ERRguitar

Veterans Day lunch

2010-11-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

Santa Ana winds are back with bitter chill and everyone is sneezing and bundling up. Still recovering from the daylight-to-standard "fall back" and now Veterans Day has thrown off my weekday rhythm with school and government offices closed.

Hustling to get out of the house and off to the office I managed to water some of the more vulnerable plants and containers. Then it was back to the kitchen to assemble a quick lunch - toasted Teff focaccia with smoked Hungarian bacon, Harvard cheese, and red lettuce. How beautiful!

And starting work tonight on the curing the ~4 lbs of olives I bought last weekend at Super King market! Will posted a step-by-step once it's underway.

Halloween Shipkas Olive Tapenade

2010-10-31T23:21:00.000-07:00

Back home from taking Grandma to her first West Hollywood Halloween carnival. She's been eager to attend one since seeing a slide show of grandson Elliott's success as Lady Gaga in 2009. Quite the trouper for someone in her mid-seventies - she hiked down from the parking lot on Sunset and almost the entire length of the event - and of course back up again.

And so October is now minutes away from exiting the stage. For all the experience of acceleration this year has entailed, this Fall has packed a lot in. For starters we rediscovered (recovered) a couple of seasons - just days apart - from blazing recording-breaking heat a few weeks back (the official weather service thermometer in downtown went offline or "broke" upon reaching 113F) to a 5-day patch of monsoonal soaks. And that's leaving out the gorgeous "segues" between these weather events - stunning skies that capture your attention when you least expect it.

Halloween is the bow on this package and I finally got around to making more black olive and Shipkas pepper tapenade. I finished a cache of a green olive version (a not unsuccessful experiment, but no rival to the original) a week or so ago and have made my lunches with German mustard and Avjar.

While pitting the semi-cured black olives I decided to "go large" and doubled the recipe. The orange and black was just so damn Halloween!

Brining, Curing and Smoking

2010-10-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

The results of my third weekend in a row of brining and curing pork and turkey. Sunday's batch included a turkey breast (with bone) and drumsticks brined for 48 hours, and pork tenderloin with a dry rub for 56 hours, smoked for almost 2 hours at 230-300F. This was a little hotter than planned but they still came out juicy and tender. Previous Sundays saw brined pork tenderloin and turkey breast brined for 24 hours.

This weekend is "smoke free" as I need to do some more thinking about what meats to tackle next. I also need to order some "pink salt" aka "InstaCure" aka "Prague Powder" which contains sodium nitrite (6.25%) and is essential to many recipes involving curing and canning.

Teresa has been baking sourdough almost daily and is already maintaining 3 starters. The acknowledged favorite so far has been the buckwheat with it's wonderful grayish color. As with other living foods, experiments are essential and it being Fall pumpkin was an inevitable choice. Quite good! I've toasted and enjoyed slices of it with chunks of blue cheese as a rustic late afternoon snack.

Pumpkin sourdough bread - how can you tell?

Inaugural Salsa Verde - Happy Equinox!

2010-09-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Our recent Grassy Knolls harvest of Green Zebra tomatoes and Bulgarian carrot peppers (Shipkas) cried out for a fresh green salsa so it was a quick web search for salsa recipes resulting in the following lash-up. Oh, and buying a delightful salsa verde from Cam, the Eastside Tomato King last Saturday at the Silver Lake farmers market...

Green Zebra Salsa Verde

2 Shipkas peppers (seeds and all)
6-7 Green Zebra tomatoes
2 smallish heirlooms tomatoes
1/2 cup of red onion
7 large garlic cloves
1 tbsp of olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
salt & pepper to taste

The salsa is now in field trials with Enrique and results are expected soon.

The character of Shipkas peppers is fairly complex, hot but with a surprising twist at the end that's hard to describe. This is my third use of them and I'm sizing up my cache so I can have a few more recipes before they disappear for the season (and I'm moving the plant to a more sustainable pot and drying out some seeds for next year).

FOLLOW-UP: 2 days later I added more Green Zebras (this time seeded) and heated the salsa to reduce it a bit. Now in field testing at work, the salsa verde is greener, thicker, and less hot but still good and spicy.

Dog Days of Late Summer

2010-09-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

Celebrating the end of the first week of high school and the fast approaching beginning of fall, end of summer, we ate a lazy Saturday afternoon lunch of Nathan's frankfurters topped with chopped onion, one of our freshly harvested heirloom tomatoes, Teresa's homemade pickle relish, and neighbor "Cam the Tomato King's" green tomato salsa.

Wow - these were great hot dogs!

The Sandwich Moment

2010-09-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

This is the "money shot" in the sandwich making process. The sandwich freshly cleaved, the halves revealing a glorious stratified view of the constituent materials.

A great way to start the day, making lunches for my son and self, packing and cleaning up, ready to ride out to meet the day and whatever it brings.

This is a standard toasted focaccia*, with English mustard* and shipkas tapenade,* with German salami and Tilsit cheese and red and green lettuce.

* Home-made ingredients

Happy Labor Day - Lagom is best!

2010-09-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Not May Day (as in the 8-hour day 1886 version still officially observed elsewhere) but a 3-day brief from work and unofficial start of the school year and Fall semesters in the northern hemisphere.

It was stretch weekend for garden work - renting an truck and auger and picking materials for several home projects. The heatwave brought earlier and the weekend has been warm and mild.

