As part of our Christmas present to each other, Caitlin and I bought these two prints, which were painted by a fantastic local artist who goes by the nom de plum The Black Apple. They are now hanging in our living room:

If I Was Paul Bunyan

The Pirate Girl

Thank you, Luis Buñuel, for reaffirming the concept of the cinematic sublime.

Tonight we watched The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, which was a fantastic romp: a surrealistic critique of capitalism, a stick in the eye of haute culture, and a slap to the throat of petty elitism.

There's a bishop who wants to be a gardener, who is summoned to absolve the man who murdered his parents -- a crooked ambassador to the mythical land of Miranda, a place where it is reported that thirty people are murdered a day -- instructions on how to properly carve a lamb -- soldiers who smoke a lot of pot -- ghosts, plenty of ghosts -- terrorists -- torture -- and culinary event after culinary event. Not to mention the reoccurring image of the main characters walking aimlessly down the road, which I found particularly interesting to ponder (similar in abstractness to the final scene of Antonioni's Blow Up, where the main character watches the mimes play mime tennis and then fetches the imaginary tennis ball for them and throws it back onto the court).

Also, there is no music, no soundtrack. The best reason I can come up with for this exclusion is that I kinda get the impression, on a strange meta level, that the characters would've been appalled at the lowbrow inclusion of such a device.

At any rate, this film is top notch. Fun from start to finish.

The National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors asked Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for book recommendations. Go Lakers.

Have you heard of the Avant Garde Music Project?

Japanese artist Hiroya Kurata earned his BFA at Parsons School of Design:

Mid Century Crime
(2005)

Shake Hands
(2004)

Ace de Goban
(2007)

Artist Brandon Dunlap:

Grin and Bear It

Germinate#3

Tonight our recent streak of excellent film screenings came to a crashing halt, after viewing the exciting titles I've recently commented on here as well as Marc Forster's Finding Neverland, Barbet Schroeder's Koko, le gorille qui parle, and Antonioni's Blow Up -- we are certainly taking advantage of our winter break! -- we went and watched an atrocious, ghastly, disgusting film by Alfred "the most overrated filmmaker of all time" Hitchcock called Vertigo.

This movie -- yes movie: does it really deserve to be called a film? -- was utterly ridiculous misogynist rubbish. How anyone could call it a "classic" or a "masterpiece" is seriously beyond my comprehension.

Throughout most of the movie Caitlin and I were trying to figure out what was happening and at the same time locate even a hint of character motivation. Why are any of these characters doing anything? Where did Midge go? Why are the women portrayed as weak creatures who beg for men's love and affection? What's up with the cartoon dream sequence? And those are only the tip of the myriad of problems with this picture.

Most unsettling to me was Jimmy Stewart's character. I've seen some seriously creepy, insidious things in my day (i.e. Visitor Q or Irreversible or etc.) but I can't remember ever being more creeped out than I was watching this slop. In fact, I wanted so badly for Jimmy Stewart's character to fall out of the bell tower in the last scene, as a form of personal catharsis; but alas...


ps - Hyperbole is the new black.

Some things...

My OSU comrade Don Pollock had a great Op/Ed piece in yesterday's New York Times called "Off the Political Wagon."

The new issue of H_NGM_N is alive and full of great things including new work from Ben Mirov like this piece called "You Machine" which begins:

I go to bars and don’t know. You should be Oakland looking for jokes. I can tell when a relationship bends. It’s the last thing that happened. People begin to walk. There’s no jacket for weather.

I just read Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction, because I'd never read it before and it felt like the right thing to do with my first free week of winter break. It was neither disappointing nor mind blowing, just a nice little primer. This blogger took pretty good notes, if you're interested in seeing some excerpts. After finishing it, I went surfing for info about Eagleton and found this hilarious book review he wrote, which basically disembowels Richard Dawkins.


