Vladimir Menshov: 'Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears' (1980)

Vladimir Menshov: Москва слезам не верит / Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980). Extra hip factor: watched and discussed by Claudia, Elizabeth and Paige in FX's The Americans (Season 6, Episode 3, first aired on April 11, 2018).

It's 1958. Antonina, living in a Moscow worker's dorm with her friends Katerina and Lyudmila/Liudmilla, soon marries Nikolai and moves with him to the country. We next follow the antics of the other two through thick and thin.

Part 2 jumps ahead twenty years, to near the end of the 1970s. We drop in on the three comrades and see where they're at, following them into a new cycle.

A marvelous gem of a movie, providing insight into Russian cultural norms and the state of the Soviet Union at two points in its history. One cannot help but compare and contrast gender, socio-economic class, manners and outlook with other societies then and now. Both fascinating and entertaining.

A presidential note from 1985:

"Reagan Is Urged to See a Film

In the meantime, White House officials said, Mr. Reagan continues to read background memorandums prepared by Government experts on the Soviet Union. They cover everything from the personalities of Soviet leaders, Russian history, culture, foreign trade, internal economic situation and the like.

The officials said they continued to search for ways to give Mr. Reagan a ''feel'' for Soviet life and were considering asking him to watch a Soviet film or two. One possibility is the film titled ''Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears,'' a tale of three young women who come to Moscow in the late 1950's with hopes and dreams and what became of them."

From: Leslie H. Gelb, "THREE PAST PRESIDENTS MAY BRIEF REAGAN," The New York Times, November 5, 1985. Link here.

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Permanent Vacation' (1980)

Permanent Vacation (1980): the first completed effort by Jim Jarmusch, a rudimentary one shot on a shoestring budget, telegraphs his future batch of films. 

I found it interesting and fun, whereas most "regular people" would probably find it aimless and pointless. Permanent Vacation serves partly as a semi-documentary tour of bits of the New York City cityscape in the late 1970s -- shabby and in disarray.

Ali (Chris Parker), the main character, would be quite comfortable in 2018 America as a millennial man-child: weird and awkward, without much ambition or drive other than to do whatever he wants without much cash on hand, slightly brain-damaged in his social interactions. He does muster up enough energy to steal a car for $800 in cash -- hardly something to write home about. 

He seems to drift away from his pseudo-girlfriend after examining the architectural ruins of an area "bombed" by "Chinese" in a some fantasy war where he also happened to stumble on a homeless veteran of the US-Vietnam War.

Ali considers seeing a hip film and interacts with a nodding junkie jazz hepcat, with the final scene from Sergio Leone's Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo / The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (1966) playing in the background, just barely audible (one of the strangest touches of the entire movie).

Earlier, Ali and his pseudo-girlfriend read from Les Chants de Maldoror / Maldorer's Lay (1868-1869) by Comte de Lautréamont.

Permanent Vacation is a prototype of more "fully realized" Jarmusch films, more like Bohemian bits of flash fiction or poems loosely strung together than a longer work.  

Today's Rune: Warrior. 

Sean Egan's 'The Clash: The Only Band That Mattered' (2015) - Take One

Sean Egan's The Clash: The Only Band That Mattered (2015) takes an energetic look at the band and its arc. As in another one of my all-time favorites for this kind of book --England's Dreaming, Revised Edition: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond by Jon Savage (St. Martin's, 2002) -- The Clash advances its primary subject across a very comprehensible historical setting. There is thoughtful discussion of the band, its music, paramours, technology, market shifts, vinyl record types and changes in attitudes and reception. It's all in. 

Now that we've been rambling through the first bits of the 21st century, in the USA you can hear music of The Clash being played in supermarkets, bars, restaurants, drugstores, shoe stores, and on digital radio (as I have recently noticed in all these types of venues). Chances are, you will have heard or will hear one of the following tracks: 

"London Calling"
"Rock the Casbah"
"Should I Stay or Should I Go?" (performed live on Saturday Night Live at one point)
"Train in Vain" 

Chances are, you are not hearing one of the following rather more incendiary tracks in public market places:

"Clampdown"
"I'm So Bored with the USA"
"London's Burning"
"Lost in the Supermarket"
"Police on My Back"
"Spanish Bombs"
"White Riot" 

In England, there will be a different public set list, though since the internet came of age, such national market differences have become at least a little less distinctive.

