OWLS AND WHISPERS

Last night, or, to be more precise, yesterday in the predawn, when the black turns to a submarine grey-blue half-light of urban gris-gris, a huge full moon loomed bright and dangerously white behind the jacaranda trees, and a weird sound started that was clearly a bird-call. Woo-woot, woo-woot, woo-woot, woo-woot. Loud, fast and rhythmic; perhaps a warning, quite as insistent as any raven on any bust of Pallas. And the local crows (cousins of the raven), who normally own the predawn – picking in the gutter for edibles and shiny objects, while wishing they had hands so they could start a civilization – looked nervous and uneasy. Meanwhile Newton the cat was at the balcony door, furry and staring with wide blue eyes, at full DEFCON-2, because he didn’t like the noise any more than the crows did.

I went to look, but saw nothing. An owl, my inner country-boy suggested? It sounded like an owl, but can owls survive in the bladerunner eco-disaster that is LA? Aren’t the rodents all toxic? Have the owls adapted? I later emailed a friend of copious knowledge, to see if an owl was possible. She responded that they had been reported, both heard and seen, although she herself never had.

I felt perversely pleased. An owl, a bad moon setting, antsy crows, and a watch-cat on alert, they all seemed like a timely message that, before I got too involved in all tomorrow’s structural conspiracies, I must never forget that the wild places of Poe and Lovecraft lurk very close to surface, and are maybe at par with any other given reality at the point of transition from day to night. And that may really be where my strength should be drawn.

FROM THE EMAIL
fidicen rants and leaves a handy link as to how Bush may hope that the capture of Bin Laden will win the election for him.

Fuckin' A Mick, how sad it has been for me to watch this massive crime family response the last two weeks to the events of January and early February and the lack of even astute observers in putting two and two together. I think fluoridated water really does block the questioning faculty. Something keeps the populace impeccably docile and its not just teevee and junk food and the old Marxist standardbearers. You didn't even mention the Haiti and Venezuela "products." An unstable world even beyond the towelhead realm along with an immoral left is the campaign recipe. Hence Iraq may be allowed to descend into civil war, or even encouraged to do so (and perhaps indeed that is what has been happening there lately) because the cost vs. benefits of that scenario are more favorable than what has been happening or certainly allowing them to have elections and actually, god forbid, pulling the troops out. Iraq on Iraq violence to replace Iraq on Yank violence while the news shrieks of homos copulating with each other via multiple inputs six ways to Sunday legally on American flag bedsheets while western hemisphere nations fragment violently in 'military' coup d'etats. "Stand firm Amerikka! Only the Smirking Chimp can save us now!!" Be right up the old Grand Oil Plan alley.

Achtung: http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/000037.php

There will be no self-pity in the ranks – William S. Burroughs

MORE JACK ELAM

The second part of Henry’s lost Jack Elam interviewette. See yesterday for a full explanation.

YOU WERE IN AN AMERICAN GUERILLA IN THE PHILIPPINES THAT FRITZ LANG DIRECTED
Are you sure that he directed American Guerrilla? Holy shit I had no idea…that was a long time ago. We shot that motherfucker in the Philippines. I had just finished Rawhide. And I was under contract with the studio-that was it! And I hated 'em. I hated that picture because I had nothing to do in it and they made me, because I was under contract, they made me stay with the picture over in the Philippines for months! And I don't think I worked three days! If you ever look at the picture, maybe three days. Was that Fritz?

AND MOONFLEET, TOO
Moonfleet I do remember because we shot that at MGM, everything on the stage, and I was doin another picture at MGM, a Tarzan picture, one with Vera Miles. Gordon Scott was Tarzan, I remember. And I was doin that picture and Fritz was doin Moonfleet at the same time at the studio and he insisted that I work in Moonfleet, so I wasn't in much, whatever it was, he said, it doesn't matter. You can go do the other picture, they won't miss you-there was a bunch of us, a whole bunch of pirates, you know, and he said I can shoot the shot around you, don't worry, and I did the two pictures at the same time. I'd stay on the Tarzan picture cause I was the main heavy, and I always had something to do, he's say any time you're not on there, I want you on the set over here at Moonfleet. That was strictly a gift courtesy of the friendship of Fritz Lang. I had a wonderful relationship with Fritz Lang. Absolutely. Without any question. Of course I didn't work with him that much-we're talking three pictures. There's some directors I did 15, 20 pictures with. But I was with him enough to know that I liked him. I worked from one end to the other, from the really heavy to the sidekick, the bearded old sidekick. I had a lot of fun in the Willie Nelson picture Where the Hell's That Gold? We got along like twins. We did two pictures together, the last one was basically just him and me, and we agreed on one thing, in the picture we sang together, in that one, we did a duet when we were in jail, and we agreed when that was over, he said, "I think Jack, you better let me do the singing," and I said, "Well, you fuckin well better let me do the acting."
Don't know if you've heard this anecdote, but when they were shooting Once Upon A Time In The West, they were having a hell of a time trying to get flies on Elam, so they gave up and broke for lunch. They discovered that all the flies were hanging around the watermelon at the lunch table, so they went and smeared watermelon juice on Elam's face, and got the shot.

CRYPTIQUE – Black is the color and nine is the number.