THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT

Anya Taylor-Joy as chess prodigy Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit.

—

The Queen's Gambit is a gorgeous, well-acted, coming-of-age story. It's also a story of the failure of family and finding family in the friends that one has. And, it's about chess.

It works so well, primarily because of the character of Elizabeth Harmon. Beth Harmon is a well-written and fully developed character, and one that we can relate to. Tween Beth Harmon is played by Isla Johnston and she is a powerful presence when she is on screen. She is only overshadowed by Anya Taylor-Joy's portrayal of young adult Beth Harmon. But they don't share the screen.

Honestly, Anya Taylor-Joy is a bold presence on screen in whatever movie she is cast. The Witch was the movie it was because of her role as Thomasin. For me, she anchored the films Split and Glass. The New Mutants wasn't a bad film, but it was definitely made better with her as Magik.

In The Queen's Gambit, she navigates with ease the roles of orphan, student, daughter, drug-addict, alcoholic, young woman discovering herself, chess player, prodigy, friend, lover, opponent. She fills the screen with a quiet and bold countenance during close-up shots in chess matches and with an exuberant physicality in scenes of dancing or intoxication.

And the costume designers and set designers make Taylor-Joy's habitation of Harmon even more believable with stunning outfits, haircuts, makeup, and stunning period mise-en-scene.

It's rare that a movie moves me to tears, but there were two scenes where my eyes welled up. They were both later scenes with father figures.

I highly recommend this series. I'll also be finding a copy of the novel by Walter Tevis upon which it is based.

BLEU

Tonight: Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993) directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski. It's been at least 20 years since I've seen it. The colors, the lighting, the music, the mise-en-scène, the cinematography. The way the camera lingers on Juliette Binoche's face in a manner similar to Carl Dreyer's camera lingering on Renée Jeanne Falconetti'a face in La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928).

If there are holy works in cinema (and there are), then this is surely part of the canon.

Existential, beautiful, haunting, and, ultimately, hopeful.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT!

I've listened to the Melvins but I've never owned any Melvins albums. That may change after my two most recent album purchases: Gift of Sacrifice by King Buzzo, guitarist and vocalist for the Melvins, and Rat-a-Tat-Tat! by Dale Crover, drummer for the Melvins. They are both strange, intriguing, inviting, and, at times, challenging albums. But they are both also great albums filled with tracks that work individually and as parts of the whole.

So, some notes and thoughts on Rat-a-Tat-Tat! by Dale Crover...

— 

SIDE A 

Track 1 > "Moclips"
A brief instrumental introduction that serves as harbinger/warning of what is to come. Sparse backwards vocals are joined by a backwards drum track and (backwards?) jawharp. This reminds me of the chanting of the Gyoto Monks for some reason.

Track 2 > "I Can't Help You There"
A pleasant straightforward rocker that sort of reminds me of the Butthole Surfers at their most mainstream.

Track 3 > "Tougher"
A fuzzed out, feedback-laden opening leads into a blues stomp with vocals deep in the mix.

Track 4 > "Stumbler"
Seedy saxophone skronking neo-noir leads into warbly vocals and a drum beat that pulls us along. It's essentially a jazz track with backing female vocals.

Track 5 > "Shark Like Overbite"
This is the "poppy" rock song of the album. It's about Dale's dogs. It has a driving melody line. It's joy-filled nougaty goodness that reminds me of psychedelic-tinged Big Star and the music by the 1970s Saturday morning cartoon "band" the Groovie Goolies.

Track 6 > "Supine Is How I Found Him"
Springy guitars and jawharp and percussion. It's a trippy instrumental that, like the first track, has a bit of a hypnotic, ritualistic sense about it.

SIDE B

Track 7 > "I'll Never Say"
Syrupy-slow jangly guitar lines and noodly keyboards anchor this track. If there was a "weed song" on the album, then this is it.

Track 8 > "New Pharoah"
Melodic noise. Rhythmic "prayer" with vocals.

Track 9 > "Untrue Crime"
A bluesy number I could imagine Tom Petty singing. There is also a little bit of punk rock and another little bit of ZZ Top in its bones. Maybe even some Southern rock.

