WFC Colombia: El abrazo de la serpiente

How delightfully perverse to do a black-and-white film set in the Amazon. And there should be an expression for “road movie” that takes place on a river.

But all throughout this film (which is mostly pretty amazing), I was thinking “they’re going to do the ‘insane in the jungle’ cliche complete with atrocities”, and they did. So I deduct two Michelin stars for that alone.

And it started off so well…

Embrace of the Serpent. Ciro Guerra. 2015. Colombia.

Coco Loco

  • 1 part rum
  • 1 part vodka
  • 1 part tequila
  • 2 parts coconut cream
  • 1 part coconot water
  • 1 part lime juice
  • sugar to taste

Run everything through a blender with ice cubes. Garnish with a lime slice.

I’m so bad at planning that I wasn’t able to find fresh drinking coconuts for this, so I substituted coconut water from a can.

And perhaps that should be cream of coconut instead of coconut cream? The texture just didn’t seem… right…

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.

WFC Chad: Daratt

This is a fascinating and original film.

The confusing thing is that we don’t see them selling any bread whatsoever. Is it all charity?

Dry Season. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. 2006. Chad.

Karkanji

  • half a liter of water
  • a small handful of dried hibiscus flowers
  • some slices of ginger root
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 3 cloves
  • sugar to taste
  • rum

Put all the ingredients (except the sugar and rum) into a pot and let simmer for ten minutes. Add the sugar and simmer for five more minutes. Let the pot cool off and strain. Pour into ice-filled tumbler with the rum.

This drink is traditionally made without any alcohol.

This post is part of the World of Films and Cocktails series. Explore the map.

FF2004: The Mystery of Woolverine Woo-Bait

The Mystery of Woolverine Woo-Bait by Joe Coleman.

This is the third and final internet-acquired comic for this blog series (sorry!): Some books are just impossible to find. I can perhaps understand the scarcity of copies in this case. Joe Coleman is a pretty famous artist, and this is his only published comic book.

That is, it was originally published in 1982, and this is a reprinting (with a bonus back-up features).

It’s less psychedelic than I thought it would be. It has a kinda coherent storyline, but perhaps the story isn’t the most important thing going on here. For some reason or other, I was reminded a bit of Gravity’s Rainbow (especially the first 70 or so pages).

I KNOW.

The scan for this comic could have been better: The original artwork must have been so detailed, but much of it’s lost here. I think I’ll pick up a copy if I find one, but there’s no time in this blog series. It’s all over soon!

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

FF1992: The Cereal Killings

The Cereal Killings #1-8 by James Sturm.

This series passed my completely by when it was released in the 90s. I’ve read most of his later stuff, like Market Day and The Golem’s Mighty Swing, which are both very earnest, so I was curious what a book with such a punny name would read like…

Well, the artworks is rather basic in the first issues, but it becomes richer as the series progressed. (The eight issues were published over four years.)

But Sturm does some interesting formal things, like here in this two page spread that starts off in a bar, and then in the last panel of the first page, one of the characters goes thinks of an earlier time, and then we’re back to the bar in the last panel of the next page. It’s an interesting thing to do.

The first couple of issues have back-up features, like this very Jack Kirbyish nonsense above.

You can tell that Sturm is destined to go off into education: He does a Nancy (well, Sluggo) pastiche. I think it’s a formal requirement for all faculty.

Er, no, elephants don’t drink through their noses.

Anyway, I haven’t really mentioned the concept behind the series: It’s about mascots for Kelcogg’s cereals. You know. That tiger and that rabbit and all the rest. The mascots are dying, or being killed off. And something odd happened at the Kelcogg’s warehouse in the 50s, but what? Are these things connected?

So it’s a mystery.

Only the mascots are anthropomorphic. All the other characters are human, but nobody seems to comment on this much. And, all in all, them being funny animals doesn’t really play that much part if the mystery part of the plot.

More back-up goofing off. “R. Sienkoriewak”? Is that a mash-up of Bill Sienkiewicz and R. Sikoryak?

I guess somebody finally told Sturm than nostril drinking wasn’t a thing…

Anyway, I’ve been looking for the final issue for months, but it seems to have vanished from the face of the Earth. Each of the first six issues say “chapter “, but the seventh said “chapter seven & chapter eight”, so perhaps when the eight issue was published, everybody assumed they’d already read it? Googling, I can find several sites that list the eight issue as “issue nine”, so it’s all so so confusing.

Finally I gave up and relied on the kindness of strangers on the Internet and got a digital copy. And Sturm manages to tie up a few of the various plot strands quite nicely, although I don’t think… like… Well, NO SPOILERS.

But nicely done, anyway.

I don’t think this has been issued in a collected edition, and at this point I’d guess that that’s not very likely to happen.

This post is part of the Fantagraphics Floppies series.

The Best Albums of 2016

Once again, Emacs has tallied up what albums I’ve listened to most this year, and must therefore be the best music released in 2016.

Grumbling FurPreternaturals
Dani SicilianoDani Siciliano
AnohniHopelessness
BabyfatherMeditation
PJ HarveyThe Hope Six Demolition Project
Copeland & GastSisters of Control
DJ Nigga FoxNoite e dia
LolinaLive In Paris
LushBlind
Antonymes(For Now We See) Through A Glass Dimly
Matana RobertsCoin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee
RĂ³isin MurphyTake Her Up to Monto
The BodyNo One Deserves Happiness
TelebossaGaragen Aurora
Twinkle3 with Sidsel EndresenDebris in Lower Earth Orbit

And what’s the best older music I bought this year? Emacs knows that, too!

Black CabGames of the XXI Olympiad
Holly HerndonPlatform
Grimes & d’EonDarkbloom
JlinDark Energy
GrimesGeidi Primes
HookwormsHookworms
Karin KrogDon’t Just Sing
Don Cherry, Nana Vasconcelos, Collin WalcottCodona (1)
The Young MothersA Mother’s Work Is Never Done
A New Line (Related)Fucking Succour

It was a rather good year for music. Otherwise… Worst year ever.