Go On Singing

From SpliceToday, here is the last footage of Orson Welles. Its a nearly 10-minute interview from the Merv Griffin show, taken apparently 2 hours before Orson’s passing, and is certainly something to cherish.

mix it up with butter & treat

This is Butter 08; Summer of ‘69 found in the AV Club’s Songs Of Summer article. They’re a supergroup comprised of ‘Cibo Matto’s Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s Russell Simmons, Skeleton Key’s Rick Lee and graphic designer Mike Mills’ and I’m pretty much in love

Amazing

‘the thing that is born where values die’

“The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary [. . .] The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love.”–François Truffaut, quoted by Sukhdev Sandhu in the New Statesman

-Adam Thirlwell from The Guardian discusses the Nouvelle Vague Movement.
-In the New York Times, Stephen Holden reviews Charles Aznavour’s recent performance at City Center, part of his tour “Aznavour en Liberté”.
-From FT.com, a cute, kinda blasphemous little article which arranges French Filmmakers as characters in Reservoir Dogs.
-In The New Statesman, Sukhudev Sandu writes about Truffaut’s ‘400 Blows’ [the author also draws an adorable connection between a love of Truffaut and The Smiths with which I completely empathize.]
-Stella Artois made some commercials attempting to use New Wave styles. The Guardian features one that’s supposed to look like Godard.
-Masters of Cinema recently released a dvd edition of Godard’s ‘Une Femme Mariée’. The release will include graphic material, stuff from Luc Moullet, translations of a Godard lecture & excerpts from Racine’s Bérénice. Cinemasparagus also reports that they released some early films of Maurice Pialet, and includes a Pialet interview.
-The New York Times reports about Alain Resnais’ new film at Cannes. Criterion will be releasing Last Year at Marienbad [along with Malle's 'My Dinner with Andre', Godard's '2 or 3 Things' & 'Made in USA', & Akerman's 'Jeanne Dielman']
-Criterion posted an interview from Les Inrockuptibles with Chris Marker [who appears under the pseudonym Sergei Murasaki].
-IndieWire reports that Oscilloscope will be releasing Jules Dassin’s “The Law”
-The French New Wave opens The AV Club’s Gateways to Geekery column.

Time Out

Excuse me while I put on my flaming fangirl caps lock;

FOR IT APPEARS SOME SORT OF COSMIC SYNCHRONICITY IS HAPPENING IN THE UNIVERSE FOR THIS PERSONALLY ADDRESSED EP JUST APPEARED COURTESY MR. JARVIS COCKER;

POUR MOI, OBVIOUSLY

OMG EXCUSE ME WHILE I HIT REPEAT AND COLLAPSE IN AN ELATED, EXPLOSIVE HAZE

Cannes Selections

Is the weight of time crushing the life out of Western cinema? Is it running out of steam, intimidated by its history and long filmography? Have spontaneity and energy deserted it to move towards other climates? One thing is certain: its centre is in permanent movement. –Gilles Jacob

The official selections for the Cannes Film Festival have been announced.. Story from IndieWire, also The AV Club, a write-up from GreenCine called ‘Un Certain Disregard’, an article & list from Variety and a prior post from here about the festival.

President of the Jury this year is Isabelle Huppert. Also on the Feature Jury are Asia Argento, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Lee Chang-Dong, James Gray, Hanif Kureishi, Qi Shu, and Robin Wright Penn. The Short Jury is comprised of John Boorman, Bertrand Bonello, Ferid Boughedir, Leonor Silveira, & Zhang Ziyi. List of films [from Variety], which includes works by Tsai Ming-liang, Alain Resnais, Marco Bellocchio, Jacques Audiard, Isabel Coixet, and Almodovar after the cut.

Update; an article from Cannes President Gilles Jacob from IndieWire. He discusses the state of cinema, wondering if it is waning or yet to begin, and places emphasis on the inventiveness of the East. Here he talks about an expanded Cannes website, which should include more media & stuff to get people excited;

In the meantime, the Festival de Cannes has decided to continue helping independent creators as best it can. Since our new website has greater bandwidth, we would like to offer this platform to any of the films in the Official Selection that would like to make use of it, when comes the time of their theatre release. The idea is to present to the audience, and especially young audiences, the first 5 minutes of the film and not the usual typical trailer that extinguishes all desire. Was it Altman or Renoir, I forget, who said that the great artists are at their best in the first and last reel? Let’s hope that Internet users everywhere might drop their games and be tempted to rush to their nearest theatre to find out what happens next. Let’s hope so, for the sake of the artists. We make no distinction between their films. They are all there, somewhere, in the atmosphere that surrounds us all. They are all there and available, chemically, digitally, electronically, in binary, in VOD, virtually, we can feel them, they surround us. They are looking out for us. Let’s not abandon them.

JLG in USA

Melissa Anderson from Art Forum reports about ‘JLG in USA’, a Jean-Luc Godard DVD included in the current issue of The Believer.