As I've been meaning to snap a pic of this recent anonymous wall poster I detoured from our Sis Deli shopping errand to capture it in all the bleached-out glory of the midday late summer Los Angeles sun.

This simple, surprising sentiment turned agit-prop slogan resonates with my discovery of Lagrom - as in lagom är bäst. Roughly translated (as much as it resists translation) - "just the right amount" or "enough is as good as a feast."

After two days of errands, ground clearing, and pole hole digging we dined on a simple meal of BBQ chicken and sauteed trombetta fresh from the garden (with melted Tilsit for the adults). It's taken a few months to finally obtain a local source for Tilsit (aka Tilseter, like a stinkier, more flavorsome version of Havarti). Continental Gourmet Sausage in Glendale is worth visiting for their own sausages and cold cuts - so the Tilsit and other German and European food items are a just an added bonus.

Trombetta di Albenga - Winter squash

Timely hot chili sauce with garlic

2010-08-29T16:10:00.001-07:00

Seeking new ways to enjoy my crop of Shipkas (Bulgarian carrot) peppers I tried out a recipe for hot chili sauce recently published in the NY Times by Melissa Clark. The chief difference is my choice of peppers and a few extra garlic cloves.

4 hot peppers (Shipkas)
2 red bell peppers
7 garlic cloves
3/4 cup of distilled white vinegar
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Roughly chop the peppers and garlic and combine with the other ingredients in small pot over medium heat.
Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the peppers are soft.
Puree in a blender and cool.
Refrigerate for 3 days before use - it will keep for several weeks.

I'll report back once I've used it - it does look a lot like the Tuong Ot Toi Vietnam chili garlic sauce I use for marinades and on rice and fish cakes, etc.

The cooled-down chili sauce ready for the refrigerator alongside some remaining shipkas peppers (I have plans for them).

BOSS Pate: Black Olive & ShipkaS Pepper Spread

2010-08-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

This a strong, hot, but still complex olive spread using semi-cured black olives, garlic, capers, and "Bulgarian Carrot" or shipkas peppers. I've already made it three times and have been enjoying and sharing it with friends over the last 5-6 weeks.

The semi-cured olives are ridiculously inexpensive ($2.59@lb at our local Sis Deli in Los Feliz) and the shipkas, a gorgeous medium-to-hot pepper that was allegedly smuggled across the Iron Curtain, are courtesy of Grassy Knolls - aka our hillside back yard garden.

Here's the recipe that I lashed up after researching tapenades:

1/2 cup of semi-cured black olives (a 1/2 cup AFTER pitting)
6 cloves of garlic
2 medium sized shipkas peppers (~2-3 inches long)
10-12 capers
1 tsp of olive oil
1 tsp of balsamic vinegar

Pit the olives and roughly chop the garlic, peppers (do not seed until you've tried this recipe once full bore and want to adjust the heat), and capers and toss into a small food processor. Add a teaspoon of good olive oil and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar (I use a dark cherry artisan vinegar) and chop/grind for a few cycles, just enough to make a thick, spreadable paste.

This will last for some time refrigerated and I've mainly used it as a sandwich spread with homemade focaccia and ciabatta (especially delightful on toast).

Shipkas aka Capsicum annuum aka 'Bulgarian Carrot' coming into maturity at Grassy Knolls

End of Mission

2010-05-25T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Atlantis has touched down safely after 32 missions and 25 years, marking the end of the space shuttle era. Space camp will never be the same.

Heroic space exploration is mostly robotic now and we have new seas of methane to map. The Phoenix lander mission was officially terminated by JPL this week as efforts to contact it cease. Phoenix landed on May 25, 2008, and successfully operated for five months (two months longer than planned) until sunlight at its far northern location waned. New evidence from orbital observation indicate its solar panels have been crushed by the built of Martian carbon dioxide ice during the winter.

UPDATE August 30, 2010: Obviously I was somewhat premature in my assessment. The space shuttle flight program has been extended for 2 more missions (STS-133 Discovery November 2010, STS-134 Endeavour February 2011).

Classic socialist realist painting of Valentina and Yuri is courtesy of the Carpet Blogger.

Sleeping Outdoors

2010-04-17T23:04:00.001-07:00

No, there wasn't an earthquake, and I haven't started camping yet.

My mind has been wandering a lot lately, so much so I feel like I'm traveling. My overstuffed bags safely stashed away (or is it just a head full of run on sentence) I can lay out on the patio and read until I nap, waking and drifting back to sleep, listening to the wind come through the ravine, the staggered response of the wind chimes next door, light flickering through the leaves and branches, a burst of bird songs and a determined helicopter darting across the hills.

This is a gorgeous logo. Proof plunder that I'm still burrowing into things Ost and Ostalgie, a German portmanteau combining "ost" (east) and "nostalgie" (nostalgia), and turned up this interesting legal ruling on discrimination against Ossis.

And then this 'outsider' artist Miroslav Tichý that I stumbled upon last week. He is having his first solo show now through May 9 at New York's International Centre of Photography (ICP).

New York Times' Karen Rosenberg in her "An Ogling Subversive With a Homemade Camera" review of the exhibition: "His photographs may look naïve, but they’re the product of a carefully orchestrated series of missteps that begins with crude, homemade cameras. As he says in the film ("Tarzan Retired," a 35-minute film from 2004 by Mr. Tichy's longtime neighbor and biographer, Roman Buxbaum), "If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world."

