The Times Quotidian

Night Tide, Directed by Curtis Harrington. US 1961, 35mm, b/w, 84 min.
by Nancy Cantwell

As I spent more and more time with Night Tide I began to have dejavu and a longing to feast on the films of Frederico Fellini. Curtis Harrington is no poseur. On the contrary, he was an early protégé of Maya Deren and a close friend of Kenneth Anger and Gregory Markopoulos. Night Tide is his psychological feature debut and uses many persuasive devices to deliver a surreal atmosphere that had not yet been seen. Felllini’s 81/2 does not get released for another two years. The Santa Monica pier and canals of Venice are used extensively to provide dislocated and dreamlike locals. There is the pursuit of the illusive “She Siren” that lures our leading lady back to the sea. There are even hipster nightclub entrees that reflect posturing found in La Dolce Vita. But severe budget restrictions along with a heavy hand ultimately lead Harrington down the path of the horror genre. He goes on to work with Hopper again in Queen of Blood and then with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters in “What’s a Matter with Helen”.

Meanwhile across the seas, Frederico Fellini emerges out of Italian neorealism and turns to embrace the writings of Carl Jung. The resulting string of oneiric film created include  8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972),  Amarcord (1973), Casanova (1976), and City of Women (1980). Yum.

[View with PicLens]

Listening to Jill Bolte-Taylor – Part 2
By Guy Zimmerman

When Jill Bolte-Taylor was thrown into right-brain mode by the artery exploding in her left brain, she described her new state as a timeless, Nirvanic present. With her left brain shutting down, she felt intimately connected to the ever-shifting field of experience, like a wave moving through a body of water. In her former left-brain mode, Bolte-Taylor described feeling separate from all else and continuous in time – like a particle traversing a solitary path from past into future. Those as intrigued as I am by modern science might foresee the wild, speculative leap I’m about to make – the right-left division of our brains reflects the basic split at the foundation of the material world between wave and particle. In this view, our right brains formed to engage with the wave aspect of the material world; our left in response to its particle aspect.

In the quantum world what leads to the “collapse” from wave to particle is the act of measurement. To take a measurement is to extract information from a system, which requires standing apart from it yourself. This, in Bolte-Taylor’s view, already involves moving decisively away from right-brain participation into left-brain observation. Those of us with an awareness practice might recall the shift out of a meditative state back into everyday consciousness. As we move back into the world, we acquire narrative specificity (“coherence”) the way a wave-form, once measured, acquires mass and position. Falling sway to a self-image, we become fixed in a storyline in which we are moving away from a definite past toward a limited future. This narrative leads to suffering as we move out of balance with what is actually taking place within and around us. We are released from suffering when we rebalance again in the direction of presence and Being.

To push this line of speculation a bit further, what is it that “measures” us as we shift back from right-brain mode to left? Modern psychology from Freud forward suggests that when we embrace a self-image it is always for someone specific, an idealized Other we have conjured, an aspect of a parental figure typically (i.e. the super-ego), introjected into the psyche and then projected outward again onto the world. We compose ourselves, hoping for the best, as this illusory authority takes our measure. In my experience the Other arises first, standing apart, judging, measuring, then the self-image arises in response. Last comes the narrative that supports the self-image.

This actually happens numerous times a day. Under the gaze of projected Others, we are carried away from the present moment on a current of self-justifying stories, becoming action heroes, maidens in distress, sacrificial victims, avenging angels, saints and seducers in a constantly shifting dreamscape of archetypal dramas. Some of these narratives are encouraged, sponsored and energized by the culture at large, which is prone to its own forms of meta-dreaming. All are attempts to fend off a debilitating sense of lack, an anxiety about our fundamental groundlessness in the face of experience.

Obviously this is a complex subject and not something that can be fully explored here. But all these elements are present in tragic drama. As we in the audience take our seats we become the measuring Other standing apart from the spectacle. If the drama is well constructed we get “drawn in,” the boundary between us and the spectacle becoming porous and insubstantial. This process continues as we begin to “identify” with the protagonist who, under the spell of some self-image, is caught in his (or her) web of action and re-action. The protagonist moves ineluctably toward a final dissolution and all that’s left is…our awareness. Drawn along toward a moment of maximum tension we are released into an open state of presence.

