readers guide to the unnameable

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Cubist Poetry?

Anyone who reads Ron Romanowski’s new collection of poetry A Reader’s Guide to the Unnameable will know I’m not an unbiased reviewer, as soon as they look over the acknowledgements. Where Ron states that I and a few others were early readers of some of the works included in the book.

I won’t say I had any effect on the development of the book, as I didn’t have a clue where Ron was going with it from the eight or so poems he sent me during the book’s gestation. I merely gave him the most honest impressions I could of what I read, as a poet of his status deserves nothing but the objective truth. If I thought the piece worked, I said so, if I thought what he was showing me didn’t, I told him that too and tried to explain why.

It was too long ago for me to remember the process well enough to know if he took my advice or not regarding the final form of the poems I critiqued in the book, but I do know this: I like the book. And I’m more inclined to give the credit for that to Ron for pulling the collection together the way he really wants it to be rather than to anyone who might have given him out-of-context suggestions along the way. There’s too much of a coherent thread running through A Reader’s Guide for that not to be the case.

But being in on a book’s genesis does give a reviewer a little background insight someone who doesn’t know the poet might not have. As it happened both Ron and I tackled the same series of biographies on Picasso around the same time, and I gave up before he did. I complained I found the biographer too focussed on miniscule detail and gossip, rather than larger themes. Ron phoned me up sometime later and said I was right! But that was okay! That was a cubist approach to biography, and he didn’t mind that at the moment, because he’s writing cubist poetry in the new book!

The back of A Reader’s Guide to the Unnameable mentions that among other themes, Ron is continuing to work on “definitions of authorship and identity”. His last two collections, the big book of canadian poetry and Incantations From The Republic Of Fire, took these issues much to heart, as Ron wrote the works as if they had been produced not just by him, but also by five other distinct poets, the New Festival Theory group, with their own distinct histories and personas.

The displacement of authorship isn’t so clearly delineated in A Reader’s Guide, but is still there. Many of the pieces are not from the point of view of Ron Romanowski, but reflect the experience of a persona within the poem. I’m not even certain if you can call this persona a character per se, as in a novel or play, as Ron seems to be taking the exploration of authorship beyond that dimension. Ron creates the character and situation, and then the character writes the poem. Except it’s really all Ron. Or is it? How far does he get lost in these people’s lives?

The first poem, “The Fall Girl”, lays out the theme of the title, A Reader’s Guide to the Unnameable. An unthinkable event occurs that must be dealt with by those who are left behind. Ron’s book is here supposedly to offer some guidance on how to do that. “His granddaughter was found hanging in a garage, right up and over the beam. / This loose carousel of a season had dangled her, / symbiotic lost-and-found month rustling life to the ground.”

Despite the horror, life must go on, as illustrated in “The Fall Girl (Coda)”:

If her death was not inevitable there is no cure.

If her death was inevitable there is no cure.

It was inevitable but that is no cure.

It was not inevitable but that is no cure.

Go on.

This isn’t a black and white world. States seemingly in contradiction exist simultaneously, and every aspect of their existence must be granted weight equally. So it doesn’t matter if the crime against your sensibility is unnameable, still you go on, carrying that fact with you. Every angle seen at once — a cubist existence.

He examines the concept head-on in one of the central poems from the book — “One Minute Date Night: Cubic Woman May I Introduce Cubic Man”:

We are all Cubists, let us not wrong the thing

Because of perspective. Let us set our own pace

Touch lips in the freedom of cubist space

In which the effort of our condition reads

The fuzziness, collage, shadow, just where we

Want it.

The book goes on in the same manner, happy moments, more tragedies, different personas, deep personal insights, all juxtaposed on the pages creating a strange balance which might leave some readers feeling somewhat unsettled if they can’t accept this isn’t the usual sort of rhythm one might expect in a single point-of-view poetry collection. 

Ron’s is a voice out of order challenging assumptions of the accepted angles of approach. He provides imagery that finds its own path, circling the poems’ themes and leaving the reader feeling surrounded. He can leap from the fine detail to the grand cosmic view in the slip of a line or turn of phrase. Any conclusions suggested on the micro-level always leave larger unresolved implications on the macro.

Ron supplies the reader with tight shifting pictures, with one thought rapidly taking up a continuing argument before the last one’s done simmering. His language can dare you to keep up and sometimes might annoy you when you want to go a different direction then it  generally takes you. But I think one of the most important themes at the heart of this book is that Ron Romanowski is not afraid to remind us of the broken people, and take up their easily dismissed tragedies as matter for deeper emotional connection. As in “The Fall Girl”, “1400 CC’s Stricken at the Crossroads”, “For the Lake Boys”, and others.

