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News:
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Recent posts
#11
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - January 07, 2023, 05:34:57 PMWho's to say it's not a malevolent aliens' ship?
No, not aliens!
What Are Lightning Sprites? Magic in the Skies!
https://www.almanac.com/what-are-lightning-sprites-magic-skies
No, not aliens!
What Are Lightning Sprites? Magic in the Skies!
https://www.almanac.com/what-are-lightning-sprites-magic-skies
#12
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - January 04, 2023, 09:11:46 PMWho dived in to hold the stature's hand - Shaun, Kai or Butchie? Hmm....
Christ of the Abyss by Guido Galletti in San Fruttuoso, Italy.
#13
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - January 04, 2023, 12:25:36 AMNo need to travel in time that far, not yet.
All Further Days Of John From Cincinnati scenes written after HBO canceled the show were building on the premise of John presence in Imperial Beach. Our sequel fervently tried to hold on to the dream.
What happens when our characters give up, wake up and join the daily grind?
I got some rather misanthropic ideas about that, prepare to be disappointed.
'I'll take care of it my birthday after next' - Palaka
All Further Days Of John From Cincinnati scenes written after HBO canceled the show were building on the premise of John presence in Imperial Beach. Our sequel fervently tried to hold on to the dream.
What happens when our characters give up, wake up and join the daily grind?
I got some rather misanthropic ideas about that, prepare to be disappointed.
'I'll take care of it my birthday after next' - Palaka
#14
General JFC / Re: Mr.Milch In The News
Last post by Sven2 - January 03, 2023, 01:05:58 AMHow 'Deadwood' Updated the Traditional Western TV Series
By
David Hunter
How did David Milch's hit series Deadwood update the Western? Its several endings give us several answers.
Unlike most of the shows of TV's golden age, Deadwood was canceled prematurely. This bestowed a lot of unintended authority on the closing moments of its unexpectedly final episode. Over a decade later, the story was picked back up, as the cast reunited for Deadwood: the Movie. But the storyline was also continued, in another way, in a special feature on the DVD box set titled "Deadwood: the Meaning of Endings," a recorded conversation with iconoclastic showrunner David Milch in the immediate aftermath of the cancelation in which he spoke about how things might have continued if the show had gone on. He also offered, as consolation to disappointed fans, some paraphrased wisdom from the philosopher William James: "the idea of the end of a thing as inscribing the final meaning, is one of the lies... that we use to organize our lives."
So, we have a lot of endings to choose from when we try and decide what Deadwood means to us, and how it might relate to the Westerns before it. And on top of that, Milch gives us the choice to ignore all of them.
Deadwood: A Show About Progress?
The final moment of the original run of Deadwood was a powerful bit of punctuation. It strongly compelled you to perceive the show in a certain way, a certain shape. The first three seasons of the show followed a distinct trajectory, one of growth. In the pilot, the town of Deadwood was just beginning to get off the ground. People were starting to flood the town, situated on the occupied ancestral land of the Sioux, Cherokee, and Iroquois, drawn by the gold recently discovered in the Black Hills.
Over the run of the show, Deadwood would prosper and grow. It would form an ad hoc government, and the new arrivals would form a community. Meanwhile, increasingly powerful and entrenched forces from within the United States would attempt to swoop in and usurp what Deadwood's founders had built. This conflict climaxes with the coming of the ruthless mining baron George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), who arrives in Deadwood for the third season, to oversee the consolidation of most of the gold-bearing land under his control. What Hearst discovers is that Deadwood is a strong enough community to, if not resist his will entirely, at least partially deflect it and make it impossible for him to personally stay in town. This is the culmination of two seasons in which the characters of Deadwood learn to care for each other, out of affection and need, and in the process become resilient.
The most dramatically important relationship is between the show's two leads, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and Al Swearengen (Ian McShane). They begin as enemies — Bullock is a lawman, and Swearengen is a murderous saloon owner and pimp — but they learn they must rely on one another, and so form a symbiotic relationship. Bullock will become the face of lawful Deadwood, while turning a blind eye to Swearengen's crimes. Swearengen will do all the killing that needs to be done, but always in the service of the greater needs of the town.
