Sir Winston, C.B.E. (Crazy Bigot of Empire)

The 1943 conquest of Burma by the Japanese precipitated a famine in Bengal that ultimately claimed as many as 3 million lives. It has long been known that this was preventable, though it has been assumed that the reason for it was mismanagement of the British Raj, under duress of world war. According to a new book by Madhusree Mukerjee, though, the blame falls directly at the feet of one man: The old bulldog, Winston Churchill.

In Churchill's Secret War, she argues that the Brits administering the Raj battled, to no avail, to obtain relief for that starving province, and were checked by Churchill on every occasion. She also proves, by analyzing a number of records and archives of the time, the old standby excuse of no ships being available to send rations is a lie, that any number of ships passed India during this time, filled with grain. She also claims that both the United States and Australia repeatedly offered to send food, but were prevented from doing so by the cannard regarding ship availability. She also says the U.S. finally offered to provide shipping, but that the Churchill government ignored the request. She argues that he was unhinged in his hatred of the Indian people, supporting her claim by citing an observation in the diary of Leo Amery, the British secretary of state for India, questioning Churchill's reason on the issue. "I am by no means sure," Amery wrote, "whether on this subject of India he is really quite sane." Amery also reportedly compared Churchill's attitude to that of Hitler's, after one particularly upsetting anti-Indian rant. He is quoted by Amery as saying that he hated Indians, calling them a "beastly people with a beastly religion", and going so far as saying they deserve to starve, because they "breed like rabbits." Mukerjee associates Churchill's "racist hatred" for India with his love for the (bloated, stinking carcass of) the British empire. He regarded India "in the way a jealous husband loves his trophy wife: he would rather destroy it than let it go." It bears mentioning here, I think, that a man who would rather "destroy" his wife than "let her go" has ceased being jealous, and has become psychotic—and a man who would permit the starvation of 3 million human beings because of disquiet regarding their political will has graduated from being psychotic to being a monster.

As an aside, I've always had negative feelings about Churchill. His attitude toward the Irish—as well as his role in inflicting the black and tans on them—has always pissed me off, as has his advocacy of torture and poison gas (among the "uncivilized"—a designation which can be properly translated as meaning "unwhite" or "Irish"). Yea, he could be a charming guy, and had a droll wit, and he kept that damn Lady Astor in her place. Bottom line, though, if we're looking for someone to cast as the sordid face of empire, in my book he'll do just fine.

"Where books are burned, in the end people will burn"

The quote is from 19th century German poet Heinrich Heine, quoted to good effect in a story I just read at washingtonpost.com (nice to know they're good for something, post-Bradlee). You've probably seen the furor caused by the cracker church in Florida that plans to burn copies of the Koran, to commemorate September 11th. The Post's article examines what it means about the state of our civilization. It is nothing less than the empowerment of the Savage and the Crazy, spreading through the air like one of those aerosol poisons Jack Bauer chased around for almost a decade—wouldn't it be great if we could unleash Jack on those responsible for that? The real terrorists—those who, either by mental defect (Glenn Beck), stupidity (Palin), hate (Limbaugh), or cupidity (Karl Rove and the corporatists he serves)—or combination of each, as realistically describes each character I mentioned—are so willing to serve up our republic and its values on a plate for the deranged and the opportunistic to pick over. Their purpose is to resurrect a fantasy—a mythology—of governmental and societal values, the contemplation of which makes the veins on the foreheads of tea-partying white people twitch like my dog Ralph's hind left foot did, when I scratched his belly.

Money quote:
"On May 10th, 1933 the Nazis burned 25,000 books -- including those written by Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who had predicted in 1820 that "where books are burned in the end people will burn," - and eight years later the Holocaust began.
The connection is not too difficult to discern. Books are repositories of histories, of identities, of values. They are the soul of civilization. A society must abandon basic decencies in order to muster the immoral courage to burn books as a celebratory act. Once it starts burning the souls of civilization, human souls will not be left behind."

