Freudian slip

From Dizzyhead Brent (whose two-part Rivette epic concludes in the latest Cinema Scope):

I LIKE
Coffee, cigarettes, pasta, pizza, De Quincey, Bresson, Astaire, Kinks, cats, the first and middle fingers

I DON'T LIKE
Most other food, Kieslowski, Updike, The Doors, insects, Freud, the ring finger

I LIKE DON'T LIKE
Nabokov, Beatles, dogs, people, thumb

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Bonus post—etymology of the day: "A 'rival,' for instance, is someone you are bickering with over river water rights." (A.E. Stallings at Harriet)

And: Over at the PEN America blog, David Haglund digs up a great George Plimpton memory, a name-dropper's delight in which a bit of advice from Steinbeck compels GP to address Jean Seberg while writing about going to a baseball game with Marianne Moore.

Bourne free

Quote of the day—of the year?—from Dizzyhead Thomas:

"Did you think 'And it will take me anywhere' seemed too hackneyed? I am obsessed to accelerate and simplify every phrase I set down."

—Marianne Moore, in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop

These days I am obsessed not only with filtering out cliché ("filtering out cliché"—that's not bad, not cliché!) but also splitting apart any too-cosy adverb-verb or adverb-adjective combos. Where does it end? What is the point?

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Dizzyhead Benno's reviewing films over at L Magazine—check out his take on The Bourne Ultimatum. This line cracked me up: "Not to get all André Bazin on [director Paul Grengrass's] ass, but since when is editing a film to within an inch of its life considered the summit of mimesis?"

(Which reminds me, the headline for this fascinating piece on the Robert Ludlum thriller-writing franchise should have been "Bourne Again"!)

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Molls asks: "What global not-for-profit will I find petty fault with tomorrow? Come back and see!"

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UPDATE: Dizzyhead Alex on "Poetry in Motion."