Assembled by Jacob Perlin, a film programmer at BAMcinématek and founder of the Film Desk, a small distribution company, this fascinating anthology of Godard’s travels in America, spanning 1968 to 1980, consists of three short documentaries, a slide show, and an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. This unearthed collection of Godardiana shows the filmmaker as a patient interviewee partial to gnomic answers, an anxious fund-raiser, and a wearer of too-snug swimming trunks.

Sound & Vision

The Guardian interviews Don Letts, who discusses Big Audio Dynamite, punk & its influences, and keeping heroes down to earth. He also mentions that he’s in the middle of a documentary about Island Records. On how the proliferation of technology doesn’t create artists, but instead encourages lots of people to give themselves the title;

Film-making is bloody hard work, but it should be. Pain leads to passion. I don’t see that affordable technology is advancing film-making, as a craft. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for putting the means of production in the hands of the people, but, first, you’ve got to have a great idea. Just because you can afford [to make a film], doesn’t mean you can. The internet is full of porno or ego. Machines are great, people are crap. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but art was better when things were more expensive.

The Last Metro

You have the idea for a film, you shoot a second one, and the public gets a third.–Roger Leenhardt

Criterion has posted a web-exclusive essay from François Truffaut about his film ‘The Last Metro’. Written three years after the film’s release in 1983, this short recollection explores the film’s production and his methods approaching its content. The film was released last week.

“Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face”

The New York Times Art in Review profiles an exhibit called ‘Pre-Digital 1980-1992’ [@ Skarstedt -- 20 East 79th Street, Manhattan, Through April 18]. The exhibit focuses on Barbara Kruger’s collage work “which used the stripped-down graphs and punched-out language of commercial promotion to deliver political warnings and admonitions.”. One of the included images;

Reading about Kruger on Wikipedia led to her Art:21 Profile, as well as a short interview with Swindle. There Anne Keehn discusses the independence, restlessness, and deceptive simplicity of the artist. From Barbara;

“I’m not an icon. What is an icon? I’m just a regular person. People don’t really care about artists anyway. You walk up to anybody on the street and ask them to name an artist, and they probably won’t even know what to say. Maybe they’ll say ‘Andy Warhol,’ because they think he was kind of perverse and queer.”

Doesn’t He Look English?

Nikolai Gogol would be turning 200 soon, so the problem of his nationality has been raised, reports Tom Parfitt from The Guardian. The article fairly recognizes that the author wrote about both countries, that he was born in the Ukraine, and spent the bulk of his adult life in proper Russia. Both countries are erecting monuments and producing homage/adaptations for the author. There seems to be a legitimate back and forth and a legitimate effort to honor him properly, in general.. Although the Russians do possess his language, for Gogol wrote in Russian, and there seems to be preference against the Ukraine for their dirty tendencies of altering words in his text from ‘Russia’ to ‘Ukraine’. They seem to be fairly bratty about it which kind of degrades their argument- whether or not he was actually born within their borders this it kind of seems like they’re being pretty immature about it.

There are a few interesting points in this article beyond superficial ownership. The first comes from a quote by Gogol authority Igor Zolotussky;

“But there can be no such discussion because there is no such thing as a separate Ukrainian national identity. Gogol wrote and thought in Russian.”

This could be understood on semantic grounds but could also indicate a certain mode of thought, a certain spirit. I think in English because it is my main language, but do I also think in English in a way which makes me typically American? Language determines the manner in which one articulates, but heritage and culture determine tendencies, philosophies, and affinities–so one can write in Russian but one can also *think in Russian, in other words take on a Russian identity–a separate concept from simply thinking in the language.

The second comes from Vladimir Yavorivsky;

Vladimir Yavorivsky, a Ukrainian novelist and MP, said that if Gogol was a tree, “the crown was in Russia but the roots were in Ukraine”.

“To divide Gogol is like trying to divide air, eternity or the sky. He was a great Russian writer, but he was also a great Ukrainian one,” he added. “It is not only language that is important, but themes and subject matter. His writing was full of the imagery and thinking of Ukrainian songs and folklore.”

This indicates an honest assessment of an author, defying the idea that they are property of a certain country. [although conceding to 2] Place of birth imbues a person with certain tendencies, but travelers, expatriates, or anyone who shifts themselves into a different environment absorb the surrounding culture in some way. Whether they willfully adopt the new influence or attempt to seek refuge by the creation of a facsimile of their prior existence, an alteration is made and that individual is no longer a product of a lone, singular environment. If I were to move to a city [which I intend to do], I would carry with me tendencies of a small town person, but would eventually be influenced by the stimuli & society of the city. Whether this effectively erases my status as a small town person is certainly in question–even if I were to adopt the new manner of acting, the new proclivities, and even if I were to outright denounce everything about my prior existence, I would still exhibit behavior that might only be produced by my time in that small town. [or, if moving as a very young dependent, by the behavior asserted by guardians/peers who inhabited that small town] If I move to Paris, I would not really be Parisian, but would be an American in Paris, a blend of both societies. Immigration undeniably changes one’s place of residence, but its actual influence on a person asserts itself to different degrees. The assertion of national ownership is undoubtedly inaccurate [not to mention silly], for whether it abides by the wishes of the person in question or not, it eclipses the idea of multi-nationality, and pares down the possibility of influence to unfortunate singularity.

