Triple bill

I. A short film by Wong Kar-wai? YES!



(Via Ken)

II. The amazing, Sebaldian Robinson in Space, the DVD of which I've lost, is now viewable online? YES!

(Via Dennis)

III. Magic Molly (author of this new Believer piece) is in a Sleigh Bells' video...? YES!

Monday grab-bag, or My new sweet style

...what if I wrote my next novel like this?...Actually the followup to Personal Days has been written, by the inimitable Deb Olin Unferth. It's called Vacation....If I were a saxophonist who played on the street for money, I'd learn "Careless Whisper"...The place name "Multnomah County" gives me the heebie-jeebies...Heffernan: "In his vertiginous free time, he crash-diets, cheats at kickboxing and persuades people to give him money"...Finally finished watching a movie—My Blueberry Nights—is it just me or does some of it feel quite Blockian? Some of the dialogue (esp. between Jude Law and Norah Jones)? And the AA stuff...I'm on the fence about it over all, well, no, let's say I liked it...why not...I used to be a film critic!...The soundtrack should've had Prefab Sprout's "Blueberry Pies"—the lyrics are even almost appropriate: "So if I come begging with take me back eyes/All you have to tell me/All you have to tell me are blueberry, blueberry pies"....WHATEVER!!!......Speaking of food: Korean food....Also in the NYT, a Q&A with American Teen director Nanette Burstein, talking about "her own intense high school experience two decades ago in Buffalo"...ummm....yes...she and yr correspondent were classmates!...Did someone say Buffalo? Yes: The Stubblemeister did, with a tip for Dizzyheads....

Table-talk of Parkus Grammaticus for March 31, 2008

1. Tomorrow: Dzyd Dennis in conversation with Wong Kar-wai (!!??) at the Apple Store in Soho!

2. Vocabulary builder: "Rubber tires like these will never touch regolith, the abrasive dust and rock that covers the moon."

Preview

—"Not a Mercury or Saturn, but It Goes Way off the Road," NYT, 3/30/2008

3. For the 26 files: Dzyd Kosiya sends us Stereolab's "Olv 26." (Dzyd Hannah has some other examples.)

4. In other music news, Driftwood Singers mentions the Psychic Envelopes song "Raleigh"—download your copy today!

5. On Harriet, Ada Limón hails Jennifer L. Knox's Drunk By Noon, which I highly recommend!
(Also: The Canarium cheekily offers reviews of individual poems from its own pages.)

2046 Update

Regarding an earlier post, Dizzyhead Pete writes in:

I just watched MINORITY REPORT again and one of the years mentioned in the movie (I think as the inception date of Pre-Crime, but I can't be sure) is 2046.

A couple weeks ago, Dizzyhead Jorge mentioned he'd seen 2046 on sale at Duane Reade. Tonight, I saw it there, too—$9.99! (Next to copies of Labyrinth and The Neverending Story!)

* * *

(My aforementioned L.A. Times piece is now available, complete and uncut!)

Dizzies Newsfeeds™ for Monday, July 16

Light blogging till at least midweek—?!

1. Dizzyhead John, the brains behind Team Knucklehead and the "Theme From the New-York Ghost," alerts us to a free download of The Format's new album, Dog Problems. Today's the last day!

2. Dizzyhead Devin has posted the text to his talk, "Hotter Than a Crotch," which he delivered at the recent Dylan symposium in Minneapolis (and which was mentioned in Time magazine). Here's how it starts:

In November of 1972, Bob Dylan went to Durango, Mexico to play a small part in Sam Peckinpah’s Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The production was cursed by all the expected crises, but there was one element on the set that no one saw coming. Peckinpah’s biographer, David Weddle, writes that, “The topsoil of Durango was permeated with animal manure that dried up, blew around with the fine silicone dust, and lodged in people’s lungs, causing chronic pulmonary infections.” One of the film’s stars, James Coburn, said that in Durango, “It was really cold and damp, there was wind, and a thousand years of horseshit floating around in the air.”

3. "TUNING FORK SCREECH PUTS OUT 24-INCH FLAME; FUTURE FIREMEN TO STAY HOME, SAYS SCIENTIST." In other words, Paul Collins rules!

4. Any further thoughts on the Ouroboros? Discussing ouroboric films with Dizzyhead Dennis, it seems that there is some crossover to another favorite motif/symbol/thingy—the Möbius Strip! Dennis asks if Lost Highway counts as one or the other, as it "opens—and ends—with someone saying "Dick Laurent is dead" into an intercom and it turns out the speaker and listener are the same person..."

Jawbone's recent comment reminded me of this nifty review by Angela Starita from the PTSNBN:

But despite a jacket photo of the jowly Manganelli facing down a Pinocchio doll, Centuria is a wonderful read for its endlessly inventive send-ups of narrative conventions. Manganelli's "novels" telescope time so that his characters end where they started, like the ouroborous of the subtitle—an ancient symbol of renewal showing a snake that bites its tail.

UPDATE: From Dizzyhead Stubes, responding to our challenge (as "JMS"):

Perhaps of some small interest, my solution (if it counts as such) to your question #3 was, like your friend Izzy’s, orthographically derived, tho not a misreading. I merely noticed the similarity of the two words (then again, it was late—maybe my eyes were crossing). But I didn’t know the Sante passage, per se. Also interesting that Sante was on the verge of realizing a wonderful… something--not quite sure it qualifies as a pun--when he compared the coil of the outerboroughs to the Ouroboros, but missed his chance. Ah, well…

5. Also via Dennis, from Anna Karina's Sweater, this amazing look at two precursors to "2046" (the room/year of Wong Kar-wai's titular film)—can Dizzyheads think of more?

6. Team Dizzies members are encouraged to post—I'm hoping Sweeney will link to a Buffalo mixtape in the making...?! Singer will interview himself? Izzy will post a picture of the Colonel disemboweling a Michael Pollan book? Hua will do a dance? Arlo will post her avatar? Chrita?

Any Which Way You Cannes

Here at Dennis Lim headquarters, we're pleased to link to his first dispatch from Cannes, in which he reports on WKW's My Blueberry Nights and Control, Anton Corbijn's Joy Division movie.

Our headline reminds us of a caption in the Buffalo News decades ago, upon the occasion of a Sabres' loss (3-1 to...the Capitals?). The lone Buffalo goal-scorer was Don Luce; the caption read: "Every which way but Luce." Not bad! (Note to self: Include in memoirs.)