Without a conveniently targeted stroke to help us along, crossing from left brain to right means moving beyond the death of a self-image. This is never easy. Just ask Oedipus, Lear, Hamlet or Beckett’s Hamm. Over-determined, form-based, these figures are inspired by a taste of freedom to struggle against the potent self-images that imprison them. In the Bacchae by Euripides, the god Dionysus shows up in the city-state of Thebes and the women begin to run wild, dancing in the hills. Pentheus, the young king, disapproves. Despite a secret fascination with their ecstatic state he attempts to reassert order and control…and is ripped apart by the marauding women in a cathartic spasm of violence. The left brain always believes the fiction of its own power, only to be defeated by an unknowable presence larger than man.

Like many of the Greek tragedies, The Bacchae is as shocking today as it must have been 2500 years ago, and as relevant to our lives. These works of art retain their transformative power because they embody crucial dynamics operating deep inside the human psyche, dynamics that, spilling over into the public arena, continue to shape our collective destiny as a species. The anxieties being addressed in these texts have to do with the tremendous power human beings began to tap via the left brain during the “axial age”. In the ensuing 2500 years – a heart beat in geologic time – we have utterly transformed the geosphere, to the peril of every life form. Our power to have done so arises mostly from the practice of empiricism, the scientific method, which is left brain, observational thinking in its most distilled form. This is why recent discoveries in the brain sciences, including those of Jill Bolte-Taylor, have ignited such excitement. The sovereignty of the left brain is now being challenged from within the temple of science.

We do not have an easy time inhabiting our innate freedom. To do so requires that we, like the tragic heroes, move through our own suffering, which is then revealed to be the biggest illusion of all. In the words of the teacher Sally Kempton, the emotional effect of tragedy becomes “a doorway into the depths of Being from which we come out transformed.” The idea, according to Kempton, is to hold the freedom of that moment as long as possible, stretching it perhaps into a permanent awareness. We might then begin to fulfill our destiny as a species, our awareness becoming a stage on which matter itself can turn and looks back at itself, a liberating witness capable of restorative action.

Quotidian Los Angeles, maybe a bit undone. Dingbats and Mid-Century endure in a poetic, defiant state of the remiss. Nothing apocalyptic, more poised as a silent reclamation of purpose. Photography by Paul Cabanis.

[View with PicLens]

“Unmistaken Child”, a film by Nati Baratz
by Rita Valencia

“…May I clearly perceive all experiences to be as insubstantial as the dream fabric of the night…”
From a Tibetan Buddhist prayer

“Unmistaken Child” is about a mythic search for a Tulku: the reincarnation of Geshe Lama Konchog, a venerated teacher who is viewed by his contemporaries as a meditator on par with Milarepa, and who, like Milarepa, had practiced and lived in retreat in several caves in the Tsum Valley, a very remote region of Nepal bordering Tibet. The man who is invested with carrying out the search is the Lama’s heart disciple of 21 years, Tenzin Zopa. Tenzin is a fresh-faced,  youthful man, with an easy smile and intelligent eyes. His search makes for a fascinating story, full of intimate and charmingly everyday scenes, intercut with stunning shots of  dramatic mountain peaks with clouds sweeping over them and lush, untraveled valleys.

The first act of the film is dated with a card which reads October 21, 2001. After we are introduced to Tenzin, we witness a funeral ritual complete with shots of the dead Lama, monks gathering around the pyre of  the cremated Lama. The monks can detect a footprint which points to the north–although it is impossible for the viewer to make out anything but the faintest of marks in the bed of ashes. The search for the Lama’s reincarnation begins here; Tenzin is designated as the person who will be conducting the search a few scenes later. The task is illustrated in detail: we watch as Tenzin draws a sketch of the mountainous skyline to the north–where the footprint pointed, to help in a divination that will result in a clearer idea of the whereabouts of a possible incarnation. He wraps the completed sketch in a yellow silk kerchief and sends it off to an astrologer, Lobsam Jamyang of the Heruka Center in Taiwan. We see the astrologer’s response in a videotape. Tenzin and Lama Lhundrup (head lama at the Kopan monastery) watch the tape on a funky little TV set, with wonder and glee, as the astrologer works out his divination and comes up with clues as to who might be the Tulku (incarnation) and where this child might live. I must pause here to comment that there is a very sophisticated international internet presence of Tibetan Buddhists, and Tenzin is a highly educated monk who would no doubt be capable of snapping a digital photo and emailing it to the astrologer–one wonders whether this primitive form of communication is simply theater. But more on this later.

