Celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain recently premiered his new show on CNN. The title of Parts Unknown references both the remote locations the show seems to focus on as well as the odd bits of fruits, veggies and animals that make their way into the more exotic dishes Bourdain puts on display. The title also has a hint of ominousness to it and it’s these dark overtones that tell you Bourdain is really on to something, here.

Fans of No Reservations will find plenty to like here, but fans of particular episodes of Bourdain’s former, famous Travel Channel show will be especially pleased. For me, No Reservations was at its best when the places were gritty and the stories Bourdain uncovered were dark and deeply human – episodes from Columbia, Laos and Lebanon all leap to mind.

The first handful of episodes from Parts Unknown are packed with Bourdain at his edgy best: He recalls the destructiveness of the L.A. Riots in an episode focused on the city’s Koreatown neighborhood; he illuminates the violence and oppression in present-day Myanmar; he returns to Columbia.

In my favorite episode yet, Bourdain visits Morocco, comparing the present-day country and the city of Tangier to their counter-cultural legends, illuminating the lives and works of artists like Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Brian Jones and the Master Musicians of Jujuka along the way. Oh, yeah! Bourdain even schools you on how to make homemade majoun. If you don’t know what majoun is, you really need to watch this video.

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube Channel to access an archive of all the videos I curate on the blog.

Stay Awake!

Junky is William S. Burroughs’ first book and also his most readable. While many readers may have already cracked the cover on this dusky treasure, I recently found a fine gem that washed up on the cyber shores of this here late night lookout. This YouTube offering is an abridged audibook version of the classic that features the man himself reading his foundational work.

Junky is a great read in its own right, but it also offers a window into all of the work that Burroughs was later to conjure. In the book we are introduced to a typically Burroughsian cast of characters:

“The Beagle”
“The Sailor”
“Joe the Mex”
“George the Greek”
“Luis the bellhop”

The book is also saturated with the Hammet-meets-H.P. Lovecraft phrase-crafting that would be developed in the novels, essays and performances to come:

“There is a junk gesture that marks the junkie the way the limp wrist marks the fag.”

“There was a gentleness to him, common to many old time junkies…In the anonymous city crowd he stood out sharp and clear – as though you were seeing him through binoculars.”

“Luis was a shoplifter who had lost what nerve he ever had. He wore long, shabby overcoats that gave him the look of a furtive buzzard; thief and junkie stuck out all over him.”

If you’ve already read the book, this listen is a fine revisit. If you are new to Junky, let this ashen elocution serve to stoke your appetite.

Stay awake!

Watch this performance of my OccupySong at Occupy Congress in DC!

The Man Who Recorded The World

Years later I would find out about the work of Alan Lomax in keeping this music alive long enough to find my ears. A few months ago I was asked to write up a new Lomax biography for the American Songwriter Magazine website…

Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded The World
By Jon Swzed
Penguin Group

New biography puts the life and work of Alan Lomax in the spotlight.

In his quest for distinctive American folk music, Alan Lomax brought the songs of Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Muddy Waters and Leadbelly to a larger audience, and it’s no exaggeration to suggest that without Lomax’ contribution there would’ve been no 1960’s folk music revival, no Bob Dylan and a radically different pop music landscape in the world today. With Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the World, author John Szwed illuminates the life and work of the titular folklorist, musicologist, author, archivist and promoter.

As in his excellent Sun Ra bio, Szwed fully immerses readers in Lomax’ world as he travels from his Texas birthplace, through the rural South during The Great Depression and up to New York’s bohemian scene in the 1960’s.

Read more here…

Joe Nolan <3

Babble on...

Pioneering esoteric film maker Kenneth Anger gets interviewed by pioneering esoteric film maker Gaspar Noe in this match-made-in-heaven (hell?) tete-a-tete:

Kenneth Anger, the octogenarian American underground filmmaker, has largely been heralded as one of the founders of experimental film, with his role in inspiring directors such as Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. He pioneered queer, cult and psychedelic film without ever imagining himself in a gere, and this year he crossed over into fashion and created a piece (with longtime collaborator Brian Butler) for the Italian fashion house Missoni.

Gaspar Noé, director of the recent film Enter the Void and creator of the controversial film Irreversible, has long been a vocal supporter of Kenneth Anger, telling Interview that Anger was the only person he wanted to see Enter the Void. Noé recently caught up with Anger by phone, while the former was in Paris and the latter in Boston. They discussed the essence of cinema, his experience with alien spacecrafts, and why you should not direct movies under the influence of LSD.—Kristina Benns

NOÉ: Do you remember we met a few years ago? You were in Paris doing a retrospective at the Cinémathèque…

ANGER: I remember, vaguely, but I do so many interviews, they seem to all blend together.

NOÉ: I think the reason why they asked me if I wanted to have a conversation with you is because in other interviews I have talked about you, about how when I think about the best psychedelic movies ever, one of the first things that comes to my mind is Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.

