Word: gerrard
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Croco'nile, written and illustrated by Roy Gerrard (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $15), features a huge, toothy creature that serves as a pet to a couple of Egyptian kids: "In ancient Egypt, long ago,/ Beside the River Nile,/ A brother and a sister/ Found a baby crocodile." The kids stow away on a boat: "The naughty twosome stayed concealed/ Until the break of day./ By then their little village/ Was a hundred miles away...
...poetry bounces along nicely, the croc follows the stowaways but politely refrains from eating anyone, and the elaborate drawings of pyramids under construction and of wall paintings are busy and interesting. (Readers of Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard paleontologist, will recognize Gerrard's agreeable drawing style as "neotonic" -- all faces. Those of adults as well as children are drawn with the wide eyes and short, cute, chubby faces of toddlers.) Best of all, for quick-witted nine-year-olds, there are 10 secret messages written in real hieroglyphs, with a key to translation...
Dead Can Dance consists of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, who teamed up 12 years and six albums ago. Theirs is an unusual collaboration. Perry lives in Ireland, Gerrard in Australia; the two trade letters and tapes before going into the studio. "We make records because we still have a lot of demons to exorcise," explains Perry. On The Wind That Shakes the Barley, an 18th century Irish song written to commemorate an uprising against the British, Gerrard's echoing a cappella is like a cold wind blowing over unmarked graves. Yulunga (Spirit Dance) begins with ominous droning and then...
Perry and Gerrard decided to call their duo Dead Can Dance when they saw a ritual mask from New Guinea. Says Perry: "The mask, though once a living part of a tree, is dead. Nevertheless, it has, through the artistry of its maker, been imbued with a life force of its own." Into the Labyrinth does not always carry so powerful a thrust, but its exotic elements fuse and cast a spell of breathless gravity...
...equally compelling relationship exists between the characters themselves. Gerrard's obsessive desire to bring in Kimble is epitomized in one confrontational scene staged over a rushing waterfall. Upon Kimble's protest that he was innocent, Gerard replies, "I don't care." When I saw this movie, I instantly drew analogies to Jean Valfean and Javert from the musical "Les Miserables"--except without the singing...