Ruminations on Peter Falk and Bob Dylan and the human tendency to attach and find sameness in those we love as we externalize it and project it and more onto others. Here is the article in which i bare my soul and admit the embarassing truth about my true love for Peter Falk, better known as "Colombo" (Oh, that wavy hair....)
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/12/10/be-still-my-heart.html
Friday, December 09, 2005
the dark days of winter
I spent two hours today, after stupidly insisting i would go for "a drive" in a blizzard to take some photographs, i found myself stuck in various snowbanks, spinning my wheels and almost smashing into various poles and trees and other vehicles. I thank god i'm a good driver, for were it not for this simple fact, i am convinced that i or someone else would have been seriously injured... and no, i'm not exagerrating or making this up. It's that bad and with lightning too: who ever heard of lightning in a blizzard? in all my years, i've never heard of such a thing, but then, maybe i'm limited to my own area and we just don't get that here.
Winter is full on and with it come the dark days and we find ourselves growing more depressed, harder to reach, more reclusive (why go out when we can hide behind the computer and we have all the nourishment we need). In fact, the only reason i can think of to go out is for cigarettes if you smoke and even then, i'm not sure i would bother.
I recently acquired a lightbox (oh, laugh all you want) - one of those things for people with Seasonal Affective Disorder, which i do not have, but have another condition which they felt it might help. Why not, i thought, just stare into it or have it touch my eyes while i'm working on the computer and it will be fine. The doctor warned me though, and quite seriously, But be careful, dear. People have been known to have high manic swings using lightboxes. High manic swings! You mean great periods of productivity and work when i can spit out article after article without nary a thought or trouble? This hardly seemed a bad thing - or to me anyway. It struck me as a rather good thing. It would ward off all of the crap that keeps us down in the winter. It would ward off my bad memories of last winter (she says with a shiver, both to the weather and the people involved at the time) and don't ask because it's a long and boring story.
But really, who would or could in their right mind complain about a feeling of euphoria, even if it is or would be manic. Sure, there are aspects of this that would be undesirable; mainly the lack of focus but hell, i could deal with that, couldn't you? it beats sitting around listening to obscure Moby songs, who i otherwise love, but in the winter, believe me, he can be depressing as all hell. Wouldn't it be nice to have all of our friend's around to play instead of listening to too much Elliott Smith, who again, i adore, just not when i'm in this winter-depressed and reclusive state. Even in this state of mind, i know it's not good for me. Even in my worst moments, i know better than to stay this way.
So with that, i encourage everyone to get a lightbox, and short of that, make your own by buying a light for plants at any hardware store and it supposedly does the same thing la meme chose, and get out there. Don't go driving in blizzards like i did, but do not allow yourself to become a Howard Hughes recluse. It's gotten to the point where although i am not saving my own piss in bottles, i am using way too much Purell hand-sanitizer whenever i go out and i keep forgetting to cut my toenails and i am in desperate need of something with my hair. How long can it be before i stop shaving my legs and go the full route and turn into a complete weirdo; i mean, i'm halfway there already with this recluse stuff and though i work extremely hard on external projects, that is not the same as genuine human contact which, truth to tell, i miss. I don't want to sit around watching Sylvia and reading her goddamn poetry, good as it may be at times. I don't want to think of what it would be like to tape your children in a room and stick your head in the oven on a tea-towel because although it's not something i'd ever do, it is something she did and it's something that i know far too much about from the death of one of my own siblings (in Winter, as it happens).
And so, it's a dark season. My prescription: listenn to French pop. Download some Charlelie Couture, Carla Bruni, MC Solaar, Daniel Levi, and others. Get into a different grove and get creative. You don't need a lightbox for a real upswing, though it helps (this much is true) but a lot of it is state of mind. Fight the good fight, and i'll fight with you.
Thanks for listening, and have terrific and happy holidays,
sadi ranson-polizzotti
the teaches of peaches . . . what have we learned?
Is Peaches that offensive? A friend tells me, most of his women friends find Peaches offensive, where as I on the other hand, find Peaches incredibly sexy and though yes, full of sex and raw and lacking in any subtlety, her music has that old Salt n Pepa “Push It” bump-n-grind thing going on that has been lacking much popular music for a long time. Or maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places, which I wouldn’t doubt. Or maybe it exists but just not on a par with what used to exist and certainly, Peaches wouldn’t have become such a phenomenon and so debated were she ordinary and did not stand about from the crowd.
What puzzles me and what I am trying to sort out, is what is so offensive about Peaches lyrics? Are we really so unfamiliar with the things she sings about? Can we really look in the mirror and say Shucks maam I’m so shocked?
In the film Lost in Translation Peaches the lyrics from “Fuck the Pain Away” are used as the backdrop for a seedy, strip-club club scene that features a pole dancing woman wearing nothing, or it would appear nothing except perhaps shoes, which is sort of perfect.