Tenzin then sets off on his journey, by helicopter to a remote village in the stunningly beautiful and unspoiled Tsum Valley, and then onward on foot, with only a backpack…and of course a small film crew trailing behind.  Tenzin, and the filmmaker, scrupulously maintain that this is not a task that even a devout practitioner can take lightly.  It is not as if a person raised as a monk has some sort of inborn certitude about a supernatural event. “Only a Buddha can know another Buddha”, Tenzin frets, worrying that he is not up to the task of identifying the Tulku. “We cannot judge a being higher than our own state.” The great masters who are able to choose their reincarnations are conveyors of a history of spiritual accomplishment that is simply moved from one body to the next without the obstacle of self. But ordinary practitioners, even highly trained and sincere ones such as Tenzin Zopa, have not yet transcended self or the delusions that arise from it.

“Unmistaken Child” is very careful to highlight moments of humanness that his Western audience will be able to relate to: the little Tulku crying as his head is shaved, the sadness and reluctance of his parents in giving up the child, Tenzin’s moments of self-doubt, his obvious grief and love for his master, the innocence and sincerity of the people from the remote regions where the child is sought. Even in this very unspoiled valley where there is little influence of the secularized world, faith is not a given. “We see no children with any interest in the teachings”, says one of the farmers when Tenzin asks if any of the current crop of toddlers seems “unusual”.

As his story unfolds, the filmmaker is exquisitely quiet about his own opinion of the proceedings, and he builds this narrative with great craft and restraint, well aware that he will be presenting this film to a world where disparagement, intolerance, even ridicule, of the faithful is ubiquitous. Clearly Baratz has a loving and respectful attitude towards Tibetan Buddhism, and takes a personal interest in showing this tradition in a good light. He makes this claim in his press releases and other statements, while saying that he wasn’t sure he believed in reincarnation; and clearly he has studied and practiced himself. However, the respect and love that a talented filmmaker has for his subject has led to a certain factual over-manipulation.

In a very systematic way, from the middle of the film, the plot continuously shifts between earthly scene to magical scene, happy scene to sad scene, up until the end. It was important for me to keep the audience emotionally and thematically challenged, thus encourage them to contemplate rather than just experience. This style was also inspired from Buddha’s teachings. Buddha asked his disciples not to believe anything he says, but to check everything themselves.    —Nati Baratz‘ words, from his press materials

The film is graced with travel photography that is sumptuous, and a charming and likable main subject–certainly, not all Tibetan lamas are the type to dance around with flowers in their ears as Tenzin does. However, as the narrative plot points ticked by with such remarkable precision, I became curious about this film.

Documentary is a difficult form to give such precise shape. I admired Baratz’ verite style of storytelling, and understood how it is necessary to cut hours and hours of footage into a coherent story, but this was just a bit too well-structured. I became suspicious, especially on the third viewing, where I stopped on a scene at the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala in which Tenzin Zopa is appointed to the mission to conduct his search by Dagri Rinpoche. I listened to the dialogue without paying attention to subtitles, and closely watched the performances of the actors. It was, unmistakably, set up. This observation led me to further exploration of the incarnation story, and within a few clicks of my Google search I found this:
http://www.fpmt.org/teachers/konchog/tenzin.asp…and suddenly found that I was in the world of Rashomon.

It is a letter written by Ven. Tenzin Zopa to the senior Rinpoche, Kyabje Lama Thupten Zopa Rinpoche, telling his own story of the reincarnation discovery process. The account jumps around in time a bit, but  it is very comprehensive and gives a pretty clear picture of the circumstances surrounding the death of the Lama, and finding the Tulku. It includes many facts based on conversations that Tenzin had with other Lamas who were close to Lama Konchog, and his own conversations and experiences with his master that he had not felt free to disclose until after the Tulku was confirmed. Even excluding facts of which Baratz may have genuinely been unaware at the time he made this film, there are some major and significant discrepancies between Tenzin’s account and Baratz’s retelling.

Before even addressing Tenzin’s document, the questions begin with the time frame. By Baratz’ own account, he and his wife spent a month at the Kopan monastery. This occurred, according to him in the year 2002. He and his wife had traveled to this remote region to learn more about Buddhism and to research a different project, with no idea of the reincarnation project on which he was about to embark. During the course of his stay, he met Ven. Tenzin Zopa, who asked for him to pray for his recently deceased Lama Konchog to be reincarnated.