Also, John Mullan at The Guardian discusses the issue in this immensely interesting [& amiably written] article. His examination is more general, & focuses on the tendency of nations to view authors as property, claiming or reclaiming them after their elite status has been established. Mullan points out that the preciousness of literary prestige inspires some nations to reclaim authors who fled once they reached an adult age, even when that author rejects the nation outright. Others move and embrace their new climate to such a degree that the new nation will tend to assume they are indeed *their native, absorbing them into their milieu. He mentions quite a few authors subject to this back and forth of identity, including situations in which the author has cooperated or rebelled against their assumed owners.

Dehisce

From Andrew Sullivan, a ‘linomation’, film, comprised of 296 pieces of hand-carved linoleum prints, 10sq cm each. The artist, Mark Andrew Webber, says on the youtube site that it is a project for The Art of Lost Words, where is meant to loop indefinitely [here, its looped 3x]. He chose the title from a list of lost words, which means;

(biology) release of material by splitting open of an organ or tissue; the natural bursting open at maturity of a fruit or other reproductive body to release seeds or spores or the bursting open of a surgically closed wound

An Old, Cranky Patriarch

Allison Flood from The Guardian reports that Robert Crumb has announced completion of his version of the Book of Genesis. “Four years in the making, Crumb worked from the King James Bible and Robert Alter’s translation to reinterpret the Book of Genesis, from the Creation via Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Noah boarding his ark.” According to the publisher it will likely be released in October, should take the form of satire, and should cause readers to reflect on the content of the holy book and its role in society. Crumb on trying to figure out how to draw a character like god;

“My problem was, how am I going to draw God? Should I just draw him as a light in the sky that has dialogue balloons coming out from it? Then I had this dream. God came to me in this dream, only for a split second, but I saw very clearly what he looked like. And I thought, OK, there it is, I’ve got God,” he told interviewer Robert Hughes, Time’s art critic. “He has a white beard but he actually ended up looking more like my father. He has a very masculine face like my father.” He had considered, he said, drawing God as a black woman. “But if you actually read the Old Testament he’s just an old, cranky Jewish patriarch.”

On a related note, all this religiousness made me think of his interpretation of Philip K. Dick’s religious experience. Early last month I initiated an attempt to learn more about comics & graphic novels, so I read Ghost World because I love the movie so much. I was googling Daniel Clowes to learn about his stuff and to find more work, and somehow I ended up reading this R. Crumb work about Philip K. Dick… I don’t remember how I found it– probably because Crumb is one of the few comic artists I know, from the Zwigoff documentary [which, coincidentally, I just spent the most elating 2-day bender watching]? Either way, it is cited as being by Crumb & is a totally insane, engrossing read.

National Poetry Month

The New York Review of Books is celebrating National Poetry Month by posting a poem a day from its archives. So far, the collection includes W.S. Merwin’s ‘One of the Lives’ from 1993, and Christopher Logue’s ‘All Day Permanent Red: the First Battle Scenes of Homer’s Iliad Rewritten’.

“he got louder through refraining to eat”

Steve Dollar from Stop Smiling interviews Steve McQueen about the production of his film, “The Hunger”. McQueen on sense perception and cinema, [he further explores this when discussing his aim to thrust the audience into the visceral experience of the film];

For me, sound makes up for so many things we can’t experience in a film; smell, geography, and whatnot. It gives you a lot of scope to play with. Film allows you to place people in the now and then as they’re watching the film, and that’s what I wanted to do with that particular device of sound, and image, but particularly sound. It’s one of those processes I’m interested in. Like switching off the lights in the room and finding your way around the room in the dark. Touch and feel have to guide you to the sofa, to the coffee table, to the mantelpiece. You find the geography of the room through another sensory device.

Words Without Borders

Bookforum linked to a site called Words Without Borders, an online magazine for international literature. Their archives are expansive, educational, and total bliss for the traveller/aspiring vagabond. Their current issue explores Greece;

This month we’re exploring Greece from perspectives both native and foreign. An earlier generation’s exodus has made way for a new influx of arrivals, changing the fabric of Greek society and shaping a new literary landscape. Here ex-pats and immigrants, insiders and outsiders consider national, cultural, and ethnic identity in defining what it means to be Greek today.

