Who was recently hospitalized. Reading interviews with her, she seems more like the former Miss Beverly Hills than the darker character she plays on L+O:SVU. Still I’ve always wanted to ask her about her impressions of writer JG Ballard, esp. concerning the inclusion of her mother in some of his older works. It would most likely be awkward, shed me in an unfavorable light, possibly leading her to get all “Olivia Benson” on my ass, but I think it’s an honest question…

I haven’t actually read Palahniuk yet, but in this film he delves in the same “self-help recovery” culture as the first half of ‘Fight Club’. And that’s the amusing part. But Norton is far more likable than Sam Rockwell – sort of the point here. And instead of just Helena Bohnam Carter as the “psycho fantasy girl” we have several, including Kelly Macdonald – who after this and ‘No Country for Old Men’ I would like to officially declare my crush on.

It’s an eyebrow thing, not so much her figure, though I just realized she was the schoolgirl in ‘Trainspotting’ so I’m not gonna complain about any part her – a fine actress.
Angelica Huston doesn’t really work for me, and I don’t get why she seems so loved by others. Not in the Wes Anderson stuff, can’t think of anything I’ve seen and liked her in. And maybe it was seeing her do such a similar “crazy but lovable mom” role in ‘Darjeeling Limited’ that made that schtick seem especially tired here. It was like they shot all of the childhood flashback scenes in a single day. Overall the film does seem quickly thrown together, the soundtrack is plain sad (the same lame tune is playing on two different days in the strip club, and if you can’t come up with stripper music in this day and age – either as it is or as it should be – you really are lost), but there are some laughs. My review in one word: meh…

He would have been 88 today. Who’s drunk right now?

Some poems:
death

the sex fiends

From “Poems and Insults”, recorded in the City Lights Poets Lights Theatre, SF 9-14-73
Here’s the entire show, if you want it…

I’ve only recently discovered this pop psychedelic creation of Guy Peellaert, and haven’t seen any of the actual comics yet. (great, another expensive hobby no one needs: collecting vintage European comics…) And sadly, I sense none will add up to be as cool as this animated sequence, a slow load but well worth it! I especially love the lampoon of the three major western religions included.

So here’s my take: this guy is simultaneous trying to build buzz for his soon to be published memoir and giving a big “Fuck You” to the corporation that previously employed him.
I met an Aussie who claimed to be writing for LP in N. Italy in ’04, but this very well could have been a cover story to try to curry favor from dining/lodging establishments and women. Someone had recently stolen his laptop and he was in a spot of trouble, at least in the short run. I’d take a crack at this sort of gig myself of course, but the guide I wrote wouldn’t be for recently graduated students trickling down their parents cash in other countries…

Arthur C. Clarke

This will only be news to certain devoted, and many will smirk ‘so what’ as you read, but it just might add a little poetry to your day. Double interest to me, as it was discovered at Reed College, many of whose trustifarian students used to annoy me at parties when I lived out there. From the Reed press release

Portland, OR (February 11, 2008) – On a February night in 1956, Allen Ginsberg stood in front of a group of students in a dormitory lounge at Reed College and read from a manuscript that a few months later would be published as Howl and Other Poems. “Howl” is Ginsberg’s most famous and controversial poem, and a seminal work of the Beat Generation. The book sparked censorship debates that are credited with broadening First Amendment protections.

The February 1956 recording at Reed was duly labeled, cataloged, and then overlooked in the college’s library for more than 50 years. Literary scholar John Suiter rediscovered the tape last summer while researching a biography of poet Gary Snyder (Reed Class of 1951, winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry); Snyder and Ginsberg were on a hitch-hiking trip to the Pacific Northwest at the time the tape was made and spent February 13-14 on campus giving poetry readings. Suiter concludes in a forthcoming article in the Reed alumni magazine that this is the earliest-known recording of Ginsberg reading “Howl.” On the recording, Ginsberg reads to the conclusion of Part I, but ends before completing Part II, saying, “I don’t really feel like reading any more. I just sorta’ haven’t got any kind of steam.”

The pristine recording of “Howl” caught on tape that night at Reed differs in numerous ways from the legendary first public reading of the poem at San Francisco’s Six Gallery in October 1955. It predates by approximately five weeks the previous earliest-known recording of “Howl,” made at the Town Hall Theatre in Berkeley on March 18, 1956.

And the recording. It’s strange to me when these things are discovered after half a century: unknown sketches from great painters, previously unheard demos from famous rock bands etc. hidden and decaying in “archives”. But then I’m someone often with too much time on his hands who would relish access to certain caches.

Wow! What a satisfying film. Great soundtrack; animation with occasional intricate layers, amazing use of negative/positive space constantly, at times simplistic, then lush and detailed at moments that point to a Persian pride. I was unfamiliar with the graphic novel but was completely drawn into the tale: Marjane Satrapi’s story, and a first hand account of the history of Iran over the end of the 20th century. A testimonial of The Individual against varying forces of ideology, repression, unsatisfying relationships, depression, and the rest. No bullshit Hollywood ending either. See a trailer at the main site which is a bit small, or a larger version on IMBD after sitting through an inane commercial – you know, American style… I urge everyone to see this film.