Sad news, folks. A true original and a mind-bogglingly talented writer, David Foster Wallace, was found dead in an apparant suicide at his home in California on Friday. It's an incredible loss, not only to his thousands of devoted fans, but to his wife Karen Green, and his students at Pomona College, where he has been teaching creative writing for the last few years. I've been an admirer of Foster Wallace since I happily plowed through what we can now say is his definitive work, the gargantuan Infinite Jest, last summer. I've also enjoyed numerous essays by him, on topics as diverse as John McCain's 2000 presidential bid, luxury holiday cruises, playing tennis and David Lynch. Whatever he turned his attention on, he illuminated with wit, depth and a characteristic curiousity about the world. His writing was lucid, funny, sometimes melancholy, often challenging but never obtuse. I'd often approach a new piece by him with a dictionary at my side, but finish reading with a head full of new concepts and questions about the world, and a heart full of emotions, rather than just a list of new vocabulary.
But while his own fiction often showcased his mastery of postmodern pyrotechnics — a cold but glittering arsenal of irony, self-consciousness and clever narrative high jinks — he was also capable of creating profoundly human flesh-and-blood characters with three-dimensional emotional lives. In a kind of aesthetic manifesto, he once wrote that irony and ridicule had become “agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture” and mourned the loss of engagement with deep moral issues that animated the work of the great 19th-century novelists.
- from The NY Times
I'm really shocked and upset by this news, as are many writers, bloggers and others literary types. If you try to enter the McSweeney's site, you're greated by a blank page. "Timothy McSweeney is devastated and lost". I know how they feel.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Dr. Smith’s Lost in the Space at the End of Summer Movie Quiz.
I'm partaking in one of the seasonal Q&As hosted by Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. In comparison with the veteran commenters over at the site, I'm woefully uneducated, but this was a helluva lotta fun to do.
1) Your favorite musical moment in a movie
This includes musicals, right? If not, I’ll have to rack my brains a little harder, but if we are including musicals, then it has to be the Gideon & Jagger scene from All That Jazz. There are so many iconic moments in that film - the entire opening sequence for example - but the moment that hits me right in the solar plexus is this one. Seen out of context, it’s wonderful;
Peter Allen’s singing, the natural camaraderie between Ann Reinking and Erzsebet Foldi and of course, the dancing. But seen as part of the whole film, it becomes almost too much for me to bear. When I first saw All That Jazz, I rewatched this one scene maybe 10 times. Since then, I have no idea how many times I’ve watched that one scene, but it must be nearing the hundreds. The thought of Joe Gideon’s girlfriend and daughter working on that routine for hours, to get it just right for the notorious perfectionist. The knowledge that even if it wasn’t perfect, he’d be bowled over regardless. The fact that Kate is so loving and caring with Michelle, and thatall the basic ingredients for a happy family are here, ut yet Joe continues to sleep around and throw his life away. The part where Reinking plays Michelle’s stomach like a piano, glances at Joe and says “Pretty pictures.” Joe’s funky apartment, with all the theatre paraphernalia and those “whatchamacallit lights”. The part where the duo rush at Joe to kiss him. Finally, and most importantly, Joe’s face throughout. I don’t know how Roy Scheider does it. Amusement, regret, incredulity, sadness, pride - they’re all there. The killer: during the line, “And every gal only had one fellow”. His face at that point slays me. It’s a little flash of recognition, of regret and embarrassment and still you can see he’ll never change. Beautiful.
If we’re not talking musicals, Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek slow dancing in the dark to Nat King Cole in Badlands. I am so excited about the upcoming rerelease.
2) Ray Milland or Dana Andrews
I have this unwritten rule, which states: if you are presented with a multiple choice question and one of the answers is connected to Laura (1944), this is your best bet.
3) Favorite Sidney Lumet movie
You can’t go wrong with a most of his films, but I’ll pull out something a little different: Garbo Talks, while not a great film by any means, is entertaining purely because of Anne Bancroft. She plays this firecracker New Yoiker whose dying wish is to meet Greta Garbo. Every minute when she’s not on screen (a quite sizeable amount of time, tbh) is quite dull, but near the end Lumet grants her this great, lengthy monologue about the similarities between herself and Garbo. Fantastic acting.
4) Biggest surprise of the just-past summer movie season
The pregnancy quotient is way down on last year.
5) Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth
Remember the rule! Gene Tierney.
6) What’s the last movie you saw on DVD? In theaters?
On DVD: Raising Arizona. “Mighty fine cereal flakes, Mrs. McDonough!”
In theaters: The Strangers.
7) Irwin Allen’s finest hour?
Pass.
8) What were the films where you would rather see the movie promised by the poster than the one that was actually made?
It hasn’t been released yet, but I’d be 24% more likely to go watch the remake of The Women if it featured Vanessa Williams doing an impression of Annette Bening. Which, you know, I'm not completely sure it doesn't.
9) Chow Yun-Fat or Tony Leung
Tony Leung.
10) Most pretentious movie ever
Garden State.
11) Favorite Russ Meyer movie
Pass.
12) Name the movie that you feel best reflects yourself, a movie you would recommend to an acquaintance that most accurately says, “This is me.”
Hannah And Her Sisters or Mean Girls.
13) Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo
To be honest, I really need to see more work by both women to make a fair judgement. But this is a blog, where fair appraisals aren’t required and I’m saying Dietrich purely because of her role in Witness For The Prosecution. The twist in the tail of that character! I’m still as gob smacked as I was the first time I saw it, years and years ago.
14) Best movie snack? Most vile movie snack?
I usually sneak in sweets; peanut M&Ms, Minstrels, Smarties. Most vile? Buttered popcorn.
15) Current movie star who would be most comfortable in the classic Hollywood studio system
Rachel McAdams.
16) Fitzcarraldo—yes or no?
Pass!
17) Your assignment is to book the ultimate triple bill to inaugurate your own revival theater. What three movies will we see on opening night?
Everyone needs a good laughing work-out, so I’ll kick start my theater off with three of my favourite comedies: His Girl Friday, Tootsie and The Lady Eve.
18) What’s the name of your theater? (The all-time greatest answer to this question was once provided by Larry Aydlette, whose repertory cinema, the Demarest, is, I hope, still packing them in…)
The Local. Okay, that's a terrible name. The Fleapit. No, that's worse. The Local Fleapit? PERFECT. Hilarity will ensue.
19) Favorite Leo McCarey movie
Pass.
20) Most impressive debut performance by an actor/actress.
Angela Lansbury in Gaslight. She celebrated her 18th birthday on set! Watch the video, she talks about her experience on the film and there’s a photograph of the birthday, with Ingrid Bergman cutting her cake!
21) Biggest disappointment of the just-past summer movie season
Many, many subpar dramas. I know the summer isn’t prime drama season, but there were quite a few movies that looked promising enough until I actually watched the damn things. Smart People, Married Life, bleurgh.
22) Michelle Yeoh or Maggie Cheung
23) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Overrated
The Dark Knight. I liked it a lot, but I mean - come on. It wasn't even the best film I saw that month, let alone the best film of all time.
24) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Underrated
Tom McCarthy.
25) Fritz the Cat—yes or no?
No. I prefer Tommy the Cat!
26) Trevor Howard or Richard Todd
Trevor Howard was in The Third Man. Nuff said.
27) Antonioni once said, “I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.” What filmmaker working today most fruitfully ignores the rules? What does ignoring the rules of cinema mean in 2008?
The best answer would probably be to say Paul Thomas Anderson, which I partly agree with. But I also have to pitch in a mention for Tom McCarthy, who has shown us, in a mere two films, that there is still room for bittersweet, character driven pieces and that Big Liberal Ideas can form an integral part of a film without overtaking it.
28) Favorite William Castle movie
Pass.
29) Favorite ethnographically oriented movie
Aren't most films ethnographically oriented? West Side Story, I guess.
30) What’s the movie coming up in 2008 you’re most looking forward to? Why?
Ah, so many. Blindness, because the book haunts me with regular nightmares and I’m curious to see how on earth it’ll translate to screen. Burn After Reading, because even the trailer makes me laugh. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Doubt. Synecdoche, New York.
31) What deceased director would you want to resurrect in order that she/he might make one more film?
I wonder how Hitch would have handled the 21st century? New technology and all.
32) What director would you like to see, if not literally entombed, then at least go silent creatively?
Tim Burton could keep mum for a couple of years and I’d be happy. Not for ever, you understand, just five years or so. Let some new ideas percolate around his brain. Spend some quality time watching dvds, catching up on recent actors who aren’t called Johnny or Helena.
