Sunday, November 29, 2009

Viridiana



The brokenness of giant inequality, the properness of generosity to the poor, reveals itself to be Heironymus Bosch. The masses deservingly degrade themselves in the slop of aristocratic wealth because the lust for crumbs overwhelms easily the monstrous life of society's worms.

Phantom of Liberty



Perversion infiltrates liberty from the founding of the French nation to the current sickness legitimating the killing in Afghanistan. The search for obscenity does not find obscurity in the absence of lost children but in the absurd truth that we find in the pursuit of nothingness.

The Maid



Can the gift of love, the effort at true understanding, transform a life of suffering? Can the pattern of pain rooted in crowded loneliness--separateness amid glowing togetherness be cleansed through sisterhood healing?

All About My Mother



The theology of forgiveness, of broken flesh--
this is my body this is my blood--
the eternal recurrence of unconditionally
compassionate love.

The Last Metro



The definitive French beauty and well--let's be honest--kind of cute pug dog face fall madly in love through theater's counter fascist struggle.

The President's Analyst




The conspiratorial reality of the 1960s ultimately reduced to corporate surveillance extraordinarily prescient.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

A Serious Man



Kitty corner to Mount Zion Temple, the 150 year old Saint Paul congregation, meeting place for a subcultural second Minnesota world, is Kowalski's on Grand Avenue and the Short Line now called Ayd Mill Road, which used to be a Red Owl Supermarket where we would buy hamburger and Campbell's mushroom soup for Wednesday night hotdish.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

A World Without Thieves (2004)



Slow motion palimpsest
panning down neck nape
in orchestral melancholy
"there's more than just money between us"
意思:
美国爱中国
我们生了
一个男叫贪
Meaning:
U.S.loves China
let's give birth
a boy called greed

An allegory of contemporary China's economic boom built on bloodthirst
or
when finance wizards, world economy wreckers, reap obscene bonuses--with mighty U.S. greenbacking--can the credit bubble bankers with their gate guarded global real estate jetsetting exclusivity escape blame?

What does a thief look like?
--Dumbo's naive cry--
Who here is a thief?

大哥!
大姐!
你们在哪儿?

对不起
你太晚了
我去游泳
在币

Big Brother!
Big Sister!
Where are you?

Sorry,
You are too late.
I went swimming
in money.

Monday, October 26, 2009

The Hurt Locker (2008)



Sunday: bomb blast in Baghdad kills 155, including 24 children.

"Every time you go out, you roll the dice, you know that..."

Naive compassion gets you killed. The American soldier recognizes the enemy's savagery and overcomes with reckless self sacrifice for little children.

God bless SSgt. William James.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

La Ciénaga (2001)



Wrapped in coffee grinds, casaba melon rind, stem and seeds of red bell pepper, empty TJs soy milk quart box best if used by 19May10, the 1980s bound scribbles of a confused college boy.

In mid street, centered on yellow lines, two blocks east of the Valley Village Post Office, the golden spattered fur, dried insides, muzzle of a medium sized dog.

Friday, September 25, 2009

The September Issue (2009)



The Devil Wears Prada: documentary about a hard working woman who must be tough to "get the job done," comic relief provided by funny fascinistas, with ultimate lesson "be true to yourself."

Monday, September 21, 2009

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)



Quand elle eut vingt ans
Sa vieille maman
Lui dit un jour tendrement:
"Dans notre log'ment
J'ai peiné souvent
Pour t'él'ver fallait d'l'argent;
Mais t'as compris, un peu plus chaque jour,
Ce que c'est le bonheur, mon amour

{Refrain:}
Sous les toits de Paris
Tu vois ma p'tit' Nini
On peut vivre heureux et bien uni
Nous somm's seul's ici-bas
On n's'en aperçoit pas
On s'rapproche un peu plus et voilà !
Tant que tu m'aim's bien
J'n'ai besoin de rien
Près de ta maman
Tu n'as pas d'tourments
C'est ainsi qu'cœur à cœur
On cueill', comme une fleur,
Sous les toits de Paris, le bonheur".

Un jour, sans façon,
Un joli garçon,
Comme on chant' dans les chansons
Lui fit simplement
Quelques compliments,
La grisa de boniments;
Nini, j'te jur' ça s'fait plus la vertu
Je t'ador', sois à moi dis, veux-tu ?

Sous les toits de Paris
Dans ma chambr' ma Nini
On s'aim'ra, c'est si bon d'être uni !
C'est quand on a vingt ans
Quand fleurit le printemps,
Qu'il faut s'aimer, sans perdre un instant
L'air était très pur
Et le ciel d'azur
Ell' dit: "Je n'veux pas !"
Puis ell' se donna.
C'est ainsi qu'en ce jour
La vainqueur, comm' toujours
Sous les toits de Paris fut l'amour !

