Working with X in Emacs

While tweaking the Emacs-based screensaver, it began to become clear that I just didn’t have access to a sufficient number of X events. In particular, I want to be able to wake the screen up by hitting the shift key, and I just could see any way to get at that event.

So I asked on the Emacs mailing list and Stefan Monnier replied:

I’m taking his word for it that it’s simple, but I didn’t want to get into low-level Emacs hacking at this time, so I wondered whether I could just speak xcb directly.

There’s an excellent Emacs library for talking to X, but the problem is that there’s not a lot of documentation or example code. I wanted to pop up a (transparent) window, get any user events, and then do stuff based on that (i.e., stop the screensaver).

So I googled for “make-instance ‘xcb:CreateWindow”:

Five hits! *gulp*

So I cheerily tried the first one, and the code there is very nice and understandable. But it took me some time to figure out how all the parts work together by looking at the code, the xcb.el library, and the official X documentation.

The good news is that there’s an almost 1:1 correspondance between the X C-level function and the xcb.el library. xcb.el doesn’t do any C stuff: It just talks to the X server over a network connection, which is a nice solution, because it meanst that you don’t have to compile any support into Emacs or use the C module layer.

So now I got it to work! You can exit the screensaver with any relevant X event.

But to help other Emacs hackers that may in the future want to do other xcb things, I’ve factored out the bits to create a window and then do stuff based on actions. I think it’s basically as minimal as it can be and still demonstrate the basics of how this stuff works. Some of the code is crabbed from cheerilee.

It’s not difficult stuff, because xcb.el is very nice. You just push objects to X and you get events back, and it feels like a very natural way to work in Emacs with these concepts.

Go forth and X.

4AD 1995

Listen to 4AD 1995 on Spotify.

I think perhaps it makes sense to regard 1995 as the end of the iconic, classic version of 4AD. 4AD’s ends their association with The Wolfgang Press here, and that’s a group of people that had been with them (in various permutations) since 1980: The very first “proper” 4AD release was by Rema-Rema, which is half the people in The Wolfgang Press or something.

And there are none of the 80s “big hitters” in 1995. Cocteau Twins had left a few years earlier, of course, and This Mortal Coil had wound down, and Dead Can Dance released nothing this year. This leaves Throwing Muses as the only other band from the 80s to release something on 4AD this year. And it’s a wonderful album: University is up there with the very best of what they’ve done, and what they’ve done is very good indeed.

But as for the rest… oy vey.

This is the worst year in 4AD’s history.

SO FAR!

OK, the album by Red House Painters isn’t bad, but it’s not as good as any of their previous work. And newcomers Tarnation are excellent: I didn’t know I liked that kind of music until I heard that album, so it was a gateway drug of sorts. Thanks! And the Liquorice album is really good.

But… Mojave 3? Scheer? The Amps? Kendra Smith? The Lisa Gerrard solo album?

Of the 18 things 4AD released this year, three or four are essential.

4AD was by now not anything resembling cohesive, and had turned into just another indie label: Some good, some bad, and it no longer made any sense to buy everything they released because you knew that you’d love it all.

There’s still some good music to come over the next few years, though.