We watch Swearengen kill a lot of people, always after a period of moral calculation. But the final murder is the worst. Series regular Trixie (Paula Malcomson) has attempted to assassinate the vile George Hearst, and failed, and Hearst is calling for her death. Instead, Swearengen murders Jen (Jennifer Lutheran), another one of the trafficked women under his control. She's a total innocent but is less familiar to him than Trixie, and Hearst is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between their dead bodies. After the ruse succeeds, Johnny Burns (Sean Bridgers), one of Swearengen's lieutenants, who had a crush on the murdered girl, asks if she suffered. Swearengen gruffly tells him that he made her death as painless as possible. Then, while alone, he delivers the iconic line "wants me to tell him something pretty," while scrubbing up the blood.
A Few Takes on Deadwood's Ambiguous Ending
Swearengen's line came to be seen as the message Deadwood existed to deliver. In fact, in the video above, even as Milch is urging viewers to resist the impulse to let the ending of a show define it, he quotes this exact line. The moment is overpowering because while it acknowledges the horrors of the American frontier, and expresses contempt for anyone who won't acknowledge them, it also implies that these horrors can be confronted, and accommodated. It echoes another famous Swearengen quote: "The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
But, context is important. What is the ultimate purpose that gives this suffering, both endured and inflicted on others, meaning? If you watched Deadwood as it aired, the pattern you saw was of a town that only grew in size and strength, acquiring increasingly powerful enemies, but able to battle them to a draw. In this context, the losses taken by the people of Deadwood are casualties in a larger ideological struggle against the wholly depraved forces of American capital, which would gladly accept a human toll hundreds of times worse than the cost of doing business. If the town of Deadwood is growing stronger by the season, perhaps Seasons 4 and 5 would have been the ones where the town would finally be able to triumph over its enemies. The premature cancelation allows these dreams, even as its final moments encourage hard-nosed realism.
Only listening to Milch explain what would have actually happened if the show had continued dispels this fantasy. What did Milch foresee for the town? Destruction by fire. That Deadwood might burn to the ground is signposted several times throughout the show, and happened in reality. But, though the town would rebuild, Milch imagined that the influence of Al Swearengen would be permanently diminished. Whatever you think about a Deadwood without Al, it's not one that continues to take on the forces of agglomerated capital. That might have led to an ending in which all seems to have been for nothing.
The Deadwood Movie Changes the Series' Ending While Best Summarizing Its Message
Of course, none of this story was ever put on film. Not only that, but when Deadwood: The Movie returned in 2019, in the digital age, none of these events seemed to have ever taken place. When we see Deadwood again, most of the characters are exactly where we've left them, seeming to have passed the entirety of the intervening years in cozy domesticity (cancelation treated them better than us). The movie displays a sentimentality that the Al Swearengen of 2006 might not have liked. Quite literally, in fact; the movie provides several of its characters with "pretty" deaths, even symbolically returning Jen to life.
But in all this sentimentality I do think you find the best summary of what Deadwood was really all about. Milch's great gift as a writer is his ability to empathize with all of his characters, high and low, and his willingness to put words of great eloquence and understanding in the mouths of all of them. He likes people, or seems to in his capacity as a writer, and the driver of his affection isn't what values they stand for, but simply proximity and familiarity.
The pain and damage of Deadwood isn't a calculated loss in a battle between two competing ideologies, either one of which could triumph. (Although, in the movie, Milch allows the possibility for the first time that George Hearst might not "own the... future.") That pain is only meant to pay for the momentary happiness of the people who happen to live in Deadwood, even if the town is eventually absorbed seamlessly back into the United States and that happiness disappears without a trace. And, even if those original townsfolk are simply lucky to have the purchase they do, other unlucky people had to die for them to have it. In Deadwood, any quantity of human happiness and freedom is precious and worth its price. That is not a morally impregnable ethos, for sure, but while you're watching the show, it feels like something you believe.
from:https://collider.com/deadwood-western-tv-show/
By
David Hunter
How did David Milch's hit series Deadwood update the Western? Its several endings give us several answers.