1) Your favorite musical moment in a movie
This includes musicals, right? If not, I’ll have to rack my brains a little harder, but if we are including musicals, then it has to be the Gideon & Jagger scene from All That Jazz. There are so many iconic moments in that film - the entire opening sequence for example - but the moment that hits me right in the solar plexus is this one. Seen out of context, it’s wonderful;
Peter Allen’s singing, the natural camaraderie between Ann Reinking and Erzsebet Foldi and of course, the dancing. But seen as part of the whole film, it becomes almost too much for me to bear. When I first saw All That Jazz, I rewatched this one scene maybe 10 times. Since then, I have no idea how many times I’ve watched that one scene, but it must be nearing the hundreds. The thought of Joe Gideon’s girlfriend and daughter working on that routine for hours, to get it just right for the notorious perfectionist. The knowledge that even if it wasn’t perfect, he’d be bowled over regardless. The fact that Kate is so loving and caring with Michelle, and thatall the basic ingredients for a happy family are here, ut yet Joe continues to sleep around and throw his life away. The part where Reinking plays Michelle’s stomach like a piano, glances at Joe and says “Pretty pictures.” Joe’s funky apartment, with all the theatre paraphernalia and those “whatchamacallit lights”. The part where the duo rush at Joe to kiss him. Finally, and most importantly, Joe’s face throughout. I don’t know how Roy Scheider does it. Amusement, regret, incredulity, sadness, pride - they’re all there. The killer: during the line, “And every gal only had one fellow”. His face at that point slays me. It’s a little flash of recognition, of regret and embarrassment and still you can see he’ll never change. Beautiful.
If we’re not talking musicals, Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek slow dancing in the dark to Nat King Cole in Badlands. I am so excited about the upcoming rerelease.
2) Ray Milland or Dana Andrews
I have this unwritten rule, which states: if you are presented with a multiple choice question and one of the answers is connected to Laura (1944), this is your best bet.
3) Favorite Sidney Lumet movie
You can’t go wrong with a most of his films, but I’ll pull out something a little different: Garbo Talks, while not a great film by any means, is entertaining purely because of Anne Bancroft. She plays this firecracker New Yoiker whose dying wish is to meet Greta Garbo. Every minute when she’s not on screen (a quite sizeable amount of time, tbh) is quite dull, but near the end Lumet grants her this great, lengthy monologue about the similarities between herself and Garbo. Fantastic acting.
4) Biggest surprise of the just-past summer movie season
The pregnancy quotient is way down on last year.
5) Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth
Remember the rule! Gene Tierney.
6) What’s the last movie you saw on DVD? In theaters?
On DVD: Raising Arizona. “Mighty fine cereal flakes, Mrs. McDonough!”
In theaters: The Strangers.
7) Irwin Allen’s finest hour?
Pass.
8) What were the films where you would rather see the movie promised by the poster than the one that was actually made?
It hasn’t been released yet, but I’d be 24% more likely to go watch the remake of The Women if it featured Vanessa Williams doing an impression of Annette Bening. Which, you know, I'm not completely sure it doesn't.
9) Chow Yun-Fat or Tony Leung
Tony Leung.
10) Most pretentious movie ever
Garden State.
11) Favorite Russ Meyer movie
Pass.
12) Name the movie that you feel best reflects yourself, a movie you would recommend to an acquaintance that most accurately says, “This is me.”
Hannah And Her Sisters or Mean Girls.
13) Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo
To be honest, I really need to see more work by both women to make a fair judgement. But this is a blog, where fair appraisals aren’t required and I’m saying Dietrich purely because of her role in Witness For The Prosecution. The twist in the tail of that character! I’m still as gob smacked as I was the first time I saw it, years and years ago.
14) Best movie snack? Most vile movie snack?
I usually sneak in sweets; peanut M&Ms, Minstrels, Smarties. Most vile? Buttered popcorn.
15) Current movie star who would be most comfortable in the classic Hollywood studio system
Rachel McAdams.
16) Fitzcarraldo—yes or no?
Pass!
17) Your assignment is to book the ultimate triple bill to inaugurate your own revival theater. What three movies will we see on opening night?
