"Strangers on a Train" by Patricia Highsmith (1950)

 

Carol Burnett is 91

 

"Baby Raindeer" by Richard Gadd (2024)

 

I don't often write here about what I watched on TV because the sheer cornucopia of streaming platforms makes all these movies kind of disposable products of the moment. Usually I watch TV only on weekends, anyway. But this past weekend there was something that instantly got my attention and I must admit that I could not stop watching it, in a current language, I binged on it. 

"Baby Raindeer" is one of the best British (Scottish?) TV series I have ever seen and this is coming from a fairly legendary tradition, one never expects anything but the best from them. What makes it so special is not only the fact that its a true story but also how it manipulates audience into a total obsession and honestly it is so intense that its practically impossible to stop watching it. As already noted elsewhere, it is a story about struggling comedian (Richard Gadd playing himself) who works as a barman and his stalker, a psychotic woman who introduces herself as a successful lawyer but we know immediately she is a liar - her name is Martha (excellent Jessica Gunning) and since the moment she got a free cup of tea from him, she is starting to push herself into his life, eventually with disastrous consequences. There is also a whole assortment of supporting characters who are here basically like a Greek chorus just to frame the main mind games between the main character and Martha. Where usual stalking stories often focus on black & white characterisation (bad stalker, innocent victim) what happens here is something much more complicated: Richard Gadd ("Donny") is himself guilty of everything that happens to him, because he allows and even encourages it. In a perverted way, he enjoys Martha's attention and even though is clear he has absolutely no romantic interest in her, he also misses her deranged messages and attention - the whole twisted story between them eventually gets almost painful to watch. 

I don't remember when was the last time I was so involved in TV series - it was original, unusual and it played with our sympathy. I was initially with Donny but with time his behaviour became so annoying that I started arguing with the screen - whatever happens to him, he created it himself. It might be different to see it in a hindsight but really, there were literary dozen of situations where the alarm bell was ringing in my head and Donny chose to ignore it, because it suited him. Media is now full of interviews with Gadd and commenting on his bravery to go trough all of this again with acting but I must say that I eventually sympathise much more with deranged Martha than with him. 

Excellent, highly recommended. 

"Cowboy Carter" by Beyoncé (2024)

 

Until now I was amongst the handful of the people on the planet who managed to live my life completely unperturbed by either Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. I knew they are both big pop superstars du jour but even with the publicity industry in the full blast, it eluded me to see what was original or interesting about them. As I am nearing my mid-fifties now, I have a lifetime of listening various music genres behind me and it was always idiosyncrasy that would attract me, something that I found particularly memorable - out of curiosity I gave them both a listen and it was frustrating experience because it made me feel like alien from another planet, I ached to go back to anything else but this. 

I was vaguely familiar with Beyoncé as a modern-day Diana Ross who flew solo out of the pop trio and who was somewhat annoyingly always ready to ham it up if occasion called for tribute to any music legend - Etta James, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, you name it - what was unsaid was her suggestion that she belongs to the same Olympus, because "look, I can do it too!" Suffice to say, I was never convinced and was even baffled that so many people were buying into what I felt was completely modest and perhaps even mediocre music talent. 

The big hoopla was created around her latest album "Cowboy Carter" and its supposed seismic statement, because now everybody focused on Beyoncé being something of a modern day Joan of Arc as its all about black musicians breaking into country music, etc. The articles everywhere proclaim that notoriously close-gated country music was actually inspired by black musicians who were its originators and everywhere you look, they are literary quoting two black musicians who actually left any mark in country music (Ray Charles and Charley Pride) - going so far to dig up other black artists who occasionally tried and make A-HA point, like "look, they also did country!" but to me its just a modern-day rewriting of history and as it is, too many of us are still alive and remember that country never was high on the priority lists of black musicians who were focused elsewhere. So the selling point of "Cowboy Carter" is a black pop superstar turning country and while artist herself claims she hopes for some better, future times when skin colour won't matter, she doesn't mind being touted as the first black woman charting nr.1 album on country charts. 

I was curious enough to give it a listen. To my surprise, it was actually the best thing I have heard from her EVER - it is not a country album by any stretch, because occasional banjo and a guitar don't make it country. She is still Beyoncé but only plays with country influences and out of this had created something quite original. She immediately got my attention with fantastic into "Ameriican Requiem" that owns a bit to "Love's In Need Of Love Today" from a classic "Songs In The Key Of Life" by Stevie Wonder but it quickly turns into something interesting, she is menacing, strong and powerful while asking "Can you see me? Can you stand me?" - it was a long time since I heard any new music that moved me so much and I must admit I have listened this album quite often. The highlights are playful "Texas Hold 'Em", very 1980s sounding "Bodyguard" and anthemic duet with Miley Cyrus "II Most Wanted" that i genuinely loved from the first listening. Not everything works: her takes on other people's material is uninspired - she doesn't bring anything really new to either "Blackbiird" by The Beatles or "Jolene" (clearly, she is no Whitney Houston), "16 Carriages" is a bit laughable attempt to claim working-class roots necessary for country credibility ("Had to leave home at an early age, underpaid and overwhelmed, only God knows, only God knows") where she makes it sounds like she suffered greatly and paid her dues all the time while she toured and lived protected as a star of Destiny's Child - it just don't ring true, its not like she was unwed young single mother breaking into Nashville, fresh from the hills and barefoot. But ok, no doubt she sees herself as a hard-working, wronged and unrecognised. The sheer length of the album is perhaps a mistake because everything would sound much more impressive if edited to one LP, instead of two - however, it also makes for satisfactory music experience because with time you might discover less obvious gems like "Oh Louisiana" or "Ya Ya". I honestly like this and returning to it quite frequently. 