Unlike most of the shows of TV's golden age, Deadwood was canceled prematurely. This bestowed a lot of unintended authority on the closing moments of its unexpectedly final episode. Over a decade later, the story was picked back up, as the cast reunited for Deadwood: the Movie. But the storyline was also continued, in another way, in a special feature on the DVD box set titled "Deadwood: the Meaning of Endings," a recorded conversation with iconoclastic showrunner David Milch in the immediate aftermath of the cancelation in which he spoke about how things might have continued if the show had gone on. He also offered, as consolation to disappointed fans, some paraphrased wisdom from the philosopher William James: "the idea of the end of a thing as inscribing the final meaning, is one of the lies... that we use to organize our lives."
So, we have a lot of endings to choose from when we try and decide what Deadwood means to us, and how it might relate to the Westerns before it. And on top of that, Milch gives us the choice to ignore all of them.
Deadwood: A Show About Progress?
The final moment of the original run of Deadwood was a powerful bit of punctuation. It strongly compelled you to perceive the show in a certain way, a certain shape. The first three seasons of the show followed a distinct trajectory, one of growth. In the pilot, the town of Deadwood was just beginning to get off the ground. People were starting to flood the town, situated on the occupied ancestral land of the Sioux, Cherokee, and Iroquois, drawn by the gold recently discovered in the Black Hills.
Over the run of the show, Deadwood would prosper and grow. It would form an ad hoc government, and the new arrivals would form a community. Meanwhile, increasingly powerful and entrenched forces from within the United States would attempt to swoop in and usurp what Deadwood's founders had built. This conflict climaxes with the coming of the ruthless mining baron George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), who arrives in Deadwood for the third season, to oversee the consolidation of most of the gold-bearing land under his control. What Hearst discovers is that Deadwood is a strong enough community to, if not resist his will entirely, at least partially deflect it and make it impossible for him to personally stay in town. This is the culmination of two seasons in which the characters of Deadwood learn to care for each other, out of affection and need, and in the process become resilient.
The most dramatically important relationship is between the show's two leads, Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and Al Swearengen (Ian McShane). They begin as enemies — Bullock is a lawman, and Swearengen is a murderous saloon owner and pimp — but they learn they must rely on one another, and so form a symbiotic relationship. Bullock will become the face of lawful Deadwood, while turning a blind eye to Swearengen's crimes. Swearengen will do all the killing that needs to be done, but always in the service of the greater needs of the town.
We watch Swearengen kill a lot of people, always after a period of moral calculation. But the final murder is the worst. Series regular Trixie (Paula Malcomson) has attempted to assassinate the vile George Hearst, and failed, and Hearst is calling for her death. Instead, Swearengen murders Jen (Jennifer Lutheran), another one of the trafficked women under his control. She's a total innocent but is less familiar to him than Trixie, and Hearst is unlikely to be able to tell the difference between their dead bodies. After the ruse succeeds, Johnny Burns (Sean Bridgers), one of Swearengen's lieutenants, who had a crush on the murdered girl, asks if she suffered. Swearengen gruffly tells him that he made her death as painless as possible. Then, while alone, he delivers the iconic line "wants me to tell him something pretty," while scrubbing up the blood.
A Few Takes on Deadwood's Ambiguous Ending
Swearengen's line came to be seen as the message Deadwood existed to deliver. In fact, in the video above, even as Milch is urging viewers to resist the impulse to let the ending of a show define it, he quotes this exact line. The moment is overpowering because while it acknowledges the horrors of the American frontier, and expresses contempt for anyone who won't acknowledge them, it also implies that these horrors can be confronted, and accommodated. It echoes another famous Swearengen quote: "The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
But, context is important. What is the ultimate purpose that gives this suffering, both endured and inflicted on others, meaning? If you watched Deadwood as it aired, the pattern you saw was of a town that only grew in size and strength, acquiring increasingly powerful enemies, but able to battle them to a draw. In this context, the losses taken by the people of Deadwood are casualties in a larger ideological struggle against the wholly depraved forces of American capital, which would gladly accept a human toll hundreds of times worse than the cost of doing business. If the town of Deadwood is growing stronger by the season, perhaps Seasons 4 and 5 would have been the ones where the town would finally be able to triumph over its enemies. The premature cancelation allows these dreams, even as its final moments encourage hard-nosed realism.
