Rachid Taha: October 2019 Artist of the Month (Posthumously)

Rachid Taha

Je Suis Africain

Believe Records

Trust me. The stripe is bluer on the CD!

Je Suis Africain is the 11th album by Franco-Algerian musician Rachid Taha. It completes his oeuvre; Taha passed away on September 11, 2018–just days before his 60^th birthday. Taha, who had long suffered from a brain/balance disorder called Arnold Chairi Disease, labored hard with Balkan punk artist Toma Feterman to complete a record that released posthumously.

The cover of Taha’s CD is a full-face portrait swathed in dark orange with a grey-blue stripe crossing his eyes and the bridge of his nose as if he were a tussled haired Lone Ranger. It’s an apt way of looking at Taha’s life and musical career. He was born in Oran, Algeria, the birthplace of raï music, a form of folk music favored by the poor–especially those we might dub Muslim modernizers–that often addressed social justice issues. His family moved to France when Taha was ten, and it was from Lyons and Paris that his musical career was launched. He had a day job when he was in his teens, but his nighttime DJ gigs was of far greater interest. He later ran a nightclub that featured Arabic remakes and reinterpretations of rock classics. Soon, he too was caught up in making music. Eclectic is almost too tame to describe his interests. Taha was the ultimate mashup musician, one who dabbled in rock, R & B, punk, raï, country, Sufi music, and chaabi, the last of these traditional Northern Africa music once associated with hash bars that mutated into popular-for-all-occasions songs. His exuberance (and maybe a demo tape) were said to be the inspiration for “Rock the Casbah,” a hit for The Clash.

You’ll hear bits and pieces of Taha’s multiple influences on Je Suis Africain. Its very title is cheeky. Taha spent 50 of his 60 years outside of Algeria, but France’s complicated (and often tragic) colonial relations in Africa has long relegated Algerians to a perpetual outsider status–much as Latinos are often viewed in the United States. He sings the title track in French, but it doesn’t exactly wave Le Tricolore. “I am African,” he proclaims. “God has the same skin.” In this song (and several others) he drops names of those he admires: Malcom X, Mandela, Angela Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Jacques Derrida…. Strong beats frame vocals, casbah-like strings, and desert blues guitar. “Andy Waloo” is another name dropper. The title invokes Andy Warhol, which is repeated as a chant, but everyone from Picasso and Gibran to Johnny Cash and Patti Smith gets a mention. Taha mostly sang in Arabic and French, with the occasional foray into Spanish, but this album features “Like a Dervish,” his only song in English. You can hear hip hop and rave influences in this one, as well as chaabi as it might have been redone for a wedding party. “Minouche” is another identity song; in it Taha sings of his love for a black woman in a tune that approximates a North African take on a French torch song.  

Songs such as “Ansit” and “Aïta” are rock/chaabi blends, the first sporting more growl in Taha’s voice, the second with more bite in the bass and a faster pace. “Wahdi,” borrows Gnawa rhythms–Sufi trance music–for Taha’s duet with Swiss-Algerian singer Flèche Love. Her naturally beautiful and octave-spanning voice serves as contrast to Taha’s earthier approach. Taha gets swampy on “Striptease.” Listen for some unusual violin in this one, as well as in “Insomnia.” Both will, if I might, rock the casbah. The Grim Reaper took Rachid Taha too soon, but Je Suis Africain is a pretty good way to exit.

Rob Weir  

Lisa Bell, 3 Pairs of Boots, and More: Sounds Like Who?

Sometimes the music business reminds me of trying to find a teaching job in the humanities. Even if you’ve already done noteworthy things, how does one attract attention in a crowded field? In music, one way is to invite comparisons to someone who has already made it. Joy Williams and Brandi Carlile are common comparisons.  

Carlile is hot right now, so let’s kick off with notes from a paste project of hers. NoiseTrade/Paste Magazine has released four tracks from an August 30, 2012 performance. It’s the voice and energy that dazzle more than instrumental trickery. Listen to “100” and you’ll hear Carlile’s poppy sense of phrasing. “Hard Way Home” uses plinky keys to set the table for a mix of pop, sass, and cowgirl. She’s more introspective in thinking about work and the PR machine on “That Wasn’t Me.” Even 7 years ago it wasn’t hard to tell that Carlile was special.