(To be continued . . .)

Today's Rune: Wholeness.  

Jeremy Marre's Kokombe: Nigerian Music

Jeremy Marre's Kokombe: Nigerian Music (1980) gives us a fascinating glimpse into the fruitful and sometimes harrowing Nigerian music scene of the 1970s. From this distance especially, it's pretty easy to see cross-cultural influences at play, Nigeria's impact on American and European music and the reverse flow. I remember many of these beats starting in the 1980s: original work by King Sunny Adé (b. 1946), Fela Kuti (1938-1997), talking drums, hypnotizing rhythms, brassy punctuation, and a generally cool sound that still feels both familiar and new. 

There are some crazy scenes in this documentary, ranging from Fela Kuti boxed in with multiple wives (27 by one count) because of his opposition to the Nigerian government -- in the words of Dorothy Parker, "what fresh hell is this?" -- to a mass shallow river-fishing scene featuring hundreds of men with nets and clay jars plunging into the water to the sound of Islamic drummers in northern Nigeria; a blind beggar drummer-singer working for alms; and the Lijadu Sisters, twins (b. 1958, pictured here), dealing with all sorts of obstructions because of their gender.  

Marre's remarkable Beats of the Heart series is available in the USA on DVD -- I was able to find this one via Netflix, and ordered another one for purchase online. Individual film names seem to vary slightly, but the gist is the same.

Today's Rune:  Fertility.   

The English Beat: I Just Can't Stop It

Very pleased to note tonight's upcoming show at the Granada Theater, 3524 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, Texas: The English Beat. Last time I saw them or any of their successor bands (General Public comes to mind) was in the 1980s. This is exactly the kind of venue I like for seeing "medium" scale live shows -- with about a 1,400 person capacity, in a building that dates to just after the Second World War.  

Seems like yesterday, picking up a vinyl copy of I Just Can't Stop It (1980), back in Chapel Hill. I'm still digging it!  This one hit number three in the UK -- but only #142 in the USA.

Today's Rune: Wholeness.    

Argo

Ben Affleck's Argo (2012) does great work in conveying the sense of dread and volatility surrounding the Iranian Revolution (1979-present) and American and Canadian diplomatic staff trapped in country in late 1979 and early 1980. Beyond this scary milieu, the added excitement is seeing plans conceived and then attempted to extricate six of the Americans without them being killed or imprisoned. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Added bonus: learning a little more about the situation then as backdrop to events in 2012 and right on down the pike through 2013 and beyond.

Argo stars Affleck (as CIA operative Tony Mendez), Alan Arkin, John Goodman and Bryan Cranston, among a solid ensemble cast. As additional dramatic backdrop to the events shown in the film, there's Senator Teddy Kennedy's democratic primary challenge to President Jimmy Carter, blamed by Carter himself for his ultimate defeat in the 1980 general election. Kennedy later went on to defeat challenger Mitt Romney in the Massachusetts senatorial race in 1994. Indeed, the ghost of Ted Kennedy (1932-2009) hovers over both Argo and the 2012 presidential election.  

Here's an image of a stamp depicting the original Argo, the mythical ship that transported Jason and the Argonauts during their search for the Golden Fleece. Orpheus went along and saved the crew from the deadly song of the Sirens by playing his own music over them. Orpheus again?  Oh, yes. Argo/argos is derived in its Greek origins from something like "shining," last I checked.