Only listening to Milch explain what would have actually happened if the show had continued dispels this fantasy. What did Milch foresee for the town? Destruction by fire. That Deadwood might burn to the ground is signposted several times throughout the show, and happened in reality. But, though the town would rebuild, Milch imagined that the influence of Al Swearengen would be permanently diminished. Whatever you think about a Deadwood without Al, it's not one that continues to take on the forces of agglomerated capital. That might have led to an ending in which all seems to have been for nothing.
The Deadwood Movie Changes the Series' Ending While Best Summarizing Its Message
Of course, none of this story was ever put on film. Not only that, but when Deadwood: The Movie returned in 2019, in the digital age, none of these events seemed to have ever taken place. When we see Deadwood again, most of the characters are exactly where we've left them, seeming to have passed the entirety of the intervening years in cozy domesticity (cancelation treated them better than us). The movie displays a sentimentality that the Al Swearengen of 2006 might not have liked. Quite literally, in fact; the movie provides several of its characters with "pretty" deaths, even symbolically returning Jen to life.
But in all this sentimentality I do think you find the best summary of what Deadwood was really all about. Milch's great gift as a writer is his ability to empathize with all of his characters, high and low, and his willingness to put words of great eloquence and understanding in the mouths of all of them. He likes people, or seems to in his capacity as a writer, and the driver of his affection isn't what values they stand for, but simply proximity and familiarity.
The pain and damage of Deadwood isn't a calculated loss in a battle between two competing ideologies, either one of which could triumph. (Although, in the movie, Milch allows the possibility for the first time that George Hearst might not "own the... future.") That pain is only meant to pay for the momentary happiness of the people who happen to live in Deadwood, even if the town is eventually absorbed seamlessly back into the United States and that happiness disappears without a trace. And, even if those original townsfolk are simply lucky to have the purchase they do, other unlucky people had to die for them to have it. In Deadwood, any quantity of human happiness and freedom is precious and worth its price. That is not a morally impregnable ethos, for sure, but while you're watching the show, it feels like something you believe.
from:https://collider.com/deadwood-western-tv-show/
#15
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - December 28, 2022, 03:07:46 PMLet's throw a wrench in the works.
Let's take one more step possibly leading into these now wildly popular 'multiverses'.
Everyone from the original JFC is back. But! Not the innocent instigator, the Don Quixote, the childlike beta model of super-intelligence, John. If it soothes your heart, an angel. He is not returning.
And again, it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine, knowing what's happening IRL, as the genXYZ, or whatchamacallit would say.
What then? What would our heroes do?
Let's take one more step possibly leading into these now wildly popular 'multiverses'.
Everyone from the original JFC is back. But! Not the innocent instigator, the Don Quixote, the childlike beta model of super-intelligence, John. If it soothes your heart, an angel. He is not returning.
And again, it wouldn't be too difficult to imagine, knowing what's happening IRL, as the genXYZ, or whatchamacallit would say.
What then? What would our heroes do?
#16
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - December 27, 2022, 04:13:31 PM'Let's say Link... '
John and all the motel denizens and witnesses of his visit to IB suddenly got frozen in time. That's not very difficult to imagine, is it?
The JFC, being full of 'ancient wisdom' [Cissy], these prescient little quips, has of course, one for a time lapse, with a little numbers tweak. 'Think you overcame a milestone in stride. Next thing it's 15 years later and you've been napping from unrecognized stress.'- Palaka
Now, after the long absence, they are returned to the same place. The motel is demolished, the old relations scattered in the wind, the world's in the state they didn't expect to see it.
I often ponder, how each of these people would chose their way in this new America. Which path would they follow?
Don't you?
