Sunday, July 29, 2012
fuck everything
World of Video was swallowed by ten thousand ordinary people. They just bought it up! They took a library private! I mean, this is really obvious and dumb: in the store's final days the movies got sold instead of rented, taken out of the store for $10 forever instead of $4 for two days. What a deal! But World of Video's closure made me realize what a stark thing a purchase is, how horrifically final. Now you're alone with your movie that you'll watch twice in the next 35 years, and a community is dead, scattered in private dusty homes because people didn't care for the compromises and expense and community of a give and take. I will never, ever shop at Blaustein's fucking hardware shop.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
shawshank redemption
yo this movie is not terrible. it's understatedly epic, and one should appreciate that. apart from the horrifyingly corny stuff about "hope" and whatnot, it's pretty neat. i mean, one actually gets the sense that many years pass and that people are patient and that things happen slowly. it's pretty good. i'll also remember the red haired rapist calling dufresne "honey," he said it really well.
i dunno, i guess it's just a corny feel good piece of crap. it never offended me, at least.
love,
frank
PS i also reread Mr. Norris Changes Trains, and that book is the bomb. i really appreciate Mr. Norris's understated villainy, i mean, that guy is flat out the worst person in the world. and yet not. i thought i saw a lot of references to oscar wilde in it, and i got this idea that, very loosely, Mr. Norris is like dorian gray and Schmidt is like the portrait. im pretty pleased with that.
i dunno, i guess it's just a corny feel good piece of crap. it never offended me, at least.
love,
frank
PS i also reread Mr. Norris Changes Trains, and that book is the bomb. i really appreciate Mr. Norris's understated villainy, i mean, that guy is flat out the worst person in the world. and yet not. i thought i saw a lot of references to oscar wilde in it, and i got this idea that, very loosely, Mr. Norris is like dorian gray and Schmidt is like the portrait. im pretty pleased with that.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
rain
funny how in rain one ought to be naked. getting wet gets everyone so ruffled. it'd hardly matter if one was just skin. skin's pretty good at getting wet, almost as good as a ducks ass. maybe as good. at any rate, it's pretty silly how frantic everyone gets, with newspapers over heads and such, when if they just took off their clothes it'd all be very simple.
i went up to the roof to look at the storm and it was incredibly boring. there were muffled flashes here and there and gray cloud everywhere. there's no use being too much in the middle of things.
i went up to the roof to look at the storm and it was incredibly boring. there were muffled flashes here and there and gray cloud everywhere. there's no use being too much in the middle of things.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
the comedians
ive got to write about these things that i do because if i don't i won't remember them. that's a problem because i need to know things to connect them up with other things. this is like this. and ill have a paltry web if i can't remember things.
one forgettable thing i suppose ill try to remember is the comedians, by graham greene. mr. brown is a recurring character for greene, he's a lot like maurice bendrix in the end of the affair, except more straightforwardly an asshole. the book is watching him be indifferent to things that matter and cling hideously to a few bits of pride. bendrix actually loved and so actually hated and suffered. brown's just a hard old shit.
the book's about brown's trip to visit his hotel in haiti. he inherited it from his mother who he thinks is pretty much a whore but who was, by all indications external to old shit brown, a ridiculously good person. there're some flat, farcical characters to enliven things: jones who plays cards and some black guy who never speaks, The Presidential Candidate, immensely ponderous with idealism. they're all couriers of happiness and meaning, delivering their goods to brown to more thoroughly illustrate his old shit ~ness.
because it's haiti there're the tontons macoute who are pretty interesting to read about and lots of colonialist nostalgia. i mean really though, why anchor this book with the most spectacularly flatly, even blindly hateful person? this man can't even sense! i mean i guess there's something like The Sound and the Fury where it's interesting to see through a strangely~sensing prism, but this guy's just flat. at the very end he eulogizes whatsisface by saying, yet again, how he made good rum punches. and brown himself feels an idiotic pang. but one's been reading through that stupid, self centered toff for 300 pages and self centeredness is just fucking boring when it's filtered through such a blandly, predictably life ~negating guy. i don't know why greene sticks us with him, the book couldve been a lot better if we had eyes roaming outside of his skull.