‘Convulsive Bliss’

Andrew Gallix from 3:AM Magazine interviews Simon Reynolds. They discuss his trajectory in the music press, trade thoughts on music history & experience, and analyze modes of criticism. Its an amiable, studied interview, from a magazine that looks pretty worthwhile. Reynolds on the symbiotic influence of theory and music;

When you read about one of your favourite bands and there’s chunks of Barthes or Kristeva or Foucault flying about, the sparks created light a fire in your brain. The music is enriched by the theory, but the theory is also enflamed by the music, if you get me. You might say that the theory is justified by the music, in a way. Much more so than the other way round. It’s brought alive by the music, and substantiated by the music.

He also has the same open, overlapping impression of reviewing, accepting vacillations of style and vitality [which is awkwardly worded, sorry];

The messianic mode I would distinguish from your standard hype-hype, “here’s a hot new scene” type journalism, though, since the prophetic style is always gesturing towards some kind of salvation for rock/music, which in turn would be a salvation or redemption or something like that for the world, given that the messianic mode of rockwriting is predicated on the attribution of monstrous world-historical importance to rock music (or rap, or rave, or whatever…). That explains both the born-again fervour and the rage at rock music when it fails to live up to its potential or goes through periods of doldrums

“They Did A Lot Of Stuff, Some Of Which I Quite Liked”

–Depeche Mode Q&A from The Guardian, where the band chooses tracks from their new album to fit certain scenarios or moods. Its a very entertaining little interview and Fletch is especially humorous.

–The Vaselines anthology gets a deluxe reissue by Sub Pop, and they will be touring the US as well.

–Kevin Barker made a documentary called ‘The Family Jams’, made when Vetiver toured with Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. Also includes Antony & The Johnsons and Espers.

–Mos Def’s new album, called ‘The Ecstatic’ is planned for a June release. Mos Def at Rcrd Lbl.

–From As My World Turns, a discussion of Françoise Hardy’s “Tous les garçons et les filles”, complete with video, lyrics, lots of well-written & readable biographical information, and comic strip.

–Brian Eno is curating a festival of annual festival of music, debate, light, art installations, & performance in Sydney. Luminous//Vivid is an expansive fest lasting from May through June so glamorous I am pained by my geography, and should include Ladytron, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Battles, Damien Dempsey, Jon Hassell, Reggie Watts, Laraaji, Karl Hyde, and Jon Hopkins. Additionally, Edward Helmore from The Guardian talks to Eno & David Byrne about the music industry, their new record, and yummy stylistic mergings. Here, Eno on the emotionality & inclusion of their approach;

“We had been working in parallel, and found ourselves drawn to music of the people – gospel music, for example – music designed to include people,” says Eno. “I would say it’s an embrace of a certain kind of emotionalism over a literary or intellectual approach. [The music] is not exclusive. It’s not clever music. It’s music that’s evolved to allow people to take part. David and I talked about music as form of surrender, so you stop being ‘me’ and start being ‘us’. The social aspect to music has always interested me. It’s the possibility of losing yourself.”

–John Cage’s 4′33″ is ‘available’ on iTunes

–Forever 21 tried to sell bootleg Minor Threat t-shirts, which are hideous conceptually and aesthetically

–A Gorillaz film called Bananaz is set to be released in DVD and online 20 April.

–Warp Records turns 20, celebrates with shows.

–Spike Jonze is planning to collaborate with Kanye West to make a 10-15 minute video of ‘See You in My Nightmares’. Kanye is also prepping a tour, and Pitchfork says that the Jim Henson company is somehow awesomely involved.

–Craig McLean interviews Pete Doherty for The Guardian. He unfortunately spends much of the interview crying, as they pore over his problematic emotional relationships with absolutely everyone around him. They also touch upon lyrics, literature, publicity, and his many musical incarnations. His solo album entitled ‘Grace/Wastelands’ was released last week.

–Record Store Day this year will be 18 April, and Bob Stanley from the Guardian writes an article about the pleasures of 45s

“Language is best used when most efficiently abused”

I have not the leisure, even if I had the desire, to do anything whatever in the way of literature. And perhaps that too is as it should be. I’ve already done far too much, little and yet too much, never having had any idea about anything. -Samuel Beckett

For The Times Literary Supplement, Gabriel Josipovici reviews the recently released Letters of Samuel Beckett [vol.1; 1929-40]. In the course of the article he talks about Beckett’s tendencies, his literary affections, and his similarities to Kafka. The author also illuminates the time Beckett spent on an art tour in Germany as particularly relevant. Many of the works he set to examine were suppressed by Nazis for being ‘decadent’, and so he had to expend great effort to find them. This is certainly interesting, but it is also historically relevant, providing information about ‘the state of German museums and art galleries in the 1930s’ and about paintings which have since been destroyed by looting/bombing.

