“Strange how potent cheap music can be,” Elyiot quipped in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” in which Noel co-starred with his alter ego Gertrude Lawrence.

(Noel and Gertie)

(Gertrude Lawrence “Someday I’ll Find You”)

Noel and Gertie really understood Cheese.

But what is about Cheese? It’s not good, but it’s not exactly bad either It’s not Camp — though it often border on it.

It’s appeal is emotional and weirdly asethetic — in a decidedly debased sense.

Like pornography “we know it when we see it” or in this case hear it.

The Queen of Cheese is undoubedly Bonnie Tyler.

(Bonnie Tyler)

Wiki says Bonnie Tyler (born Gaynor Hopkins; 8 June 1951) is a Welsh singer, known for her distinctive husky voice. Tyler came to prominence with the release of her 1977 album The World Starts Tonight and its singles “Lost in France” and “More Than a Lover”. Her 1978 single “It’s a Heartache” reached number four on the UK Singles Chart, and number three on the US Billboard Hot 100.

In the 1980s, Tyler ventured into rock music with songwriter and producer Jim Steinman. He wrote Tyler’s biggest hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart'”, the lead single from her 1983 UK chart topping album Faster Than the Speed of Night. Steinman also wrote Tyler’s other major 1980s hit “Holding Out for a Hero”. She had success in mainland Europe during the 1990s with Dieter Bohlen, who wrote and produced her hit “Bitterblue”. In 2003, Tyler re-recorded “Total Eclipse of the Heart” with singer Kareen Antonn. Their bilingual duet topped the French charts.

Her latest album Rocks and Honey was released in 2013 and features the single “Believe in Me” which she performed representing the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. Both “It’s a Heartache” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” are among the best-selling singles of all time, with sales in excess of six million each. Her work has earned her three Grammy Award nominations and three Brit Award nominations, among other accolades.

BONNIE UNLEASHED!

(“Total Eclipse of the Heart” Bonnie Tyler)

(“I Need a Hero” Bonnie Tyler)

You can see the effect she had on housewives everywhere in this great scene from Bandits starring the great Cate Blanchett.

(Cate Blanchett Bandits)

When it comes to Cheese of the “Velveeta” variety there’s —

(“Feelings” Morris Albert)

Made even more memorable by Carol Burnett’s “Eunice”.

(Eunice sings “Feelings”)

And what was Disco all about anyway but Cheese ?

(“I Will Survive” Glora Gaynor)

(Barry White “Love’s Theme”)

But don’t think for a moment that Gran Opera is exempt — as this seminal scene from Diva shows us.

(Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez Diva — La Wally)

Undoubtedly the Cheesiest of all music events is the Eurovision Song Contest.

Wiki sez “The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson), sometimes popularly called Eurovision but not to be confused with the Eurovision network that broadcasts it, is the longest-running annual international TV song competition, held, primarily, among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy since 1951.

Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries’ songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. The contest has been broadcast every year for sixty years, since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world,with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to several countries that do not compete, such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and China. An exception was made in 2015, when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event In November 2015, the EBU announced that Australia was invited back as a participant in the 2016 contest after their success in 2015.Following their success again in 2016, Australia will compete again in 2017. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet via the Eurovision website.

Winning the Eurovision Song Contest provides a short-term boost to the winning artists’ career, but rarely results in long-term success. Notable exceptions are ABBA (winner in 1974 for Sweden), Bucks Fizz (winner in 1981 for the United Kingdom) and Céline Dion (winner in 1988 for Switzerland), all of whom launched successful worldwide careers after their wins.

Ireland holds the record for the highest number of wins, having won the contest seven times—including four times in five years in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1996. Under the current voting system, the highest scoring winner (and only winner) is Jamala of Ukraine who won the 2016 contest in Stockholm, Sweden with 534 points. Under the previous system, in place from 1975 to 2015, the highest scoring winner is Alexander Rybak of Norway with 387 points in 2009″.

Here’s the 1958 winner “Nel blu di pinto di blue” (aka. “Volare”) written and sung by frequent Pier Paolo Pasolini collaborator Domenico Modugno.

(Domenico Modugno “Nel plus di pinto di Bluu”)

And here’s Mega-Adorable Alexander Rybak —

(Alexander Rybak “I’m in Love with a Fairytale”)

“Eurovision” is a major annual event for LGBT’s all over the world — particulary in countries not at all friendly to the LGBT.