At the same time there seems to be a certain ironic thing going on here that perhaps is behind the less obvious choice of Peaches’ words and maybe Sofia Coppola knew that and got that or maybe she found the song offensive and so put it in the scene knowing that it would offend most people as the scene itself would make so many uncomfortable. Not that we don’t do these things, just that we don’t talk about them (especially in mixed company) so frankly. It’s “tactless” as someone said to me recently.
Perhaps there is something ironic about Peaches though. Perhaps we have her all wrong and when she sings, while yes, some of it is literal of course, some of it is intended to poke fun at something that she feels strongly about. The way she practically wails Fuck the Pain Away should tell us something, just as should her “Huh?” and her “What?,” sung or spoken in a kind of haze as if the singer were stupid or totally out of it, which she certainly isn’t from what we can tell because she comes roaring out of the gate at the end with her endless lines of “fuck the pain away” as noted. It’s almost as if we’ve been duped into thinking here is this little, kinda dopey, albeit perhaps a bit sleazy girl with no brain and who can be a toy for boys, when in fact, if anything it sounds like she has the situation under control.
For those who don’t know the lyrics, I’ll reprint them here, though I imagine there will be those who will have problems with the lyrics again, but still … I just don’t see it. It’s like her other song, I’m the Kinda Bitch, which here again, so what if I’m referred to as a bitch, or even the oh-gosh-so-dreaded-and-barb-intended-word, “cunt” which here again hardly makes me shiver. Well shiver me timbers! It’s too pathetic to even bother really addressing anymore than I already have. Words only have the power you give them. Just like people. You either give them the authority or you do not. Just turn your back on it and whatever.
Perhaps because I am a bit too jaded because where I’m from in Europe the word cunt is tossed about simply and without any real meaning associated specifically to women; at this point, it has lost that meaning and just means “it sucks.”. We say, “that’s a real cunt of a situation,” as in, “It’s a difficult situation, a real bear etc etc.” and so on, though perhaps a bit stronger. The other day a friend said to me, “This time thing is a real cunt” referring to his schedule which was overbooked. It didn’t strike me as particularly a big deal. Nor had it when, golly gosh, been directed at me or other women, been a hurtful thing, and though surely it was intended as such, the few times it was said are laughable. If that’s the best you can do, then that’s pathetic and more, anyone who feels the need to even bother with such insults or who has this much time on his or her hands must have a real cunt of a life.
The point is, too much of this stuff makes some women feel that they should somehow be embarrassed by things that are essentially for all intents and purposes normal. Let’s not forget that suckin’ on my titties as Peaches put it, is hardly something new to most of us, as is the rest of the song, it may sound “crude” as another friend said, but then, he’s of a different generation that didn’t grow up with this stuff the way we grew up with Salt n Pepa and Run DMC (remember them) and groups of this sort. Yes, we had our origins in Dylan, but now we’re also listening to Travis and The Flaming Lips and Adam Daniel and Evan Dando and so on.
Who knows. For my part, I find none of this offensive, and while there are things that are offensive, this is hardly one of them. The lyrics to “Fuck the Pain Away” are as below:
“Suckin' on my titties like you wanted me, Callin me, all the time like blondie Check out my chrissy behindIt's fine all of the time Like sex on the beaches, What else is in the teaches of peaches? huh? what? huh? right. what? uhh.”
and then onto repeat and the final. ”Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away.”
It’s an entirely different lyrical approach from “I’m the kind bitch that you wanna get with” a line from Peaches “I’m the kinda…” that really works because there is something, and I hate this word but it applies anyway, empowering about it. To flat out say, “I’m the kinda bitch that you wanna get with…” and more, takes, how do you put it here? ~ balls, right?
But why the need to ascribe such a masculine comparison – “it takes balls.” Why not, it takes “tits.” You never hear anyone say that. Granted, I used it but only to make the point; I can think of no feminine comparisons.
Why is calling someone “a little girl” an insult, and I admit, I’ve done it just because it is or was highly effective because so many people, especially a certain kind of person, associate being a little girl with weakness and all things bad (no, not all men, just a certain kind of man and generally a weaker one at that.) Why not call him, then, “a little boy” and why doesn’t that pack the same emotional wallop as the other? Why should either pack an emotional wallop is really the question and a good one. Since when did little girls become all things bad? Didn’t they used to make the world go round or something along those lines, or is that just a French thing, and don’t they get “bigger every day” and so we “Thank heaven, for little girls…” and then perhaps we all turn into women like Peaches? Not all, to be sure, but hey, in my book, kudos to those who do.
Perhaps we just take it all too literally and that’s the problem right there.
What puzzles me and what I am trying to sort out, is what is so offensive about Peaches lyrics? Are we really so unfamiliar with the things she sings about? Can we really look in the mirror and say Shucks maam I’m so shocked?
In the film Lost in Translation Peaches the lyrics from “Fuck the Pain Away” are used as the backdrop for a seedy, strip-club club scene that features a pole dancing woman wearing nothing, or it would appear nothing except perhaps shoes, which is sort of perfect.