And then to balance the cubist composition again, he also provides us with “Great-grandmother’s prize zucchini casserole”.

I found my favourite piece to be the four page “North America”, which I think best exemplifies the cubist theme in one poem. The language tumbles across the page in a quiet, entrancing tangle of dynamic equilibrium, resolving near the end finally in “all the facts / footnotes / a reader’s guide / with fettering author’s footnotes”

Is that the most we can hope for from a collection of poetry to explain the simultaneity of conflicting events our non-linear lives constantly throws at us? In an attempt to guide us through the unnameable, can any author give us anything more significant than “fettering footnotes”?

I would say no, in Ron’s case. I think A Reader’s Guide to the Unnameable reveals a more liberating experience in its reading than fettering us in its creator’s formal references.

No, I would say instead Ron Romanowski is more an accomplished practitioner of song and dance storytelling, providing us with a narrative thread through the disparate works to lead us in, and then performing a bit of the quick soft-shoe to tap us out. Because while we all keep on dancing to keep ahead of the unnameable, the tragedy, and the approaching fire, Ron doesn’t let us forget we never stop loving and smiling either.

A Reader’s Guide to the Unnameable

Ron Romanowski

Augustine Hand Press, 2015

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

The Electric Detective continues with Chapter Twelve on Monday, June 1st, while we take a new look at an old story, care of Jack Finney (who?) in Episode Thirteen, starting Friday, June 5th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Surprise murders, witchy metafictional existential discussions, and strange visits to a hotel’s greenhouse …

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

Episode Thirteen: Finney-Ish — The Invasion of the Hotel Detectives

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

r.i.p. nash the slash

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Alash, Poor Nash

The local concert I most regret missing happened sometime around 1979 — I’m not certain of the date. Nash the Slash played the Festival Cinema, a hole in the wall indie-theatre now a pizza joint on the corner of Sargent and Arlington. A one man show, complete with a live performance of his self-composed soundtrack accompanying a showing of Luis Bunuel’s and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou on the Festival screen. From all reports it was an evening of legend. I always lived in hope that he’d come back and redo that sort of thing someday when I could catch him.

Except … while checking information for an earlier blog, I found out poor Nash died just over a year ago, May 10th, 2014, at the age of 66. The circumstances were mysterious — as they should be, given it’s Nash — but rumour has it a heart attack got him.

His look was the first thing that made him appealing of course. The tuxedo, top hat, sunglasses and bandages. When I finally did get to see him live at the Winnipeg Art Gallery on his Children of the Night tour, he wore his traffic cop uniform instead of the tuxedo, which I was always a little disappointed by. The bandages and glasses were still there, however.

It was a great concert. Nash was hailed as an early one man band technical genius, performing mostly on electric violin and mandolin, surrounded by a host of drum machines and other programmable technological instruments he liked to refer to as “devices” in his liner notes. But he was a down-to-earth genius. My favourite memory from the concert is the image of Nash bashing one of his devices repeatedly with his fist to get it to play right.

Nash was a founding member of the prog-rock group FM, which paradoxically never made it big until after his solo career took off. He played with the group again in the 80s and 90s, while still performing his one-man shows as well. He was one of the first independent artists in Canada to start his own record label, Cut Throat Records. His music was … well, very Nash.

He did a lot of covers, maintained a certain horror image, threw in social and civic commentary in a variety of his own compositions, did straight instrumental electronic music, and had a pronounced classical streak. Decomposing was a 1981 vinyl EP featuring three instrumentals that could be played at any speed.

I think a pretty representative 10 song Nash the Slash mix would consist of “The Chase” from 1979’s Dreams and Nightmares; “Wolf” and “Dead Man’s Curve” from 1981’s Children of the Night; “Pretty Folks” and “Vincent’s Crows” from 1982’s And You Thought You Were Normal; “Psychotic Reaction” and “Who Do You Love” from 1984’s American Bandages; “Guns and Sandwiches” from 1999’s Thrash; and “Baby O’Reilly” and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” from 2008’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Nash.

No one would claim Nash the Slash had a golden voice, but he had a way of biting out lyrics that stood out. My brother, one of the ultimate Stones fans, couldn’t help commenting after hearing Nash’s take on “19th Nervous Breakdown” how Nash gave the cover a presence all his own simply by emphasizing the lyrics so clearly. Doing things like working in phrases from Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf in instrumentals like “Wolf” and making them sound like completely integrated rock riffs was also a trademark. As one critic wrote back in the seventies, Nash might be electronic, Nash might be classical, but he never loses sight of that rock Slash. No electric guitars in his act, but always the same impact.

