I'm Beginning to Like Segundo de Chomón Almost as Much as Georges Melies

Aging, Paris, Kentridge, Basenjis, Revolution, Caffeine, Hemispheric Incongruence

Sometimes I bemoan the fact that I live in a cultural backwater that has the audacity to call itself the "Paris of the Pacific" (sorry, that's Santiago), but then I am sometimes surprised by the offerings right here in this little berg by the bay. This weekend has been a good example.

This morning I dashed down to be early in line for the SFMOMA presentation of William Kentridge - Five Themes that so many of my friends have been raving about. (And most of my friends are raving, raging or some unseemly combination of both). I had a good feeling about the show when, as I was Twittering on my TREO as I advanced in line, I looked to the right and saw a basenji walking by and looking up at me as if she knew she was peering into the eyes of one of the cult of guardians of the African dingos. The Kentridge show is worthy of all the hype -- a heady mix of drawrings, short films (that include homages of that superb Parisian George Melies and that benign German Lotte Reiniger), assemblages, puppet shows, constructions, musings on aging and other stuff).

It was a great show, but there was no time to doddle and I rushed off to MUNI to that charming arrondissement footsteps away from the Pacific, West Portal, where I ventured to catch the matinee of Faubourg '36. I went to get my ticket early and asked the agent if I should return quickly to ensure I got a seat. He rolled his eyes and said, "Uh, that's probably not going to be an issue." (Confirmed later when the lights went down on me and the three other people in the theater. I guess I over estimated the appeal of musical comedies about the clash of Fascists and Leftists in the first third of the 20th Century Paris.)

So I headed over to Fresca (which bills itself as Noveau Peruvian Cuisine) for a nice Peruvian crab salad. However, instead of Twittering, I got into a sort of nasty argument via IMing with one of my exes in Park Slope over my distaste of the clash of cultures at Fresca. Granted, the food and service were good, but they were playing salsa music and served me chips and salsa. Wrong hemisphere and continent. "Oh, it doesn't matter, it's still Latino," W___ in Park Slope texted back. "Would you say that if you were in a restaurant in Tokyo and got bruschetta while they played polka music but defended because it was all from the Northern Hemisphere?"

"Oh, GB, you obsess about things that just don't matter," W___ texted back.

"Oh, and by the way -- noveau Peruvian Cuisine? Excúseme, si no es: ¿el nuevo cocinar de los Peruvian?"

Well, at least Faubourg 36 (marketed in the U.S. as Paris '36 since apparently the distributors thing people in the U.S. are so dumb they barely know where Paris is, let alone being abl to locate one of its better known arrondissements) did not disappoint and was what it should have been: a sentimental two-hour tale of peasants occupying a theater taking it out of the clutches of a Fascist landlord. The number just kept getting bigger and loonier. And, like any self respecting musical, it had big number about going to the sea.
While its charming yet infirm middle-aged male stars were in long swim trunks and tank tops, they outfitted male (sexily Leftist) star Clovis Cornillac in a revealingly thin strip of brief beachwear. Only then did it connect of who he reminded me of -- gay porn legend Jeff Strykker.

Though Cornillac was cast as the "fetching young male lead" he is nearly 42. And it reminded me (going back to Kentridge's themes on aging and Melies) that the French have long had a history of allowing both male and female stars to play such roles into a time when, well by comparison in the U.S. , they'd have Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the stars. I could not help but think ofArletty at nearly 50 playing the "babe" in Les enfants du paradis. Or consider Mistinguett in this clip at 60 playing a young mother singing to her "baby". Perhaps they felt that by casting a nine-year-old girl as the baby, no one would notice that more than one spring had passed since her coming out debut.

These thoughts filled my had as I hopped on the K-train from West Portal (a neighborhood that is surreal to me like most western San Francisco Arrondissements because they feel so non-San Francisco) and then to the Balboa Park BART and then up to Ritual, where it has become a ritual for me to meet up with Friendatella Saturday afternoons to gossip and share insights on the meaning of life and culture. We've debated about the meaning of this roasterie's logo. Is it the flag of Turkey or the hammer and sickle or a gangland razor swung upon the throats of hypocrites. I used to despise this place because of the long lines, abundance of 20-something hipsters pecking away on their iMacs with the self-righteous grandeur of the cult of the Apple/Fuhrer Herr Jobs, and disdain for those of us with speckles of natural highlights in our hair. But Friendatella and I have discovered a row of three tables in the back near the bathrooms and with a scenic view of the burlap bags filled with the beans from Lago Atitlan and Vietnam where our elder faces will not diminish the views from the wall-to-wall windows in the front. Sitting their with my legs crossed in the European male way and nibbling my Madeleine, I felt the spirit of Mistinguett take over me the desire to put on one more show before the fogs of the summer return to Topeka on the Pacific.

