SCREEN SHOT - Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) runs a large launderette with her dependable, but much put upon husband Waymond ( Ke Huy Quan). The business isn't going at all well. Just when the financial authorities in the form of Deidre (Jamie Lee Curtis) are about to close them down, an inter dimensional rift opens up. Her husband momentarily becomes Alpha Weymond,from another alternative world. Evelyn is being sought out to save this whole multiverse system from collapse and take over by an evil version of her daughter Joy, called Jobu Tupaki ( Stephanie Hsu).

The film that follows is a scatter gun attempt at an absurdist sci-fi comedy  You cannot, however, fault this film for its visual ambition and execution. I'm sure everyone involved had a hugely enjoyable time, playing around with the idea of multiple universes intersecting and crossing over from one to the other. Parodying film, pop and cultural references along the way. 

My Husband absolutely adores it and thinks its one of the best films he's seen this year. And I'm less enamoured shall we say. Temperamentally inured to the big complex concept, geeky flash bang wallop special effect heavy film. I found the whole thing hugely overblown and remarkably shallow. Any attempt at injecting a bit of human warmth and empathy into the proceedings, ending up trite and mawkishly awkward. But I imagine this polarity in our differing responses to this film might indicate its primary 'Marmite' nature.

The title tells you all you need to know about the film. It has Everything, from Everywhere all happening All At Once. Once the story gets going it creates this unrelentingly manic world. Just when you think it just couldn't get any madder, it hurtles ever more frenetically forward, carried away on the wave of its premise. Inexorably rolling on towards being far far too long. There are some knowing film references, which if you are able to spot them you might find mildly diverting. Witty quips and sarcasm generally get steamrollered under the ever advancing visual juggernaut. I couldn't wait for it to end, about half an hour before it actually did. 

Does it really have anything truly valuable that just needed saying? I'd take a wild guess at No. Its simply an exercise in visual masturbation working itself up to a self congratulatory climax. Its undoubtedly clever, but for me it totally lacked any allure or affectionate charm. So, not one for me, I'm afraid.

CARROT REVIEW - 2/8

ARTICLE - Wildfire Economics

First there is a stack of wood, a pack of firelighters. a box of matches and some sort of fire pit. Through experience humankind learnt how to create and contain fire until we could use it to provide light, energy, warmth. Further harnessed, fire can drive engines and industry. Any fire should never be left to burn unattended lest it goes out, or worse still allowed to escape, burning out of control. Setting alight any crops or houses close by. In fact, anything that happens to fall in its path will be consumed by its flames. 

Once a fire is allowed to get out of control in this way, fire turns from something we harness for our mutual benefit, into a savage wildfire, completely beyond all reasonable human restraint. Getting it back under control can prove extremely difficult. You may in the end have to resign yourself to using a fire break, wait till it burns itself out, and then count the cost. Those who immediately count the cost, will have just lost their homes and livelihoods to the fire, and perhaps even someone they loved.  Fire, left to its own devices, is a cruel and merciless monster.

This is where our government currently appears to be, playing fast and loose with the fire of the economy. Behaving as if there were no detrimental consequences to doing nothing, to inaction, of not attending to it, and then begrudgingly envisaging a kick start to the dwindling economic fire by pouring petrol onto it. I leave open to question whether this is happening through ideological dogmatism, economic naivety, incompetence or as a deliberate strategy of arson to burn off the deadwood? Whatever the reason, they appear willing to countenance an economic wildfire. Heaven help anyone who is unable to get out of the way of the advancing conflagration.

TAO TIT BITS - Being Rich

"Those who know they have enough are rich."

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House. 1974

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1984 - Out of the Flesh by Chakk

And who, you may ask, were Chakk?  They were a Sheffield based band, much touted at the time as ones to look out for. This track Out of the Flesh gives a vivid sense for why people at the time, including me, got a bit in a lather of excitement about them. Because it still is a blistering stonker.

Produced by Roland Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire, this 12" version of Out of the Flesh has everything you might ask for from a mid eighties industrial funk track. Vocal screams turn into saxophones, drums hit harder than a lump hammer on plate steel, then squish into staccato guitar riffs. The vocalist yelps, croons, shouts, screams, gives it the full tilt 'Tony Hadley' profundo. Imagine ABC after a very rough night out on the lash, driven insane by Viagra and an addiction to abstract concrete poetry. It is very very very very OTT.  Exemplary of its time, with saxophones, everything raw, rough edged, harsh sounding, backwards bits, looped samples and scratching going on. Kirk brings out the full range of studio production techniques. Producing what turned out to be Chakk's first and finest recorded moment.

