Slowness has occurred the last few months. Passive voice. I know the cause is that I’ve focused on learning Italian, but a few years ago when I was on a death march at work, every night I still took at least 30 minutes to work on my Symphony No. 1. Those days haunt me for their dedication under stress.
There’s no excuse.
I’ve been collecting movie posters for almost exactly three years and recently finished acquiring and framing a set of five distinctive East German posters. The poster mania started 1 Nov 2020 (according to my catalog notes) which was of course eight months into the pandemic when we were all finding new interests with our idle hands. It started with me describing the Italian sci-fi movie Wild, Wild Planet (I criminali della galassia, 1966) to Lisa with way more information than anyone would care to have who doesn’t love quirky, 60s, European sci-fi (“ok, so it’s directed by Antonio Margherita and is part of a loose four film cycle centered around the crew of the space station Gamma One…”). In my waxing about the movie I looked up the poster and made the fateful statement of how amazing it would be if I could find an original copy.
Well apparently it’s easy to find. And reasonably priced.
And as soon as Lisa saw the purple boots she didn’t care how boring it is that “Margheriti was otherwise known as a Giallo director and went by the name Anthony Dawson for this film to appeal to American audiences. Not to mention that he’s slyly referenced in Inglourius Basterds.” After I ordered it I was worried I was getting a reprint, but the back of the copy I received looks aged and has a stamp that looks authentic. And anyway, who wouldn’t want this on their wall:
A month or so ago a picture from one of the Barbarella comic books came across my feed and it was graphic design catnip. There was an unexpected clarity from something I would have expected to be garish at best. I’ve learned that there is a legacy that she has left that is more respectful and appreciative than I would have thought. I mean, how can I be blamed…
I missed the one year anniversary of beginning work on the piece. I’m not sure how to feel.
There was a commercial that had music I immediately recognized as Vietnamese rock from the 60s (ish) and the music spoke to me–as is always the case when you encounter something familiar and know you can find that thing–so I was on a quest. I remembered it was a travel commercial. Possibly about luggage? After failing on YouTube, which is pretty surprising, I did a full-internet search and finally got to a site that sells commercial viewing metrics called iSpot.tv and it has videos of the commercials it tracks.
Behold: Away Luggage TV Spot, ‘Let Travel Happen: Motorcycle’ Song by Phuong Tam
The singer, Phương Tâm, has a few 45s listed on Discogs which I would love to have but none are available. Understandable considering the history:
After the fall of Saigon, this specific genre of music was removed and buried along with any American-influenced culture in the reunification of Vietnam on April 30, 1975. … Piles of vinyl, reel-tapes and cassettes were thrown out, burned or confiscated.
…
There are a small but passionate group of collectors dedicated to salvaging the recordings from this unique period of Vietnam’s musical history. Most of these original records have been caked with dirt and mud, requiring careful cleaning and repairing before the tracks are even playable.
liner notes by Tâm’s daughter Hannah Hà
The collection that I was able to purchase was released on the Sublime Frequencies label, which I’ve learned guarantees quality restoration and informative liner notes based on the previous albums of theirs I’ve acquired (of Cambodian and Vietnamese music of the same period, covering tragedies of different diasporas). This collection was no different:
Particularly notable, along with Mark Gergis’s liner notes, are the notes written by Tâm’s daughter Hannah Hà telling of how she discovered her mother was a Rock Star decades ago and what she (Hannah) had to do to rally a global community of collectors to gather the source recordings. It’s a beautiful story.
Sublime Frequencies no longer sells it on their web site, but it’s available (albeit a little pricey) on Discogs/eBay/etc.