Nicely put. Be interested to see some poll numbers on this issue...

He's Got the Whole World (In His Hands)

In Turkey last night, Bono's two-fisting his girlie-drinks, but why shouldn't he? Brokering world peace is heavy business, my friend, and a bloke is liable to work up a thirst. The ipod he presented to the Turkish president during his private audience (well, private except for the photographers) undoubtedly, um, accomplished something, you know, great...Cuz that's what Bono does—it's his calling card. His schtick. Greatness, I mean.

Later, the affable and charismatic Megastar and his entourage (aka, U2) was seen trekking cross the Bosphorus bridge, which connects Europe to Asia, therefore spanning continents. This is symbolically important because Bono spans stuff, too. (Like differences. Like human souls, man.)

At some point on the journey, Bono was overcome by a thought, the purity of which regular Joes like me can only imagine. He was loaded into a limo that was lurking coincidentally nearby, and deposited into the lobby of the Four Seasons, where for the last 12 hours he's been gazing into the distance, memorialized by the several dozen photographers gathered at his feet. What heavy, heavy thoughts they must be—undoubtedly, they will be translated into the usual generic, muddled metaphors, and bland, forgettable melodies which have linked us together for what seems like a hundred years now (though in reality it's only been 19—how can this be?).

As you can see from the photo below, he's still at it. Thinking. Thinking for you and me. Thinking for you and me and a better tomorrow. Thinking for you and me and a better tomorrow filled with U2 songs and probably a dozen more grammys. Don't know about you, but I'm glad he's on our side (he is on our side, isn't he?). No—no, of course not—there are no sides—don't tell Bono I said that there were sides—no, there's only us, man. And Bono. And the rock and roll media. And a whole lotta love.

You don't have to put up a fight
You don't have to always be right
Let me take some of the punches
For you tonight

You do that, brother. The idea that you're out there taking punches fills me with great peace.

Joni

I had a crush on Laura Petrie when I was a kid. Later, Emily Hartley. None approached, though, the passion I felt for Joni Mitchell. Didn't even know what she looked like, for the longest time—didn't matter—she represented what I considered the ideal feminine sensibility. She was funny, poetic, smart, and filled with light. And she could sing like—well, lets just say if angels could sing like Joni, they might deserve their reputations. She is sublime.

Sexy Film Scenes—Phantom Lady

I hesitated to include this film—Paula Jane plainly thought I shouldn't—because the scene in this film reflects lust and deceit. There is love happening, but it is concealed, and directed at someone who is not in the scene at all. That it is sexy, though, is not open to debate—it is carnal, and it is overt—and while somehow it managed to skate by the puritanical censors of 1944, the film-maker's (Robert Siodmak's) intent is plain.

The film stars Franchot Tone, who I've always enjoyed, and Alan Curtis, who always seems to leave me underwhelmed, but it is a vehicle first and foremost for the talents of Ella Raines—

—one of the sexiest and most beautiful actresses of her time (the 40's, which makes her one of the sexiest and most beautiful actresses ever). She made fewer than 20 films, though, in that most golden of decades for cinema. In the 50's, she moved into television (she was Janet Dean, Registered Nurse), before retiring in 1956. Fortunately, most of the films she left behind— Impact, The Web, Hail the Conquering Hero, Tall in the Saddle, The Senator Was Indiscreet, The Run Around, Enter Arsene Lupin, The Walking Hills, Brute Force, The Suspect, The Swindlers, and especially Phantom Lady—were first rate. And everything she made was worth seeing, if only for the chance to see her. It's not so much her looks—well, check that, it's not only her looks—which make her so special; Raines had an every-girl quality, a wholesome, all-american thing, and a great earnestness, all combined with a sensuality that could make Betty Page blush. She's a treasure, and I encourage you to see everything she's in, especially this one.

