1 - FROM TOLKIEN, BIRNAM WOOD, UNTIMELY RIPPED: The story goes Tolkien read Macbeth as a boy, (as an English boy, at the turn of the century, they all did I would guess), and he was taken: his imagination sparked by the Weyard Sisters' prediction that until Birnam Wood comes up high Dunsinane Hill, Macbeth is safe. Tolkien was sorely disappointed at it's fruition: ten thousand camouflaged men moving through the forest and up the hill to the castle, appeared to Macbeth's servants as a moving forest. It's a killer visual, a real showman's move; I'm not sure Brian DePalma meant consciously to use it in Scarface, but there they are, on Tony Montana's security feeds, the boys come to finally do in a thug climbed too high; certainly Macbeth could have been subtitled, The World Is Yours. The greatest swipe version is Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, a perfect film climax, (and I mean one of possibly five perfect film climaxes I have ever seen); only the man who made Rashomon could have swayed the forest this way, (and Mifune's Macbeth, the best). It is, again, so beautiful a set-up, one can get sick fantasizing about Shakespeare as a filmmaker. So why would Tolkien carry a lifelong bitterness over Macbeth? Because he wanted the trees to walk on the castle, to come to life. Weren't those witches after all? Even a floundering appearance by Hecate the dark goddess! Were not those ghosts, (and not the first time!), there in the man's play? So why not pay off, and bring a great and angry forest alive, at the witching hour, to revenge a villain for his crimes.
-- Of course Tolkien did his rewrite some forty years later, when Treebeard and the Ents march on Orthanc to capture and punish Saruman. Saruman gets away where Macbeth does not, and suffers his punishment later. This is not the only part of Macbeth Tolkien weaves into The Lord of the Rings; Galadriel's mirror predicts the future much like those Weyard Sisters; it is tricksy, it gives partial story; while Macbeth is told no man of woman born can slay him, MacDuff was of course untimely ripped from his mother's womb, whereas in the case of the Lord of of Nazgul, who is himself considered unkillable by man -- a woman and a hobbit cashier him.
-- This is all nice trivia, but I bring it up because Tolkien in letters seems snobbish about William Shakespeare. His own creative work betrays the truth. Tolkien was not just a professor of ancient languages, but considered at the time one of the top linguists in the world; he knew better than we, what Shakespeare was, and maybe it terrified him; it clearly pissed him off. I read somewhere, a theory by a younger professor who knew Tolkien, that Tolkien's bitterness over Shakespeare came out of that childhood disappointment of Birnam Wood not being Ents, and more so, in his honest moments Tolkien would speak of the stories and histories, those that later in life would become his great fantasy books, that were born in trenches, France 1914, World War I, and made there for the purpose of righting a wrong: meant as a mythology for his own country, a true British mythology, rather than the emigrated French stories of King Arthur. He never meant these stories to be The Lord of the Rings. He meant only to fulfill his own emptiness. And to get through some horrific nights.
-- So then Shakespeare. Tolkien considered Shakespeare running off to London, writing plays, putting asses in seats, a waste of such talent. Tolkien wished William Shakespeare to have stayed in the shire of Stratford. Had Shakespeare even known what a novel was, (before likely coming across Don Quixote, already into his own career by then), and had he attempted just such a thing as staying in the country among the shirefolk,, writing, building, deepening a thousand page epic; had Shakespeare created one great universe, a Middle Earth peopled with Hamlets, Falstaffs, Rosalinds, Iagos, and Macbeths; had A Midsummer Nights Dream existed in the same world as Macbeth the way the Shire exists alongside Mordor, what kind of literature would we have now? Amazing. Tolkien took it upon himself to do what he felt Shakespeare should have. But, alas, Tolkien knew he was not Shakespeare. Still, Lord of the Rings: not bad.
