An update on my recent civic activities. Note that when our CM says, “I would have probably done even more advocacy with them,” she in fact did not advocate for us at all.

Tonight in later Sonny

TIL there was a blu-ray set of LA FLOR exclusive to FNAC

Been hitting a bad run of tapes so it’s nice to crack open some sealed deadstock

I used to see Andrew White, who lived in Brookland, on the Metro, so I was sorry I didn’t buy his self-published autobiography while he was alive. So I was happy to find it on eBay for all of $11.27

What if you were immersed in the fevered basement brains of two beer-swilling potheads you don’t have anything in common with, whose every aesthetic choice is terrible, but you find them utterly endearing? Incompetent and inarticulate, but strangely compelling.

In 1989, this sounded like a banal and watered-down bar band vision. 36 years later, its smoothness is comforting.

In my maturity I find I hate CRAZY HEART more than I hate Chris O’Donnell, if perhaps not as much as I hate SCENT OF A WOMAN

Honk if your mid-life dream is to make an 80s romantic thriller that drops “Don’t Disturb This Groove” over the end credits

Surf music, the universal language

My favorite YouTube dog grooming channel is ONE BATH AFTER ANOTHER

Programmed by Cooper Graham, one of my favorite Pickford Theatre discoveries with Irina Kupchenko in an all-time favorite performance. You’ll need to auto-translate, but I think that quiet power comes through the language barrier youtu.be/8-EmHbRHxyA?...

That sweet tone Sonny Rollins leaned into in the 1990s is a sound of promise and prosperity that turned existential despair into the most joyful exuberance tidal.com/browse/track...

Me, ready to hand out a 5-star rating @letterboxd: How did I never see RED ROCK WEST before? [sees that I already gave it 4 stars] Me: How did I not remember that I saw RED ROCK WEST before?!

I wish this Union Station ad push meant they were reopening the theaters

perfect smokey-voiced jazz singer showcase

Did Petula Clark have a Dusty in Memphis in her?

The dense arrangements make me think polka and dixieland (two things I ordinarily never choose) have something in common. I am unlikely to ever listen to this again, but there’s more there than I expected, and the cover has just enough charm to stay out of the discard pile. Maybe.

You know you’re dealing with a musical visionary when a veteran artist can take the worst of contemporary production excesses (in this case, bombastic late 80s synths) and make something completely idiosyncratic out of it.

I don’t think we will ever find something more amazing at a yard sale, even the Murano Gucci lamp we got at our parish sale for $25

at the point in SCHATTENFROH where it reminds me of the rage baby we got at the Holy Redeemer

I don’t know who needs to hear this but Candice T. Cain is like the David DeCoteau pseudonym that wasn’t

RIP Brett James, who I saw at a Country Music Association songwriter’s showcase in the Coolidge Auditorium at LOC in 2010

Dreamed I was watching an action series starring Andy Richter with his sidekick a wild boar. Let’s make it a reality!

Kane & Dee Dee - Magic Day: [USA, Soft Psyche] (1978) : Glorious soft-psyche from an album that is fantastic from beginning to end. There are shades of The Free Design and The Beach Boys on this track and it all has sunshine https://redd.it/m0o4ab https://youtu.be/JgqYeZuvTTQ

it’s raining mank

So incredibly psyched for this! I've only seen maybe 15 of these, and haven't seen the early Woos in decades.

In October on The Channel there will be a whole lot of Hong Kong

🙂 Hey @anamelessyeast.bsky.social! Your messages have a slight upbeat tone to them. Your sentiment score is 0.09 (slightly positive). That subtle positivity in your posts is great. Let it out more!

@sentimentbot.bsky.social How am I doing?

Today’s madeleine conjured up a memory of a really good starting move on Pole Position at the video game arcade that used to be at Union Station

night music

TIL that in addition to Queen Elizabeth, illustrious visitors to Queens Chapel Rd included stars of General Hospital and Edge of Night

New to me, and I can’t stop playing it, though it’s terribly sad. In the video I see shades of Lynch, Waters, Solondz, Fassbinder, James Benning;

But I b’en hyar in this man’s town now fur 10 long y’ar--mebbe yo’ wouldn’t b’leeve it f’m the way I talk--but we’uns from aroun’ Big River talks jest allus so--and we cain’t never change our talk no mo’n kin anybody evah im’tate us.

Started ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME and honestly GROUNDHOG DAY is far more sophisticated

I know of him without really knowing him, and how good can a jazz album be under the David Frost imprimatur and such cheap graphics? Well, it smokes! Medium-large band with a loose energy that reminds me a little of Ornette’s Friends & Neighbors.

RIP former Library colleague David Reese, a great guy and the projectionist for my first-ever Pickford program, CHOOSE ME

Night Music

For the @wcp.bsky.social Fall Film Preview I wrote about STOP MAKING SENSE at the Lincoln, Hong Kong classics at the AFI, and an Indonesian multi-media event at the Freer washingtoncitypaper.com/article/7707...

8 1/2 Eraserhead Toni Erdmann

The best of the 3 x I’ve seen Dylan, blues and hits w/a strong voice in low key, all in Lovesick/Dick Slessig mode. Transformative, doom-laden, mortal, hilarious. And my first time seeing Willie—he sounds good, and can still make sthng out of Always on My Mind

weather's got me stepping out like 2006 Lou Reed

One of those records that, each time I hear it, possesses the luminous and magical quality of being exponentially more terrible than I remember.

cinedelic.bandcamp.com/album/tapest... h/t @lazercat.bsky.social

Pot Roast and Thanatos

Ma’am or Astro-Ma’am