Shiver me timbers

No, I didn't bump into the shower door while I was peeing. It was rattling all by itself....

Looks like it was 46.6 miles away. Lasted about six seconds, no big deal in the greater Fort Miley region.

Hope everyone's all right in the South Bay and East Bay. There are callers on KCBS radio saying it reminded them of the Loma Prieta quake in 1989 -- guess it was a pretty big shock down there. 5.6 is no joke.

Alternatives

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport's unflattering three-letter identifier — SUX — and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport's new marketing campaign.

...At one point, the FAA offered the city five alternatives — GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY — but airport trustees turned them down.

Shocked! Shocked!

The SFChron shocks us twice this morning!

One: $27,000 a year isn't a lot of money in the Bay Area.

Two: People don't know who Alice Waters is.

I had no idea!

Nobels

Two winners.

Gore: "Deeply honored".

Lessing: "Oh Christ! ... I couldn't care less.... I'm delighted to win them all, the whole lot, OK? It's a royal flush. I'm sure you'd like some uplifting remarks.... I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off.... I'm already thinking about all the people who are going to send me begging letters — I can see them lining up now."

Rubber sole

I may be the first customer in the history of Netflix to select Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo as the first film ever slotted into his queue. But I am certainly not the first to follow up this great movie with Burden of Dreams, a vaguely meta version of a "making-of" documentary about Herzog's quest deep into the Amazon rainforest to shoot the movie. Included on the DVD of the latter is "Dreams and Burdens," a retrospective of the documentary about the making of the original. Whew, that's exhaustive treatment -- all for an insanely ambitious, unrepeatable film whose documentation has been satirized and whose content has been celebrated in song.

I don't think I'll ever forget the image of Klaus Kinski perched on the bow of his steamship, cruising up through the rainforest as he breathes in the sound of Caruso on his Victrola. It's one of many memorable shots that made the 2:40 running time seem a lot shorter, as Kinski's opera-loving would-be rubber baron steams upriver, meets curious and sometimes hostile natives, and ultimately attempts to drag an entire steamship over a mountain. Although Kinski is known for his maniacal intensity, he's actually quite funny at times. I laughed out loud at the final shot.

While Les Blank's Burden of Dreams reveals a great deal, I liked one of Herzog's remarks the best. He implies that Fitzcarraldo was a reaction to special effects in popular cinema, and that he was trying to retrain viewers to trust their senses by shooting improbable things. Hence, dragging a 340-ton steamship up a 40-degree incline for half a mile, then down the other side to a different river, using (mostly) 1910 technology. Improbable, yet accomplished before your very eyes. Most people would've used a scale model, but not Herzog. We've grown accustomed to appreciating interesting camera angles, cuts and effects, and equating them with good cinema; Herzog gives you simple shots of unbelievable situations that simply must have existed in reality. Deadly.

[Also: As with Aguirre, I found myself laughing at the overlap in languages more than once. This time, Fitzcarraldo is supposed to be an Irishman living in countries where Spanish and Portuguese are spoken (along with native tongues). The actors were filmed speaking English, but the soundtrack was dubbed in German; then, they subtitled the whole thing in English. And the subtitles don't always match the original English track!]

The Burden Of Dreams DVD came with an unexpected treat. I'd heard about this 20-minute short before, and now I can't believe I've actually seen it. Duck fat, it seems, was the key. (And what do you know -- that's the manager of my local movie house, introducing Herzog onstage in Berkeley.)

HSB

SF Chronicle: "Police told Slim's and Great American Music Hall general manager Dawn Holliday, producer of the sprawling event, that they thought more than 500,000 people filled the entire west end of the park from 25th Avenue out."

Wikipedia: "Woodstock has been idealized in the American popular culture as one of peak events of the hippie movement — a festival where nearly 500,000 "flower children" came together to celebrate."

Congratulations to Jordan on his HSB appearance!


FMFM: Un "Sung" Stories, the first solo album from Blasters singer Phil Alvin, whose brother Dave played at least twice during this year's festival. Somehow, the eventual mathematics Ph.D. got Sun Ra's Arkestra to be his backing band on three songs; the results remind me vaguely of Mingus's Oh Yeah. The rest of the album's a little more traditional, although the Dirty Dozen Brass Band brings a certain amount of chaos to one song too. Not available on CD (was it ever?), but I'll see what I can do about digital distribution. Wink.

I slipped the kid a twenty, said, "Billy, give 'em hell"

The best idea in music criticism in a long time: Download the top 20 songs on the Billboard chart, review and grade. Why didn't I think of that?


FMFM: John Prine's Sweet Revenge. I'd been planning to watch the great Nick Lowe tomorrow afternoon at HSB, but while laughing all the way through "Please Don't Bury Me" this morning, I'm going to have to reconsider. It's going to be a close call, but there's no way to see both. Toughest decision of the fest. Neither one's getting any younger, either.