Better Than Friday - 137 (Patreon)

Good evening everyone, hope all is well. 

Thank you so much for your continued support, hope you find something in here you love. 

The next review will be Thomas Bernhard's cynical but brilliant 'Woodcutters'.Highly recommended. 

Have a great weekend. 

1. A book I just ordered by one of Brazil's greatest authors - João Guimarães Rosa 

I've really wanted to get an English version of 'The Devil to Pay in the Backlands', but, well, as you can see the price is a bit of a barrier. So, starting with this one.------------------------------

Beginning shortly before the turn of the last century, there was a noticeable trend towards the ambiguous in modern Brazilian literature. Writers such as Machado de Assis and Jorge Amado have both explored the use of the unstated and the forced compromise between extremes that have grown to be so crucial to the modernist movement. No Brazilian author, however, has mastered the compromise quite like João Guimarães Rosa, a man who was once described as not only leading, but preceding the reader "to a place where there is discord and cacophony under which there is a strange harmony…the third bank of the river…the land every soul craves for." In his collection of short stories, Primeiras Estórias (1962), Rosa pays particularly close attention to ambiguity as a main theme in Brazilian backland writing. First translated to English in 1968 under the title First Stories, Primeiras Estórias, and in particular, "The Third Bank of the River," is in many ways the defining work of the Brazilian short story.

- Goodreads

2. Totally Wired - The Fall

Exceptional footage of an early performance of what might be their most popular song 'Totally Wired'. One of the most challenging, uncompromising, brilliant bands. And probably the least accessible save for Pere Ubu or Merzbow. 

3. The End of an Era 

We got to tour the dead industrial landscape of The Packard Plant while we lived in Detroit.It's the world's "largest abandoned industrial site", where luxury cars were produced. 

It's bitter-sweet. Good for the city perhaps, but also the end of an era.Walking around there and looking at the footage I took, I can't help but think of Einsturzende Neubauten's 'Halber Mensch'.

4. The Gun Club - Lucky Jim

A song I should've listened to a long time ago but was recently reminded of by Mark Lanegan's book. 

I love this song.

5. The DevilsThanks to Claire who reminded me of this masterpiece recently. 

Ken Russell's 'The Devils' starring Vanessa Redgrave and hellraiser Oliver Reed. 

Incredible film, they don't make 'em like they used to and they never will. 

Based on Aldous Huxley's 'The Devils of Loudon', which I still need to read...

The Packard Plant during our visit.