Here is a video slide show of some of his work and a related photo blog post. Thanks to WFMU Beware of the Blog's Iowa Firecracker for tipping me to Miroslav Tichy and his "Dargerfication."

Spring break and random walks

2010-03-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

Somehow I've managed to arrange a vacation this year, two weekends and a week of travel with family up north. It always takes days to get out of the work routine and to start experiencing things off that grid.

Our after work hikes are back on and this calls for more planning - San Gregornio, San Jacinto, and Mt. Whitney. Picked up Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust: A History of Walking and revisited the section on walking clubs, especially interested in the Naturfrieunde (Nature Friends, motto "Berg Frei") founded in Vienna in 1895 and today one of the largest NGOs in the world. Militant leisure, working classes' access to nature, socialism, sustainable development, and rambling... living threads offering much to the inquisitive. German, Austrian and other Alpine immigrants brought the Nature Friends to the US in the early 1900's and today there are 4 locations in California being operated by them including right one in Los Angeles (actually Sierra Madre).

Coincidentally I've been on a Bergfilme jag, watching Der Heilige Berg (1926) and Das Blaue Licht, with a handful of others in the queue (Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü, Der Grosse Sprung). Just an mild obsession with a gorgeous, obscure micro-genre.

Back to blogging... Spring 2010

2010-03-22T07:48:00.000-07:00

It's spring and this was the first weekend to enjoy the longer daylight thanks to the arrival of PDT. It was warmer than usual too it kept people guessing about the summer to come. But chores and errands called out so it was the long delayed haircut (I feel great afterward!), patio and yard clean-up, and a run to Sunset Nursery for herbs, vegetables and potting soil - all calculated to be completed BEFORE Sunday's LA Marathon and the anticipated disruption in local traffic.

It's been a busy year+plus since the last posting. My personal boiled-down power-point-bulleted resolution/mantra for 2009 was "Condition, Plan, Communicate." I definitely devoted time and made progress on the first two, not so much for the latter!

With all the opportunities to publish across multiple platforms (twitter, tumblr, facebook, etc) it's blogging diary style that still beckons and offers "long hand" thoughts.

Found a very, very long lost nephew in the last week and that increases a tiny family by another 5 so I can already declare 2010 a year of family. That plus multiple trips to Phoenix for a deathly ill cousin who is finally on the road to recovery.

Traveling across I-10 between Los Angeles and Phoenix exposes to some ample emptiness and draws me to maps. One such idle map exploration led me to Midland, CA, a ghost town to rival Trona (NOT a ghost town but candidate often enough). As with my general fantasy life about deserts, it's due to a childhood saturated with Twilight Zone episodes and B&W sci-fi movies like the Monolith Monsters. When I see roads heading off into the distance, distant desert peaks and a sprinkling of structures an image of the isolated desert town springs to mind. Check out this lovely still from the Monolith Monsters!

Top image by Eric Lusito from his book After The Wall: Traces of the Soviet Empire

Back to the Wastelands

2009-07-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

Back to the, back to the, back to the... (hip hop)

Sunday April 18, 2010: Found this abandoned post that was started but never published. Two pictures from one of my favorite movies (Rocketship XM) and a line from a classic hip hop track.

July 7, 2009, a Tuesday, following the 3 day 4th of July weekend. Probably felt the need to publish after the high expectations of a long weekend.

Scenes in front of matte paintings. My memory is crammed with mattes. Like painting on glass to create environments otherwise impossible to film, these images seem fragile and static yet to do so much work.

Sunday usually means errands through morning overcast to farmers markets, neighborhood shops, buying food and stocking up for the week. Today I enjoyed a freshly shucked Luna oyster while we were exiting the Hollywood's Farmers market, our bags loaded with lettuce, squash, potatoes, 2 tubs of Dave's Gourmet Korean, a quart of apple juice, and 3 boxes on strawberries.

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-11T10:34:00.001-08:00

1713, originally uploaded by Poletti.

What's the hurry - this is still the first post of the year. And in this case the first still of the year.

Professor Quatermass and colleague surveil a matte of the mysterious biochemical complex and hub of a sinister alien conspiracy in Enemy From Space (aka Quatermass II).

Q: Why this still?

A: One of my favorite films (and franchises) and somehow staring meaningfully at a matte landscape, sinister or not, resonates with facing the coming year with all the determination we can summon.

I have a daunting queue of books and recipes to share, including completing my post from December on the "well of fortitude" and Bryan McCoy's primer The Passion of Command. I'll be posting and editing as I can - and keeping my eye on the enemy from space as I fight the good fight against the enemies from my time.

Overdrawn from the Well of Fortitude

2008-12-02T08:51:00.001-08:00

Col. Bryan McCoy taking a catnap on "the march up" to Baghdad

I'm finally able and willing to post again. If my experience counts for anything I must be avoiding some difficult and trying task. Maybe more on that later, maybe not. [Note: I started this post on 12/2 so 'later' is now, and that's all I'll say]

I'm really taken by this picture of Col. Bryan McCoy stealing a catnap - arms splayed, flat on his back in the dirt, knees bent and rifle resting across his chest, stealing sleep during a lull in the Marines lightning campaign to Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom (aka Gulf War II). It's borrowed from John Koopman's McCoy's Marines: Darkside to Baghdad (2004) an odd but rewarding memoir of the SF Chronicle reporter's embedding with McCoy's 3rd Battalion/4th Marines. Reading Koopman's book was part of a jag initiated by watching HBO's brilliant Generation Kill. Following on from simultaneous readings of Evan Wright's Generation Kill and Nathanial Fick's One Shot Away: The Making of a Marine Officer and using various Amazon reviews and references as a guide I ordered several titles from the public library.

