2023 (Jan-Mar) Tincture Evening Diary

[eerietom]

May contain spoilers! This page is for 2023 (January thru March); click here for April thru June 2023; click here for 2022.

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Usually, on my “THC tincture evenings”, I watch a video or two, or listen to an album, or both. The following is a sort of diary, mostly for my own reference, and as best as I can remember, a list of the movies and music from such evenings. Links to sites outside of this blog open in new windows. ✽ indicates my first time seeing or hearing the work, or that it’s been so long I didn’t really remember much about it. ↻ indicates a link to other sections of this blog entry.

Date	Title, Director or Artist, Year
01/11/23	Land of the Lost, dir. Dennis Steinmetz, 1974 Episode: “Tag-Team”. See blog entry.
	Electric Café✽, Kraftwerk, 1986 I chose this after seeing part of Musik Arbeiter’s video essay, which calls the album an “unrecognized masterpiece”. While the album (particularly the first three tracks) does indeed sound cold, sterile, and repetitious, that is exactly what I like about it, a quality Musik Arbeiter calls “unearthly”.
01/16/23	Eggshells✽, dir. Tobe Hooper, 1969
	Shaolin vs Ninja✽, dir. Pai Cheh, 1983
01/23/23	Land of the Lost✽, dir. Bob Lally, 1974 Episode: “Skylons”. See blog entry.
	Nurse With Wound and the Hafler Trio Hit Again!✽, Nurse With Wound and The Hafler Trio, 1987
01/30/23	Blood Debts✽, dir. Teddy Page, 1985 Infamous for featuring “The Proper Way to End Your Film”.
	Wolf Devil Woman✽, dir. Pearl Chang, 1982 I like how the titular character, supposedly a feral woman raised by a wolf and living in the wild, somehow acquires makeup and a wardrobe of fur coats, including a hat made from a plushie wolf’s head! :-D
02/06/23	Tom and Jerry✽, dir. Gene Deitch, 1962 Episodes: “Mouse into Space” and “The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit”. Music by Štěpán Koníček (aka Steven Konichek).
	Dazzle Ships✽, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 1983 I have never cared for OMD’s music but last week, quite by serendipity, I read that Dazzle Ships was highly experimental in nature and a commercial flop at the time. I listened to the title track and wanted to hear more. While I still didn’t care for the more mainstream songs like “Genetic Engineering” and “Telegraph”, I found the following tracks quite spellbinding. They reminded me just a little of Radiohead’s Kid A (2000): • Radio Prague • ABC Auto-Industry • This is Helena • Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III, & VII) • Time Zones • 4-Neu • 66 and Fading • International
	The Fall✽, Gorillaz, 2010
	The Maiden at Dōjōji Temple✽, dir. unknown, yr. unknown Filmed Kabuki performance. Watch here on YouTube. Also, see my blog entry about classical Japanese theater.
02/13/23	Land of the Lost✽, dir. Gordon Wiles, 1975 Episode: “The Longest Day”. Rick Marshall is kidnapped by the Sleestaks and taken to a smoke-filled room which makes him feel lightheaded, then he starts hallucinating! (nyuk nyuk nyuk)
	Online “games”: • Patatap - tap on your tablet to make music! • Neon Flames - draw on your tablet to generate a nebula! • Flight Radar 24 - see the flight path of every airplane in the world! You may find your experience enhanced if you listen to this while watching! • Hopalong Orbits - fly through space past intricate patterns of lights! (for STTMP fans, think V’ger’s powerfield cloud on acid)
	Five Elements Ninjas✽, dir. Chang Cheh, 1982 Like George Romero directed an episode of H.R. Pufnstuf!
02/22/23	Tom and Jerry✽, dir. Gene Deitch Episodes: “Dicky Moe” (1962), “It’s Greek to Me-Ow!” (1961). I think the Gene Deitch detractors owe the man an apology. Sure, his cartoons are not as slick as MGM’s, but there is some inventive animation and camerawork, and I like the slightly surreal stories and sound effects. And look at this shot of Jerry in his den; the grain of the wood, the light filtering from above, the details in the rope and the cheese. I daresay Deitch’s cartoons are at least equal to those produced by Chuck Jones, though I find Jones’s work a bit too coy. Click image for larger view; opens in new window. An article written by Gene Deitch about his time working on Tom and Jerry.
