About raptnrent: I got the name from my keys - R Apt and R Ent for the back door to my apartment and the back door to the house. I liked that they were also words: Rapt, meaning enthralled, riveted, captivated, and Rent, meaning torn asunder, violently wrenched. I thought it made for an interesting juxtaposition, open to all kinds of interpretations.
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Noir-ish
Last evening I watched Killer’s Kiss, a 1955 film by Stanley Kubrick. It’s his second film, made when he was only 26 (the bastard). Is this really noir? It has all the elements – darkness, death, dysfunction, criminals, voice-over narration, … Continue reading
Reflections on dust
sleroyer wrote early on about her struggles with reading and how the class discussions inspired her to want to get more out of it, “to understand these books like some of [her] classmates.” And while I have always been a strong … Continue reading
Electric slide in blue
Electra Glide in Blue wasn’t a particularly good movie, nor was it particularly noir. The pantsless detective above is Robert Blake. He didn’t actually make detective, just detective’s driver, but he did a happy dance anyway. I liked to opening … Continue reading
Ashes to ashes
I loved this part: “That fool. Even his punctuation was bad.” Way to emasculate your rival, Bandini! It made me think of Eats, Shots and Leaves, the 2004 bestseller about a hardboiled panda on a crusade for correct punctuation. The … Continue reading
Ask the Dust
I’m having a hard time placing this in the hardboiled/noir context. It seems a bit of an anomaly, especially coming after Red Harvest. I see some connections. The first person narration is something of a noir trope, but Fante hardly … Continue reading
Who shot Waldo?
In a comment on an earlier blog post, from the Bava, Stephen Downes linked to an online archive of hardboiled old time radio. The title of the first episode was Who Shot Waldo? I couldn’t resist. The background comes from The … Continue reading
To be criminals
It was interesting that Thursday evening’s class drew a parallel between the Continental Op and Rorshach. That hadn’t occurred to me. I thought of a similarity to Batman in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. Batman is quoted as having said, … Continue reading
Ceiling fans
“What do ceiling fans symbolize?” I asked my wife. “Heat, futility, going around in circles” she answered. She’s smarter than me – I’m lucky. Ceiling fans and venetian blinds are staples of film noir. The blinds I understand – their … Continue reading
Prose and poetry
I love the language that Hammett uses. For example, he writes “I set fire to a cigarette.” Normally, one would say, “I lit a cigarette.” Lit is a form of light, which has positive, even biblical connotations. Setting fire implies … Continue reading
GIF-fiti
The Animated Bansky GIFs showed up on my Twitter feed last week sometime, I think. Cogdog tweeted them again today, so I innocently inquired if animated graffiti was an assignment yet. To which he barked, “Do it yourself, you worthless maggot!” … Continue reading