Robert Altman, R.I.P.

Robert Altman has died at the age of 81. He was one of my very favorite directors, and directed three of the greatest movies released in the 70's: M*A*S*H*, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Nashville. Most recently, he released another great ensemble film, A Prairie Home Companion. Robert Altman was enormously influential, quirky, and cranky, and he changed the way we make movies. Not a bad life's work.
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Joni Mitchell's "Furry (Lewis) Sings The Blues"

Memphis is probably the birthplace of the Blues. On Beale Street, near the Mississippi River, the blues entered the mainstream. More or less. Furry put out his first recordings there, in the late 1920's. Later, the blues would drift north, to Chicago and south to New Orleans.



Walter Furry Lewis (1892-1979) played with W.C. Handy a/k/a the "Father of the Blues". Stanley Booth wrote about Furry in Playboy in 1970: "In Chicago, at the old Vocalion studios on Wabash Avenue, he made the first of many recordings he was to make, both for Vocalion and for RCA Victor's Bluebird label. But Beale Street's great era ended at the close of the 1920s; since then, Furry has had only one album of his own - a 1959 Folkways LP. "

"Nor, since the Depression, has he performed regularly, even in his home town. He makes his living as a street sweeper. When he does play, it is usually at the Bitter Lemon, a coffeehouse that caters mainly to the affluent East Memphis teenaged set, but whose manager, Charley Brown, is a blues enthusiast and occasionally hires Furry between rock-'n'-roll groups. " You can read Booth's entire article on the Joni Mitchell web site. Joni's web site treats the Fair Use clause of the copyright act with an even more generous interpretation than All This Is That.

By the time I became aware of the blues, Furry was in a (long delayed) resurgence. Most of what we knew of the blues was what we heard filtered through the Brits like the Rolling Stones, John Mayall, The Yardbirds, and Eric Clapton (and later, people like Stevie Ray Vaughn or Bonnie Raitt). I saw a show about him on PBS in about 1971, and people were speaking highly of his music. When he was finally back in the spotlight, he began recording again, and people like Joni were paying attention to him. He even opened a huge stadium show for the Rolling Stones. From 1930 onward, Stanley Booth estimated that Furry had likely made less than $100 a year from his music. That changed in the 1970's, but it had been a long time coming. Furry had worked as a street cleaner for many years.

Furry was known for both his singing, and his bottleneck slide guitar playing. Joni Mitchell interviewed him (I can't find for what) , and later wrote her song "Furry Sings the Blues".

Furry was reportedly mad about Mitchell's tune--he thought he should have received a chunk of the royalties. It's a great song. I don't know if Furry got screwed or not, but this song led me to buy some of his recordings. . .

















Furry Sings The Blues
by Joni Mitchell

Old Beale Street is coming down
Sweeties' Snack Bar, boarded up now
And Egles The Tailor and the Shine Boy's gone
Faded out with ragtime blues
Handy's cast in bronze
And he's standing in a little park
With a trumpet in his hand
Like he's listening back to the good old bands
And the click of high heeled shoes
Old Furry sings the blues
Propped up in his bed
With his dentures and his leg removed
And Ginny's there
For her kindness and Furry's beer
She's the old man's angel overseer

Pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps
In the grey decay
They chew the last few dollars off
Old Beale Street's carcass
Carrion and mercy
Blue and silver sparkling drums
Cheap guitars, eye shades and guns
Aimed at the hot blood of being no one
Down and out in Memphis Tennessee
Old Furry sings the blues
You bring him smoke and drink and he'll play for you
lt's mostly muttering now and sideshow spiel
But there was one song he played
I could really feel

There's a double bill murder at the New Daisy
The old girl's silent across the street
She's silent - waiting for the wrecker's beat
Silent - staring ar her stolen name
Diamond boys and satin dolls
Bourbon laughter- ghosts - history falls
To parking lots and shopping malls
As they tear down old Beale Street
Old Furry sings the blues
He points a bony finger at you and
"I don't like you"
Everybody laughs as if it's the old man's standard joke
But it's true
We're only welcome for our drink and smoke

W.C. Handy I'm rich and I'm fay
And I'm not familiar with what you played
But I get such strong impressions of your hey day
Looking up and down old Beale Street
Ghosts of the darktown society
Come right out of the bricks at me
Like it's a Saturday night
They're in their finery
Dancing it up and making deals
Furry sings the blues
Why should I expect that old guy to give it to me true
Fallen to hard luck
And time and other thieves
While our limo is shining on his shanty street
Old Furry sings the blues
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Tired Of "Puttin' On The Ritz" To Shop At Wal-Mart?