1995

	CAD4016 The Wolfgang Press — Funky Little Demons Going South, 11 Years, Blood Satisfaction, Chains, Christianity, Derek The Confessor, So Long Dead, Executioner, She’s So Soft, New Glass, Fallen Not Broken, People Say
	BAD5001 The Wolfgang Press — Going South Going South (7″ version), Going South (Country style), Going South (@440 mix), Chains (Wobble mix), 11 Years (Sabres Main Mix 2)
	CAD5002 Throwing Muses — University Bright Yellow Gun, Start, Hazing, Shimmer, Calm Down, Calm Down, Crabtown, No Way In Hell, Surf Cowboy, That’s All You Wanted, Teller, University, Snakeface, Flood, Fever Few
	BAD5003 Belly — Now They’ll Sleep Now They’ll Sleep, Thief, Baby’s Arm, John Dark
	CAD5004 Belly — King Puberty, Seal My Fate, Red, Silverfish, Super-Connected, The Bees, King, Now They’ll Sleep, Untitled and Unsung, L’il Ennio, Judas My Heart
	DAD D5005 Red House Painters — Ocean Beach Cabezon, Summer Dress, San Geronimo, Shadows, Over My Head, Red Carpet, Brockwell Park, Moments, Drop, Brockwell Part pt. 2, Long Distance Runaround
	BAD CD K5003 Belly — Super-Connected Super-Connected, Spaceman, Diamond Rib Cage, Think About Your Troubles
	CAD5006 Kendra Smith — Five Ways of Disappearing Aurelia, Bohemian Zebulon, Temporarily Lucy, In Your Head, Space Unadorned, Maggots, Drunken Boat, interlude, Dirigible, Valley of the Morning Sun, Judge Not, Get There, interlude, Saturn, Bold Marauder
	AD5007 Belly — Seal My Fate Seal My Fate (US radio mix), Broken, Judas My Heart (live)*
	BAD CD5007 Belly — Seal My Fate Seal My Fate, Spaceman, Diamond Rib Cage, Think About Your Troubles
	BAD D CD5007 Belly — Seal My Fate Seal My Fate (live), White Belly (live), Untitled and Unsung (live), The Bees (live)
	12″BELLY 2 Belly — Seal My Fate Seal My Fate (US Radio Mix), Judas Mon Coeur (rerecorded)
	CAD5008 Liquorice — Listening Cap Trump Suit, Team Player, Keeping the Weekend Free, Drive Around, Cheap Cuts, Trump Suit Edit, Jill of All Trades, No Excuses, Breaking the Ice, Blew It
	CAD 5009 CD Lisa Gerrard — The Mirror Pool Violina (The Last Embrace, La Bas (Song of the Damned), Persian Love Song (The Silver Gun)\|=Persian Love Song, Sanvean (I am your Shadow), The Rite, Ajhon, Glorafin, Majhnavea’s Music Box, Largo, Werd, Laurelei, Celon, Venteles, Swans, Nilleshna, Gloradin
	CAD5010 Tarnation — Gentle Creatures Game of Broken Hearts, Halfaway to Madness, The Well, Big O Motel, Tell Me It’s Not So, Two Wrongs Won’t Make Things Right, Lonely Lights, Gentle Creatures, Listen To The Wind, The Hand, Do You Fancy Me, Yellow Birds, Burn Again, Stranger in the Mirror, It’s Not Easy
	CAD5011 Air Miami — Me. Me. Me. I Hate Milk, World Cup Fever, Seabird, Special Angel, Afternoon Train, Dolphin Expressway, Sweet As A Candy Bar, You Sweet Little Heartbreaker, Neely, Bubble Shield, The Event Horizon, Definitely Beachy, Reprise
	BAD5012 Scheer — Schism Sometimes, You Said, Baby Size (version), Take You Anywhere, Unlisted track
	CAD5013 Mojave 3 — Ask Me Tomorrow Love Songs On The Radio, Sarah, Tomorrow’S Taken, Candle Song 3, You’Re Beautiful, Where Is The Love, After All, Pictures, Mercy
	BAD CD5014 Air Miami — Fuck You, Tiger I Hate Milk (fyt), Warm Miami May, Afternoon Train (Remix #3), See-Through Plastic
	BAD5015 The Amps — Tipp City Tipp City, Just Like A Briar, Empty Glasses (Kim’s Basement 4-track Version)
	FTWW1 Various — Facing The Wrong Way Scheer / Take You Anywhere, Throwing Muses / Snakeface, Red House Painters / Summer Dress, Tarnation / The Well, Air Miami / You Sweet Little Heartbreaker, Mojave 3 / Love Songs on the Radio, Belly / Super-Connected, The Wolfgang Press / Christianity (Wicked Man Remix), Heidi Berry / Miracle (new version), Sanvean (I am your Shadow), Liquorice / Cheap Cuts, Kendra Smith / Valley of the Morning Sun, The Amps / Empty Glasses (Kim’s Basement 4 track version)
	CAD5016 The Amps — Pacer Pacer, Tipp City, I Am Decided, Mom’s Drunk, Bragging Party, Hoverin’ (rerecorded), First Revival, Full on Idle, Breaking the Split Screen Barrier, Empty Glasses, She’s a Girl, Dedicated
	TAD CD5017 Kristin Hersh — The Holy Single Jesus Christ, Amazing Grace (rerecorded), Sinkhole (rerecorded), Can The Circle Be Unbroken