Malgré les serments,
Hélas son amant
La quitta cruellement
La pauvre Nini
Pleura bien des nuits
Un soir... . on frapp'... c'était lui
Il supplia: "Ma chérie, j'ai eu tort,
Pardonn'-moi, tu sais je t'aim' encor' "

Sous les toits de Paris
Quelle joie pour Nini
De r'trouver un passé tant chéri
Quand il dit: "Maintenant
Tu sais c'est le moment,
Faut s'marier tous les deux gentiment
Car rien n'est cassé,
Tout est effacé,
Oublie le passé
Et viens m'embrasser"
Vit' Nini pardonna
Et l'bonheur s'installa
Sous les toits de Paris c'est comm' ça !

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Color of Paradise (1999)



If a horse breaks through rickety bridge, brays into river rapids, blind boy follows whipped, rag doll dashed down stream, bobs then sinks, father--escaped to other side--bizarrely pauses before shouting, races, dives, grasps slippery stone or hanging branch, bobs then sinks and--quick cut--appears at sea to discover his agonizing love for heartrending son apparently breathless then revived in sun shimmering on wave slushed sand, is this allegory?

Monday, September 14, 2009

Ponyo (2008)



I once dreamed I was a fish who dreamed of being a girl.
I love you Ponyo!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The Headless Woman (2008)



If I slipped a quaalude into the water she called coffee--made with three spoons of Maxwell House per 12 cup pot--it didn't slow her down, the residue of fifty nicotine filled years coursing through bloodstream. Oxygen machine meant to give life, but we knew the reverse was true. Briefly removing the tubes, putting a tissue to nose, she still spoke strongly of macaroni and cheese mixed with tuna Fridays during lent, family, white toast cut crosswise, a margarine tub, and gallons of milk with spaghetti, piping hot Prego, and big round meatballs--what a treat.

I dodged the soft balls of family pride meant to string in the cats cradle of love breaking through our confused clan. She wondered at the appeal of sushi, atheism, contemporary films with F this and F that, as a child dreamed of being a Rockette not vice chair for Minnesota IRs. But looking back, she likely thought, she had it all, not unlike Frank Sinatra, so lying in ER the breathless word was "no" and dad's deep emptiness against doctor's urging, let her go.

I smiled lightly when escape came. "There's never enough time", "touché," she smiled back, "true", and I promised with a kiss to see her in the summer.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

I Am Cuba (1964)



PMP, the Pedrito Martinez Project swelters an early August Summerstage audience for the preview of Revolución Cubana.

Exiting the event, nearly 4 hours into the evening, a young man in khaki shorts and "I heart NY" tee says to his friend, "But don't you think it was sort of anti-American?"

Friday, August 21, 2009

Red Desert (1965)



Little rat pitter-patters on Grand Street platform from behind black primed still hopelessly rusting bent garbage storage bin, stands on back paws and peers hello. Waving, "Hi there little rat."

New York Magazine's newest Mozart chef Ratatouille "Can I make you Omelette aux asperges organiques Bleu d'Auvergne AOC?"

Baby rat peaks out to follow. "Aaawww, cute. Don't be shy."

"Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack . . ." Getting louder, getting closer. The pair scurry back home.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

2046 (2004)



Sheer stocking rubs up calf to lashes drooping tears on lip tongue squeezing whisper--with raging patience of 6th Avenue express commuters at West 4th doors stuck half closed, "Open the fucking doors!"-- after needed rendez-vous raté, island tonearm plunges rough storm up the Pearl River. Palming paperbills of disdain only scalds the steeping taste for longan, but his ink stains wait for another fiction.

Skinny cyborg retropop phenom return destabilizer, Shenzhen/Sham Chun generation gap. Cotton candy pink Solaris spaceship neon glow, in the course of mouthing cupcake icing inscriptions mechanical word becomes flesh, only to discover--qua anti-Bridge on the River Kwai colonialist caraciture--Molotov torch held for scruffy bearded long hair beauty.

Long fused incendiary hesitation born out of interior scroll slow mo flowered years passed high card gambling destiny destroys forgetfulness ending trilogy triumphant what might have beens--"and so I'm offering this simple phrase"--anguished street sweat idealism disappears in skyline's checkered night.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Days of Being Wild (1990)



Seduce for pleasure, savor abandonment's pain.

Noir's relentless drive to embrace the past-future with no future-past modeled on a Band of Outsiders, searching for the petty cash boosting hopeless middle class corruption, heroic post-war America, domestic savagery haunting northern California redwoods Out of the Past--"Sometimes the cabin's gloomy and the table's bare/ But when he kisses me it's Christmas everywhere"--a vaccine needed for international travel, but no flight for double crossed Swede's set up in Burt's film debut, The Killers too impatient for the diner, yet hotel brooding seems interminable--"And when you kissed Robert Mitchum/ Gee but I thought you'd never catch him"--clinical depression of a man named Leslie.

At last, with dangling cigarette, face the bullets with style.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

The Beaches of Agnès (2008)



Waiting for D train, Coney Island to Norwood, 36th street station, a woman reads Eat Out in TONY.

