Month: April 2021

Movie review: Wolfwalkers

Cartoon Saloon

WolfwalkersOn AppleTV+, which I have free for a year, the platform announced that Wolfwalkers was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film on March 15, mere minutes after the announcement was made. Since I hadn’t seen any of the other choices yet, I watched it, and I was entranced.

A young English girl named Robyn Goodfellowe (voiced by Honor Kneafsey), an apprentice hunter, and her widowed father Bill (Sean Bean) move to Ireland. Their job is to “help wipe out the last wolf pack. But everything changes when she befriends a free-spirited girl from a mysterious tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.”

First off, it is a lovely, hand-drawn animation. The reviews, which were 99% positive, use terms such as “lush,” “gorgeous,” “beautiful,” a “visual splendor,” and its “use of color and detail make it continually dazzling to watch.” But it isn’t just eye candy.

“It’s endlessly beguiling, like the magic of the forest.” Wolfwalkers addresses the role of women and girls, deforestation and its effect, and I suppose the British version of manifest destiny.

Irish studio

The movie was created by the well-regarded Cartoon Saloon. They made Secret of the Kells (2009), which I did not see; it was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film.

There is a long-running comic book series called Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini; I’ve met them more than once. I’ve only really read the first 20 issues back in the 1980s. This story faintly reminds me of that story’s ethos. Or maybe it’s just the wolves, though I don’t recall them shapeshifting as Mebh Óg MacTíre (Ava Whittaker) does.

“Here is an animated film that finds new beauty in ancient traditions; a film that fights back against the temptation to surrender what little magic this world still has left.” Yup, that’s right.

We Don’t Need Another Martin

You

Last year, during Black History Month at my church, there was an interesting question. Was Bryan Stevenson the new Martin Luther King Jr? I don’t know what my response was, but I’m sure it was inadequate. We don’t need another Martin.

We don’t because, while Martin was a powerful speaker and charismatic leader, he did not operate alone. Thousands, nay millions, worked on the struggle for racial equality in the 1950s and ’60s. And in case you hadn’t noticed, the struggle continues.

So we need an actual Bryan Stevenson, who knows what it means to be present when in the midst of despair. And we require a Lonnie Bunch, who had the vision and perseverance to shepherd the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. And we have need of a  Stacey Abrams, who is doing the good work of the late John Lewis in getting more black people registered to vote.

But we also must call for those folks who speak out when that racist joke spreads throughout the office. And the people who recognize systemic injustice and work, by education and sharing, towards a more equitable country. And in particular, those who don’t know but are willing to learn. The people who lift up the unknown black artists and musicians and writers are very important.

Boy, do we need people who recognize that the conversation about reparations shouldn’t just reflect the period of enslavement. The economic disparity from Jim Crow, lynchings, and white pogroms was great. The crippling loss of generational wealth from black people being excluded from the housing and education opportunities of the GI Bill arguably may be worse.

Nope

We don’t need another Martin. News flash: Martin is dead, and he ain’t coming back. Moreover, the problems of 2021 are not the issues of 1968. OK, some of them are. We’re still fighting against voter disenfranchisement, e.g. But we require the people of today, with 21st-century insight and technology.

Maybe we ALL can be, in our own way, another Martin.

1931: Bing Crosby and Guy Lombardo

hold that tiger!

Bing CrosbyBy 1931, in the midst of the Depression, the music business plummeted. According to A Century of Pop Music by Joel Whitburn, record sales hit only six million in 1932 compared “to the peak of 140 million only five years earlier. The opportunity to hear all the popular songs on the radio for free… also contributed to the desperate slump.”

Into that market came Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby. Bing Crosby was “the king of popular records during the 1930s following his departure from the Paul Whiteman band, with nearly 150 charted hits from 1931-1939 alone.”

Meanwhile, “the mellow sweet-band sounds of Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians were top sellers throughout the decade.” Jazz purists might have preferred the sounds such as the ensemble led by Duke Ellington, whose Mood Indigo got up to #3 in 1931.

Some songs

The Peanut Vendor (El Manicero) – Don Azpiazu with Antonio Machin (Victor), seven weeks at #1. An early foreign language hit.
Good-night, Sweetheart – Wayne King with Ernie Birchill (Victor), seven weeks at #1.

Sweet and Lovely– Gus Amheim with Donald Novis (Victor), six weeks at #1.

Dream A Little Dream of Me  – Wayne King with Ernie Birchill (Victor), four weeks at #1. You may know the cover by Mama Cass Elliot 37 years later.
Tiger Rag  – the Mills Brothers, (Brunswick), four weeks at #1. I have this on a collection called 100 Years of Black Music. This a consequential track. See this  Fleischer cartoon.  

Der Bingle

By the River St. Marie – Guy Lombardo with Carmen Lombardo (Columbia), three weeks at #1. Later covered by Frankie Laine.
Out of Nowhere – Bing Crosby (Brunswick), three weeks at #1.
 At Your Command – Bing Crosby (Brunswick), three weeks at #1.
(There Ought To Be A) Moonlight Saving Time – Guy Lombardo with Carmen Lombardo (Columbia), three weeks at #1.
I Found A Million Dollar Baby (In A Five and Ten Cent Store) – Fred Waring with Claire Hanlon, three weeks at #1. Waring was the arranger of a lot of the songs I sang in my high school choir and especially glee club.

