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You need to know, you're your personal alchemist
Short things:
1. I'd never even heard of Cyber Monday until this year. What is it? I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
2. R.I.P., Ken Russell. I should find somewhere to start with him that isn't The Lair of the White Worm (1988). The Devils (1971) is only coming out on Region 2.
3. I wonder why Roddy McDowall was not also cast in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. (Those are some of the dorkiest glasses in stage history.) The other two principals were: it made Andy Griffith a star. It's not exactly as though he was an unknown property.
4. I'm not sure I see the point of having a book on Derek Jarman reviewed by someone who clearly didn't like his films very much. I'm glad Bray finds his paintings important, because I know very little about Jarman's non-cinematic art, and I hope someday to visit his garden at Dungeness, ideally with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks, but seriously: difficult? Hard to sit through? Sententious gesture politics? Well-intentioned? I have to wonder if we saw the same movies—I am never sure what to do with criticism when that happens. (Did he miss how much of Wittgenstein (1993) is funny?) Personally, I'm looking forward to Sebastiane (1976); I have been since I knew it existed. Brian Eno did the music and it's in Latin.
5. Aphorisms by Kafka, which I hadn't even known existed. Commentary by Michael Cisco, who probably does.
I must catch a bus.
1. I'd never even heard of Cyber Monday until this year. What is it? I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
2. R.I.P., Ken Russell. I should find somewhere to start with him that isn't The Lair of the White Worm (1988). The Devils (1971) is only coming out on Region 2.
3. I wonder why Roddy McDowall was not also cast in the film version of No Time for Sergeants. (Those are some of the dorkiest glasses in stage history.) The other two principals were: it made Andy Griffith a star. It's not exactly as though he was an unknown property.
4. I'm not sure I see the point of having a book on Derek Jarman reviewed by someone who clearly didn't like his films very much. I'm glad Bray finds his paintings important, because I know very little about Jarman's non-cinematic art, and I hope someday to visit his garden at Dungeness, ideally with
rushthatspeaks, but seriously: difficult? Hard to sit through? Sententious gesture politics? Well-intentioned? I have to wonder if we saw the same movies—I am never sure what to do with criticism when that happens. (Did he miss how much of Wittgenstein (1993) is funny?) Personally, I'm looking forward to Sebastiane (1976); I have been since I knew it existed. Brian Eno did the music and it's in Latin.5. Aphorisms by Kafka, which I hadn't even known existed. Commentary by Michael Cisco, who probably does.
I must catch a bus.
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It creates a measurable, very large spike in traffic, and it was (and still is) more notable in areas where people do not have high-speed internet and computers at home.
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"[T]he purpose of the Roman calendar is essentially economic and, to a lesser extent, political and religious. That is to say, the two main parts of the calendar (the list of market days and list of festivals) are actually directed at commercial things. The calendar was instituted for business interaction primarily - to publicize market days, but also to denote days on which business is prohibited (e.g. festivals), when one can lend money and by when one must repay loans (e.g. the Kalends of each month), when rents are due (also the Kalends). So it is no wonder that the rabbis, in their own legal works, prohibit commercial interactions with pagans: part of what it meant to celebrate these Roman festivals was to be a part of the economic system and rhythm."
It's just the same in today's America. One of the important parts of Thanksgiving, perhaps the most important part, is the foodshopping in the days beforehand, and the goodshopping in the days afterwards. (On Thanksgiving itself, the shops are closed.) Then the process starts up again, immediately (in fact, overlapping), for Christmas. The first days of official shopping for Christmas are the same as the post-Thanksgiving shopping days.
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Guess what I've been doing all afternoon.
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Yes: I know: ever since Santa brought up the train of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. But we don't need to keep inventing new mercantile holidays for every medium of commerce.
I hate shopping.
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Thank you. Good grief.
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I had Listzomania described to me once in graduate school, or at least I don't know how many other films there are featuring Wagner as a towering, Nazi-themed golem.
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Oh, hell. Maybe I have confused them. Unless it was a recurring motif?
It's a recurring motif!
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I think that's an excellent way to remember him.
(I may hold out for somehow getting hold of the DVD, but thank you for the pointers to YouTube. It's still the only way I've seen quite a lot of movies.)
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And pointless! Seriously, what is achieved except the annoyance of film-lovers worldwide?