Everyone needs a good laughing work-out, so I’ll kick start my theater off with three of my favourite comedies: His Girl Friday, Tootsie and The Lady Eve.
18) What’s the name of your theater? (The all-time greatest answer to this question was once provided by Larry Aydlette, whose repertory cinema, the Demarest, is, I hope, still packing them in…)
The Local. Okay, that's a terrible name. The Fleapit. No, that's worse. The Local Fleapit? PERFECT. Hilarity will ensue.
19) Favorite Leo McCarey movie
Pass.
20) Most impressive debut performance by an actor/actress.
Angela Lansbury in Gaslight. She celebrated her 18th birthday on set! Watch the video, she talks about her experience on the film and there’s a photograph of the birthday, with Ingrid Bergman cutting her cake!
21) Biggest disappointment of the just-past summer movie season
Many, many subpar dramas. I know the summer isn’t prime drama season, but there were quite a few movies that looked promising enough until I actually watched the damn things. Smart People, Married Life, bleurgh.
22) Michelle Yeoh or Maggie Cheung
23) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Overrated
The Dark Knight. I liked it a lot, but I mean - come on. It wasn't even the best film I saw that month, let alone the best film of all time.
24) 2008 inductee into the Academy of the Underrated
Tom McCarthy.
25) Fritz the Cat—yes or no?
No. I prefer Tommy the Cat!
26) Trevor Howard or Richard Todd
Trevor Howard was in The Third Man. Nuff said.
27) Antonioni once said, “I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.” What filmmaker working today most fruitfully ignores the rules? What does ignoring the rules of cinema mean in 2008?
The best answer would probably be to say Paul Thomas Anderson, which I partly agree with. But I also have to pitch in a mention for Tom McCarthy, who has shown us, in a mere two films, that there is still room for bittersweet, character driven pieces and that Big Liberal Ideas can form an integral part of a film without overtaking it.
28) Favorite William Castle movie
Pass.
29) Favorite ethnographically oriented movie
Aren't most films ethnographically oriented? West Side Story, I guess.
30) What’s the movie coming up in 2008 you’re most looking forward to? Why?
Ah, so many. Blindness, because the book haunts me with regular nightmares and I’m curious to see how on earth it’ll translate to screen. Burn After Reading, because even the trailer makes me laugh. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Doubt. Synecdoche, New York.
31) What deceased director would you want to resurrect in order that she/he might make one more film?
I wonder how Hitch would have handled the 21st century? New technology and all.
32) What director would you like to see, if not literally entombed, then at least go silent creatively?
Tim Burton could keep mum for a couple of years and I’d be happy. Not for ever, you understand, just five years or so. Let some new ideas percolate around his brain. Spend some quality time watching dvds, catching up on recent actors who aren’t called Johnny or Helena.
Friday, August 22, 2008
It’s hard out there for a Tori Amos fan.
Not only do you have to deal with the inevitable "She's just a poor Kate Bush for the nineties!", but you also have to defend her while at the same time acknowledging that her body of work includes The Beekeeper. She appears in public sprouting off about faeries. She indulges in tedious dress up games. She cannot edit her albums for shit. All these things are qualities that would usually turn me off an artist immediately, but because of the entirety of Little Earthquakes, Under The Pink, From The Choirgirl Hotel, Boys For Pele bits and pieces of Strange Little Girls, Scarlet's Walk, and American Doll Posse, the live disc of To Venus And Back, the odd interview in which she can be hysterically funny and a whole load of b-sides, I make a huge exception for Tori. She can release half a dozen albums that are on the same level as The Beekeeper from now on, if she so feels like it (I hope she doesn't, obvs) but because of that back catalogue, I'm an Ear With Feet for life. So, in honour of her 45th birthday, I'm making a Top Ten Tori Tunes list.
