for U. of Mich style Intelligent Design. On the other hand, Mr. Bad of All Time, Judas, is making a comeback. Page One, New York Times, Friday April 7 . The existence of a Gospel of Judas was known. I found reference to it in Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels’ learned and popular book of 2003. Discovered near El Minya in Egypt, it is here now on Page One after a 30 or 40 year journey [including 16 years in a Long Island safe deposit box]. In Pagel’s book, the reference to Judas Gospel is per Irraneus, the Father of the Church who cut off the Catholic gospel project at Four. He referred to this gospel to indicate ...