The Counterforce No. 77

“I wanted to go down in history as a director who had fun. Fun is something priceless” - Lina Wertmüller

I love this quote. And feel the same way about my own work. I recently watched the above documentary on Lina Wertmüller. Or rather re-watched it, as Letterboxd tells me I’ve seen it before. I thought some of it seemed familiar. But I will happily watch it again as there’s always more to discover with Lina Wertmüller

One evening way back in 2003 I was down from Boston visiting my parents. For some reason I was flipping thru the channels in the basement and stumbled upon a film that quickly pulled me in. Filled with the hustle and bustle of Italian life, there’s sex, there’s politics, there’s sexual politics, and a whole lot more. It’s irreverent and very funny whilst still managing to hit hard on everything it offers up. The film was Lina Wertmüller’s The Seduction Of Mimi and I made a note to watch more as soon as possible. Thinking back on this, I liked discovering things better that way, where it was more up to chance, happening upon something already in motion, already flowing - films on TV, songs on the radio - seems to me more how Life works. All this infinite choice at the touch of our fingertips should, in theory, be better, but I have not found it to be so

The Seduction Of Mimi came out in 1972 kicking off a streak of four brilliant films - Love & Anarchy (1973), Swept Away (1974), and Seven Beauties (1975) - with an only ok one, All Screwed Up tucked in between Love & Anarchy and Swept Away. Still, five films in four years, with four of them being genius is an impressive feat. And I love the long titles in Italian too, The Seduction of Mimi translates to ‘Mimi, Metalworker, Wounded In Honor’, Love & Anarchy expands out as ‘Film of Love and Anarchy, or Rather: This Morning at 10, in Via dei Fiori, in the Well-Known Brothel...’, and Swept Away gets amended with ‘by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August’.

About a month ago I felt like watching Seduction Of Mimi again, and again it very much impressed. Turin looks so lovely in all that mist. Giancarlo Giannini’s eyes throughout all these hold their own with the very best in cinema. And it’s from Mariangela Melato’s excellent performance that my love of the name Fiore springs. The film is very funny at points - the ‘seduction of Amalia’ scene with its homage to Fellini’s 8 1/2 rhumba and the comical synchronized menace as they both undress is brilliant - and while it deals with almost all of life’s serious issues, it never takes itself seriously. Lina Wertmüller has a wonderful touch.

So I went back and watched all four again. Love & Anarchy might be my favourite. That hustle and bustle of Italian family life transported to the ‘family’ within a brothel as a poor country ‘cousin’ shows up with big plans to assassinate Mussolini. Giannini is almost unrecognizable here in that role, and both he and Melato, unknowns on the world stage before the previous film, demonstrate their amazing range with these. Some excellent shots here too:

Swept Away knocks those big cast ensembles on their heads leaving just Giannini and Melato, alone and at opposite ends of society’s spectrum, castaway on a deserted Mediterranean island for most of the film. Then Giannini is back on his own to play the title role of Seven Beauties. This is not an easy film to watch at points. There is nothing likeable about Seven Beauties. In fact, his attempts to stay alive at all costs are quite deplorable, but his performance is incredible, you can’t look away. Even for the long-held, slow pan, cringe af (attempted) sex scene with the Nazi camp guard. Throughout the camp scenes, Wertmüller’s irreverence somehow deepening our sympathies and horror at the situation

I can’t recommend Lina Wertmüller enough

Perhaps the less said about AWP the better. It was really weird, and in-jokes never translate into a wider telling. But man did we end up at some strange afterparties. Of note was seeing Zora Thee Pony read. She took the ‘Miss Mary Mack’ nursery rhyme and brought it to a very powerful place. So much so that on the drive to the next venue we all commented how great it was. I must give a shout out to Scott Laudati. Got to meet and hang with the man in person and that guy is a fucking mensch. Not only is he an excellent poet, he’s a very generous performer, scaling back his own time to give others a spot in the line-up and keep the flow going. Proving if you’ve got one great piece to read, that’s all you need. On my drive home on Sunday, I stopped in Brooklyn to grab some food and drop off copies of Nick Cave’s Bar at WORD Bookstore (“you’re printing money there,” they told me). Dinner ended up being a strawberry smoothie that I dumped in the remains of the box of cereal I had with me - this summing up touring life very pointedly - and as I was sitting in my front seat spooning this into my gob, Scott actually CALLED ME ON THE PHONE to thank me for driving him around him Baltimore. Who takes that sort of extra time anymore? What a guy. Looking forward to many future collaborations. And BUY HIS PLAY THE DEVIL, IT’S HILARIOUS

I only bought one bought one book the entire weekend. Headed to Golden West to catch Jack Bullion read. I highly recommend his This World Will Never Run Out Of Strangers story collection and he had a fun interactive element to his piece. Then Joshua Trent Brown gave his first ever reading during which he opted for the rock star move of lying down on a pew to deliver his words. Photo stolen from his Substack:

That’s me in the scarf and hat (was trying out a hat that night) right above. I had a good lean going on over him for part of this until that got uncomfortable so I turned around. Got to hang with the man on the final night, at the strangest of the afterparties, and decided I really should buy his book, The Walls Are Closing In On Us, which I did when I got home