In closing, I must tell you about this spectacular film Caitlin and I watched last night called Russian Ark, directed by Alexander Sokurov. It was released in 2002, so perhaps it is old news, but I had not seen it until now. What a piece of brilliance! It is touted as the first feature film to ever be shot in one long take: a 96 minute Steadicam shot which moves through St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum and unfolds approximately 300 years of Russian history. The genius of this feat cannot be overstated; speaking as someone who used to make films, who understands the immense difficulty of the process, I can tell you that it is literally unbelievable that Sokurov pulled this off, but somehow he did!

Californian artist Justin Lovato:

Last night we got to see a newly restored 35mm print of Godard's Pierrot le fou on the big screen, thanks to the good folks at the Wexner Center for the Arts. This was especially exciting because the criterion edition won't be released until February 19th, 2008 -- in other words, it is not available for renting, unless you want to watch a pan-and-scan video copy, which would, of course, be sacrilege.

It's hard to describe the magnitude of how tickled I was throughout the screening. It was so, so exciting. Caitlin described it afterwards as a cinematic pop-up book, which to my mind is a perfect way to describe it: explosive, frenetic, and passionate beyond measure.

You could watch this film a hundred dozen times, each time specifically watching for a different element -- color, composition, structure, character, costume, politics, psychology, literature, consumerism, capitalism, anarchism, the return to the state of nature, animal rights, ethnocentrism, love, loyalty, death, art, torture, Americanism, Vietnam, Algeria, fireworks, etc. etc. etc. -- and you would still have cause to watch it another hundred dozen times. Here is a filmmaker truly at his prime, whose imagination is at least five times that of all other filmmakers combined.

Put the dvd release date on your calendar and treat yourself come February.

Artist Kathie Olivas has a humongous catalog of work:

Mutated Incarceration: Will-power

The Guardian

Fabrication

My brother sent me the link to the following Wolf Parade video directed by Matt Moroz, which I'd never seen before. I'm wondering if it was influenced by Kubrick's Barry Lyndon? Anyway, I like it. Plus I love the song, "I'll Believe In Anything" and the album from which it came, Apologies to the Queen Mary:

Canadian artist Tessar Lo:

Brad Burkhart earned his BS in Media Arts and Animation at The Art Institute of California-Orange County:

The Simple Life

Field of Dreams

Californian artist Chris Yormick:

One Less
(2005)

13ounce
(2002)

Fist Two Fist
(2004)

Pinched
(1999)

Carrie Shipers has a new poetry chapbook:
Ghost-Writing

(Photo by: Larry Newcomer)

Artist Julie Heffernan did the above artwork for the cover of the newest issue of Tin House. Here are a few of her other works, all of which are self portraits:

Study for Self Portrait as Agnostic
(2003)

Self Portrait as Fireworks
(2004)

Self Portrait as Ornament II
(2007)

The surrealism of Jeff Jordan:

Curiosity
(2003)

Horsefish Bronc Buster
(2003)

Jessica Williams's new collection is an homage called "I'm Too Sad To Tell You (after Bas Jan Ader)":

Lego Leah

Mari Willcox

Matt Parsons

Artist Chris Crites paints mugshots on paper bags:

Pittsburgh-based artist Andy Kehoe:

Humanity Bleeds
(2007)

War Hovers Over Us Again
(2006)

Myth Rises from the Dead Beast
(2007)

There is a new dance craze sweeping the nation and it comes from a song that includes lyrics so foul that if you or the FCC understood what was being said there would most certainly be outrage. The fact of the matter is: most people don't know what it means to "Superman a ho" and thus it is fine to say it on the radio and fine for kids to sing along. (If you are one of those folks who doesn't know what it means to "Superman a ho" you can click here for a definition, but be forewarned: it's not pretty.) If you want to know more about the fella responsible, Soulja Boy, and/or this whole phenomenon, click here and check out Weiss's commentary.

Although I find the music stupendously imbecilic, I find great beauty in the dance, which reminds me of the tribal moves I witnessed in West Africa. Below is a video of Soulja Boy demonstrating the proper technique. Because the kid is a pretty annoying speaker, let the video load completely and then drag the bar forward to the 2:29 mark to watch him and his backup dancers perform the entire dance.