But We Won't Be Watching the Olsen Twin Videos

After going gaga over the Georges Méliès inspired children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret during the holidays and its Steampunk ethos, Junk Thief may have found a new kids lit book that speaks to him. Diary of Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney lacks the visual sophistication of Cabret, but as the above image shows, it speaks to something very primal and familiar. What is this all saying about Junk Thief if the most compelling new books are those aimed at the "tween" set?

To learn more, this article in New York this week is a good review of this newest submarket.

I'm A Steampunk, How About You?

Junk Thief has slowly become aware that he's part of a subculture without intentionally joining it. There've been clues and mention of the Steampunk movement popping up lately, but he wasn't that clear on what it is. He remembered seeing this video on the Wall Street Journal site last summer and he certainly saw examples a couple of weeks ago at the Edwardian World's Faire which was referenced in an NPR piece this afternoon that put the whole thing in perspective. Surely that's what those mysterious but glorious inventions in the storefront near the 24/Mission BART -- such as the one on the right -- are. There are even Steampunk iPod skins out there. How typical of Junk Thief to be clueless as to what the kiddos are up to while being totally in sync with it. Maybe Junk Thief TV with its many references to the past qualifies as a Steampunk channel. That sure sounds a lot cooler than "retro".

This whole idea of turning backwards to go forwards is really central to the Junk Thief aesthetic that celebrates everything of the Beaux Arts/Modernisme/Edwardian area evidenced in his recent homages of the George Melies, Antoni Gaudi and Claude Debussy. And, honestly, isn't that computer at the top of this post a hell of a lot more attractive than those white laptops with glowing apples? Junk Thief just can't wait to see the reaction of the Geek Squad guy the next time he comes out and sees the laptop with wrought iron bear claw feet.

JTTV - Season 2, Episode 10 - Ready for the Solstice

Melies, mosaics and me. Does it make sense to you? If so, then perhaps you should be worried. We present this as a preparation for the coming Winter Solstice, a bit of light as the longest night approaches.

More Melies, One Century On

I just can't seem to get enough of George Melies these days. In recognition of its centennial, I post perhaps my favorite of all of his films: The Eclipse - The Romance of the Moon and the Sun. Is it the first same sex romantic story ever committed to film? I'm not sure. But when the sun gets behind the moon, the expression on the face of the lunar star is, well, captivating.

Merry Méliès

I've long been a fan of the film sof Georges Méliès, but he has figured unusually prominent in my psyche this year. Perhaps all the dreamy swirls of Gaudi in Barcelona from a century earlier and the Centennial of such Méliès classics as The Dream of the Opium Eater, The Eclipse and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea have added to it. Like other cinematic pioneers from Griffith to Welles, he spent the last decades of his life in obscurity and near squalor.

Thus Brian Selnick's "children's" book The Invention of Hugo Cabret is proving to be a perfect holiday season read. Its 500+ pages are made up of nearly 300 pages of illustrations, yet it is less a graphic novel or Harry Potteresque fantasy as it is a more lyrical Doctrow treatment of history and redemption of an overlooked artist.

Fittingly, I added another volume of Méliès films to my library this week yet have yet to come across a print of the The Dream of the Opium Eater which has long intrigued me. The San Francisco Silent Film festival featured a number of his century old works this summer, yet they have yet to share this one. There is always hope.

Don't Make Me Choose

It seems so fitting that there seems to be a theme of life 100 years ago weaving itself through several posts, beginning with the Centennial of Oklahoma through the buildings I visited in Barcelona, most built between 1890 and 1910, and the visions of my home through the eyes of my cat/house sitter looking like an absinthe infused dream of Gaudi and Georges Méliés.

I hate picking absolute favorites, but if I were forced:

• My desert island CD would contain the complete works of Debussy, but I would prefer to live on a Mediterranean not desert island since that's my favorite climate. I hate tropics even more than deserts if you're keeping track.
• I would choose Casa Batlló over La Pedrera. Its chimneys and city views are more intimate and comforting to me, and the crowds are smaller.
• I'm not that fond of outerspace or sci-fi films, but I would chose Georges Méliés A Trip to the Moon as being vastly superior to Star Wars and Star Trek and slightly superior to Blade Runner. What other film has been sampled by both the Smashing Pumpkins and Michael Todd?
  

On that bent, I have been watching a lot of Méliés since heading back to San Francisco, and I keep having this dream about being on the roof of Casa Batlló at a party thrown by Proust with Gaudi, Méliés and Debussy as revelers. Reynaldo Hahn and I dance to one of his own chamber compositions as Proust looks on seething with jealousy as I feel Reynaldo's thick Venezuelan beard warm on my cheek as he speaks to me in broken Catalan as the moon plays games of hide and seeks with Gaudi's mysterious chimneys.