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Checking out releases in literature, movies and music
She Don't Wanna Work...
Susan Lachmann, creator and founder of Sound Learning, an arts-in-education organization, is a writer, interviewer, musician and entrepreneur who lives in Tennessee's Tri-Cities region. If you're lucky, you may find her in the area playing something stringed, maybe a dulcimer or guitar, or singing a cappela, by schedule or sudden whim. For the area's PBS affiliate, she produces "Women On Air," heard every Friday at noon-thirty on radio's WETSfm (89.5) and worldwide on the web at www.WETS.org. With Karen Shaffer, she organized the annual "Good Goddess" exhibition celebrating Women's History Month in southwest Virginia, northeast Tennessee, and western North Carolina and now self-produces HERstory monthly.
...She Just Wants to Play Her Guitar!
Review by Susan Lachman
Christine Kane came from the Washington DC area -- just decided
to head to Asheville NC one day, and ain't never looked back. She grew up Catholic, and it's fair to say THAT'S where she gets her grit - at least some of it.
She's brave - yea, and honest, and willing to let you see the vulnerable
places just as much as she's willing to stand in your face with some truth.
I DO know she can PLAY A GUITAR for sure. You can check out her website, christinekane.com, for more info.
Christine Kane makes it clear to listeners she is following her own words,
but don't let her fool you. As sure as her work is to play, her practice is
to entertain, enliven and enlighten. With solid intrumental skill matched
by equal writing skill, Kane delivers a top quality program - recorded or
live. She's clever, she's cute, she's funny, she's thoughtful...In short,
she's got it all, and she's got it goin' on.
I first met Christine back in 1994 while hauling in sound equipment - by
herself - for a gig at the Grind Coffeehouse in Johnson City, TN (now sadly
defunct). It was amazing in and of itself, this petite woman full of energy
and determination lugging around 50 pound speakers. What came next was even
more compelling: a show full of easy banter, true life stories from her
UNIQUE perspective, songs that ran the gamut of experience and emotion, and
a dynamic presence that just kept the audience hanging on for the
next....revelation.
Christine's latest CD Live captures the energy and interactions between
clever performer and enthusiastic audience. "Breeze" is just like one, a
nice-and-easy tempo to carry listeners into a song list that won't EVEN
quit. So what if she's feeling a little sorry for herself with "A Thousand
Girls"? "Let's Roll" will put you right back in the - uh - driver's seat
shall we say, while "Loving Hands" brings balance to perspective.
Stylistically, Kane can handle a tender ballad like any master, then turn
around and knock you out of your chair onto the dance floor: "The Problem
with Jazz" is NO PROBLEM here.
The greatest thing NOT TO MISS about Christine Kane, though, is her sense of
humor. I've said it before and I'll say it again: this woman is CLEVER
with words as well as perceptions. A little bit wry, a little bit dry,
mixed with intellect, emotion and skill, Christine Kane is certainly on the
front line of contemporary singer-songwriters. The Live CD delivers some
of her absolute best in performance AND it's her only recording that
includes "Southern Girl". What a commentary!
Christine Kane's Live! and other CDs are available through her website in addition to regional performance schedules and other features, including a partial road diary.
from Live by Christine Kane
"...There's demons and there's dancers
Haunting all your dreams at night
You're worn out when you wake
Darlin' it's okay
Well I'm not one for answers
I don't know the first thing about
Finding lost belief
But I'm right here at your sleeve, come
We'll rebuild your kingdom
I have left my light on
You don't have to say goodnight
You don't have to say goodnight
You don't have to say goodnight"
-- Say Goodnight
"...Moon's up, time is fleeting
Be that the way it is
I believe a girl like me
Can still learn how to live
And I'll be brave, I'll be here
So come on and hold me tight
There will be no sighs or tears
Cuz I'm made of steel tonight"
-- Made of Steel
Ohkawa pays tribute to his mentors in the film ‘noir’ Nobody
By Gary Carden
The nameless was coming -- was nearing -- was mounting the stairs.
Lafcadio Hearn -- Nightmare Touch
Since I have lost 90 percent of my hearing, watching videos can be a real ordeal. Yes, I know that the number of captioned films is increasing, but I still frequently arrive home from the video store with a current offering only to discover that the film isn’t captioned and all of the actors spend the majority of the time whispering in dark alleys. Consequently, I have become a major consumer of foreign video, which, regardless of what Gerard Depardieu or Toshiro Mifane may be saying in French or Japanese, there, at the bottom of the screen, is the captioned dialogue. After some initial resistance, I have come to love foreign film -- especially Japanese.
