New Orleans Winter
I've been tempted these last few sunrises to use the word "suffused" in part of the description of what's happening to that westerly Rappahannock back drop but tempted is as far as I'm going with it.

Sometimes I talk to people around here. I asked a person the other day--does it get cold in these parts?, they said nah.

Okay, let me start over, I'm from a subtropical climate, does it get cold around here? It's the last day of September and it is forty something degrees. That seems a little cool to me, or to be more exact, like an average winter day in New Orleans. It feels good though, so far.

Yesterday evening I went over for the first time to the local art gallery/video rental store, talked to June for awhile. She only has a few DVDs, mostly VHS, but I got this one with Juliette Binoche called Code Unknown, French film I guess, and it bugged me at first, the way they cut the scenes up, and it had that French interconnectedness thing going on, like when Linklatter? did Slackers everyone was comparing his style to some French film maker(s), it wasn't like Slackers, Code Unknown wasn't, but anyway, the scenes fade to black except it's not really a fade, it's abrupt, and stand alone as vignettes, but also, more or less, tell a connected story with groups of characters connected by blood or marriage intertwining themselves with other groups, except for the one kid who can't get past the door code--he is disengaged from the group. And the deaf children. The deaf children, even in their group, seem disconnected from everyone else. So in the end, I dug it. Kind of reminds me of that German writer J in Jersey City turned me onto, only I cannot think of that German writer's name. But the theme, I can tell you, is isolation.

Okay, I need to start generating a little heat, ciao for now.
- jimlouis 9-30-2003 5:22 pm

So far as I know, I'm the only person (including Linklater) that ever identified the French film that Slacker most resembles. It's Luis Bunuel's Phantom of Liberte: although the director's Spanish, the movie was made in France, with French actors, etc. Like its predecessor The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise, it's a dream film, really just a series of incidents. What holds it together is at the end of each vignette a minor or peripheral character walks out of the scene and becomes a major character in the next scene. This goes on for most of the movie's running time.

As they used to say in the Marvel Comics letters pages: "Where's my no-prize?"

- tom moody 9-30-2003 5:51 pm [7 comments]


((Okay, I need to start generating a little heat, ciao for now.))

thats what stoves and hearty healthy fare is for.....go cook

- Skinny 9-30-2003 7:13 pm [1 comment]





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