The outline is really very well written, to such a degree it is unquestionably able to exist as its own piece outside of reportage, representing a fair, studied style reviews seldom achieve. It is clearly motivated by a depth of research and literary immersion, and it inspires a passion to acquire this and subsequent editions, even if the passion to read Beckett’s letters is not already in gestation. In any case, [not to go on and on] this passage expressing Josipovici’s preference for letters as the supreme method [outside of their own work] of gaining a certain intimacy with the individual is particularly interesting to me;

For biography, no matter how tactfully it is written, has the effect Sartre described years ago, of imposing a false teleology on its subject, of giving a shape and meaning to the life which it did not have for the one who was living it. Letters, on the other hand, are so moving because we live each moment with their author and time takes on the dimension it has in our own lives: of being more like a well into which we are perpetually falling at a deceptively slow pace than like a well-lit road along which we travel, our destination clearly visible ahead.

Kundera Accusations

–For Sign and Sight Anja Seeliger argues that Milan Kundera should come forward with an explanation to allegations of his potential past role as an informant in an incredibly messy incident from 1950. Her article is very detailed, teeming with links to other sources of information, one of which includes a list of 11 writers who disagree with the publication of secret police information outing Kundera. Others contend that the released document is authentic, but due to the inflammatory nature of the situation and the singularity of the document, investigations are being made as to the dependability of its content.

For Standpoint Magazine, Michael Weiss explains the situations and circumstances leading up to Dvoracek’s imprisonment, including a transcription of the report bearing Kundera’s name. This article also admits that the document is indeed forensically authentic but that its contents may be suspect, which is the position of Dvoracek’s wife and seems to be the more or less universal opinion various others involved in the situation. To a French cable channel, Ms. Dvoracek says that whether or not it was Kundera is irrelevant. Either way, Kundera’s supposedly inflammatory anger and secrecy about the situation are not particularly helpful for those trying to prove the document was originally incorrect. On Kundera’s advocacy for the individual’s right to privacy;

He has often compared the erasure of private life by prying journalists in democratic societies to state invigilation in totalitarian ones. “Secrecy” is a sacred right, without which, he has said, “nothing is possible – not love, not friendship”. By and large, Kundera’s friends have abided by his need for total opacity. “I’d happily talk to you about Milan,” the Czech actor Mojmir Heger told Hradilek, “but we have an agreement that I won’t while he is still alive.”

Bookends

–From The Atlantic Monthly, Thomas Mallon discusses “Words in Air; The Complete Correspondence of Robert Lowell & Elizabeth Bishop“.

–From The New Yorker, an extensive profile [that I've not yet finished reading] of Ian McEwan by Daniel Zalewski.

–From Sign and Sight, Ina Hartwig discusses the recent release of correspondence between Paul Celan and Ingeborg Bachmann.

Bachmann to Celan, 1949;

“As you will no doubt imagine, since we parted ways my time has not passed without relationships with other men. But there has been nothing binding, I never stay anywhere long, I am more restless than ever and I promise nothing to no one.”

–From Sign and Sight, Monika Maron explores the recently published diaries of Günter Grass. He started keeping one in 1990, after the fall of the wall.

–From The Guardian, Andrew Gallix talks about the incongruity of Guy Debord being accepted by the French establishment. He also discusses his political relevance and links to some of his films at UBU.

–For the Times Literary Supplement, Paul Gifford reviews a new 1,300 page compendium of information about Paul Valéry by Michel Jarrety. Thankfully, blessed Valéry tended to not throw anything away, so the biography includes “newspaper articles and reviews; the proceedings of the organizations in which he held high office, personal papers of all kinds (love poems, draft letters, invitations, bank statements, [&] stock exchange reports”. This article too is greatly detailed, with biographical information about the author of an occasionally private nature, as well as discussions about his place in literary history. I am currently spasmodic; salivating and shaking beyond repair in excitement about this new tome ohgodohgodohgod–hopefully it is translated into English/available to the United States very very soon.

Body & Soul

Marianne Faithfull answers questions for the ‘My Body & Soul’ column of The Guardian.
[Paul McGann was also recently interviewed for this column]

Interview with Jürgen Habermas

From Sign and Sight, an interview with Jürgen Habermas conducted in November by Thomas Assheuer. Habermas theorizes about an altered European political climate, necessary adjustments to the UN and EU, and the implementation of global financial policies & regulations. He also explains some of the ethical problems involved in the economic collapse; “The whole program of subordinating the lifeworld to the imperatives of the market must be subjected to scrutiny.”.

Assheuer references Habermas’ book Legitimation Crisis, which analyses tensions in modern society and in pertinence to this article, the ‘legitimation crisis’ presented when a disillusioned populus loses faith in capitalism. In the interview Habermas specifies that it is impossible to elude capitalist systems, in which modern society is so inextricably entrenched, so he emphasizes that we should analyze problems within it, trying ‘civilize and tame’ its inefficiencies.