The captioning in “Nobody” sometimes vanishes, especially when the white letters appear on a white background. That is not a major flaw since this is a “noir” film, and the majority of the action takes place at night. The photography is excellent with lots of skylines, dark hallways and deserted streets -- nice backdrops for the movie’s essential theme: paranoia and suspense.
The film opens with three young advertising executives sitting at a table in a nightclub commenting on each other’s (and other people’s) clothes and accessories: Italian suits, Hennes ties, Rolex watches and Zippo lighters. Taki is handsome and brooding; Nanbu, temperamental and Konishi, timid and gentle.
Although the taunts appear good-humored, there is an undercurrent of menace. When Nanbu comments on the “tacky” Rolex at the next table, his comment is overheard. Rolex is offended and says so. His companion, Zippo, exudes hostility and suddenly the light-hearted banter is gone. The tension in “Nobody” begins to climb like the mercury in an overheated boiler room thermometer. The action moves from argument to brawl (Konishi is beaten up) to murder (Taki, Nanbu and Konishi beat one of the assailants to death, or did they?)
The hunt is on. Our three protagonists flee from assailants who seem to grow increasingly omnipotent and inhuman as the story progresses.
“Nobody” is filled with sequences that are tributes to other famous films. Remember the ominous truck with the unseen driver in Steven Speilberg’s “Duel?” This film has a luxury car with tinted windows that cruises silently through deserted streets, relentlessly following Nanbu. The mute, suffering faces that trudge through the pre-dawn subways and terminals in slow motion (another working day begins!) are reminiscent of Godfry Reggio’s “Koyaanisquasi.” When Taki makes a gut- wrenching, two-guns blazing charge at one of his pursuers, the sequence looks as carefully choreographed as one of the stylized massacre scenes in John Woo’s “The Killers.” There is even an obligatory kick-boxing sequence. I felt that Ohkawa intended to acknowledge every major film- maker who had influenced him. However, the most sinister effect in the film remains the growing isolation of the three victims who race through deserted streets, office buildings, factories and railroad yards, much like the characters in a Wim Wenders film where the protagonists seem to be moving through a world abandoned by the rest of humanity.
Taki becomes obsessed with the identity of his pursuers. Like Newman and Redford in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the persistence of the hunters prompts him to ask again and again, “Who are those guys?” Ironically, he can only identify them by the objects he associates with them. “Rolex just called me,” he tells his friends. Nanbu replies, “I just saw Zippo across the street.” Telephones ring and anonymous voices whisper, “You are going to pay for what you did.” Perhaps they are the Yakuza (Japanese version of the Mafia), the CIA, the Police? Trained military assassins from the local U. S. Army Base? Aliens? Agents of mass advertising? Who can be trusted? Former girlfriends? New ones? The Police? Of course, the title of this video provides the answer.
Quite frankly, I never understood who the pursuers really were. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. When I decided to watch “Nobody” again, it was not to see if I could identify the “implacable forces of evil.” (Well, there is a nice make-out scene in the shower, but .... ) Rather, it was to experience the film again ... to see if it had the power to make me turn on the porch lights and peer uneasily out the window, to lock the door and to involuntarily levitate when the phone suddenly rang. It did.
Note: The review above first appeared in Western North Carolina's independently published Smoky Mountain News.
"Dansant"
Simultaneously, eyeless,
The ants climb, guileless,
With indifferent stealth,
Then: Is it a signal or
Is it an undivined sign?
Their pincers close,
Releasing formic acid,
Inviting mass insecticide,
Introducing a new and mad
Jerky dance of insane pain.
For this sudden pain
There should be a plan,
A purpose, or, perhaps
A purge of some kind.
In order to dance,
A man needs this pain.
Without his measure of poison,
Any man will flatly refuse
His invitation to dance.
-- Charles Willeford, Something Aboutt a Soldier
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"She Don't Wanna Work..." © Susan Lachman, "Nobody" © Gary Carden, November 2000.
Graphics © Jeannette Harris, Jonesborough TN, April, 1996, 2000. All rights reserved.
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