	Land of the Lost✽, dir. Gordon Wiles, 1975 Episode: “The Pylon Express”. Yet another trippy episode! Holly enters a pylon that serves as a portal to different locations and times. During her adventures she encounters a creature that looks like a bouncing golden hatbox / birthday cake hybrid decorated with pink feathers, and a snake-like creature with a vacuum cleaner nozzle for a “head” that sucks up everything in sight. Related: Land of the Lost blog.
	Pyroclasts✽, Sunn O))), 2019
	The Amsterdam Connection, dirs. Lo Ke and Fang Mui San, 1978 A longtime favorite kung fu film of mine, simply because it has the worst dubbing ever, not to mention the bad dialogue and strange “freestyle battle raps”.
02/26/23	Loss of Sensation✽, dir. Alexandr Andriyevsky, 1935 The “battle scene” made me think of Battleship Potemkin. The inventor running down the street desperately playing his saxophone is an iconic cinematic scene, surely.
03/06/23	Dōjōji✽, dir. unknown, 2022 See blog entry.
	Maggot Brain✽, Funkadelic, 1971
03/13/23	Piano Concerto in A by Tchaikovsky✽, Portsmouth Sinfonia, 1974 Yes, of course, I’ve heard this piece before, but not this particular version! And okay, yeah, I get the “joke”, and yeah, it’s funny. But certain passages sound like modern atonal classical music, or something by The Residents or even The Beatles at their most experimental. Watch on YouTube.
	Celestial✽, Starterra, 2020 I’m sure this mind-blowing trippy video was produced using Blender or similar software, but my gosh, I can’t imagine how long it must’ve taken. If I were just to try to render a single frame from this, it would take me months! One interesting mind trick I did while watching this: most of the motion seems to move you forward, like you’re in a car or plane. Now and then I would imagine I were falling instead, added a thrilling vertigo to my already stoned state! Watch on YouTube.
	Dark Lady of Kung Fu✽, dir. Chang Lin, 1983 Sort of a Robin Hood (dressed like Batman) story. Interesting for its relatively positive portrayal of someone who might be a transgender person. For example: Butterfly Miss Kim ... I hope that you will learn to love yourself, accept yourself as you are, because you are lovable. Miss Kim (removing female clothing) I’ve never liked myself like this. This is much better. There’s always been a streak of man in me.
	Shadow of Funk✽, Cabaret Voltaire, 2021
03/15/23	Kid A, dir. Radiohead, 2000 See blog entry.
03/20/23	Tom and Jerry✽, dir. Gene Deitch Episodes: “Down and Outing” (1961), “High Steaks” (1962) The music (by Štěpán Koníček, aka Steven Konichek) in both episodes was particularly good. Outing featured some creative variations of the Tom and Jerry theme, whereas Steaks featured a variety of music genres, including jazz, Dixieland, and what sounded like Esquivel!
	Star Trek Abridged, by “Manuel Skittlehead”, 2011 Multiple episodes, including “Day of the Dove”; see blog entry.
	Godzilla Raids Again, dir. Motoyoshi Oda, 1955 I thought I would try to duplicate the look of “Cozzilla” by taking the sequel to the original Godzilla film and using my video editor to increase the brightness, exposure, and contrast. I then used a “glow” and overlaid a shifting color palette. I also increased the volume gain to cause it to clip and added distortion. The result? See for yourselves! Click image for larger view; opens in new window.
03/26/23	Hamlet✽, dir. Franz Peter Wirth, 1961 This was the MST3K version. After a few minutes I was so intrigued by the voices, which sounded like bored European models doing voiceovers for an expensive cologne commercial, I tried to find the original version—without the MST3K commentary. Alas, it was to no avail, but I still enjoyed it.
	Gayn----rs from Outer Space, dir. Morten Lindberg, 1992 Warning: offensive and politically incorrect in every possible way! (lol)
	Solid Gold✽, Gang of Four, 1981