The Old Man's Hair: The Official Tail

A staging post has been reached. 

The Old Man has refused to get his hair cut for so long ... now, it can be pony-tailed. Of course, he can't actually do the essential styling himself. That job falls to me ... along with explanations as to the tools necessary for the job - suitable hairbrush, them little elasticky things to twist round it, and so on. 

But it stops him complaining about eating his hair for lunch. And it do fool some people, who think it is important that he do so, that he has cut his hair. And it do give him and me some kind of retro joy. And at our age and in these times we need all the joy we can get.

Greydoll's Criminal Reading: "The Catalyst Killing" by Hans Olav Lahlum

Back in 1970, I was a student. It was a time of revolution, rebellion and sitting-in. This didn't happen much in my own college... which was a great source of disappointment to some of our tutors who, I think, fancied themselves as being at the heart of change. But then teaching (yeah, right) at an art college in a West Country town more conformist than my own native suburbia was perhaps not the anarchist hub they might have tried for if their hearts were in it. (OK - I didn't enjoy my stay there.) I do remember that some student union meetings where quite vocal... but these never really resulted in any kind of decision because the various student factions were challenging Each Other more than The Authorities.... usually about agenda structure and points of order.

So it is that my ancient bones remember the political flavour of the late 1960s and early 1970s setting for "The Catalyst Killing" by Hans Olav Lahlum. (Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson. Paperback, Pan Macmillan, 2016) and another find from my local bookshop.

The story begins one evening when Inspector Kolbjorn Kristiansen is mesmerised by the expression of fear on the face of a young woman desperately running to catch his train. The doors close on her. And later her murdered body is found on the train tracks. It is Kristiansen (known as K2) who must find her killer and who soon discovers that her boyfriend, the charismatic leader of a small, radically left-wing, political group, had disappeared two years before. Political rivalry? Or was his death linked to his research into possible current links between a group of Norwegian Nazis from the war years. And was his girlfriend's death connected to his disappearance?

Set in Norway in 1970 this murder mystery conjures the era of Mao's Little Red Book and its effect upon world politics and the fashionably radical young. Starting from the base of the student political group, K2 is presented with a tight list of possible witness interviews. We follow the progress of his interviews and crime-scene visits, punctuated by his lunches and suppers with his gifted and mysteriously accurate detection-muse, the young Patricia. Meanwhile the crimes themselves escalate.

I will own up that I am not a particular fan of Agatha Christie-style whodunits. So, when I realised how much I was in classic "whodunit land" with this book - the third in Lahlum's series featuring K2 and his young helper - I didn't think I would enjoy it. But I did.
It reads smoothly and coolly in this English translation by Kari Dickson. Instead of a boring traipse through clues, I found a calm narrative pace which surprised me with a great buildup of suspense as it ran to its conclusion. And Lahlum's writing gives us individualised characters, irony, humanity... and a slightly surreal world conjured by a combination of investigation, coincidence and the truly prodigious gifts of Patricia.

If you are a little tired of the relentless grit of much Nordic Noir .... and if the notion of 1960s Nordic retro-whodunits whets your appetite ... try this series of books by Hans Olav Lahlum.

My Retro Photography: Drawing A Veil Over It

Last week I got the strong urge to have an "instant" picture camera again... after seeing one being used on the telly recently.
I used to love my/Mrs D's Polaroid camera and I have had my share of modelling for its pictures, way back in the 1990s. But supplies of Polaroid instant film disappeared alongside Polaroid's final bankruptcy in 2008. I knew that plans had been afoot to resurrect the concept and technology but at that time it didn't include my particular camera model.

And of course I have a digital camera and do like it very much... including the camera in my ancient Nokia phone. (I specialise in out-of-date technology.) Where would this blog be without such a thing? But most of my digital photos remain on my pc or camera, I just never get round to printing them off and I do not think I am alone in this.

And so my little hands did quiver with desire to get themselves wrapped around a new equivalent, analogue instant camera. Perhaps a Lomo'Instant or a Fuji. There is something very special about the one-off, one-time-only magic of the Polaroid snap; not just an instant result, but an object in its own right. I love them. I just had to buy another camera. And that was when The Old Man did stay my hand and got me to check to see if I could now get film for my old Polaroid Image Spectra. And I can.

Impossible Project, the outfit that have spent some years resurrecting what they could of the Polaroid process, cameras and films...now do a film pack for my old camera. Times have changed, as have rules for Health & Safety, etc., so the chemicals are not the same nor the construction of each print module. Now, you only get 8 prints to a pack, they take longer to develop and they are more expensive. I ordered up a pack right away. But very stupidly... not from Impossible themselves. Daft girl.

When the pack arrived the very next day, it was stamped with a 2014 manufacture date. Well past its sell-by-date. Impossible recommends a 12month life for their films. And this is the explanation (I do hope) for my atmospheric results. Such as this image of an old man, looking very pleased, clutching a pot of iris.

