HIGH HOPES FOR OLD STANDBYS
THE LIMITS OF CONTROL, dir. JIM JARMUSCH, 2009
we'll be there on friday.
SATURDAY saw an old friend’s band perform at the smell (great job) and got a good dose of wholesome musical community feeling. people handing out instruments, starting conga lines (or “cinnamon rolls,” as i learned at this particular show), blurring the line between performer and audience. the impulse behind this movement is so positive, so blindingly earnest, that i can’t hate on it, though i’m not entirely comfortable with my involvement at a show being so enthusiastically solicited. this bleeds into so much else--bike-rides, visual art, crafts, dinner parties, websites. whole personalities built on the concept of community. i'm not articulate about this yet, but i've been thinking about it for days.
SUNDAY what did i do on sunday? suffered through menstrual cramps, drank coffee, read a great article in the new yorker about overtaxed americans dipping into adderall to stay on top. “the experience that neuroenhancement offers is not, for the most part, about opening the doors of perception, or about breaking the bonds of the self, of about experiencing a surge of genius. it’s about squeezing out an extra few hours to finish those sales figures when you’d really rather collapse into bed; getting a B instead of a B-minus on the final exam in a lecture class where you spent half your time texting; cramming for the G.R.E.s at night, because the information-industry job you got after college turned out to be deadening. neuroenhancers don’t offer freedom. rather, they facilitate a pinched, unromantic, grindingly efficient form of productivity.” bleak?
dinner with kira at malo. drinks with kira at cha cha. so much good talk that i can’t remember it all, except a lasting feeling of joy of having my best friend here in the city with us.
MONDAY second week of volunteering at the museum. tedious work, though tedious in a way that satisfies me. i work for a very nice lady. i am privy to a world of paper--so much paper!--and form letters, 'yes-you-were-accepted' letters, 'no-you-weren't-accepted' letters, spreadsheets keeping track of the letters, envelopes tossed in the trash. i park in the walt disney concert hall parking lot, which seems to be curiously overstaffed. grown men stand on empty floors, directing single cars to go down a level, and down a level more, until you are finally allowed to park on level six. that’s that guy’s whole job--waving me down to level six. tumbleweeds might pass through in there, it’s so quiet.
night ended with comedy and drinks.
SUNDAY what did i do on sunday? suffered through menstrual cramps, drank coffee, read a great article in the new yorker about overtaxed americans dipping into adderall to stay on top. “the experience that neuroenhancement offers is not, for the most part, about opening the doors of perception, or about breaking the bonds of the self, of about experiencing a surge of genius. it’s about squeezing out an extra few hours to finish those sales figures when you’d really rather collapse into bed; getting a B instead of a B-minus on the final exam in a lecture class where you spent half your time texting; cramming for the G.R.E.s at night, because the information-industry job you got after college turned out to be deadening. neuroenhancers don’t offer freedom. rather, they facilitate a pinched, unromantic, grindingly efficient form of productivity.” bleak?
dinner with kira at malo. drinks with kira at cha cha. so much good talk that i can’t remember it all, except a lasting feeling of joy of having my best friend here in the city with us.
MONDAY second week of volunteering at the museum. tedious work, though tedious in a way that satisfies me. i work for a very nice lady. i am privy to a world of paper--so much paper!--and form letters, 'yes-you-were-accepted' letters, 'no-you-weren't-accepted' letters, spreadsheets keeping track of the letters, envelopes tossed in the trash. i park in the walt disney concert hall parking lot, which seems to be curiously overstaffed. grown men stand on empty floors, directing single cars to go down a level, and down a level more, until you are finally allowed to park on level six. that’s that guy’s whole job--waving me down to level six. tumbleweeds might pass through in there, it’s so quiet.
night ended with comedy and drinks.
I CAN REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I WENT GROCERY SHOPPING ON MY OWN DIME--AN INCOMPARABLE RUSH OF FREEDOM. MY SENSE OF INDEPENDENCE IS TIED UP IN FOOD.
FROM NOW ON I'M GOING TO MAKE A LIST OF TALKING POINTS WHENEVER I HAVE TO "CATCH UP" WITH SOMEBODY ON THE PHONE. A LIST OF "THINGS I'VE BEEN UP TO."
THE CAT SLEEPS RIGHT OUTSIDE THE BEDROOM, AND NOT JUST INSIDE IT, EVEN THOUGH IT'S TWENTY DEGREES HOTTER WHERE HE IS. HE IS EITHER A MARTYR OR A FOOL.
JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES
dir. CHANTAL ACKERMAN, 1975
a film that follows three typical days in the life of a woman in brussels. we see her clean, cook, eat, run errands, and, once daily, entertain a gentlemen caller while the potatoes are boiling. she has a teenage son with whom she is not close. there is very little talk. chantal ackerman made this film when she was 25, which is totally remarkable. it also makes absolute sense, now that i've seen it.
lots of walk-outs in the theatre, which always heartens me for some reason. it is beautiful to look at and rigorous and radical and steadfast for 190 of its 200 minute running time. the other ten minutes are a total sell-out.
it is the first time i have ever seen private, distracted behavior captured so well onscreen, or at all. forgetting to turn the light off, say, and then remembering again. these scenes are uncommonly beautiful.