Bing West's account of The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the United States Marines puts the other accounts into a broader narrative and is a good read by itself. West's next title No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah has already been optioned by Hollywood and is set to star Harrison Ford. Its a gritty combat narrative, easily jumping back and forth between the aggressive foot patrols and sustained fire fights, and the political and diplomatic skirmishing between civil and military leaders under the glare of the media and ghosts of the Vietnam. If you're looking for a classic combat memoir sans the 'big picture' I recommend Patrick O'Donnell's We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulderwith the Marines Who Took Fallujah. We Were One is a book where the story overwhelms the story telling but you're left with the rich details of squad level action in close combat in an urban battleground.

But back to Darkside, Col. Bryan McCoy's radio call sign. I'd stumbled upon a short but enticing review of his primer The Passion of Command on the Kings of War blog (War Studies department, Kings College London). It proved difficult to obtain (library, Amazon, Alibris, etc) so I wound up ordering it from the publishers. It was worth the effort.

McCoy outlines his philosophy and technique for training Marines for combat. He introduce me to the concept of the 'well of fortitude' (a reservoir of will) as developed by LtCol David Grossman (On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society) and Col John Allen, reproducing the table Human Factors in Battle that Allen used for his USMC lectures.

The Passion of Command: The Moral Imperative of Leadership
by Colonel Bryan McCoy

Vengence is mine; and best served as cold salad

2008-07-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

I admit to being somewhat hooked on my cellphone's photography. At its best it reminds me of the images I saw in a small paperback book of early color photography that I possessed decades ago. Soft, impressionistic auras frame the best shots - and the immediacy of this electronic medium seems somehow embossed in the image.

No confessions necessary about my avid interest in food. I love to prepare food and actively consume its material culture, aka foodways.

Teresa and I stumbled upon a cold salad recipe (see my 'product shot' above) a few Sundays ago following an early morning visit to the Hollywood Farmers Market (not to be confused with also delightful but 7-days-a-week Fairfax Farmers Market). One of the better produce stands is located up at the Hollywood Blvd. end and I generally pickup radishes and sometimes other items here. On this Sunday we spied some lovely pale yellow bell-shaped peppers and waited to make a closer inspection while a European-looking gentleman completed his selection.

Often admired but never before purchased I asked the man what these waxy yellow peppers tasted like. Were they hot? No, he replied. Sweet and tasty. Perfect sauteed with some sausage and tomatoes - and wait for the obligatory ethnic profiling - with a little paprika!

That was more than enough incentive for us to buy 4-5 peppers for some happy experimentation banked for later in the day. Before completing our forage we also secured some small orange tomatoes and sweet onions but without specific purpose.

That afternoon, back in the TG (Tularosa Gulch) Teresa set upon a regime of oven roasting, the peppers, tomatoes and the sweet onions at 400 degrees for an hour. Despite the extra heat in our sun baked kitchen, what a divine and heady aroma!

The details are fuzzy but a subsequent Sunday errand to Jon's Market in Hollywood (Little Armenia to be more precise) produced a link of Gyulai kolbász, a hot, dried Hungarian sausage. Jon's is a wonderful multi-ethnic supermarket (part of a small chain) offering a wide selection of products and we bought this sausage with the intention of following the stranger's advice for preparing the yellow peppers.

Needless to say, what we wound up with was a special treat that we intend to repeat. After roasting the peppers, tomatoes, and sweet onions we roughly chopped and tossed them together. I sliced and added the Gyulai kolbász and made the first taste. Stop when you're ahead! No need to add oil or vinegar, the roasted vegetables were rich with their own extruded moistures (I'm sure this is NOT proper culinary lingo - please forgive me). Satisfied we struck solid gold we lightly dusted the salad with freshly purchased Adro Szegedi paprika and packed it away in the refrigerator for later (definitely work lunches in mind).

Hoarding art

2008-06-21T15:35:00.001-07:00

31 mars 1963" />
More art from Jacques Villegle, from an 2007 exhibition by Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris.

Of course it's the scale and physical presence of the objects that's missed with these examples, but in this humid kitchen with southern exposure and temporarily surrounded by a pile of old pulp paperbacks gently reeking of acid pages I can manage a easy transport to stand in front of these works.

Brake Burns: Where the rubber writes the code

2008-06-21T14:28:00.001-07:00

Thanks Telstar Logistics for pointing me to All Good! and the brilliant brakes burns

Maybe it's the heat or it's just Saturday afternoon, but this makes me think of an odd, unexpected calligraphy that calls out and seizes one in the corner of the eye, on the periphery of daily routes and routines.

A Snapshot of My Current Reading

2008-06-20T18:15:00.001-07:00

PAPER WALLS, originally uploaded by Juan Madrigal Photo.

Beautiful decollage (Affiches lacérées) from Cali seems to mirror my reading habits these days.

Might work as an illustration of some twitterverse too.