At the same time there seems to be a certain ironic thing going on here that perhaps is behind the less obvious choice of Peaches’ words and maybe Sofia Coppola knew that and got that or maybe she found the song offensive and so put it in the scene knowing that it would offend most people as the scene itself would make so many uncomfortable. Not that we don’t do these things, just that we don’t talk about them (especially in mixed company) so frankly. It’s “tactless” as someone said to me recently.
Perhaps there is something ironic about Peaches though. Perhaps we have her all wrong and when she sings, while yes, some of it is literal of course, some of it is intended to poke fun at something that she feels strongly about. The way she practically wails Fuck the Pain Away should tell us something, just as should her “Huh?” and her “What?,” sung or spoken in a kind of haze as if the singer were stupid or totally out of it, which she certainly isn’t from what we can tell because she comes roaring out of the gate at the end with her endless lines of “fuck the pain away” as noted. It’s almost as if we’ve been duped into thinking here is this little, kinda dopey, albeit perhaps a bit sleazy girl with no brain and who can be a toy for boys, when in fact, if anything it sounds like she has the situation under control.
For those who don’t know the lyrics, I’ll reprint them here, though I imagine there will be those who will have problems with the lyrics again, but still … I just don’t see it. It’s like her other song, I’m the Kinda Bitch, which here again, so what if I’m referred to as a bitch, or even the oh-gosh-so-dreaded-and-barb-intended-word, “cunt” which here again hardly makes me shiver. Well shiver me timbers! It’s too pathetic to even bother really addressing anymore than I already have. Words only have the power you give them. Just like people. You either give them the authority or you do not. Just turn your back on it and whatever.
Perhaps because I am a bit too jaded because where I’m from in Europe the word cunt is tossed about simply and without any real meaning associated specifically to women; at this point, it has lost that meaning and just means “it sucks.”. We say, “that’s a real cunt of a situation,” as in, “It’s a difficult situation, a real bear etc etc.” and so on, though perhaps a bit stronger. The other day a friend said to me, “This time thing is a real cunt” referring to his schedule which was overbooked. It didn’t strike me as particularly a big deal. Nor had it when, golly gosh, been directed at me or other women, been a hurtful thing, and though surely it was intended as such, the few times it was said are laughable. If that’s the best you can do, then that’s pathetic and more, anyone who feels the need to even bother with such insults or who has this much time on his or her hands must have a real cunt of a life.
The point is, too much of this stuff makes some women feel that they should somehow be embarrassed by things that are essentially for all intents and purposes normal. Let’s not forget that suckin’ on my titties as Peaches put it, is hardly something new to most of us, as is the rest of the song, it may sound “crude” as another friend said, but then, he’s of a different generation that didn’t grow up with this stuff the way we grew up with Salt n Pepa and Run DMC (remember them) and groups of this sort. Yes, we had our origins in Dylan, but now we’re also listening to Travis and The Flaming Lips and Adam Daniel and Evan Dando and so on.
Who knows. For my part, I find none of this offensive, and while there are things that are offensive, this is hardly one of them. The lyrics to “Fuck the Pain Away” are as below:
“Suckin' on my titties like you wanted me, Callin me, all the time like blondie Check out my chrissy behindIt's fine all of the time Like sex on the beaches, What else is in the teaches of peaches? huh? what? huh? right. what? uhh.”
and then onto repeat and the final. ”Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away. Fuck the pain away.”
It’s an entirely different lyrical approach from “I’m the kind bitch that you wanna get with” a line from Peaches “I’m the kinda…” that really works because there is something, and I hate this word but it applies anyway, empowering about it. To flat out say, “I’m the kinda bitch that you wanna get with…” and more, takes, how do you put it here? ~ balls, right?
But why the need to ascribe such a masculine comparison – “it takes balls.” Why not, it takes “tits.” You never hear anyone say that. Granted, I used it but only to make the point; I can think of no feminine comparisons.
Why is calling someone “a little girl” an insult, and I admit, I’ve done it just because it is or was highly effective because so many people, especially a certain kind of person, associate being a little girl with weakness and all things bad (no, not all men, just a certain kind of man and generally a weaker one at that.) Why not call him, then, “a little boy” and why doesn’t that pack the same emotional wallop as the other? Why should either pack an emotional wallop is really the question and a good one. Since when did little girls become all things bad? Didn’t they used to make the world go round or something along those lines, or is that just a French thing, and don’t they get “bigger every day” and so we “Thank heaven, for little girls…” and then perhaps we all turn into women like Peaches? Not all, to be sure, but hey, in my book, kudos to those who do.
Perhaps we just take it all too literally and that’s the problem right there.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
chasing dylan | then & now...
