Something Like #7: Lusseyran
In Patricia Rozema’s fucking excellent 1987 film “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”, the loveably scrappy protagonist Polly (a rare female voyeur in film!) discovers that her cool gallerist boss privately makes exquisite paintings, which appear only as blindingly bright, empty light boxes on film. April 2020

In Patricia Rozema’s fucking excellent 1987 film “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”, the loveably scrappy protagonist Polly (a rare female voyeur in film!) discovers that her cool gallerist boss privately makes exquisite paintings, which appear only as blindingly bright, empty light boxes on film.

This episode of Something Like explores the dichotomy of darkness and light, using Fanny Howe’s short essay on the blind French Resistance hero Jacques Lusseyran—”A Useful Man”—as our guide. This essay comes to us via her new book, Night Philosophy, out now and available via Divided Publishing: https://divided.online/publications/fanny-howe-night-philosophy/

The music under my voice is Telemann’s Concerto for Traverso and Recorder in E Minor (Bremer Barockorchester)

 

Tracklist

1) Morning Prayer, Kirby Shelstad and Richard Allen
2) Good Morning Blues, Beverly Glenn-Copeland
3) Vision, Elodie Lauten
4) Lumière Écarlate, Catherine Ribiero + 2Bis
5) Aria, Franco Nanni
6) Emerald Pool, Pauline Anna Strom
7) Viking, Moondog
8) I Trawl the Megahertz, Paddy McAloon
9) Blaue Stunde, HSBC
10) Abends, Heinz Becker, Karl-Heinz Stegmann, Isabel Zeumer
11) Evening Breeze, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
12) Afraid, Nico
13) La Nuit, Jean-Philippe Rameau