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December 4, 2010:

NOTES AKIMBO

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, the weekend is here and so am I. That was rather deep, wasn’t it? Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, both the weekend and I are here and I’m mighty glad of it. Of course, I’d better just write these here notes in a hurry because she of the Evil Eye will be here all too early. So, I shall not waste time, I shall jump in with both feet. I could just jump in with one foot but that would cause the notes to be akimbo (obmika, spelled backwards – Obmika was also a folk singer in the 1960s – she recorded the wonderful folk song, This Earth Has Mud), and we wouldn’t want the notes to be akimbo, now would we? No, we would not. Akimbo notes are unseemly. Yesterday was a day that I don’t remember at all. I know I did some things. I did get a good night’s sleep of nine hours. I did have some bacon and eggs. I did pick up one package that wasn’t a package I was waiting for, and I did not pick up an important envelope – hopefully packages and important envelopes will arrive today. I did do some errands and whatnot and I did pay a little visit to a local bookstore I never remember is there – right on Ventura Blvd. about six minutes from the home environment. I had a good score there, too – I brought in a box o’ stuff to trade and I came out with nine bound volumes of Theatre Arts magazine, which may, in fact, be my all-time favorite magazine. These are all from the key years – the 50s and early 60s, and just looking at the ads and theatre listings is so great, plus lots of great articles, plus a complete play in many issues. I do love my bound volumes so it was great to get these all in one fell swoop. Funnily, I had one bound volume of Theatre Arts already and happily it’s for a year that wasn’t in this current batch. What else did I do? I answered and wrote e-mails, I had a few telephonic conversations and I finally sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I finished watching Metropolis, a film by Fritz Lang made in 1927 on a huge budget. Given its classic status it’s surprising to find the film was a huge financial disaster when it first opened. In fact, after its first showings in Germany it was cut by almost thirty minutes. In the United States of America, not only was it shorter, it was re-edited, too. In the early 1970s an attempt was made to restore some of the cut footage, but they simply didn’t have much of it, as most of it was destroyed. Then, in the 1980s, they at least got it back into an order resembling its original order. At that time, Georgio Moroder also did his reissue – a ninety-minute version with rock music. As we entered the 21st century, another restoration was done, and this time they used the camera negative from the American version, so the quality was really good – again, they did everything they could to have it match Lang’s original vision. Other than the Moroder version, that was my first exposure to Metropolis. I liked but did not love it – I certainly admired it. But two years ago they found a complete print in Buenos Aires – 16mm and not in good shape, but complete. At last they were able to piece together a version of the film that is only a few minutes short of the original premiere length, restoring twenty-five of the thirty missing minutes, and doing intertitles for the couple of short missing scenes, so you know what’s going on. Seeing it as Lang intended is a revelation – the editing has incredible rhythm and certain plot elements now make sense, where they never did before. It’s easy to laugh at a film like Metropolis through current eyes – but if you can view it and give the film the context of when it was made, it’s a breathtaking and astonishing piece of work. Simplistic in its ideas? Of course. But the imagination and the pushing of cinema cannot be denied – it influenced so many other filmmakers in so many ways – two that you’ll know immediately are Frankenstein and Blade Runner. The quality of the image on view on the new Blu and Ray is, save for those twenty-five minutes, spectacular – it’s sharp, the contrast is superb, and it’s just amazing to think something of that quality could survive all these years. I was viewing the region B version, but I’m told that the US version released by Kino is the same exact transfer. The score is by Gottfried Huppertz – all his music survived and was newly-recorded and it sounds fantastic – it, too, never gets the credit it deserves in terms of being influential. All in all, it was grand to finally see this the way it should be seen (and heard). I also watched the fifty-minute documentary about how all this happened – it wasn’t that good, but it does contain some very interesting things.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I must get my beauty sleep, lest I feel akimbo.

Today, I shall pay a few bills, including one that’s obscenely large, and then I shall make the decisions about what the final two 2010 Kritzerland releases will be – both will be announced on or about December 21st. I can tell you that although I don’t have the details yet, Kritzerland will be releasing some really great foreign cast albums in the near future. I should know more on Monday. Tonight, I’m supping with my friend Debby – have no idea where yet, whether I’ll drive to her or she’ll drive to me.

Tomorrow, I have to choose material for the January Gardenia show – that is not going to be as easy as it sounds, as it involves culling from about four different albums.

This coming week will be quite busy – prepping two releases (I pretty much know what one of them is), pulling music, and shipping Bukowsical and Carrie. We had a little problem with the Bukowsical master and we’re repressing the CD only and will include the fixed version with all copies. Somehow, the mastering guy’s computer got a mind of its own and switched two tracks around. It’s almost an impossibility, so none of us really understand how it happened, as the tracks are numbered correctly, were approved, and then he just tells the computer to make the master – he’s done over 500 CDs and has never seen anything like this. Anyway, it wasn’t that big a deal and the authors were actually willing to live with it, but it was easy to just press up some fixed CDs – it hasn’t sold all that many copies. I’ll also be lunching with dear reader Jeanne at some point, plus I think I’m being taken out for my birthday. We shall see.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do errands and whatnot, decide on our releases, and hopefully pick up an important envelope and some errant and truant packages, as well as sup. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your all-time favorite silent films? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, and try not to have them be akimbo.

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