Next time I shall buy from Impossible. And fervently hope that the image will develop properly and that any atmospheric veils are under my control. Because otherwise ... it is my beloved 25 year old camera that is in trouble.

Graphic Passions: "Blacksad" by Canales and Guarnido

I do ask The Old Man to get me a copy of  Blacksad for Christmas. I am very pleased to have it.
The Old Man scolds me for reading it too quick... but there are times when he is an old spoil-sport.... and...actually.... the artwork and writing is so good that it encourages you to linger on the pages.

This trilogy of 1950s-set Noir Crime tales by artists Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido proves to be a dream for such a crime fiction/graphics novel fan like I.

Animal-headed (and tailed) characters inhabit the dark streets of an American city. The central character is a black and white-faced cat-man and private eye, John Blacksad... complete with trench-coat and gun.... and this volume, published in 2010, is made up of three stories: Somewhere within the Shadows, Arctic Nation, and Red Soul. Murder, corruption, and themes of racism and America's McCarthy period Communist witch hunt are visited in turn.
But the artist/authors are not American. They are Spanish... with the comics first being published in French by French publisher Dargaud - starting back in 2000. So we have had to wait some time for an English translation.

I think it has all been worth waiting for: wonderfully detailed artwork, good writing, mystery and politics... I likes it. Alright, there are some complaints at the depiction of the female characters but I have to disagree... they are not simply "passion madams" and those that are.... well this is in the spirit of hard-boiled crime noir and I can accept it in exchange for the other political themes embraced in the writing.
And as for those who say they do not like anthropomorphism in graphic novel characters ... I do say....What are you doing reading this series in the first place? Read something else and stop belly-aching!

I am so definitely searching for the next volume.... published by Dark Horse in October 2014....Blacksad: Amarillo HC .

Time Out For A Birthday

I wait impatiently for my film to be finished but that Mrs D do have a birthday and chooses to lounge about instead...

The Old Man do give in to her retro desire for vinyl and gets her a Birthday-Christmas-Birthday-Christmas... ya-da-ya-da... present. It's a record deck so that she can listen to her forty-five year old LPs. For those who like to know such things it be a "Pro-Ject Essential II " and she be mightily pleased with it.
And he do get her some jazz to play. And he do bake her a cake.

Very lovely. But where is my starring role in the Christmas production?
I am ready for my close-up, Mrs D.

BBC4 "Crimes Of Passion" - How Was It For You?

BBC4's new Swedish crime series "Crimes of Passion" came to UK screens on Saturday (30th Aug). I be so looking forward to it for many reasons. I remember Ola Rapace as being good as "Stefan Lindman" in the first series of "Wallander". I've not been happy with BBC4's Saturday night reprise of a-a-all those Montalbanos and so have been waiting eagerly for something fresh.... and of course.... I do like a Scand-crime series.

In this first episode a group of academics and creative types arrive at their host's home on an idyllic Swedish island to celebrate Midsummer's Eve. Much drinking and smoking and flirting and angst-ing do go on. But come morning... a walk in the woods finds one of the group dead. This will be followed by the arrival of Homicide Inspector Christer Wijk (Rapace)..... and several more deaths.

I enjoyed the setting and retro cool of the whole thing but I am not sure it hits the spot for me. It is too Agatha Christie. Hers is not the kind of crime writing that I enjoy.... too much puzzle/plot and not enough character. But.... BIG BUT... many crime readers adore her and many crime writers of all sorts of genre's adore her also.
More disappointing is that there seemed to be some.... pointless suspense dangles... or rather at least one. Because what is it with all those shots through the shrubbery of the lady lead... accompanied by heavy breathing? It didn't seem to figure in the killings at all.
Or did I miss something?
I mean, The Old Man be getting restless and chatting quite a bit... And you see this is the fatal flaw in subtitled puzzle/plot crime. Take you eyes off the subtitles whilst the detective is explaining to the assembled guests who killed who and for why.... and you are sunk.

BBC 4: Serving One's Past As a Cultural Stew

One of the unexpected side effects of being elder is to find one's lived past regurgitated as edutainment  in a garbled form.

So it be for me when I do settle down to BBC 4's "Fabric of Britain: The Golden Age of Knitting" the other evening.

All is smooth going until we reach my own lifespan's experience - the 1950s onwards - and I admit to gagging a bit as 1950s home knitting culture is fed to me purely as some kind of desire to "make things for one's loved ones"....

Let me see now.... my recollection is that money is still tight post-war and into the mid-1950s at least. New "manufactured" clothes are considered expensive by many, hence... you make your own because that is all you can afford. To paraphrase The Old Man's grandmother ... "They's can't schemy must lowster." (If you can't be brainy you have to do physical work) or in terms of my argument..."if you ain't got the money you have to make it yourself."