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Yesterday's Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder

Especially since a teen and starting with Johnny Carson, I've occasionally watched late night talk shows most of my life. In the late 1970s and early 80s, I'd come across Tom Snyder's Tomorrow. Now as a little treat, I've been catching some of his interviews with musicians from those years compiled on a two-disc set released in 2006. Snyder sits back with his seventies' vibe, smoking cigarettes and coaxing his guests. The set is intimate, cameras drawn close and tight -- nothing like the glitz of the bigger programs then or now; Shatner's Raw Nerve is the only really comparable venue like it that I can think of, though Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley take a similar approach. 

So far, Patti Smith (in 1978) has described Johnny Carson as a "human parachute," landing safely on his feet after gaffes and missteps. She is strange and adorable with Tom, who likes her. Then on another night, in an interview I remember having seen at the time in Chapel Hill: Snyder in 1980 sparring with John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) and Keith Levene of Public Image Ltd., which they describe as "a company," not a band. Finally, guest host Kelly Lange (now a novelist) interviews the Ramones -- and they also play a few songs. Great stuff -- raw and entertaining. Iggy Pop and more still to watch. 

Today's Rune: Joy.    

Bad Hair

Third time's a charm: saw No Country for Old Men (2007) on a screen large enough to pick up more of the Coen Brothers' meticulous attention to detail.  Thoroughly enjoyed it -- the story, the framing and themes including luck, fortune, fate, and the sometimes shifty nature of both good and evil.  It's a pleasure when artists can pull off the subversion of easy expectations and formulas with seeming ease. Source novel: Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men (2005). Title source: William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium" (1926, 1928).

Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.  












Javier Bardem as the "ultimate badass," a relentless hitman with memorably bad hairdo -- Anton Chigurh. The film is set in 1980 along the Texas-Mexican border.  

Today's Rune:  Breakthrough.  

Mount St. Helens, 1980

I remember May 18, 1980. At the time and after a lengthy stint in Mexico, Catherine J. Currier (my maternal grandmother) lived in Vancouver, Washington, maybe forty miles away from Mount St. Helens as the crow flies. Soon after the sucker blew its top, the volcano began dropping ash on her abode for quite a little while.  A couple years later, when my sister Linda and I drove out there to see her, we saw the devastation around Mount St. Helens for ourselves -- I remember Blondie's aptly-named "Atomic" was playing on the tape deck when we got to the observation post. It most definitely looked as if an atomic bomb had razed the area.

Anyone who ever heard the story must surely remember the incorrigible octogenarian Harry R. Truman, who'd refused to leave and perished on May 18; just the day before, he'd said:  "I had some people ask me why the hell I stayed, what I be doing up there. That's my life -- Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens -- my life, folks, I lived there fifty years -- it's a part of me. That mountain and that lake is a part of Truman. And I'm a part of it." -- And so he was, and so he remains.









Ash cloud from Mount St. Helens. Some of it fell on parts of Oklahoma, and some circled around the entire globe in a matter of two weeks and a day.













Cover of a library book that triggered the memory -- not to mention that it's the thirtieth anniversary this year, 1980-2010. 

Today's Rune: Journey.

Cameras Without Action

I remember Civil Defense signs and stockpiles in lots of places; there was, specifically, a cache beneath Duke University's Perkins Library, where some pals and I filmed, using the tunnels for a short science fiction piece that remains raw and unedited decades later.







Today, we're more likely to be responding to broken infrastructure and big accidents than a massive thermonuclear exchange -- which is plenty bad enough anyway, thank you very much.













Energy conservation, more efficient use of what we've already got -- it can be done. It has been done. It will be done again -- when there's the will for it.  This is a US Government Printing Office poster from WWII: "Have You REALLY Tried to Save Gas by Getting Into a Car Club?"  We did  -- in the 1970s. 













What more to say than "Victory Waits on YOUR
Fingers --"   Whatever that means . . .  Type away-- "Keep 'em Flying, Miss U.S.A."   From Michigan lately, I hear.

Finally, Graham Parker and the Rumour from 1980: "Stupefaction" (The Up Elevator), Surely many are feeling the same way right about now.  Turn up the volume -- nothing seems to matter! 



Today's Rune: The Self.

