Beasts of the Southern Wilds Magical and Thought-Provoking

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (2012)

Directed by Benh Zeitlin

Fox Searchlight, PG-13, 93 mins.

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Hushpuppy is nobody's meat! 

The year is 2005, the setting The Bathtub, a small and insular bayou community that lies beyond the New Orleans levies. It’s called The Bathtub for a good reason–its marshes, tidal streams, swamps, and steamy weather are the watery barriers that define life in a sump hole that seldom sees or trusts outsiders. The residents depend upon the waters to provide the crawfish, alligators, and seafood that sustains them. The Bathtub’s also a place of unimaginable poverty and squalor where skin color is irrelevant­–black and white intermingle (and cohabitate) freely in a slice of mud and water that time forgot. There is no town as such, just an old cargo box converted into a seedy bar by Jean Baptiste (Levy Esterly), a wreck of a white guy who might be 40 and might be 70. The Bathtub is where dreaming off island involves staring across the bay at a distant lighthouse beam if you’re a child, and an occasional boat trip to the roadhouse that’s there for a visit to cheap hookers and expensive liquor if you’re an adult.

The Bathtub is also where six-year-old Hushpuppy–the amazing Quvenzhané Wallis–lives with her father, Wink (Dwight Henry). Wink is a single father whose wife skipped the island when Hushpuppy was an infant. He’s bitter–Hushpuppy lives in her mother’s shack amidst the moldering remains of her things­–and he has no idea of how to raise a child­–a rope connects their separate residences, which he rings to tell Hushpuppy it’s time “to come to eats.” Hushpuppy’s major role model is Miss Bathsheeba (Gina Montana), the local teacher who is half educator and half juju mistress. Her science lessons include the message that everything and everybody in natural realm is “meat.” But Hushpuppy needs no encouragement to imagine; she has a gift for reading nature’s signs, for envisioning the interconnectivity of ecosystems, and for bringing to life fantasy images. Her senses tell her that something very bad is about to happen, an inkling she gets by listening to clams, feeling leaves, and imaging the awakening of extinct aurochs. She’s right on two levels–her father is seriously ill and Hurricane Katrina is about the make The Bathtub overflow and wash away the little that locals had.

This is an astonishing film that takes us to both physical and imaginary worlds we could not enter on our own. It freely mixes recent history and magical realism as if it were literary sociology. Wallis is a revelation, a child who can make her six-year-old face look as old as creation, or cast a fierce look that stops adults in their tracks. I would yield to those who might criticize the caper-like feel of the last 20 minutes of the film, but the rest is so good that I simply didn’t care. It raises all manner of questions about community, survival, and caring. It raises two big ones: Is it kind or cruel to force people to live in the 21^st century? Has humankind authored its own ecological demise? (Think an intelligent version of Waterworld.)

This amazing film has no stars–Henry was discovered running a bakery across the street from director Zeitlin’s casting office and Wallis was literally pulled off the street. It’s a subject that sounds odd to some and the topic of an endangered child is off-putting to others. Do not be deterred; this may be the film of the year. Moreover, it does not ask for your approval–merely that you think about The Bathtub and the big issues raised by simple people who may have a better take on the planet that you. Are the aurochs coming? --Rob Weir

The Poor Know: Government Works

The poverty rate for 2011 hit 15.1% but it's only partly Obama's fault.

I can hear the howl from rightwing radio without tuning in. A new US Census report to be released this fall will show that the 2011 poverty rate reached 15.1% and hit its “highest level since the 1960s." Expect Limbaugh, Beck, Medved, Hannity, Savage, and other Ignororamuses of the Airwaves to seize upon this as further proof that “socialism” and “government” don’t work. Once they get a good lather going they’ll up the ante to “Obama’s tax-raising socialist Big Government programs.”

They will conveniently leave out the rest of the announcement, which says poverty has spiked “since the 1960s.” Let’s be precise; it should say “since 1964.” (or 1983--read on.) 1964 was the year that President Lyndon Johnson–who would be on Mt. Rushmore if he had possessed the wisdom to walk away from Vietnam–announced his “war on poverty.” At the time, about 36 million Americans lived below the poverty line. That was more than 18.5% of the population of the day. Conservatives seldom tell you that during the “golden age” of the 1950s, poverty was over 20%. In 1959, it hit a stunning 22.5%.

