'Pilgrim's Progress' (1978) and 'Christiana' (1979)

Ken Anderson made two interesting film versions of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream (1678), parts one and two.  He streamlines and slightly alters the story lines and projects the "enemy of your soul" as a semi-comical but still-menacing Devil, aided by three imps in Christiana -- in the simple style of a Medieval morality play. 

Pilgrim's Progress has the whimsical production values of an episode of Captain Kangaroo, with significant improvements however in Christiana. 

What others might find laughable in technical shortcomings, I find endearing. 

Both movies were filmed in Northern Ireland. Liam Neeson's in his first big celluloid roles is fabulous, providing a calm, assuring presence while mellifluously delivering his lines.

Anderson adopts the use of one actor to play several characters -- the Devil in many guises, and the Good impulse in different people. 

Mr. Great-heart (Neeson) is akin to a bodhisattva (in Buddhism) -- he stays in the world to help people become more enlightened and reach their final goal on pilgrimage.  

Neeson also plays The Evangelist, Help, Mr. Good Will, Mr. Interpreter, Faithful, and even, as in a vision, Jesus Christ crucified. 

I also like Jenny Cunningham as Christiana -- a calm, sympathetic portrayal. Anderson uses her friend Mercy as a representative of the more typical person as she wobbles back and forth between good (moving toward self-actualization) impulses and bad ones (self-sabotage).

The use of one actor to play different characters is sometimes used as a device in soap operas and movies (including The Wizard of Oz), but in these two films Anderson goes full tilt, as if to say that many people are of the same archetype or disposition, avatars of forces "in the world but not of the world."  

What think ye of this strange device? 

Overall, these film "visualizations" are wonderful jaunts that can be seen through several filters ranging from psychology, theology, philosophy, folk tale and mythology. However, beware the creepy use of repetitive voiceover whisperings from time to time.  

Finally, to compare again with The Wizard of Oz, there is a difference in outlook.

Wizard of Oz: there's no place like home.
Pilgrim's Progress: there's no place like heaven.
Wizard of Oz: trek from tornadic whirlwind to the Emerald City.
Pilgrim's Progress: pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. 

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy awakens to herself as if from a dream, at home, with better self-understanding. 

In Christiana, Christiana says good-bye to friends and family and crosses the River of Death to reach the Celestial City, never to return.  

Today's Rune: The Warrior. 

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

Sean Egan's The Clash: The Only Band That Mattered (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield,2015).

Let's get into some of the nitty gritty. First, the links between reggae and punk. As Egan points out, reggae began to expand globally in the late 1960s and 1970s. One of the big watershed moments of broad consciousness-raising about the style came with The Harder They Come (1972), Perry Henzell's low-budget, mesmerizing Jamaican film starring Jimmy Cliff. "[R]eggae was sometimes a big influence on British punk bands either by osmosis (Johnny Rotten of The Sex Pistols had a long-standing love of the genre) or imitation . . . 'Police & Thieves . . . was The Clash's first foray into the medium, and an unexpected triumph" (pages 35-36).

Next, links with rap, starting in 1980: "'The Magnificent Seven' wasn't quite the first-ever rap recording by a white artist: Blondie's punningly titled 'Rapture' appeared . . . a month before the release of Sandinista!" Egon argues that "'The Magnificent Seven' was the first example of rap being used for social commentary. As it preceded . . . Grandmaster Flash's 'The Message' by two years, it could even be suggested that without [its example], hip-hop would not have embraced the political content from which it is now indivisible" (pages 146-147).

Backtrack, Mr. Egan. Let's not forget James Brown and tracks such as "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud" (1968), "Make it Funky" (1971), "Funky President (People It's Bad)" (1974) and so on. How about Sly & the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" (1969) and Gil-Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1970-1971)? And back through reggae channels again. Toss in tracks from The Rolling Stones ("Miss You," 1978), Kurtis Blow (1979) and The Sugarhill Gang (1979) and I'd say there's plenty of interplay to spread around, with political content ranging from broad to specific. (Most of these live on through sampling).

What's cool is how memory works: I can remember most of these songs without even playing them again, including virtually every track put out by The Clash. The only true challenge comes when recalling a small bit of music or lyrics, then trying to piece together the origin -- a sort of mix and match endeavor. Can you dig?

Onward!

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

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.  