"Did you buy that in Sunset Park?"

She shakes her head no.

"I can never find that around here."

"I subscribe," she says with probably German accent.

Crossing the Manhattan bridge foggy Giacometti figures climbing cables of 1883 Gothic icon reveal themselves in blue as spinning wires.

The R68 emergency brake handle suggests a cockroach.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Route One USA (1989)



The design of 1988 winter defines the future Freudian twin jet plane towers, 22 year shadow (Sammy Davis mimicking Frank or better Fred--blackface on blackface--1960s Bert Williams) "Me and My..."

Fall into lost adolescence, unlocking quadrangles at 6 am alternate days 3.18/ hr pays for 300/ mo studio in ship of fools--one free night in south side lockup--holding the breath through smell of formaldehyde in Culver Hall, until the day training my replacement, we open the doors.

Indeed, a room of cadavers, the overbearing inflation of dread's illusory lightness--1950s rubber hot water bottle popping its plug, warm water puddling the linoleum tiles--becomes real.

Friday, July 17, 2009

The World (2004)



Buzz cut burnt man, headphones wrapping ears, proud to be an American flag T, bikes--half deflated tires--by on sidewalk.

If L.A. presents an imitation of the world, and the world seeks to imitate L.A., does the world seek not an imitation of life but an imitation of death?

When Khrushchev blew his top on being banned from Disneyland, when he proclaimed "We will bury you," he merely mimed Angeleno America's imagineered reality of street life burial.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Mouchette (1967)



Espérez plus d'espérance
Trois jours leur dit Colomb
En montrant le Ciel immense
Le fond de l'horizon
Trois jours et je vous donne un monde
A vous qui n'avez plus d'espoir
Sur l'immensité profonde
Ses yeux s'ouvraient pour le voir.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Ariel (1988)



Once you decide you will be with each other forever it's quite simple:

You will have enough bullets to shoot the thugs that get in your way. And when the time comes, your dying comrade will find the little button that raises the roof on your 1965 Eldorado convertible, sheltering you from the elements.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Irene in Time (2009)



For people wondering why I hate L.A., and most of all the West Side...

the exclusive images of an oxygen masked head on a stretcher at a UCLA hospital, the mechanically explosive popularity of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, paparazzi masses climbing for astral affection...

feeding me Lucky Stars on an early seventies September Saturday morning, how I lived for summer's end, the new cartoon season beginning...

Stop! the love you save may be your own!
Darling, take it slow
Or some day you'll be all alone.
You'd better stop the love you save may be your own!
Darling, look both ways before you cross me
You're headed for the danger zone.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

The Misfits (1961)



On a warm day in the summer of '79 a skinny 14 year old boy sits in a folding chair on a Wisconsin beach. A small pebble hits his shoulder. A few minutes later comes another, and another. The pebbles become larger, become rocks. They hit arms, legs, back, head.

Boys and girls giggle behind him. Stubbornly, he refuses to face them. Every child knows that the victor never caves. The tears are felt, but they don't arrive.

Cocktail dress, wedding gown, handkerchief, dishrag--whatever you need me to be.

And the ulceretic grinding, rope severing foal neck--the prescription will dull the dust stirring spectacle, extending the capacity to love till death.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Bus Stop (1956)



Ah, the 1950s, when men were men and women were cattle. For the ranch hand, the female body displaces real desire, bestial love--washing down raw beef with milk from a jug. Only secondarily does brutality toward the feminine satisfy:

"So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything's built on that! That's all we got, boy, fuckin' all. So I hope you know that, even if you don't never know the rest! You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on - and then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you'll kill me for needing somethin' I don't hardly never get. You have no idea how bad it gets! I'm not you... I can't make it on a coupla high-altitude fucks once or twice a year! You are too much for me Ennis, you sonofawhoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you."

Thursday, June 18, 2009

24 city (2008)



After dumping the idea of Zinc, which had moved to West 3rd and doubled their cover to ten,
after paying a dollar at the Cake Shop and having ears blasted out, deciding to leave before bands began playing,
after dodging endless row of Lower East Side hipster cigarette smoke along Houston,
after searching loudly and finally finding pigeon people on Pilgrim Hill,
after eating matzo ball soup at Sable's on 2nd ave,
after rushing through NYPL Webster branch basement bookstore,
after eating organic tricolor beet salad in Tribeca Cafe,
before seeing Elliot Sharp through Eric Mingus shout "USA out of NYC" at 92YTribeca,
before doing yoga in Penn Station,
before skipping through the Puerto Rican Day Parade,
before entering an argument about wealth creation with a Dow Jones Financial columnist sitting down in the final room of the Francis Bacon exhibit at the Met,
before performing Jonathan Richman in the Times Square subway station,
while meditating in front of the Hudson, just north of Battery Park City, I overhear this conversation:
"What a beautiful Husky."
"Thanks."
"Doesn't he get hot during the summer?"
"Oh we're not here. We go to Colorado. He loves it there."