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Rove Held For Threatening President Under Terrorism Law He Authored

Karl Rove was taken into custody late Saturday night by the Secret Service and is being held at an undisclosed location.

Karl Rove and President Bush met to discuss the increasingly virulent rumors of his departure ("Damnit George! These aren't rumors. They're leaks!"). He arranged the meeting after a heated discussion with White House Counsel Harriet Miers on Friday. Miers reportedly told Rove "Can't you take a f***ing hint? Do we have to have you physically removed, or can you see the writing on the wall? It's over Karl. You're out."

Rove was livid, but calmed down before the after-dinner meeting with The President. Sources, however, told All This Is That that the meeting quickly erupted into charges and counter-charges, in which Rove directly questioned the President's honesty and intelligence. Bush took umbrage and demanded that Rove apologize and only address him as Mister President in the future. Rove then became so abusive that The President literally hit the panic button. Four officers rushed in, restrained him and drove him away in a black S.U.V. Rove is being held incommunicado due to "national security reasons." The Secret Service is holding him under the same rules designed to detain Al Qaeda operatives and others indefinitely. Ironically, Karl Rove helped draft the rules that suspend habeas corpus for terror suspects.
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Poem: Changes 20/Contemplation

The wind scours the desolate earth
Flaying turf and churning surf
The literal and figurative ablution

Is made
But not yet the offering
Or the prayer

Because the way is unclear
You look for an omen
Like the old kings

And contemplate
Advance and retreat
Fight or flight

Waiting for The Lamplighter
In his own sweet time
To show you the sign.
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The First Photograph Of A Person?

Daguerrotype by Louis Daguerre 1839 -- Click To Enlarge

People believe that this is the first outdoor photograph taken of a human. Louis Daguerre, one of the early pioneers of photography and photographic technology, shot this "daguerrotype" in 1839. Daguerrotypes[1] were (sometimes) made of people in the studio--if they could remain stock still for minutes), but people never appeared in street scenes of landscapes. Due to the long exposure times required for an image, all moving objects became invisible.

Somehow this guy stood still, or he was posed by Louis Daguerre and held the pose for a few minutes.

[1] According to The Wikipedia "The daguerreotype was a positive-only process allowing no reproduction of the picture. Preparation of the plate prior to image exposure resulted in the formation of a layer of photo-sensitive silver halide, and exposure to a scene or image through a focussing lens formed a latent image. The latent image was made visible, or "developed", by placing the exposed plate over a slightly heated (about 75°C) cup of mercury. The mercury vapour condensed on those places where the exposure light was most intense, in proportion with the areas of highest density in the image. This produced a picture in an amalgam, the mercury vapour attaching itself to the altered silver iodide. Removal of the mercury image by heat validates this chemistry. The developing box was constructed to allow inspection of the image through a yellow glass window while it was being developed.

The next operation was to "fix" the photographic image permanently on the plate by dipping in a solution of hyposulphite of soda – known as "fixer" or "hypo". The image produced by this method is so delicate it will not bear the slightest handling. Practically all daguerreotypes are protected from accidental damage by a glass-fronted case. It was discovered by experiment that treating the plate with heated gold chloride tones and strengthens the image, although it remains quite delicate and requires a well-sealed case to protect against touch as well as oxidation of the fine silver deposits forming the blacks in the image. The best-preserved daguerreotypes dating from the nineteenth century are sealed in robust glass cases evacuated of air and filled with a chemically inert gas, typically nitrogen."

Click to enlarge this daguerrotype of Edgar Allen Poe from 1848.
Does he look completely insane--or what?
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Karl Rove Fired (The Woodshed Isn't Working)?

Click to enlarge -- Karl V. Rove and President George W. Bush Bantered
With Reporters During Happier Times

The White House Bulletin--a subscription newsletter--says that Bush's Brain, a/k/a Karl V. Rove, is on his way out the door. I don't subscribe, so I am taking Think Progress's word for this. You think the Yellow and Blue Dog Democrats are after his scalp? Just look at the Republicans!