Margarethe von Trotta: 'The Second Awakening of Christa Klages' (1978)

Margarethe von Trotta's Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages / The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978) is a beautiful gem of a film. First, it captures the Zeitgeist of the 1970s -- the spirit of the times: think Patty Hearst and the Baader-Meinhof, for example. This spirit pervades a crisis framework for the characters to move within, but the more surprising aspects of the film arrive through interdependent character development and social interaction that is refreshingly different from the more typical "buddy movie." 

Barely before The Second Awakening of Christa Klages is underway, two young men and the title character rob a bank in a most foolhardy manner; their ill-conceived notion is to help fund a sort of hippie school for little kids where Christa worked and has left her daughter for safekeeping. 

From this strange beginning, everyone is figuratively off to the races. One of them makes it to an idealistic collective in Portugal, but things don't end there. 

The strongest and more interesting characters in The Second Awakening of Christa Klages are three women and one man. Christa (Tina Engel) befriends the kind and thoughtful Pastor Hans Graw (Peter Schneider) and she also finds solace with Ingrid (Silvia Reize), a friend from the past. Finally, the mysterious Lena (Katharina Thalbach) works at the exchange bank Christa robbed and appears to be stalking her. 

Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages was director Margarethe von Trotta's first feature-length contribution to Der Neue Deutsche Film / the New German Cinema movement. The film print of the version I saw was washed out; it would be nice if this movie could be added to the Criterion Collection and given full honors. This is a cool indie film, different from most up to its time because of its special consideration of female characters. 

Today's Rune: The Self. 

Audition

At certain key points in our lives, we audition for roles we want or need: a part, a grant, a scholarship, a job, a loan, a promotion or transfer, a date or partner or friend of some kind, maybe a position in an organization. Given this fact and for other reasons, too, I find a lot of value in Michael Shurtleff's Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part (1978, 1980).

For now, a few snippets of Shurtleff's simple wisdom:

"It isn't necessary for you, the actor, to like yourself -- self-love isn't easy to come by for most of us -- but you must learn to trust who you are. There is no one else like you" (page 4 of 1980 edition).

"I counsel all actors: Control your hostility" (page 17).

"Every day, learn. Learn enough so that you can do good theatre" (page 257).

Michael Shurtleff (1920-2007), RIP.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

Go Tell the Spartans: Surrealistic Elements

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Let Ted Post's Go Tell the Spartans marinate a little and what new observations develop? Surrealistic bits rise to the top, for one thing. Take the opium-addled character, Corporal Abraham Lincoln (played by Dennis Howard). At one point in the film, he scrambles up the wooden watchtower at Muc Wa and regales the garrison with his own special version of presidential speechmaking, until a mortar round blows him off course.
  

Then there's the matter of the "river" and related white crosses. When the mixed Vietnamese and American detachment first arrives at the old French outpost at Muc Wa, we see them crossing a stream henceforth referred to as a "river." As they move equipment in and take charge of the place, one can see white crosses on the banks and even in the water, or so it seems. Are they real? No one in the film seems to notice; instead, two American soldiers discuss the formal French cemetery, its headboard inscribed with a French translation of a Greek memorial to the 300 Spartans killed at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. At Muc Wa when the 1964 troops arrive, there are 302 marked graves in the cemetery. Do these include the ones on the riverbank?  

 

On right: Sergeant Oleonowski (Jonathan Goldsmith) -- aka "The Most Interesting Man in the World!" Here, he's got on French-derived Tigerstripe camouflage and hand grenades ready to be thrown. See Dos Equis beer ads for more.             

Above: The Vietnamese Girl (aka Butterfly) and behind her, the Old Man with Ho Chi Minh beard. On the far right, "Cowboy." Each of these three Vietnamese characters has an important role to play, with twists along the way.  



One-eyed Jack -- actually referred to as "one-eyed Charlie." Is he real? Seems to be a veteran of the Viet Minh days, First Indochina War, survivor of the 1953 fighting at Muc Wa. Apparently he is a sort of wraith-like sentinel left to keep his one good eye on the post. In any case, he's there early and he's there late and he seems to be the one who leaves a message in the French cemetery that reads, more or less, "Yankee Go Home!"

Today's Rune: Journey.   

Go Tell the Spartans

Ted Post's Go Tell the Spartans (1978), adapted from Incident at Muc Wa, a 1967 novel by Daniel Ford, is from those I've seen the most thoughtful American feature film yet made about the US-Vietnam War. Its strong script overcomes a relatively low budget and production values that look more like something from a 1970s TV series such as M*A*S*H than a big-budget blockbuster like Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). In fact, the latter's budget was twenty times higher, yet Apocalypse Now is nowhere near as coherent and down-to-earth as Go Tell the Spartans.   