Enjoying my 'stay-cation' for another fews days.

Happy Summer Solstice from Tularosa Nullah

2008-06-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Winding up the next-to-the-last week of middle school, Elliott has returned home with a first place medal for the 6th grade mile rule - way to go champion! This despite a 99-degree first day of summer that has everyone trying to duck the sun as all costs.

Excited to hear Chuck Hagel being discussed as possible running mate for Obama. Times are really bad enough to go all 'national unity' and shift/stiff the 2 party paradigm. A long shot perhaps but maybe it is the kind of change you can believe in?

Started following the MarsPhoenix on Twitter once news was broadcast about water ice being discovered on the surface of Mars by the NASA lander.

Busy reading anything and everything, as usual. It's some Kornbluth stories now but getting back to David Grene's memoirs, Of Farming and Classics. Dipped in Fred Hoyle's memoirs and enjoyed learning details of his rambling days. Found a $5 copy of a Penguin edition of The Black Cloud and couldn't resist buying it even though I need to reduce my library to more manageable levels.

Memorial Day on the Northern Plains of Mars

2008-05-26T11:19:00.001-07:00

Vacation snaps from the plains of the Martian arctic - there are some folks with wonderful hangovers in Pasadena (Arizona, UK, and elsewhere) today.

Reminds me of the Viking 1 landing on in western Chryse Planitia on July 4, 1976 - excellent timing for a space faring nation to celebrate its own 200th birthday. Remember watching images beamed from Viking later that week while eating at a cafe near Penn Station.

Morning on earth here in southern California - scrub jays Smith & Hawkins have visited and started the day's caching of peanuts. Grassy Knolls is looking wild and now wet thanks to a good hosing down. Now it's off to a short run of errands and then back to spend the day with family.

ERRguitar Set to Strum

2008-05-24T20:14:00.001-07:00

An act of consolidation. Unite the efforts, integrate the various threads and revive ERRguitar. Hell, celebrate the glorious break in the weather and talk about what's in the oven and grilling on the patio. And what's in the reading queue.

Spawn of Marines (my mother DID wear 'Army boots,' or whatever footwear was issued to Women Marines circa WWII), I'm again pondering how to observe Memorial Day. TCM has been a godsend in the past and I intend to dip into its offering over the next 2 days. I'm drawn to rewatching "Private Ryan" after seeing some clips during a Spieleberg-on-Spielberg special - Hank's Captain Miller's "Earn this" whisper, a call for reflection as my country is again at war.

Back on the homefront, the whole family got haircuts on the same day - a first - with satisfied smiles all round.

And back to the kitchen - time to wrap up the late Saturday dinner. Baked potato stuffed with bacon/anchovy/sage/garlic and steak ala Grassy Knolls... Updates to follow.

Happy New Year 2008!

2008-01-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

Been down with a cold during the last week but wanted to wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year - and to share this wonderful blog The Record Envelope that collects 7-inch record sleeves. I've scanned and submitted several sleeves yesterday - the Pama Records sleeve above was bought in September of 1980 in London. More on my obsession with 'skinhead reggae' at another time. And on impulse I wanted to share this still from THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE - a great little film by Val Guest that's definitely worth discovering. Expect something from ERRguitar on THE DAY in 2008.

I Am Legend or The Last Man On Earth

2007-12-23T18:32:00.000-08:00

Haven't seen Will Smith's I AM LEGEND yet but I'm incredibly fond of the original low budget film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (ULTIMO UOMO DELLA TERRA) was the first of now 3 versions and is the most faithful to the book (Matheson even contributed to the script but was disappointed with the final version). Until recently this public domain title has circulated in inferior copies. Last year MGM released a nice widescreen version coupled with the first DVD release of another neglected gem of mid-60's apocalyptic cinema, PANIC IN YEAR ZERO. You can watch the entire film online through Google Video ...

LAST MAN is not as well known as the bigger budget 2nd adaptation, the enjoyably campy THE OMEGA MAN (1971) which at least retains Los Angeles as its locale (LAST MAN swapped Matheson's own LA suburb of Gardena for Rome's EUR district, site of Mussolini's never completed Fascist urban project). LAST MAN is often cited as a primary influence on George Romero (auteur of the LIVING DEAD). Originally a Hammer film project Matheson's script Night Creatures was to have been directed by Val Guest (QUATERMASS, DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, etc). A threatend ban by British censors already worked up by Hammer's DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN films had the film property sold to AIP (interestingly Matheson would have preferred Jack Palance to Vincent Price for the role of Robert Neville). Will Smith's LEGEND derives from a script written by Mark Protosevich and John Logan (and now rewritten by Akiva Goldsman) which was planned as a Warner Bros. vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger and once had Ridley Scott attached as director.

Veteran Hollywood composer Paul Sawtell crafted an effective score that employs ethereal female vocals and jazzy themes to underscore protagonist Robert Morgan's (aka Robert Neville) unrelenting alienation.

1000 MISSPENT HOURS AND COUNTING Review: The Last Man on Earth/Wind of Death/L'Ultimo Uomo della Terra/ Vento di Morte

The Coven Organization's Review: Dread Reckoning: Legends of the Fang

GAMMA 1: Acetylene Futures

2006-01-29T09:29:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lateness of my arrival here on GAMMA 1 ("orbiting thousands of miles above the earth, GAMMA 1, the farthest away of the space stations marks the invisible limits of man's expansion in the Universe") but my departure from the Demon Planet proved more difficult than I had planned.

