GATHERING THE SCATTERED BROTHERS

We went to Waterville, Maine yesterday to the opening of an art show at Colby College that is called Lunchtime by Sharon Lockhart. It features workers at Bath Iron Works and their lunch pails. Our friend Mark Roman, a wood worker from Solon, was hired by the Colby art museum to build the platforms that much of the art work was displayed on. The artist also had a wonderful half-hour film about workers in Maine featuring many different work venues across the state.

In the evening we went to the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville and saw two films. The first was a 1930's film called The Silent Enemy about an Ojibwas tribe from upper Ontario...this silent film gave a remarkable view of their struggle to survive in a winter of famine.

The second film was called Do It Again about a Boston Globe writer (Geoff Edgers) who goes on a crusade to bring my favorite band, The Kinks, back together. The song above from their last album called Phobia (1993) was in a way prophetic as the two brothers (Ray and Dave Davies) finally broke the band up after years of celebrated conflict over control of the group and the music. It's really a wonderful film as Edgers travels far and wide attempting to interview other rock stars about their love for The Kinks and each time he seeks to have them sing a Kinks song with him. One great scene was when Sting humbly shares his admiration for the Davies brothers and plays You Really Got Me with Edgers.

A really touching moment in the film comes at the end when Edgars finally gets an interview with one of the brothers. He meets with Dave, who was recovering from a stroke, and in that exchange they sing one of Dave's songs called Strangers - one of the few that Ray allowed him to put on one of their records. Ray never agreed to be interviewed for the film - always an enigma.