THE THIRD MAN : One Never Knows!

“ONE NEVER knows when the blow may fall.

When I saw Rollo Martins first, I made this note on him for my security police files: “In normal circumstances a cheerful fool. Drinks too much and may cause a little trouble. Whenever a woman passes raises his eyes and makes some comment, but I get the impression that really he’d rather not be bothered. Has never really grown up and perhaps that accounts for the way he worshiped Lime.”

I wrote there that phrase “in normal circumstances” because I met him first at Harry Lime’s funeral. It was February, and the grave-diggers had been forced to use electric drills to open the frozen ground in Vienna’s central cemetery. It was as if even nature were doing its best to reject Lime, but we got him in at last and laid the earth back on him like bricks.

He was vaulted in, and Rollo Martins walked quickly away as though his long gangly legs wanted to break into a run, and the tears of a boy ran down his thirty-five-year-old cheeks. Rollo Martins believed in friendship, and that was why what happened later was a worse shock to him than it would have been to you or me. If only he had come to tell me then, what a lot of trouble would have been saved.”

-Graham Greene, The Third Man

First published in 1949 in the wake of the popularity of Carol Reed and Orson Welles’(star and uncredited co-director) THE THIRD MAN, the eponymous novel/novella was never really intended to exist. The novella was the first draft of Greene’s screenplay for the film. The film is the preferred format, even by Graham Greene. However the film’s extreme popularity spurred interest in the publication of the novel, as well as birthing a very popular score/record,

and a wonderful radio show (starring Orson Welles called THE LIVES OF HARRY LIME, it is brilliant).

The Lives of Harry Lime, Volume 1

Listen to Lives of Harry Lime for free Here!

But the novel really doesn’t sing by itself. It’s only in the audio-book format, when it’s tightened up a bit, and read by the cultured yet world wearied voice of the great James Mason that it becomes something brilliant and essential, and as haunting as the film.

The Third Man – Criterion Collection (2-Disc Edition)

As someone who considers THE THIRD MAN one of the greatest movies ever made, perhaps my favorite movie of all time, The James Mason read audio book (avoid the Martin Jarvis audio book, it’s just nowhere as good) is without doubt my favorite audio book.

The Third Man

I listen to it in the car and in my home… often.

And there’s something between the words, and the inflection of Mason’s voice that never ceases.. to enthrall.

“Happiness isn’t about getting what we want, it’s about appreciating what we have.”
—SPOOKS

Great CD for the Holidays: Alan Moore’s SNAKES & LADDERS

“Within only fifty million years of this, life makes its debut. Eden was white-hot and radioactive. Eve and Adam were both anaerobic, breathed formaldehyde and cyanide.”
— Alan Moore. Snakes and Ladders

“Snakes and Ladders is currently available as a CD and comic. What’s it about? Well, it’s about Oliver Cromwell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the dawn of time and the information explosion, magic , the DNA double helix, and author Arthur Machen’s breakdown after the death of his wife, all in or around the Red Lion Square area of London.
Snakes and Ladders is a board game, here usually called Chutes and Ladders, where you can advance if you land on a ladder, or fall back if you land on a snake/chute. Moore uses the game as a metaphor for how life can be random. He also explores snakes in creation myths and as a metaphor for DNA.
It’s not for everybody, and you may have to listen to it several times to follow and enjoy, but if you have an appreciation of Alan Moore’s language and an interest in sometimes obscure English history, give it a try.”

— by Stephen Bitsoli @ http://bitsolisbibliofiles.blogspot.com/2011/07/snakes-and-ladders.html

Of the 6 or 7 CDs of Spoken Word by Alan Moore, this (along with MOON & SERPENT, recorded at the same time in 1999) is Moore’s finest hour, and one of the most haunting, insightful, and mind blowing CDs of all time. A+.

Audio Book Review: David Morrell CREEPERS and Joe Hill 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS & HEART-SHAPED BOX

Audio Book Review: David Morrell CREEPERS and Joe Hill 20TH CENTURY GHOSTS & HEART-SHAPED BOX

An Audio Book when done well, by a great reader, can enhance a good story, or make finish-able an underwhelming story. When done poorly, an audio book can take away from a good story.