Even leaving a handful of her studio albums off the longlist, a top ten will be hard to compile especially taking into account all the b-sides and covers and live tracks available. Lady is prolific. And I'm so fickle, this list will be obselote tomorrow, when I decide that 'Winter' or 'Cooling' or her version of 'Famous Blue Raincoat' or 'Tear In My Hand' or any number of other songs deserve a placing. You get the picture. But for now, here they are:
10. Father Lucifer
An example of how her left-of-centre interviewee style sometimes works really well can be found during the VH1 Storytellers concert. This song opens that concert, and I laugh every time I hear her introduction to it: "And my dad and I...I...I really do love my dad, it took us many years to, um, I think, respect each other's spiritual beliefs. So, um, when I came home, I guess it was a Thanksgiving because I remember a bird, and forks going down at the table, when my father said to me, "Tori Ellen, I can't believe you wrote this song about me". And I said "I write everything about you, what are you surprised about?". And he said, "No, but I'm really hurt about this one." And I said, "Well, which one is it?". And he said, "Well, you call me Satan." And I said, "No! I was taking drugs with the South American shaman and I really did visit the devil, and I had a journey!" And he went, Oh praise Jesus!". The version above isn't necessarily my favourite (like I said before, I love the Storytellers version, and you can't beat the studio cut) but it's still fantastic.
09. Mr Zebra
This only negative thing I can think to say about this song is that it's way too short. At 1 minute and 6 seconds, its over before you get a chance to appreciate all its jaunty, wry offerings. My solution: play on repeat. I listened to this song on repeat every morning during Transition Year, while walking up to school. It was like my own personal theme tune. That last line! "Too bad the burial was premature, she said. And smiled."And watch the above live video, where she completely screws it up but manages to save it just at the last moment.
08. Northern Lad
Okay, ignore the stupid homemade video and just listen to the song. I could've chose a live version to put here, but the studio version makes me cry. It's the only song I can think of containing an f-bomb that can make me well up every time it comes on. I think it's the line "I guess you go too far / When pianos try to be guitars".
07. She's Your Cocaine / Raspberry Swirl
Shoot me. I couldn't choose between the two, so they can jostle for space together at number seven on my list. Both are on From The Choirgirl Hotel (at times my overall favourite), both are fast, sweaty and slightly sleazy. Love it.
06. Playboy Mommy
The saddest Tori song, bar none.
05. Talula
I surprised myself by putting this on the list. I came to Pele later than most of her other stuff, so I'm not as familiar with some of the tracks on it in the same way as, say, Little Earthquakes. Yet this song stays in the mind for a number of reasons. The harpsichord and mandolin are possibly my favourite instrumentation of every Tori Amos song, but I think it's this section:
I love the phrasing of that whole piece, it's great to sing along to. When she suddenly breaks out the falsetto on "and I never cared too much for the money", she sounds like Prince.
I got big bird on the fishing line
with a bit of a shout a bit of a shout
a bit of an angry snout
he's my favourite hooker of the whole bunch
and i know about his only bride
and how the russians die on the ice
i got my rape hat on
honey but i always could accessorise
and i never cared too much for the money
but i know right now
that it's in god's hands
but i don't know who the father is.
04. Muhammed My Friend
Every time I listen to the studio version of this, the introductory piano solo drives me insane. I can't wait to delve into the main body of the song, goddamit! And yet, I couldn't do without that piano solo. It creates a tension, an anticipation, a pause before that triumphant opening couplet. I hate David Letterman, but the above version is worth a watch.
03. Siren
Anyone remember the 1998 Great Expectations movie, directed by Alfonso Cuaron? No, me neither. Looking it up on IMDB, the castlist is crazy: Robert deNiro, Anne Bancroft, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Gwennie Paltrow. Maybe it's just me, but I had no idea any of those people were ever in a film together. Anyway, I'm thankful for it because it gave us one of Tori's best recent songs. I always think of circles when I listen to it. That chorus. It sounds elliptical
to me, or something.
02. Take To The Sky
I never actually told anybody this, but 'Take To The Sky' was the unofficial sponser of my Leaving Cert year. Anytime I felt grumpy or tired or bogged down in exam revision, I listened to this. It's defiant and quietly furious, catchy as all get out and features some bitchin' piano slaps. Exams? "Here I stand with a sword in my hand!". (Yeah, I know how lame that sounds. But it worked like a charm!)