The agenda that recklessly prioritises shareholder interests and is indifferent to increasing social inequality, to the emergence of an underclass, to child poverty, a low wage sector, etc., has been discredited. With its mania for privatisation, this agenda hollows out the core functions of the state, it sells off the remnants of a deliberating public sphere to profit-maximising financial investors, and subordinates culture and education to the interests and moods of sponsors who are dependent on market cycles.

After discussing a need for the graduated adjustement of economic policies in Europe, they discuss the United States. Habermas theorizes on the country’s role in the attempt to achieve global equality;

By contrast, modernity rests upon the decentralised universalism of equal respect for everyone. It is in the interest of the United States not only to abandon its counterproductive stance towards the United Nations but to place itself at the head of the reform movement. Viewed historically, the confluence of four factors – superpower status, the oldest democracy in the world, the assumption of office of a, let’s hope, liberal and visionary president, and a political culture that provides an impressive sounding board for normative impulses – represents an improbable constellation. Today America is deeply distraught by the failure of the unilateral adventure, the self-destruction of neoliberalism and the abuse of its exceptionalist consciousness. Why shouldn’t this nation, as it has so often in the past, pull itself together and try to bind the competing major powers of today – the global powers of tomorrow – before it is too late into an international order that no longer needs a superpower? Why shouldn’t an American president – buoyed by a watershed election – who finds that his scope for action in the domestic arena is severely constrained want to embrace this reasonable opportunity – this opportunity for reason – at least in foreign policy?

[["This interview was conducted by Thomas Assheuer and originally appeared in Die Zeit on 6 November, 2008. The English translation is © Polity 2009, and was published by agreement with Polity Press. The interview will appear in Jurgen Habermas's, "Europe: The Faltering Project" (Polity, 2009). Translation: Ciaran Cronin"]]

Steve Martin offers to fund play

Noel Murray at the AV Club reports that Steve Martin has offered to fund a high school version of his wonderful play ‘Picasso at the Lapin Agile’. A provincial & alarmingly idiotic parent presented a petition to the school’s superintendent protesting ‘the play’s subject matter and language’, which motivated the board to cancel production. Student groups then sought to move the production off campus, which inspired Martin to send a polite letter offering any additional required funds.

In the letter, Martin wrote that he objects to the petition’s characterization of his play as being “about people drinking in bars and treating women as sex objects,” and that he stepped in to prevent Picasso At The Lapin Agile from “acquiring a reputation it does not deserve.”

from his letter;

So while the question of whether students should perform the play at their high school remains something to be determined by the community, I firmly believe that seeing the play will bring no harm to them and might well uplift them — and acting in the play, if they are permitted by their parents, would also bring them no harm, and may help them to understand the potency, power and beauty of the arts and sciences.

‘Anatomy of An Uprising’

In The Guardian, director Anders Østergaard discusses how his humble short about a Burmese video journalist turned into a full-length documentary depicting an uprising.

It was fascinating, with each stage clear and well defined. We saw the early, hesitant days when the first groups of protesting monks would start marching at a fast, nervous pace in silence, cautiously applauded by onlookers. The next stage was more daring: the monks would begin their religious chanting and the public joined in, an expression of their yearning for freedom camouflaged in Buddhist generalities. Then came a euphoric outburst of political slogans and direct demands to the government, which echoed through the streets. This defiance turned into panic as the military beast finally got on its feet and struck back. Even though we knew the end of the story all too well, we were still heartbroken to see all those hopes for change and liberation dashed, as the protest transformed into a fight for survival in the course of a single afternoon.

Salon interview with Rick Steves

Kevin Berger of Salon interviews Rick Steves. They discuss the American tendency to assume they have rights over the national resources of other countries, egocentric interpretations of the word ‘civilised’, and how travel promotes greater intercultural understanding. Berger also mentions Steves’ new tv special on Iran, which presents a sympathetic portrait of Iranian daily life. A $5 dvd of the film is available “to any community group that wants to discuss it.”

On the forfeiture of basic rights in times of fear;

They traded away their freedom for a theocracy, out of fear. It’s just like Americans. We don’t want to torture people, we want to have civil liberties, we don’t want our government reading our mail. But when we have fear, we let fear trump our commitment to our civil liberties and decency. We allow torture, we allow the government to read our mail. It’s not because we’re bad, it’s because sometimes fear is more important than our core values. And Iran is afraid. They’ve given up democracy because they know a theocracy will stand strong against encroaching Western values.

On economic panic & paralysis;

A headline today said, “Americans lose 18 percent of their wealth.” Well, no, it wasn’t real wealth, it was a bubble. You’re down 18 percent? You’re not. It shouldn’t have been up there in the first place. So get over it. Shut up. Go to work, produce stuff that has value. I really think the days are gone, I hope, when people can rearrange the furniture and get rich on it. You got to produce something.