Lisa Bell gets the Carlile treatment, as well as mentions of Bonnie Raitt and Norah Jones. Huh? How’s that work? Better than you might think. It helps that Bell is no kid; she’s a Boulder, Colorado mom whose brood has grown and flown the coop. Like Lori McKenna, she brings maturity and real-life experience to bear on her new release Back Seat. In the title song Bell directly addresses her life’s new direction: I’m not willing to take a back seat/While my dreams pass me by. Bell sings with burnished maturity while a rolling organ and electric piano play in the background. And, yes, it’s the sort of jazz/pop amalgam that Norah Jones might do. You’ll hear loads of diverse instrumentation on this record–everything from keys and guitars to ukes and saxophone. “Meet Me in the Space in Between” is cool jazz, the kind of song one might expect from a performer who has covered the old chestnut “Skylark.” “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is another from the same mold, though as a featured single from the LP it’s catchier than “Space in Between.” There’s a nice soulful hop to the way she scans the lines: But I can’t stand the rain/Clouding my vision/It takes it all away/Can’t make a decision. There’s also a dramatic electric guitar bridge. “Get in the Flow” has more of a folk vibe; “India” is ambient; and “Always Chasing Darkness” has a memorable repeating refrain that pops out of the moody wrapper of the rest of the song. “The Road is Always Longer” has blues rock colorings that makes me see the Bonnie Raitt evocations, but damned if I hear any Brandi Carlile. Lisa Bell doesn’t need to be compared to anyone. Call her a better-late-than-never revelation in her own right. ★★★★★

The band name 3 Pairs of Boots intrigues in that it’s actually a country duo, so one wonders where the third pair of boots factors in. Laura Arias and Andrew Stern are based in the Bay Area, but their hearts are more Austin than Oakland. They cite The Byrds, The Smiths, Buffalo Springfield, and Tom Petty among their influences, but because Arias handles lead vocals there are inevitable evocations of The Civil Wars’ Joy Williams. Ignore them if you run across them. 3 Pairs of Boots is definitely more country. “Hey I’m On My Way” is a honky-tonk styled road trip across Route 66 and is populated with hard drinkers, fighters, “star-crossed lovers,” and a (partly apocryphal) explanation of how Tucumcari, New Mexico got its name. “It Ain’tEasy”jordan whitmore has a moral; in this case, that one should always do the right thing, not the easy one. “He Lost My Number” feels like country folk grafted to an early 60s pop song and a Laurel Canyon-style chorus. Remember Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game?” Give it some twang and “Slipping Away” evokes its child moving through life sentiment. And it doesn’t get more country than songs like “Always Loved Cowboys,” the can’t-catch-a-break “Gone South,” or the girl who loves a poor boy “Dollar Store.” And, no, I don’t hear any Joy Williams in Arias’s voice. This band is exactly as it bills itself: country music crooned by Arias and solid guitar work from Stern. ★★★

Jordan Whitmore draws Carlile and Williams analogies. Also Sheryl Crow and Shawn Colvin. Strange given that Good Things is her 5^th record. I can only think that’s because her repertoire is hard to describe. “Something Different” is a country/rock blend that puts her desire for change upfront. I really like the slight catch in her voice on this one. “All My Might” is a spacey love song and there’s hint of Hawaiian guitar in “Changing Your Mind.” “Good Things” invokes a spare blues rock feel. Similarly, both “What If” and “I Wish You Would” feel like power ballads that stop short of crossing the line. Frankly, I don’t hear much of Crow, Williams, Colvin, or Carlile on Good Things. Whitmore has a nice voice, but it sometimes lacks clarity. Her songwriting, though sincere, veers too close to pop phrasing to stand out. It might be time to consider a shift in direction. ★★ ½

Short Cuts:

Joseph is a three-sisters band­–Allison, Meegan, and Natalie Closner (Schepman)–from Oregon. Their handle is that of the town in which they grew up. Good Luck Kid is their second full-length album–they also have an EP­–and it’s decidedly in the pop vein. The Closners attracted quite bit of buzz with their previous release and are actively promoting their new single “Fighter.” The title track is a bit grittier, but most of the tracks I sampled follow the same basic formula: basic electric guitar with lots of reverb and perhaps some percussion backing, but the songs are rooted in three-part harmonies. I liked their energy but their vocals are too chipmunk-like for my taste. ★★

