Accept no substitutes

Day: December 22, 2006

Il Quartetto Basileus

A little over 20 years ago, I saw an Italian movie in Italian called “Il Quartetto Basileus.” I remember the incredible music of the quartet and the passion brought to the music and to the quartet by the young and destructively life engaging new member.

Tonight I saw the movie again. I was entranced by the lighting and by the music again. But the story now that I am the same age as the older members of the quartet who had been together for 30 years to the exclusion of all else. I saw the movie more vividly. The movie is the tale of change in age and of the attraction to life that might be lived on the brink by those who have postponed or avoided joy and risk. Each of the older members of the quartet reacts differently to the young prodigy that has joined them after their original violinist dies. Is the movie life affirming? That I could not say. It is poignant and touching and reflecting life and the costs of avoiding it or postponing it.

Not on Netflix.

Femme Fatale – blast from several pasts

Was mourning the closing of the Daily Grind (for remodeling they will be back) and speculating on what Pepper’s will be like in its new location while working from Jack Spratt’s with Don and Ken when the REM version of Lou Reed’s song, “Femme Fatale,” came on the sound system.

I knew it was familiar. I knew it way back as sung by Nico of the Andy Warhol sponsored Velvet Underground featuring Lou Reed and John Cale.

Sure enough I found a version of Nico and the Velvets doing a live version of the song on YouTube — and a recent version live by Lou Reed in which Lou mocks Nico a little before getting into the song.

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