Words and music and moving pictures
Oct. 17th, 2013 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWe went to two more Book Festival events over the weekend. On Friday evening we heard Gillian Allnutt and Peter Bennet reading in St. Chad's College chapel: two fine and contrasting poets, Peter all dream-like almost-narrative flow, Gillian pared-down precision (the right word, the right pause), and a venue that was new to me, a sort of ecclesiastical garden shed from the outside, a richly decorated chapel within. On Saturday there was Crime in the Afternoon, a conversation between Ann Cleeves (a friend of some standing) and Linwood Barclay (who I had never heard of, wasn't attracted to the promotional material, but warmed to in person and was intrigued by his pitch for his latest book), kept in order by Peter Guttridge, with great good humour. So that was fun.
Yesterday we went to the Sage to hear Stefan Grossman playing country blues guitar: about which I know only that it's the stuff that Stefan Grossman plays when he's playing that stuff, the stuff he learned from Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt when he was in his teens. And lovely stuff it is, too, played with power, dexterity and great warmth of tone. But I was thinking, too, about some of the other styles I've heard him play, over the years, remembering the first time I saw him, at the folk club in Old Harlow. He was remembering those days too, talking about his first trip to England, some time in the 60s, when he stayed with Tom Gilfellon's parents in Stanley. He must have played Harlow quite soon after that, because he was still struggling to process Mrs Gilfellon's offer to knock him up in the morning. Some of what I heard him play that first time he played again on Sunday (Candy Man, Creole Bell), but what I particularly remember from back then is that Stefan Grossman is the first person I ever heard play ragtime, and that's what I've been looking for on YouTube. So here's a young Stefan Grossman playing Dallas Rag, here's The Entertainer - and for a little variety, here's Elizabeth Cotton playing Vestapol.
Programming at the Gala cinema tends to be very mainstream, and they don't often show anything I want to see. You wait months for a movie you fancy, and then two come along together. So we've been to the pictures twice this week, on two successive days - I can't remember the last time that happened.
Tuesday lunchtime was Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. I've seen too many Dylan albums greeted as 'a return to form' to get my hopes up when Blue Jasmine was reviewed in those terms - but it is an interesting and entertaining movie. Jasmine's a monster, of course, and I was appalled and fascinated by her without entirely believing in her - and then began to think about how she got to be that way, the adoptive parents who had treated two daughters so differently, the absence of psychiatric support for someone who walks the streets talking to herself... The parental guidance notes on the film certificate, incidentally, warns of veiled references to sex and suicide, but doesn't remark on the constant self-medication with xanax ans Stolichnaya.
Yesterday's film was Sunshine on Leith, a feelgood musical which does for the Proclaimers what Mamma Mia did for Abba: takes their back catalogue and hangs a plot of sorts onto the songs. I like the Proclaimers, so that was fine by me. And the Edinburgh tourist board must have been delighted: lots of footage of the city looking gorgeous (Leith barely gets a look in: a quick pan over at the beginning, but once we reach Edinburgh we stay there. Who wouldn't?).
Yesterday we went to the Sage to hear Stefan Grossman playing country blues guitar: about which I know only that it's the stuff that Stefan Grossman plays when he's playing that stuff, the stuff he learned from Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt when he was in his teens. And lovely stuff it is, too, played with power, dexterity and great warmth of tone. But I was thinking, too, about some of the other styles I've heard him play, over the years, remembering the first time I saw him, at the folk club in Old Harlow. He was remembering those days too, talking about his first trip to England, some time in the 60s, when he stayed with Tom Gilfellon's parents in Stanley. He must have played Harlow quite soon after that, because he was still struggling to process Mrs Gilfellon's offer to knock him up in the morning. Some of what I heard him play that first time he played again on Sunday (Candy Man, Creole Bell), but what I particularly remember from back then is that Stefan Grossman is the first person I ever heard play ragtime, and that's what I've been looking for on YouTube. So here's a young Stefan Grossman playing Dallas Rag, here's The Entertainer - and for a little variety, here's Elizabeth Cotton playing Vestapol.
Programming at the Gala cinema tends to be very mainstream, and they don't often show anything I want to see. You wait months for a movie you fancy, and then two come along together. So we've been to the pictures twice this week, on two successive days - I can't remember the last time that happened.
Tuesday lunchtime was Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. I've seen too many Dylan albums greeted as 'a return to form' to get my hopes up when Blue Jasmine was reviewed in those terms - but it is an interesting and entertaining movie. Jasmine's a monster, of course, and I was appalled and fascinated by her without entirely believing in her - and then began to think about how she got to be that way, the adoptive parents who had treated two daughters so differently, the absence of psychiatric support for someone who walks the streets talking to herself... The parental guidance notes on the film certificate, incidentally, warns of veiled references to sex and suicide, but doesn't remark on the constant self-medication with xanax ans Stolichnaya.
Yesterday's film was Sunshine on Leith, a feelgood musical which does for the Proclaimers what Mamma Mia did for Abba: takes their back catalogue and hangs a plot of sorts onto the songs. I like the Proclaimers, so that was fine by me. And the Edinburgh tourist board must have been delighted: lots of footage of the city looking gorgeous (Leith barely gets a look in: a quick pan over at the beginning, but once we reach Edinburgh we stay there. Who wouldn't?).