SEYMOUR CASSEL SHOWED UP AT THE SCREENING OF MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ LAST NIGHT. HE TALKED ABOUT KNOWING JOHN CASSAVETES. HE SHOOK EVERYONE'S HAND AND ASKED EVERYONE'S NAME. KIRA TOLD HIM HE MADE HER CRY. A TRULY LOVELY MAN.
how may i impress this on you? it was such a magical thing to have happened. this is los angeles.
did he stay to see love streams, i wonder?
and how do i talk about that movie?
it was stranger, more lyrical than i could have ever imagined. i am fascinated.
how may i impress this on you? it was such a magical thing to have happened. this is los angeles.
did he stay to see love streams, i wonder?
and how do i talk about that movie?
it was stranger, more lyrical than i could have ever imagined. i am fascinated.
look at what's playing at tonight's double feature! six bucks for two cassavetes films - one of which - love streams - we have never seen!
this is one of those great things about where we live.
here's to you, new beverly!
on the phone with my mom the other day, i realized that this year i turn 26 and she 62.
"we're inverses of one another!" i told her.
then i wondered if this had ever happened before, or would ever happen again; it has, and will. once when i was 15 and she was 51; again when i turn 37 and she 73. i've calculated pretty high after that--into my mother's nineties--and it seems pretty inconceivable that either of us will live long enough to see the next inversion come to pass. so i'm going to say that this is instance #2 of a finite (and likely meaningless) phenomenon in both of our lives, and that we should acknowledge it somehow.
also along this path, i realized that mine and my mother's ages always reduce down to the same number, from the time i turned 1 and through the rest of both our lives. this felt even more remarkable than the inversion discovery, until i realized that this applies to any child whose parent gave birth to him or her at an age that reduces down to 9. this might sound complicated, and moreover might be very tedious to read, but nonetheless it is not difficult math and is something you could do on your own the next time, say, you're trying to quit smoking and find yourself with thirty empty minutes of a lunch break that you suddenly don't know what to do with and you can't smoke and you're not hungry. yeah, you could think about this stuff then, since you can't have a goddamn cigarette.
"we're inverses of one another!" i told her.
then i wondered if this had ever happened before, or would ever happen again; it has, and will. once when i was 15 and she was 51; again when i turn 37 and she 73. i've calculated pretty high after that--into my mother's nineties--and it seems pretty inconceivable that either of us will live long enough to see the next inversion come to pass. so i'm going to say that this is instance #2 of a finite (and likely meaningless) phenomenon in both of our lives, and that we should acknowledge it somehow.
also along this path, i realized that mine and my mother's ages always reduce down to the same number, from the time i turned 1 and through the rest of both our lives. this felt even more remarkable than the inversion discovery, until i realized that this applies to any child whose parent gave birth to him or her at an age that reduces down to 9. this might sound complicated, and moreover might be very tedious to read, but nonetheless it is not difficult math and is something you could do on your own the next time, say, you're trying to quit smoking and find yourself with thirty empty minutes of a lunch break that you suddenly don't know what to do with and you can't smoke and you're not hungry. yeah, you could think about this stuff then, since you can't have a goddamn cigarette.
starting with the last one, there are two from the same era.
one - one man’s hand repeatedly attempts to catch a card size sheet of lead. success is marked on the man’s stained hand and silence.
two - two familiar faces fixed in movement and with rapt attention. they know their purpose, their place in history, even though they are formally locked in this exact moment. they are about faith, love and trust with no heroic hollywood gesture.
then there is one artist and one composer deep in thought, intertwined. a shut-in perhaps, daydreaming of dexterity and the relationship to numbers, the hands, the voice, the bathrobe, the chair. the house standing by some great lake in perpetual winter. fast getting faster because that is the interpretation and the specific conveyance.
she discusses a current allure for trends and those who can see them. meanwhile he is trying to understand diagonals, verticals and horizontals. forgetting about tomorrow.
then she reveals more layers of her aesthetic with two discoveries of gold from time nearest to his heart. they are instant favorites.
she narrows her eyes and intones, “are you guys on fire yet?”
imagine what we leave behind for dead. we get finished with it. “the money’s all gone,” they say, “you’ve got nothing left, so we are shutting it down and it’s done” all that is left is the shell. all that remains, the discarded wrappers of some genius or some dope. some who never get the chance, some who get out while they can and leave it behind for others to find.
she adds a note on the poetic viewed not as pathetic and thank god for that.
jonas mekas just films his memories. and that is where i will end this post. as it happens it is already gone. did we go there knowing that we would remember it or that we would shoot each other like a memory? do you always remember your time at the coast? or is it the edit or when you see it for the first time?
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