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Hole (1998)



Reach up the fizzy light.

Don't let the plaster disaster bring you down.
Know that the man above pees in the sink to care for you.

Drops of vomit from drunken space massage oil to your temples.
Marlboro ashes, rose pedal rice, lift your toes dry.

Baptismal bottle water breaks through despairing duct tape bandage blessing wound.

And, don't cry shop-boy. Don't cry.
You've got mail from Grace Chang/ 葛蘭.

我...
我!!!
我要...
我要!!!
我要你...
我要你!!!
我要你的...
我要你的!!!
我要你的愛...
我要你的愛!!!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Veronika Voss (1982)



California proposes canceling CalGrants, CalWorks, Healthy Families: the ghost of Howard Jarvis grins.

Atlanta demolishes Bowen public housing project, a "breeding ground for poverty, drugs, crime": over 20,000 live on ATL streets.

Addiction afflicts 85% of New York prison inmates: drug infractors get years in solitary while waiting for treatment.

Sybille Schmitz speaks her first words on film dubbing Dreyer's formerly silent Vampyr: Könnte Ich doch sterben?

Bloodsucking's twenty-first century echo: Neoliberalism.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Pierrot le fou (1965)



"If you're going to be engaged in a world conflict such as we are, such as the global war on terrorism, if you don't have a place where you can hold these people, your only other option is to kill them."
--Dick Cheney, June 1, 2009, The National Press Club

Au fond je m'en fiche, mais ce lui comprend même pas.
Je m'en fiche des livres.
Je m'en fiche des disques.
Je m'en fiche des tous.

If you wrap a red dress round the head of an unshaven man, a handsome man, a ladykiller, and with a showerhead you drench the dress, little red riding hood over the face, water choking the mouth and nose, oh and a pistol points to the neck...

Ma ligne de chanc-e!
Ma ligne de chanc-e!
Dis moi cheri
qu'est-ce
que
t'en
penses.


Ma ligne de chanc-e!
Ma ligne de chanc-e!
Dis moi cheri
qu'est-ce
que
t'en
penses.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Mirror (1975)



Memorial Day 2009, George sits down on the Blue Line to O'Hare, powers on Lenovo Thinkpad T61. As the processor churns, fingers dust screen edges, pixeling thumbprint auroras.

Earbuds plugged in canals, horn-rimmed lenses shine on scrolling through iTunes U2, REM, ABBA. A glance down Business Week Market Report podcasts--May 21 delete, May 22 delete.

Tab through balloon diagrammed slides of "Ilab Agenda". Open Outlook, begin letter: "Nils, The powerpoint looks good. A few small suggestions..."

Using the reflection in dark tunnel's window, I snap a photo.

The train elevates from subway to Damen's rain dripping platform, Bucktown buzzing.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Holes (2003)



Racism defines U.S. carceral institutions past and present. White people shower orange blossoms on Sonoran sadist Joe Arpaio, burying their criminal complicity with fulminations against "country club like prisons with cable TV and weight rooms" over suburban backyard barbecues fired by monstrous water welfare projects anhydrating the ecology of Quechan, Hopi, Cocopah lands.

The fingers of children quiver, eyes glisten at the opening of a treasure chest, gift of Spanish swords goring Arawak chests; genocide's jewels.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)



باد ما را خواهد برد

در شب كوچك من افسوس
باد با برگ درختان ميعادي دارد
در شب كوچك من دلهره ويرانيست
گوش كن
وزش ظلمت را ميشنوي؟
من غريبانه به اين خوشبختي مي
نگرم
من به نوميدي خود معتادم
گوش كن
وزش ظلمت را ميشنوي ؟
در شب اكنون چيزي مي گذرد
ماه سرخست و مشوش
و بر اين بام كه هر لحظه در او بيم فرو ريختن است
ابرها همچون انبوه عزاداران
لحظه باريدن را گويي منتظرند
لحظه اي
و پس از آن هيچ .
پشت اين
پنجره شب دارد مي لرزد
و زمين دارد
باز ميماند از چرخش
پشت اين پنجره يك نا معلوم
نگران من و توست
اي سراپايت سبز
دستهايت را چون خاطره اي سوزان در دستان عاشق من بگذار
و لبانت را چون حسي گرم از هستي
به نوازش هاي لبهاي عاشق من بسپار
باد ما را باخود خواهد برد
باد ما را باخود خواهد برد
-- فروغ فرخزاد

The Wind Will Carry Us Away

In my small night, alas
the wind has a rendezvous with the leaves of trees
In my small night rests the fear of ruin

Listen...
Do you hear the blowing of the darkness?
I look at this good luck like a stranger
I am accustomed to my hopelessness
Listen...
Do you hear the blowing of the darkness?