Originating from the pen of Cornell Woolrich—as have more than 30 films, including Rear Window, Dark Angel, Deadline at Dawn, The Bride Wore Black, The Window, The Leopard Man, and The Night Has a Thousand Eyes—the basic plot of Phantom Lady revolves around a man (Alan Curtis) accused by circumstantial evidence of murdering his wife, and his inability to find witnesses proving his innocence. On the night in question, Curtis was actually out with another woman, a stranger, whom he cannot find and who does not come forward, even after he's convicted and moved to Death Row (they do not even exchange names—hence, she is the phantom lady). A number of additional possible witnesses fail to remember him, and it looks like Curtis's goose is cooked; his secretary, though (Ella Raines), is convinced of his innocence, and sets out to prove it.

In this famous scene, Raines is deceiving Elisha Cook, Jr. (the psychotic gunsel from The Maltese Falcon, poor doomed Harry from The Big Sleep) into believing she's wild for him. He's a drummer at a club Curtis and his phantom lady-friend visited the night of the murder, and although Cook should be able to identify him, he won't. Raines is trying to figure out why, as well as discovering how far she'll go to find out.

At the beginning of the scene, the two of them descend a small stair into a dimly-lit corridor. Muted jazz music can be heard, coming from somewhere, and Cook begins to strut, dancing lightly in front of her, suggesting seduction and foreplay. Once they reach their destination, he opens the door, and the music swells—within this small drab room, 7 or 8 musicians are having at it—trumpets, piano, clarinets, a stand-up bass, each rapturously playing a tune which seems like it's mutating, rapidly, from sensuous to profane. The musicians regard her wolfishly (and she them!), attacking—no, attending, violently—their instruments, as if she has transubstantiated into each. Cook takes his place on drums, and when he begins, this astonishing sequence descends further into overt sexuality. Raines's facial expressions during Cook's drum solo—his little man's thrusting overreach—are savagely honest, and mesmerizing in their cruelty. Her final snarl, and the coarse, mocking nod of the head which follow it at the—pardon the expression—climax of this scene, are gestures for the ages.

See what you think:

Happy Labor Day

This scene from Norma Rae is one of my favorite moments in film, and appropriate for Labor Day, of course.

My dad was a pipefitter, a proud member of local 211 his entire working life. He believed in the Union deeply, and gave that belief to me. Big Bill Haywood and Mother Jones were heroes in my house, as were Clarence Darrow and Gene Debs. I read many books about them, and about the labor movement, which only strengthened my belief that the only hope working people have against the selfish interests which stand against them is to stand together—Union.

My dad died some years ago, so I am no longer directly tied to the movement. I no longer work in a union job, though I have worked in ownership and management enough to have attended countless numbers of meetings where white men gather together and reveal their true selves—enough for me to tell you without doubt that absent unions, the working people of this country would be in a hell of a fix. Obviously, I'm proud of my dad, and the values he gave me. And I am proud to have grown up in a Union home.

This last clip is from Matewan, probably the best film I've ever seen about the history of it all; in places all over this country, the land is steeped in the blood of working people who defied the bottomless greed of capitalists, and paid the ultimate price for it. Labor Day is a commemoration, and a celebration, of their sacrifice.

Joe Kennehan:"They got you fightin' white against colored, native against foreign, holler against holler—when you know there ain't but two sides in this world: them that work, and them that don't. You work. They don't. That's all you got to know about 'em." Truer words were never spoken.

If you are of or have sympathy for the vampire class who have stolen the labor of working people since the beginning of time (one way or other), tomorrow's a good day to go fuck yourself (The National Review blog is about 180 degrees thataway, hoss ☞). Everyone else, when you have your barbeque and ale tomorrow, give a little thought to those who made our standard of living possible, fighting, sometimes dying, for what is right. Give a little thought, too, to them that still fight, and all who are still oppressed. Like Gene Debs said, “While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

(And while your at it, heft one, specifically, for ol' Gene, too)...

