alexkarina

Pleasant surprise today: turned on C-Span2 and there was a three hour interview/call-in show with Susan Sontag. I used to be a Sontag groupie. I remember seeing her book jacket photo on the back of Against Interpretation when I was a freshman in college and suddenly realizing that being an intellectual could be glamorous. (Not that I'm either.) I haven't kept up with her novels of the past few years, but it's always great to hear her speak. Great writers (in contrast to mere academics) can write dense essays and yet also speak entertainingly and engagingly about current events and what-have-you to the sort of general audience that tunes into C-Span. From the sublime to the squalid... a lonely night last night had me yield to temptation; yes, a visit to a NYC strip club. New York strip clubs are pretty lame compared to the San Francisco ones I first ventured into during college. They make the girls cover up their tattoos and the DJs play lousy music, the girl don't even dance. I enjoy the spectacle, though, the women are all hot (though not as interesting as the ones I've met in SF or at the long-closed Harmony in NYC), and it's also interesting to watch the crowd. More fun to go with a friend, preferably female (if any of my SG friends ever want to go, it's my treat). The evening was saved when I ran into Chloe (tall, Hawaiian/Korean/Belgian--not to be confused with SG Chloe but just as beautiful), whom I hadn't seen in a long while. Incroyable, smoldering... Sunday I make amends by buying a lot of edifying media: DVDs (the just released boxed set of Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy, Ken Russell's Women in Love (such a great film; Glenda Jackson so incredible here), My Wife is an Actress (with Charlotte Gainsbourg), and a Region 2 copy of Raoul Ruiz's "Comedie de L'Innocence" (all from Kim's Video); Lloyd Dangle's "Troubletown" comic (St. Mark's Comics; the Lili Taylor lookalike I sigh about was there but on the phone as she rang up my purchase--quelle unprofessional! Just kidding!); Michel Chion's BFI study of Eyes Wide Shut and remaindered copy of "Down the Highway", a recent Bob Dylan bio (all from St. Mark's Books). Dinner from the Polish diner below my apt. The beverage: Beck's Dark.