A Star is Born

K'wali got hooked in with some filmmakers who did a 48-hour short film contest. Obviously he's the star of the show. Klezma said "I'll never get those six minutes of my life back," but I've seen much worse. "Going Campy" has its...moments? ...charms? ...?

Unfortunately we missed the big premiere at The Charles because we had dinner with my folks in PA.

#37

You never know where Coover's randy imaginings will take you. In Pricksongs and Descants there are circus freaks, shepherds on the lam* from techno modernity, pedestrians trapped under vehicles after horrid accidents, and characters familiar from Grimm's tales.

Often the stories are experimental, but never in a gimmicky way. Often they are thigh-slappingly funny and ribald to boot. Good stuff. "The Babysitter" and "Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl" are oft-anthologized for good reason.

*I admit it: pun intended.

lazy

"Freedom is messy."--Donald Rumsfeld

I have a plan for my two months off. I want to work on my French every day and get it in shape so I can take the Praxis exam and be certified to teach two subjects. I also want to refresh long-lost Latin skills, and continue building a vocabulary of Tagalog words and phrases. And perhaps pick up where I left off in Arabic.

I want to get in mad physical shape too. If I'm spending at least another year at The Booker I want young people to see me and think "Gulp! I am not fucking off in that guy's room." I want to get back to running 6 or 7 miles at a pop, where I was two years ago before hurting my foot.

I want to read two or three hundred pages every day. I want to meditate. I want to make day-trips to Philly, NYC, DC, and Pittsburgh to visit museums. I want to sharpen my guitar playing.

I want to clean out and re-organize all the kitchen cabinets, which have become ridiculously haphazard in just one year at our new place. There are cans of refried beans mixed in amongst the glasses and tea cups. The food processor has bits and pieces located in six or seven different places. The silverware drawer has been lost to an invasion of hair ties, rubber bands, expired batteries, and tiny packets of cheap ketchup, duck sauce, and insect repellent spritzers.

This is day 3 of time off. I have done exactly nothing but think about my goals. Of course I hurt my back last Saturday so I can't do much--and Cha's car blew up and she's using mine so I can't sally forth and buy things I need to tidy the house. I have watched a film in French without subtitles and done some reading. But it's time to get serious about leisure.

netflixed

Though the "action" of the film is often constrained by the one-eyed and motionless POV of its grievously hurt narrator, Julian Schnabel's painterly guidance keeps the viewer engaged by highlighting the beauty we often ignore in our surroundings: a sunlit curtain moving in the breeze, the play of light through tears, a surreptitious glimpse of breast or thigh.

Of course the film's uplifting focus is the power of memory and imagination to overcome disability, but The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is still terribly sad. I'd like to mention my favorite moments but don't want to spoil anything.

A special nod to Max von Sydow, who is as great here as he has always been.

cheeky

THE BPA - THE BPA 'TOE JAM' FEAT. DAVID BYRNE & DIZZEE RASCAL from Fabio Resende on Vimeo.This cheeky video from David Byrne reminded me of an old John Cleese routine from the Secret Policeman's Other Ball. I couldn't find the original but here is a re-enactment (the announcer says at the beginning "They are naked and they dance":

#36

Nicholson Baker writes the strangest little books. This one is about an odd fixation developed over John Updike and the influence of Updike and how Updike affects Baker's writing and ideas about what writers should be. It's often hilarious, because Baker has this obsession but really hasn't read much of Updike at all, including most of the novels, and yet certain mis-remembered images and passages from Updike's stories and essays have stuck with him. He also remembers his mother reading Updike and laughing her ass off.

Baker often creates characters with strange and startling obsessions. I think of the time-stopping pornographically-minded serial ejaculator in The Fermata, or the zany wannabe Bush assassin in Checkpoint. Great characters who go off on great Stanley Elkin rants. Here Baker himself goes off on great luxurious rants.

I liked U and I but would recommend it only for those like myself who are mired in the pseudo-intelligentsia, afraid or otherwise unwilling to read more complicamated fare at this time.

And re Updike, check out Gore Vidal's "Rabbit's Own Burrow" for an unapologetic and contemptuous dismissal of Updike's popular novels about Rabbit Angstrom.

the hood

the hood, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

message clear

message clear, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

nothing to do at school today, so I walked around the neighborhood taking pictures.