MOVIES: last night my aunt, uncle, rhan and i went to FIRST SIGHT SCENE, an ongoing program of experimental films run by film forum los angeles. it was both my first trip to a film forum event and my first experience at the egyptian theatre, which is lovely and old and exciting. rhan noted that the egyptian was constructed specifically for the release of "ben hur." whoa. not a bad way to spend a rainy sunday night.
the program overall left me a little flat, though i am inspired to see that these events are going on and that there's such an active audience for them. there were a few standouts, however, my favorites being "stare gently" by erik deutschman, "the old noise" by gwenaelle gobe, and, finally, "five more minutes" by dena decola and karin e. wandner.
i need to say something about "five more minutes," because of all the films i saw last night, this one has lodged in my brain the most. in it, two women (dena and karin, the filmmmakers) are acting out some sort of mother/child fantasy, and it is unclear at first whether we are witnessing their psychosexual drama at play or something else enitirely... the result is jarring, intimate and inarguably memorable. and moving, it would seem-- just ask the leggy girl sitting to my left at the screening, whose sniffling and wiping-away-of-tears nearly derailed me from the last five minutes. just let the mascara run, girl.
anyhow, worth seeing out should you ever get the opportunity. the film has received resounding endorsements from both ray carney and miranda july. reason enough?
MUSIC: since seeing them open for the blow & mirah last friday (which was a great, emotional journey of a show) been listening to a lot of HIGH PLACES and their generously downloadable tracks on myspace.
WORDS: i read it first some weeks or months ago, but i am still so moved by THE WRONG KIND OF INSURANCE by john ashbery (and by john ashbery in general). with lines like
All of our lives is a rebus
Of little wooden animals painted shy,
Terrific colors, magnificent and horrible,
Close together.
or
We too are somehow impossible, formed of so many
different things,
Too many to make sense to anybody.
We straggle on as quotients, hard-to-combine
Ingredients, and what continues
Does so with our participation and consent.
"what continues does so with our participation and consent."
listen to john ashbery reading this poem and others in their entirety here.
thank you, john ashbery. much love.
those things that stick