Out of the Flesh flew to the top of the UK Independent Chart, but never got within touching distance of the conventional UK Top 40. When you strike your best with your first release, it can be difficult to impossible to find even an half adequate song to follow it up with. The album that eventually came out - 10 Days in an Elevator - is best described as a lot of half thought through ideas actively going nowhere, extended to a length where they turn boredom quickly into murderous intent. Too much arty twiddling twaddle and not enough focus and intent.

Chakk, as a band, persisted until 1987 then folded without achieving any major league success. Some bands cannot live up to expectations nor survive the hype they attract. Their lead singer Mark Brydon wisely used the record company advance to build a production studio in Sheffield. He went on most notably to produce Moloko, who had a few hits in the late nineties through to early noughties.

SCREEN SHOT - First Reformed

The Rev Ernst Troller ( Ethan Hawke) is the pastor at First Reformed Church. An early Protestant church celebrating its 250th anniversary. He refers to it sarcastically as the souvenir shop, because it attracts more tourists than actual congregation. Toller is divorced, and his young son is dead. He is a broken man, his faith hangs by a very thin thread of habit, sustaining himself mainly through drink.  

One if his congregation Mary (Amanda Seyfried) asks him to see her husband Martin (Philip Ettinger), a man deeply troubled by imminent environmental catastrophe, who has alarmingly even made himself a suicide vest. His wife is pregnant, but he wants the baby aborted.  In a long discussion with Martin his pessimistic views about the future clearly resonate with Toller. On another day he receives a text from Martin changing their usual meeting place. Only to find Martin has blown his head off with a gun. Blaming himself, this experience causes everything to emotionally unravel. Then his own well being comes under threat when one morning he finds he is pissing blood.

This film by Paul Schrader from 2017, was Oscar nominated for its lead and film. Its filmed in an older style compacted frame size. This and its thematic similarities to Winter Light  have echoes of Ingmar Bergman. Whilst being its own claustrophobic beast. Its colouring is muted, almost washed out, not quite to black and white . It is frequently beautifully and exquisitely framed. The church of First Reformed though immaculately well preserved, is also antiseptically pristine and austere .To the point if being devoid of any spiritual feeling. Toller's life within it mimics this emptiness and clinical sparseness. Whilst internally he is a ferment of messy questioning and anger that only comes out when he writes in his diary. 

Ethan Hawke's performance as Toller is a finely judged one, front and centre of this drama. The subtly of expression in his face, of a straining, just about managing, tormented individual, is a constant reminder to you that this man could flip at any moment. This is a probably Schrader's finest self scripted and directed film, containing many themes from his earlier writing work with Scorcese -Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, plus his own films Cat People and Dying of the Light. Its a brutal and thought provoking film that manages to play with and wrong foot your expectations right to the very end.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

THEATRE ONLINE - NT - Medea

The play opens with an oracle, Medea's maid servant. Informing you what has happened, what she forsees, that humiliation and betrayal has taken place between Medea and her husband Jason. Jason is about to marry the young daughter of King Creon. After all Medea has done for Jason, left her homeland and murdered her own brother just to be with him. The King wants her gone, she's an embarrassment, a thorn that needs to either agree to be happy with the new marriage or leave. 

Jason encourages Medea to leave with his children, even offers to give her money to live on. Worse still he attempts to convince her he is acting in good faith, he's doing all this for the future benefit of her and their children. Medea is incensed, brought to a furious rage with him. For her the die has now been cast, Jason needs to be punished. To destroy his world as he has done her's.

This production of Medea uses a version written by Ben Power. Its from 2014 and the staging is a very strange concoction. A split back stage, a curtained off woodland at the bottom, and the wedding party world of King Creon on the mezzanine above. All of it framed by a seedy 1950's interior straight out of The Shining. I didn't quite see what this period setting brought to the production, it felt an arbitrary and unrooted styling. Unless it is a sly homage to Stephen King.

What makes this play still more gripping is Helen McCrory's performance, who is a blistering presence on the stage. She has a scream and a fury that would curdle milk. Not many actors possess a cry of such authenticy, but Helen McCrory's is heart wrenching.  She does it also without losing hert great subtlety of expression and emotional tenderness. The tendency with this particular piece of Greek tragedy, is that it can easily turn into the theatrical version of a shlock horror like Carrie. Thankfully not here. 