Aviva Chernik sings songs from the Sephardic tradition and once fronted the band Jaffa. La Serena is her first post-Jaffa solo project, though Chernik is hardly alone on her debut. Justin Gray adds splashes of jazz and Indian music, and world music artists Maryem and Ernie Tollar also appear. The album also pays homage to 92-year-old Balkan Ladino artist Flory Jagoda. Chernik is like the album’s namesake siren, except she leads us to good places. Check out the meditative grooves of the title track; you will hear the jazz influences in that one. “Adon Olam” is a poem set to a Yemeni melody that starts slowly, begins to sway, and then settles into a liturgical space. “Kol Dodi” takes its lyrics from the Bible’s Song of Songs, which celebrates carnality. And, of course, there are songs from Ms. Jagoda. ★★★★    

Rob Weir

The Blackhouse: A Great Mystery from a Great Writer

The Blackhouse (2009 in UK/2012 in North America)

By Peter May

Quercus Books, 430 pages.

★★★★

Do you read mysteries for the thrill, or for their elegant prose? Why not have both? I have recently discovered/devoured the works of Scottish writer Peter May. The Blackhouse is the first book in his Isle of Lewis trilogy and it’s a juicy one. It should also be read first so that you get to know its main character Fin Macleod.

Sea stack off the coast of Orkney

Fin is a conflicted man. He is approaching the middle of middle age and is still haunted by a combination of tragedy and bad decisions the befell him: the early death of his parents; driving away the love of his life, Marsaili (“Marshally”); failing to prevent a sea stack catastrophe during a guga* roundup; and hastily marrying Mona, a dead relationship in more ways than one. Three of these events occurred on his native Lewis, which Fin fled to put distance between himself and his past.

Gray clouds followed Fin to the University of Glasgow, where he failed to matriculate, and on to Edinburgh, where his young man’s dreams mutated into a career with the polis—as Scots spell police–where he has risen in the detective ranks. Fin’s pretty good at his job, though he finds little joy in it. He’s one of those people who is more clear about what he doesn’t want than what he does. He sure as hell doesn’t want anything to do with Lewis.

This means that, of course, he will end up there. Fin worked on a grisly unsolved case in Edinburgh and now there’s one with the same MO (modus operandi) on Lewis–in his wee village of Crobost no less. His superior is having none of Fin’s excuses not to go; after all, how many native Gaelic speakers are there in a police force? Just 1.1% of Scots still speak it and–just Fin’s luck–many of them are on Lewis.

Fin isn’t exactly welcomed with open arms upon return. The local polis–with the exception of Detective Sergeant George Gunn–look upon him as a city slicker, their supervisors are offended that he’s there in the first place, and his old pals on the island regard him through lenses of suspicion, detachment, resentment, and barely disguised envy. To make matters worse, Fin once knew the murder victim, Angus Macritchie. He and just about every other male at the island school was once bullied by Angus. Adulthood did not improve Angus. Pretty much everyone on the island is a suspect. Can it get any worse? Yes. Marsaili is married to his old school mate, Artair, and they are living a quasi-bohemian life that feels “off” to Fin.

Peter May is a fine writer with a gift for evocative language that makes you imagine gunmetal gray clouds, the smell of peat smoke, and the starkness of the landscape. Years ago, when my wife and I were on the joined islands of Harris and Lewis, she remarked that much of the scenery looked as if the glaciers had just left the week before. It put us in mind of how Leon Uris once described Ireland: “a terrible beauty.” May’s Lewis is one whose very austerity makes it an uncomfortable mix of creeping modernity and lingering traditionalism, parochialism, and shopworn values. Fin is haunted by ghosts, but he’s not a godly man. May describes island religion thusly:

The Church of Scotland. The United Free Church of Scotland. The Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)–the wee Frees, as the free churches were universally known. Each one was a division of the one before. Each one a testimony to the inability of man to agree with man. Each one a rallying point for hatred and distrust of the other.

Blackhouse with grass now growing on roof

As you can infer from such a passage, Peter May murder mysteries are not just–or even primarily–about crime-solving. He uses the blackhouse as a metaphor for the tug of war between the present and the past. Some islanders still reside in (updated) crofter** cottages that were dubbed blackhouses because they had no chimneys–a section of the thatched roof was pushed aside so that smoke from the open-pit fireplace could escape. Much didn’t, hence the ceilings were covered in soot. Fin’s life is certainly stained with dark patches, but his is not the only one. The Blackhouse is about the things that never rub off, things that can be repaired, things that maybe can be repaired, and things that are irreparably broken.