Where’d the name come from? From a murderous butler in a Laurel and Hardy silent movie! How can you go wrong?

Yes, it would have been good to see Nash do the soundtrack live to Un Chien Andalou. There were rumours that he wandered out into the night and performed the piece again outdoors at the Winnipeg Folk Festival back around 2010, but I’ve never met anyone who can confirm that.

As my son Dylan grew up and developed his own musical heroes, there was one double bill we both would have paid good money to see. Nash the Slash and Buckethead. It was only a dream, alas, never to be realized now. But what a show that would have been!

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Part Two of Episode Twelve, Kafka-Ish hit the Net Monday, May 25th, and the results are announced on Friday, May 29th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

Debating the philosophical pros and cons of the insect life, with a sword fight (sort of) tossed in for good measure.

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

finding an audience

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Knowing Your Audience

Know your audience. One of the basic precepts of Introduction to Creative Writing.

The idea being that if you know who your audience is, you will write exactly what they want to read. Or conversely, if you know who likes the sort of thing you write, you target your marketing towards that sort of personality.

Most of my stuff goes out over the Internet these days. I don’t have a clue who my audience is, or how they even find me …

So I decided as an important exercise in literary development I should at least try to define who I see my audience as. A phrase came to mind unbidden and practically immediately that I think embodies the concept quite well.

My audience consists of reasonably intelligent, unpretentious sorts with good senses of humour.

What a pleasant bunch of people to know, I thought! — if only through the written word. When I pondered the concept further however, getting down to specifics, I began thinking … oh oh. This isn’t a very large group.

Let me deconstruct my statement. Reasonably intelligent. All right, what do I mean by that?

Well-read, to begin with. Sort of goes without saying. They wouldn’t have found me if they didn’t read in the first place. However talking to my son and thinking of conversations around the lunch table with my ex-co-workers and the experiences my wife and other people I talk to relate and thinking of the family and all, I come to the practically inescapable conclusion … practically no one reads anymore. So I lost most of the population right there.

In fact, I recently came across a study that stated 80% of American families did not buy or read a book last year. I doubt the numbers are much different for Canada. So if I add in the calculation that my stuff isn’t even in the bookstores …

I’m going to start a new advertising campaign for myself. You have to spin things positively.

John H. Baillie! The author over 90% of all Canadians agree not to read!

Moving on then — unpretentious.

That’s a positive trait for anyone to have. But then I look at the current state of mainstream Canadian Literature, an industry entirely subsidized by the Government for the overindulgence of the academic community and those who aspire to an ivory tower supposedly coated in maple syrup and therefore erroneously defining our national identity and I realize writing in this country is the very seat of pretension for the nation! So the Canadian writing community is the last place I want to look to for a lack of pretension — I’d do better going after the infinitely larger, infinitely more faithful hockey crowd — except they’re the folks who don’t read!

How many Canadian novels published in the last thirty years does this plot summary represent? “Something’s gone wrong. I think. Gee, I don’t have a clue.”

Okay, so on careful examination I discover my first two points reveal I am alienated from 98% of the market I am supposedly trying to reach. What about the third point? Someone who reads me must have a good sense of humour.

What do I mean by a good sense of humour? I once worked out that there are five basic styles of delivering humour. One — be disgusting, because for some reason a huge percentage of the population finds disgusting hilarious; two — be topical, meaning rely on political jokes or on humour making fun of current events in every field, meaning your laughs generally mean nothing after about a month when the world moves on; three — focus on your family or your ethnicity, humour that rarely goes out of style, but you need a light touch, otherwise you end up sounding bitter and disrespectful; four — slapstick, your physical humour, which isn’t exactly designed for the written word so much as the visual approach; and five — actual wit, taking language apart and throwing it back at you in ways that make you appreciate it anew.

I like the last two best. I’m not above the third, but you have to be careful. And I will occasionally descend to the depths of the first, but I don’t really care for it myself. I only use the second very occasionally, due to the short shelf life.

Now analyzing that assessment, I realize I’ve shot myself in the foot again. I only occasionally use disgusting humour, but the largest audience is looking for precisely that. There’s also a fairly sizeable audience who are into the political humour approach, but you have to be fast off the mark there, and ultimately, I’m just not that interested in politics to satirize it properly. I’m cautious about using family and ethnic humour, and slapstick doesn’t really transfer well to the printed page. Although I try.

Which means I like best the idea of wit, which is the hardest to do and probably has the smallest audience. A lot of people don’t get the joke. Or even realize there was one.