“Lost City” ("Verdwenen Stad") documentary by Willy Lindwer

 

I saw a very interesting documentary recently, something that I bet lot of visitors (and probably locals) are probably completely unaware of. Amsterdam was always known as place of freedom, tolerance and whatnot but from my point of view this is true only on a surface - it is and always was a cosmopolitan haven for all sorts of refugees from other places but truth to be told, foreigners are just tolerated, not really welcomed - scratch under that surface and there is a cold calculation that knows how to tax, charge and profit from the foreigners - most obvious in housing, where expats accept and pay astronomic rents just to live in the centre, while locals go elsewhere. If you talk to any local (including foreigners who live here) you would hear them bitterly complaining about "tourists" and my overall impression is that they would prefer if there is no tourism at all. I have remembered this during lockdown, when the streets were totally empty and apocalyptic & I was thinking "now you got what you always wanted, is this fun?"

“Lost City” is about Amsterdam during WW2. Than, just like now, the bureaucracy was responsible that all the wheels were turning orderly. That also means that arrested Jews were orderly waiting for the local city tram to collect them from the tram stops directly to Central Station, from where they were sent to camp Westerbork. GVB tram company (very same company that still operates today and we are all using it) was responsible for this rides and naturally everybody knew what was happening, the documentary makes no excuses about it - survivors tell their stories how their neighbours and other Amsterdammers were even gleefully watching them trough binoculars as they were standing with their belongings on the tram station, waiting to be sent somewhere (most of them expecting they will be sent to some German camps). According to the researchers, both the GVB and the tram drivers are complicit. Houwink ten Cate: "The drivers saw with their own eyes that the trams they drove were guarded by German police officers carrying guns. They therefore understood that they were transporting people against their will, who were in the power of their mortal enemies. They understood that those people went to transit camps after which you almost never heard from them again. If you add this up, you end up with collaboration." 

For a film and book about the persecution of Jews in Amsterdam, Luijters investigated the system of Jewish transports with filmmaker Willy Lindwer. The invoices turned up in the archives of the NIOD war institute. During the Second World War, 63,000 Jews were deported from Amsterdam. The Germans used trams to transport the prisoners to train stations, from where they were sent to concentration camps. The invoices contain many new details. The Germans ran a total of 900 trams. “The Municipal Transport Company sent invoices every month for all the services they provided to the occupier and therefore made money from that,” says Lindwer. "The trams were specially hired by the Germans, they were not just regular tram rides." During their research, Lindwer and Luijters came across the bill for the last tram ride on August 8, 1944. They also discovered the names of Anne Frank and her family on lists of the people who were deported from Central Station to Westerbork transit camp that same day. "They were first transferred from the former prison at Weteringschans to Central Station by tram," says Lindwer. The invoice makes it clear that the GVB tried to recover the costs until after the war. 

These old trams are still in use for a occasional Sunday ride and today completely unexpectedly I jumped into one and had a nice ride trough the city centre. 

Flashback nr.1: "The Muppet Show Album" (1977)

 

My generation - as the countless generations before - lived almost our entire lives with buying, collecting and treasuring albums as certain ritual. In the long-gone, pre-digital days you would hear something on the radio than walk to a shop to purchase a specific piece of music you liked - the format didn't matter, this was all down to the specific time you happened to be, it could have been a vinyl, a cassette tape or CD. I even remember an occasional encounter with reel-to-reel tape that worked very much like a bigger relative of the smaller cassette and needed a clumsy big recorder. We collected, treasured and loved our collections - just like books, it was who you were, reflection of your interests, tastes and perspectives. I have managed to built, lose and re-built several collections of my favourite music trough the years, but recently I started to really focus on music that was around when I first started discovering it, looking out for what was there when I was still very young and impressionable brings back the memories and sometimes even the excitement that was there.

Digital music online changed everything - the fact that almost everything that was ever recorded is now available on the top of our fingers makes music listening almost a daunting task. Along with some old favourites and whatever Spotify recommends to you, there is always a mountain of new releases and re-mixes of known recordings. Even a voracious music omnivore as I am gets tired and confused sometimes so its no wonder that recently I started to research what exactly were my very first recordings, what was the music that left a deep impression on a little me. When I didn't know anything about the charts, producers, the industry, advertising, controversies, etc - I listened, glued to the speakers and often the very same LP played day after day, as kids do. 

