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I've been drowning the waves for you
It is grey and pouring and the winds keep slamming the telephone lines outside the window, a real nor'easter. We saw the T entrances near the waterfront piled high with sandbags last night. Now the downtown is underwater. The Aquarium station flooded. The glittering rich playground of the Seaport has the sea itself in the streets. I approve of this last in theory because the Seaport as a symbol of Boston's gentrification angers me, but since it sounds as though the storm is hitting the construction workers harder than the suits, in practice I'm glum. I don't know how long this weather is supposed to last. I'm hoping it will blow off by tomorrow morning: the Somerville caucus is being held at the high school and I want to be there, to stand as delegate again to the convention this summer and choose a gubernatorial candidate who's even better than an artichoke with ethics. My sleep schedule is borked, but I slept almost eight hours. The cats are in full rainy-day hibernation mode. I cannot blame them.
1. The current issue of Poetry comes with a mixtape. I have not yet tried listening as I read, but of the poems I am particularly struck by Carla Panciera's "And Standing before Those Canvases, He Said, I Would Feel This Tingling," Danez Smith's "sometimes i wish i felt the side effects," Camonghne Felix's "Willing in the Orisha," and Martha Silano's "Ode to Autocorrect."
2. Musicophilia has curated a lot of library music. I feel people who like Ghost Box should know.
3. Tracy Butler draws faces. Man, Boris Karloff had some recognizable eyebrows.
4. The HFA has announced—but not yet detailed—a series of German Films 1945–1957. Please God, let this include a print of Peter Lorre's Der Verlorene (1951). The illustrating image seems to point that way.
In the meantime, while the organizing theme of Caught in the Net: The Early Internet in the Paranoid Imagination seems a reach when some of these titles were made long before there was an internet to be anxious about, any series which offers me an opportunity to catch both WarGames (1983) and Strange Days (1995) on a big screen is just fine by me. When a friend asked me to outline a (purely speculative) 'Thon of my own, both of those films were first-choice programming.
A series of Wim Wenders is also a fine thing. I imagine everyone on the planet will come to Wings of Desire (1983), including me—Otto Sander turned up in the first half of Das Boot (1981) last night, reminding me of how much I love him as Cassiel—but it might provide an equally good excuse to try for Paris, Texas (1984), The American Friend (1977), and Until the End of the World (1991), which I have been generally meaning to see on grounds of Harry Dean Stanton, Patricia Highsmith, and Talking Heads.
5. I know the title of this photograph is "Moonwalking," but she looks like the deep sea to me.
1. The current issue of Poetry comes with a mixtape. I have not yet tried listening as I read, but of the poems I am particularly struck by Carla Panciera's "And Standing before Those Canvases, He Said, I Would Feel This Tingling," Danez Smith's "sometimes i wish i felt the side effects," Camonghne Felix's "Willing in the Orisha," and Martha Silano's "Ode to Autocorrect."
2. Musicophilia has curated a lot of library music. I feel people who like Ghost Box should know.
3. Tracy Butler draws faces. Man, Boris Karloff had some recognizable eyebrows.
4. The HFA has announced—but not yet detailed—a series of German Films 1945–1957. Please God, let this include a print of Peter Lorre's Der Verlorene (1951). The illustrating image seems to point that way.
In the meantime, while the organizing theme of Caught in the Net: The Early Internet in the Paranoid Imagination seems a reach when some of these titles were made long before there was an internet to be anxious about, any series which offers me an opportunity to catch both WarGames (1983) and Strange Days (1995) on a big screen is just fine by me. When a friend asked me to outline a (purely speculative) 'Thon of my own, both of those films were first-choice programming.
A series of Wim Wenders is also a fine thing. I imagine everyone on the planet will come to Wings of Desire (1983), including me—Otto Sander turned up in the first half of Das Boot (1981) last night, reminding me of how much I love him as Cassiel—but it might provide an equally good excuse to try for Paris, Texas (1984), The American Friend (1977), and Until the End of the World (1991), which I have been generally meaning to see on grounds of Harry Dean Stanton, Patricia Highsmith, and Talking Heads.
5. I know the title of this photograph is "Moonwalking," but she looks like the deep sea to me.
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Copycat has two female leads, Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter, and NEITHER OF THEM DIE, and a really OTT performance by Harry Connick Jr as a serial killer. It's not a great film, but I loved it because it's prickly female buddy-buddy teamup and Weaver is great and the film's really about female agency. I don't know if I'd recommend it per se (it has some gory bits) but it's kinda like a little crime film gem.
....yeah, WarGames is about hacking and the classic AI threat in scifi, not The Internet Is Evil. And the thing about the Cold War was we didn't have open communication -- Kennedy installing the hotline was a big thing, and that came AFTER the Cuban Missile Crisis. I'd class it more as a Cold War/A.I. movie. (Also how good is John Wood in that? So good. And Ally Sheedy!)
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MY GOD WHAT ALTERNATE CONTINUUM OF WOMEN IN FILM DID THIS COME FROM.
I don't know if I'd recommend it per se (it has some gory bits) but it's kinda like a little crime film gem.
"Gem" sounds like a recommendation to me. I'll look for it.
....yeah, WarGames is about hacking and the classic AI threat in scifi, not The Internet Is Evil.
Right! Like, it's a wonderful movie and I don't begrudge the HFA wanting to show it, but the series theme is objectively silly. They could just as easily have fit that lineup under "anxiety of technology" and saved me the blood pressure spike.
(Also how good is John Wood in that? So good. And Ally Sheedy!)
I imprinted deeply on Stephen Falken.
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I still remember that kind of amazing shot when the world is going up in flames again and again and again and "What's happening?" "It's learning" and then it all fades out on Falken's face and the last thing you see of it is (IIRC) he's kind of smiling, it did happen, the world's not a doomed nihilistic joke. -- Why didn't HE get nominated for an Oscar, while we're at it.