Enter LBJ and Big Bad Government. Johnson, to borrow a phrase loved by conservatives, threw a lot of money at the problem–tax money. He, to use Huey Long’s words, soaked the rich. The top 1% of taxpayers had rates from 43%-67% and the top .01% paid a 91% tax rate some of their income.  These figures, it should be noted, were only somewhat higher than they had been in the 1950s, when the richest paid 84% when they hit the ceiling of $400,000 ($3 million in 2012 dollars).

Did the U.S. economy collapse form Johnson's crippling taxes? Did rich people send their assets to the Cayman Islands (to pick a random example!)? Did companies seek to move job overseas to take advantage of cheap labor and get away from job-killing labor unions? Nope. The US economy boomed in the 1960s. Moreover, Vietnam was the major reason for tax increases of any sort; without runaway military spending that was a parasitical drain on the economy (ahem!), the nation would have been wading in cash.

But surely all that money spent on welfare, job training, urban renewal, and antipoverty programs was wasted, right? To be sure, some was squandered in inefficient programs. Hell, some of it was probably given to welfare cheats. But the bottom line is that poverty was cut in half from its 1950s peak. In 1971, poverty dipped to 11.1%. In my estimation, a nation as rich as America has no business having any sizable percentage of poverty, but this was a stunning achievement. It’s simply a load of mule dung to say that throwing money at poverty has no effect.

“But it didn’t last,” cry rightwingers fearful of losing tax breaks for their third homes. That’s correct, but it wasn’t for the reasons they say. The horrifying stagflation of the 1970s took its toll, but despite double-digit inflation, soaring prices, and job loss, in 1979 the poverty rate stood at 12.4%. If you’re wondering how it got so high after the prosperity of the Clinton years, the answer is simple: we stopped spending money on poor people. Blame Ronald Reagan, not Barack Obama. The culprit was Reagan’s profligate spending on the (nonproductive) military sector and his ideology-driven, budget-killing tax cuts.  Reagan increased the debt by 189%, a move that necessitated cutting social spending given the steep decline in federal tax revenue. The poor were the easiest targets for cuts and by 1983, the poverty rate hit 15.3%. (Yes, the advanced announcement is wrong. Poverty was higher in 1983 than in 2011.)  The rate was 13.3% when Reagan left office, and hit 15% again during the recession of the 1990s. Clinton prosperity? The president who “ended welfare as we know it” saw poverty dip a few ticks, but nothing like what was seen under LBJ. That's because the deficit has continued to grow (high military spending again being a major reason why) and no president has had enough spare change to throw into the collective poverty bucket.

It will be tempting to “blame Obama” for the 15.1% rate for 2011, which is exactly what conservative (and Neanderthal) commentators will do. The sheep­–formerly known as the American masses–will probably believe it. To the degree he hasn't spent enough money on the poor, the charge is true. Yep--the real reason for persistent poverty is that we don’t throw enough money at it. The biggest lie ever told was Reagan’s “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.” Tell it to the poor. They know that government works.   

Caroline Herring"s Camilla a Gutsy and Marvelous Release

CAROLINE HERRING

Camilla

Signature Sounds 2050

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Caroline Herring has come a long way since the Austin Music Awards proclaimed her the best new artist back in 2002. In 2012, she made the list of the top 50 Texas singers of all time! For those who don’t know, she sings with a clear voice and a vibrato quaver that makes her the Joan Baez of country music. So why isn’t this woman a major star? The answer may lie with her gutsy determination to take on the big issues that modern country music buried under a mound of nostrums and slick production. Camilla is largely a theme album, with many of its songs touching upon the third rail of Southern society: the civil rights struggle. The opening track is catchy and energetic, made all the more so by Fats Kaplin’s stellar fiddle and peddle steel contributions, but the song’s content packs a bigger wallop. It’s about one black woman’s determination to stand up to Georgian injustice no matter the cost. She returns to such themes on “White Dress,” and again on “Maiden Voyage,” a song that takes the piss out of redneck patriotism á la Woody Guthrie.

