Tag Archive: New Jersey


The poetry of Paterson

Filed under: Movies, Poetry — Leave a comment
January 2, 2017

PATERSON directed by Jim Jarmusch (USA, 2016)
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What does take to be a poet? A way with words and a keen eye helps. Then you need time, both to think and to write. The Welsh poet, W.H. Davies wrote “A poor life this is if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare”, the first lines of ‘Leisure’ published in 1911.

The title of Jim Jarmusch’s gentle and warm-hearted movie has three main points of reference: Paterson, the city in New Jersey, the title of an epic poem by William Carlos Williams and the name of a conscientious bus driver.

The location is the birthplace of Lou Costello of Abbot & Costello fame and it is also where a triple homicide took place that led to the wrongful arrest of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter in 1966. Continue reading →

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ON THE BEACH WITH THE VIVIAN GIRLS

Filed under: Gender, Italy, Music — Leave a comment
July 21, 2010

The Vivian Girls look a little bemused as well they might.

Their show on the beach at Cesenatico is preceded by a 20 minute fashion show as local babes swan down a makeshift catwalk trying desperately to strike the pose at the right moment. They are modelling skimpy summer gear and mostly look self-conscious and ill at ease.

Their tanned and toned bodies are a marked contrast to the pale, waif-like form of Cassie Ramone who sits watching from a table where she and the band had enjoyed complimentary  plates of spaghetti.

Cassie sings and plays lead guitar in the sassy surf-punk trio whose thrift shop chic and prominent tattoos serve to emphasise the stylistic and cultural gulf between New Jersey and Emilia Romagna.

Beside her on stage is the sturdier form of  Katy ‘Kickball’ Goodman, a friendly redhead who tries but fails to say “We love you” in Italian.A relatively sedate Fiona Campbell on drums completes the threesome.

The free concert has been put on by the Retro Pop Club. The organiser’s name is apt since the nostalgia value of the fast 3-chord tunes is high. The Girls race through the set list like a cross between The Ronettes and The Ramones.

Songs like Can’t Get Over You and I Believe In Nothing set them on an existential plain where faith in God and boyfriends is in short supply.

Admittedly, these songs follow a predictable formula and tend to blend into one very rapidly but they play with such a raw energy you can forgive them this.

The not-so-super Italian models could learn a lot from their style.

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