                                                                                                                                                             

Burt Lancaster stars in Go Tell the Spartans, and he's on top of his game as a crusty Korean War veteran charged with sending a motley Vietnamese and American detachment into the middle of nowhere to reoccupy an old French outpost last fought over in 1953, all on a whim of the high command. It's now 1964, well before the major US troop buildups, but the story arc serves as a microcosm of the larger war to come. And it includes Vietnamese soldiers and civilians as important characters, key to understanding the conflict -- doh!  Multiple perspectives -- something I love to see in a war movie. Go Tell the Spartans is the closest in US-Vietnam War movies to the best World War II movies, ones like Oliver Hirschbiegel's Der Untergang / Downfall (2004) and Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).   

                                                                                                                                                                   

Craig Wesson and Burt Lancaster as American soldiers, two of the strongest characters in Go Tell the Spartans. 

 

In Go Tell the Spartans, American GIs refer to the Vietnamese -- friend and foe alike -- as "dinks," "gooks," "Charlie" and "slopes." From the Viet Cong point of view, sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me. ARVN (South Vietnamese Army) soldiers are depicted as capable, though "Cowboy," their interpreter and de facto squad leader, "gets his jollies" torturing suspected VC and, in one instance, beheading a wounded enemy. Militiamen are poorly armed and remain in civilian clothes, but are seen as doing the best they can regardless. The only real foolishness, beyond a certain naïveté shared by several of the American GIs about the nature of the war unfolding, comes with the higher ups, both South Vietnamese and American. Unfortunately, Go Tell the Spartans could easily be updated to include the current Afghanistan War, with drones added. The more things change . . .

Today's Rune: Partnership.       

Roofball and Other Improvised Activities

Kids and teens would seem to be good at improvising activities, some of them improbable, outlandish, clever or plain silly -- at least to fully formed adults. Some activities that I thought to myself as of "no interest at all to me" even while growing up -- and still do -- have included B-boying aka breakdancing, skateboarding and "advanced frisbee." Add since reaching 21: skiing, rollerblading, skydiving and bungee jumping.

Still, it's amazing how little can entertain, or at least could before electronics took over. Kick the Can was and is simple, and can involve kids of all ages. Another, at least when I was a kid, was always called "German Guard:" a post-World War II version of Hide & Seek possibly inspired by Hogan's Heroes but maybe also The Great Escape. This was very similar to Kick the Can, too, come to think of it. Both used "Ally ally in come free," "olly olly oxen free" or whatnot to signal a turnover or end of game. You may have had a variation of one of these in your geographical locale(s) -- did you?

In school, we also embraced roofball, which was simple. Any number of people, usually guys, could assemble quickly outside any building with a sloped or angled roof, the higher the better. Only other thing needed was a tennis ball. Either in teams or everyone for themselves, one person batted the ball onto the roof and then someone else tried to either hit it on its return gravity drop, or variably, after one bounce, batted it back up to the roof. This continued until someone missed, which resulted in either a score or "sudden death." Sometimes, roofball was driven underground because considered "hazardous" or "disruptive." When that happened, we simply moved from the gym building to a field house down by the track and tenns courts. Here, roofball morphed into "tennis hand ball" -- tennis without rackets, with brutish punching or smacking the tennis ball across the net and back and forth, so long as no "real" tennis players were around to hog the courts.

How about your way? Have you ever played such ludicrous, wildly entertaining games or participated in any comparably improvised activities?  Did you stop such happy foolishness as an adult, or continue?

Today's Rune: Joy.
       

The Rolling Stones: Some Girls

Some Girls (1978) was the first new Rolling Stones release I really remember diving into headlong. The deluxe 2011 re-release contains the original album on one disc and a bunch of bonus tracks on another. More on the latter soon. The album itself is a wry and ribald masterpiece, a shorter, driving sequel to the Exile on Main St. double album (1972), with a comparable exploration of musical styles, including then-current ones. Though recorded in Paris, this is most definitely a New York City album. Love it -- sounds quite rough and rowdy, even more ideal for 2012 than it was for 1978. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

John De Bello, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978): one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and yet -- I liked it.  This crazy flick has long since achieved cult status for good reason. Every scene featuring a tomato, small, medium or large, rolling, flying or splatting, is precious. And you learn some important things about the irreverent Zeitgeist of the mid-1970s, even if it's mostly like an episode of Benny Hill gone awry -- if that's even possible. 