May tells his tale in alternating chapters set in the present and the past. He paints a vivid picture of Fin’s childhood and youth and we get the message that, his protests notwithstanding, Fin is Lewis and Lewis is Fin. He professes a desire to leave, but also finds it a joy to converse in Gaelic, can’t shake his abiding attraction to Marsaili, and is coming to grips with how Lewis has deep hooks in him.

The Blackhouse is one of the best mysteries I’ve read in some time. I admired Fin as a flawed central character. The messiness of his private life and his inner doubts feel much more real than what one gets in detective novels in which the investigator possesses special insights that stagger his lessers. Fin often gets things wrong and on occasion he’s slow to add 2 + 2.

I also admired that May makes the Isle of Lewis a character in its own right, not through some hokey veiled personification tactic, but by putting hard people in the midst of a harsh landscape. I recommend that you read the book before you go to Google Images to see what Lewis looks like. My guess is that you’ll be surprised at how well your mental picture matches the real Macleod (as it were). 

The Blackhouse made me hunger to read the remaining books in the trilogy, so stay tuned. But, again, read this one first. The next two are continuations of what could cheekily be subtitled The Reeducation of Mr. Macleod.

Rob Weir

 

* Guga is the chick of a species of gannet. They are a delicacy for Western Isles peoples and are hunted on dangerous sea stacks that are often located miles out to sea. The guga hunt is likely a remnant from days when protein was scarce.

** A crofter is a small farmer (5-12 acres) engaging in subsistence mixed agriculture. In Scotland, many of the crofters were renters and thousands were evicted during the 18^th and 19^th century Highland Clearances when their lairds (lords) decided to graze sheep on croft lands.  

Dawson City Resurrects Silent Hollywood

Dawson City: Frozen Time  (2017)

Directed by Bill Morrison

Kino Lorber, 120 minutes, Not-rated.

★★★

What happens to a movie when its theater run is over? In our time it lives on in various other media and places: TV, Netflix, DVDs, YouTube, Redbox, film archives, libraries…. Movies are endlessly replicated, which is why the same film can open on a thousand screens the same weekend.

It was not always this way. In the early days of movies–especially the silent era–only a limited number of prints were made. Theaters had to wait their turn and hope that the print wasn’t damaged when it finally arrived. Or worse. Until the 1950s most movies were printed on highly flammable nitrate stock. Hundreds of early films disappeared because they went up in smoke. “Lucky” was defined as a nitrate fire that didn’t also take the projector and the theater with it. Hundreds (if not thousands) of films met an even less glorious end: They were simply tossed away.

This was especially true of the silent era. The Library of Congress reckons that as many as 90% of all silent films disappeared–more than 3,500 in all. It makes some sense. Movies were originally a novelty, technology was rudimentary, and filmmaking was not considered an art. This is to say that very few people were thinking about “film history.” When a “program” of silent movies–many were just a few minutes long–reached the end of the distribution line, very few studios cared what happened to them. For a time, Dawson City in the Canadian Yukon was a film’s last stop. Dawson City: Frozen Time tells the improbable story of how 533 previously lost films were unearthed from the permafrost in 1978, when the foundations of an old indoor swimming pool/hockey rink were excavated.

Have you heard of the Klondike Gold Rush? It’s the reason so many films were shipped to Dawson. Today Dawson has just 1,375 residents and there are fewer than 36,000 in the entire of the Yukon Territory. In 1896, gold was discovered in Bonanza Creek, near where it dumps into the Yukon River. Only a smattering of whites and members of the Tr’ocdëk Hwëch’in First Nations* people lived in the area at the time, but gold caused the town of Dawson to spring up overnight. Some 100,000 prospectors lit out for the Yukon, which was not easy to do in those days. (One took a boat to Skagway, Alaska, and then trudged the next 440 miles to Dawson. It would be decades before Dawson had air service.) By 1897, Dawson was temporarily home to more than 40,000 residents–mostly men and prostitutes.

Eric Hegg

Director Bill Morrison makes liberal use of Eric Hegg’s photos of the gold rush era and it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to conclude that most of those with gold fever were going to meet with disappointment (or worse). As the film puts it–in a text panel–several entrepreneurs figured out it was more profitable to “mine the miners.” Among them was one Fred Trump, whose gambling hall and house of ill repute was the basis of the family fortune. More respectably, movie houses also separated miners from their gold dust. 