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Oh, Lair of The White Worm is utter pants, isn't it? Still, it could be worse; I heard part of an interview earlier where he was (I hope) mock-pitching a film called Bravetart and the Loch Ness Monster (feisty Scots prostitute meets Aleister Crowley, apparently)... Erm.
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Glad it's been explained to you, sorry there's an it to explain in the first place.
2.
RIP. I need to watch The Lair of the White Worm through sometime--the once I had a chance to see it on late night RTÉ I was exhausted and only watched through the pub scene, cos I'd heard tell it might be an early incarnation of Oysterband. I can't even recollect if I thought it was or no.
DVD regions are so irritating.
3.
I hope you can find an answer.
4.
I wish I knew. It doesn't seem quite on. I suppose it's better than giving the book to a slavering fanboy, but surely there's someone available who's got both appreciation and interesting opinions.
5.
I'd not known Kafka wrote aphorisms, either.
Commentary by Michael Cisco, who probably does.
Probably. Of course, he could be a pseudonym used by Sir Francis Bacon, who definitely did not write Shakespeare's plays but did make a Philosopher's Stone. (Or, better yet, a pseudonym used by Kit Marlowe, who also did not write Shakespeare's plays but did end up living to the present day after being used as a test subject by some mad alchemist. And therein would lie a webcomic, could I but draw.)
I must catch a bus.
I hope you successfully caught the bus* and that all is going well, or at least adequately.
*I also hope this didn't require 10,000 pound test line, a flyrod made of some exotic composite material which was liberated from a CIA laboratory, and whatever fly a bus would bite upon. (That's my father's thing, not mine, so I have no useful advice on the matter, I'm sad to say.)
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. . . I really want the manga about modern-day mad alchemical Kit Marlowe.
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My favorites right now seem to be The Tempest (1979), War Requiem (1989), and Wittgenstein (1993), but I have never disliked anything I've seen by Derek Jarman and I am almost certainly undervaluing Caravaggio (1986) and Edward II (1991), which were the first two films of his that
Oh, Lair of The White Worm is utter pants, isn't it?
I was shown it by some friends earlier this year, who thought my life was incomplete without it. It is true that I am very fond of Peter Capaldi, but I am also rather fond of my brain.
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I do as well. If only I could draw, or at least knew an artist who'd be game, I'd make a stab at a webcomic on the subject.
Maybe I could even work in a chracter trying to catch a bus with a flyrod. I'm sure it's been done by somebody, somewhere, in some medium, but for some reason I'd now like to see it in a comic.
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Cool! In which translation, or in the original?
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I'm wondering how long the 22-year-old Wall Street legal secretary in the article who was quoted as having spent most of her 8-hour workday shopping online and sending links as "hints" to friends and family remained employed.
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And yes, don't follow Blue with The Last of England! Blue is gorgeous and a unique experience, but oh so sad. The Angelic Conversation or Glitterbug would be a good one to put on after. (Glitterbug, which was assembled posthumously from Jarman's super-8 shorts, has a phenomenal soundtrack by Brian Eno as well.)
I'll soon be posting a video essay about Caravaggio that I just finished, so hopefully will help you value it a bit more. Just need to solve some annoying problems of compressing the video file without causing havoc to the imagery.
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Totally. I think it's the next one on our queue, once
The Angelic Conversation or Glitterbug would be a good one to put on after.
The Angelic Conversation is the one I turned out to have owned on Italian-subtitled DVD since 2009, under the impression it was just the soundtrack by Coil. We have no idea how that happened.
(Glitterbug, which was assembled posthumously from Jarman's super-8 shorts, has a phenomenal soundtrack by Brian Eno as well.)
I will definitely want to see that. I love the short "Art of Mirrors."
I'll soon be posting a video essay about Caravaggio that I just finished, so hopefully will help you value it a bit more.
It was my first Jarman: I loved it when I saw it. I never wrote it up properly, but Nigel Terry. Sean Bean. Sean Bean making love to Tilda Swinton with gold coins. Tilda Swinton, my God. It just happened that I love Benjamin Britten, so War Requiem, and, who knew, apparently I love Wittgenstein. I look forward to your essay!
Just need to solve some annoying problems of compressing the video file without causing havoc to the imagery.
(Got nothing. I write all mine.)