I make no secret of the fact that I love Bob Dylan, and why should I? Millions of people love Dylan and there must be thousands of writers who spend their time reading about Dylan, researching and writing and thinking about him and his work just as I do and have for quite some time now. But what I want to talk about today and this is totally different from anything else I’ve written, is strictly how Dylan looks and his evolution over time. Not his music so much, though that factors in, but the Dylan of the early days and of the mid-sixties – the one I think of as my Dylan, that is the uber-thin Dylan dressed in black peg-leg pants and a black turtle neck and jacket with his trademark curly and out of control hair and that clear-skinned and free of hair face that held all that at least I wanted to see in him. >>>more.
http://tantmieux.squarespace.com/bob-dylan-articles-reviews-of/2005/11/26/chasing-dylan-then-now.html
Friday, November 11, 2005
stephen glass & the new republic | house of glass
The New Republic, the well-known and trusted Washington magazine/journal founded in 1914 has a reputation for its political and cultural influence. It is rumored, as they say in the film Shattered Glass, to be the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. Whether or not this is true is hard to verify and one would think that even if it is true, there are naturally other magazines as well. Regardless, it is but one piece of information from the film Shattered Glass, the story about Stephen Glass and how he managed to fool one of America’s most prestigious and respected magazines ~ The New Republic. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A4402432
*this article appears on BBC ~ please follow the above link for full text.
*this article appears on BBC ~ please follow the above link for full text.
scorsese | the dylan interview ~ no direction home
It’s great to see Bob Dylan at any time, really, with the exception perhaps of the Ed Bradley interview, which to me anyway, was painful and so brief that it seemed almost not worthwhile. IT was Dylan pulling his usual press routine. But to see him in the Scorsese interview is to see a strikingly candid Dylan, telling his story as if for the first time ever.” Yes it may be well be the apt time for a Dylan retrospective but as Dylan might say, It’s not dark yet…” http://tantmieux.squarespace.com/bob-dylan-articles-reviews-of/2005/11/10/scorsese-the-dylan-interview.html
Thursday, September 01, 2005
recollections of you
The tap pants you bought me
The bra with the apricot ribbon
I found in the monoprix in the 19th
and the flowers you bought for no reason
before we went foraging for dinner, returning
home rich with thick clumps of vegetable
radishes, cabbage, carrots, our rich spring onions
a garden of lettuce, tomatoes
the roots still clutching and from each would fall
handfuls of dirt, of this French soil.
I could smell it.
The earth redolent and lovely
as our days in the country
and the photograph of you
snapped at Baudelaire’s tomb;
how you rested, so casual and,
so easily comfortable, already no
stranger in this thick foreign land
but a citizen, like me, European
so easily loose-limbed and elegant
in that way that only the romantic
can afford. The look in the eye,
the present pursed pout, how we stand
hips thrust forward as if made for the fucking -
for true and real kissing on the parched
peck of America . This is why:
I love you. One reason, yes:
but it makes us kindred
woven of same fabric
our silks so easily intermingling
how we lie down together
how we pull the shutter
how we shut out the world,
& how we open ourselves.
The bra with the apricot ribbon
I found in the monoprix in the 19th
and the flowers you bought for no reason
before we went foraging for dinner, returning
home rich with thick clumps of vegetable
radishes, cabbage, carrots, our rich spring onions
a garden of lettuce, tomatoes
the roots still clutching and from each would fall
handfuls of dirt, of this French soil.
I could smell it.
The earth redolent and lovely
as our days in the country
and the photograph of you
snapped at Baudelaire’s tomb;
how you rested, so casual and,
so easily comfortable, already no
stranger in this thick foreign land
but a citizen, like me, European
so easily loose-limbed and elegant
in that way that only the romantic
can afford. The look in the eye,
the present pursed pout, how we stand
hips thrust forward as if made for the fucking -
for true and real kissing on the parched
peck of America . This is why:
I love you. One reason, yes:
but it makes us kindred
woven of same fabric
our silks so easily intermingling
how we lie down together
how we pull the shutter
how we shut out the world,
& how we open ourselves.
Friday, August 26, 2005
the time is now...
After a whole blog of being Bored that I wrote while back, in which I was then bored with film, bored with life, bored bored and more and worse, damn boring myself in my black and dark mood, I have become still boring but less bored.