Good Night Sweetheart – Guy Lombardo with Carmen Lombardo (Columbia), two weeks at #1.
Just One More Chance – Bing Crosby (Brunswick), two weeks at #1.

Diamond Dave

Just a Gigolo – Ted Lewis (Columbia), two weeks at #1. From Songfacts: “In 1931, ‘Just A Gigolo’ became Bing Crosby’s first-ever hit song as a solo artist (#12 Pop.) It was originally adapted from an Austrian hit ‘Schoner Gigolo,’ written in 1928 and was first sung in America by the French star Irene Bordoni.

‘It was restyled by trumpeter-singer Louis Prima in 1956 with an uptempo arrangement combining ‘Just a Gigolo’ with another song, ‘I Ain’t Got Nobody.’ While still a member of Van Halen, David Lee Roth released a solo EP of standards in 1984, including his interpretation of Louis Prima’s version of this track.”

When The Moon Comes Over The Mountains – Kate Smith (Columbia), two weeks at #1.

Minnie the Moocher (The Ho De Ho Song), Cab Calloway (Brunswick). I recently wrote about call-and-response. This song definitely qualifies!
Stardust  – Isham Jones (Brunswick)

Protect civil rights or Mr. Potato Head?

Hippocratic oath, ignored

potato headThe Weekly Sift guy posits: If there’s a theme in recent political news, it’s that Republicans and Democrats seem to be living in different worlds.

“I live in the Democratic world, so the issues Democrats talk about — Covid; the economic effect of Covid on ordinary people; protecting the right to vote; repairing crumbling 20th-century infrastructure and building for the current century; climate change; racism, sexism, and various other forms of bigotry; mass shootings; and letting DREAMers stay in the country — look real to me.

“Meanwhile Republican priorities — making it harder to vote; keeping transgirls out of school sports; changing discrimination laws to increase conservative Christians’ opportunities to express their disapproval of other people’s lifestyles; encouraging more people to carry guns in more situations; more tightly regulating which bathrooms people use; not letting cities require masks; and protecting Mr. Potato Head from cancel culture — are all weirdly divorced from any problems I can see.”

He describes this in much greater detail. And it wasn’t always so, as he explains.

Anyway, while trying not to pay too much attention to a murder trial in Minnesota, some other things that caught my attention.

ITEM: A story about my home county:
Research reveals gaping racial disparities in suburban arrests
“A review of data by the Times Union provided by the Capital Region’s largest suburban police departments revealed Black people are arrested and ticketed at rates that far exceed their percentage of the population in the mostly white communities.

This should surprise no one around here. Of course, the black folks in Albany knew this. But some of the white people in my church have been telling me this for years, how they had received what they perceived to be preferential treatment.

The Talk, redux

ITEM: Asian Americans, many for the first time, are giving children and elderly parents ‘The Talk’ on how to protect themselves from hate
“Some parents have been putting off these uncomfortable discussions, but they’re now unavoidable after the targeted murders of six Asian American women in the Atlanta area.” The conversations with their children are about how to gird themselves against a wave of anti-Asian sentiment, violence, and bullying.

ITEM:  Arkansas Governor Signs Pro-Religious Discrimination Bill Allowing Doctors to Refuse to Treat LGBTQ Patients.
And here I thought doctors followed a Hippocratic oath to recognize their “special obligations to all my fellow human beings.” This is contemptible legislation.

ITEM: Lindsey Graham Accuses President Of ‘Playing Race Card’ On HR 1
There was a time, right after John McCain died, that I thought maybe this guy could become something better. Nope.

ITEM: From The Lancet, no less. Public policy and health in the Trump era
“Trump exploited low and middle-income white people’s anger over their deteriorating life prospects to mobilise racial animus and xenophobia and enlist their support for policies that benefit high-income people and corporations and threaten health.

“His signature legislative achievement, a trillion-dollar tax cut for corporations and high-income individuals, opened a budget hole that he used to justify cutting food subsidies and health care. His appeals to racism, nativism, and religious bigotry have emboldened white nationalists and vigilantes, and encouraged police violence and, at the end of his term in office, insurrection.” (49 pp, free with registration)

ITEM: SATIRE –  Georgia Governor Declares Water a Gateway Drug That Leads to Voting

On the other hand

ITEM:  Louisiana, Activists May Be Winning a Battle Against Environmental Racism
Analysts say the massive petrochemical complex proposed by Formosa Plastics is “financially unviable.”

ITEM: Brown University students vote to support reparations for descendants of enslaved people connected to the school
“Studying the issue doesn’t put money in Black folks’ pockets,” the student body president said. “It’s lovely and all, but how does that rectify what happened?”
Of course, the question is always, “How?”

An uplifting meme on the word UP

Drink a 7-UP.

Up (2009_film)I was never good at April Fools Day pranks. I mean ever. So, on the blog, I try for something at least whimsical on the date. I found this online who knows where some months ago.

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is the word UP.

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers, and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has a real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

The dictionary!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
And when the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
But when it doesn’t rain for a while, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now, my time is UP, so…….it is time to shut UP!
Now it’s UP to you what you do with this.

Now I Know: How Jupiter and Pluto teamed UP to make people feel silly.

Do NOT accept a friend request from Hormel Foods – it could be UPsetting spam.

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