Right, I warned you it was gonna be long: strap yourselves in, kids...
Sunday night, film 2 of 6: The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray, 1959). As I understand it, Satyajit Ray is unique in Indian cinema in modelling his films on European art cinema and his contempt for Indian popular cinema is matched only by the disregard in which the Indian popular audience holds Ray's films. Certainly, the tragic realism of Apu is a million miles away from the glitter and gladness of Bollywood. There's one scene in which a bridegroom goes suddenly insane on the day of his wedding which is disturbing by any standards, let alone those of the Hindi film industry. This is some impressive work, all told.
And I won't even tell you about how I spent a full hour wandering around town watching young (and not so young) people stagger and giggle and fight their way from bar to bar while I remained too afraid to cross the threshold of any.
I know how it feels to wait for the night to wrap me in its protective cloak.
HD, my drinking buddy and current Best Friend, gets back this week. I've missed him.
The Tao says (No. 1):
'The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way [...]
Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.'
Dennis Lehane, meanwhile, has this to say:
'Beauty could do that; it scared you off, made you keep your distance. It wasn't like in the movies where the camera made beauty seem like something that invited you in. In the real world, beauty was like a fence to keep you out, back you off.'
Monday night, film 3 of 6: Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979). This was my first Tarkovsky, although I've seen Soderbergh's remake of Solaris and the principle seems to be the same. A vaguely-defined, mysterious object or phenomenon appears - a strange energy field in space (Solaris); a strange energy field on Earth (the Zone) - that seems to have great powers, possibly to grant wishes. But the effect of the power is dependent upon the energy of the observer/participant who encounters it. This is, of course, a profoundly religious subject: the encounter with something indescribable and unnameable that is capable of bringing peace to the mind but also of shattering it...
Naturally, the film is painfully slow, but incredibly atmospheric. The shift from a sepia monochrome to the lush green of the Zone is a simple trick, but devastatingly effective. This is truly mesmerising cinema.
And it contains at least three unforgettable insights:
1) weakness is more valuable than strength. Babies and saplings are soft and weak and pliable; ancient trees are strong and hard. Strength and hardness are on the side of death.
2) to know one were a genius would be useless and unproductive. I write because I doubt, am unsure of myself or have something to prove. If I were perfectly certain of my genius, why then would I write?
3) to know your innermost wish would be a terrible curse. For then consciousness and free will would be exposed as illusory constructions by the infernal mechanism that has guided your life since the beginning.
Tuesday. This afternoon, over lunch, I listened to Come Get Some by Willis. I bought this album on spec last year after it got a good review in THE FACE, and I haven't listened to it much, but it turns out it's a fantastic record. I still know next to nothing about this Willis, but she has a very powerful voice somewhere between, let's say, Tracy Chapman, Natalie Merchant, Polly Jean Harvey and Amy Winehouse, and her music veers between a sort of blues-funk-soul (all genres which I don't normally like) and an unexpected jaunty kind of country-folk. Plus, as a songwriter, she's something else. She has one song called 'No one' which is about the pressure on all of us to 'be somebody', Willis thoughtfully concluding that maybe 'no one's who I want to be'. And there's a ballad called 'November' that opens with the line 'I remember the things you said in the space between my legs', but sung in such a way as to render it neither raunchy nor sleazy nor comical, but truly, hauntingly poetic. Check this lady out, really.
So, sorry it's all so heavy. Feel like I've been reading all day (grading papers mostly) and my eyes hurt.
good night.
Sunday night, film 2 of 6: The World of Apu (Satyajit Ray, 1959). As I understand it, Satyajit Ray is unique in Indian cinema in modelling his films on European art cinema and his contempt for Indian popular cinema is matched only by the disregard in which the Indian popular audience holds Ray's films. Certainly, the tragic realism of Apu is a million miles away from the glitter and gladness of Bollywood. There's one scene in which a bridegroom goes suddenly insane on the day of his wedding which is disturbing by any standards, let alone those of the Hindi film industry. This is some impressive work, all told.
And I won't even tell you about how I spent a full hour wandering around town watching young (and not so young) people stagger and giggle and fight their way from bar to bar while I remained too afraid to cross the threshold of any.
I know how it feels to wait for the night to wrap me in its protective cloak.
HD, my drinking buddy and current Best Friend, gets back this week. I've missed him.
The Tao says (No. 1):
'The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way [...]
Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.'
Dennis Lehane, meanwhile, has this to say:
'Beauty could do that; it scared you off, made you keep your distance. It wasn't like in the movies where the camera made beauty seem like something that invited you in. In the real world, beauty was like a fence to keep you out, back you off.'
Monday night, film 3 of 6: Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979). This was my first Tarkovsky, although I've seen Soderbergh's remake of Solaris and the principle seems to be the same. A vaguely-defined, mysterious object or phenomenon appears - a strange energy field in space (Solaris); a strange energy field on Earth (the Zone) - that seems to have great powers, possibly to grant wishes. But the effect of the power is dependent upon the energy of the observer/participant who encounters it. This is, of course, a profoundly religious subject: the encounter with something indescribable and unnameable that is capable of bringing peace to the mind but also of shattering it...
Naturally, the film is painfully slow, but incredibly atmospheric. The shift from a sepia monochrome to the lush green of the Zone is a simple trick, but devastatingly effective. This is truly mesmerising cinema.
And it contains at least three unforgettable insights:
1) weakness is more valuable than strength. Babies and saplings are soft and weak and pliable; ancient trees are strong and hard. Strength and hardness are on the side of death.
2) to know one were a genius would be useless and unproductive. I write because I doubt, am unsure of myself or have something to prove. If I were perfectly certain of my genius, why then would I write?
3) to know your innermost wish would be a terrible curse. For then consciousness and free will would be exposed as illusory constructions by the infernal mechanism that has guided your life since the beginning.
Tuesday. This afternoon, over lunch, I listened to Come Get Some by Willis. I bought this album on spec last year after it got a good review in THE FACE, and I haven't listened to it much, but it turns out it's a fantastic record. I still know next to nothing about this Willis, but she has a very powerful voice somewhere between, let's say, Tracy Chapman, Natalie Merchant, Polly Jean Harvey and Amy Winehouse, and her music veers between a sort of blues-funk-soul (all genres which I don't normally like) and an unexpected jaunty kind of country-folk. Plus, as a songwriter, she's something else. She has one song called 'No one' which is about the pressure on all of us to 'be somebody', Willis thoughtfully concluding that maybe 'no one's who I want to be'. And there's a ballad called 'November' that opens with the line 'I remember the things you said in the space between my legs', but sung in such a way as to render it neither raunchy nor sleazy nor comical, but truly, hauntingly poetic. Check this lady out, really.
So, sorry it's all so heavy. Feel like I've been reading all day (grading papers mostly) and my eyes hurt.
good night.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
Letting it flow through you, not holding on to anything. Sounds liberating.
That didn't seem like a very long entry at all. It must be the clarity of your writing, the cohesiveness of your ideas.
I did buy Raise Your Fists coincidentally enough, and I'm reveling in it.
You do realize I'm going to have to come there one day and give you a small nudge over the threshold. I used to go out to the bar by myself all the time, albeit trashed on various chems and booze. I'll take my scared sober ass in with you.
Trixel's Body - Instructions for Use and Care
1. Please note, voice is powerful, may have unintentional effects at times. Use carefully. Also note, slight hiss on sibilants due to chipped lower tooth from an Iggy Pop concert.
(more instructions to come, perhaps you could provide me with some guidance on your flesh too? )