01. Precious Things
I said that this list is exremely subject to change, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will always be numero uno. It was the first Tori Amos song I absolutely fell in love with. Let me flash back for a second, to Christmas 2003. I was heavily in the throes of my Nirvana phase, but I spotted a review of an best-of album called Tales of a Librarian in some music mag and liked what I read. After downloading 'Cornflake Girl' as a taster, I decided to buy it and so I purchased it the next time I was in town. I had liked 'Cornflake Girl' (who doesn't, right?) but when I heard this song, I was blown away. It opens the collection and is the absolute best primer a newbie could hope for. Everything essential about her is contained in this one song: beautiful piano playing, a novelistic sense of storytelling, the Catholicism, spurts of sudden rage - those jarring bursts of electric guitar still give me the shivers - humour, even the Trent Reznor friendship ("those demigods / with their nine-inch nails"). I always associate this with Margaret Atwood (I think I was reading Cat's Eye for the first time around this period). The song and the book kind of bleed into one another, both are extremely important to me. To borrow a line from another song not on this list, "They say you were something in those formative years". Yeah, I was something. Obsessed with this song. Still am. Listen!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The man who walked on air
Yeah, I know. Long time no blog. There's no particular excuse or reason, other than general ambivalence towards it, but I had to post about the most recent film I saw in theaters, James Marsh's film, Man On Wire. Give and take a Wall-E here and a The Visitor there, this is one of the best films I've seen all year. Come to think of it, all three have something in common. The critically-adored Pixar smash, the low-budget immigration story buried inside Tom McCarthy's character based second film and the award winning documentary about wire-walker Philippe Petit all share a common feeling. Watching each of the three, I felt the urgent need pressed upon me to really appreciate life, to take chances, to create art. Believe me, I know how cheesy this all sounds. But watching Philippe Petit dancing across the empty space between the twin towers, his only support a tiny cable, I felt truly exhilarated. There's a beautiful moment when he spots a policeman on the top of one of the towers, urging him to come back to safety, and Petit's face breaks into this beatific smile. It's hilarious, extraordinary, terrifying (at this moment, he's 400 metres up in the air).
The basic story has been told and retold to death. Petit, a French street performer and self-taught wire walker (a much classier term than tightrope walker, don't you think?) became obsessed with the World Trade Centre towers as they were being built. He followed their progress in the French newspapers, all the while formulating a plan in the back of his mind. He wanted to walk across them. He needed to walk across them. The towers became a full blown obsession for him. So he acted on his obsession: gathering a town, scoping out the towers, reading, sketching, making diagrams. Insane preparations. He rigged up a mock cable in a Frencg field and got a bunch of friends to jump up on down on it as he crossed, to stimulate the probable wind conditions. He had notebooks filled with complex instructions and doodles. He made contacts inside the WTC, so his team could have mock I.D. cards. 6 years of intense planning, all culminating in 45 minutes on a clear August morning in 1974. Having snuck up to the highest floor, hidden from the guards and rigged the cable across the two towers (an incredibly complex manouevre), early birds in New York city were treated to the spectacle. Petit crossed back and forth 8 times, pausing at different points to kneel, lie down and look up at the clouds and, insanely, to actually look straight down. I'll repeat that: he knelt on the wire and gazed down into New York city, 400 metres above it. I get dizzy climbing the stairs into the attic!
It's an interestingly constructed film, mixing talking heads, archive footage and artful reconstructions in order to dazzle the audience. Petit himself, now 59, is a lively, engaging storyteller. His wide eyed retelling of his escapades are amusing, but his gleeful joie de vivre is set off by some of the other contributers. His former girlfriend, Annie Allix and one time best friend, Jean-Louis Blondeau, both provide moving accounts. They are both impressed and saddened by Petit. After the feat, his relationship with both people fizzled out; perhaps a necessity after collaborating on something that intense. It's one of the things I liked most about the documentary, its focus on the intense planning of the 'before' and the bittersweet letdown of the 'after', as well as the glorification of the event itself. Go see it, please. It's the most thrilling, moving paean to art and the creative impulse that you'll see in the cinema all year.
More on Petit:
I observed the tightrope 'dancer'—because you couldn't call him a 'walker'—approximately halfway between the two towers. And upon seeing us he started to smile and laugh and he started going into a dancing routine on the high wire....And when he got to the building we asked him to get off the high wire but instead he turned around and ran back out into the middle....He was bouncing up and down. His feet were actually leaving the wire and then he would resettle back on the wire again....Unbelievable really....[E]verybody was spellbound in the watching of it
- the eyewitness report of Sgt. Charles Daniels, the officer assigned to coax Petit down.
'Many people use the words "death defying" or "death wishing" when they talk about wire-walking. Many people have asked me: "So do you have a death wish?" After doing a beautiful walk, I feel like punching them in the nose. It's indecent. I have a life wish.'