The Lama had passed away on the 21 of October 2001. Obviously, since the filmmaker was not present for this event, he had to patch a funeral together from a few ceremonies. Geshe Lama Konchog’s funeral would have had to have taken place before Baratz had even arrived in Nepal, (but certainly after the date that was identified in the title card) as such high lamas are left untouched for some time. Reconstructions are commonplace in documentaries but to place the main character in a scene and make it appear to be “real” is a questionable practice. Hopefully this is a question that will be cleared up before this film is completely accepted as truly a documentary and not a docudrama.

We are given to believe that the astrologer’s divination, the footprint found after cremation and the direction of smoke from the funeral pyre offered the only clues to the whereabouts of the Tulku. In fact, others close to the Lama provided convincing hints. Tenzin’s words:

In the beginning of 2003…I returned to Sera Je University and went to pay respects to my teacher, the ex-abbot of Sera Je University, Khensur Losang Tsering Rinpoche. We had a serious conversation on the late great mahasiddha Geshe Lama Konchog’s life and reincarnation. Khensur Rinpoche made an observation and said it is 100% sure that the Great Mahasiddha’s reincarnation already exists. Then I asked where Khensur Rinpoche thinks He is now? Rinpoche replied, “In my observation He seems to have taken rebirth in the place where Geshe La meditated in the past 25 years.” [Tenzin knows this to be Tsum Valley, where as a child he came to know Lama Konchog.]

— The Incarnation of Geshe Lama Konchog Tulku Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche.
Letter from Ven Tenzin Zopa to Kyabje Lama Thupten Zopa Rinpoche about the search for the reincarnation, And the miraculous signs around the events. July 31 2005

Furthermore, the truth of Lama Konchog’s  and Tenzin’s relationship with the Tulku’s family is misrepresented. Tulku Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche is in fact, the nephew of Tenzin Zopa. The marriage between Tenzin’s brother and sister-in-law had been match-made by Lama Konchog. Lama Konchog knew Apey (the Tulku’s father and Tenzin Zopa’s brother) very well. In the days before his death, Lama Konchog had requested a special offering of food from Apey, which Apey fullfilled. Baratz makes it appear that the family of the Tulku is completely unknown to Tenzin, and that he is searching with little to go on but the astrologer clues of a couple of letters (TS) from the name of the area where the Tulku is to be found and the first letter  of the father’s name (A). We even have a scene in which Tenzin, weeks into his trek through the valley, meets a couple of aunts he appears not to have seen in years, and asks the women if they are aware of any children aged 1 to 2. From these women he hears of a man named “Ahpe”(sic) with two sons in a nearby village. We are left with the impression that Tenzin has no idea who the family is that he is going to meet. Are we to believe that the scene in which he meets his nephew–seemingly for the first time–is authentic, or is it staged as well? There is no indication that Tenzin has any familial ties with the boy, and we are left with the impression that the family is simply incredibly open and trusting with a stranger in their home, even allowing him to sleep with the child soon after winning their trust. Are we supposed to think that these are exotic mountain people who are so innocent and deeply trusting of wandering monks that they let them take their kids to bed?

Granted, there would be little narrative tension to a story where the subject has a hunch that the reincarnation of his venerated teacher, with strong roots to the village of his birth and to his family, is actually his nephew. Why disclose these pestering little factoids and ruin a good story? According to his own account, Tenzin Zopa himself did not reveal all the evidence that he possessed until the Tulku had been confirmed, in order not to taint the confirmation process. It is impossible to know how much Baratz did know and chose to keep hidden. For once a couple of basic facts are altered or relevant details excluded to this extent, the filmmaker’s credibility suffers, and it calls into question the overall authenticity of this work.

Now the question becomes, when does a film cease to be a documentary? How much subjectivity and impressionism does documentary allow? This is a form which is used to build argument, to present evidence, and generally to portray subject matter in a factual way. Here the subject matter is both ordinary human stuff and the supernatural. Does the nature of the mythical search change the rules of  documentary reportage simply because it is unprovable by Western laws of evidence? Would cleaving to a more factual approach have left us with a film that taints its subject matter with too rationalist and legalistic a perspective?