Swimming Hole

I want to tell you a story, about a border collie named Ralph—a working dog, in the parlance of the Pink House. He belonged to my grandfather, who let me pick him out and name him, after my own dog (also named Ralph) had been run over by a car. Ralph and I became good friends, our years together, so good that the original Ralph has faded from my memory pretty completely. The later one, the subject of this story, was really the first dog I loved. He was my constant, uncomplaining companion and protector, never hesitating to shield me from whatever wild creature fell in our path. He shared my taste for fried chicken and gravy, and for other things, too—especially swimming. I never saw a dog that loved the water more than he did.

We used to swim twice a day in summer, about an hour before the noon meal, about the time the first traces of sweat appeared back of my neck, and again after supper in the evening, when the water was still very warm, but the edge of the heat was blunted a little. The late swim often initiated after Ralph had emerged from beneath the porch to roll around in the dirt outside the little window looking into the kitchen. Once the screen door slammed, he would race around the edge of the house to find me, before surging ahead, revived and exhilarated by the prospect of water. He would bound forward and backward along the path at intervals, yapping at me when I dawdled, sometimes doubling all the way back to nip at my heels.

At some point along the way, as if giving way to a building momentum, we would both begin to run, as Ralph had wanted all along. We'd slide down the embankment to the creek’s edge, and dive into the green water together in a single squirming graceless kerplunk. All the day’s residual heat was vanished by this ritual until midmorning of the following day. It required at least an hour of floating, splashing, swimming, and diving to accomplish this relief, though, usually until the sun was finally hidden by the tree-line, and even the cicadas had begun to cool down. We would find ourselves dog-paddling side by side in the sudden, tolerable stillness, and know it was time to go home. Silly as it was, these moments I was sure Ralph knew what I was thinking, maybe knew it even a little before I did, so effortlessly he seemed to anticipate my moods, and my movements.

The journey back to the house was delicious and slow. Ralph would maunder under pistachio bushes, trying to root out jack rabbits, and I would kick around the dirt looking for old arrowheads or carelessly buried silver or gold. Once we were back, we would usually sit on the back porch together, and contentedly watch as the sun sank below the roof of Mary Smith’s green little house across the highway.

So were the summers, for five consecutive seasons.

The sixth season, when I was 11, my Uncle Ken came to visit, for a spell longer than the usual one or two days. He stayed so long, in fact, that he came along with us on our swims a few times, to our delight. I showed off my prowess diving (flopping) off the side, and Ralph preened his mastery of the swimming hole, allowing not so much as a turtle to come near without inviting his excited attention. At some point, though, on the second or third day Ken came with us, and after Ralph had dog paddled up beside him—to be stroked and praised and noticed for his bravery—Ken inexplicably reached out, and with one hand on the dog’s back, and the other on his head, pushed him deep in the water.

I screamed, and Ken was laughing, but he let go after a few seconds. Ralph came wheezing and spraying furiously to the surface, springing as rapidly across the water as his legs would carry him before vaulting to the shore in a terrified leap, and sprinting through the pasture home. He was under the porch when I came looking, and wouldn’t come out for 3 days, well after Ken had gone away. It was a week before anyone could come near enough to touch him, and nearly a month before he wouldn’t tremble when they did. It was the next summer before he would even return to the creek. Even then, he wouldn’t swim. He would watch me from the very top of the ledge, his black head resting furtively atop his white front paws, eyes alive with vigilance and caution. When I asked Mary Smith, who taught me to swim—as she had taught my father, and my grandfather, too, when they were boys—why Ralph was so afraid, she said she reckoned he’d learned the heart of humans—"pretty frightening for anyone, beast or man.”

