I'm Your Man

(Play/Pause music at right)

So much time so little to write.

Strike that. Reverse it...

Yes and yes, evening has descended during my sabre-toothed tiger nap and I now greet my shadowy companions by the artificial light of this writing machine, and the flickerflame that is the my willful will.



I am pleased to announce that the new Culture Grits site is planning to be up and running full-speed by the beginning of September. Hail - I - You - Jah. The faithful - ok, more or less - among you will be familiar with the luminous publication (my new word I just made up for any online publication: a publication not read BY light, but made of it) and may have even been following the sweat-soaked-saga that is the Memphis Soul Series that I have been chronicling since the publication was ignited.

I have been reading the amazing book The Botany of Desire by the curiously named Michael Pollan. Pollan has gone on to mega-celebrity with tomes like The Omnivore's Dilemma, but Botany' is a really special book that posits the role that human desire has played in the co-evolution of people and specific plant species.

Pollan's corollaries line up as follows:

Sweetness - Apples
Beauty - Tulips
Intoxication - Marijuana
Control - Potatoes

This book is an enegetic rush of ideas that can leap from tulip flowers bankrupting the country of Holland, to the proclamation that best gardening in the '80s and '90s in America was carried out by underground pot-pirates, to the labeling of Johnny Appleseed as The American Dionysus. However, we arrive at each amazing revelation via Pollan's measured, jewel-cutter writing, which is informed by both a gardener's eye and a poet's ear.



I recently watched the film Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen. 'Cohen is a very entertaining doc that captures Cohen's day to day life in Montreal, on a holiday visit to see his family in 1965. At this point, our hero is already living on the island of Hydra in the Greek Adriatic.



He is a well-known, award-winning poet and novelist in his native Canada. He is not yet a singer/songwriter, but one scene finds him singing one of his poems in a strict melody - almost like a Cantor - over a simple grouping of chords.

This film is great - if slightly sycophantic - and Cohen comes off as one would expect: sincere, sad, dreamy, and hilarious. This movie makes a great bookend to the disappointing music-film I'm Your Man.

In fact, it might be worth considering a Sleepless Film Festival of Cohen-inspired movies.

I'm thinking Ladies and Gentlemen', I'm Your Man, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and maybe even one of Leonard's Miami Vice episodes...







If you are inclined toward a liking of song/poems and music/words, please take the time to check out the following links to preview my new CD Blue Turns Black, enjoy free downloads from my previous releases, and explore this site.

You can also explore Blue Turns Black using the player on the right side of this page.

Be gentle in your sleepy hands on this world.
Be a killer in Heaven.

Love,
Joe Nolan

Open this browser-based player and preview Joe's entire new CD "Blue Turns Black"

Listen to Joe's music, and enjoy free downloads here!

Support this site! Buy Joe's Music! ...

<

Yo-Yeoh

(Play/Pause music at right)

Kendo!

Sashimi!

Yes and yes, another lovely love of a warm, but crispy, nice day here in The Old South. Unbelievable. We may be in for a long lingering fall into winter.

Let it be so.



I have just finished editing an upcoming issue of Number: An Independent Journal of the Arts. I have been contributing to the journal for years, but having the chance to actually organize an issue that deeply explores the Nashville art scene has been a blast. It has also taken a lot of work, and it's nice to have it off my plate. Now I just get to wait for a few months for the thing to actually come out. In the meantime, click on the link to explore the archives. Most previous issues are available as free .pdf downloads so dig in!

My only real distraction as of late has been watching the Sopranos and Twin Peaks on Netflix. I finally finished the Sopranos and like the strange ending more and more.


One of the more interesting interpretations around can be found here.



Twin Peaks on is moving along in its own loopy way. I have about ten or so episodes left. I saw most of these when they first aired, but am consistently blown away by the humor, imagination, and just plain weirdness on display.

Although Twin Peaks is heralded as a ground breaking series, that doesn't really do it justice. It is far more original and unique than any of the shows that it supposedly midwifed.



Through the darkness of future past/The magican longs to see
One chance out between two worlds: Fire walk with me

It also only lasted for two seasons. C'est la vie.

In the meantime I was pleasantly suprised by Michelle Yeoh in the mildly disappointing film Sunshine. Briefly, Sunshine is about a group of astronauts travelling to the Sun.



The payload they are carrying is a giant nuclear bomb. The sun is dying and they are trying to reignite it's pilot light so to speak.

The first half of the film is full of great performances by a great cast including the lovely miss Yeoh. It is also full of a kind of visionary art direction that rivals Kubrick's own in 2001. Really. Really.



Yeoh and the crew - and the audience - are in for a rude awakening when the movie takes an unfortunate left turn from fascinating/philosophical thriller to haunted-spaceship monster film.

Yeoh is great in it though. As in everything she does.




Yeoh! Listen up!

Check out the following links to preview the new CD, enjoy free downloads from my previous releases, and explore this site. You can also explore Blue Turns Black using the player on the right side of this page.

Be gentle in your sleepy hands on this world.
Be a killer in Heaven.

Love,
Joe Nolan

Open this browser-based player and preview Joe's entire new CD "Blue Turns Black"

Listen to Joe's music, and enjoy free downloads here!

Support this site! Buy Joe's Music! ...