Among the most felonious of my handful of guilty pleasures (others are serving time but are expected to be paroled soon), the European space film of the early sixties was a keystone in my childhood fascination with what I'll call "hard science fiction." It's easy to identify the genre with its emphasis on hardware (miraculous or faulty) and exposition loaded with lingo cribbed (sometimes seemingly at random) from popularized science reporting. Indeed, the first Italian space film of this era, Antonio Margheriti's Space Men (Assignment Outer Space) was promoted with tagline "1000 Headlines into the Future."

Preparing for this post (and there's a lot of 'dead time' on the Demon Planet as you can imagine) I rewatched Battle of the Worlds (Il Pianeta Degli Uomini Spenti), starring an 80-year old Claude Rains, and while not part of Antonio Margheriti's GAMMA 1 quadrology, easily one of his most inspired movies. By most standards these aren't great films but who the hell cares - they can be quite engaging and reward even the casual viewer with some stunning visual or thematic surprises. Battle of the Worlds really deserves a proper DVD release. The exotic setting and the estranged dialogue made me recall J.G. Ballard's Vermillion Sands*. Claude Rains has a standout performance as the brilliant Professor Bernard who is always several steps ahead of the authorities and is another example of the dislocating effect of a cast headed by a foreign lead. I'd love to know what Rains thought of the production as he really seems to enjoy himself. The film's music is credited to Mario Migliardi but I'm unable to locate sources for the score so I've selected a track that is close enough to the main title track and captures this exoticism of the first few minutes of the film.
[*Vermillion Sands ("this overlit desert resort and as an exotic suburb of my mind... celebrates the neglected virtues of the glossy, lurid, and bizarre") is a collection of stories including Ballard's first published story Prima Belladona.]

Margheriti's Space Men (Assignment Outer Space, 1960) boasts an interesting cast that includes a black astronaut (the dubbing makes the spacefarers 'cosmonauts') as well as the beautiful Gabriella Farinon. The spaceships are mostly a gloss white with large stabilizing fins and flaming acetylene fueled engines. Special effects afficiandos will note that Margheriti tricks the skeptical viewer by concealing the inevitable supporting wires by filming his models upside down! As his son Edoardo*, who collaborate with Antonio on his effects, notes "a good special effect, constructed and shot 'live' sometimes has a hint of imperfection that makes it seem more real than those acetic digital images...We always felt more emotion when the special effect seemed real then in front of a screen crowded with hordes of battling cartoons - we just couldn't identify with it." Margherti was sought out to supervise the special effects for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey but declined this as well as Dino DeLaurentis' offer for his remake of King Kong preferring instead to pursue his own passions for films that have been characterized as a "contamination of genres."
[*Edoardo Margheriti's very sweet biography of his father is contained in the deluxe full color liner notes for the GAMMA 1 Quadrilogy CD]

Scifi, 'hard' or otherwise is all about 'what if's' - and embedded in even the flimsiest plot and most impoverished production is always another, more earthbound, set of of 'what if's' - a set of missed opportunities and misplaced potentialites. This a way of introducing composer Angelo Francisco Lavagnino who scored the GAMMA 1 films. As Bruce Eder (All Movies Guide) notes Lavagnino has a "special gift for melody and a talent for orchestration that manifested themselves in the best of those scores, particularly Gorgo -whose folk-based soundtrack is often referred to as the prettiest score ever to grace a dinosaur movie..." The 'what if' in this case is that Lavagnino was in line for scoring Sergio Leone's first "spaghetti western" A Fistful of Dollars but narrowly missed out when a producer introduced Ennio Morricone to Leone and it was revealed that Morricone and Leone attended the same grammar school. I'll leave you to ponder this while enjoying the following selections which include 2 tracks from his Gorgo score as well as a "spaghetti western' main title of his own (for Sergio Corbucci's 1969 Gli Specialisti).

Financed by Mercury International for MGM, Margheriti's GAMMA 1 Quadrilogy consists of four made-for-television films produced simulatenously over 3 months in 1965 (two weeks to shoot each one) which were instead released theatrically over the following 3 years. Besides the official Margheriti site, 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting with El Santo has excellent reviews of each (English title links, the Italian titles link to their respective IMDB entry). All of these films delight in wild pop fantasies in their production and costume design. For pedagogical purposes the following musical selections ignores the chronological order of the films and includes tracks from 2 other Lavagnino scores. Among Margheriti almost 60 films are the celebrated Castle of Blood (with Barbara Steele) and Cannibal Apocalpyse (John Saxon).

Wild, Wild Planet (I Criminali Dalla Galassia)

War of the Planets (I Diafandoidi Vendono Da Marte)

Planet on the Prowl aka War Between the Planets (Il Pianeta Errante)

Snow Devils (La Morte Viene Dal Pianeta Aytin)

In the US Turner Classic Movies (TCM) thru its MGM library owns prints of the English-dubbed versions of these films so DVD-R's should be floating around following their broadcasts. It would be wonderful to see these in a definitive DVD release. See TCM's own version of the IMDB for more inf including 2 publicity shots and the original English language ("...science has gone berserk... in the ungodly art of flesh-fusion... The First Space Horror Film... the fusion of male and female, living humans drained of imperfections and grafted together to form a new and terrifying race, the incredible bi-sapien race of the Wild, Wild Planet").