Need more evidence that Ms. Heering takes chances? How about an a cappella song based on a Eudora Welty short story? Of course, it helps if you turn it into a harmony with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Aoife O’Donovan! Herring enjoys changing moods. “Fireflies,” a plea to let old “traditions burn down” has a bluegrass/stomp feel, “Flee is a Bird” is plucked from the 1840s, and “Joy Never Ends” an anthem-like happy song vocally backed by Kathryn Roberts. With Herring, you’ve always got to listen to the lyrics. “When she sings “Bye baby, baby bye” on “Black Mountain Lullaby, it’s the environment she mourns and the baby’s future she fears. Smart stuff, amazing voice, superb backup, and considered production. Give this a listen; if you’re not already a Caroline Herring fan, you will be.  

The NRA Lies and Americans Die

Before you call him a liberal weenie, this is Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City calling for gun control!

Okay, I promised I’d not say anything more about the Aurora shooting, but the pro-gun cult has been so vociferous they provoked me into another rant.  Let me take you back to 1993, folks, when the Brady Bill was passed, a bill the NRA tried its best to sandbag, but couldn’t. Civics lesson: The Brady Bill is a pathetic and mostly symbolic gun control bill named for Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, who suffered permanent brain damage when Reagan was shot in 1981. It’s the bill that requires a background check before buying a gun. How horrible! Reality check: It’s way harder to register to vote or get a Social Security card than it is to buy a gun in America.

The Brady Bill was the last time Congress seriously discussed gun control, but let’s put that aside for a math lesson. Can you add these figures? Below is a list of mass killings since the passage of the Brady Bill. The first figure beside each mass shooting is the number of dead, the second the number of wounded. Can you add these figures?

1994            Fairchild Air Force Base, Ark.         5/23

1994            Jonesboro, Ark                                 5/20

1999            Columbine, CO                                 13/21

2002            Beltway sniper                                   11/6

2004            Columbus, OH                                     4/7

2004            Fresno, CA                                           9/0

2005            Red Lake, MN                                    10/5

2006            Univ. of Northern Illinois                     6/21

2006            Amish school, Lancaster Cty.            6/5

2006            Golita, CA Post Office                         5/23

2006            Seattle                                                 7/12

2007            Salt Lake City                                       6/4

2007            Crandon, WI                                          6/11

2007            Westroads Mall, Omaha                      9/4

2007            Virginia Tech                                       32/17

2008            Kirkwood, MO                                        6/2

2008            Covina, CA                                          10/3

2009            Binghamton, NY                                  14/4

2009            Kinston, AL                                           11/6

2009            Carthage, NC                                         8/3

2009            Fort Hood, TX                                       13/29

2010            Appomattox, VA                                     8/0

2011            Carson City, NV                                     5/7

2011            Tuscon, AZ                                             6/13 

2011            Cooley Twp., OH                                   8/1

2012            Oikos Univ. Oakland                             7/3

2012            Aurora, CO                                            12/58

While you’re punching numbers into your calculator, I’ll save you some research. How many of the above incidents saw an alert NRA member jump into the fray and take out the assassin, thereby averting greater carnage? Answer: zero, as in not a damn one of them. If there is a bigger load of hooey than the argument that a gun-packing citizenry making the streets safer, I’ll be hornswoggled if I know what it is. As a historian, though, I recall that the same argument was advanced long ago in places like Tombstone, Arizona and Dodge City. I’ve yet to unearth a document proclaiming them as great places to raise a family.

My take away message from the above list of blood and tragedy is simple. The last time we tried gun control, there was a short period (1995-99) where the mass murder rate declined. But now the NRA is back in the saddle and the blood flows faster than Mitt Romney’s assets to the Cayman Islands. Each time we bury the dead, the NRA tells us to resist gun control because guns make us safer. How’s your math coming along? There’s more evidence to support the theory that Casanova was a virgin than the NRA’s assertion that guns protect us.

So why do we fall for this canard time and time again? What about the old adage that if you keep trying the same old thing and getting the same old result, there’s little likelihood that trying it again will yield a different one? We’ve tried the NRA way and it yields death. If your math looks anything like mine, you might conclude that taking away the guns can’t make it much worse than it already is. The NRA says gun control doesn’t work. I call that hypothetical BS because we’ve never seriously tried it. Fragmentary evidence suggests than even minimal efforts, like the Brady Bill, make some difference. Look, I can’t guarantee you that gun control would make Americans safer, but isn’t it worth testing? If it fails, we can always go back to the way it was and I’ll personally write an apology letter to the NRA and promise never again to refer to it as the Nazi Rifle Association. 