All of my reviews are of unabridged readings (the full book is read, nothing is cut out) unless otherwise stated. Okay onto the reviews:

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HEART-SHAPED BOX- Stephen Lang of MANHUNTER, TOMBSTONE and AVATAR fame is one of my favorite character/bit actors, so his name as much as anything else spurred me to give this book a try. And he is a fantastic reader, and this Joe Hill novel starts off strong and interesting but by disk two, with the protagonist going in and out of reality, just gets plodding and annoying and uninteresting. The whole dream sequence plot, completely loses me, and even Stephen Lang can’t salvage it. The dialog circles itself into tedium, over explaining things into the ground. By the time the same anecdote was retold for the third time, somewhere around disk five, I was done with the book. You get the impression early on, that this is a short story/novella, that the writer is desperately trying to pad out to novel length. A common failing of some other horror writers, padding a story till it feels like they’ll never get to the point. This however emphasizes the strength of a good reader, I’ll listen to a good actor finish a lackluster story, that I would have long ago stopped reading (grown bored of) in book form. All in all great read by Stephen Lang (B+), and at times well written, particularly the beginning, but unfortunately overlong and plodding story by Joe Hill (D).

Heart-Shaped Box CD

2OTH CENTURY GHOSTS- This audio book of Joe Hill’s Short story collection, read by David Ledoux is an example of how a poor reading can torpedo an otherwise interesting book. The slightly nasally sounding reading, seems rushed, and lacks any gravitas in the voice, and generally wears out its welcome quickly. Had to stop listening, that’s how problematic I found the reading, on the wrong side of annoying. D-. So avoid the audio book for this one and pickup the book instead, because the short story collection (avoid the over descriptive introduction) itself I quite like, and succeeds where I felt Joe Hill’s HEART-SHAPED BOX failed. Joe Hill is an elegant writer, and here in the short story format he can show off his subtle, understated, beautifully worded tales.

20th Century Ghosts Hardcover

20th Century Ghosts Audio Book CD

CREEPERS- David Morrell has had a long and surprisingly successful career as a writer of thrillers, and more, for his work being often and well adapted into a variety of mediums, from television to films. CREEPERS is a very cinematic read, wonderfully read by Patrick Lawlor, that you can perceive making a very good film. While some of the twist and turns are relatively well telegraphed to any fan of thrillers, the buildup is riveting. I do find the final act a bit cliche ridden, but that excused it moves at a fast clip, very well paced and keeps you turning pages, or in audio book terms, plopping in CDs. Grade: B+.

Creepers

Aristocrats of Insanity: The books of Thomas Ligotti

“A paralysis had seized them, that state of soul known to those who dwell on the highest state of madness, aristocrats of insanity whose nightmares confront them on either side of sleep.”
—from Thomas Ligotti’s THE TSALAL short story, available in his excellent collection NOCTUARY

I’ve spent an inordinate amount on collecting the work of Thomas Ligotti, and I’m not quite sure of it, his works, or even sure of him yet, as a writer.

His MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE, one of his later collection of stories, was just plain… endless. It was often tiresome, un-engaging writing that spiraled itself into ever tightening circles of disinterest. Luckily, I did not buy MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE, but had the good sense to rent from the Library.

While Nihilism is a state we all flirt with, particularly the artistic minded, to make of those fleeting moments a religion or a philosophy or a world view, is the height of maudlin, affected, self indulgent claptrap.

Particularly to invoke thousands of words to the belief in meaninglessness or the uselessness of everything or the need for everything to be exterminated, as Ligotti purportedly does in his non-fiction book THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE (and no I’m not about to read it, the snippets I’ve read are enough, when Ligotti is being maudlin I can’t make it through his short stories, much less his novel length attempt at philosophy) is the height of affectation and self-delusion.

If nothing means anything what the eff are you writing for?

Have the strength of your convictions and off yourself, or the more rational and preferred thing… embrace the fact that your convictions may need work, and life can be good as well as bad, and that’s reason enough… for everything.

So Ligotti, when he gets out of his own way, and doesn’t succumb to his own ennui, or believe too much in the precarious hype heaped on him by his overly ‘cultist’ fan base… can be a great writer (the only thing more detrimental to a writer than the critic who believes he can do no right, is the fan who believes he can do no wrong. The former at least would potentially embrace change, the latter, should your style change/mature, would hate you for ‘selling out’). Unfortunately in any given collection, he tends to be a .500 hitter.

However perusing his earlier collections there is much there to be enamored of, in that 50%.

SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER (1985,1989)
Songs of a Dead Dreamer

GRIMSCRIBE (1991)
Grimscribe: His Lives and Works

NOCTUARY (1994)
Noctuary

THE AGONIZING RESURRECTION OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN (1994 – On the low end copies of this are going for a few hundred dollars. Pretty expensive for a book of not even short stories, but snippets, vignettes. Save yourself money and buy SONGS OF A DEAD DREAMER instead, as they share some of the same vignettes.)
The agonizing resurrection of Victor Frankenstein: & other gothic tales

THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY (1996- Collects the previous, at the time, out of print story collections).
The Nightmare Factory

[There were some CD chap books that were released in this period.]

MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE (2001)

THE SHADOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD (2005- With NIGHTMARE FACTORY being out of print, this is NIGHTMARE FACTORY light, being a smaller, less comprehensive collection, sampling of Ligotti’s previously published work. With a few new stories tossed in. This was my introduction to Ligotti, and considering I’m still talking about him, I guess it was a good one)
The Shadow at the Bottom of the World

TEATRO GROTTESCO (2006)- And as with previous volumes there’s very little new here, it’s mostly a repackaging of previously collected stories. However, because this is the newest, this is the most affordable collection out there, so makes a great starting place. Plus the Virgin Books edition that is available is very nicely laid out, readable interior, comfortable compact shape, and a cover that is a closeup on the face of a weathered, broken doll… which says everything you need it to say about the work within.

Teatro Grottesco

So I’m not sure the future is going to bring us anything substantially new from Ligotti, more than likely just ever more expensive repackaging of older stories. But it does mean you can pick up just about any volume and get a nice sampling of Ligotti’s work.

I think you’ll find, Ligotti at his best… worth your time.

Today’s recommended Items!

“We have trampled on the backs of apes… to clutch the muddied hems of Angels.”

—Only Alan Moore could have written a line like that. I’ve been listening to one of his best CDs, the incendiary and game changing SNAKES AND LADDERS, 2nd only to Moore’s own excellent MOON AND SERPENT THEATRE OF MARVELS.

SNAKES AND LADDERS
SNAKES AND LADDERS

Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels
Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels

Other Recommended items:

Brought to Light – Gary Lloyd ; Audio CD -Essential Alan moore spoken word audio book
Brought to Light

Dead Man’s Shoes – Paddy Considine ; DVD – Essential British Crime Thriller
Dead Man’s Shoes

Enjoy!

CD of the Day Review! Alan Moore’s MOON AND SERPENT!

Review Alan Moore’s MOON AND SERPENT: It starts off with roller-coasters and rain, and there’s something fitting about that. That Moore’s finest, most all-encompassing work should start off with roller coasters and rain. Highlighted tracks are highly recommended listening.

Track 1 roller-coaster/carnival barker-“tell all your friends, tell all your enemies, tell all the people you do not know.” Goes to about the 5:30 mark. From the start, his most sonically, and stereoscopically mesmerizing CD.

Track 2 rain, a tour of London- Moore’s voice at once longing and hungry and haunted and stark. A dreamer two days dead, speaking of dreams. Speaking of London, all Londons. “hallucinated rain in a mirage of gutter… a phantom, speculated city, somewhere else… where do the Yarmouth breakers detonate, a distant semtex when we are away from yarmouth… these are the towns of light, built from remembered brick… where thought is form…locations we shall never visit that yet have their hearsay substance in our lives, and so are never far from us… metropolis erected out of nothing, only metaphor, and ringed with slums of dreams… a shadow London, our idea of London” Goes to about the 8:44 mark. 9/10.

Track3 a tour of London- “Move on to the city hypothetical… his Tesla grid of terror and magnificence…streets filthy with mythology… “ till about 13:20 mark

Track 4 Cray Twins/Double trouble – Brilliant use of stereo! Love listening to this. “two sides to every story, two doors to every cell” till 15:31 10/10

Track 5 St.Pauls/Diana -The heart of the City – Let us pay attention to St. Paul himself, a Proto-Mason , there in 1st Corinthians 3:10 he states “As a Master-builder I have laid foundations and another builds there on.” , “here is Diana chained, the soul of woman-kind bound in a web of ancient signs that women might abandon useless dreams of liberty” “be careful here” till 19:45

Track 6 Fleet and Bride Street –“they are the engineers of our exhaustion” “If this room is mirrored in idea space, what of we?” “…monologues we have mistaken for the world” “stay close together, these are stairways beyond substance, things get slippery here.” Till 24:50

Track 7 Into the Abyss – “Theory and belief are all we have to walk upon” A walk through idea spaces, through landscapes/mythologies… eclectic. Till 32:15.

