Lost threads of surprising antiquity

(On 'Slade In Flame', shreds of Arabian Tales, and first mutterings about Peanuts by Schultz)

This week's Film Bin commentary is for the 1975 film 'Slade In Flame', which forms the accompaniment to this burst of furious writing. It's a funny movie, very disjointed, and purely a string of pearly anecdotes. Tom Conte is very good though.

It's hard to connect to the lives of popular musicians though, citizens of that bizarre and somewhat seedy industry where success is so fleeting and the fall from grace is so shockingly far. The intensely social and hedonistic lives of rock stars are so opposed and antithetical to mine that it's far more akin to watching laboratory specimens than real people, or being the one looked out upon. Really, it's yet another example of how easy it is to be judgemental over people in other walks of life, far away from the hollowed walls of academia.

Don't stare too long into the abyss, for that abyss can swallow you whole.

In board game news, 'Tales of the Arabian Nights' is proving a considerable success. It's surprising how out of print that game was for so long, an absent giant in storytelling games. I think I rather love it in its twisty little roads to victory. Inevitable victory was wrenched from my grasp after an unacceptably long stint in miserable prison and someone else's teleportation by a treasured hairless ape. Blast you, hairless ape, you cost me everything! It's a seriously good game, drenched in theme, and far more about the journey than the final result, although we did all get strangely invested. Excellent game.

<break to record 'Slade in Flame' commentary>

It's easy to react badly to things from outside your realm of experience, as they often touch the nerves of things we've never considered. 'Slade in Flame', for example, barely touches the raucous lifestyles of rock stars but does just enough to make a contrast to what we other people experience. Fortunately the characters in the movie retreat from the alternative lives briefly presented to them, but how many didn't in the real life movie industry, and how many were ruined? It's really rather alien, and utterly opposed to something else I've been delving into recently: 'Peanuts' by Schultz. The first twenty years of 'Peanuts' sits close by in Canongate 'Complete' hardback editions and represents one of the greatest achievements in comic strips. It's so innately human that you can't help but wonder how Schultz did it for fifty years at any degree of quality. There is no comparison.

"I'll get you yet, Red Baron!"

O.