There's no doubt much more to be explored in the 'hard' scifi realm (especially TV's Men Into Space and some Outer Limits episodes). Expect another posting from this future someday soon.

La Morte Viene Dal Pianeta Aytin (Snow Devils) 1965
1 - I Diavoli Dello Spazio 2:39
2 - Come Un Western... 1:20
3 - Aytin 1:36

I Diafandoidi Vendono Da Marte (War of the Planets) 1965
4 - Diafanoidi 1:47
5 - Fluttuanda 4:06
6 - Scontro Finale 1:44

I Criminali Dalla Galassia (Wild Wild Planet) 1965
7 - Criminali Della Galassie 2:10
8 - Galaxy Galore 3:16

Il Pianeta Errante (War Between the Planets) 1965
9 - Ce Ancora Un Futuro 1:43

Gorgo (1961)
10 - Main Title 1:49
11 - On the Island/Inner Room 2:08

Inspired by Battle of the Worlds (1961) main title
Moon Gas - Dick Hyman & Mary Mayo (1963)
12 - Stella by Starlight 3:00

The Specialist (Sergio Corbucci's Gli Specialisti 1969)
13 - Main Title

UPDATE 10/21/2007: Here are the (previously expired) tracks from above for your listening pleasure.

Back to Work on the Demon Planet

2006-01-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

Returning from the first working day of 2006 I'm not in the mood for shake beat or cinematique funk. I need something atmospheric (you know, something heavy and oppressive) to unwind to. Long one of my all time favorites films, Mario Bava's gothic scifi classic Planet of the Vampires (AKA Demon Planet, AKA Terrore Nello Spazio) has been patiently waiting for its ERRguitar close-up.

Welcome to the fog-shrouded planet Aura where the crew of the Galliot is fighting for its life against an fleeting and unseen enemy. The Yahoo! Movies summary is impressively economical: "A sexy, creepy space thriller featuring a crew of leather-clad astronauts stranded on a malevolent, mist-shrouded planet who find themselves prey to body snatching aliens."Gino Marinuzzi Jr.'s score was recently released by DigitMovies) and perfectly complements Bava's saturated visuals.

The justly celebrated set design and costumes practically scream 'space fever'. I have very fond memories of watching The Demon Planet in the early seventies on J. Brown's Night Owl Theater, a low budget movies-till-dawn program that catered to "the Night People" on UHF channel 36. This was long before 24 hour TV so choices were slim for "the Night People" of this era. How magic to discover (or revisit) Terrore Nello Spazio in the middle of the night.

Everyone will admit to the importance of casting but there's something wonderfully displaced (when it works) about a sole American actor headlining a European production, especially those modest-to-low budget affairs that aren't afraid to be ambitious in their story telling. Maybe it's that small bonus of alienation (dubbing is generally present too) that trips up or distracts from a contrived plot, or maybe it's watching in the dead of night.

Veteran actor Barry Sullivan (he has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for film and one for TV) is no nonsense as the captain who takes charge in the chaotic descent and aftermath. His co-star is the shapely former Miss Brazil Norma Bengell who has gone on to a long career in the Brazilian cinema. Sullivan was no stranger to working overseas and was already a seasoned veteran of American TV (he starred in the 1960-62 NBC-TV western The Tall Man (75 half hour episodes) as Sheriff Pat Garrett to Clu Gulager's Billy the Kid, with original music credited to Juan Garcia Esquivel).

There's more to share but it's getting late. Not "Night People" late, but late enough. When we return to the Demon Planet we'll bring along tales of Ib Melchoir and Sidney Pink (and draw some connections to Arch Obler, Gerald Mohr, and Greta Thyssen, among others).

Terrore Nello Spazia does has a neat trick ending, nothing too original or earthshaking (so to speak), just pleasantly appropriate: "It is a young, a primitive world..."

Main titles - 1:14

Astronaut lands on the surface - 0:54

Another macabre discovery/ ship's abandoned bridge - 1:27

The living dead - 1:15

Inside the starship - 1:06

A new victim/Tiona attacked by the living dead - 0:46

"I know they're dead"/empty grave - 1:18

The living dead appears - 1:04

"A young, primitive world..." - 0:38

End titles - 0:53

Files should be available for 7 days.

The Day The Fish Came Out

2006-01-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year from Karos!

"Karos - the obscure Greek isle that became an instant international happening... Over the rocky slopes the goatherds wander. On the beaches the Beautiful People swing. Like a psychedelic cloud the Big Beat from transitors - and far more intimate sounds from pleasure-hungry lips - fill the air, while a trembling handful of secret squares from the States go hunting for a box that contains... that contains... Well, let's just call it the living end."

Join me as we indulge in the unexpected opportunity for reflection presented by 2005-2006's leap-second and journey back to the bow shock of the international counterculture in 1967 to savor an cinematic obscurity, The Day The Fish Came Out (Michael Cacoyannis). How do you follow an Oscar-winning international box office hit like Zorba the Greek? How about writing, producing and directing (as well as designing the costumes) a somewhat obvious futuristic satire based on a recent event (a US B-52's accidental H-bombing of Spain AKA the January 1966 Palomares "broken arrow" incident where 4 unarmed H-bombs went on holiday before being retrieved at great expense). Except for its inclusion in the CONELRAD 100 list of Atomic Films The Day The Fish Came Out has been generally regarded as "conspicuously and even offensively campy" (Bosley Crowther, New York Times).

