All fall down

Have to admit to not being in the best of moods when I saw it tonight, but damn Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows is entertaining. A familiar setup: guy hates his boss, has the hots for the boss's wife, so with her approval he kills the boss. But in this case absolutely everything goes wrong. Not just for him, either. While other idiots seem to be making out while he's trapped - I won't say where - his bad fortune turns out to be contagious.

There are certainly familiar elements here, but Malle has fun jumbling them up and throwing them against Bohemian Paris. Then there's Jeanne Moreau as the boss's wife and protagonist's lover, who takes her time revealing what she's capable of.

Also, there had been crime movies before this with jazz scores, certainly. But putting Miles Davis on the soundtrack was something else again. Bolder.

You just need to hear this

Which is funnier? Ray's patronizing childspeak? Or Bob's aggravated slow burn? Both are such profound things of beauty.

Centers

Geocentrism, egocentrism, ethnocentrism: you can see where they come from. Our perspectives put us at the center of it all, which is just an outgrowth of having survival skills. And you can't get away from this perspective. You can train yourself to look past it, though, or aspects of it.

That's the sniff

For a big part of the day I noticed this weird smell. Sort of like wet tobacco, which is not pleasant, but at least it wasn't strong. Just persistent. I'd notice it in one room at home, and in another, and when I was out.

Finally I figured out that it was from this shirt I hadn't worn in a while. Never rolled it in tobacco or anything, but that probably wasn't the source of the odor. The olfactory sense is an erratic one, or at least our knowledge of it is. Anyway, the smell eventually went away. Or got sweated out, or something.

From the Hart

Just getting word that Grant Hart has passed. Hart was, of course, one third of Husker Du, drummer and singer/songwriter. He also had a fitfully brilliant solo career after that, heard by too few. While I won't relitigate the feuding that occurred between him and Bob Mould during and after Husker's time together, he truly elevated the band. RIP.

Traces of summer

Generally I've been wearing shorts at home at night. Regardless of what the day's been like, or whether it's cooled off outside by nighttime, it tends to be quite warm in the apartment. I'm sure it's like this for a lot of other people too, and that it drives kids crazy they're back in school when they can hardly tell it's fall.

Complete field

The ganzfeld effect is a new term to me. I've heard of something like it, though. It's a limited form of sensory deprivation effect, where the lack of new information coming in through a particular sense - most often sight - can cause hallucinations. Besides Brion Gysin's Dreamachine the principle has also been used in artist Robert Irwin's installations. It's an interesting effect. Best if you have the option of walking away from it. But if anything we're subject to sensory overload most of the time.