Do you think you’d be a director today, if you hadn’t been in Max Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)?

ANGER: Well, It’s a long story. I began making movies at home, with a 16-millimeter camera that belonged to the family. Before that, I worked a little, I did a little part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Director Max Reinhardt was a friend of my grandmother’s, and that’s how that happened.

NOÉ: That movie reminds me of your movie Rabbit’s Moon (1950).

ANGER: I loved the artificial set of the forest at Warner Brothers, this huge set that they made in two connecting soundstages. So that influenced me. But also, I’m influenced by director Georges Méliès, and the simplicity of his magical painted steps, and so forth.

NOÉ: What are your favorite movies directed by other people?

ANGER: Well in the classic French tradition, I love Robert Bresson and I met Georges Franju, and I love his films. And Ann Levy, and of course, Jean Cocteau. And I like some of the films of Marcel Carné very much. I love Arlette Langmann.

NOÉ: Do you often cry when you see movies?

ANGER: I don’t. I’m not a tear-shedder. But I feel it emotionally.

NOÉ: I have a heavy question… What is the essence of cinema for you? Is it reproducing the language of dreams, or creating a shamanistic trance?

ANGER: I think it’s basically quite different from dreams. If only cinema was that easy. Because dreams, all you have to do is fall asleep, and you can have fantastic vision. I know Baudelaire and people like that enhance their dreams with opium or something. But films are very constructed—they’re like architecture. They’re pieced together, glued together. To me, it’s a craft. It’s like making a tapestry. And I prefer to think of it—you know, um, the sweat is supposed to be invisible. But a lot of sweat can go into making a film. But of course, if you enjoy doing it, you enjoy doing it. I will go on cutting for three days without sleeping. You can have everything from a realistic story with recognizable people, or…

I actually love the Italian neo-realist films, and in some ways they seem very dreamlike. You know, the early Rossellini and so forth… But you can have a very expensive dream, which is quite beautifully done, which is like Cameron’s Avatar, which you probably saw. Did you see it?

NOÉ: Yes.

ANGER: Well, that can be considered like a dream, a very expensive dream. I prefer simpler things.

NOÉ: Do you think the language of dreams is universal? Do you think people in other countries have their own culturally specific way of dreaming? People in China, Africa…

ANGER: I think people dream in their own way, dreams are extremely personal, even from person to person. They are completely individual.

NOÉ: I don’t dream in 3-D, they aren’t very bright in color and there isn’t much dialogue. I don’t know about yours…

ANGER: Sometimes I dream in black and white. And actually, I love black and white films, even though it’s been a while since I made any myself. Do you work in color or black and white?

NOÉ: My last movie is extremely colorful. What is a dream you have had that was over-the-top, or really strange?

ANGER: When I was a teenager or a boy, I used to collect tin soldiers. And I had hundreds of them—I had a navy with a ship and the Marines. And I had a dream when I was about 15 of these soldiers coming alive and it was a fight with the Muslims, which is very sort of prophetic. So it was a fight against the Arabs—I remember the crescent on the flags. And the little toys came alive in my dream. They were still toys—they weren’t people. They were battling an invasion of the desert people under a crescent flag. It was the American flag against the crescent flag, which may be prophetic for something to come.

Find the full interview here.

Kenneth Anger’s The Complete Magick Lantern Cycle – including Kustom Kar Kommandos – is now available from The Sleepless Bookstore!

Joe Nolan <3

Just a quick one this time.

Thanks to everyone who has been messaging me regarding the Disinformation World News Podcast and The Wicked – the new CD I am in the middle of recording with Jean Paul Lilliston.

A new Podcast should be up in a few weeks so go subscribe to the ‘cast at Disinfo‘ and you won’t miss any of the weirdness. If you are interested in previewing the new CD, listen to this free download of The Ol’Double Zero. This brand new tune has been a highlight of the various festival shows I did this summer and this work-in-progress version is a fun listen to the project as it evolves. This tune is a really raggedy country-rocker.

In addition to all of this bloated self-promotion I’d like to give some props to Thelonious Monk on what would have been his 92nd birthday. Bless you Monk. Thanks for all those great tunes.

In lieu of 92 candles, enjoy this screening of the Clint-Eastwood-produced documentary Straight No Chaser. I first saw this movie in college in Michigan and this is what turned me on to jazz.

This playlist is hosted on my YouTube channel: Imagicon and is curated by your good friends in the AV department here at Insomnia, The Sleepless Film Festival.

If you need even more music, check out my latest project:

Use this player to listen to my new CD. Purchase a song or two at your favorite digital outlet and help us stay awake here at Insomnia!

Find the archives to my Sleepless Film Festival, and more at my You Tube channel: Imagicon

Listen to my earlier releases, and enjoy free downloads here!

Please consider supporting this site by making a PayPal donation and check out our friends using the links on the right.

Love,
Joe Nolan