#mcgoohan posters

[farmerbebop]

"Why don't you do right, like some other blorbo bloggers do? Get out of here and get me some Penguin covers too?"

[farmerbebop]

I actually had no idea what to do for March 19th until yesterday. I haven't been in a fighting mood for a very long time.

So I made just a little post, to say thank you to him.

For being Patrick McGoohan.

For confusing the hell out of everyone by being Patrick McGoohan.

For giving us a little bit of Patrick McGoohan. And a little bit of ourselves.

And a lot to learn from, to think about, to believe in.

I know that doesn't sound too extraordinary. But he was extraordinary to me. I just haven't found the right way to say it.

But maybe someone already said it. In the many years since March 19, 1928.

So I'll just say happy heavenly birthday to my unblorbo!

[farmerbebop]

The blues is 'popular art' according to Stuart Hall, because it's 'everybody's business'. Whereas a pop song that is 'typecast' for its audience, and therefore limited, isn't. It is 'mass art'.

When people got so mad about a show that ended with "All You Need Is Love", they really proved one thing. McGoohan sensed from the very first days of TV the danger of it becoming mass art.

He refused to cater to the basest instincts of his audience in Danger Man. But that wasn't enough. He wanted them to start thinking with The Prisoner.

But like Hildegard Knef sang, "thinking damages the illusion".

I don't know what illusion some people had in 1968 but it's certainly not mine.

You can show me pictures of the biggest Hollywood stars and I would see nothing but a brick wall. But the first time I saw McGoohan in The Prisoner, I thought I had just seen the Mona Lisa.

Mitski bets on losing dogs. I bet on Patrick McGoohan.

Because I have been thinking and my illusion is still intact.

Reference: x

[farmerbebop]

I am at the same place where I was when I first came to Europe. Everywhere I look now, it's someone worrying about how long their business is going to last or struggling to find a job. There are debts to be paid, costs to be cut, prices to be raised.

A rose costs three Euros.

Back then, when I was still young, it didn't matter how the economy was. I was just sad that all the conversations were about how people make a living here. It was winter. It was cold.

The other day I tried an old trick that I use when I can't sleep or have pains. Thinking about a children's song. About a cat that washes its face next to a well, then walks back into the kitchen and sits by the fire.

But it didn't work. All I could think about was that piece of land that the cat walks on means nothing but money now. You are rich if your parents have any land to give you. Even siblings will fight each other over it. And refugees, those without land, will send their children away to become immigrants again.

It's still winter, it's still cold. But summer was no longer the same when I returned.

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold". Didn't the Romantics also write Beat poems sometimes?

References:

The Met

Theatre World courtesy of @maestravida

P/s: Happy New Year and thank you all for working hard on here. I wish my hiatus could work that hard.

[farmerbebop]

I used to think it wouldn't be too hard to get people into watching Danger Man and then I could retire as a blorbo blogger.

Then I couldn't take it that I was peddling my blorbo around town and still no one was buying. I struggled to accept myself as a mere blorbo blogger, and McGoohan as a mere blorbo.

Then I realized that there has never been any moment when I could say I'd rather not do this.

Well, maybe when I get to heaven and McGoohan chases me out with a broom or something.

Reference: x

[farmerbebop]

Who up being obsessed with the idea of prisons in a liberal democratic society?

Reference: x

[farmerbebop]

MoMA is showing Marilyn Monroe but I'm not MoMA so Patrick McGoohan is all you'll get.

References: 1, 2

[farmerbebop]

I don't have anything to say today because I have been listening to Cho Yong-pil singing Hanobaengnyeon (Five Hundred Years) and Ganyangnok again. (Youtube link, Lyrics: 1, 2)

Reference: x