Track 8 Spectre Garden- Angel Baeletic- “I am the daughter of fortitude, and ravished every hour of my youth” Haunting and beautiful. Till 35:24

Track 9 Demon Asmodeus- Sumptuous, disturbing use of sound. Till 40:02

Track 10 Deity/Glycon last created of the roman gods- “Proceed with caution, this is old power. And the idea of a god, a real idea” Till 44:10

Track 11 Tundra Absolute/The Final wasteland- “if we observe it, we affect it” He is dropping knowledge, no, not knowledge… wisdom… wisdom beyond the paltry dreams of science. Brilliance! Brilliance! Reaches a stunning conclusion, with a truly compelling performance by Alan Moore. A+. till 59:35

Track 12 End Music/Denouement- Don’t care for this folksy/wood nymph song, or the delivery. But not enough to mar this excellent CD. Till 63.07.

Overall grade: A+. Best of breed. Essential CD.

Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels

Old Time Radio Episode of the Day: SHADOW: DEATH HUNT from 26 Oct 1947

A pretty ludicrous episode of THE SHADOW radio series from 1947, as a man who loses a bunch of money gambling, is so afraid for his wife to know because of her weak heart, that his brilliant idea is to challenge a famous hunter to hunt him for 24hours, and if he survives he’ll win $50000 to pay off his gambling death. Of course if he loses he gets killed messily, and I can’t see that doing his wife’s heart any good.

Like I said, ludicrous.

The problem with latter day Shadow episodes, most of the ones post 1941, is they are scripts stolen from other shows with the Shadow just shoehorned in, and that’s the case with this one as well. The character of the Shadow is largely superfluous to the actual story.

A minor Shadow episode at best. Grade: C-.

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Now to listen to this show and any other episode of the Shadow, you have a few options. None of them great. It makes me angry, that a show that is definitely public domain, should be kept out of it by greedy fat suits. All 200+ episodes of the SHADOW were readily available on the internet as were the pulp novels back in the late 90s, and even through the aughts when I started my OTR collection. But in the last decade or so unscrupulous types have been subverting public domain, and actually yanking things out of public domain, so they can make their greedy dollar on a product they had no fucking part in creating, producing, etc. They are bloody leeches, buying and locking down something that for good reason should be in public domain and readily available to all.

So yeah you can buy the expensive 9 episode sets that the ‘company that will rename nameless aka radio garbage’ is gouging people with online and via Amazon, but seriously, eff those guys. Do a bit of a search and you can find these episodes online. You can also rent them via libraries, or just borrow it from someone who did buy their overpriced merchandise. And considering their crap is priced 9 times too high, I would (if I purchased it) loan my copy out 9 times, just so others get it.

God don’t like greedy.

It’s really immoral what these companies are doing to public domain.

Okay I’m calm now. Really.

But, If you really want my take on public domain, and greedy fat-cats, do a search for my post on public domain. Here endeth my rant for today.

CD Review: Alan Moore’s THE BIRTH CAUL

This week’s recommended Album/CD:

THE BIRTH CAUL is the first of the six Alan Moore spoken word collaborations (typically with Bauhaus front man David J and/or Tim Perkins). As a whole the six albums are odd, dark recordings; mixing new wave, gothic, spoken word and the type of mourning, stream of consciousness litany, dissection of our human landscape… that has made Alan Moore, in the graphic medium, unparalleled. All his albums from the best (THE MOON AND SERPENT THEATRE OF MARVELS) to the worst (V FOR VENDETTA, worst is not fair, let’s just say… the least) should be listened to with headphones, or with good speakers in a dark room, holding on tightly to someone you love, while the world around you… darkly turns.

THE BIRTH CAUL is from 1996 and is arguably as a whole, one of the weaker of the six albums, but is just as arguably Moore’s most personal album, dealing as it does with Moore’s generational ruminations, both his eulogy and his diary of his travels from embryonic seas. There are, however, one or two tracks that stand out as pretty darn masterful.

The first track, the eponymous THE BIRTH CAUL is an endlessly haunting ode to Moore’s discovery of his birth caul, among his mother’s belongings. And the affect such a find has on him. “a map of lost interiors, first continents, upon its parchment breath the log of older tides”. The language makes this track… brilliant.

