May 25

Besides being a unique film director, John Waters is a wickedly funny writer and lecturer. His yearly "Ten Best Films" list for Artforum is one of the very best such lists every year, because it is never like anyone else's. I broke up at his one line description of Lars Von Trier's Antichrist:

If Ingmar Bergman had committed suicide, gone to hell, and come back to earth to direct an exploitation/art film for drive-ins, this is the movie he would have made.

Now Waters has contributed a list of favorite books (I believe he's done several of these over the years) to The Week:

Swimming Underground by Mary Woronov (out of print). Still the best book written by a Warhol superstar. If a speed freak’s memoir makes you feel nostalgic, like this one did for me, is there something the matter with you? Unfortunately, yes, there is. 

The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq (Vintage, $15). My favorite politically incorrect novelist can write like nobody’s business, including yours. Incredibly cruel, sexist, and outside any moral standards, this insanely brilliant science-fiction novel is as good a place as any to start reading this author … or stop. 

http://theweek.com/article/index/203141/john-waters-6-favorite-books

A fellow film-maker whom Waters might appreciate is Hammer horror writer/director Jimmy Sangster, whose memoir is brilliantly titled Do You Want It Good or Tuesday?

http://giallo-fever.blogspot.com/2010/05/do-you-want-it-good-or-tuesday.html

Good to hear that Jafar Panahi has been released on bail; I have to think that the pressure emanating from Cannes, as well as the director's hunger strike, had something to do with this. But he is still charged; the story is not over.

http://cineuropa.org/newsdetail.aspx?lang=en&documentID=145716

Juliette Binoche, who has been so eloquent on Panahi's behalf, is perhaps the pre-eminent art film actress of her generation; surely none other has acted for so many great directors. Next up: Jia Zhangke. I think everyone wants to work with her.

http://www.ifc.com/blogs/indie-eye/2010/05/actresses.php

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/cannes/article7135272.ece

Amelia Atlas at n+1 takes an interesting look at three recent Berlin novels:

http://nplusonemag.com/berlin-trilogy

Going back in German time, Jaime J. Weinman at Something Old, Something New offers clips from a 1961 West German musical, So liebt und küsst man in Tirol, which he doesn't seem to think much of but which strikes me as insanely charming:

http://zvbxrpl.blogspot.com/2010/05/german-movie-musical-circa-1961.html

Marc Myers at JazzWax considers the Fifties/Sixties phenomenon of the jazz album with strings:

http://www.jazzwax.com/2010/05/list-strings.html

Sally Gabori is an Australian aboriginal painter who works in bold abstractions -- is there a touch of Robert Motherwell influence here?

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=36561

http://www.alcastongallery.com.au/exhibitions/exhibition.cfm?id=757&s=1

Among notables born on this date are essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, short story writer Raymond Carver, novelists W.P. Kinsella, Jamaica Kincaid, and Rosario Castellanos (Mexico), poets Theodore Roethke and Naim Frasheri (Albania), playwright Eve Ensler, lyricist Hal David, historian Jacon Burkhardt, journalist John Gregory Dunne, dancer Bill Bojangles Robinson, singer/songwriters Tom T. Hall and Lauryn Hill, soprano Beverly Sills, film directors Frank Oz and George Hickenlooper, and actors Steve Cochran, Jeanne Crain, Ian McKellen, and Dixie Carter. It would be hard for me to let Theodore Roethke's birthday pass without including a poem of his. I taught "The Waking" to high school seniors this past fall, concentrating on its unusual form (a villanelle). I found in teaching this and many other poems and lyrics that my students easily became quite interested in formal and metrical analysis once they were exposed to the basics; they hadn't realize that poetry is not just words you slop down on a page. They knew nothing of technique beyond a crude understanding of rhyme, but we made a lot of progress, to the point where they could scan pop song lyrics with ease. 

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.