Track 10 > "The Bowie Mix"
A short trippy track that is as much blues jam as anything.

Track 11 > "Piso Mojado"
A slow percussive track that some hip hop act should sample.

Track 12 > "Kiss Proof World"
This is a slow rocker that reminds me of some of the slower numbers that Pearl Jam favors. At the end it devolves into a "Moclips" coda of sorts.

—

For an album that I knew very little about upon entry, this is a spectacular discovery! I absolutely love it. It's got just enough weirdness in it, for my tastes, but it also just outright rocks.

I'm glad I took the leap into its grooves!

2020 II

As a reflective exercise to look back on 2020, as well as dispel a myth I was telling myself about the amount of art and writing I did in the past year (thinking that I wasn't really writing and creating much), I made a list of the various pieces that I produced and/or published. 2020 was the most fruitful year I have had as a writer and artist.

—

I made a linoleum block print for third anniversary of my mother's death ("Swim Free III" for her Feast Day).

I participated in my first August Poetry Postcard Festival.

I created new Inktopodes for Inktober.

I bought a turntable so I could listen to records I haven't been able to play for nearly two decades. (That also "jump started" the acquisition of new vinyl albums!)

I dabbled in new media and new styles of art.

—

All in all, 2020 was a year of growth and exploration when it came to art and writing.

2020

As a reflective exercise to look back on 2020, as well as dispel a myth I was telling myself about the amount of art and writing I did in the past year (thinking that I wasn't really writing and creating much), I made a list of the various pieces that I produced and/or published. 2020 was the most fruitful year I have had as a writer and artist.

—

One of the organizations responsible for much of that work, directly and indirectly, was Creative Colloquy.

I had three poems published by Creative Colloquy in 2020—"Warpaint Melville" in the print Creative Colloquy, Volume Six and "Death Notices" and "Funeral" published online (links below).
I also joined the Creative Colloquy editorial committee, which has afforded the joy of reading and recommending others for publication. I'm grateful to CC founder Jackie Casella and CC managing editor Elizabeth Vickstein for welcoming me aboard.

And through my involvement with Creative Colloquy the past few years, I met Jennifer Chushcoff. Jennifer issued an invitation for artists to submit pieces for consideration for The Body Beloved, The Body Betrayed exhibit she curated. My piece "Through a Glass, Darkly (after Jasper Johns)" was accepted. It was a shift in the way that I work, and a reflection on the year 2020 in its own right. Plus, it started a new series of pieces that it influenced and that I will continue working on in 2021.

—

"Death Notices"
https://creativecolloquy.com/death-notices-by-troy-kehm-goins/

"Funeral"
https://creativecolloquy.com/funeral-by-troy-kehm-goins/

—

"Through a Glass, Darkly (after Jasper Johns)"

Montana BLACK spray paint, Sharpie marker, and metallic silver paint marker on 6” x 6” wood panel. Baked polymer clay, each approximately 1.25” x 1.75”

What happens when 20/20 vision is clouded? When a year (2020) is filled with stresses that test both the mind and the body? What does one remember of a piece of art meant to inspire one’s own work (Jasper Johns. Target with Four Faces. 1955.) without a physical reference or reproduction?

Using 1 Corinthians 13:32 as a departure point, “Through a Glass, Darkly” explores the ambiguous space/spectrum that exists between mind/body, trigger/target, surveillance/witness—all the while remaining grounded in a context of global pandemic, racial injustice, police brutality, protests and counter-protests, and political and social unrest.

The three (right) eyes echo the suggested eye of the target, as well as represent the primary colors that are also the three interior circles of the target.

SYMPHONY of SORROWFUL SONGS

A fitting end to 2020. 

Symphony No. 3, Op. 36. (Symfonia pieśni żałosnych / Symphony of Sorrowful Songs). Composed by Henryk Górecki. 

Performed by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and Beth Gibbons (of Portishead, soprano). Conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki.

#vinyl #turntable #farewell2020

THE LAST MEAL

The fire has been summoned. The year goes up in ashes.