As you might surmise, films had to travel the same rugged route to Dawson as the miners. Studios wanted rental fees wired to them, but they had no use for movies that played out their circuit. Hundreds of cannisters of film piled up in Dawson theater basements and wherever else storage could be secured: the library basement, for instance, or underneath the recreation hall. When there were too many films, some were ceremoniously burned for a cheap thrill and others were unceremoniously tossed into the Yukon River. None at all would have seen the light were it not for the few souls that set aside the cache discovered in 1978. That trove is a bonanza in its own right. We see snippets of various films, some of which are in bad shape and need painstaking restoration. It remains, though, a miracle that anything survived. These 533 films have written new chapters of the film history that few considered important in film’s infancy. 

In 1899, the Klondike gold fever subsided. Dawson shrunk as quickly as it grew–instant boom, instant backwater. Dawson City: Frozen Time has a great tale to tell, but its rewards demand patience. Morrison opts for a near-silent method of revelation: stills, silent movie clips, stock footage, and intertitles. On one level this echoes and honors the silent movies that are one of the film’s two major themes–Dawson City’s history is the other–but on the other, parts of the film are akin to opening random boxes found in an old attic. That is to say, the documentary is, at turns, exhilarating and prosaic. I admired Morrison’s moxie of making a (mostly) silent film about silent films, but I wondered if a more conventional documentary would have been more effective.

Still, if you are a film buff, Dawson City is a must-see. The flickering fragments of long-forgotten actors on the screen is a form of resurrection. These grainy, time-damaged images are both a window on the past and a lament for what remains lost. Who could have imagined that Hollywood’s past would be scavenged from the Yukon permafrost?

Rob Weir    

* Canada uses the term First Nations people as those in the US might use Native Americans. The Canadian term avoids many 'authenticity' debates and acknowledges the cultural multiplicity of pre-European contact peoples.

  

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Jay Masiel: You Can Bank on His Photographs

Jay Myself (2019)

Directed by Stephen Wilkes

Mind Hive Films, 79 minutes, Not-rated (language)

★★★★

When I was in high school, I went to New York City on my senior class trip. I recall that we took a Grey Line bus tour of Gotham’s highlights. Though I didn’t think much about it at the time, one of the “sights” was a trip through the Bowery where, from the comfort of our seats, we gawked at winos, drunks, and junkies passed out on slabs of cardboard. Yeah­–that was pretty pathetic in retrospect.

I wish that the bus had swung by the old Germania Bank. It would have been neat to see what photographer Jay Maisel (b. 1931) was in the process of doing. In 1966, Maisel bought the building for just $102,000–all six floors of it. For the next 50 years the 72-room, 35,000 square foot fading Bowery rockpile was Maisel’s home, gallery, studio, and warehouse. By 2014, it cost over $300,000 per year to maintain his domain (repairs, utilities, taxes, salaries, etc.) hence Maisel sold it for a staggering $55 million. He quips that in the years he lived in the bank he had no money but lived as if he did, and now he has money and lives as if he doesn’t.

Stephen Wilkes’s directorial debut sheds light on Maisel, his work, and his move to a 10,000 square foot studio/home in Brooklyn. It is said that there is no eccentric like a British eccentric. That may be true, but crusty New Yorkers can give them a run for their money. Maisel is cut from Jimmy Breslin/Pete Hamill cloth. Salty language is Maisel’s everyday discourse and he’s seldom seen without a cigar clinched in his teeth. His images not withstanding, some of the documentary’s most stunning frames are of Maisel sitting in shadow lighting a stogie, his face going from dark to light to dark–warm orange glows fading to black and back again.

This is appropriate for a film about Jay Maisel. Although his most famous shot is probably a black and white image of Miles Davis blowing his horn as if there was no tomorrow, in my estimation Masiel’s most striking images are those bathed in vivid colors. He has an eye for strong contrast–saturated yellow bleeding into rich orange, a blue pants-clad figure dragging a rope past a deep red wall, and hot reds and cool blues as backdrops for silhouetted figures. Gray Line presented the Bowery as hellishly exotic, but it was Maisel’s playground. Although he did commission work around the globe, many of Maisel’s images were taken in his neighborhood. He spent time on the street but also on the rooftop where he produced bird’s eye perspectives of the street and people. Today, skid row is giving way to investors and hipsters. Maisel’s images are a Bowery documentary in their own right, which gives Wilkes’s documentary a meta tint.

