HEAVY HEAVY – Young Fathers

in

A surefire sign that an album will end up among the EarBliss: I turn it up. I wanted to turn HEAVY HEAVY up even louder than the Apple-allowed: this thing rips out of the speakers, grabs your throat and your heart and doesn't let go. Vinyl ordered and I'll be checking out more of their work (wish I'd found them sooner). Turn it up.

nothing is sacred (until all the words are written and even then)

in

Lesson of the workweek thus far being that no component is sacred until the whole story/project/whatever is done (and, as the title would suggest, even then): I've (again) committed the cardinal sin of letting a passage languish in Mississippi a day too long (as Bob Dylan would say) and attached to it too permanent a responsibility before the whole was even close to revealing the totality of its narrative and rhythmic needs / permutations. Answer to problem of lack of forward motion lay, of course, in the spaces between the passage I was treating as holy and, as such, the scalpel has come out, the delete key (or copy/paste into a "Cut" file, as is my usual method) is working at full functionality and the words are flowing again – at least until the next time I decide to ignore my own advice which will probably be sooner rather than later.

THE HITCH-HIKER (Lupino, 1953)

in

(Directed by Ida Lupino from a screenplay by Lupino and Collier Young; starring Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, and William Talman. Released 20 March 1953; watched 2023w07 via Criterion Channel)

As an avowed sucker for small casts and minimal locations, THE HITCH-HIKER is eveything I want in a noir: Lupino wastes no time, not a single frame –this thing MOVES. Career-best performances from O'Brien (need to rewatch DOA at some point), Lovejoy, and Talman – Talman especially: the "you can't tell when I'm sleeping" scene is one of the most unsettling in recent memory, noir or otherwise. While possessed of its fair share of shadow dark, it's THE HITCH-HIKER's use of the wide-open desert that makes it special: proof that it doesn't have to been dimly lit and shadowy to underscore the shadow of our souls; sometimes it's the inexhaustible light that casts the darkest pall.