a fantastic audio file of pauline kael speaking at uc berkeley in 1968, posted generously at illusion travels by streetcar. download immediately.
SHE LOST IT AT THE MOVIES
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
AN INQUIRY INTO MATTERS OF EXAGGERATED IMPORTANCE
TOPICS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST:
i. shyness
ii. heartbreak
shyness comes from personal experience and as a nod to borges. heartbreak comes from life and the movies. both shyness and heartbreak, like high school football, have more energy invested in them than they're worth. the idea is half-baked, but the title has persisted for years. and i didn't even pay attention to football in high school.
A GREAT LIFE
he was well thought of around here.
juliet still remembers the first time
that she really saw him- "paul newman, oh man!"
for a while and quite by accident (i think), my dad and i would
watch hud, everytime i went home for a visit. he was well thought
of around there, too.
THE LATITUDE OF A MAN'S WORLD
I PROMISED I WOULD TELL YOU WHY I NEVER EAT FISH
king of marvin gardens (bob rafelson, 1972)
number 2 in our series of favorite screen introductions.
performance art!!
DO WE KNOW EACH OTHER?
charade (stanley donen, 1963)
the first in a series of our favorite screen introductions.
we start with one of the best.
ART HISTORY
from the ghent altarpiece, 1432
these singing angels represent one piece of the massive, twenty-four paneled masterwork by brothers hubert and jan van eyck. they are singing in praise of christ the king, that old so and so. why the pained expressions, then? i find it very puzzling. speaking of puzzling:
the rubik's cube people have upped the ante. it is now a slicker, more maddening piece of miniature architecture. good luck and god speed.
(cube found via coudal partners)
THE END OF THE ECLIPSE
the ending of michelangelo antonioni's l'eclisse "the eclipse" (1962)
thanks to ozukardozi
godard and miéville's "2x50" (1995)
thanks to grimsgrud
i have assembled a playlist of all the parts (1-7) of grimsgrud's upload so you can watch the whole thing if you want- go here
MISH-MASH II
i've signed us up for basic cable, a first for me in over two years. i'm curious about what this will mean for my free time. the cable guy arrives tomorrow between 9 and noon. the fact that i called today and secured an installation for tomorrow makes me feel unusually powerful. it's all at my fingertips. the feeling is kind of gross.
lately i think of almost nothing but movies. i'm doing well this month. i got a raise at work. the cat caught the same bird twice yesterday, though it will go down in the books as two birds. we help his ego where we can. also, i've had a number of dreams with celebrities in them lately--wallace shawn in front of our apartment building and jennifer aniston in a deleted scene from friends with money. my best friend is moving to los angeles soon. i look at all the buildings everywhere i go; i keep thinking about where she's going to live.
it has been an exceptionally nice month. the days are getting shorter, too.
THERE'S NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWER HERE
cinefile has started carrying the frederick wiseman dvds!
a line-up of beautiful, no-nonsense spines. hot damn.
THE CONVERSATION AS AN IMAGE
this is a processed composite of every second of the conversation by coppola.
it was created by brendon dawes. each row represents one second of that movie.
DAISIES (SEDMIKRASKY)
visually hideous, tiresomely gimmicky satire on materialism, with two bored girls, both named marie, who spend the entire movie causing havoc in restaurants and nightclubs, ripping off unsuspecting men and generally eating and behaving like pigs. as an allegory it lacks any resonance, as a movie it stinks. (adrian turner, from our time out film guide)
how could someone be so wrong?
spend the entire movie causing havoc in restaurants and nightclubs, ripping off unsuspecting men and generally eating and behaving like pigs?
that's practically an endorsement. this movie has nerve to burn.
get carried away with it.
(dir. vera chytilova, 1966)
ON ENTHUSIASM
i worked with this guy once who was obsessed with early 90's aerosmith music. this was in 2003. at staff parties he would insist we put on some aerosmith, a suggestion he could always back up because the albums were always in his car. he had an idiot savant's memory for phone numbers, birthdates, and the years when films were released. you don't want to hang out with guys like this, but you do want to work with them. managers should be required to hire at least one.
OH GOOD GOD
bill and sandra goode were so worried that john mccain might pick a running mate who favored abortion rights that bill called mccain's presidential campaign headquarters to warn against it. they prayed. and when the republican senator picked alaska gov. sarah palin, whom they had barely heard of but knew to be staunchly antiabortion, sandra goode said, "we knew our prayers had been answered."
the goodes would have voted for mccain no matter what, but palin lifted them to a new level of motivation. they called the volunteer mccain representative in their town of surry, va., offering any help they could.