In fact, now it seems there is almost too much going on and in my effort to not be bored, I have taken on yet more work and more, including podcasting for www.Teleread.org of which I am glad and am highly recommend as a venue to visit and comment for anyone interested in publishing issues, but I’m also writing now for BBC h2g2 as well as BBC Collective as well as here as well as any number of poetry journals not to mention that I edit two of them and not to mention that now, now at the end of Paul Weller’s Long Hot Summer I find that I have landed the much coveted fulltime job for which I had longed for after a leave to work on my own book (which is, I am pleased to say, almost finished and looking to my and my editor’s eyes good, and you read part of it here as Fugues & Fireflies and BBC took another chapter called Waltz XO. Why then the need for a corporate job, albeit in the most creative division of the company, I admit, it does boggle mind, if only slightly.>>>>>>more, select link
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/26/141438.php
In fact, now it seems there is almost too much going on and in my effort to not be bored, I have taken on yet more work and more, including podcasting for www.Teleread.org of which I am glad and am highly recommend as a venue to visit and comment for anyone interested in publishing issues, but I’m also writing now for BBC h2g2 as well as BBC Collective as well as here as well as any number of poetry journals not to mention that I edit two of them and not to mention that now, now at the end of Paul Weller’s Long Hot Summer I find that I have landed the much coveted fulltime job for which I had longed for after a leave to work on my own book (which is, I am pleased to say, almost finished and looking to my and my editor’s eyes good, and you read part of it here as Fugues & Fireflies and BBC took another chapter called Waltz XO. Why then the need for a corporate job, albeit in the most creative division of the company, I admit, it does boggle mind, if only slightly.>>>>>>more, select link
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/26/141438.php
Thursday, August 25, 2005
grist for the mill
image: ralph gibsoni never thought i'd find myself podcasting or into the e-book scene after so many years in print and yet oddly, here i am at www.teleread.org where i encourage you to go. That said, I remember years ago working in a friend’s barn and running the old letter press and greasing the rollers with the blackest ink and selecting the Monadnock paper from the sheets he had (and there were many) and then setting the type by hand on a block, fitting in the leading for space and using the old Perpetua face that is so rare and changed, if findable, these days.
Just the rhythm of running the press… the way one had to crank the shaft and then slip in the paper and turn, how it felt like a ballet privee once you adjusted to the movement of it. How you fell into a pattern and a rhythm all your own and could lose yourself in the printing process itself ~ I suppose much in the same way you can lose yourself in the writing of any book. So as i write now, i wonder if i will find my way into a print book or an e-book for any that i write... certainly both would be welcome but there remains something for me in the printed word, even though i plan on publishing a collection of poems at www.lulu.com another site i strongly encourage you to visit.
the point? we come full circle and we never know where we will land. Not exactly anyway, and that is always grist for the mill and keeps things interesting.
sadi ranson-polizzotti for teleread.org
Another collaboration between Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti & Mark Caywood.
http://grandmal.blogspot.com/2005/08/variations-on-theme-by-mark-caywood.html
Friday, August 12, 2005
Columbo – the complete third season
There is something that makes Columbo just so loveable.
It’s Peter Falk, no question, who as a child, I remember thinking he was this older man because he wore that great bit overcoat and appeared always stooped over and that made me think he was older than he really is. Now, as I watch the episodes again, I see that he can be hardly more than his early forties (if that) and that really, he’s quite a handsome guy, not the old geyser I had imagined, but someone I could>>>>> more http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/12/153345.php
There is something that makes Columbo just so loveable.
It’s Peter Falk, no question, who as a child, I remember thinking he was this older man because he wore that great bit overcoat and appeared always stooped over and that made me think he was older than he really is. Now, as I watch the episodes again, I see that he can be hardly more than his early forties (if that) and that really, he’s quite a handsome guy, not the old geyser I had imagined, but someone I could>>>>> more http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/08/12/153345.php
Thursday, August 11, 2005
waltz xo makes BBC The Post/UnderGuide
Read up on the latest piece on the BBC, the story Waltz XO (after the title by Elliott Smith). A brief short story.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
copyright basics | not so basic afterall
In these almost Wild Wild West days of the Internet and other media as it develops at the speed of sound there seems to be much debate about copyright law, so it only makes sense that for any reasonable discussion of the issue, we first layout the copyright laws as they stand at present before moving on to a further discussion about how they have changed. It’s all to easy to whine and complain, but first, one needs a basic understanding of not only copyright law as it is today, and as it was and is worldwide, for example, but also, what this means for both the author (the copyright holder – here I use author in a general sense) as well as the person wishing to use the author’s work and seeking copyright permission or more, anyone infringing on copyright laws as they exist and what this could potentially mean in legal terms >>>more>>>
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/8/7/copyright-basics-not-so-basic-after-all.html
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/8/7/copyright-basics-not-so-basic-after-all.html
Sunday, July 17, 2005
dirty pretty things ~ what price?
If you are not an immigrant and want to know what the immigrant experience is or wereever curious, then see Dirty Pretty Things directed by Stephen Frears and starring Audrey Tautou, the dark-haired beauty and incredibly gifted girl who starred as "Amelie,” though don’t expect to see the same light –hearted, albeit melancholic girl, because Tautou is far too talented for that. She is changeable, the sort of actress directors dream of. a dream before camera;’ you can hear the words, “The lens loves her,” and indeed it does; those eyes! that mouth! Note too that this is Tautou’s first English-speaking film and she is exceptional in her language in this way and her Turkish Mulsim accent. click here for more. or cut and paste into your browser if the link does not work: http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/7/17/dirty-pretty-things-audrey-tautou-breaks-out-a-review.html
sadi ranson-polizzotti, july, 2005
sadi ranson-polizzotti, july, 2005
Friday, July 15, 2005
monogamy, mistresses, wives and other loves...