In the night now something is happening:
the moon is red and disturbed
and above this roof, which at any moment might fall,
the clouds like the crowds of mourners
seem to await the moment of rain

A moment
and after that-nothing.
Behind this window the night is trembling,
and the earth
stands still in its course
Vague things lie behind this window,
you and I, uneasy

O you are green all over,
put your hands like a burning memory in my loving hands
and entrust your lips like a warm sense of life
to the caresses of loving lips
The wind will carry us away with it
The wind will carry us away.
--Forough Farrukhzad
(translated by Iraj Bashiri)

Friday, May 8, 2009

Intolerable Cruelty (2003)



Hot wind from open window of battered Ford cargo van hits dry red flaky patch on cheek, sweat oozing from scattered age spots on crescent haired skull. In a Z4 convertible, a couple pulls adjacent at the light. Salt and pepper hair breezes above Armani shades, stubble square jaw, Brioni linen shirt. His companion, ten years younger, lets loose hair caress thin shoulders of sun bronze skin in bikini top, lips glossing a smile. You drag and drag on the Carlton, but the taste of air doesn't extend.

To call this a "romantic comedy with bite" completely misleads: révélation absolument noir comme No Country for Old Men, frères Coen suite.

Wrapped on styrofoam tray beneath plastic, blue pickled chicken necks twist to closed reptile eyes.

Hollywoodland lashes blinker to borderland swill feeding Lifetime Channel dreary backyard swimming poolboy pecs.

The silent instinct of a cattle gun punches a hole through the brain of future dinner at In and Out, blood congealing in an El Paso alley.

Rottweiler pining / shotgun loving share a defining commitment with Bvlgari 18k white gold full pavé diamond band.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The Way Home (2002)



From The Grey City Journal, September 1991:

I was lying on my sleeping bag in the room of my new empty apartment in San Diego and the phone woke me. "Grandma died," mom said and the tears immediately started to choke me, and I didn't say anything. "Try not to feel too bad about it."
"When?" I asked, and "What happened?" I didn't want to cry I just wanted to know what happened. "When you told me she went to the hospital I didn't think it was serious."
"Well I didn't either—I talked to her last night and she said she was feeling a little better."
"What happened?"
"I'm not sure—she was sick. There's nothing I can do about it now."
"I know that, I just want to know what happened."

The fact that my financial aid was late and after two weeks of effort I still had not found a roommate for my 885$ a month apartment—financial worries beyond anything before in my life—these melted. The enormous shock of grandma's death brought intense reflection on my tears. As much as I might have wanted to think how lucky grandma was to live in an expensive care facility and how her death at age 85 is insignificant in the face of the world's suffering, I can only escape my past so much. Though I have overturned political and cultural conservatism, more subtle traits have left their imprint. My tears were the same tears that would creep into grandma's eyes each time my mother and I left her. I can remember even as a small child seeing grandma's grand eyes turn red with tears as we began to leave.

Grandma worried a lot: it would not be incorrect to say she worried herself to death. She worried about her sisters, her daughters, her grandchildren. Her letters to me were wonderful: she had a great deal of trouble writing with her arthritis so they were usually very short with a few sentences of concern and advice, and she always enclosed a few "Family Circus" comic strips which she clipped from the newspaper. My trip to Europe worried grandma a great deal as she sent me letters warning me to be careful, for "the world is a dangerous place." When I told her I hoped to meet some French friends in order to improve my French, she wrote me--as if worried I might forget how to speak English--that I should meet some Americans.

It should be noted that my grandmother was the oldest of three daughters and remembers her mother taking part in rallies for women's suffrage, as she said, "People just knew it was right." Outside of the great amount of work done for her church—my grandfather was a pastor—the most distinguishing accomplishment of my grandmother was the transcribing of her great grandfathers letters sent back to his family in Michigan as he pursued gold in California. Now part of the University of Michigan archives, grandma spent perhaps half her life reading the difficult script and converting it into some 500 typewritten pages. Interestingly, grandma once told me her grandmother had also kept a diary that filled many volumes, but it had been discarded by the family.

When I was in Chicago for the summer I tried to uncover my roots there. Grandma studied religious education and met my grandfather at Northwestern. When I asked her over the phone about it she insisted it had been such a while she knew nothing of Chicago nowadays. I tried to make clear that I was interested in her recollections of when she had lived there. "Oh Paul," she said, "There's the Science Museum of course, and oh there's so much to see but you know I've been gone for such a long while I couldn't tell you. Well you know there's the Jane Addams Hull House and the Chicago Temple Building—,"she changed to a serious tone, "there's a great lot of things you must see now Paul."

I had talked to Grandma the week before she died to tell her I had arrived safely in San Diego and was settling in. She had been worried about me. "You don't have to worry about me," I told her.

I gave her my phone number and we repeated it three times back to each other. Then she said, "I don't know if I can call you I have trouble with the time difference and all."
"You can call me anytime grandma."
"Oh I can," I heard her smile.
"I love you grandma."
"I love you too Paul."
"I'll talk to you soon."
"Goodbye."