By the time the "documentary" hits the 1960s my eyes are revolving in their sockets. Showing clips of young girls grooving in lacy mini dresses. Just to be pedantic. This is not knitting. This is crochet. I know. My big sis do crochet just such a dress for me at the time, white cotton.... And where does that fashion come from, I ask? Most likely the same street-savvy of "make because you can't afford to buy". Paris fashion of the 1960s features hand-crafted lace mini dresses and the nearest us plebs can manage as substitute is crochet. Voila! The crochet mini- dress.

The documentary then goes on about the "sweater dress" that all the "girls were crazy for". I don't remember that craze, and believe me I do have my eye on fashion even if I be too plump, rural and un-wealthy to get my hands on it. But I do remember the "skinny rib sweater" that everyone does want .... but is not mentioned in this piece.

So... by the time the doc have disposed of knitting in the 1980s without mention of Patricia Roberts but instead with a display of Gyles Brandreth's awful novelty items, I be weeping. Apparently there be no knitted fashion in the 1990s. But I do remember my black fine-knit Nicole Farhi dress as the clothes-love-of-me life at that time. Apparently I be buying and wearing knits in the 1990s in some alternate future/past.

The recent resurgence of "knitting groups" as tackled by the programme's pundits is something else. But it is glossed over. Perhaps it is nostalgia .... or a backlash against manufactured clothes? I dunno. But the fact which is unmentioned in this TV analysis of the "Golden Age of Knitting" - is that present day fashion/clothing industry economics is the very opposite of that of the 1950s. Then, hand-knitting was done with standardised woollen  and cotton yarns in various forms and the clothing manufacture industry was still largely a British affair. The designed, synthetic yarns of recent years, by contrast, cost a fortune. Buying enough yarn to make a fashionable garment - always bespoke patterns for these yarns because they are so individualised - is an expensive project. On the other hand the manufactured knitted clothes now available from high street and supermarkets... courtesy of the sweat shops of south-east Asia... cost a few pounds and are bought and chucked at whim.

All in all... a sloppy bit of documentary. And by the way... I never met anyone in the 1950s who do actually have one of they knitted toilet-roll covers shaped like a crinolined lady that the programme delights in displaying and smirking over.

Plainly... my entire life have been spent in an alternate fashion past.

For uplift and real inspiration on fashion and the older generation I do recommend taking a look at Channel 4's "Fabulous Fashionistas" repeated.....  Marvel and Enjoy. (OOPs my mistake on original post. Correct time and channel is Sunday 22nd September 20.00 hrs. on Channel 4-7) 

And May I Say How Much I Enjoyed...

... this last telly series of "Foyle's War".
Now that we've tipped the plot into the coldwar era, shady dealings abound and there are some tricky blighters about.

Wonderful production stuff, costumes, sets, etc. I do think that it's hard not to taint "period" style with current fashion but they did manage the period jolly well. Don't often watch retro crime but have always had a soft spot for "Foyle's War" and so I really do hope we have some more.

Jolly good show, I say.

Good Morning Starshine: That 1967 Thing

I do find myself singing over my breakfast making.

"Good Morning Starshine...." goes I.  "Dibby dub dooey... la-la-la-la-LAA...." as you do. "Hair" ... that 1967 musical thing.

The Old Man drifts in and expressionlessly drifts out. Soon the record is on the turntable. But not the big 1969 musical version. True to his nature, The Old Man never has just one recording where two will do. So he do have a recording  (what he do get from a charity shop) with the original off-Broadway cast who opened Joseph Papp's Public Theater in New York in 1967.

Neither of us have listened to it properly before. Stripped down. Sounds more clearly like the current rock/pop songs of the time in some ways. Not the lush musically enhanced versions we be familiar with. I like it.

Ah. 1967. A year when I do enter art college. The world my oyster and "Art" calleth. I do remember a party .... daisies in the field, daisies caught in the car door as we drive home.... "Giddy...Glub...Gloopy..."
I do let my own hair grow. It be curly and grows out rather than down. By the early 1970s bus conductors (I know... that's a retro job, I am afraid) are remarking that they be surprised that I can get onto the bus.... the hair be so high and wide.

Our Own Retro Film Season: David Lynch

I did post before that we be cracking open our DVD box set of Lynch's "Twin Peaks" a while back. We did indeed watch it all with the relish of the true "Peakies". The Old Man and I still have "Fire Walk With Me" to watch. So that be good. By the way did you know that Riverside Studios in London hosts a "Twin Peaks Festival" this October? Neither did I.

Anyhow I realise how much Lynchiana do fit in with Mrs D's crime thriller obsession... not just the "Peaks". So 'spect to say more on the subject as The Old Man and me do work our way through the feature films.