In fairness to Baratz, he chose a challenging subject. It is difficult to approach the question of faith (even though Buddhism is not a theistic religion, faith is central to its practice). Intellectual and rational tools don’t work to explain faith. In fact, what does it mean, to “approach the question?” Is faith a question to be approached? When you question your faith, are you questioning the truth of what you came to believe, or your own resolve in believing it? Is faith the enemy of scientific process and rationalism? Is faith a means to freedom? Or it is simply a form of delusion which gives comfort to the ignorant and a means of control to religious orthodoxies?  Is faith a “right brain” stepchild only to be kicked out of the house by its burlier rational sibling in the “left brain”? Are we to take the experiences of oneness and transcendence, gifts of some soon to be half-explained processes of neural synapses, as figments of an imagination driven by the desire to escape the mundane, the miserable, the banal? Are we to accept that these are holy visions of a world inhabited by invisible ones of manifold names, shared by men and women who have pioneered the way into these realms and handed down genuine–albeit extraordinary—accounts of their experiences? Or are we to go the ultimate distance and ourselves apply for residence in these realms?

When a film is staring down issues such as these, perhaps one can grant some leeway to an obviously skillful director, sit back, and relax as the story unwinds.  But then do some investigation, as the Buddha instructs.  While this film is worth admiring for its limpid style and great beauty, it should receive no more bogus “documentary” awards. It seems that the subject matter demands and deserves more honesty, not pleasing

Just in case the news has not reached our audience yet, please pay note to what is happening at LACMA.

Click here to read Martin Scorsese: An Open letter to Michael Govan and LACMA

On July 28, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced it would be scrapping its 40-year-old weekend film program, a result of declining audiences and losses of about $1 million over the last decade.  LACMA director Michael Govan said the museum considers this “a pause for re-thinking” while the staff creates a more adventurous program. Since then, several supporters of the program, including a group that calls itself Save Film at LACMA, have spoken out about the decision. LACMA’s film program is scheduled to cease after its final offering, “The Classic Films of Alain Resnais,” Oct. 2 to 17.

And Please Sign the Petition!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-LACMA-film

Listening to Jill Bolte-Taylor – Part 1
By Guy Zimmerman

Suddenly everyone is talking about Jill Bolte-Taylor. Bolte-Taylor is the brain scientist who observed her own stroke in real time as it happened, and then recovered sufficiently in order to make her insights public. Taking a shower one day in 1996 a blood vessel exploded in the left half of her brain. Language swiftly departed, along with basic cognition. She was barely able to reach the phone to call for help. Years later, linguistic abilities restored, she wrote a book about the experience, My Stroke of Insight. It’s a fascinating read, but the most direct way to get a sense of Jill Bolte-Taylor is to check out her TED talk.

According to Bolte-Taylor the two lobes of our brain are radically different from each other in how they operate and what they tell us about the world and our place within it. The left brain is linear and methodical, all about the past and the future. Sensory data is processed in serial fashion, categorizing details out of the immense flood of experience into an actionable plan to achieve concrete aims. In the grip of the left brain we experience ourselves as solid beings, separate from all others and clearly defined in sequential time, which forms an orderly narrative. The right brain, by contrast, processes data in parallel, and is oriented toward this present moment. Under the sway of the right brain we view ourselves as intimately bound to everything that arises in the field of experience as it shifts and changes from moment to moment.

It’s easy to see how the Darwinian struggle for survival would have conditioned us to over-identify with our left brains. Paleolithic ancestors given to feeling too much one-ness in a world full of ravenous cave bears did not live long enough to procreate. But it’s equally clear that the gravest threats currently confronting us are all byproducts of this imbalance in the direction of the left brain. Nuclear war, environmental degradation, these dangers all arise from the demonic aspect of the left brain with its mania for control. We are victims of our own success hurtling toward a left brain precipice, and only a quick U-turn back toward balance can save us.

Bolte-Taylor’s account of exactly how it felt to be conveyed abruptly from left brain mode to right brain mode is full of ultra-modern science talk, but also resonates back through the insights of the great mystical traditions. Students of Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity, Kabala, Sufism or non-Dual Hinduism will recognize the two modes of consciousness Bolte-Taylor describes. She herself does not mince words about what she experienced the day her left brain shut down, calling it Nirvana. And because Bolte-Taylor is an empirical scientist her insights vault the barriers that typically inhibit such ideas in our culture of materialism, and this is hopeful indeed. Along with other recent collaborations between brain scientists and contemplative practitioners, Bolte-Taylor’s popularity offers more evidence that a synthesis of western and eastern insights may truly be forming. As a species we seem to be on the cusp of transforming insight, like a person with a magic word on the tip of his tongue.