Mary came out one day in July, and managed to lead Ralph back into the water, upcreek where it was shallow, and gradually deeper. He swam again, fitfully at first, but never if I or anyone but Mary was within 100 feet of him. She said it was because she had taught Ralph to swim, too, but I knew she was fooling, that no one had to teach dogs to swim. My Grandmother said it was just that Mary had a "special way", whatever that meant, but I thought I understood why Ralph grouped me in with everyone else, even though I'd never harmed him, or even spoke to him crossly. He had somehow read my heart, I thought; anticipating me, as he always had, he knew of its human meanness, even before I did.

I remembered that, sometimes, the end of evenings, while I sat on the porch alone, and felt Ralph rustling along beneath its planks. The next year, when a rattlesnake bit him on his nose, and it swoll up the size of a grapefruit, and his breath labored and wheezed as he lapsed into coma and death, I thought I knew what he was dreaming as he shuddered away, those final moments. I just wasn’t sure whose face he remembered, in the murk and distance of his death-dream, over the water holding him in.

Crack in the Teacup Redux

The picture above is one of a remarkable series at Life.com, originally appearing in the magazine's pages October, 1944. In the French village of Grenoble, days after the liberation of France, 6 Nazi collaborators were executed, by a rather rag-tag troop of resistance-fighters. Aged from 19 to 26, they had each worked for the Vichy police.

If you have the stomach, have a look at these images. Cold-blooded and premeditated, murder is murder, no matter who squeezes the trigger.

If you don't believe that could be you or someone you love in that photograph, either you haven't lived enough, or you've learned a lot of nothing along the way. The fucking fissure in the ointment is an equal opportunity employer, ubiquitous as the happy highway it leads to, just as certain.

"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless."

(Just keep telling myself that, I think...Mantra, for a long autumn night)

'Tis the Season of Pumpkin Boy

He is well, by the way, and sends his regards to his many friends and admirers, and in recognition of the season, is willing to forgive his several trangressors (certain mockers who have disassembled his various body parts, even hiding his head in an oven, subjecting him to pity and ridicule—he remembers your names, but he forgives you).

September 1st is the official beginning of the season, and as always I resolve to watch at least 1 horror film per day, until the all-out horror film Extravaganza of All-Hallows Eve. My Official Halloween Film Index—an actual document I was holding in my actual hands a few minutes ago—

—consists of several pages, and more than 150 films. I am proud to say that last year Pumpkin Boy and I watched more than 130 of them during the season. This year, we aim to improve upon that proud achievement. Over the past couple days, we have seen I Bury the Living, I Sell the Dead (a new and worthwhile addition to the index), The Seventh Victim, Ghost Ship (the real Ghost Ship, from 1944, not the piece of crap made a few years ago), I Walked with a Zombie, The Spiral Staircase, The Devil's Curse, and House of the Devil (another worthy new addition). Tonight, we watched The Frozen Ghost and Weird Woman (twice), so we're obviously well on our way to a record-setting year. The latter two films are Universal horror programmers from 1944, both starring Lon Chaney, Jr., and based on the Inner Sanctum radio show. Recommended.

Sexy Film Scenes—I Know Where I'm Going!

The scene I'm posting (and the movie it's taken from) is a favorite of both mine and of Paula Jane's; after seeing it again the other day, it prompted a discussion of the sexiest film scenes we know, especially those which don't show sex explicitly (and while you may disagree, I think that's a disqualifier anyway). She thought it would make a good topic, and I agreed—obviously, because here we are—and hopefully she'll have some things to impart, as well. I'm gonna choose my top ten, and post em in no particular order over the next few weeks, beginning with the scene in question, from I Know Where I'm Going!.

The Film was a production of The Archers, a legendary British film unit led by director/screenwriters Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and consisting of a remarkable group of actors and crewman who collaborated to make some of cinema's best and most criminally under-seen masterpieces, among them The Life and Times Of Colonel Blimp(1943), The Red Shoes(1948), Black Narcissus(1947), A Matter of Life and Death(1946), and numbers of others, including of course, I Know Where I'm Going!, in 1945.