one forgettable thing i suppose ill try to remember is the comedians, by graham greene. mr. brown is a recurring character for greene, he's a lot like maurice bendrix in the end of the affair, except more straightforwardly an asshole. the book is watching him be indifferent to things that matter and cling hideously to a few bits of pride. bendrix actually loved and so actually hated and suffered. brown's just a hard old shit.
the book's about brown's trip to visit his hotel in haiti. he inherited it from his mother who he thinks is pretty much a whore but who was, by all indications external to old shit brown, a ridiculously good person. there're some flat, farcical characters to enliven things: jones who plays cards and some black guy who never speaks, The Presidential Candidate, immensely ponderous with idealism. they're all couriers of happiness and meaning, delivering their goods to brown to more thoroughly illustrate his old shit ~ness.
because it's haiti there're the tontons macoute who are pretty interesting to read about and lots of colonialist nostalgia. i mean really though, why anchor this book with the most spectacularly flatly, even blindly hateful person? this man can't even sense! i mean i guess there's something like The Sound and the Fury where it's interesting to see through a strangely~sensing prism, but this guy's just flat. at the very end he eulogizes whatsisface by saying, yet again, how he made good rum punches. and brown himself feels an idiotic pang. but one's been reading through that stupid, self centered toff for 300 pages and self centeredness is just fucking boring when it's filtered through such a blandly, predictably life ~negating guy. i don't know why greene sticks us with him, the book couldve been a lot better if we had eyes roaming outside of his skull.
Monday, July 2, 2012
waiting for news from the lcrno flm fstvl reminds me of the room where everything comes true in stalker. the stalker in stalker explains, nearly crying, that he thinks the zone only lets people through to the room who are truly wretched, those without hope. not good or bad, just totally wretched. waiting day after day to hear from these heartless fuckers, that idea is a source of great comfort to me. every day i continue to wake up hopeful, confident in my abilities and eager to check my email, is another day i'll have to wait. all i need is some self doubt and good news will come romping in.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
HEADHUNTERS!
Headhunters does not make very much sense, but it's a wonderful movie because it knows it. In a brilliant wink, the master detective charged with unraveling this hysterical narrative ultimately invents a story for the public in order to save his reputation. There's no solution here, only glorious bewilderment.
It's about Roger, a headhunter who steals art on the side. Before long, he steals a painting from a terrifying man who then chases after him for the rest of the movie. It's tense at times but not at all scary. the point is Roger's hilarious tribulations: a handsome, glamorous man rapidly gets to looking like a leprous martyr. And everybody betrays him. In the brief moments when things pick up for Roger the movie dips horribly—a sponge bath is a particular low point. The movie's singular fault is that someone actually loves Roger; Headhunters works only insofar as Roger is suffering horrendously. The movie's fast and dark and Roger kills someone by shooting them through the crotch of his pants.
It's about Roger, a headhunter who steals art on the side. Before long, he steals a painting from a terrifying man who then chases after him for the rest of the movie. It's tense at times but not at all scary. the point is Roger's hilarious tribulations: a handsome, glamorous man rapidly gets to looking like a leprous martyr. And everybody betrays him. In the brief moments when things pick up for Roger the movie dips horribly—a sponge bath is a particular low point. The movie's singular fault is that someone actually loves Roger; Headhunters works only insofar as Roger is suffering horrendously. The movie's fast and dark and Roger kills someone by shooting them through the crotch of his pants.
on screens: i wonder if there was ever a time when archie comic books or just some really delicious printed matter made places put up signs saying you couldnt bring them in because you'd sit down with it and never leave and monopolize their tables for ten hours. because that happens with computers now. has there ever been anything that so entranced people? that made them so useless?