The interesting thing is we’re all in it together. What I’m sad about is that when America catches a cold, the developing world catches pneumonia. And that’s happened now. And a lot of Americans are feeling sorry for themselves because they can’t have that fancy whatever-they were-going-to-get. But they have to remember that the gap between the haves and have-nots is even more pronounced and more desperate now. You’re suddenly worried about how much is in your retirement account, but other people are worried about how much is on their dinner plate tonight. That’s the reality.

The interview also references this article by Katharine Mieszkowski examining differing cultural opinions about the immensely interesting & vital topic of human waste. She talks to Rose George, author of “The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters” about worldwide toilet & cleaning customs, sewage treatment practices, and the ecological effects of human waste.

Cronenberg to Receive Honor

According to Variety, David Cronenberg will receive the Legion d’honneur in a ceremony to be held 1 April in Toronto. He will receive the ‘Medal of Knight to the French National Order of the Legion of Honor’ to ‘recognize his accomplishments and the services he rendered to French culture and to enhance the cultural relationship between France and Canada’.

The Guardian interviews Alan Moore

From The Guardian, Alan Rose interviews Alan Moore. Through the course of the interview they discuss his importance in bringing comics to a more mature readership, his disapproval of adaptations of his work, and his career as a magician. He also refers to DC Comics as “a rich stalker-girlfriend” and mentions his new novel entitled ‘Jerusalem’.

On the disparity between comics and cinematic adaptation;

“There is something about the quality of comics that makes things possible that you couldn’t do in any other medium,” he says, with just a hint of the exasperated schoolteacher. “Things that we did in Watchmen on paper could be frankly horrible or sensationalist or unpleasant if you were to interpret them literally through the medium of cinema. When it’s just lines on paper, the reader is in control of the experience – it’s a tableau vivant. And that gives it the necessary distance. It’s not the same when you’re being dragged through it at 24 frames per second.”

Regarding his new work with his wife Melinda Gebbie called ‘Lost Girls’, which he openly titles pornographic;

“There is a moral agenda in it. Put simply, it’s ‘make love, not war’ but it goes a bit further than that. I think if we had a better relationship with our sexual imaginations, there would be a lot less sex crime – and a lot less directed at children.”

On Creativity;

“To me, all creativity is magic,” he says. “Ideas start out in the empty void of your head – and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It’s an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that’s not the most important thing. It’s the work itself. That’s the reward. That’s better than money.”

From the Desk of Mr. Lady

From Jezebel, an assemblage of clips comprising Riot Grrrl Retrospective, an 11 part online video series from here. The EMPSFM site also features a written outline that includes extensive historical details, the evolution of grrrl style, and the message behind the music.

And from The Guardian, Laura Barton profiles Riot Grrrl.

“I don’t know why so-called punk rockers are so threatened by a little shakeup of the truly boring dynamic of the standard show atmosphere,” said Kathi Wilcox of Bikini Kill. “How fresh is the idea of 50 sweaty hardcore boys slamming into each other or jumping on each other’s heads?”

Atmyszed

From Filmmaker via Pitchfork, Iggy Pop is preparing a jazzish album based off Michel Houellebecq’s ‘The Possibility of an Island’. Iggy also contributed 7 songs for last year’s documentary Derniers Mots/Last Words, which follows Houellebecq as he transforms the novel into A film. Pitchfork also includes other links, Iggy news, and a potential album cover. The album, called ‘Preliminaires’ should be released 18 May.

Conspicuous Consumption

The Guardian reports that David Kipen, program director of The Big Read, has ‘vowed to eat a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird if any one of the 128 residents of Kelleys Island in Ohio fails to read the book.’ 70 residents have already signed up, which means there are 58 left to petition. Their award will be a pizza per person. If he loses, he will face 309 pages of old-time American class warfare that has the potential to taste much better than a shoe. The selection of the town in my state was due to its size and ‘bravery’;

Kipen said he had long wanted to find a town “small enough and brave enough to accept the challenge of dragooning every last literate resident, without exception, into tackling its chosen book”, when Kelleys Island, a four square mile island in Lake Erie, was suggested to him.

Great Expectations

Here is collection of film scraps, news, and rumors concerning international cinema. I compiled this tonight excitedly as a distraction from work, so its in a fairly disorganized list format, borne out of a random list of actors and filmmakers I thought to look up on imdb. As its entirely comprised of works in development, the information might not be like 100% dependable, but either way it should serve as a starting off point for projects to look for and to get excited about in the coming months. First here is a trailer for Coco Avant Chanel, while the full & psychotically extensive list is hidden underneath the cut. x.

–Below is a trailer for Coco Avant Chanel, a biographical picture about Coco Chanel starring Audrey Tatou and Emmanuelle Devos by Anne Fontaine.