- in his own words. From an interview with the Observer.
I also discovered that Paul Auster (i.e. my favourite writer) has a connection to Petit! Living in Paris in the early seventies, he encountered Petit as a street performer. Captivated, he followed his career with interest, which ended up with a meeting between the two men. Auster helped Petit with getting his book, On The High Wire, published, and he also translated it into English from the French original. In the preface to the book, Auster writes a piece on his appreciation of Petit and I have it in my Collected Prose. Here's a short excerpt, describing his first sighting of Petit. He taps into what's so magnetic about the man:
"Unlike other street preformers, he did not play to the crowd. Rather, it was somehow as though he had allowed the audience to share in the working of his thoughts, had made us privy to some deep, inarticulate obsession within him. Yet there was nothing overly personal about what he did. Everything was revealed metaphorically, as if at one remove, through the medium of the performance. His juggling was precise and self-involved, like some conversation he was holding with himself. He elaborated the most complex combinations, intricate mathematical patterns, arabesques of nonsensical beauty, while at the same time keeping his gestures as simple as possible. Throught it all, he managed to radiate a hypnotic charm, oscilliating somewhere between demon and clown. No one said a word. It was as though his silence were a command for others to be silent as well. The crowd watched, and after the performance was over, everyone put money in the hat. I realised that I had never seen anything like it before."
Monday, May 12, 2008
Thank God it wasn't Infinite Jest...
J.D. has tagged me and I duitifully respond. This time it's a gleefully pointless bookish meme:
- Pick up the nearest book.
- Open to page 123.
- Locate the fifth sentence.
- Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing...
- Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged me.
"A neatly lettered message, relatively polite - in the States it would have been Cunt - and ordinarily Roz would have merely calculated the cost of the repair and how much time it would take to get it done, and whether it's deductible. Also, she would take out her annoyance by making a scene with the parking lot attendent. Who did this?"
This book has been sitting on the living-room shelf for a few months, after I stupidly bought it in the midst of a book buying spree at Borders. Why stupidly? Because I already own a copy of the book and have read it a few times. In the bookshop, I somehow got confused and bought it, thinking I was getting The Blind Assassin. It wasn't until I got home, cracked it open and read the first line that I went "....wait a second...". So, anybody in the market for a copy of The Robber Bride? It's good, I swear. So good, I bought it twice!
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Humphrey Lyttleton
I was sorry to hear that veteran trumpet player Humphrey Lyttleton passed away last night. Despite being one of Britain's foremost jazz talents (he was invited to the States in 1968 to play for the crew of Apollo 8), he was also a cartoonist, a calligrapher and a broadcaster. I knew him mainly from I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue, still the funniest panel show ever broadcast on any media. Of course, there's also his appearance on Radiohead's Life In A Glasshouse. Jonny Greenwood wrote and asked him to play on Amnesiac's closing track and the result is phenomenal. I urge people to check out Radiohead performing the song on Jools Holland, with Humph onstage. Here's what he said about the experience:
".... it was very interesting indeed. When they asked me to bring some members of my band along and do something with them for their new CD, I had to ask my daughter who they were. I then met up with Jonny Greenwood and heard a tape of their music. And if you'll pardon the expression, I thought to myself, "What the Hell?" - this is a kind of music new to me and it presented a challenge. In the process I got to appreciate their music and I think they got to appreciate mine and I think that can't be bad."
".... it was very interesting indeed. When they asked me to bring some members of my band along and do something with them for their new CD, I had to ask my daughter who they were. I then met up with Jonny Greenwood and heard a tape of their music. And if you'll pardon the expression, I thought to myself, "What the Hell?" - this is a kind of music new to me and it presented a challenge. In the process I got to appreciate their music and I think they got to appreciate mine and I think that can't be bad."
A young Humph with Duke Ellington
Just the thing...
...to get me posting again.
That's Don DeLillo (in the greenish cap) and Paul Auster (beside him), along with two Gotham Book Market employees at a Yankees game. Yesssss.
Picture credit http://blog.myfinebooks.com
That's Don DeLillo (in the greenish cap) and Paul Auster (beside him), along with two Gotham Book Market employees at a Yankees game. Yesssss.
Picture credit http://blog.myfinebooks.com
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