2 - BITCH @ DEADLIEST CATCH: I'm sorry. But it's over. Many of these guys on the show have, over the seasons, become actors watching the dailies: they're modulating their performances. Not all. That kid on Sig Hansen's boat is still just the most genuine dude. I love that kid. But for fuck's sake, Keith Colburn was into another lame fake soliloquy when that cameraman called up to the producer, interrupting the Actor, err, Captain, and Colburn went straight-Bale. I was expecting him to say, "Do you want me to trash your lights?". And the kid on the Cornelia Marie saying, "This is our redemption season." Really? Sounds like the shit a segment producer put in your ear. How about, "This is the season, like others, where we try to make a living." and thus, reflection doth make phonies of us all. Makes you miss real actors. Am I wrong or did the Hilstrandts get botox? Suckpill.
3 - TALK RADIO: I love it. I've always loved it. But there is nothing like Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. This is a podcast. It is structured in long multi-part epics, where this Dan Carlin just talks about, well, history. I can't recommend it enough. The first arc I listened to, on the long drives back and forth to NY, was about the eastern front of WW2, and the absolute evil the Russians and Germans traded each other. Better than any TV show or movie I have seen in a couple of years. The second arc is the Fall of the Roman Republic, and it's even better. Six hours of brilliant production so far, and we're just up to Julius Caesar's sex life. Marius and Sulla, (I thought the Krauts and Russkis were bad!). Dan Carlin makes Ken Burns seem like, well, Ken Burns: your lame uncle still wearing the bowl cut. Ken Burns, dude, listen to Dan Carlin. And now Dan Carlin's final Roman show is up, and it is 5 HOURS LONG!
-- I'll listen to talk radio anytime, any show. Music is bad for me, I start trying to cut movies in my head to it, and I'll end up replaying the same seven seconds of Roy Orbison over and over for two hours. But the sound of the talk show, when done properly, well, it's magic. I remember listening to a guy called, I think, Bruce Williams, give financial advice at night. This was when I was 11 or 12. I used to love it because the dude was so sick of answering the same questions over and over that he'd get real ornery. I used to dream of calling him when I could hear it coming on: "Now Bruce, could you explain to me again what a Roth IRA is?... Gwaaaaaaaaa!!!!
-- I would listen to Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh on the same day, and liked both of them. But they both rely too much of someone else sending in info: Howard gets his lines written for him, he's not naturally clever, and Rush gets most of his information sent to him instantly -- many of these crazy conservatives who fed him stats are now on their own shows, pretending to be Rush. The fun thing about Rush is he sounds like Daffy Duck crossed with Wallace Shawn, and if you think of this while listening to him, I defy even the staunchest Democrat not to enjoy it. Goo times. I loved Mike and the Mad Dog when I was in NYC, and I still like a little Jim Rome from time to time, uh.. heh... Grreat. It all puts me at ease. I love words, voices, talking, playing, performing. But there has never, (even Dan Carlin), ever been a greater radio show or host, than Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. Never. And there never will be. This show used to come on at 11pm, and go well into the morning. Art Bell started as a ham radio operator, and I regret even writing this because I have a long standing script/book idea, but anyway, he was a military man, then ham radio operator, and frigging around with his radio turned into a massive late night X-Files like radio show about UFOs, exorcisms, and all something-wicked this-way comers. His voice, his show, at the hour of night you would hear it, shocking. Beautiful. In Rockland, at 2am, after delivering pizza all night back when I was a kid, I'd sit in my car and keep listening until 4am, running my fuel empty in the yard of the place I lived. If you can find tapes of the Malachi Martin interviews, I'll buy them. He was an exorcist, and to hear Art Bell and Malachi Martin go over the man's career, the exorcisms, made me scared to get out of my car, and walk into my place. Magic. Maybe more magic than any movie.
-- Lunatics would call in, and say, "Greetings Mr. Bell."
-- He'd say, "Hello, sir, where are you calling from?"
-- "From, Art? From the future!".
-- And Art Bell would interview this caller for twenty minutes on what the future was like!
-- Art is no longer hosting the show he made. It is still alive and kicking under George Noori, but it's not the same. Still, Dan Carlin. So good I'm looking at Plutarch.
NY 28jul11
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