Star Wars – Recliner Notes

The Long Goodbye: Altman and Gould’s Marlowe, the Scuzzy ‘70s, and an Imagined Soundtrack

The Long Goodbye directed by Robert Altman

Director Robert Altman called his 1973 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled crime novel The Long Goodbye “a satire in melancholy.” The film stars goofily sincere Elliott Gould as detective Philp Marlowe alongside the beautiful Nina van Pallandt, baseball pitcher turned controversial memoirist Jim Bouton, film director Mark Rydell, the stormy Sterling Hayden, and Altman regularContinue reading “The Long Goodbye: Altman and Gould’s Marlowe, the Scuzzy ‘70s, and an Imagined Soundtrack”

Tell Me, Momma

Bob Dylan’s tour of the world in 1966 was a bizarre traveling circus. This description by Robbie Robertson, guitar player of The Hawks who was backing Dylan on this tour, described the experience to Cameron Crowe in 1985 for the Biograph liner notes: “That tour was a very strange process…We’d go from town to town,Continue reading “Tell Me, Momma”

Going, Going Gone

When I first got together with my then-girlfriend-now-wife, she introduced me to the band Son Volt. Their first album Traces has a front-loaded first half, which includes the absolute gems “Windfall,” “Live Free,” and “Tear Stained Eye.” The simple chorus of “Windfall” is a perfect match-up of words and melody that resonates with the listenerContinue reading “Going, Going Gone”