The next notable track, and the one that makes this album a must have is the absolutely addictive THE WORLD’S BLUNT ENGINE. Much love must go to David J for the sound-scape on this one, but the words… the words. What makes Alan Moore (I consider) the Shakespeare of his age is his ability to work in denigrated mediums, yet create insightful, cutting masterpieces and critiques of his age that will reverberate beyond him. It is his ability to use language like a scalpel and to employ it not in the slicing of flesh, but in the revealing of that strange common thing we might call… our humanity.

“We talk of work and films; and of the hurricane make not the least acknowledgement…Have sex each Friday. Screaming rows (fights) each Saturday. We Work and sleep. We work and sleep.”

A hard CD to find, long out of print, but worth the hunting down.

Birth Caul

Alan Moore UNEARTHING CD, LP, Spoken Word Review Pt 2 of 2

UNEARTHING The Review!

Now getting past the packaging and into the audio itself, it consists of 2 cds that comprise the audio book/audio odyssey proper and one CD filled with instrumental tracks (pretty catchy, a trance, hypno vibe, definitely of the school of sound created by the Dynamite Brothers. It works better as stand-alone ep, than as an accompaniment to Moore’s lyrics. More on this in a bit).

Ostensibly a biography on Steve Moore, supposedly a friend of Alan Moore for 40 years who taught him to write, am I the only one who has figured out Steven Moore is just a pseudonym for Alan Moore? What Stephen King would refer to as his Dark Half, his Richard Bachman, and UNEARTHING is him putting to rest, finally, this old friend of the id.

What’s that you say? “Steve Moore is a real person, has a page on the Internet and everything”. Well then he has to be real, hasn’t he?

UNEARTHING is Moore at what Poitier would call “The Summing up place” in his life, and it’s him putting his house in order. Using a pseudo biography to speak on larger themes of loneliness, loss, creation, mortality and magic. It takes a few listens to make out his journey, and when Moore deals most clearly with battles of the id the work is compelling.

However, unlike his collaboration with Bauhaus front man David J, here the music works against Moore’s monologue rather than with it. Quiet when it should be loud, and loud when it should be quiet.

So we’re left primarily with Moore’s voice to carry us through. And while Moore has an astounding voice, the subject matter is not as engaging.

It’s an interesting listen but ultimately one that tends to wear out its welcome relatively quickly.

So while I love the audacity of the packing, the actual content fails to live up to it. For those interested in seeing Moore’s
“A+” game when it comes to spoken word, try the brilliant MOON AND SERPENT, followed relatively closely by the almost as brilliant SNAKES AND LADDERS. I would also recommend BIRTH CAUL, HIGHBURY WORKING, and ANGEL PASSAGE, all before I would recommend UNEARTHING.

But for Alan Moore Completionists like myself, it will look pretty on your shelf. B+ for the packaging, B- for the content, earns it an average grade of B.

Alan Moore UNEARTHING CD, LP, Spoken Word Review Pt 1 of 2

UNEARTHING is Alan Moore’s 6th Spoken Word Album (not counting those he just lends his voice to, but only those that are him in mass), Aural Odyssey, and is easily his most lavishly packaged.

Arriving on one’s doorstep in a box big enough to bludgeon the unsuspecting, UNEARTHING is an elaborate slipcase that includes a more elaborate jacket, beautifully adorned with photographs by Mitch Jenkins of Alan Moore and company. The jacket includes a poster, a transcript of the lyrics, a photograph, 3 lps, and 3 cds.

Feel free to gasp, I did upon receiving it.

It is just an amazing tome, and hearkens back to old world concepts of form as part and parcel of function, and the packaging as part of the experience. An idea that is being lost, or buried, in today’s download, digitization, miniaturization age. But a download can’t grasp the child-like joy of receiving a package like this and the experience of leafing through its lavish contents. Nothing like having that CD or LP staring up at you, and that anticipation of voices from the ether, that you are about to discover.

Moore’s UNEARTHING in packaging alone dazzles and ingratiates and seduces and tells a story, and is art in and of itself. Like LPs of old,

And I am of that not yet extinct clan, who appreciates the journey, who appreciates a thing as a work of art onto itself, and as the first, inaudible part, of the process of embracing the world the artist is crafting.

To be continued