Andra Kouyate Release Too Much of the Same Groove

ANDRA KOUYATÉ and SÈKÈ CHI

Saro

Studio Mali

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Malian music covers a lot of turf. Some of it is so bluesy that American artists such as Taj Mahal find instant affinity with it; some of it unfolds with dancers in mind and is heavy on percussive backbeats. Still more showcases Malian guitarists and their cascading riffs. Andra Kouyaté represents the Saharan north and its desert griot traditions. Alas, his new 16-track release is a bit like the desert for my tastes–too expansive and short on variety.

The good news is that he’s nurturing a new generation; Séké Chi is a youthful ensemble that supplements his ngoni playing with its hand drums, bass, balafon, voices, additional ngoni, and hand claps. There’s no denying Kouyaté’s skill as an instrumentalist; in his hands the ngoni­ sizzles. (The ngoni is a West African instrument that’s akin to a cross between a banjo and a small guitar.) The ngoni is a perfect instrument for laying down quick tempos, or for fading into the background like a ukulele backing hula singers. Kouyaté is an undisputed master of the instrument, and he extends its boundaries to draw upon funk, reggae, jazz, and slack key influences. He’s also a soulful singer. More good news: The younger players backing Kouyaté are quite talented.

So why only two stars? The album cuts big pieces from the same cloth and calls it a quilt. Even when Kouyaté crosses genres, as in the reggae-influenced title track, the album’s tones, moods, and melody lines all have the same hypnotic feel and groove. It’s like a jazz composition building up to something it never gets around to developing. You’ll probably find yourself swaying meditatively for a time, but after a while you’ll snap out of it and wonder, “Is this all there is?” In the end, it's all hooks but the same groove. The problem is compounded by the fact that the album is at least four tracks too long. It would have been wiser to pare the tracks and intersperse the few changes of pace–the dancey “Aye Anfle,” the keening vocals of “Maningaken,” and the joyful “Den Massa Lou”–amidst the trance tempos of most of the pieces. (It would have been an even better idea to turn loose the young players and let them rock out a bit.) Overall the album is too quiet and monochromatic. Call it a good idea, but a missed opportunity.--Rob Weir

Check out the 9-minute "Yankalou" on YouYube. If it doesn't seem too much of the same to you, ignore my review! 

Former F-Bomb Hardly a Firecracker Anymore

A book title unfathomable not so long ago!

I was walking downtown a few days ago when I overheard two men engaged in casual conversation. “How’s it going?” asked the first. “Not so good,” replied the second. “I spent all day looking for work but there’s nothing out there.” “Yeah, that’s fucked up,” responded the first. I agree that the economy is pretty awful, but my eavesdropping actually made me think about George Carlin.

Back in 1972 Carlin had a funny routine about “the seven words you can’t say on television.” Avert your eyes if you’re sensitive, but they were: piss, shit, tits, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, and motherfucker.  Things have changed a lot since 1972. It’s for sure that only five of those words are problematic and only the last three are real shockers any more. Like British English speakers, the word “piss” has come to mean just about anything except urine. It can piss rain, one can piss and moan, get pissed or pissed off, or expose a phony by taking the piss out them. Shit still causes some alarm on TV, but it slips in, and hearing it upsets hardly anyone, even if it comes from the mouths of youngsters. Ditto “tits,” which I’ve (surprisingly) overheard college-age women use to refer to their own breasts.

Of Carlin’s list, the only words I ever use with regularity are the first two and I never use the last three. But it’s the word formerly known as the “F-bomb” that got me thinking about how language and culture change. Frankly I marvel at how easily and casually the word pours from people’s tongues these days. I don’t say that as a way of decrying the decline of Western morality; it’s more about me. I recall a time in which the F-bomb wasn’t a small firecracker; it was the nuke of the English language. Detonating it, even by accident, meant–depending on where you were–an instant trip to the principal’s office, a backhand across the mouth, ostracism from everyone within hearing distance, or a close encounter of the worst kind between soap dish and mouth. No more. It’s become like piss–a word that means just about anything except what it meant a generation ago. The word is now used to convey personal misfortune (I was fucked.); anger (Fuck you!); being beaten up by another, drugs, or alcohol  (I was really fucked up.); or astonishment. (Fuck!) We drop to register anger or disinterest (Fuck that!); confusion (Things were fucked up.); communicate that something doesn’t work (It’s fucked.); or adjectively enhance the power of another ex-swear (He’s a fucking shithead.). We even use it as gentle jibe, (Who are you, fucking Einstein?), to express admiration for the mighty feats of others (He knocked the fuck out of the ball.), or to register complete agreement or disagreement (Fuck, yes/no!). These days I suspect that only porno sites still use the word to reference sexual intercourse. Heck, look up the word on Google Images and you'll get 16 pages that any toddler could access!