That's too bad. ERRguitar doggedly celebrates this swinging "agit-pop" ("BeyONd THE BEACH") with all its flash and flaws. Zorba composer Mikis Theodorakis' score, playfully alternating between traditonal and electric instrumentation has to be credited with a memorable telegraphic dance theme in "The Jet" (and he's not afraid of some good analog feedback!).

Despite banking on the fleeting satirical potential of the Palomares incident ("Support Our Oops"?) Cacoyannis showed excellent taste in casting a vibrant young Candace Bergen as the sexually-liberated archaeologist Electra Brown ("shall I get my whips?"). While her screen time is limited she does her best to illuminate Cacoyannis' vision of a professional jet set fashionista.

Unfortunately the film remains unexploited for now in any format. The Fox Movie cable channel recently broadcast a respectable print but its otherwise unavailable except in unauthorized VHS and DVD copies. The sole source for the soundtrack remains the reliable Studio 52.

Please enjoy the following tracks that combine bouzouki, trombone and electric organ in a throbbing trance beat worthy of island hopping hedonists of any era.

Let's Dance the Jet: What hooks you is the electric organ playing the bouzouki part!

The Jet Rock: The trombone really drives this slinky version of The Jet.

The Jet: A wrapped up, rolled up version of The Jet.

Sex on the Rocks: Traditional intruments giving way to a recap of the pounding Jet beat.

The Sonic Boom: Crash of analog reverb starts the closing theme as the promise of the title is delivered up.

UPDATE 10/21/2007: I've decided to pick things up again and have these Day The Fish Came Out tracks to share below (via a Box widget). Please enjoy and use sensibly.

La Decima Vittima

2005-12-27T01:12:00.000-08:00

In honor of sci-fi writer Robert Sheckley who passed away earlier this month please turn your attention to Piero Piccioni's soundtrack for the most famous film made from one of his stories, The Tenth Victim (La Decima Vittima). Elio Petri's 1965 Italian/French production starred Marcello Mastroiani, Ursula Andress and Elsa Martinelli in a 21st century homicidal battle of the sexes and feature a memorable (and still fresh) 'futuristic jazz' score. I was lucky enough to see THIS FUTURE as a young teenager sequestered in the nuturing darkness of the Scotia Art Theater (where other fine foreign films were screened for the benefit of Schenectadians, young and old alike) and to this day hearing the main theme or Mina's scat vocals in the Spiral Waltz just sends me - across time, to somewhere between THIS YOUTH and a future that still beckons.

I don't know that much about Piero Piccioni (1921-2004) but he was a profilic film composer and I want to know more, much more (his organ playing is captivating). To those in the know he's considered second only to Ennio Morricone and his Smoke Over London (Alberto Sordi's 1966 Fumo Di Londra) is especially recommended.

Another intoxicating theme (The Rendezvous) is introduced in The Trap. It received a fine revival by the incredibly talented Tipsy (Zenith on Trip Tease, The Seductive Sounds of Tipsy - Asphodel, 1996). Tipsy are David Garner & Tim Digulla and they crafted another dark cinephonic gem in Evil Guitar, a reworking of bits and pieces of German composer Peter Thomas' soundtrack recordings for the European cult sci-fi TV series Space Patrol (aka Raumpatrouille, 1965-66). The Peter Thomas Sound Orchester (Neo Astronautic Sound) tribute project yielded Warp Back to Earth - 66/99 (1998 Bungalow Records), a two-CD set of compositions by 17 modern artists with an affinity for retro-futurist sounds together with the 29 archival sound scraps that were the seeds for the reworked tracks.

Quiet Interlude (Take 2) is a sentimental organ-led track whose melody reminded me of some of the memorable Hong Kong films I saw (and listened to) on screen at the Pagoda Palace, World, and Great Star Theatres in the early in '90's while still living in San Francisco. Maybe it's that big Wurlizter sound that wraps it up that suggests movie palaces from the past.

Spiral Waltz - Piero Picconi with Mina

The Trap - Piero Picconi

Quiet Interlude - Piero Picconi

La Decima Vittima - Piero Picconi

Zenith - Tipsy

Evil Guitar - Tipsy

Files are available for 7 days.

Deep Down - Deep, Deep Down

2005-12-24T18:44:00.000-08:00

How to kickoff ERRguitar? Go with a neglected classic of course. Ennio Morricone's film score to the 1968 Mario Bava cult classic Danger: Diabolik clearly fits the bill. If you're not familar with this Italian/French pop gem starring John Phillip Law as the criminal mastermind/hero from the popular Italian fumetti (comic book) series, get busy. After years of enduring inferior VHS copies it can a great relief to finally enjoy in a proper presentation in DVD.

Here's the haunting psychedelic theme song Deep Down sung in Italian (the opening title renders it in English).

Deep Down - Ennio Morricone (Parade 5052)

And the theme two more times as Emerald Bikini and The Pyrite Wink.

And finally a swinging number (very Morricone too) Under Wah-Wah (the "wah-wah" referring to a scheme to extract Au from H2O).

UPDATE 10/21/2007: Here are the (expired) tracks from above shared via a Box widget.