The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: Introducing "10 Spot": All That You Can't Leave Behind

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Introducing "10 Spot": All That You Can't Leave Behind

Duke Altum here once again, and this time I'm laying down the gauntlet for Mutt with a fun challenge... readers, you can play along at home!

Everyone loves lists. Even moreso, everyone loves the proverbial "desert island" lists - in which you are forced to make hard choices and choose, to steal from U2, "all that you can't leave behind" in a certain category. Well we've never really made those lists here, and I thought it might be fun to try it.

I'm calling this series "10 Spot." Each one will highlight a different category. The object is simple: pretend you're going off to a desert island forever. You are allowed to bring 10 _____, and that's all you're ever going to have. What would they be? What are the absolute essential works you couldn't live without?? We'll cover novels, short story collections, non-fiction books, films and albums.

I'm going to post my entry, and I fully expect Mutt to follow up with his. (That's right Mutt. I'm calling you out - publicly!) Not a lot of commentary on these lists, because we do plenty of that as it is and actually, we've probably commented in these pages on most of these selections in one way or another already.

So, since no further introduction is needed, we begin with our first 10 Spot: Albums.

Here's my list of 10 records I would be happy to listen to over and over in perpetuity (in no particular order):

1. Chase the Buffalo, Pierce Pettis

2. Tunnel of Love, Bruce Springsteen

3. Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen

4. Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris

5. Blister Soul, Vigilantes of Love

6. The Joshua Tree, U2

7. Oh Mercy, Bob Dylan

8. Clutching at Straws, Marillion

9. The Very Best of, The Pogues

10. Symphony #9, Beethoven

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Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.