One of these LPs was beautiful, sunny, funny and poignant "The Muppet Show Album" released in 1977 as companion to a famous TV show. Unlike many other popular albums that waited years to be released behind the Iron Curtain, this beauty was released by Belgrade's PGP RTB the very next year and kids like me were treated with simultaneous double treat of having The Muppets both on TV and on the gatefold sleeve album. With a distance of more than four decades, today I have re-discovered this album on youtube - it was never officially released on either CD or digitally, probably because of some copyright issues - I listened the whole thing with greatest joy and delight, to find not only that music was indeed marvellous, imaginative and even better than I remember, but also that somehow every note here is carved in my DNA - even though I was too young to understand English lyrics completely, I remember almost everything of it. I chuckled when I heard wonderfully zany version of "Mississippi Mud", sung along with "Mahna Mahna", "Mr. Bassman" and "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"  ("Lydia, oh! Lydia, that "Encyclopedia") and cried when I heard "Halfway Down the Stairs".

"Halfway Down the Stairs" is a genuine beauty - placed as a little breather between two manic Muppet songs, it is a gentle little lullaby sung from a point of view of Kermit's little frog cousin Robin and its basically a kid singing his little song to himself. It is a lovely diamond of a song that any lonely kid might sing in his own little bubble - you know when you were small and everything was big and your little world is limited by warm comfort and safety of your home. It moved me unexpectedly to tears and I am listening it the whole day today. 

"Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit.

There isn't any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I'm not at the bottom,

I'm not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop." 

"House of Troy" in International Theater Amsterdam

My previous experience in DeLaMar Theatre with badly staged "Murder on the Orient Express" was so upsetting that I started to doubt do I even like live stage plays at all - to correct this, I found something that appealed to me and tried to see it & perhaps new experience will erase the bad taste in my mouth. From what I read online, this play was inspired by ancient Greek play "Trojan Women" by Euripides and that was a good sign - at least this will not be the same audience that was going on "Mamma Mia" in DeLaMar Theatre. So I was ready to try something else. 

First I watched 1971. movie filmed in Spain with all-star international cast that included Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave and Geneviève Bujold - I quite enjoyed it, even though I don't care much for Hepburn and was delighted with great Greek actress Irene Papas as Helen of Troy, I thought she was magnificent and had a true presence. The movie gave me some idea what to expect in the theatre, obviously it is happening after fall of Troy and each of these famous characters represents part of the myth - we can also see them as any female victims of any war, it is quite a timeless piece. 

This time I went with a friend who insisted on having a dinner with dessert & wine before the theatre so we enjoyed our dinner and rolled into a theatre ready to explode (perhaps some self-discipline might be welcome next time around). Even though I had full belly, I was surprisingly awake and alert, because it turned out it was completely in Dutch (I was expecting some subtitles somewhere, after all this is International Theater - luckily I was able to follow it fairly well - it might be that this kept me focused. I enjoyed it very much and thought it was excellent!

First - it was cleverly staged and directed. You don't just bring ancient play in a famous theatre stage and make it another moth-eaten piece: director Mateusz Staniak has everybody in modern clothes and there are just a few props that works perfectly well. To the right are few chairs, these are thrones where main characters sit. To the left is some water with paper ships that represent Greek ships invading Troy - at some point, Cassandra (who nobody listens to) will pour some red liquid into it and make the sea full of blood. In the middle is a pile of ash - these are ashes of everybody who died in the war and during the stage it gets scattered around, a very clever way of explaining the huge number of deaths without actually showing anything. Best of all, there is a large sign that explains when the story unfolds and it is not a linear, start-to-finish play but cleverly it goes from the end to the start, playing with time and showing "5 days before the fall", "2 days before the fall", etc - some scenes are extremely short, other much longer. It is all about how the characters perceived the war and what could have been done to prevent it. Each step back in time, as a flashback, is indicated by a flash of darkness accompanied by heavy electronic music.

As expected, female roles are excellent - for me, the best was Elsie de Brauw as Queen Hecuba - when Greeks suddenly retreat and leave a strange wooden horse behind, it is Hecuba almost giddy with relief, who insist to open the city gates and bring the horse inside, break the gates if you must. She ends wearing black coat and scarf, while carrying the urn with the ashes of her son Hector. There is also a strong-headed Cassandra (Laura De Geest) with her unruly teenaged sister Polyxena (Mona Lahousse) who is tired of everybody always talking about the war. A pregnant Andromache (Nadia Amin) is widow of Hector and after the fall will be just another slave. There are also two young actors playing Paris and his brother Polydoros, neither of them fascinating as female characters as mother hen Hecuba basically pushed them around. The interesting aspect of the story was someone that everybody was talking about but the characters was nowhere to be seen - Helen of Troy, the reason for the war itself - eventually Hecuba admits that she never even existed and that Helen was just a story. I left the theatre giddy with excitement and impressions.