When thinking on the liveliness she had in her voice up to her last days it is hard to imagine her gone. There could be no sweeter or gentler a grandmother.
I miss Chicago. I'm going to miss grandma.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Rebels of the Neon God (1992)



Make less friends, get more done.
Make less friends, and you'll get more done.

Make less friends, have more sex.
Make less friends, and you'll have more sex.

To be twenty, wet and ready...
perpetually sticky
armpit island,
clothes drop
on TV sweat.

Quiet muggy soreness.
Tropical night moves
slippers on puddling tiles.

Let go joystick nihilism.
C'est vraiment dégueulasse.

or

Chill dry comfort
promising
Sils Maria chalet.

Alpine limen,
console eternal
failing devotion.

Pirouetting glacial cream cliffs
climb every cliché
à bout de souffle.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Mephisto (1981)



Even in the cold hard streets of central European cities' mid-winter, feet sweat. Cotton socks stiffened to cardboard can't pad thin soled blucher mocs.

6, Feb, 1991, the wall fell over a year ago. Nono died in Venice last May. I'm tired.

1 Rang, Reihe 1, Sitz 16 of Hebbel Theater folds open to caress lower back. Contralto, bass flute, piccolo, tuba, 2 campane sarde, 3 bongos, crotales, electronic incantations--Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit--Melville and Bachmann inaudible to crashing fragments, Risonanze erranti a Massimo Cacciari can't keep eyelids lifted.

Too soon it ends, sent drifting in Kreuzberg Kneipen, pushing Pilsner to last call . . . immer noch zwei, drei Stunden mehr, muss eine andere finden.

Show us the way to the next Whiskey Bar.

It's so cold Claudie Laska.

Erstens, vergeßt nicht, kommt das Fressen
Zweitens kommt der Liebesakt
Drittens das Boxen nicht vergessen
Viertens Saufen, laut Kontrakt.

Not far, Wirtschaftswunder, Yorckstr. 81, spinning Aarnio inside, find a couch edge to wrap in unlined two dollar trenchcoat discovered with a dozen dusty but mint 15 cent vinyl Lieder--Walter/Lehmann, Moore/Fischer-Dieskau--at Hyde Park Resource Center, until U-Bahn Frühstück trip.

Denn wie man sich bettet, so liegt man
Es deckt einen da keiner zu
Und wenn einer tritt, dann bin ich es
Und wird einer getreten, dann bist’s du.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)



Panning left, Cléo's eyes then head rising, face turning, sidelight from june solstice, rues de Paris, shimmering fountain cheeks, wig white ghosting before black curtain:

Toutes portes ouvertes
En plein courant d'air
Je suis une maison vide
Sans toi, sans toi

Comme une île déserte
Que recouvre la mer
Mes vagues se dévident
Sans toi, sans toi

Belle en pure perte
Nue au cœur de l'hiver
Je suis un corps avide
Sans toi, sans toi

Rongée par le cafard
Morte au cercueil de verre
Je me couvre de rides
Sans toi, sans toi

Et si tu viens trop tard
On m'aura mise en terre
Seule, laide et livide
Sans toi, sans toi
Sans toi


Quick zoom out.

C'est trop!
Je n' peux plus!
C'est affreux!

Forehead collapses on upright lid.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Rocco and His Brothers (1960)



"Once during a strike in Turin, Gramsci spoke to a conscript from Sardinia, one of the soldiers brought in to deal with the unrest in the city, who refused to believe that the workers on strike were poor people, and who told Gramsci, 'I know poor people and how they are dressed.'"--James Joll, Antonio Gramsci

Fascism roots itself in southern brother love and northern sister hate--banned in Milan for "inopportune resemblance to reality"--bare chests, bare fists cut skin for ancient boy on boy action (MMA submission: a soft tap to the elbow, knee, ankle holding the choke, fighters stand glossy eyed, cheek to cheek, palms olive oil blessing to splenius capitis) to defend rape/murder of lumpenprol.

I Love You Man's contemporary West Side Venetian--late night TV sleaze in shades lounging at helm of 30 foot SeaRay Weekender pitching quick rich rules: after making a killing in real estate, always leave others to clean up your dogshit--whose insipid electric strings of Rush underscore relentless screaming reversal of Richman's "I'm Straight," instructs the same blood bonding, full carat VS1 proposal backed by Lexus LS bluetooth compatibility, urbane burial of sewage canals, children rag picking their J. Crew lifestyle, embrace of totalitarian perfume.