Those familiar with this column will be on the lookout for a tie in to theater, and, sure enough, here it comes. The kind of theater I’m drawn too – tragic drama – has always been a way to collectively examine these two poles of experience, and how they relate to each other. Somehow, the Greek tragedians, writing at the beginning of “civilization” detected the imbalance described above. The tragic hero, drunk on the delusions of the self hurtles full speed toward a shattering crisis. Too much form; not enough “emptiness.” Too much existence, not enough Being. And then, after the armor of the self has been stripped away, all that’s left is…the present moment.

From this point of view, the aim of tragic drama is to bring the protagonist from deep in the domain of the narrative (left brain) across to fully inhabit the present moment (right brain) being shared by the audience. We call that arrival catharsis. Catharsis is the movement out from under left brain domination via psychological catastrophe experienced in attention. Catharsis is the completion of sequential time, of narrative, and beyond lies the open space of the formless, timeless present. Oedipus completes his story but lives on, afflicted not only by blindness but also by wisdom.

On the one hand there is the story being re-enacted on stage, the protagonist caught in a sequential web of action and reaction. On the other is the on-going present in which this re-enactment unfolds, a present that includes us as well, observing from our seats. The revelation is by design collective, rooted in non-separation. It’s not just Oedipus or Lear having the experience up there on stage, in other words – it’s our experience too, in the audience. At the moment of maximum emotional charge, spectator and spectacle are united finally, and there is no separation. All of us breathe together in a moment of presence, with awe, pity and terror holding us there, aloft.

Garth Trinidad Interview with Quantic and B+
by Nancy Cantwell

Garth Trinidad spins for west coast’s supremo radio station KCRW.  West Coast is just my local pride showing through…KCRW can now be found streaming anywhere in the world via their website and they even have their own app available as an iTunes download.

But back to Trinidad. From his bio:
“Through his work as a DJ and radio personality, event producer, music supervisor, and journalist, he’s helped jump start the careers of Jill Scott, Kelis, Dwele, Van Hunt, and Gnarls Barkley, while artfully exploring the concept of soul music in a multitude of genres, roots, and movements worldwide. Whatever the style, Garth speaks of viewing all music through the eyes of a child of classic hip hop, when the movement was nebulous. He hunts for pure sounds – dirty, sexy, raw, rhythmic, and dynamic, from classic rock, roots reggae, and samba, to jazz, electronica, hip hop, and house.”

That being said so well I will now just gush and tell you he is my absolute favorite DJ…ever. My husband teases me endless about ‘My Man Garth”.

In 1996 Garth Trinidad launched his show Chocolate City which aired Saturday nights from 6-9. With ten solid years of CC behind him in 2006 GT moved on to the Week Night spot at KCRW from 8-10 Mondays through Fridays. Tuesday are a real treat devoted to solely vinyl records. Specifically my collection would be light two of the great LA acts if not for GT; the master J Dilla and monster J. Davey. More about that later. But if you’ve never experienced Donuts from J. Dilla …is just crazy good.

Garth is not a shy guy. Here is his own site complete with blog and profession contact info Garth Trinidad Sound, but he can also be found just splashing around his facebook page with his fans.

When GT’s in the house all is right with the world. Below are two clips. The first is just a quick look ar Garth Trinidad and the other is a complete excerpt of his interview with Will Holland’s Quantic and B+.  Listen up.

Night Tide, Directed by Curtis Harrington. US 1961, 35mm, b/w, 84 min.
by Nancy Cantwell

Part of me just cannot deal with anything Mora, unconvincingly played by Linda Lawson. Maybe it’s because she is a mermaid, but mostly because she is just over the top for no good reason. She really belongs on some distant planet with James T. Kirk, romping around on fake bolders with phasers set to vaporize…not scuba diving with Dennis Hopper off the Santa Monica pier.

As a Siren I would say her powers of persuasion lack depth, but here when asked to to star in a beatnik beach bongo expressionistic dance to angst, I’d say she does a damn fine job!

[View with PicLens]