"she's a real catalyst," said bill goode, 63, an electrician. "sarah is the epitome of pro-life. you can tell how effective she is by the reaction she got. if she was someone who wasn't viewed as a threat to the abortionists, there wouldn't have been a response equivalent to this."
palin's debut has invigorated the republican base here in the hampton roads region of virginia, a battleground area in a top swing state, and one where g o p turnout depends heavily on evangelical christians such as the goodes, along with the many military families clustered around the norfolk and portsmouth bases.
the reaction has been remarkably instantaneous, with socially conservative voters who had barely heard of palin electrified by the few facts they quickly learned: her longtime membership in the assemblies of god, the largest pentecostal denomination; her large family; her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest; her decision to carry to term her fifth child after learning he has down syndrome; and her belief in teaching creationism alongside evolution in public schools.
from this morning's washington post. read more-
étant donnés by marcel duchamp
TRUE STORIES
i worked for a while as a lab tech at lenscrafters at the local mall.
i remember thinking that it was the end of western civilization.
but that’s not what i want to tell you about.
while i was working there, i met al grant. al was a lab tech as well. he was a retired gentleman from pittsburgh pa. this job was his post retirement job.
al had an enormous spirit and a tremendous heart. he possessed a remarkable laugh.
we had a boom-box in the lab and several of us brought in tapes of our favorite music.
there were days when the music nearly drove you insane and there were days when it was fantastic and you learned things about artists you'd never heard before.
al was a jazz aficionado. he had seen everyone in pittsburgh. everyone. in the lab, we listened to mingus, ornette coleman, and thelonius monk, all with a story from al grant. he fast became one of my favorite people. one night during clean up we listened to duke ellington. one song was particularly slinky and sexy and i remarked on it. al said “that’s because duke only wrote about women.”
his openness to all forms of music was awe inspiring. he could groove on anything. the pixies, clash (al liked big audio dynamite better, i secretly did as well), hank williams, a tribe called quest, de la soul, linton quesi johnson, john zorn, pere ubu, it didn’t matter -he was genre-less.
al had lived a full epic life by the time he and i became friends. in the seventies, he had a pretty serious addiction and his loving family locked him in the basement with marvin gaye’s concept album “what’s goin on.” al said that it saved his life.
i was a huge talking heads fan. i put "speaking in tongues" on one night when al and i were closing. by the time naive melody was playing al had begun to move around a bit and then he started dancing around and the next thing i know, i was dancing too. cleaning the generator the edgers and the tools.
al is gone now. a mutual friend called me just after i moved to california and gave me the news.
now i can’t hear that song without thinking of him.
this is a music video of the talking heads from their album "speaking in tongues" back in 1983.
background information:
origin:
new york city, new york, united states
genre(s):
new wave
post-punk
art rock
years active:
1974--1991
label(s):
sire
emi
associated acts:
brian eno
david byrne
the modern lovers
tom tom club
jerry Harrison
former members:
david byrne
jerry harrison
tina weymouth
chris frantz
studio albums:
1. talking heads: 77 (september 16, 1977) us pop-97
2. more songs about buildings and food (july 14, 1978) us pop-29
3. fear of music (august 3, 1979) us pop-21
4. remain in light (october 8, 1980) us pop-19
5. speaking in tongues (may 31, 1983)us pop-15; us r&b- 55
6. little creatures (july 15, 1985)us pop-20
7. true stories (october 7, 1986)us pop-28
8. naked (april 3, 1988)us pop-19
compilation albums:
1. sand in the vaseline: popular favorites (october 13, 1992) us pop #158
2. once in a lifetime - the best of talking heads (1992)
3. the best of talking heads (august 17, 2004)
4. bonus rarities and outtakes (2006)
5. talking heads: the collection (2007)
boxed sets:
1. once in a lifetime (november 18, 2003)
2. brick (october 4, 2005)
tribute album:
1. don't worry about the cover band: tribute album (2000)
live albums:
1. the name of this band Is talking heads (march 24, 1982)us pop- 31
2. stop making sense (october 15, 1984)us pop- 41
videos:
1. storytelling giant (1988)
feature-length films:
1. stop making sense -- talking heads' critically acclaimed concert film, shot and edited by notable director jonathan demme in 1984
2. true stories -- starring david byrne, with cameos by other talking heads members and a soundtrack by talking heads
3. blank generation -- documentary about early punk scene in new-york
from tabljet's video channel
ALL YE NEED TO KNOW
sodium thiopental, commonly known as sodium pentothal: an intravenous, short-acting barbiturate, sometimes used in interrogations to weaken a subject's resolve and make him or her more compliant to hard questioning. truth serum.
the sodium thiopental we see in movies, not to mention the frequency with which we have seen it, is a myth. that much seems to be true (thanks, wikipedia). but it matters little. truth serum haunts my fantasy life, and no hard facts can undo its damage now. i imagine being injected with the stuff and then shoved into a room of mixed and distinguished company. truth serum at the workplace! truth serum in the home! it's a terrible thought.
it's not about lying so much as self-censorship: sodium thiopental encourages a sort of unedited chatter, a looseness that can produce lies as often as truth. a seasoned liar may talk more under its influence, but not necessarily truthfully. its effectiveness in interrogations is dubious at best. "truth serum" is a bit of a misnomer, then. but the concept is dramatic. how routinely do i censor my thoughts, and what do i think i might say if i couldn't?
PERCEIVED EFFECTS OF SODIUM THIOPENTAL, DAILY LIFE:
-needless meandering arguments, no resolution
-development of blood enemies
-undermined credibility
-OMG WTF
-spiral into madness
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