- I saw The Proposition on Thurs, the Australian Western movie written by Nick Cave. It's a great movie; one of the better Westerns I've seen. In showing the very real and far-reaching effects of violence, I think it's waaay better than Unforgiven. I think there's another main theme, too, but I don't want to get into spoilers. Not a FUNN movie at all, but then I already typed "Nick Cave," didn't I?
- later on Thurs I ran into wakeangel and dovienya while going to London's photo-exhibit (where, naturally, pdxMatt was too). Good chat w/ wake about books, London has quite a masterful way with the camera (it's fabb to see so many SGs that are gifted on either side of the lens), and we saw quite a few good bits of art in the district's art-night festivities. I talked to a DC comics artist (forget the name) about the processes of making big-time comics (I wondered if they do all the artwork for a comic-book page on one piece of paper, since they had framed master-pages of his books; turns out they usually do... of course, modern computing gives much leeway for editing). I was later wowed by the artwork of Vivian Chen at Backspace. The theme of the gallery there is childhood feelings, and Vivian did a series of black&white/ color-juxtaposing pen drawings of a boy growing up, and his perceptions of his toy rabbit. At infancy, it's a second parent, 6 feet tall; early childhood, a friend, around 5 feet tall. As the pics go on around the room, the boy gets older, and more gruff-looking, while the rabbit gets smaller, and more forlorn-toy-looking. I believe the end pic isn't too sad, but it is a touching set of pics, for sure... and they're really cheap ($100-150). Made me wish I had a regular paycheck goin on. I'd definitely have bought one... and it's still tempting, as I'm not broke. Later, got to talk computers and junk a bit more with dovie.
-Fri night I went to see Michelle Tea do a booktalk. I'd seen her at a reading event over 5 years ago, since I liked her first 2 books (The Passionate Mistakes..., Valencia). Acme club wisely has New Deal vodka and a nice little signature drink, Earl Grey Fizz- tea, brut, and ND88. I'd drink a bunch if I were richer and my stomach more inclined to carbonation. Saw the Rose Fest fireworks out the bar patio, then The Golden Bears played (nice trio rock). Then Nicole Georges came out and did a funny slide-show-reading. She does a comics-zine, and has a way with telling stories (Michelle picked her to open because of this). She talked about her pets, and about listening to Laura Schlessinger on the radio as a goof, but then calling in one day and finding herself crying under Dr Laura's matronly, patronizing spells. (No better way to get revenge than to do a monologue about her, I guess [as Kathy Griffin showed on Seinfeld], including picture-slides comparing Dr Laura to the dinosaur-puppets on the old Dinosaurs show.) Michelle then came on and read end parts of her novel Rose of No-Man's Land about two smart-ass, drug-addled, sexually confused teens trying to get a tattoo and/ or more booze/drugs. She's quite a writer (and speaker) of dialogue of people caught in ridiculous, peer-pressurey circumstances. There was a jazz band capper to the night, but I felt exhausted... plus embarrassed that I talked to Michelle about her appearance 5 1/2 years ago and got her monologue mixed up with another person's. Ooops! At least she seemed pleased that I was a 2-time attendee, and I got an autographed flyer and her autobio, The Chelsea Whistle.
This isn't really an official Michelle Tea site, but it seems she checks in there a bit, and she summarizes the themes of her novel: "crappy families, fast food, virginities lost, shopping malls, crystal meth."
- I saw the DVD Russian Ark this week. It is quite visually bold n beautiful (and maybe young and restless too), and quite a feat of filmmaking. It was all filmed in one go, no edits, one camera. It examines Russian history via the artwork of the Hermitage palace-museum, plus several historical reenactments by hundreds of extras and dialogue between two ghosts/ spirits. The camera travels 1 1/2 kilometers during the story, following the narrator and a French Marquis (the only real lead actor of the film, played with great nasty/creepy charm/wit by Sergei Dreiden). Three full orchestras perform live, unedited on-camera at various points. Also, since the film is one shot, the cameraman had to walk the whole way with 35 pounds of digital camera batteries. And the camera goes out and into the buildings, into -20 degree weather, so they were very lucky the lenses didn't fog up (they did tests with this in mind). BUT anyway, as the director says, all this trickery means nothing if the story doesn't work or move you... but it is pretty arresting, especially due to Dreiden's Geoffrey-Rush-by-way-of-Johnny-Rotten attitude.
- I found a bookshelf in a neighborhood yardsale for $20. Things are comin together. I don't need much more furniture/ big-expensive-crap for this place.
- There are so many beautiful women in Portland who look lesbian (particularly, I guess, at a Michelle Tea/ Nicole Georges reading). This is NOT BAD; it just makes me jealous. There's all these hot, hot-t-t women who look like boys, have boy haircuts, and dress like boys... but they could just be indie-rockers. Oh well. I'd be perfectly happy in future goin out with a feminine girl or boyish girl or who knows what combination, so I'm not complaining or anything.
- I think The New York Dolls's demo-cover of "Seven Day Weekend" might be the greatest song evar, and it's just a straight rock song. Odd. I also have out-jazz form the library (John Zorn, David S Ware) in case I need something other than straight rock. I picked up a DMBQ album too, but it's kinda straight rock, kinda loud, but I'm not hooked at all yet. Dunno. Some of Iggy Pop's Kill City is raunchy and good; some of it is kinda corny-'70s-big-label-pop-rock but still good; and some of it is corny and awful. Odd agaaain. I also have a lot of Elvis Costello to wade through. Etc.