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes Inspires tracking down at least the first sequel: Return of the Killer Tomatoes! (1988), starring none other than John Astin and George Clooney.

Today's Rune: Protection.   

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.    

Writing Prompts: Some Days Are Smoother Than Others

Thank you, JR Tomlinson. More stuff is in the pipeline, but you left a comment on the last post, prompting this one.  Some shot-gun writing prompts most definitely go more smoothly than others. This one below is a complete mess, recounting (in 1979) how I lucked into tickets for The Rolling Stones Some Girls tour in 1978.

For some reason, over the years I have had a great deal of good luck with things Stones-related. This was the first time.

As for prompts, JR makes a good point: a lot of rough drafts are subjected to all sorts of on-the-fly editing, what Anne Lamott calls "the shitty first draft." Other times, things spring forth like immaculate conceptions or tiny smiling monsters.

This scrawled account gives some idea of how concert-goers had to acquire tickets pre-internet and cellphone era. The friend evoked was Marc Pinotti; a girlfriend at the time, Ariana B., was met through him.  Even then I was arguing with Republicans -- at that time, in defense of Jimmy Carter. The more things
change . . .

The actual Hampton Coliseum concert on June 21, 1978, was a wild experience, to which I'd conveyed other peeps as well -- including JC, Ken Randall and Scott Jones.  I was seventeen at the time.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

The Drive-In Movie Theater

"The Pickle Jar" (2009) episode of HBO's Hung has Ray Drecker taking Darby and Damon, his twin kids, to a Michigan drive-in movie theater wherein Darby runs into Hammer, her semi-flame, on a date with another girl. Besides the hilarity that ensues, it reminds me every time of the bigger footprint drive-ins used to have in the cultural landscape of the USA.

With my immediate family, I saw Bonnie & Clyde (1967), starring Faye Dunaway (very hot) and Bullitt (1968), starring Steve McQueen (very cool, with, let's not forget, Jacqueline Bisset) at drive-in theaters. With my aunt Sue, one of my sisters and a few others I saw the corny film The Norseman (1978) somewhere near Atlanta. It starred Lee Majors. This drop in big screen quality between late 60s and late 70s is a nice metaphor for the collapse of drive-ins as a mainstay generally. In high school, a car full of classmates and I would occasionally check out an exploitation film or a "blue" movie from time to time, but The Norseman may have been the last Hollywood style movie I ever saw at a drive-in, at least that I can specifically remember by title. How about you?

Today's Rune: Harvest

There's a Darkness on the Edge of Town

Real cool documentary: Thom Zimny's The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town (2010), shown recently on HBO. Having lived through many heavy discussions about Bruce Springsteen (and the E Street Band), including anything you could imagine about Born to Run and the release of Darkness on the Edge of Town, I totally dug this, the footage, insights, intensity, all of it. Really good.

If you like any of the Boss, what tracks, what albums? For me, that'll have to be another post. But I will say this: several tracks (including the title song) from Darkness on the Edge of Town have stuck with me since 1978, especially after criss-crossing North America.  

The Promise will be released on November 16, 2010: twenty-one extra tracks from the Darkness sessions, including songs that became hits for other artists right off the bat in 1978: "Fire" (The Pointer Sisters, after Robert Gordon) and "Because the Night" (The Patti Smith Group). You can also go for this one: The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story (3 CD/3 DVD box set) that'll be released the same day as The Promise, along the lines of all the excitement revolving around the various incarnations, new and old, of The Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main St."

Today's Rune: Journey.

James R. Tomlinson Interview: Part 1

A fellow leftie, James R. Tomlinson (also known as Jim Tomlinson and JR Tomlinson), author of Adopted Behaviors (Motor City Burning Press, 2010) and other works, graciously agreed to conduct a written interview recently. Part 2 will follow tomorrow, with hyperlinks.

Erik: Give us some background on your life.

Jim: I’m not sure where to begin. I made my first appearance in this world in 1963 at the Bad Axe Hospital in Michigan’s Thumb. I was breech born. I came into the world feet first. I’m not sure why this is important, but for some reason I feel it set my trajectory in life. Also, I’m what some people would call an “evil” left-hander. As for my childhood, I can’t complain. My father, an autoworker, taught me how to ride motorcycles and snowmobiles as well as how to handle a gun. I still have my 1978 “Successful Michigan Deer Hunter” patch. I’ll never forget the feeling of shooting something bigger than me. Sleet Magazine published a flash memoir of my first hunting experience under their Irregular section; it sums up my memories of those impressionable years. Susan Solomon, the editor, said it reminded her of Lionel Dahmer’s “A Father’s Story.” I’m just glad my days of killing wild animals didn’t escalate into something far worse.