-Trent Lott is now back in the GOP Senate leadership with a serious axe to grind. Rove was behind the scenes agitating against Lott as he fought to save his majority leader's post following his foolish remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond.

- Harriet Miers, trusted Bush aide and failed Supreme Court nominee doesn't much cotton to Rove either. She believes Rove sat on his hands while her nomination languished. Rove's top aide Susan Ralston was recently fired over ethics questions. Many believe this was at Miers behest, and was a signal that Rove should leave as well.

- Republicans on Capitol Hill say that anger runs deep over President Bush's decision to announce the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld one day after the election instead of weeks before, when it might have actually made a difference. Rove was among those who had argued that to announce Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation before Election Day was admitting failure in Iraq.

- Bush cannot possibly achieve bilateral cooperation between the Dems and GOP (and his hoped for redemption and "legacy) with a wild-eyed partisan like Rove in the wings. Just as this election pushes the Dems toward a Blue Dog position, it also drags the GOP (kicking and screaming) toward the middle. McCain may soon begin taking shots at Bush on just about everything. Even the war. After all McCain wants/wanted to go in with even more troops.

- According to today's New York Times, "many Republicans say they blame Mr. Rove for failing to heed warnings that the war was hurting their campaigns, as the president and the vice president continued making the case for it on the stump."



- "Karl's role has not been to serve as a bridge over troubled waters; he has tried to stir the waters as often as possible," Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat, and new Majority Whip, told the New York Times.



One Rove insider quoted in the White House Bulletin, is of course, quite correct: Karl's been through plenty of tough times and survived. That S.O.B. has slipped the noose so many times now, it's difficult to actually envision him leaving. In some ways, I guess, it doesn't matter. He has already done about all the damage he can do to The Administration. . .and even the country.

I believe the rumor. All we're waiting for now is for a politically decent interval, or "period of mourning" to pass between the firing of Rummy and the firing of Rove. And if things get really interesting. . .the firing of Cheney.
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Jerry Seinfeld Called Them The Close Talkers, Or, The Study Of Proxemics

click Lyndon Johnson close talking to Supreme Court
Justice Abe Fortas to enlarge


Jerry Seinfeld called them “close talkers;” people who just get too close when they speak with you. Or in line somewhere, the guy behind you is way closer than he really needs to be. I had a neighbor in Seattle once who was always seven inches from your face when she talked to you. When someone is this close, you inherently want to pull back, but you can't. In the normal course of things, when someone is this close to me, it's for a kiss.

Earlier this year I mentioned the bathroom rules of engagement for guys and the discomfort you feel when someone takes the urinal stall next to yours--when every other one is available. Is this guy just clueless, or is he a pecker checker, or just looking for some hot man on man bathroom action? It may not be personal space, but I encounter this same space violation while commuting too--the car that insists on driving right next to you when there is plenty of other space, or the tailgater who follows you too closely to either speed you up or to force you to pull over and let them pass. I constantly have find my aural space invaded by the dolts with bluetooth headsets, gabbing merrily away on their cell phones. Being forced to listen to some of these conversations is tantamount to assrape. At the gas station (I almost wrote the 50's equivalent "filling station") the other day, we were all treated to a guy breaking up with his longtime girlfriend via his bluetooth headset. Listening to his litany of complaints, it was tempting to ask him to put it on speaker phone so we could hear her side of the story too!

The New York Times had an article this week, "In Certain Circles, Two Is A Crowd," that focuses on the study of proxemics. "Communications scholars began studying personal space and people’s perception of it decades ago, in a field known as proxemics. But with the population in the United States climbing above 300 million, urban corridors becoming denser and people with wealth searching for new ways to separate themselves from the masses, interest in the issue of personal space — that invisible force field around your body — is intensifying. "

Some interesting facts:

1) Proxemics scientists studying the videogame Second Life found new evidence of their theories. The rules of proxemics are so ingrained that people even impose those rules on their cyber sprite selves while playing games.


Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times - click to enlarge

2) People tend to retreat to corners to distance themselves from strangers. You are not actually distancing yourself, but establishing your personal bubble. People tend to sit apart at an equidistance (see the photo above of three women in Union Square, NYC). They will separate themselves like birds on a telephone wire (see drawing). Think of a table in a public space. The first person will seat themselves at a corner. The next person will sit at the opposite corner (farthest from the first person). The next people seat themselves as far as possible from the first two. Each succeeding person deals with a diminshed space, but attempts to maximize their distance by distributing the remaining space.

3) Personal space is not confined to that invisible bubble around you. . . smells, sounds and stares from outside the bubble can also invade your space. The knucklehead yelling into his bluetooth headset on the train, your cubicle mate spraying Axe on himself, the guy across the way staring at you every time whenever you look up, or the guy dining on lutefisk. . .all of them are guilty!

4) In cities, which are much more crowded, people tend to adapt, and compromise, but they still attempt to follow the rules ox proxemics whenever possible. They may compromise, buy they always revert to The Old Ways when space permits.



5) While we all strive for space, it's almost unconscious. Proxemics scholars can even draw a map of that table I mentioned, and predict the order in which the seats will fill up, or which urinal stalls will be filled, and in what order...

6) “to overcome the intimacy, you have to make sure you don’t make eye contact.” said Dane Archer, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. From my five years riding the subways in New York City, I know this is true. I often wore shades on the train. I would also have my head in a book. Keelin and other women I knew would wear "repellent" hats and bulky coats. People hold 'papers in front of them to read and also to shield themselves from the madding crowd by increasing their bubble.

“Animals tend to have an aversion to being touched by a strange critter,” said David B. Givens, the director of the Center for Nonverbal Studies in Spokane, Wash. (What a great name! Their mission could be to study everything that doesn't involve talking). I had a friend, Chipper Stone, who spent every Friday "being nonverbal." My wife and favorite sister in law do this once a year--three days of nonverbal living at Breitenbush! I would be expelled, being constitutionally incapable of achieving the state of being nonverbal, and even more, of not hearing the rhythm and music of voices for three whole days!

Some proxemics scholars believe that the iPod "craze" turns city streets and commuter trains into islands of individuality. " The article also talks about how it is easier to be close in low light (another form of the iPod's sensory deprivation). Givens gives the example of a bar in dim light. If the lights were suddenly switched on, people would race to move away from each other...
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Poem:With Or Without The Words

1
If I don't write it down
It's gone like a pickpocket
Easing back into the crowd

2
If I don’t write it down
The world will carry on
Merrily on its own

Unaware of the loss
The world spins revolves and rotates
With or without the words

3
If I don’t write it down
The words race away
Like a hit and run driver

Leaving the scene
Of the crime
As if distance

Cures the unthinkable
If I can't see it
It never happened.

4
The words themselves are
Disassociated and fragmented
Until I gather them

And range and rearrange
The words or new words they suggest
Syllabify and counterbalance

Tinker with rhythms
Remove unnecessary verbiage
And lop off limbs

To save the patient
In a particular place
or an unknown span of time.
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All This Is That Turns Two Years Old Today. . .

. . .and to celebrate, here are some of our banners and posters from the last couple of years. . . /jb



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President Bush: The Election Was A Mandate To Win This War!

According to The Guardian, President George Bush recently told his most trusted aides and advisers that the US and its "coalition" must make one last "big push" to win the war in Iraq. The President's increasingly tenuous hold on reality appears to be at the breaking point.

Instead of commencing troop withdrawals, The President is, in fact, strongly considering adding 20,000 more soldiers to the forces on the ground n Iraq.

President Bush intends to buck the public and congressional backlash against the war. The citizens have voted for change in our policy, and Bush intends to do just that, by cranking up the war effort. It appears that the major drubbing of the Republican Party was the catalyst for the President's new direction. Rather than stand down, and begin withdrawing troops, the Administration believes it needs to get serious about winning this war.

Sources say that The President's intransigence is coloring the work of the Hamilton-Baker commission studying our current war policy.

The commission is still working, and its recommendations are expected to be built around a "victory strategy" architected by Pentagon officials. The panel appears to have been significantly influenced by The Administrations No. 1 hawk, Vice-President Cheney.

Neither The President, nor his top aides would return calls from All This Is That confirming this article. They only appear to be talking with "friendly press."
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Painting: Adam and Eve

Click to enlarge
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