- later on Thurs I ran into wakeangel and dovienya while going to London's photo-exhibit (where, naturally, pdxMatt was too). Good chat w/ wake about books, London has quite a masterful way with the camera (it's fabb to see so many SGs that are gifted on either side of the lens), and we saw quite a few good bits of art in the district's art-night festivities. I talked to a DC comics artist (forget the name) about the processes of making big-time comics (I wondered if they do all the artwork for a comic-book page on one piece of paper, since they had framed master-pages of his books; turns out they usually do... of course, modern computing gives much leeway for editing). I was later wowed by the artwork of Vivian Chen at Backspace. The theme of the gallery there is childhood feelings, and Vivian did a series of black&white/ color-juxtaposing pen drawings of a boy growing up, and his perceptions of his toy rabbit. At infancy, it's a second parent, 6 feet tall; early childhood, a friend, around 5 feet tall. As the pics go on around the room, the boy gets older, and more gruff-looking, while the rabbit gets smaller, and more forlorn-toy-looking. I believe the end pic isn't too sad, but it is a touching set of pics, for sure... and they're really cheap ($100-150). Made me wish I had a regular paycheck goin on. I'd definitely have bought one... and it's still tempting, as I'm not broke. Later, got to talk computers and junk a bit more with dovie.
-Fri night I went to see Michelle Tea do a booktalk. I'd seen her at a reading event over 5 years ago, since I liked her first 2 books (The Passionate Mistakes..., Valencia). Acme club wisely has New Deal vodka and a nice little signature drink, Earl Grey Fizz- tea, brut, and ND88. I'd drink a bunch if I were richer and my stomach more inclined to carbonation. Saw the Rose Fest fireworks out the bar patio, then The Golden Bears played (nice trio rock). Then Nicole Georges came out and did a funny slide-show-reading. She does a comics-zine, and has a way with telling stories (Michelle picked her to open because of this). She talked about her pets, and about listening to Laura Schlessinger on the radio as a goof, but then calling in one day and finding herself crying under Dr Laura's matronly, patronizing spells. (No better way to get revenge than to do a monologue about her, I guess [as Kathy Griffin showed on Seinfeld], including picture-slides comparing Dr Laura to the dinosaur-puppets on the old Dinosaurs show.) Michelle then came on and read end parts of her novel Rose of No-Man's Land about two smart-ass, drug-addled, sexually confused teens trying to get a tattoo and/ or more booze/drugs. She's quite a writer (and speaker) of dialogue of people caught in ridiculous, peer-pressurey circumstances. There was a jazz band capper to the night, but I felt exhausted... plus embarrassed that I talked to Michelle about her appearance 5 1/2 years ago and got her monologue mixed up with another person's. Ooops! At least she seemed pleased that I was a 2-time attendee, and I got an autographed flyer and her autobio, The Chelsea Whistle.
This isn't really an official Michelle Tea site, but it seems she checks in there a bit, and she summarizes the themes of her novel: "crappy families, fast food, virginities lost, shopping malls, crystal meth."
- I saw the DVD Russian Ark this week. It is quite visually bold n beautiful (and maybe young and restless too), and quite a feat of filmmaking. It was all filmed in one go, no edits, one camera. It examines Russian history via the artwork of the Hermitage palace-museum, plus several historical reenactments by hundreds of extras and dialogue between two ghosts/ spirits. The camera travels 1 1/2 kilometers during the story, following the narrator and a French Marquis (the only real lead actor of the film, played with great nasty/creepy charm/wit by Sergei Dreiden). Three full orchestras perform live, unedited on-camera at various points. Also, since the film is one shot, the cameraman had to walk the whole way with 35 pounds of digital camera batteries. And the camera goes out and into the buildings, into -20 degree weather, so they were very lucky the lenses didn't fog up (they did tests with this in mind). BUT anyway, as the director says, all this trickery means nothing if the story doesn't work or move you... but it is pretty arresting, especially due to Dreiden's Geoffrey-Rush-by-way-of-Johnny-Rotten attitude.
- I found a bookshelf in a neighborhood yardsale for $20. Things are comin together. I don't need much more furniture/ big-expensive-crap for this place.
- There are so many beautiful women in Portland who look lesbian (particularly, I guess, at a Michelle Tea/ Nicole Georges reading). This is NOT BAD; it just makes me jealous. There's all these hot, hot-t-t women who look like boys, have boy haircuts, and dress like boys... but they could just be indie-rockers. Oh well. I'd be perfectly happy in future goin out with a feminine girl or boyish girl or who knows what combination, so I'm not complaining or anything.
- I think The New York Dolls's demo-cover of "Seven Day Weekend" might be the greatest song evar, and it's just a straight rock song. Odd. I also have out-jazz form the library (John Zorn, David S Ware) in case I need something other than straight rock. I picked up a DMBQ album too, but it's kinda straight rock, kinda loud, but I'm not hooked at all yet. Dunno. Some of Iggy Pop's Kill City is raunchy and good; some of it is kinda corny-'70s-big-label-pop-rock but still good; and some of it is corny and awful. Odd agaaain. I also have a lot of Elvis Costello to wade through. Etc.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
I'm glad you're doing what you want to be doing, at least, but I can understand the depression. Sometimes depression happens even when good things are going on. I don't really have any good advice, but I know exercise and being out in the sun can help a lot.
What's this volunteer job you do?