May 5

One of the few Tweets I've ever read that I thought was any good comes to us from Roger Ebert:

Advisory: If your date wants to see The Human Centipede, have a long talk with yourself about who this person really is.

Let's tour the world of books. The blog Arabic Literature (in English) is still in the process of running down the 100 Best Arabic Books as selected by the Arab Writers Union, but is almost done. Hat tip to The Literary Saloon.

http://arablit.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/the-best-100-arabic-books-according-to-the-arab-writers-union-1-10/

Perhaps you prefer Portuguese literature? No problem. Well, except perhaps with findng English translations of these titles:

http://splalit.blogspot.com/2010/05/100-portuguese-books-of-20th-century.html

How about some Swedish book covers?

http://therumpus.net/2010/05/lord-of-the-flugornas-more-vintage-swedish-book-covers/

The Complete Review offers a review of a translation of an 1899 Urdu novel, Paradise of the Assassins by Abdul Halim Sharar:

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/urdu/sharar.htm

Colin Marshall at The Millions guides us through the "surreal" and "erotic" novels of Kobo Abe:

http://www.themillions.com/2010/05/the-scientifically-surreal-eerily-erotic-novels-of-kobo-abe.html

Helping with another branch of contemporary Japanese culture, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky at The Millions analyzes the visual and narrative strategies of Takashi Miike's 2003 TV movie The Negotiator. Miike, whose output is so volcanic as to make Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Raul Ruiz look like lazy bums:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1690

While you're in Japan, take the train!

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/05/03/japan-the-model-of-a-train-riding-experience/

Among notables born on this date are economist Karl Marx, philosophers Soren Kierkegaard and Richard Wollheim, journalist Nellie Bly, broadcaster Brian Williams, chef James Beard, country singer Tammy Wynette, pop saxophonist Ace Cannon, composer Hans Pfitzner, Monty Python member Michael Palin, novelists Christopher Morley and Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland), film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and actors Alice Faye, John Rhys-Davies, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Richard E. Grant, Roger Rees, Vincent Kartheiser, Tyrone Power, and Michael Murphy. It is very easy to think of privileged moments that a number of these actors have shared with me:

Leaud: Repeating "Antoine Doinel, Antoine Doinel, Antoine Doinel" into the bathroom mirror in Truffaut's Stolen Kisses.

Murphy: Giving Jack Tanner's big off-the-cuff speech to his staff, captured on film unbeknownst to him, in Altman's Tanner '88.

Kartheiser: The silhouetted shot in the first episode of Mad Men of Pete Campbell offering his hand to Jon Hamm's Don Draper -- and being refused.

Power: Making the decision to sacrifice lives so that some can survive in Richard Sale's Abandon Ship!

Grant: Doing the "elevator pitch" for the death-penalty thriller Habeas Corpus in Altman's The Player.

Rees: On stage as Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby in the eight-hour Royal Shakespeare Festival production, one of my great theatrical memories.