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Charlie Bertsch
Tucson, Arizona
I write. I teach. I try to make it through the times when I'm not doing enough of either.
Interests: cultural studies, literary theory, popular music, contemporary fiction
Recent Activity
That legendary 1977 show. Legendary in my, erm, household, at least.
I find it increasingly difficult to believe that anyone ever went out to see live music or anything else. It seems like science fiction of the recent past.
music friday
Santana, Oakland Coliseum, 1977. Third-billed for a Day on the Green headlined by Peter Frampton, with The Outlaws playing before Santana and Lynyrd Skynyrd playing after them. Santana had moved beyond their initial popularity; although they still had an audience in the mid-70s, their comeback d...
I'm so glad you wrote this. I've had to be more interested in order to communicate with my dad, but felt similarly.
pandemic baseball
It might be time for a baseball post. I've barely posted about the game this season. Once the beginning was postponed, I called up memories of a few Opening Days of the past, and when the season finally began, I wrote about missing an Opening Day after going to every one since 1980. I didn't thi...
I am very glad to read this belatedly, even though I am sad about the season and so much else.
opening day 1983
(There isn't going to be any baseball for a long time. I have been to 40 consecutive Giants Opening Days, and have/had tickets for #41, but it is entirely possible my streak is ending. So I thought I'd occasionally look back at some of those 40 Openers, make up a bit for the absence of current b...
Thank you for watching it and giving it so much of your time. I really, really loved it and want to see it again, when Kim is ready. (I've been saving it for her).
We are very different, especially as ambiguity is concerned. I love ambiguity more than anything. It's why I think David Lynch is a master. And why I'm left bored by films that most other people laud.
The first thing I did when I came home from the movie was to read the Haruki Murakami story on which it is loosely based and the William Faulkner story on which Murakami's story is loosely based. And neither one cleared up the ambiguity at the heart of the film. But that made me so happy!
by request: burning (chang-dong lee, 2018)
This is a tough one. I've seen one other film from Chang-dong Lee, Secret Sunshine, which I liked quite a bit. The Metacritic score for Burning was 90/100 ("Universal acclaim"). It's # 116 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century. And it came up recen...
I waited to read this until I FINALLY managed to see Parasite. It's good as you -- and so many others -- said it was.
The odd thing, seeing it in the theater, was the sense that my fellow theater-goers and I were trying hard, at some level, to apply the narrative to an American context, while still letting it be Korean.
It seems like the kind of film that can only achieve this level of mainstream success at a time when class consciousness is unusually high.
BTW, my favorite film last year -- and one of my favorite films of the 2000s -- was the Korean film Burning, based on a Haruki Murakami short story loosely connected to William Faulkner's own short story "Barn Burning". Have you seen it?
It defies genre expectations in the way you describe Parasite doing so, taking several abrupt turns narratively and emotionally. I think it's fabulous.
director bong
Selected passages from posts about the six films I have seen directed by Bong Joon-ho: Memories of Murder (2003): "I’ve liked every one of Bong’s movies that I have seen, and each of them have refused to be held down to clear genre expectations.... Bong is capable of anything.... Bong is reliabl...
Yesterday I realized I ripped this movie for Sky a few years back, though neither of us ended up watching it. Maybe I will now.
I can't remember how many of Alain's tales of his father and grandfather I have shared with you. But they were legion. For example, the point you make about Renoir loving all of his characters, at all stages of their lives, is one that Alain mentioned.
He connected that redemptive vision with the way he described his own education -- who knows how much of this was literally true -- as a kind of semi-homeschooling, because of his family's irregular schedule, in which his two instructors were the village priest and the local Communist Party boss.
french cancan (jean renoir, 1955)
Another movie for "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." This is out of order. Week 22 is called "Foreign Musicals Week". "What's the point of watching a musical...
I'm glad I stopped by. My dad adores Road movies. I recently watched Road to Morocco and Road to Utopia with him via the TCM app. Because I had been "rereading" -- listening to the audiobook -- of Edward Said's Orientalism, the former interested me in particular. The racism is casual. And the stereotyping. But part of me feels that the obvious lack of accuracy, at a time when the United States had been thrust into a global war and was suddenly being expected to be almost everywhere at once, is meaningful in ways that the filmmakers did not intend. If the classic mode of Orientalism that Said writes about was centered on expertise, knowledge that is transmuted into power, then the Hope-Crosby sort is centered on a lack of interest in acquiring expertise, such that the absence of knowledge is transmuted into a different kind of power.
road to bali (hal walker, 1952)
Another movie for "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2019-20", "A 33 week long challenge where the goal each week is to watch a previously unseen feature length film from a specified category." Week 19 is called "Comedy Duos Week": Sometimes, when the chemistry works, it just works. Which is why s...
