This week’s reading started with the lightly amusing, Diary of a Nobody, by George and Weedon Grossmith. Originally published in 1892 its focus is a sort of stuffy upper middle class office worker and his family, his dreams and his reality. For me it didn’t quite live up to the glowing quotes on the dust jacket (“One of the half-dozen immortal achievements of our time” “hilarious”), but I did find it to be a nice little diversion.

The highlight of the week was definitely finally reading my first book by Gustave Flaubert, A Sentimental Education, which really, I should have read long ago. It’s great, in fact, a nearly perfect classic, though it seems to have an awful lot in common with Balzac’s slightly earlier Lost Illusions. At least in this translation though, Flaubert seems slightly more concise and slightly more modern, and yes, slightly more to my tastes (though I love Lost Illusions too). Again it’s to some extent the story of a country boy in love with a slightly older married (with children) woman who for the most part resists the temptations of the flesh, though sharing similar feelings. Again the main character moves to Paris and attempts to make become a social success and to move on up to the top. With Flaubert however, there’s less spiritual soul agony and more fucking around.

For soul agony, actually humility, I finished up the weekend with The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi (Vintage Spiritual Classics edition). Interesting stuff even if the little flowers really don’t hold together or tell particularly believable or, for the most part, moving stories. I do want to find the time to spend more time reading the words that have inspired generations, and to think about the spiritual beliefs that have shaped much of human history, and continue to exert a strong influence on the contemporary situation (whether that is through Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or whatever, anything and everything). 9:10 PM >>> 0 comments

Just finished watching Martin Scorsese’s two hundred and seven minute long documentary on Bob Dylan, No Direction Home, and not surprisingly, it was really fucking great. Not just for the music, but also for a portrait of the sixties and for an inside look into what it meant to be a celebrity when celebrities were expected to be more than just a pretty face (or were allowed by the culture to be more than that?). I came away from the satisfying long documentary with not only a deeper appreciation of Dylan, and possibly a deeper understanding of Dylan, but with a better idea of what it means to be really creative and individualistic in a society that for the most parts rejects creativity and individualism. Using mostly footage shot at the time, plus some semi-modern interviews, it’s a truly impressive portrait of Dylan in the sixties. I wonder if we can hope for a second part, featuring the later, maybe less significant, but maybe even weirder years? I’d watch it. 1:17 AM >>> 0 comments

Sometimes an album is so good that when you first listen to it you can't believe you've never heard it before. This week sees the re-issue of Sam Cooke "Live at the Harlem Square Club," and for me it's one of those records. So amazing, raw, sweaty and filled with more energy than I could have possibly imagined. One of those albums that as soon as it ends you might feel ready to spin it again. "Gotta feel the feeling." 2:41 PM >>> 1 comments

Watched...
A Matter of Life and Death

A truly weird and wonderful movie about a guy who is supposed to die at the end of WWII when jumping out of a crashing plane, but because the fog is too thick the fellow who is supposed to come along and collect his soul misses him. Twenty-hours later when he finally catches up, our here has fallen in love, and tries to convince the soul collector to let him stay on Earth, asking for an appeal. The later section of the movie, featuring an extended trial sequence (a type of movie I generally do not favor anyway) did seem to drag on a bit long, but still - there’s so much crazy stuff in this one it’s not to be missed.

Read...
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
I'd never read it, but it was pretty much what I expected - which was why I put off reading it for so long. Still, it was okay. Funny.

This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Read it ages ago and had pretty much forgotten it all, except for the nice little bit in the haystack. Lots of great passages still, but the last few chapter's semi-embrace of socialism was unconvincing - and oh, a bit tiring after the much better broken hearted sections that came before.

The Fall - Albert Camus
I'd read it before too (in high school!). Forgot how boring a monolog can be, but at least it was short. 8:32 PM >>> 0 comments

Hey - I'm just back from a mini-vacation in Portland, Oregon (and surrounding territories) and here's a selection from the photos that I took...





























10:17 PM >>> 0 comments

What Did The Lady Forget is a light comedy directed by Yasujiro Ozu that was originally released in 1937 and is now available on a decently English subtitled R3 DVD from Panorama. At this point Ozu hadn’t yet achieved the high style of his later masterpieces, but he was certainly making very solid, entertaining movies, like this, that also now offer us at least a peek into a vanishing era. The story revolves around the family relationships between a sort of fussy, bossy, obsessive wife, her henpecked, quietly intelligent husband, and what happens when their free-spirited, proto-liberated niece comes to their house for an extended visit. Most of the scenes are little domestic snapshots, that quickly reveal the situation, more through images than anything said. It’s definitely a comedy, but it’s proposed solution to the couple’s domestic troubles - that the husband needs to give his wife a good slap and then everything will be okay - may not play particularly well to today’s audiences - and may not have played well to audiences in 1937 either, for all I know. None the less, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The DVD transfer is acceptable. Like all of the Panorama Ozu discs I’ve seen so far, one wishes they took a little more care in their mastering, and subtitles - and there is some digital garbage that slightly mars a few of the later scenes - especially since at this point there’s no reason for those kind of transfer problems as long as a little care is taken. The print used is a bit beat up at times, and seems to have some missing frames, but overall looks actually quite nice, especially considering the usual state of Japanese films that have survived from the 1930s. Certainly for me it has been a real treat over the last couple of years to finally have the chance to see all these Ozo films in any form, 18 or 19 already released by Panorama, 6 or so of which I still have to pick up. Many thanks. 9:59 AM >>> 0 comments

L’Argent (Money), is the final and possibly most pessimistic film by Robert Bresson. Originally released in 1983, it tells the story of what happens to a small group of characters involved in passing and receiving a counterfeit bill, mainly focusing on the innocent man who accepts the bill and then takes the fall for passing it on, and the downward spiral his life moves into afterwards. Bresson’s style here has reached the height of minimalism. It’s funny and heartbreaking the almost complete lack of emotion shown by any of the characters, suggesting humanity has moved beyond emotion and turned into simple tasks performing machines. It’s as if George Orwell’s vision of 1984 had come true, except that the remaining revolutionary/free spirit of mankind had already been completely eradicated. Humanity in L’Argent seems cast into a world beyond morality, worse than dog eat dog, in a world where all that matters in money. Maybe a world not too different from out own. I’m undecided if the film embraces a pessimistic view of western civilization of is actually a warning against giving into pessimism. What I’m sure about is that L’Argent is another devastating masterpiece, with the completely unique approach to motion picture making you can only get from a few masters, with Robert Bresson certainly belonging near the top of any person’s list.

With Pickpocket due to be released this November from Criterion, hopefully we’ll soon be hearing about the rest of his pictures coming out on R1 DVDs. We really need The Devil Probably, Four Nights of a Dreamer, A Gentle Woman, Mouchette, and The Trial of Joan of Arc (the last four of which I’ve never seen before, extremely sadly). 11:13 AM >>> 0 comments