I wonder what Carlin would say about this if he were around today? I pass no judgments one way or another. You folks need to make up your own minds if it’s a good thing or a bad one that language is losing its sting. I’m just fucking saying….

You've Not Seen Ansel Adams Until You Go to Salem

Reflection at Mono Lake. If this doesn't thrill you here, see it in person and get back to me!

Ansel Adams: At the Water’s Edge

Peabody Essex Museum

Salem, MA through October 8

Yes, I know--Ansel Adams. Been there. Done that. No reason to see an exhibit of his work, right? Wrong! And wrong in more ways that you can even imagine until you stand amidst the hundreds of watery glories on display at Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum  (PEM).

Ansel Adams might be the most popular American photographer in history. (Is there anyone who has not seen one of his shots of Yosemite Park’s Half Dome?)  Reproductions of his works show up in textbooks, in documentaries, in poster shops, and on college dorm rooms all over the country. He is, in short, a person whose work we think we know. Confounding our expectations is among the many joys of the PEM show. 

We mainly think of Adams as stolid and earthbound, a bit like Half Dome itself. The PEM exhibit concentrates on images of water, those that flow, spray, crash, dribble, roar, tumble, terrify, pacify, and reflect. Among the exhibit’s surprises are images made by Adams (1902-84) when he was a mere lad of 14 and, yes he had a keen eye even then. As the story is often told, though, young Adams confined himself to soft focus, painterly images until he co-founded f/64 in 1933, a group that foreswore gauzy, romantic imagery and embraced sharp focused photography that documented reality rather than fantasy. As the tale continues, f/64–named for the smallest stop on a camera lens, one that yields the greatest sharpness–decided to leave symbolism to painters. In truth, this yarn is only half right; Adams and his cohorts did leave soft focus in the dustbin, but Adams, at least, never gave up the notion that a photograph could be imbued with spiritualism, or that shooting what was (literally) there was devoid of mystery. Nor did he ever stop being a painter of light. Check out “Reflections at Mono Lake” (1948), which is a black and white version of what Claude Monet might have done with a camera. Or gaze upon images such as “Grass and Pool” (1938), “Grass, Water, and Sun” (1948), or “Submerged Trees, Slide Lake” (1965). Each looks as if they could be prints of Japanese calligraphy. Adams may have photographed what he saw, but abstract art doesn’t get any more ambiguous than “Foam” (1960), or his’ 1940 “Surf Sequence.”

We are accustomed to thinking of Adams as a California photographer, but the PEM exhibit also exposes us to shots taken in places such as Alaska, Hawaii, and Cape Cod. (The latter have a forlorn quality evocative of Edward Hopper.) But the best thing of all about the Adams exhibit is seeing the photos as they were meant to be seen–as direct photographic prints. That may sound obvious, but aren’t most of us more familiar with reproductions of Adams’ work? I was stunned by the clarity and detail of the PEM exhibit. Reproductions smooth and obliterate details such as reflection, grain, shadow, and texture. In black and white photography, though, how an artist uses these things is often the very essence of what makes a great image as opposed to a so-so offering. Adams was famously obsessive in the darkroom, often working days to obtain a single image. Seeing the prints reveals his hard work but, more importantly, it reveals levels of detail and majesty that no reproduction can show. I’m sure I am among the many who bought the exhibition catalog, took it home, and felt a letdown when images on the wall over which I gasped looked merely ordinary on the page. (There are other reasons to buy the catalog, including Phillip Prodger’s insightful and well-titled essay “Sharp as a Tack, Mysterious as the Universe.”) Therein lies the best reason to see this show–unless you’ve seen the prints, you’ve not really experienced Ansel Adams.

The PEM show closes October 8, about the time Salem’s ghoul industry cranks up. If you’ve been contemplating some witch hunting, avoid the crowds and go before October 8. You can assuage your guilt over wallowing in pop culture trash with a dollop of high art.