Last Meal is a personal holy day. And this year we went out in style.

The back of the grill was set up with wet sticks of black walnut and Italian prune, as well as a few sprigs of cedar, to get some smoke into the meat. The fire was provided by charcoal briquets and cowboy charcoal.

The Last Meal for Troy's Work Table: steak that was simultaneously smoked and grilled, seasoned with alder wood smoked sea salt, and then served with a cranberry-rosemary reduction sauce. Heavenly! Paired with Brouwerij St. Bernardus Abt 12 Quadrupel Ale, which was likewise spectacular.

The Last Meal for The Wife: massive legs of Alaskan king crab.

The Last Meal for The Child: homemade carrots-and-peas, pasta-and-cheese "casserole."

Then we played games of Poetry for Neanderthals, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza, and Qwixx.

Nine o'clock New Year was observed.

Then albums were spun on the old turntable.

Farewell to 2020!

ALBUM of the YEAR

ALBUM of the YEAR • 2020

Civic Jams by Darkstar. I've listened to this album nearly every day since I purchased it. It's really a collection of current-day fairy tales disguised as music. We arrive ("Forest") and depart ("Blurred") the world of the album on tracks that are gauzy, ephemeral, otherworldly. The songs found between them inhabit various levels of corporeality and manifestation of modern life. Lyrics are fleeting, cut up, repetitious, ambiguous, and always anchored within the instrumentation. Beautiful, haunting, and exactly what was needed in 2020.

OTHER CONTENDERS

• In the Middle of the Night by Khidja. It's like falling into a slightly sinister yet seductive rabbit hole of dance music.
  
• Getting into Knives by The Mountain Goats. This is a joy-filled and sorrow-filled set of short stories, and the best album since The Sunset Tree.
  
• Made of Rain by The Psychedelic Furs. Seriously the best album of their career and that is saying something. "Ash Wednesday" is now my all-time favorite Furs track.
  
• RTJ4 by Run the Jewels. Intelligent, challenging, sometimes coarse and/or vulgar, but always-on-point hip hop with off-the-charts production. My favorite tracks: "Walking in the Snow" and "Out of Sight."
  
• Mind Hive by Wire. One of Wire's most mature albums, reflecting the foibles and dangers of our age within the lyrics of the songs but wrapping it within absolutely spectacular music.
  

GREAT ALBUMS, but NOT QUITE ALBUM of the YEAR

• Desire by Bob Moses. Six interrelated tracks that are continually mixed into a fulfilling and cohesive whole. I could seriously listen to "Hold Me Up" on repeat for hours upon end.
  
• Alles in Allem by Einstürzende Neubauten. Wildly restrained and wildly surreal songs centered on the city of Berlin. Many of them played on instruments built by the band themselves.
  
• 10:20 by Wire. The second Wire release for 2020, originally intended as a Record Store Day special, but offered as a general release once the global pandemic challenged the music industry.
  

AND SOME NEAR MISSES from 2019

• Creation Is Perfect by Minimal Compact. Re-recorded songs spanning their entire career, which are the best and definitive versions of these songs. Plus one new track, which is worth the price of admission alone.
  
• Purple Mountains by Purple Mountains. David Berman's swan song, filled with melancholy and self-effacement and unflinching self-awareness.
  

LONGEST NIGHT

Tonight is Longest Night, the holiest of holy days in my personal mythos. A winter night. Twilight. A dark night of the soul.

I will observe it in the dim living room in the light of the Christmas tree. With prayer. With the story of Beowulf as my companion this evening.

I will weather this night. Without tradition. Without direction. Without ritual or rite. A pilgrim. A wanderer. A bearer. Carrying the gift of a small spark across the threshold of seasons. Solstice.

DNA DANCE

 

"DNA Dance (after Matisse)," paper collage, 2020, by Troy's Work Table.

A response in paper collage to (and from) my piece "Through a Glass, Darkly (after Jasper Johns)" in The Body Beloved. The Body Betrayed. exhibit at www.byjenn.com/bbbb

This is a beloved response to the (mostly) betrayed nature of my original.