Trailer Browsing

The Limits of Control, a new film by Jim Jarmusch shot by Christopher Doyle, starring Isaach De Bankolé, which will hopefully have a more suitable poster as the release date approaches.
Goodbye Solo, by Ramin Bahrani about an unlikely friendship. This is showing at the Cleveland International Film Festival Fri Mar 20 at 7.20p, and Sat Mar 21 at 4.40p.
Lorna’s Silence, a new film by the Dardennes.

Must Read After My Death, a documentary by Morgan Dews, which is a compilation of materials from her grandparents. Comprised mostly of candid audio recordings, it sounds like a psychological portrait of a couple and a family of 60s America.
Enlighten Up is a documentary about the transformative powers of yoga. The documentarian and her skeptical friend travel around together searching for a program which will invite his enthusiasm and influence him.
Cherry Blossoms, a film by Doris Dörrie about an emotionally distant German couple. The wife passes away and the husband goes to Japan to investigate her interest and desires. This is also showing at the Cleveland International Film Festival Sat Mar 21 at 6.45p, and Sun Mar 22 at 11:20a.

Also, Public Enemies, a new film by Michael Mann which would otherwise be thoroughly uninteresting if it did not have a cast that anyone young during the 90s [with the kind of misguided taste consisting of semi-legitimate but irrefutably trendy independent works and passable zeitgeist movies only a wandering, indiscriminate young person can refine] could not reasonably resist.

Top 10 Cuban Novels

From The Guardian, Leonardo Padura compiles a list of his Top 10 Cuban Novels. Padura is a writer and essayist who lives in Cuba. On making such a list, which is included [without his elaborations] after the cut;

Cuba is a country of poets. It would almost be too easy to select 10 poets or books of poetry that play a key role in the short history of Cuban literature. But there are excellent – and diverse – Cuban novelists, too few of whom are available in English translation. The 10 I’ve picked here will hopefully give some idea of both the country’s literary tradition, and its imaginative life.

“I live the lives of those I draw”

From Mental Floss via Jezebel, an article about Nadya Rusheva, a Russian artist who passed at 17 about 40 years ago. A passionate painter and illustrator, over ten-thousand works can be attributed to her name, inspiring ‘a devout following in Russia’. According to the site, her most famous works were illustrations for Bulgakov’s ‘The Master and Margarita’, which apparently resembled closely the author’s wife. The link above includes links to a few other places, where I found the included paintings… [These and the few others available make me desirous to watch 'In the Realms of the Unreal' once more. I don't think its necessarily due to a direct relation other than the innocence and relative obscurity of both artists--maybe it has to do with the narration of the film? Photos of Nadya and her story make me think right away of that narration, sweetly bounding over pastel circuses and Henry Darger's vibrant worlds.]

Interview with Wes Craven

From The AV Club, a really entertaining, informative, & relaxed interview with Wes Craven. Scott Tobias talks with him about his work, his career as a producer, and his early experiences as a filmmaker. Here he talks about how vitriolic reactions to ‘Last House on the Left’ led to people actually destroying the stock;

“My God, people actually are getting into fistfights. People are having heart attacks. People are actually trying to get into the projection booth to destroy the print.” You know, we set up a separate editing room just to repair prints that had been slashed and diced by people trying to get offensive moments out of them. So there was a very real sense of “Oh my God, what have I done?”

His new film is called ‘25/8′. According to imdb, its about “A serial killer return[ing] to his hometown to stalk seven children who share the same birthday as the date he was allegedly put to rest. “

“I am sure I will die unpublished”

The Guardian reports that two new Roberto Bolaño manuscripts have been discovered. Found among his papers, journals, and notebooks, one is believed to be a sixth segment of ‘2666′. They are called ‘Diorama’, and ‘The Troubles of the Real Police Officer”.

‘Courage and its Manly Denotation’

Ayaan Hirsi Ali participates in a debate examining whether or not courage is a masculine attribute.

As for the males who are uncertain about their position in the gender divide, their preoccupation is not with courage but is a different kind of permanent struggle: the one to find oneself, or in other words, navel-gazing as a state of mind. …. The West’s preoccupation with personal expression of gender is causing it to become distracted from an enemy who has never had that same luxury. It would be prudent to keep this in mind.

The Sea is My Brother

According to the CBC, Kerouac’s first novel entitled ‘The Sea is My Brother’, written in 1942, will be published for the first time next year by HarperCollins. The main character harbors an intense love of the sea, while the others are “symbolic of “the vanishing American”".From the site;

The Sea is My Brother was described by the Beat Generation icon as “man’s simple revolt from society as it is, with the inequalities, frustration, and self-inflicted agonies.”

“Infatuated Intimacy”

An Elizabeth Peyton portrait of Michelle and Sasha Obama.

I made the picture in five days, which is unusually fast for me. I bought all of the magazines with the Obamas in them and looked for pic tures. This particular image comes from Jet magazine. I was struck by this image of Michelle and Sasha because it was so normal and monumental at the same time — a transcendent mother-and-child picture in the midst of history being made.

From The Washington Post