As for my career, I never planned on being a prison educator. I believe an accumulation of small events led me to where I am today. My grandfather used to tell me stories about working with trustees at Jackson Prison’s old farm system, how the trustees would disappear for short stretches of time to get friendly with the animals. It’s always the abuse of animals and unsavory characters that I remember. I work with plenty of unsavory characters. There are days where, like Davy Rothbart (a former Michigan convict-teacher turned writer), I wish I’d made a clean break from the concertina-wires and gun towers. Nineteen years is a long time to teach the unteachables. I’d like to think of myself as a civilized father-figure giving advice to a bunch of Dexters, someone trying to teach convicts how to uncomplicate their lives, how to reconnect with their positive side. My teaching practices may be a bit unorthodox but how else do you teach a serial killer?

End Part 1.

Today's Rune: The Self.  RIP, Tony Curtis and Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde).

Life. Space. Boundary. Zone.

It's been a decade since the release of Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, thirty-two years since Hubert Selby, Jr.'s original novel version came out. Powerfully bleak, bleakly powerful. One way to look at them both is through the lens of Kurt Lewin's (1890-1947) force field concept. In motion, a person projects life space toward a goal (in pursuit of happiness, stability, power, peace or whatever) and arcs across helping or hindering forces at the boundary zone. The four unfortunate main characters in Requiem drive toward a fantastic (or mundane) goal, only to spiral downward due to "hindering forces." 













But what exactly are hindering forces? A person can be "his own worst enemy" in a lot of ways.  There are also enemies and rivals, real or imagined; there is bad luck and accident or illness or addiction; laziness; situational constraint; indifference; lack of imagination; "vegetable torpor" (a Woody Allen quip); timidity, temerity; reality disconnect -- "living in a dream world."  Hence the need for a requiem.  And let's not forget epic catastrophe and in the "we all get there in the end" department -- mortality. After losing the dream, a requiem for the corpus. Our corpus, our dream.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

The Runaways: Coming March 19

By the time I got to the early free screening of The Runaways, it was already booked to capacity. In fact, for a 7:30 p.m. showing, people had already camped out by Noon. The above image is of a movie card a security guard let me take at the perimeter. Instead, ended up seeing An Education, which is excellent. More on that soon, as well as The Runaways, which I now aim to see at the weekend.  Looks really good.

Today's Rune:  Joy.

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.

Truth in Fiction II: The Norseman

Seeing the old drive-in last weekend in San Antonio reminded me of one of the last movies I saw at a drive-in theatre (near Atlanta, of all places): The Norseman (1978), starring Lee Majors, Jack Elam, Mel Ferrer, Cornel Wilde, Susie Coelho and Deacon Jones (football!) and written, produced a directed by Charles B. Pierce; then-secret executive producers: Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett.

The Norseman is absurd, but the premise of Viking/Norsemen encounters with "the Iroquois" (even if depicted in ridiculously anachronistic garb) is not quite so far-fetched. The Vikings did, after all, come to what is now North America hundreds of years before any other Europeans, and they did have extended encounters with the people already there.

Between archaeological finds and genetic tracking, we'll find out a lot more in due time, no doubt. Was there a major disease exchange ca. 1000 A.D.? Did knowledge of these early encounters spread in many directions? If so, how far, and to what effect?

Folks, hard to get cheesier than this trailer:

Coming soon: Spanish forts in the interior of what is now North Carolina -- two hundred years before the American Revolution.

History keeps evolving, and myths keep dissolving. Still, many outdated notions stubbornly persist, thanks in part to certain grade school texts and plain dumb politics, I guess.

Today's Norseman Rune: Wholeness. Happy May Day!

What Are We Doing Here?

Why on Earth was I remembering late 70s bands like Pere Ubu* and John Vomit & the Leather Scabs? Is this "Spring Forward" jet lag? And why, as we get older, do so many of us remember so many more details about our younger days? Look at Philip Roth, going back to his childhood days in The Plot Against America (2004), and so on. Well, the answer's probably obvious when the world today seems to suck, even with a cool president and all that jazz. Just natural, I guess. Takes a lifetime to absorb half a lifetime; may have to get to the rest of those memories on the other side.

God bless Debbie Harry, is all I can say now.

Today's Rune: Defense. *Pere Ubu is still in the mix; their album The Modern Dance (1977-1978) is one of my faves from the late 70s -- utterly wild and different.