Medea is some sort of a witch, she has powers and poisons. And though she weeps at the thought of killing her children, if that is the only thing she can do to make Jason feel what she now feels. So be it. For the gods know she has been wronged, they will help her. The result is spellbinding, a gut wrenching blood curdling denouement. McCrory's emotional restraint, makes her explosions of unhinged rage all the more impactful. She enables you to identify with why Medea feels she must do this. Worth seeing just for this performance alone, what a loss to the stage her recent death was.

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

SHERINGHAM DIARY No 64 - On the Coast of Recession

Street food has finally reached Sheringham. Its becoming quite a big thing in North Norfolk. Lots of small trailer vans popping up at markets, country shows and stately homes. Locally this has been pioneered by Fat Ted's Street Food here in Sheringham, and The Bucket List in Cromer. There is also a more peripatetic outfit whose name I think is brilliant, called - Only Food & Sauces. No idea if the food quality lives up to the promise of that name, nor where they are from. But that wins the best business moniker of 2022.

Talking of business Stevie boy, how is yours doing? If there is any pattern at all at the moment, its quiet at the start of the month with a late rally in the last few weeks that saves the day, and pays us a wage. July was this in a nutshell. Only 10% down on 2021, so a distinct improvement on June and May. It is a strange retail environment we are living through, when the smaller the degree to which your sales have declined becomes a barometer of success. But we will take it as such nonetheless. I think, given the dire state the economy is in, I think we are doing well if we come anywhere near breaking even.

August in its first few days, has been rather flat. But then its hot and its very muggy, what do you expect? Who in their right minds wants to sweat and shop? Also, its Sheringham Carnival week, and the demographic of people on holiday feels noticeably different to that in late July.  More over stretched families and generally less well off folk. The summer schedule of events the Carnival Committee puts on in the town are, retail wise, a very mixed bag.  Few work in our favour. They just create too much competition for folks attention and spending, in which we generally lose out.

Inflation is hitting many of our craft makers material costs. They are having to increase prices or absorb some of it by making a less healthy return. It is affecting us too. Increases in the cost of wood between 25-30%, some materials we buy originally imported from the EU are up 50%. 

One of our best selling lines has been a range of small square fabric covered clocks that I make. Last year we were selling these at £14.95, with a full markup. This rose to £16.95 at the beginning of the year. They've recently had to go up again to £19.95, but that price is not a full markup. We don't think we could sell them for more than that. I'm giving some thought to adjustments to the way I make them, to keep both our markup and the selling price reasonable. Otherwise we may, if material costs keep rising, have to consider not making them.

Worse is yet to come so we are being informed. Already dreading what the Winter will bring. We are going to review the state of things re - the future of the shop in Sept/Oct and if we go on, plan where we go on to. Its not just the economic outlook that is looking bleak is it? We get rid of our charlatan PM, to be followed by this shamelessly low competition between Sunak and Truss. To see how many unpleasant policies and unfeasible, uncosted and ultimately undeliverable promises they can make to their hugely unrepresentative Conservative party membership. 

The longer this travesty of a government goes on, the more despairing I become about the future of our country and democracy. Meanwhile the economic and environmental situation worsens. Our environment secretary is a climate change denier. Our Culture secretary is devoid of culture. Our Home secretary has no humanity. Our current Chancellor is being investigated for tax fraud. The Tory party itself, so it appears,  should be put on suicide watch.

On the bright side we look set to do our first craft fair in Norfolk at the end of August. Our one and only experience of doing a craft fair was seven years ago when we lived in Cambridge. That was such a disaster we've never considered doing one since. But our approach and our stock has changed quite radically in the intervening years. Plus, we really need to broaden the reach of our business beyond Sheringham. This event is in Sheringham and its being organised as an experiment to see if it fly's or not, so there are no fees involved. There are costs in setting ourselves up with a gazebo, a table, some merchandising props, card machine and insurance. Plus making a representative selection of our stock. But we appear to be ready to test the temperature of this particular water again, and see if this time we can float in it.

With the series of heat waves we've been having the cereal harvest in our local fields is already done. Modern harvesters are massive machine that kick up a huge amount of straw and dust that settles onto everything. Better to stay inside and close all the windows if you have breathing difficulties. The other reason for getting the harvest done ASAP is the increased risk of it catching fire. Particularly in the fields running alongside the train lines of the North Norfolk Railway. One stray ember from a steam train and whoosh, your crop is up in flames.

It is, nonetheless, quite a bizzare image driving back from Wells next the Sea the other evening. To see the wide rolling expanse of newly harvested fields with these large cylinders of bailed straw scattered across them like a board game abandoned by giants. It was extraordinarily surreal. 