Et maintenant, le piece de la resistance du fromage.

(The KLF, Tammy Wynette “Justified and Ancient”)

You’re Welcome!

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p.s. Hey. Today the maestro of many things who is technically known as Mr. David Ehrenstein regales us with this lovely and suggestive guest-post, which is your cue to pay extra-added attention and luxuriate locally today, and, of course, to say something back to David re: the post’s or in some other regard, please. Thank you, folks. And biggest thanks to Mr. E. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, there you are. One more warmest thank you. My favorite Bonnie Tyler song is ‘It’s a Heartache’, which I think (?) just predates her embrace of complete cheese? Very interesting add/correction about the Coke’s vehicle. It makes all the difference in the world, funnily. Great, you on ‘Maurice’! You are boon central today. I’m excited to read it asap. Everyone, Please ice today’s David Ehrenstein cake by going here and reading his thoughts on the return of Merchant-Ivory’s film version of EM Forster’s great novel ‘Maurice’. Rewards await! ** James Nulick, Hi, James. Thank you. It’s true, and I hasten to say that France’s sweets are the royalist of the royals. Things sound suitably lovely there in Vancouver. Such a nice city, I think. I think the script of ‘Permanent Green Light’ is 60 pages. In our case, no, that ‘minute per page’ thing is absolutely for sure not the case. Our movie has lots of space in it that can’t be noted in script form. Oh, you’re already finished with the big V? Safe trip southwards. And a guest post would of course be wonderful of you to doand very, very welcome! Thanks, James! ** Steevee, My vibes and powers of luck are firmly on your side in this battle with the mysteries of what causes conking out. Did your re-viewing of ‘Fire Walk With Me’ bring anything new to the plate? I gave up on those download sites for good a couple of years ago. I don’t know a one that’s reliable at this point. ** Tosh Berman, Hey. Cool, great that you picked up ‘Boulders’ and ‘Mustard’! Was ‘McCartney’ the first big one-man band record? Makes sense. I know that Todd Rundgren started making complete control records pretty early on, early 70s, but maybe not first. Totally on board with your assessment of Roy Wood. His genius is so unique, and he’s so, so underrated, and I don’t know why. It’s very strange. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Thanks for crossing and sharing your fingers with me. I hope we’ll hear something one way or another today. We’re going to rehearse that scene today using the music track we want in hopes. It is really, really interesting to watch the script come alive. When we wrote it, we had very clear ideas of how the dialogue should delivered, and we’re sticking to that, but the actors are unique, rich people, so they flesh out the dialogue in ways we hadn’t expected. It’s super exciting. It’s like when it was a script, skeletons were delivering the dialogue, and now actual people are, if that makes any sense. Anyway, it’s very thrilling. What a perfect sounding day: reading and writing, sigh. Cool. Mine wasn’t as wildly busy as usual, mostly figuring stuff out via emails and phone calls with the location scout, decor people, assistants, etc. No crises, just more gradual movement forward. It is kind of a big shock to realize that by this time next week we’ll be on our way to Cherbourg for good, and that we’ll start shooting in just over a week. Yikes. How was Friday? Was it a Friday to remember? ** Grant Maierhofer, Hi, Grant. Thanks. I did get the pdf, and I’ll do something on the blog early next week. It might be a simple thing because I am literally without moments to spare right now what with the non-stop film prep, but I’ll do something. Everyone, there’s an excerpt from Grant Maierhofer’s awesome and recently reprinted book ‘Maurice’ newly online and readable by you. You on ‘Finnegan’s Wake’? Wow, interested. Okay, take good care, man. ** H, Hi, h! Thanks a lot. He is/was a wonderful writer. Oh, god, the flu. I’m so sorry. I’m living in terror that I’ll get sick because I literally can’t do that right now. The film prep is kind of insane, but it’s going mostly very well. I like my apartment, although it’s like a veritable train station these days. Take care. Feel much better! ** Marcus Whale, Hi, Marcus! What a sweet and great pleasure to see you! Did I ever tell you ‘face to face’ how much I loved your recent-ish album? It’s fantastic. I listen to it a lot. Major kudos! Thank you about the Munoz post. Of course it’s nothing but an honor to have it here. You good? What’s happening? ** Right. Now spend your brain cells and other faculties with Mr. E’s post until further notice, ‘further’ being until tomorrow at least. See you then.