Numerous professional photographers appear on the screen to talk about why Maisel is an acknowledged master of our time, but Greg Heisler summed it best when he said that Maisel’s work is about “the joy of seeing.” Maisel underscores this by picking up an object or peering out the window and rhetorically asking, “How can anyone not see that?” Well… most don’t and that’s what makes Maisel’s work special.

Wilkes was once one of Maisel’s interns and the two have genuine affection for each other. This peeks through the veneer of detachment that both men try to exude. In Maisel’s case, it’s a New Yorker’s affection made manifest by a pulled punch not a landed one, and a bemused hint of a smile when he answers a question that first induces a few swears. Here’s the other thing about Maisel: his bank building was choked full–and I mean full–of found objects, scavenged junk, scraps, and castoff building materials–that caught his eye for reasons not even he can always articulate. One is tempted to think “hoarder” when suddenly he picks up a pane of wavy green-tinted glass and holds it against another object. Snap! A great photo.

Imagine emptying 35,000 square feet of clutter, building material, props, photo lights, printers, and untold numbers of framed images. It took 35 trucks to haul it away, with Maisel lording over the decision of what to pitch, what to store, and what to move. That process was sometimes surreal. He tosses a wall full of unopened Kodak film, yet hastily assembles old VHS cases into a pattern, declares, “There’s a photo,” and tells the crew the cardboard cases must be saved.

Maisel’s wife and daughter also appear in the film. One is tempted to nominate each for sainthood until we realize they are quite capable of taking care of themselves. It might be fun living with such an offbeat genius, but Maisel is also such a contrarian that I longed for a bit more exploration of his tics and orneriness and less on the contrivance of whether or not he will make his moving deadline. At 79 minutes, though, Jay Myself gives us just enough to appreciate the subject without making us reach for a cudgel. Maisel poses the question of what do we prefer: a photograph or photographing. For Maisel it’s the act of shooting which, for him, is a form of New York Zen: moments in which the world and its problems briefly disappear. The film skirts the edge of hagiography, but viewing it will alter how you see.

Rob Weir

Peter Heller's The River One of the Year's Best

The River (2019)

By Peter Heller

Knopf/Borzoi Books, 272 pages.

★★★★★

If the measure of a great book is heart-stopping drama, memorable characters, a tight plot, and evocative prose, The River is a strong candidate for the best novel of 2019. Imagine a mash between James Dickey (Deliverance, 1970) and Jack London that’s less histrionic than the first and more eloquently written than the second. Toss in a touch of Kristin Hannah and that’s a bit like what The River is like.

Heller, who gained public acclaim with his post-apocalyptic the Dog Stars (2012), is a master of taking us inside the minds of human beings in isolation and what they feel and fear. He is not the sort to give us last-minute rescues or deus ex machina heroes. Instead he wants us to imagine what is to be done when Fate holds the high cards.  

The River takes us to the northern Canadian wilderness. Two collegiate soulmate friends, Jack and Wynn, take to the Maskwa River with the intent of challenging their athletic bodies as they paddle their well-appointed canoe, sleep out under the stars, cook fish they catch, read some pulp Westerns, and enjoy the solitude. They are adventuresome and simpatico even though they are temperamentally different. Jack is a rugged Coloradan who carries a deep-seated childhood hurt that has left him suspicious in a hair-trigger manner. Wynn, by contrast, is a hulking Vermonter who is a bit clumsy around women, has an Eagle Scout’s sense of duty, and a sometimes too-trusting disposition. But their mutual love of the outdoors and each other’s company makes Jack and Wynn a great team.

As if to underscore their isolation, Heller populates the book with just four other characters: JD and Brent, two hell-raising Texas rednecks; and a couple (Mai and Pierre) whom Jack and Wynn at first know only though raised-voice arguments slicing through the fog. Jack and Wynn face the preliminary dilemma of how to communicate to them what they have a observed: a gigantic forest fire some 30 miles in back of them.