This post is part of the chronological look at all 4AD releases, year by year.

*) Missing from Spotify.

July 1949: Too Late For Tears

Based on the title I thought this was gonna be a Douglas Sirk weepie. But instead it’s a very noir film noir!

This movie started off simply fabulous. Ly. Great random set-up and perfect noir performances. But things get more involved and the actors start chewing the scenery and instead of ever-increasing tension, we just get ever-increasing “er… uhm…” But the plot does have some wonderful twists.

The bluray has that over-restored look: In a quest to make the shadows #000000, they’ve dropped all the details down to black. It’s like they’ve just turned the contrast button up to 300%. It kinda suits the movie, but it’s too much.

Too Late For Tears. Byron Haskin. 1949.

Popular movies in July 1949 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
12390	7.4	She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
2091	7.3	Too Late for Tears
846	7.3	Come to the Stable
2632	7.2	In the Good Old Summertime
3234	7.1	The Big Steal
7515	7.1	The Fountainhead
3505	7.0	Mighty Joe Young
514	6.7	The Great Gatsby
973	6.6	Follow Me Quietly
655	6.6	Scene of the Crime

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

June 1949: Kind Hearts and Coronets

Huh. Is this the first Ealing comedy I’ve watched in this blog series? I believe it is… Oh! They didn’t start until 1947, so that explains it. This is only their fifth movie, apparently.

This isn’t quite what I expected: It’s slow and witty, but it’s about a serial killer murdering his way into a title (i.e., killing all his relatives before him).

And many of them are played by Alec Guinness, which is fun.

He’s a psychopath, of course, but we root for him somehow. Some of the people he bump off are rather insufferable, but some are nice…

The sleepy performances by basically all the actors doesn’t make for an exciting movie. I mean, it’s a deliberate choice, but I don’t think it really works.

I don’t get it:

Kind Hearts and Coronets was released on 13 June 1949 in the United Kingdom, and was well received by the critics. It has continued to receive favourable reviews over the years, and in 1999 it was number six in the British Film Institute’s rating of the Top 100 British films.

I was mostly bored by this movie, I’m afraid to say.

Kind Hearts and Coronets. Robert Hamer. 1949.

Popular movies in June 1949 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
28661	8.1	Kind Hearts and Coronets
1940	7.4	House of Strangers
1770	7.2	Colorado Territory
756	7.2	King of the Rocket Men
310	7.1	Lost Boundaries
1330	7.0	It Happens Every Spring
448	7.0	Sorrowful Jones
757	6.9	Lust for Gold
458	6.8	Any Number Can Play
739	6.7	The Great Sinner

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

May 1949: Africa Screams

Hey! Abbot and Costello. I haven’t seen too many of thse…

This is uncomplicated fun: A mix of physical humour, weak bon mots and general silliness. I’m smiling a lot while watching this, but I’m not actually laughing. But I can totally see an eleven-year-old me finding this to be the height of hilarity.

The bit with the cannibals has, perhaps, not aged as well.

Africa Screams. Charles Barton. 1949.

Popular movies in May 1949 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
2418	7.4	The Window
459	7.2	Home of the Brave
2119	7.1	The Barkleys of Broadway
380	6.8	Streets of Laredo
271	6.7	Roughshod
640	6.7	Alice in Wonderland
388	6.7	The Lady Gambles
240	6.7	Manhandled
2908	6.5	Africa Screams
229	6.5	Johnny Allegro

This blog post is part of the Decade series.