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A number of films have been shot and located in Cherbourg, mostly famously The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Eric Rohmer’s The Green Ray. Virtually always, Cherbourg is used as a location because it is famously and proudly a city on the ocean, and because it looks like a city on the ocean, and its seaside locations are inevitably and heavily emphasized in the films that are set there. We’re shooting Cherbourg as though the ocean isn’t there at all. We think that effect will be something.

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One of the initial inspirations for what became Permanent Green Light was the story of Jake Bilardi, an Australian teen who ran away from home in 2014, joined ISIS, and wound up on a suicide bombing mission where he failed and only managed to explode himself. What interested me was not the ideology or terrorism aspect of the story, but rather the fact that his wanting to do that and then doing that made no sense to anyone who’d known him. I started wondering if perhaps he had just wanted to explode and/or disappear, and if ISIS and terrorism could have been nothing more than a convenient and very glaring, depersonalizing context that he decided was a good way to do that. Ultimately, our film ended up having nothing to do with him and that story in particular, but he and it were a definite seed.

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Even though our film has really nothing to do at all with Tim Hunter’s 1986 film River’s Edge, I keep thinking about it for some reason, which I guess means something.

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Zac was sent this GIF a few years ago by a friend. It was one of the original things that wound up setting the idea for PGL in motion.

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When I was a kid, I saw a photo in Life Magazine that really disturbed me and apparently stayed with me. It was a b&w photos showing the roof of a building that had a strange, human shaped shadow on it. When I read the caption, it said that a man had somehow fallen out of an airplane, dropped a great distance, and landed on the roof of that building. The impact was so intense that it completely disintegrated him and his clothing, leaving just the black shadow. That story wound up occupying an important moment in PGL.

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When Zac and first wrote the script for PGL just under two years ago, we wanted a particular song to heard playing from a window in one scene. The film is full of feeling, but the feeling is mostly hidden, tenable but unexpressed. The song we wanted, and the scene in which it appears, were intended to be one of the rare moments in the film when feeling is expressed clearly. Very happily, the artist Destroyer (Dan Bejar) is letting us use the song.

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James Benning is a director that Zac and I both revere, and I think we both are always in some way thinking about his work when we think about making our films.

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Location: “Tim’s” house

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At one point, our film’s main character Roman is walking down a street and comes across one of those spontaneous, collectively made shrines dedicated to someone who had died in a car accident on that spot. My friend the artist/writer/model John Tuite plays the enshrined victim via some slightly younger photos of him that will be components of the shrine.

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The design and many of the ingredients of the aforementioned shrine as well as a number of drawings that our main character Roman makes in the film are being provided by the great artist and long time DC’s d.l. Kier Cooke Sandvik.

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In one scene, one of the main characters goes to a dance club and has an emotional breakdown there while dancing. We haven’t chosen the final ‘dance music’ for the scene as of this writing, but we know we want the tracks we use to be very complicated music with a beat that is technically possible albeit difficult to dance to. These are some tracks we considered as examples of what we’re looking for, and it’s possible that one or two of them might end up in the scene.

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37 piñatas, some custom designed, manufactured by and/or borrowed from this place.

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In one scene in PGL a MetalHead girl tries to teach a dance music aficionado to head bang. This is the track we’re hoping to play in the scene, but we don’t have permission to use it yet. We’re hoping we will.

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Camera test featuring Sylvain Decloitre who plays ‘Guillaume’, one of PGL’s four main characters, plus Michael Salerno (Director of Photography) and Zac.

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Location: Fête foraine

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Location: “Roman’s” apartment

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In one scene, the main character Roman visits an explosives dealer. For that scene and one later in the film, we need realistic looking explosives props. These are some real explosives, mostly handmade, that we’re considering as models for the props.

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At one point in PGL, two of the main characters play a board game called Niagara.