Similarly, the films stars are actors not much celebrated these days, but far superior to legions who are. Pamela Brown plays Catriona MacLaine Potts as though she was both a person and an element. Seeing her in the film for the first time, climbing a grassy hill with the easy grace and earthiness of a Celtic Goddess—clutching a brace of rabbits in one hand, a rifle in the other, and leading a yammering pack of hounds—she could've been Danu, in the flesh. When she enters the house a few frames later--rather, bursts into it, free and large and passionate as any man or god—she rather takes one's breath away (watch the stunned reaction of Wendy Hiller—mirroring the audience). She and Michael Powell were beginning a life-long love affair, and it's easy to see how he fell under her spell; and although her role is a supporting one, it is vital. The strength and authenticity of her character, as well as her odd, disquieting beauty, reflect the place, its people, and the way of life they hold to.

Roger Livesey is a key actor—perhaps the key actor, considering the vehicles he starred in—in the annals of Archer films. His performance as the title character, Clive Candy, in The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp demonstrated his astonishing range, conveying deep humanity to a character only seen as caricature to that point. It is a performance for the ages, one I encourage you to see immediately. A Welshman of lumbering appearance, and soulful aspect, there is a bit of Prufrock about him, ostensibly; deeper investigation reveals an actor whose gentle masculinity is more genuine (to me) than a dozen Clark Gables stacked together. In this film he plays Torquil MacNeil, the Laird of Kiloran. He is a naval officer on leave, and has leased his property to a rich London industrialist. He has done so from necessity, because he cannot afford to maintain it. If he leases it for 2 years, he reckons he can live on it for 6.

Wendy Hiller plays Joan Webster, the singularly determined young woman (she knows where she is going) engaged to be married to the industrialist. Hiller was George Bernard Shaw's favorite actress, and she is among my favorites, too. Brilliant in everything, she acted primarily on the stage, and is probably best known for being the original, and most compelling, Eliza Doolittle (on both stage and screen) in Shaw's Pygmallion, as well as the idealistic heroine of Shaw's Major Barbara. (Additionally, Anne of Green Gables fans undoubtedly remember her as the difficult and invalid Mrs. Harris, from Anne of Avonlea.) Not conventionally beautiful, with perpetually surprised eyebrows, insolent lips, broadset eyes, and little visible softness, she bore the more credible and genuine attributes of talent, intelligence, and luminescence to great effect.

In the film, Hiller’s Webster is in a hurry to join her fiancé in Kiloran, where they are to be married. It is a small island in the Irish Sea, off Scotland’s western coast, and it is often inaccessible, because of the fierce seas surrounding it. When she arrives at the little hamlet where the ferry to Kiloran is located, it is during one of these periods of high winds and dangerous waters, and she is compelled to wait for days at Mrs. Potts’ house, in the company of Livesey’s MacNeil, who is waiting to cross over, too. He is immediately and unabashedly drawn to her—as she is to him, although she fights it for all she’s worth. The scene that follows is a depiction of a typical Celtic Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), in particular a Clan Campbell celebration of an elder’s 60th wedding anniversary. The people are vivid, and unaffected in a way that is unfamiliar to Joan, but nearly as magnetic to her as MacNeil is. They watch the action from outside, she on a ladder, to get a better view, he directly beneath her. When the pipers—her pipers, hired for her wedding, stranded on the mainland just as she is—play My Nut Brown Maiden, MacNeil quotes a verse:

Ho ro my nut-brown maiden,
Hee ree my nut-brown maiden,
Ho ro ro maiden,
You're the maiden for me.

The pay-off is his delivery of the last line—the audacity of it, as he looks directly at her, with sudden, smoldering, unapologetic intensity. Cheeks blazing, her alarm and excitement are palpable.

Enjoy it (and watch the damn movie, if you haven’t seen it):