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The gate is wide open, the madmen escape.

José Saramago


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Friday, October 15th, 2010

🦋 The Gerry-Mander

The Wrap runs an article by Jeff Reichert on the Bad History That Gerrymandering Often Produces -- Reichert directed the new documentary Gerrymandering, in theaters now. He writes about "detouring into the odds and ends of history" -- "the meat of the film is everything that happens around" the main story, which concerns a redistricting fight in California. The film is strongly influenced by Mason & Dixon; a quote from the novel was hung on the studio wall during production, Captain Zhang's feng shui observation that

Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People,-- to create thus a Distinction betwixt 'em,-- 'tis the first stroke.-- All else will follow as if predestin'd, unto War and Devastation.

posted evening of October 15th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Mason & Dixon

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

🦋 Never Let Me Go

I'm so excited! Heard from Lauren that Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go has been made into a movie and is in the theaters -- I go over to check listings and it is playing in Montclair right now! Ellen and I are going to see it this weekend. (...And, making a mental note to myself to try and keep up with what movies are playing that would be interesting to me... It would have been a shame to miss this.)

posted evening of October 13th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Never Let Me Go

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

🦋 Television, say you love me

Two things to be watched and listened to in conjunction:

  • Björk talking about and to her television:

  • Robyn Hitchcock talking about and to his television.

posted evening of October 12th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

Tuesday, October 5th, 2010

🦋 Motor City

David Byrne was in Detroit for a week, working on Paolo Sorren­tino's forth­coming movie Divo; while he was there he com­posed a post about the feeling of being in Detroit -- his writing coupled with the breath­taking photos were enough to take me there briefly.

Speaking of breath­taking photos of Detroit, you should by all means take a look at the slideshows on detroiturbex.com, some amazing images including the string band I've excerpted here. (Thanks for the link, Todd!)

posted evening of October 5th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

🦋 For your consideration:

A nice mash-up of The Big Lebowski and The Matrix, from Three Finch Lynch.



(Thanks for the link, Henry!)

posted evening of September 12th, 2010: Respond

Tuesday, September 7th, 2010

🦋 Starving, hysterical, naked

Coming the last week of September, a movie of Howl -- the trailer looks very promising. And available right now, a graphic novel of the poem, by Eric Drooker -- Drooker worked on an animated sequence for the film, and had previously collaborated with Ginsberg on the book Illuminated Poems.

posted evening of September 7th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

🦋 The experience of deafness and blindness: 3 takes

Fini Straubinger:

Saramago (in Pontiero's translation):

The blind man had categorically stated that he could see, if you'll excuse that verb again, a thick, uniform white color, as if he had plunged his eyes into a milky sea. A white amaurosis, apart from being etymologically a contradiction, would also be a neurological possibility, since the brain, which would be unable to perceive the images, forms, and colors of reality, would likewise be incapable, in a manner of speaking, of being covered in white, a continuous white, like a white painting without tonalities, the colors, forms and images which reality itself might present to someone with normal vision, however difficult it may be to speak, with any accuracy, of normal vision.
Borges (and guess how excited I am to find the Seven Nights lectures online! At least one of them...):

posted evening of August 31st, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Land of Silence and Darkness

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

🦋 Fuzzy Felt

A new Moomin movie has come out! Well -- "new" needs a little qualification here; the movie is compiled clips from the Fuzzy Felt Moomins TV show of the '70's, with new voices and soundtrack (featuring Björk). It came out in Finland a few weeks ago, and the production company says it will be distributed internationally... I can only hope it will be in theaters here sometime this fall. (The same company released a Moominsummer Madness movie a couple of years ago, which I did not hear a word about. But they seem to have ramped up a good deal more publicity for this one.)

posted evening of August 24th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Moomins

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Javier Cercas and Joan Ollé, who directed the film adaptation of Soldiers of Salamis, appeared on the Catalan TV program La Mandràgora; some of the actors from the movie were also there. Stills and quotes (in a mix of Spanish and Catalan) here; Ollé says, "The letters of the novel do not move, do not dance. This is not a fault: the movement is internal. One word provokes ten thousand images of everything you have lived." An earlier appearance of Cercas' (from 2002) is written up here, and video of that interview is in three parts starting here.

posted evening of August 16th, 2010: Respond
➳ More posts about Soldados de Salamina

Sunday, August first, 2010

🦋 Adapting Borges

Lönnrot: Hello, Zunz --

Zunz: Inspector Lönnrot?

L: Yeah -- I hope you don't mind me calling at this hour, but ah... I was just wondering if you managed to turn up anything on the ninth attribute of God yet.

Z: The ninth attribute of God?... Well yes, it's the immediate knowledge of everything that will exist, exists or has existed. ...Is everything all right, inspector?

I was interested to find out the other day that Death and the Compass had been adapted into a movie a few years ago, and that the movie is watchable online. It is adapted by Alex Cox, who directed Repo Man, and the (amazing) soundtrack is by Pray for Rain, a band which has apparently been around since the eighties.

Cox directs this piece masterfully -- I am in awe of his adaptation, which took off in a direction I was not expecting at all, but which had me believing by the end of the movie that Scharlach was speaking words Borges had written -- Cox' screenplay has drunk of the same well Borges was going to when he wrote this. The radical deviations from Borges' storyline only serve to make it a better movie, truer to the original. You can watch the movie online at dailymotion.com; I recommend it highly.

An interview with Cox about how he picked this story.

posted evening of August first, 2010: 7 responses
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