Romance, a terminal perversion must be lived by confessing heartache's brightness, triumphant beauty, Death in Venice.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Bashu, the Little Stranger (1989)



Ubiquitous digit clickers flying from globurbia to capture screened glamour perch atop Sephora, BCBG Max Azria, Gap, American Eagle display windows, aside 5 story Little Mermaid alluring us to "Keep Oceans Clean," gaze down confused at Hollywood and Highland residue of vagabonds, after two hour samba de la paz, chants rising from spirit of Persian Queen/ revolucionaria salvadoreña, estrella blanca, montaña roja, sueño bolivariano de Ali Primera--
Dale salvadoreño, ¡Dale!
Que no hay pajaro pequeño, ¡Dale!
Que despues de alzar el vuelo, ¡Dale!
Se detenga en su volar--
final ujjayi cry at Reagan death squads fueled through 8 years of missiles raining on Mesopotamia--mustard gas with a shake to Saddam, BGM-71 TOWs to Khomeini--a hundred thousand corpses picked at by crows, thousands more limbless vets, orphans, refugees, 20 years later, born again in never ending war, taking shavasana.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)



Dark red morello cherries in light syrup spooned on to vanilla bean Breyers, bright pink spills onto drugstore plastic table cloth, white painted wood chair, linoleum floor.

On the surface, a recycled domestic drama of marriage dry limping from corporate careerism with same pseudo-subversion of 1983 masters of the universe Trading Places denouement: surprise surprise, money does buy happiness after all.

Not small kitchen coffee can coinage--bent black wood Danish barstools, Carrara island, Bertazzoni 8 burner range, Gagg double wall oven, Northland 72" stainless steel wrap door side-by-side furnish 40 x 40 breccia oniciata floored Williams-Sonoma gallery, showered by Smiths' gleeful ketchup in cheek high caliber squirt-out.

Phantasmagoria of the interior decorator's ars erotica as in Pitt, Norton, Bonham Carter ménage à trois égale ménage à un Fight Club compels scale of extreme s/m pleasure unmatchable outside octagon of Ultimate Fighter 1 Finale, Griffin v. Bonnar--Brangelina foreplay Muay Thai style.

More darkly, through another homage to 1970s Dirty Harry vigilantism we defend terror to its last ticking IED, as long as the thugs are multi-millionaire A-list white beauties with a couple of Jags in the garage.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

The River (1997)



思惟轉昏汨亂精魂
將心止動轉止轉奔
心銘, 牛頭法融 (Xin Ming, Niutou Farong)

Thinking brings unclarity,
Sinking and confusing the spirit.
Use mind to stop activity
And it becomes even more eratic.
--Translation Master Sheng Yen

Thinking will cause confusion, and confusion will give rise to all kinds of emotions.
If by grasping the mind one tries to stop agitation, then with this movement the mind will be even more active.
--Translation Henrik H. Sorensen

The meditation transfers the dusk flowing chaotic spirit
Stops the heart turns stops the extension to rush
--Translation Yahoo! Babel Fish

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)



Those who deride Adorno's readiness to equate Hollywood dreck with fascist propaganda consider this box office smash apologia for imperious exceptionalism. Beneath the grease of sentimental hilarity rubs post 9/11 bubba jingoism smearing the face of patsy Continentals with freedom fries to defend carbon based obesity with unilateral militarism.

Feminine Frenchy Sacha Baron Cohen, specialist in junior high school foreigner mockery, norms NASCAR good-ol'-boy gender, firecrackered by rebel flag on roof of Luke and Bo Duke's '69 Charger smoked in scent of roasted meat resting over idyllic southern town square, one morning after lynching picnic.

The same scent spreads from Disney's Main Street U.S.A., with mascot Mickey's welcoming white gloved hands, nostalgia for Song of the South's "happy darkie," Br'er Rabbit comforted by briar patch.

Lacking cartoon bigotry, Disney's pixelated version of racing romanticism, Cars, holds equally pernicious patriarchal lessons for my Lightning McQueen pajamaed, wall-papered, bedsheeted 5 year old nephew: cars are either boys or girls, and boy cars are real men.

In this autotopic country, collapsed mines don't kill, oil canals don't erode Louisiana coastal marshland and vital organs don't spurt from endoskeletons onto highways because machines build, repair and fuel themselves. And when Ford GT40 Stickers jacks off at the thought of rough sex with Carrera Sally we have a charming embodiment of Lukacsian reification: no more wet dreams.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Firemen's Ball (1967)



Milos Forman: "In the totalitarian system that I lived in the pressure was ideological . . . On the other hand, here in the West, ideological pressure doesn't exist at all, at all. But there is a commercial pressure, because a film is a very expensive undertaking and everybody who puts money into it wants money back."

But isn't commercial pressure ideological precisely because of its non-ideological pretense?

Isn't the allegory of rampant thievery applied to 1960s Communist Czechoslovakia equally applicable to contemporary Wall Street? Instead of the poor stealing from the poor the rich steals from the rich.