The Future Is Now and We Are in Shock

I remember reading Alvin Toffler's Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980) and even though he well-prophesied "information overload" and all sorts of other things, it's one thing to muse about the future as a kid, another thing entirely to live in it, yesterday's future, as an adult. Anyone remember those ads from decades ago, "At Honeywell, the Future is Now"?  The rest of the world has caught up with yesterday's Honeywell. That Future is Now.



In case anyone's forgotten (older folks) or has no clue (callow youth), technology has gone miniature in just the past thirty years. Here's the beginning of the arc.  Check out this IBM TV ad for its 5100 portable computer (1977): "it weighs about fifty pounds."  Can you imagine lugging this thing around everywhere?

Below: MAC ad -- "You'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."   No, 1984 will be 26 years in the past, and counting, never to return. 



Any surprises? Internet for global communications? Going digital? Cell phones? Wireless? Still having coal mine collapses and oil spills after all these years?  Every day above ground is a good day . . . (and by the way, Alvin Toffler is now 82 and still very much kicking).

Today's Rune: The Self.    

Remain in Light

Talking Heads peaked in the early 1980s and this is exactly when I got to see them do a show in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Problem is, I can't remember the year they played, let alone the month or day. There seems to be no internet trace yet, nor lipstick traces. This will have to suffice. JC remembers being there, too -- I think. In any case, Remain in Light is powerful and different. It holds up very well these brief thirty years later. Been listening to it over and over again for days, on shuffle.  In trying to recount the Carmichael show, it came to me that Tom-Tom Club opened, right?  Well, it definitely is true that Talking Heads had a syncopated slide show going, tossing up words and images for association; that was way cool.  As for anything else, I'll have to rake through various journals from the early 80s and hope for the best . . . Has anyone else reading this seen Talking Heads or any of the associated spinoffs?

Verdict: Remain in Light remains hip and groovy, even more so now. It features the globalized Talking Heads crew plus the ambient coolness of Eno and Adrian Belew, two dudes interesting in their own right.

Today's Rune: Partnership.

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: A Return

Some cool items to check out: Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts from the 1950s and the Byrne-Eno collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)  -- plus remastered edition (2006).  

Hard to believe it's getting on thirty years since these first blew my mind . . . or that I was still a teenager at the time . . . In any case, think world beat, global, Earth Day, rhythms, beats, backloops, eeriness, dreamscapes  . . . all perfect for long distance night driving, among other things . . . I'd love to see feedback from anyone else familiar with these artscapes . . .

Today's Rune: The Self.

Iggy Pop: "I'm a Conservative"

From Soldier (1980), the mordant Iggy Pop album that often cheers me up, and helped get me through the Reagan-Bush years: "I'm  a Conservative."

Sample lyric snippets:

Hello my friends
Is everybody happy?
Hey look me over
Lend me an ear
I'm a conservative

And when I run out of bread I laugh
All the way to the bank
Sometimes I pause for a drink
Conservatism ain't no easy job

I smile in the mornings
I live without a care
Nothing is denied me
And nothing ever hurts

And it would mean so much to me
If you would only be like me . . .



Later that same year, Ronald Reagan won the presidential election; the next year, he declared, "It's Morning Again in America." What does that make it now, in 2010?

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Atlanta: The Kinks, 1980

It was a great joy to see the Kinks in excellent form.  Their impact runs deep into other bands and artists, no question. Ray Davies, the brooding genius, his brother Dave with the frenetic guitar, the rest of the band.

The Fox Theatre in Atlanta, seating fewer than 5,000 people,  a majestic venue right out of One Thousand and One Nights. The show: October 20, 1980. The price of admission: $9.75.  My sister Linda was doing archaeological fieldwork on the new MARTA line at the time.













The Kinks were touring behind One for the Road (1980), a nifty live album that captures the time. God save the Kinks!

Today's Rune: Signals.