There is just so much to say about marriage, relationships, being a wife, being a mistress, being the husband or the lover, the abandoned, the abandonee and i can tell you from all ends, no matter where you are at this moment in time, the situation is difficult for all concerned.
The wife will think the mistress has the easier course and in some ways she is right: after all, she is not "being left." Yet at the same time, she does not "have" her man in any way that society anyway, would count as meaningful. That may change of course: marriages do end, relationships come to a close and things move on and one day, despite all the heartache, you find that you are glad you lived through it (really) and just to feel the wind on your face again becomes a joy. To rediscover yourself, your indepence, the fact that yes, you can fix the toilet all by yourself and buy a ratchet set and all those things you thought you could never do, by god, you can and will do them.
At the same time, being cheated on, whether mistress or wife or husband or lover, is one of the most profoundly painful experiences i know of and having been on both sides of this issue, i can assure you both wife and mistress, that both roles are fraught and for the days of suicidal weeping that you may have (or perhaps you are more grounded, i cannot say), i can guarantee you that the other party, as much as you may loathe him or her, is going through the exact same thing.
I remember once not being able to deal with the guilt at the end of my marriage, even though as we know, it takes two to tango and in his way, he too had cheated on me. Perhaps not with a person, but by being unavailable and thus cheating me out of years of my life and while i am grateful for the happy years, i cannot and never will get back those lost years of my earlier life. I hold no bitterness or resentment and neither does he ~~ anymore. But for a time, yes, we both did. This is normal. I can also tell you that now, both my ex, my husband and his exwife all four of us are very dear friends and i call my husband's exwife among my best of girlfriends. This, a woman who formerly in her words, "detested me" has become someone whom i love and who loves me in return.
Things change. Read Advice to a young Girl from an Old Mistress ~ an invaluable book if you wish to be married and yet be a mistresss and lover to your husband at the same time (i assure you, this is possible).
But what of those "emotional affairs" in which there is supposedly, they say, "no phyical contact, oh, the occasional hug or quick kiss on the cheek for comfort, but as i've heard "it means nothing." This is simply not true. It can and does mean everything. It is as much of a red flag as a full-blown affair if not more so because it invovles a certain amount and depth of feeling, perhaps more than any physical affair. In the emotional affair, real feelings are involved. Real parties are involved and real discussions are had, the hardest and most hurtful part, discussions about you. Talk about betrayal.
I condone neither, but nor do i judge; i stand by and watch as we not only fuck as it were, but fuck it all up. It's high time we learned the hard lessons and grew up and in the words of one song i know "did some shit" which means that we stop acting like the little GenXers we are or Baby Boomers who were the "me" generation because no matter what your age, give yourself or your partner an ultimatum. Yes, that's right, i said ultimatum. An ultimatum is not a "bad" word, it means quite simply choosing between one or the other. And likewise, give yourself the same ultimatum if you re on the giving end of this and make a real choice.
Jimmy Carter said to commit lust in your heart is adultery and cheating and i quite agree. It should not be a "choice" not to screw around or cheat, but just a thought that never occurs because one is so in love, so engaged, so caught up in the other person that this is not even a thought that passes the mind if "just for a moment", as i've heard. Or the "on some level i liked her" crap that is dissembling and means absolutely nothing. Come clean, tell the truth, and get real.
Whatever you choose to do, do it openly and honestly because if you believe enough to it in the first place, then show you have a backbone and back up your actions. Be brave and do not give in to social pressure that says "monogamy is not natural" and then ask yourself why it is that even whooping cranes and certain gulls are monogamous. Is this some accident of nature? Are they more evolved than you or I? I don't know. I only know that it is possible and that is enough to give me hope for true and lasting love and passion.
Never settle. You are worth so much more than that... and you know it.
s.r.p.
July, 2005.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
time out of mind ~ Dylan | really?
I admit: I am in slightly taken with “Time Out of Mind”, the Dylan album that I’ve had long arguments with people about because they like others more and sure, they’re good and we all love the old Bob, but frankly, I’m partial to the new Bob and I’m worried. Very worried...
Argue all you want, but I think it is one of the most honest Dylan albums that I’ve heard in ages, and while many have come before (that I truly love), in terms of more recent music, it is Time Out of Mind that appeals.
“I’m sick of love….that I’m in the thick of it.” he sings in “Love Sick” about a certain kind of love (“this kind of love, I’m so sick of it.”) What kind of love, I wonder. Is he talking about a true and lasting love (if so, it doesn’t sound it). Is it a sort of fight and fuck love that we’ve most of us dealt with? Is it groupie shit that god knows, we’ve heard rumors but the hell with rumors, or is it still the hurt from years ago or a more recent hurt? NO matter which way you cut it, the first cut is apt: He is, as he says “love sick” and the rest of the album bears it out. >>>> more.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
bob dylan | world tour 66 through the lens of mickey jones
World Tour, 1966
The Home Movies
Through the Camera of Bob Dylan’s Drummer Mickey Jones
What is it about Dylan, then and now, that makes that voice so damn sexy, so damn workable. I mean, I can listen to “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues.” and I practically melt every time, especially when he says Your debutante knows what you neeeeed, but I know what you waaaant…” and that “oh, Mama, or “ahhhugh, mama.” It could even be crude coming from someone else, but from Dylan it is damn sexy.