This is, however, far more than your standard idyll-goes-wrong beat-the-clock tale. As in Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone (2018), Heller’s novel is about human beings in the bosom of an impersonal environment. Forget “Mother” Nature as nurturing; in The River she is silent, indifferent, and unforgiving. If Nature has a personality it is that of Shiva the Destroyer, not some benevolent Earth Mother.

In such a scenario, the only subjective values are held by humans who venture into the blue and green void. What would you do if fleeing animals underscored your need to make haste with several dangerous stretches of white water and a few sure-kill waterfalls requiring portage lying ahead in your path? Would you care about the fate of two louts more interested in drinking and making sexist jokes get out? Would you double back and lose precious time to look for a missing person? Would you share dwindling supplies? Incur someone’s wrath?

Jack and Wynn’s dilemma is pretty basic. There is only one way out and the back country is filled with ways to die in addition to the fire: drowning, starvation, bears, devastating injury, crazy people with guns, and–if since it’s late fall–they could freeze to death before the fire overtakes them. They must also come to grips with their own stupidity; when they packed, they forgot the one thing that could save their lives: a satellite phone.

Because Heller is such a gifted writer, he easily leads us into waters in which we expect things that never materialize. This gives him the leeway to spring the unexpected. I will say no more except that it’s been a long time since I’ve been so emotionally wrung out by a novel. The River left me shattered.

Rob Weir

Discover Sebastain Martorana and Cig Harvey

Subject Matters: Sebastian Martorana in Sculpture

Eating Flowers: Sensations of Cig Harvey

Ogunquit Museum of Art (Ogunquit, Maine)

Through October 31, 2019

[Click on images for larger size. Blue = live link]

Unless you’re lucky enough to make it Ogunquit, Maine, in the next several weeks these two shows will have closed. More’s the pity, but here are two wonderful artists whose work may be unfamiliar to you. You should definitely check out their online portfolios and keep your eyes peeled in case their work shows up near you.

Sebastian Martorana (b. 1981) is an instructor at the Maryland Institute of Art. He works in various media and has won some important commissions in the greater Baltimore/Washington metro area. He is best known, though, for his marble sculptures. His commission work tends to be weighty in the way that sculpt-for-hire work tends to be, but the Ogunquit show captures him in a more playful mood.

These works fall into two categories. The first is whimsical, as in capturing Sesame Street characters Kermit the Frog and Sam the Eagle in stone. There is something about marbleizing each that endows them with ironic

dignity. 

It’s as if Sam is usurping the national bird for our national hearts, and Kermit’s drapery is suggestive of poking fun at past monuments of presidents posing as Roman nobles. You can’t look at these without both admiring them and chortling.

 

Perhaps more impressive, though, are works that take prosaic objects

such as a Teddy bear, a cushion, or a soiled towel and render them realistically—again in marble. I had a hard time looking away from the folds in the towel as I contemplated both the precision and degree of difficulty involved in executing it. It is at once ordinary and extraordinary.

It would be safe to say that I adored the photographs and poetry of Cig Harvey. She was born in Devonshire, England in 1973, but now lives in Rockport, Maine. Ms. Harvey is the real deal; she even has a Wikipedia page that highlights her diverse works and the various honors that have come her way. The eye-arching title of her show at Ogunquit, Eating Flowers, comes from the fact that part of her work for the museum involved helping it rethink its delightful sculpture garden. The inside display highlights images from three of her past portfolio/exhibition works, plus her merged photo/video projects, and a smattering of her evocative musings. 

Harvey’s photos have often drawn comparisons to Magritte. I wouldn’t call them that enigmatic, but she does evoke Magritte’s sense of the solitary. Some of her most striking images are of her daughters Jesse and Scout in isolation:  a pink coat against a high key beach bleeding into a fading ocean and sky; tussled hair and a rich blue velvet dress in a bank of snow. Be sure to check out her “motion” pictures, my favorite being that of a young girl staring out the window of a battered red pickup truck as a New England snowstorm swirls–a still image against moving flakes and a blank face that invites a thousand backstories. 

The greatest photographers use images to tell stories. What does one make of her frozen apples? Are they memento mori or reminders that those doomed globes are promises of spring’s renewal? How about a bagged spray of flowers lying upon a paint-strained table? Is the fading bouquet a grim reminder of endings, the raging of a soul insistent upon wringingbeauty from decay, or just a wondrously artful arrangement that signifieth nothing? You can attach as much or as little meaning as you wish from Harvey’s work and walk away stunned.

Rob Weir

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