QUOTATION MARKS - Bodhidharma

"The Incomparable Truth of the Buddhas
can only be attained by eternally striving,
practicing what cannot be practiced ,
and bearing the unbearable."

Bodhidharma, 1st Chinese Patriarch.

QUOTATION MARKS - The Uninhabited Island.

 "To try to find a man on an uninhabited island may prove fruitless.
Once, however, it is definitely established that there is no man there,
the island comes into the discoverer's possession.
This is international law.
It is the universal law effective through the ages.
The whole universe comes into his possession "

Teaching analogy concerning the nature of self and Buddha Nature from a Zen Master

MY OWN WALKING - Journal August 2022

In the wake of rifling through differing perceptions on the purpose of meditation practice in my last journal blog. As is often the case,  I stumbled upon related paragraphs in my early morning reading of The Mumonkan. A collection of Zen koans I've been bamboozling my frail consciousness with before I'm fully and perfectly awake. 

One thing that has become very noticeable in these moments before dawn, is a heightened receptivity to many things, which includes words, and their ability to communicate unsought for insightful flowerings. I don't know about you, but my mind is a much more tenderly receptive thing in the hours leading up to sunrise. Words tumble into it and, in an apparently random manner, some of them land on fertile soil, and some do not. But the right words and the right ideas touch the surface just when they are needed, or I am open to hearing them. Is this an example of the universe responding receptively to my contribution? As an old Chinese saying goes:-

'In order to sound the depth of water, a measure is needed; in order to test a man, words are needed.'

The universe responds a bit like a computer algorithm. You know the one that notices you've recently bought a pair of shoes and then bombards you with adverts from other sites selling shoes. Almost as if its trying to say, you really should shop around more, you missed these beauties.

One quotation reputedly is from Bodhidharma. Now I say reputedly because its not at all clear who he was, if indeed he was at all, or even one singular person. He maybe some fictionalised composite. The same has been said of Lao Tsu, and on occasions with far less justification The Buddha. At some point historical records become few and feeble. Anyway, Bodhidharma, he got a mention in this commentary. Its a pithy few sentences that lay out the impossible nature of spiritual practice, and yet you just have to keep trying eternally.

' The Incomparable Truth of the Buddhas can only be attained by eternally striving, practicing what cannot be practiced, and bearing the unbearable. How can you, with your little virtue, little wisdom, and with your easy and self- conceited mind, dare to aspire to attain the true teaching? Is it only so much labour lost?'

There are two bits of this that jump out. The first is 'practicing what cannot be practiced' the second is 'Is it only so much labour lost?' Because if what you are practicing cannot ever achieve what you think its supposed to, then does that not seem like its a waste of time and effort? Or is there something in the devoting of oneself to the apparent complete futility of an endeavour? Are your labours ever truly lost or in vain? The amount of your labouring maybe of little consequence. But, the amount of futility, well, that is inexhaustible.

Buddhism has many supposedly futile concepts such as the Bodhisattva Ideal - that you can save all sentient beings from suffering. If that is not practicing something that cannot be practiced I don't know what is. Yet it is noble and heroic because of the greatness of its futility. Simply through doing a 'practice that cannot be practiced' it wrong foots linear progressive mindsets and any goal fetish we may hold to. We become this Buddhist version of The Holy Fool, saving all sentient beings with a broken teaspoon.

There is an analogy from a Zen master that I'm finding reassuring, that goes as follows.

'To try to find a man on an uninhabited island may prove fruitless. Once, however, it is definitely established that there is no man there, the island comes into the discoverer's possession. This is international law. It is the universal law effective through the ages. The whole universe now comes into his possession.'

A fruitless activity, of a man searching for another man on an uninhabited island. Never finding his purpose in a place that is purposeless. Until he exhausts himself with the search, not the practice, but his need for it to have a purpose. Only then, once he recognises and lets go of his search with a purpose, do things effortlessly fall into his possession. However, should we mistakenly start embracing its futility or purposelessness as our way forward, here is a salutary koan from the Mumonkan - Shuzan & The Staff.

'Master Suzan held up his staff, and showing it to the assembled disciples said "You monks, if you call this a staff, you are committed to the name. If you call it not a staff, you negate the fact. Tell me, you monks, what do you call it?"

In the commentary on this by Shibayama Roshi , he states

'Unless he is reborn, breaking through this barrier, he cannot be really free in living his actual everyday life. To be a free master, of Absolute Subjectivity, he is required in this koan to transcend the contradiction of committing himself to the name and negating the fact.'