I was very happy to see her with you and Robin at the Warfield in the 1990s. I recall Kim having some sort of tense exchange with Patti about her water bottle. Fifteen years later, more or less, Kim reviewed Patti's movie for CounterPunch and Patti mailed her a thank-you package. That was awesome.
music friday: patti smith at the boarding house, 1976
43 years ago today, we saw Patti Smith for the first time, at the Boarding House, which sat 300. It was a couple of months after the release of Horses. Noel Redding, former bass player for Jimi Hendrix, was the opening act. It was an interesting show, of course. She did several covers, including...
Perfect!
throwback thursday: thank you, bruce and ann
Five years ago today, I posted about an interview Ann Powers did with Bruce Springsteen about his then-new album, High Hopes. I mentioned on Twitter that I had a favorite part of the interview, but that I wasn’t sure why. It comes when Bruce is describing what it was like making records when he...
I love the video for "Tightrope" (and the song isn't bad, either). I sort of feel like my youth ended in 2010, too, though for different reasons than for you.
I keep trying to get back up to speed with new music, but it's a struggle. But the music I was listening between 2003 and 2008 or so remains in heavy rotation.
music friday: 2010
It had to happen eventually. Here are ten tracks by ten artists, none of whom I have ever seen live. It would seem that 2010 marks the end of my youth and the beginning of my old age. Outside of the inescapable Adele, none of these songs impacted me very much. Kanye West, "Runaway". "Let's have ...
I am very glad that you got around to watching the Bourdain. I knew it would appeal to you on cinematic grounds alone. And I am also not surprised that you didn't immediately want to seek out other episodes of Parts Unknown. But you should know that he prided himself on making episodes that felt like cinema.
still in the mood for love (anthony bourdain edition)
I revisited In the Mood for Love after watching an episode of the late Anthony Bourdain's series, Parts Unknown. I watched Bourdain at the encouragement of a friend who had asked me to do so earlier this year when Bourdain died. He specifically suggested the Hong Kong episode, and I finally got ...
I know quite a few film people who ride hard for Michael Mann, including Kim. I'm not quite as big of a fan, but I do love the look and sound of his best work.
miami vice (michael mann, 2006)
I am not a big fan of the movies of Michael Mann. I was a fan of his 1980s TV shows, Miami Vice and especially Crime Story with the great Dennis Farina. But the Mann movies I've seen mostly leave me feeling "meh". I did like The Insider, but the rest all fall into the "OK but nothing more" categ...
I saw Jewel open for Liz Phair with you!
The Pulp song is great, but I'm not sure I'd rank it as the best example of Britpop.
music friday: 1995
Pulp, "Common People". Named the greatest Britpop song of all time by Rolling Stone. Later covered by William Shatner. Alanis Morissette, "You Oughta Know". Spent 5 weeks at #1 on the Alternative charts. Later covered by Britney Spears. 2Pac, "California Love". Joe Cocker also knows how to party...
Sad for you, though. The second match was better, if also disappointing in its inexorable march to penalites.
spain vs. russia
There was an accidental own-goal for Spain, an accidental handball leading to a penalty for Russia, and there was a penalty shootout. The remaining 119 minutes reminded me of nothing so much as soccer on The Simpsons, thanks to the stylings of Spain.
There's a whole crazy story about why MBV imploded. Some argue that they took down the entire Creation Records label. I'm happy that they came back to do shows, but the "album" was a major disappointment. Loveless, however, is a masterpiece.
music friday: 1991
Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". I saw Pink perform this song earlier this year. She did a very straightforward version, which only shows that the original is already perfect. The Geto Boys, "Mind Playing Tricks on Me". As important to rap music as "Teen Spirit" was to grunge. Bonnie Raitt, "...
Happy birthday!
happy birthday, starbuck!
1991 was a really good year. And this is a great list. And My Bloody Valentine was a great band. There was an exchange in The Village Voice about them back then -- not involving Mr. X-gau -- in which Greg Tate expressed very eloquently that hip-hop needed to learn from My Bloody Valentine.
music friday: 1991
Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit". I saw Pink perform this song earlier this year. She did a very straightforward version, which only shows that the original is already perfect. The Geto Boys, "Mind Playing Tricks on Me". As important to rap music as "Teen Spirit" was to grunge. Bonnie Raitt, "...