Next up was Stephanie Austin who took the floor with such a great energy I was into it from the get-go. She was reading from this which takes place in 1997 and the whole vibe reminded me so much of my sister and her friends at that time I couldn’t help but smile at the whole thing. When she finished I immediately went and bought a copy of Burn, which she inscribed ‘Your sister sounds awesome!’ Now, I still have books from last year’s AWP that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, but when I got home I tore into Burn right away and found I couldn’t put it down (this is saying a lot from me who is very easily distracted as well as a slow reader). If you came of reading and drinking age in the 90’s, this is definitely a book for you. It captures that time perfectly and took me back especially at every mention of a cd. It starts off, perhaps ‘fun’ isn’t quite the right word, but it’s a lighter tone that nonetheless manages to convey what messes we all were back then. And around college age, at least for me anyways, is when it begins to dawn on you just how much worse girls have it. All the awful shit they have to deal with, which Burn takes us through a sort of crash course of over a couple months. Many a time I paused over the page to ask yet again ‘why are so many dudes so awful?’ and there’s a truly horrific stepdad, like just the worst kind of human being. On the other side of that, I was really bothered by just how much I related to the ‘nice guy’ of Daniel lol. Burn is intense, it’s a lot, but it’s a very good read, taking me right back to those days. There’s also lovely passages like this one on page 73 that I made a note of - “Stop. Put my hands on my hips and breathe and feel the dark. The dark is where you put all the terrible things. The monsters. You stuff them in, push them down, push hard, harder, and when they still don’t fit, you release a part of yourself down with them because you understand that’s the only way to make them stay.”

I returned home to find IndieLit was keeping on giving, with Lauren Lavín’s The Third Beat waiting for me in the post. Exciting, as folks have been raving about this. Plus a postcard with instructions to send on, which I was only too happy to. The Third Beat does not disappoint. Wonderful vignettes, imbued with the ethereal magic that some of us know lurks right alongside and often intertwines with our everyday lives. Lavín writes from a place well aware that Death is the black back part of the mirror that allows us to see Life. Two of the essays towards the end resonated with me the most. Where There Used To Be Razors There Are Barcoded Hanging Cards for its straight-up talk of how fucked the system is. And Cante Jondo, a beautiful meditation on poetry, music, catharsis, and death, featuring Lorca and London Calling. I loved it

My brain hasn’t been working great lately, to the point where this week I’m back making a concerted effort to get an ADHD diagnosis. Not often, thankfully, but once in a long while I just won’t think about how my actions will affect other people and that’s really not good. Mortifying, in fact. Also this past week I’ve written two of my best songs. Like so good I almost can’t believe I’ve written them. And my album seems ready to be recorded now. I had 9 songs for the longest time (and 21 others that will fill out singles, EPs, and various other releases) but I always think an album should have at least 10 songs, and ideally 11. I had insomnia worse than usual for about a month and one day last week I found a song idea I had sung into my phone in the middle of the previous night that I freaking LOVE. I vaguely remember the age-old struggle of ‘I can fall asleep right now but I don’t want to lose this melody and these words’ and forcing myself to go grab my phone and sing it in. The best stuff always comes in the liminal space between sleeping and waking. Friday night I spent some time bashing this into shape and I’m overjoyed at how good it is. Like the Mary Chain playing T. Rex, and it makes me want to shake my ass on the dancefloor. And with this I realized I had the last song for my album. Then on Monday I was messing around on my acoustic playing Smashing Pumpkins’ Mayonnaise - a song that always floors me - and I started venturing into some more SP-like chords and out popped something I’m calling B Softly. Revisited it Tuesday with another concerted effort and I’m just dazzled by what came through. So much so that when I got to the studio yesterday, I ditched plans to record the next single’s b-side in order to properly demo this. I feel I’m mining some deeper stuff, which is uncomfortable territory, but I got literal chills when I listened back to it

Also been thinking about the name of the record. For the longest time I wanted to called it Death Of A Romantic. The title coming from how I’ve had to kill off the overly romantic parts of myself in order to get anywhere or anything done in the real world. I’d like to think I’m a lot better at that than I was, oh, 10, 15 years ago. Trouble is I’m still quite a romantic soul. I mean Neptune sits on my ascendent. Seriously, by one degree. Another thing is that ‘Death Of A Romantic’ is also a very romantic title. As are almost all the songs that will be on it. I mean the last one will be this for goodness sakes:

Video taken minutes after this was written in 2019. I like this one a lot, it popped out fully formed on a walk along the beach in my hometown

Nothing has really grabbed me fully yet, though I’ve been toying with the title Transit Of Venus, which captures some of the same idea. There’s also always the temptation to call it Juliet Berto. I would love to name a record Juliet Berto, but this isn’t that record

ConcertArchives.org reminds me that 15 years ago today I made the decision to start writing about music. I went to The Half Moon in Herne Hill - way South London - to see The Hall Of Mirrors (Jessica Winter’s first band), Nick Garrie, and Anthony Reynolds. I was so impressed yet again by the incredible power of music that I thought I might have some things to say about it. I put it out there, things began to snowball, and soon I was penning pieces for some of my favourite publications. In that time I’ve talked to so many of my favourite artists and songwriters, had some amazing experiences hanging out with them all over the globe, and written pieces that a lot of people, including the artists themselves, have had a lot of nice things to say about. Paul Simpson still shares that Teardrop Explodes origin story that I wrote quite early on. All in all, this was one of the best decisions I ever made. And here I am still doing it…