In the immortal words of Rocky and Bullwinkle:

Bullwinkle: You got that reference, Rock?

Rocky: Yup.

Bullwinkle: Millions won’t.

I’m running out of feet here to shoot myself in with my definition of audience. Sometimes you need to be an octopus to be a successfully unsuccessful author.

Okay, let’s be reasonable and turn things around. People are a lot more intelligent than anyone gives them credit for, including me; there’s nothing more pretentious these days than writing a blog and I’ve entirely adapted to that practice; and a few good jokes sprinkled in the right spots are going to reach the people the other obstacles I place in my path will prevent some readers from appreciating what I do. I’ll willingly hoist myself on my own petard if it means getting one more reader. (You remember Petard? Marcel Petard, played defence for the Habs in the sixties?)

So I’m going to stop worrying about how to find my audience, and settle for hoping you find me. You know who you are, you don’t need my help defining yourselves. And if you have found me already, you are all obviously women and men of rare discernment, regardless of how else you see yourselves. And I hope there’s no end to that range of definition …

I think what’s most important is that I would like to make any reader of mine feel special. I certainly think you are.

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

The Electric Detective Chapter Eleven goes up on Monday, May 18th, while part one of Episode Twelve, Kafka-Ish hits the Net on Friday, May 22nd. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

“Metamorphos-Ish”. It was a natural. The big question is, who gets to be the bug?

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

Episode Twelve: Kafka-Ish — Metamorphos-Ish

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.

russellography

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Russellography

I would list Ken Russell as directing 22 feature films worth noting. In fact, he was involved in so many different projects in so many different ways, it’s hard to put a number on his output. And I’m completely ignoring his substantial body of television work in this list as well. But of the 22 films I am noting, I’ve seen 15. As I’m not particularly a movie maniac, this is a pretty high rating for a single artist’s work from me.

I haven’t seen:

French Dressing (1964)

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

The Music Lovers (1970)

Savage Messiah (1972)

The Russia House (1990)

Prisoner of Honour (1991)

The Lion’s Mouth (2000)

The one I most regret not being able to track down is The Music Lovers, Russell’s biopic of Tchaikovsky with Richard Chamberlin as Tchaikovsky.

I have seen:

Women in Love (1969)

The Devils (1971)

The Boy Friend (1971)

Mahler (1974)

Tommy (1975)

Lisztomania (1975)

Valentino (1977)

Altered States (1980)

Crimes of Passion (1984)

Gothic (1986)

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Salome’s Last Dance (1988)

The Rainbow (1989)

Whore (1991)

The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)

Some more than once.

From worst (and Ken can be pretty bad) to best (but he can also be incredible), I’d give Mr. Russell a personal pov report card like this. I don’t expect anyone in the world to agree with me. Ken Russell is not the sort of artist who fosters consensus of opinion.

Lisztomania (1975) — It would have been better without Roger Daltrey in the title role. I saw this movie both in the theatre and then later again on television. The sheer ridiculousness of it carried a certain weight in the theatre, but on TV it just appeared dull. An extended music video that got out of hand.

Tommy (1975) — trying to do too much with too many. I know it was a hit at the time, but again too much flash-bang, with too many disparate stars mugging it up competing against each other with Oliver Reed somehow stuck in the middle pretending he can sing.

That’s it for the bottom. Every other movie by Ken I’ve seen I at least liked. Some struck me more forcefully than others, however. On the next level up, we’ve got:

Whore (1991) — Theresa Russell turns in an heroic acting job. The strangest scenes stick with you. The film was more or less repressed in North America, at the same time Pretty Woman was making it big. Russell famously stated that at least his movie told the truth about a prostitute’s life. But very brightly, in typical Ken Russell overblown colour.

Mahler (1974) — starring Robert Powell as the composer and Georgina Hale as his muse. Oddly enough, I found this movie a bit dull, needing a little more flash-bang. (I may be joking -- you figure it out.) Again, I know I’m in the minority, as Mahler is generally considered one of Russell’s finer works. Maybe it’s just the composer that doesn’t grab me.

Gothic (1986) — the night Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley told each other their ghost stories and Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein. With Gabriel Byrne as Byron, Julian Sands as Shelley, and Natasha Richardson as Mary. A truly nightmarish party, with some powerful scenes again very difficult to get out of your head. The feeling of the inevitable devolution of the evening into terror is quite effective. Followed by a happy picnic the morning after.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) — One of Bram Stoker’s other novels getting a modernized Grand Guignol send up, with Amanda Donohoe as the worm woman and Hugh Grant being terribly English. Silly, really, but oddly entertaining. Especially the bagpipes snake charming scene.