It's interesting to revisit entries like this one now that so much of the world has drifted into neo-fascist populism. Right now, there are more Nazi fans in Germany than at any point since the immediate aftermath of World War II, yet Germany as it is presently run is considered one of the most important bulwarks preventing the onset of a new Dark Age.
(I can't remember: were your 2002 World Cup entries in a separate blog?)
germany-argentina
I am such a dick. I really do want to get over my stupid prejudices, but then I find myself rooting for Argentina, and the next thing you know, I hate Germany, so that even when they show a cute little boy with a decal on his cheek of the German flag, I look at his blond hair and think Hitler Yo...
I am so glad that Portugal came out attacking. I had seen them sit back and wait for a few counterattacks so many times during the Ronaldo years.
portugal-spain: when neither team sucks
A friend with whom I was having an ongoing email chat during today's matches said it best when he emailed me, "What a fucking game!!!!" You don't need me to elaborate ... if you are reading this, you have already seen it for yourself, heard the analysis, praised Cristiano Ronaldo. But, as I said...
I'm so happy to be able to read this blog again.
tomorrow's matches
I'll have to decide how I'm going to watch matches, since beginning tomorrow, the starting times for the first matches will be early. I'm thinking I won't set an alarm, but if I wake up at the right time, I'll watch live. Otherwise I'll play catch up on the DVR. Egypt-Uruguay (Group A 5:00 AM (a...
I think this was one of the great years for popular music. "Fools Gold" is a great song, even if the Stone Roses didn't have much staying power. Needless to say, I'd put something from The Cure's Disintegration on my own list.
music friday: 1989
Public Enemy, "Fight the Power". An all-time great opening credits sequence. Madonna, "Like a Prayer". My favorite Madonna song. The Pixies, "Debaser". I am un chien andalusia. The Stone Roses, "Fools Gold". My knowledge of Stone Roses begins and ends with "Love Spreads". This is not that song. ...
That's a really good point. I think it's set up almost like a classroom scenario, like the sort of thing that would generate essay topics for freshman composition.
revisiting five easy pieces (bob rafelson, 1970)
My ability to evaluate Five Easy Pieces is complicated by the fact that for ten years, I worked in a factory, a job that was a bit at odds with my upbringing (and my life after the factory). I didn't grow up in an upper-class family of classical musicians, although my mother was a musician who m...
I can't remember whether this one annoys Kim or not. It's strange for me because of my mother's family. Her mother, my icy-but brilliant grandmother would just casually sit down at the piano and play Chopin that sounded like it came off a record, but had been frustrated in her ambitions because of gender. Her father, though a professor of English at Lehigh University, didn't have a Ph.D. and was always discriminated against for being a theater guy who focused on technical aspects of production. And my mother, though raised by fairly impoverished but still otherwise privileged intellectuals, always told me that she wanted me to grow up to be a plumber and my sister that she wanted her to become an electrician. She was very hostile to pretense and intellectually invested in a kind of Thoreau-style critique of intellectualism. So when I watch the movie, I feel bad for not turning out like the sort of person who neither ended up working on an oil rig nor capable of playing a damned thing on a musical instrument.
revisiting five easy pieces (bob rafelson, 1970)
My ability to evaluate Five Easy Pieces is complicated by the fact that for ten years, I worked in a factory, a job that was a bit at odds with my upbringing (and my life after the factory). I didn't grow up in an upper-class family of classical musicians, although my mother was a musician who m...
I found it disturbing, but effective, at the time. I'm not sure I'd want to see it again, though. Nymphomaniac I and II have largely cured my Von Trier fixation, apparently. I still think his best films are outstanding. I just don't have much desire to see them right now.
dogville (lars von trier, 2004)
Is it possible to reevaluate a film when you are seeing it for the first time? Back in 2004, when Dogville was released, I had a few posts about it, including this one, which quoted Charles Taylor at length: Women are von Trier's select victims. That alone doesn't make him a misogynist. What do...
This is a great list from what turns out, in retrospect, to have been a pretty great year for music. I was surprised that you didn't include the original "Temptation". Sky was surprised that you didn't include "Africa", ahem.
music friday: 1982
Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean". Let's quote Wikipedia, since it never lies. "That performance is considered a watershed moment, not only in Jackson's career, but in the history of popular culture." Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message". Speaking of watershed moments ... The Prete...
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