Greensboro: The Who, 1980

The Who at Greensboro were LOUD. Knowing their reputation for HIGH VOLUME going in, I brought ear plugs and am still glad I did. They played on all cylinders -- at the top of their post-Keith Moon game. Kenney Jones was the drummer. John Entwistle has since died (in 2002), so the only original Who members left to play the Super Bowl on Sunday will be Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend. I'll be curious to see how they do. In any case, the Greensboro show was only about seven months after the Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum show during which eleven fans were trampled to death. I kept my eyes on the crowd as well as the band.

The Greensboro Coliseum show of July 13, 1980 ($12.00 "PLUS $.25 OUTLET HANDLING CHARGE"), is or has been available in bootleg audio form.  Billy Squier opened and was also loud, keynoting his Tale of the Tape (1980) album. 

The Who played:

Substitute
I Can't Explain
Baba O'Riley
My Wife
Sister Disco
Behind Blue Eyes
Music Must Change
Drowned
Who Are You
5.15 (one of the coolest of the set)
Pinball Wizard
See Me Feel Me
Long Live Rock (also one of the coolest)
My Generation
I Can See For Miles
Naked Eye
Won't Get Fooled Again
Encore:
Relay
The Real Me

Good luck to the survivors and newer members -- and to the Saints -- at the Super Bowl.  And for God's sake, please avoid wardrobe malfunctions . . .

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Between The Who & The Who

The Who will perform the Super Bowl XLIV halftime show on February 7.  I remember being nineteen and very excited to see them play -- in 1980.  In fact, because of the ticket stub, I can report that show as having taken place on July 13, 1980, at the Greensboro Coliseum and man, they were damned good, not to mention ear-splitting loud.  No age jokes in any direction  -- folks, I was quite alive and kicking during Super Bowl I . . . Long live rock!

Between their times as The Who and again as The Who, the band briefly went by the name The High Numbers;  here's their hepcat Mods vs. Rockers anthem of that summer in 1964, "Zoot Suit."  Among  other places, it appears on the Quadrophenia (1979) soundtrack, a movie I saw at a theatre in North Carolina.  Also saw The Kids Are Alright (1979) around the same time, in Durham.



Today's Rune: Wholeness. This one's for my brother Jamie, who turned forty recently . . .

Bowie

David Bowie turns 63 years old on January 8.  This birthday salute gives him, the Thin White Duke, a jump on Elvis, the King, since they share one tomorrow.

Bowie is different from the typical rock star, in many ways a pioneer, an explorer, but also, consciously, an artist, sometimes pop, sometimes not.  A more specific comparison/contrast with Elvis is not necessary, however. 

Any favorite Bowie tracks or albums out there? One of my post-70s favorites:

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.  Happy Birthday, Mr. Bowie.

Elvis Costello: Oliver's Army is Here to Stay

Elvis Costello: A Singing Dictionary (1980) covers his first five albums, 1977-1980. My copy is a little tattered from lugging around over the years and it's been supplanted by the internet, remaining as an artifact of old school publishing.

The first three albums are still priceless. Things started brimming over with Get Happy! and Taking Liberties -- almost too much too fast to absorb at the time.  And except for Blood & Chocolate (1986), it's been that way ever since.

From the Get Happy!! album, I dig especially "Clowntown is Over" and from Taking Liberties, "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chlesea" and "Crawling to the U.S.A."

Most recently, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with . . .  is a cool show aired in the US on Sundance, featuring diverse musical guests ranging from Bill Clinton to Lou Reed.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Dr. Gene Scott: God's Angry Man

Dr. Gene Scott and his University Network. Fun to watch, this guy was a real character. Mostly saw little bits of his shows, which ran 24 hours a day, in the 1980s (along with anybody else who wanted to watch); and in 1992 saw Werner Herzog's interesting little documentary about him, God's Angry Man (1980) at the Temple University's Cinematheque, which was a fantastic setting for checking out dozens of independent and international films, and was then located at Temple's Center City Campus in Philadelphia on Market Street.

For now, there's a website devoted to Gene Scott, and in the lower right corner of the main part, you can watch God's Angry Man, all 43 minutes of it (as of this posting):

http://www.godsangryman.com/

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).