Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

Also, John talks about being "taken advantage of" as a boy and the split screen makes it pretty clear what he is talking about. Not sure if that story is in What's Welsh For Zen or if I was just oblivious when I read it.

https://jarango.com/2019/09/25/john-cale-on-victimhood/

Just noticed a visual rhyme of Jphn's Tanglewood ax incident when there is a shot of some Syracuse frat boys smashing a piano.

My favorite Delmore thing is Lou reading his most famous short story near the very beginning.

Still

Regardless of what he’s right or wrong about (and whatever arguments we want to make about the death of fact checking), he’s made me wanna see the film again, and again.

I really enjoyed In Dreams Begin Responsibilities the Delmore Schwartz anthology I read. But it was a long time back. Have a copy sitting on a shelf here so must reread at some point.

greil absolutely makes the case for rewatching it closely, with pencil and paper handy, and then goin a-googlin and watching again -- of course this is so his kind of stuff (and also his kind of critical appraisal: seize on a detail and make it energise the whole thing). i was thinking he's pals with haynes and have access to content cheatsheets? but these errors feels like real-time personal responses so maybe not, or at least he's not scrutinising it (or haynes is also making mistakes) -- it doesn't matter that much except the thread title commands us…

The mistakes ARE embarrassing! If he ever puts this in a collection, hopefully they’re fixed.

Other Ilxors better versed in GM: does he just have super deep film knowledge/background? (Reading this I just assumed he does.)

Yes -- for the things in his wheelhouse.

Did that piece display super deep knowledge? He seems familiar enough with what every schoolboy a halfway culturally literate person of his generation might know but otherwise…

Not saying he probably doesn’t know quite a bit, but mostly what I am seeing there is quote from Godard about Nicholas Ray plus Scorpio Rising.

First GM mistake I ever found was when he didn’t know “Leave My Kitten Alone” was a Little Willie John song, which was soon topped by friend Mr. Fine Wine reading a sentence from Nelson George along the lines of “Who or what ‘Twine Time’ is, no one will ever know.” Of course back then they didn’t have the WikiGoogle yet.

We all need someone who can fact check, as the song goes.

Anyway, I definitely enjoyed reading what he wrote, just nitpicking as per thread title like mark said.

Really like the sequence when the Velvets are getting a tarot card reading, John notices the camera is on and laughs loudly at a joke Sterling makes, then ignores the camera along with the rest of the Velvets except for International Velvet who is hamming it up, whilst Amy Taubin comments on the unhealthy atmosphere at the Factory for the womenfolk.

Which led me to https://www.artforum.com/print/202108/amy-taubin-speaks-with-todd-haynes-about-the-velvet-underground-86709

That Godard quote is pretty well-known, he didn't just pick it up browsing an old issue of Cahiers du Cinéma.

Lack of proofing suggested by using Gesamtkunstwerk twice? I mean it may be the right term both times but it clangs awkwardly the second (well actually the first more than the second, but you know what I mean).

Thanks for sharing that Artforum piece.

Sure.

This thing is structured so there is almost an hour of buildup. The classic original foursome (Angus is only mentioned as a denizen of 56 Ludlow Street) and sound clicks into place at the 50 minute mark. Then forty more minutes with John and Andy and Jonas and other avant-garde footage. Doug arrives with a half hour to go. The previous style of footage is almost all gone except for Lou's Screen Test, otherwise it is mostly generic Sixties NYC and Hippie footage along with some castoff Monty Python animation. The third album, lost album and Loaded along with with Lou and Sterl's departures (did they get the order right?) are dispensed with within fifteen minutes. The rest is noise drone post-mortem with Danny Fields etc.

I guess it is kind of nice that it end with Andy and Lou and then the final version of "Heroin" at Le Bataclan '72 iirc.

And then ATP over the credits.

Maybe a future extended director's cut will mention Willie Alexander, Walter Powell and the ski lodge but I doubt it.

No Ian Paice no credibility.

Lol

Apparently, he can’t remember it.

Ian Paice?

On the Squeeze album with Doug Yule in the 70s

Right. He can’t remember playing on it?

ohhh sorry thought you were wondering why him

XPost correct

he remembers perfectly well it's just more yule erasure by the metal establishment

my thought on greil's grasp of avant-garde film is that i don't think he's a scholar (not the way amy taubin is a scholar for example) but he def has a feel for the territory: perhaps from thinking abt (of course) debord (soc-spec, howlings, in girum…) and he's written abt bruce conner back in the day (i know bcz i ran a nice piece by him in the wife when i had that power) so

the WIRE

borat voice: my WIRE

Autocorrect is a scourge

it is but this was absolutely fat fingers

It’s my wire and it’s my lyre

“Take my Wire, please!”

Autocorrect is a scourge

Before the scourge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDm_cptMRNI

I used to think Gerard was a joke with all that whip dancing, but I’m starting to warm up to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfUkipNBq70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGrMhyqcI08

I’ve decided I like Mary Woronov much better when she is talking about her own would-be boyfriends and dishing on the other Factory denizens rather than just shooting hippie Phfishes in barrels.

Swimming Underground: My Time at Andy Warhol’s Factory (the subtitle sometimes changes) is really well-written, for one thing.

Never knew about this guy: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/18/arts/allen-midgette-an-ersatz-andy-warhol-dies-at-82.html?referringSource=articleShare

The sore thumb in the Greil piece is the Godard quote, which he really doesn't need: I've done it too, it's a crutch, it's overselling, it's a little touch of (I guess unwitting)self-parody (has he written so much about Elvis that he's a little touch off Elvis), it's too late to stage an intervention, but it's also the dues we pay to read his music, man, so be it.