And which is the greater crime: pilfering a head cheese for future jellied meat treat or plundering a national treasury to furnish Montana ranch manor, South France coastal villa , 6 car garage of Hollywood Hills home, W Hotel beach front Fort Lauderdale condo and Upper East Side penthouse overlooking 40,000 shelter scramblers, dragging dirt stiffened clothes in punctured plastic bags through streets of outer boroughs? Poor schmucks.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Damnation (1987)



Dreaming CK guides me in a deliberative dolly shot through her top floor flat on Spring Street, "slowly, slowly," she tells me, "let the scene speak."

Lens pulls back to reveal french doored bedroom, sweater sleeve hanging from half open dresser drawer, overcoat from mahogany tree, remains of fifteen year absence from narrow flight.

Give permission to the silence, the anxiety for narrative purpose found in first generation Nyugat poets--Endre Ady, Árpád Tóth, Mihály Babits--broken only by squeak of industrial gondola lift, Bartók inspired sounds of Hungarian avante-garde.

The forced gaze at luscious rain trickling down stucco brings longing for the beauty of a Budapest post-wall rave, where CB--now Bruce-Lee--broke an ankle to hobble on my shoulder after last Metro through streets of le sixième arrondissement.

Dark drenched front legs of black khakis, cotton socks soaked through loafers, side winding water, yard long gutter puddles must be met without nylon pant shell, duck shoes but with eyes of Minnesota's Strand, Minor White: frenzied serenity.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Kicking and Screaming (1995)



Five minutes in, I understood the title's meaning.

Noah Baumbach is to filmmaking what Rod McKuen was to poetry, except that McKuen made me laugh.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Diamond Arm (1968)



After a hundred viewings, do predictable gags in Revenge of Return of Pink Panther Strikes Again become endearing?

When they are done in Russian do they become great art?

Is a Steve Martin remake really necessary?

Was Steve Martin ever funny?

Was Robin Williams ever funny?

Is Good Morning Vietnam any better than Patch Adams or are they the same film?

Isn't surrealist comedy at its best on television?

Watching Brady Bunch reruns on a black and white box in the late 80s before it was a joke?

A Saturday evening PBS rebroadcast of Lawrence Welk on every screen of a Lakeland, Florida nursing home hosted by the accordionist maestro himself from a golf cart at his Escondido resort?

Green Acres: truly an absurdist cry from the peak of 1960s carnage to our moment in the voice of Reverend Lowery: "When tanks will be beaten into tractors?"

Friday, January 16, 2009

Vengeance is Mine (1979)



Last summer I bought a pair of black flip-flops.

A few days after my purchase, the bus stopped suddenly, and as I fell forward, the force of my right foot pulled the middle strap from its hole. I pushed it back in but had to walk very carefully to prevent the strap from pulling out again because the rubber sole had a tear where the knob punched through. The more I walked, the more frequently it fell apart until I had to limp with one foot bare home.

In my apartment, I tried to repair the tear by sticking a wad of duct tape into it. For a four block trip to the grocery store this seemed to work, but on the way back, as I ran across Colfax, flip-flop flew off.

Next I stretched a wide strip of tape over the opening in the outsole, thinking the knob would stick to it. Cautiously I crept toward the library, gaining confidence with each step, but soon enough, my confidence collapsed.

What about adding a staple? One from the top and one from the bottom, I snapped them through squishy shaft. For several weeks I went boldly forward, a little metal pinch in the ball of my toe an adaptable irritant, my only precaution not venturing beyond a mile from home.

One day, without warning, the grip slips, plug from socket.

Final plan, last chance: duct tape sandwich. Scrub sole clean to prepare for solid binding. Make slice in small piece of tape and press plug through, tacky surface down. Place two large pieces, tacky surface up, wide enough to cover downward facing piece and attach to surrounding sole. Add a couple staples for extra security.

Silver vinyl folding, bunching, sliding exposes flap like a bothersome long toenail that I clip. Months later, a clump of sand-straw-clay, the surface of a Saskatchewan sod hut, has formed a seemingly unbreakable glue.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

The Cyclist (1987)


In January 1998, Le Nouvel Observateur asked former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski whether he regretted funding Afghan rebels--future Taliban--priming the Soviets for a disastrous invasion.

His answer: Regretter quoi? Cette opération secrète était une excellente idée. Elle a eu pour effet d'attirer les Russes dans le piège afghan et vous voulez que je le regrette ? Le jour où les Soviétiques ont officiellement franchi la frontière, j'ai écrit au président Carter, en substance : “Nous avons maintenant l'occasion de donner à l'URSS sa guerre du Vietnam.” De fait, Moscou a dû mener pendant presque dix ans une guerre insupportable pour le régime, un conflit qui a entraîné la démoralisation et finalement l'éclatement de l'empire soviétique.

Asked about this response in Our Own Private Bin Laden Brzezinski affirms, "Compared to the Soviet Union and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

Must toothpicks pin open eyes, buckets of water dowse hand slapped cheeks for us to see Afghans as toys in circular colonial death games?

We are weary. Comfort us with laughter at Carell's 40-year-old bicyclist. Confirm our normalcy in the toxic shadowed mist of motordom's profligacy.