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Location: Parking garage

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p.s. Hey. ** Steevee, Nice to see you first, but at what cost! I’m always sorry when I try taking sleeping pills. No, I have not gotten the new Wire album due only to having no time right now, but it’s teetering on the edge of my supply. I think people who think recent Malick films are either crap or masterpieces are both completely missing the point. Apart from ‘Tree of Life’, which I think could be argued is a masterpiece, the goals of his recent films have zero to do with largesse and definitive-ness. I can’t speak to ‘Song to Song’ ‘cos I haven’t seen it yet, but I do really think the haters of recent Malick just absolutely don’t get it. To say ‘I’m not into them’ or ‘they’re not thing/interest’ is obviously legit, but the vehemence seems like an unearthed conservatism regarding form or it’s a take that seems overly wrapped up in the ‘I don’t care about privileged straight white guys’ concerns’ thing, which only reminds me of the practically lifelong occasional beef with my work, i.e. ‘who cares about fucked up teenagers’. I think the severe divide about recent Malick is telling about the here and now but not about the films themselves. The main way I keep up with new music these days is via The Wire. Its focus/tastes and mine are pretty close, i.e. forward thinking and very multi-genre. I read it religiously every month, check out the artists they cover that I don’t know, and listen to many of the records they review. I either found Dominowe there or maybe at the Tiny Mix Tapes site, which is also very helpful. Those are the main sources in addition to sharing tips with friends who are on the same basic musical trajectory as me. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I love Mary too. I used to hang out with her in LA, and I really miss doing that. Thank you so much for the guest post! I’ll set it up and get back to you asap! Awesome and very kind of you, David! ** Mark Gluth, Hello, Mr. Gluth! A pleasure of stratospheric superbness to see you! I am way fried, but good within or underneath that or whatever. Yes, you can imagine my mind blow and heart scrunch at finding out Dan Bejar likes my work. I would love to get Meghan Lamb’s book. I’ve been eyeing it wantingly. Uh, I’ll send you my new address via Facebook, I guess. Yeah, later today. Thanks, pal! ** New Juche, Hi, Joe! So I finally set up the ‘welcoming’ post, and it’ll appear here on this coming Saturday. Yeah, my blog assumes a lot about the abilities of its viewers’ signals. I do sometimes try to reel in my desire to make big, complex posts, but it never sticks. ‘God Punish the Perfidious Albion’ is the name of the book? Is that right? What a hell of a great name, if so. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Well, they basically have to get the contract thing done because there is no choice, and we start rehearsing with him on Wednesday, so I assume that’s something we don’t need to worry about. The band seems to be blowing me off for some reason. I’m going to wait until tonight, and if they still don’t respond, we’ll have to rush into an immediate Plan B, ugh. Sure, waiting until I’m post-film is a good idea if that works for you. I will be kind of a wreck until that’s over anyway. I can’t wait, though! My weekend involved lining up a performer for the last uncast role — a very tiny one — and laboriously organizing and planning out the schedule for the rehearsals this week and weekend. We’re going to need to polish the performances as much as we can during them since we’ll have very, very little time to work with the actors during the shoot, which is going to be so hectic that I really wonder how we’re going to manage it. That was my weekend. Relative to other days recently, it did have a bit of a relaxing vibe at times. How was yours? How was Monday? ** Jamie, Hi, Jamie! I’m burnt like toast above the neck, but hanging in there and basically good. My weekend was work-filled as usual but not bad, not bad. The Cherbourg trip was very useful. We go a lot of things decided. We had to abandon the quarry location. It was too restrictive and not amazing looking enough to warrant that. We switched that scene to a kind of amazing looking (at night) parking lot on the top of a giant mall, and I think that’ll work better ultimately. A bass guitar! Sweet! What kind? What have you done with it so far? How was Monday in your hood? Discombobulated love, Dennis. ** Misanthrope, For the next while, Restorer will be my middle name, for better or worse. Thank you. I see that The Undertaker retired. That’s so sad. Luckily islands disappear very slowly, so you would have time to call in the helicopter brigade, albeit maybe via smoke signals. Ha ha, the guys you recommend that I check out on tumblr, etc. always look kind of like that guy does. Which is not a problem, obviously, I’ll see what he has to post when I get a break. Thank you for that. Morning of mornings to you, George. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hm, I think I’ll not go out of my way to see ‘Aquarius’, so thank you for that. There was talk back in the day of Cheap Trick doing a movie or TV series or something, which was a golden idea. I wondered what happened. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. My weekend was maybe 1/8 restful, but it did not involve any umbrellas, and that was a boon. Ooh, I so, so like your characterization of the new thing you’re working at. I like doing battle with precise processes so much. Yikes, it’s already Monday here. Time flew. ** Okay. I made kind of a post that’s kind of a scrapbook type thing related to the film I’m working on, for whatever that’s worth. I might try to do another one before we start shooting. We’ll see. See you tomorrow.