John and all the motel denizens and witnesses of his visit to IB suddenly got frozen in time. That's not very difficult to imagine, is it?
The JFC, being full of 'ancient wisdom' [Cissy], these prescient little quips, has of course, one for a time lapse, with a little numbers tweak. 'Think you overcame a milestone in stride. Next thing it's 15 years later and you've been napping from unrecognized stress.'- Palaka
Now, after the long absence, they are returned to the same place. The motel is demolished, the old relations scattered in the wind, the world's in the state they didn't expect to see it.
I often ponder, how each of these people would chose their way in this new America. Which path would they follow?
Don't you?
#17
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - December 24, 2022, 04:45:57 PMI'm busy here, wiping the cobwebs and restocking the bar.
Some rooms would be permanently closed, why bother those lost souls that stayed there, but the bar is open. Like Butchie's housing unit, open 24 hours.
And the jukebox works...
Anyways, a Christmas song for you all.
Some rooms would be permanently closed, why bother those lost souls that stayed there, but the bar is open. Like Butchie's housing unit, open 24 hours.
And the jukebox works...
Anyways, a Christmas song for you all.
#18
General JFC / Re: Barry's Bar & Motel
Last post by Sven2 - December 23, 2022, 09:51:43 PMThis long forgotten thread is the most alive.
The motel, that's closed for the winter, like many northern seaside places. Just needs the windows open to let the air in, few new light bulbs, fresh bed sheets and it is ready for the next season.
Oh, who am I kidding. 'The motel is haunted, at least room 24 is haunted'. That's the same Barry's dreamt up theater, never opened its doors, the 'theater of our resentment'.
But, you know, I do not care anymore. That's my place, and I've tried to settle in many others. Never found a replacement for what is still here, what will always be here. As Barry said, 'after a 20 years interlude in Azusa, I'm returned to Imperial Beach'.
I think I won't be kicked out of here.
Barkeep, turn the TV off. Armstrong or Coltrane, or anyone you want. I am not picky.
The motel, that's closed for the winter, like many northern seaside places. Just needs the windows open to let the air in, few new light bulbs, fresh bed sheets and it is ready for the next season.
Oh, who am I kidding. 'The motel is haunted, at least room 24 is haunted'. That's the same Barry's dreamt up theater, never opened its doors, the 'theater of our resentment'.
But, you know, I do not care anymore. That's my place, and I've tried to settle in many others. Never found a replacement for what is still here, what will always be here. As Barry said, 'after a 20 years interlude in Azusa, I'm returned to Imperial Beach'.
I think I won't be kicked out of here.
Barkeep, turn the TV off. Armstrong or Coltrane, or anyone you want. I am not picky.
#19
General JFC / Re: In the Language of Music
Last post by Sven2 - December 22, 2022, 06:41:31 PMToday is the 20th anniversary since Joe Strummer death.
If you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'.
We didn't have any solution to the world's problems. I mean, we were trying to grow up in a socialist way to some future where the world might be less of a miserable place than it is.
The future is unwritten.
If you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'.
We didn't have any solution to the world's problems. I mean, we were trying to grow up in a socialist way to some future where the world might be less of a miserable place than it is.
The future is unwritten.
#20
General JFC / Re: Poetry Almanac
Last post by Sven2 - December 05, 2022, 07:28:15 PMHearing an Oriole at the Palace
In spring trees shrouding palace windows,
a spring oriole sings dawn light into song.
It sets out to startle the world, stops short,
flutters here, there. Return impossibly far,
it hides deep among dew-drenched leaves,
darts into blossoms and out, never settled.
We wander life, never back. Even a simple
birdcall starts us dreaming of home again.
--Wang Wei (701-761 CE)
translated by David Hinton
In spring trees shrouding palace windows,
a spring oriole sings dawn light into song.
It sets out to startle the world, stops short,
flutters here, there. Return impossibly far,
it hides deep among dew-drenched leaves,
darts into blossoms and out, never settled.
We wander life, never back. Even a simple
birdcall starts us dreaming of home again.
--Wang Wei (701-761 CE)
translated by David Hinton
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