Moving on one more layer upwards:

The Rainbow (1989) — the second of Russell’s two related D.H. Lawrence movies, this one actually a prequel to Women In Love, featuring some of the same characters. Especially the central character Ursula Brangwen, here portrayed by Sammi Davis in a wonderfully uninhibited characterization. Glenda Jackson gets to play the mother of the character she made famous in Women In Love. Also featuring Amanda Donohoe and Paul McGann, a restrained — for Russell — treatment of the novel, not quite as bohemianly grandiose as Women In Love. But you could say the same of Lawrence’s two novels.

Salome’s Last Dance (1988) — Russell making the excess work. Theoretically a performance by the inmates of a brothel of Oscar Wilde’s notorious play, Salome, put on for Wilde himself and his boyfriend, snuck into the cast as John the Baptist. Enjoyable in an odd sort of decadent manner it’s probably better not to admit to. Imogen Millais-Scott is compelling as Salome, an unusually elfin sort of transgender femme fatale.

Altered States (1980) — Russell takes on straight science fiction with Paddy Chayefski as scriptwriter. Unsurprisingly, the two egos clashed. William Hurt gives a solid performance as the scientist regressing himself back to a primeval form through drugs and a sensory deprivation chamber. Oddly enough, there’s an earlier, much scarier black and white obscurity starring Dirk Bogarde on more or less the same theme.

Crimes of Passion (1984) — definitely not a movie I’d watch with my wife. But very enjoyable on a variety of levels, nevertheless. Kathleen Turner does an even more engaging turn as Theresa Russell’s later Whore-role as China Blue, the prostitute with the double life, and the climactic scene in homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho reversing roles on Tony Perkins playing a depraved preacher is very effective. Throw in a brilliant little cameo by Annie Potts as a housewife psychologically incapable of being “funny”, and you’ve got a strange, X-rated little gem.

And at the very top of the list …

Valentino (1977), which I said enough about last week. Recently learned that even Ken considered it a flop, but what the hell. Works for me.

Women In Love (1969) — according to Wikipedia, Russell’s “signature film”, and the only one he ever received a Best Director nomination for at the Oscars. It struck a note for its time, with full frontal male nudity and an unrelenting approach to both the sterility and the passion of Lawrence’s characters. With stunning performances by Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden, and Eleanor Bron.

The Boy Friend (1971) — starring Twiggy and Tommy Tune. I saw this on the late movie on television one night back in the late seventies and was blown away. A totally nonsensical musical, that never seems to be mentioned anywhere anymore, but didn’t do that bad at the time. Twiggy won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical Comedy for it. Ken Russell using his powers of excess for good. Just plain delightful.

And the number one Ken Russell movie of all time, that no one has apparently ever seen in its entirety …

The Devils (1971) — Based on The Devils of Loudon, by Aldous Huxley, a nonfiction account of a major case of apparent demonic possession of a convent of nuns in 1632. Oliver Reed plays the priest chosen as the scapegoat by the religious authorities to be tortured and martyred to expiate the obvious high degree of sinning going on. Vanessa Redgrave plays the head of the convent. So … throw Ken Russell and a convent full of naked nuns acting out their wildest fantasies and you’ve got a mixture that you don’t end up surprised by reading the full uncensored version of the movie has never been shown. The North American release was apparently more heavily cut than the European version. I saw it on TV, so who knows how much I missed. Still powerful and so definitively Ken Russell. Especially when the well-muscled, hippy lead exorcist comes swaggering in in his John Lennon wire rim glasses wielding a mighty crucifix … One of Oliver Reed’s most stunningly realized roles. Just for the record, it’s a good book too.

I left one movie off this list. 2002’s The Fall of the Louse of Usher, which was actually the last new Ken Russell film I saw. The reason I don’t rate it against the others is because it’s really little more than a home movie Russell made fooling around on his estate with family and friends. Of course, in a Ken Russell home movie you do get scenes like the singing group The Medieval Baebes appearing as a particularly wanton witches’ coven, so it’s got its own weird appeal. Not a great movie by any means, but odd in its own right. And as certain of my own characters like to say, there’s a lot to be said for oddness.

But what really sticks out about this movie for me is a line in the credits. Not only does Ken Russell write, produce, direct, and star in this movie, he also does all the cooking. I have to admire that degree of auteurial thoroughness in an artist.

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Fittingly, during a week I’m doing a Ken Russell retrospective, the Competitors tear each other apart as in no other Episode, as Poe-Ish, “The Usher Motel” concludes on Monday, May 11th. See who’s left standing on Friday, May 15th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

And Pearl never did get her soup.

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.