On anyone else it would sound cheap and stupid, but with Dylan… as I said: never.
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/7/2/behind-the-camera-of-mickey-jones-bob-dylans-66-behind-the-scenes-documentary.html
The Home Movies
Through the Camera of Bob Dylan’s Drummer Mickey Jones
What is it about Dylan, then and now, that makes that voice so damn sexy, so damn workable. I mean, I can listen to “Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues.” and I practically melt every time, especially when he says Your debutante knows what you neeeeed, but I know what you waaaant…” and that “oh, Mama, or “ahhhugh, mama.” It could even be crude coming from someone else, but from Dylan it is damn sexy.
On anyone else it would sound cheap and stupid, but with Dylan… as I said: never.
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/7/2/behind-the-camera-of-mickey-jones-bob-dylans-66-behind-the-scenes-documentary.html
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
summer, 2005 ~ june greeting
Welcome to Sotto Voce;
"matin" by alain daussin
Why this image? We change this Splash page weekly to keep articles, new poetry and other news updated, and at that time, we sometimes change the image here as well. We have reached the long, hot, sultry days of Summer and the Eastern seaboard feels as though it had been coated with a heavy wet wool blanket. It is humid, languid, and in another context, perhaps it could even be considered sublime. But as we rush about going to and fro interviews, meeting business friends and others, and of course, just getting out to see the world and lately, visit the old haunts to be sure that neither they nor we have forgotten our roots, the weather leaves us ragged, hot, wrinkled, slumped. Still, I always feel a great sense of hope this time of year. It is the time of year when women are, i believe, at our most beautiful. We emerge in our summer dresses, our long legs slightly burnished (but not too much), our impossible but lovely strappy shoes on, our newly bobbed hair that looks as if it didnt' care, a pink glow and a flush to our cheek and the promise of hope. Yes, it can be hard to slog through such weather, but we do it and we do with a grace and an ease that were we to see ourselves, we would be, i think, most pleasantly surprised. I post a Daussin picture here, though it could easily be one of myself ~ the same pose, same aspect, same mood and tone. Perhaps next week, i'll use myself as the model. For now, enjoy the moment and know for as heavy as it may feel, there is always lightness just around the corner. Summer brings hope ~ I am a firm believer. Life is, if nothing, fleeing, and to always anticipate the next wrong thing is a mistake; it will come all by itself and your worrying or not worrying about it will not change a thing. All you can do is feel the joy in this moment.
Most exciting this month: video poetry with sound and vision so check it out. Instructions for download are there, though technically you should just be able to click and it will download on its own. I hope you enjoy this; i'm slowly adding more as i go along, and yes, i know i look doofy, but hey...
There is so much here that rather than try again to give you some introduction, it's better you explore. Whatever you are looking for, i do hope that you find it here at Tant Mieux or one of our sister sites which you can easily get to from our Links sections. More, you can Google my name and find various and sundry pieces either by me or about me. There are duplicates of course, but my goal is to provide top-level content in every area for which i write. To that end, Welcome again and enjoy browsing our sections - Poetry, Images, Articles, Book and Literary Criticism, Film Comment and Critique, Cultural Comment, Generational Articles and GenX Work, Prose and Original Fiction, Creative NonFiction, Geek Work and Audio Blogging.
New this week - a big focus on Bob Dylan with, for now, two articles to check out - Don't Look Back (footage of the '65 tour)and, how could we not do that without also doing Eat the Document (the '66 tour) as well as our article about the film, Masked & Anonymous starring Bob Dylan, as Jack Fate, all available at www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/
We're happy to report that all pieces have already been picked up by the best Dylan sites out there and if you would like to link, please do - just drop us a line and let us know. Dylan remains one of the most influential musicians/poets of our time, so if you are asking me Why now, my answer is Why not now?
Summer is here full on, with lazy days and the sultry humid Eastern seaboard where the air is still as a wet blanket and our shirt backs wetten with the heat and yet, the future looks bright to me. Summer brings a renewed sense of hope. The feeling that anything is possible, and though perhaps this is illustory, a feeling that we are in control of our own destiny. I pray this much is true.
Be sure to join us later this year for reportage from Paris. If you're looking for work from Paris now, visit either France Poems and Chants here or Tant Mieux Paris. New poems that we particularly like in this moment are The Beginning and another about Pressigny and love and all of the great human emotions: Three O Clock in the Afternoon Pressigny, www.tantmieux.squarespace.com in our France Poems & Chants section or at www.tantmieuxparis.blogspot.com/
Thanks again to all of you for making us a success- and welcome again to the Tant Mieux Project.
Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti, June 2005
June, 2005
Monday, June 06, 2005
Bob's Fate | Bob Dylan & Masked & Anonymous
Masked & Anonymous
Starring Bob Dylan as “Jack Fate” and a whole host of other characters with so many cameos that I eventually lost count, though to note a few: Bruce Dern, Giovanni Ribisi, Luke Wilson, Val Kilmer (as an animal rights activist and farmer), Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, John Goodman, Christian Slater, Mickey Rourke, Penelope Cruz, and on and on…
Here is the set-up: Jack Fate, played by Bob Dylan, is in jail, though why exactly is unclear. Let’s just say it has something to do with the corrupt sort of guerilla government in the country in which the film takes place, supposedly America. But no ordinary America, this is America at some point in the future, and boy, it is a mess. It is run by corrupt officials, rebels, a sort of Sandinista government and to really top it off, the leader the entire mess, as we will find out in due course, is Jack Fate’s own less than beloved father, El Presidente, and though we never meet him directly, we see his image carried throughout the film, either directly in front of us as a frame or hovering in the background as a framed poster on the wall. He is a lurking presence and a not-so-gentle reminder of Big Brother who sees all and could give a shit. (select link for more)
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/6/6/bobs-fate-bob-dylan-masked-anonymous-review-by-sadi-ranson-polizzotti.html
Starring Bob Dylan as “Jack Fate” and a whole host of other characters with so many cameos that I eventually lost count, though to note a few: Bruce Dern, Giovanni Ribisi, Luke Wilson, Val Kilmer (as an animal rights activist and farmer), Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, John Goodman, Christian Slater, Mickey Rourke, Penelope Cruz, and on and on…
Here is the set-up: Jack Fate, played by Bob Dylan, is in jail, though why exactly is unclear. Let’s just say it has something to do with the corrupt sort of guerilla government in the country in which the film takes place, supposedly America. But no ordinary America, this is America at some point in the future, and boy, it is a mess. It is run by corrupt officials, rebels, a sort of Sandinista government and to really top it off, the leader the entire mess, as we will find out in due course, is Jack Fate’s own less than beloved father, El Presidente, and though we never meet him directly, we see his image carried throughout the film, either directly in front of us as a frame or hovering in the background as a framed poster on the wall. He is a lurking presence and a not-so-gentle reminder of Big Brother who sees all and could give a shit. (select link for more)
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/6/6/bobs-fate-bob-dylan-masked-anonymous-review-by-sadi-ranson-polizzotti.html
Friday, June 03, 2005
the devil in the front row | Oppenheimer's biography of Vogue editor, Anna Wintour
Front Row
Anna Wintour: The Cool Life & Hot Times of Vogue’s Editor in Chief
by Jerry Oppenheimer
One cannot say with any real authority or certainty whether or not the road to success has been particularly easy or particularly difficult for Anna Wintour, now Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue, a position much coveted by Wintour for, it would seem, her entire career, if not her life from when she was as young as fifteen. Wintour had set herself from the very beginning on the trajectory that would take her to where she wanted to be, carefully planning each job, rarely moving laterally, always moving up, and often moving up with the help of the current lover or boyfriend of the moment. To say this is not to say that Wintour did not or does not earn or merit her current (or really any) of the various and impressive positions she has held; she has proven her talent again and again. It is simply to state the fact, that like anyone, Wintour knew enough to use not only her stunning and coquettish good looks (which, even as a young girl, the young Anna quickly learned to manipulate), to her excellent connections in publishing already established by her father, Charles Wintour ... (link for more)
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/6/3/the-devil-in-the-front-row-a-review-of-jerry-oppenheimers-biography-of-anna-wintour-and-the-devil-wears-prada.html
Anna Wintour: The Cool Life & Hot Times of Vogue’s Editor in Chief
by Jerry Oppenheimer
One cannot say with any real authority or certainty whether or not the road to success has been particularly easy or particularly difficult for Anna Wintour, now Editor-in-Chief of American Vogue, a position much coveted by Wintour for, it would seem, her entire career, if not her life from when she was as young as fifteen. Wintour had set herself from the very beginning on the trajectory that would take her to where she wanted to be, carefully planning each job, rarely moving laterally, always moving up, and often moving up with the help of the current lover or boyfriend of the moment. To say this is not to say that Wintour did not or does not earn or merit her current (or really any) of the various and impressive positions she has held; she has proven her talent again and again. It is simply to state the fact, that like anyone, Wintour knew enough to use not only her stunning and coquettish good looks (which, even as a young girl, the young Anna quickly learned to manipulate), to her excellent connections in publishing already established by her father, Charles Wintour ... (link for more)
http://www.tantmieux.squarespace.com/sadi-ranson-polizzotti-article/2005/6/3/the-devil-in-the-front-row-a-review-of-jerry-oppenheimers-biography-of-anna-wintour-and-the-devil-wears-prada.html
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