Is there a staff or is there no staff? Is there someone else on this uninhabited island or not? Is there a purpose to meditation practice or isn't there?  Is life meaningful or futile? Beyond such dichotomies, is a state referred to here as - Absolute Subjectivity. An enigmatic phrase with an aura of intuitive suggestibility surrounding it, evading conscious grasp.  These are the words that are currently testing my depth, well, mostly the lack of it.

TAO TIT BITS - The Roots of Happiness

 

"Happiness is rooted in misery.
  Misery lurks beneath happiness."

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974

SCREEN SHOT - The Eyes of Tammy Faye

On the surface this a quite careful and conventionally constructed biographical picture. Showing the rise and fall of Jimmy and Tammy Faye Baker, during the golden days of American televangelism. Starting out as travelling preachers and ending with with Praise The Lord, a multi million pound business and world wide Christian TV station. The fraud, the betrayals and infidelities.

The film is based on a documentary of the same name. Tammy Faye comes across, in the movie at least, as a good hearted, yet naive person, who tries only to see the best in people. She is a bonafide eccentric, a singer and intuitive TV genius of sorts. Endeavouring to always come from a place of kindness and compassion. She was the first person on a Christian TV station to interview a gay man with HIV. Instinctively anti-bigotry and believed in seeing the human being, meeting the person before you without judgement. This appeared to be almost her default position. That, plus the OTT personality, the make up and dress sense, has resulted in her becoming a bit of a gay icon.

This is Jessica Chastain's film, and quite rightly won an Oscar for her performance as Tammy Faye. Like Meryl Street playing Julia Childs, Chastain transforms herself into the magnificent being that was Tamny Faye, but has to tone her down for the film. Otherwise no one would believe she was a real person. Its to Chastain's credit that her performance bursts forth with her character, but avoids making her into a cartoon figure. Emerging as a warm, humane person. When Tammy Faye discovers she has unwittingly been party to illegality, or when she is unfaithful to her husband, the pain of how sordid that is to her, of falling short of her ideals for herself, is really felt. 

You could criticise this film for not digging deeper into exposing the dodgy ethics, inhuman cruelty and money grubbing hypocrisy of tele-evangelism. But the central performance, once it fully takes hold really leaves little room for anything else.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1982 - Knife Slits Water by A Certain Ratio

Martin Hannett was the producer on their second album To Each. ACR thought he made them sound too much like Joy Division. And in truth, their earliest incarnation did share a lot of common ground. By their third album Sextet released in January 1982, they'd started to produce themselves. It would appear to have been a very conscious change to bring in the distinctively off key vocals of Martha Tilson as lead singer. Accompanied by the spooky echo of a delay on the backing vocal. After 'Flight' in 1980, the track Knife Slits Water in 1982 proved to be a second career high point.

The album version of Knife Slits Water, comes in at 7.50 in length. What you notice about this version is the quality of Tilson's flat toned, expressionless voice, intoning and aloof, almost to the point of being alienated from the music. As the background vocal and water reverberate ominously, all escaping down the plughole of the entire universe. The music has moved away from heavy industrialised soundscapes but remains stylistically miles away from a normal funk blow out. The entire album exists in a very percussive led, jangling sonic world of chimes, rattles and susurrations, all its own. ACR themselves believe, quite rightly, that Sextet is one of their very best releases.

Knife Slits Water, for the single version released in September 1982 they chose to release a different mix - slightly slow down the speed and return to a male, albeit androgynous, vocalist. Its interesting how these change how you respond to it. Lets just say its more ear friendly. There is a shaft of unease in there still. It obviously doesn't have Tilson's mentally on the edge of breakdown feel. It does, however, benefit greatly from being more compact. Coming in at roughly half its album running time at 3.57.  Its extremely classy and neat.

 'Who sold that knife to me, Life, Fingers, They cut them off, Bring it home to me, dear, it glistens, dear' '

"The good boy receives tonight's gift' 

Though there are funky guitar breaks, this is not your usual dance floor filler. At this stage in their career they are stretching their latin infused funk envelope as far as it could go. Into darkly disconcerting territory. as if this piece of music were taking place in a drug induced hallucination. Before Cabaret Voltaire turned to mixing dance floor and politics, ACR were using latin/funk in distinctly edgy ways.

TAO TIT BITS - On the Verge of Success

 

"People usually fail when they are on the verge of success.
  So give as much care to the end as to the beginning."

Taken from the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng, Publisher Wildwood House, 1974