Month: September 2011

on whit stillman, back with another film on the fly [& more thoughts on filming dance steps…]

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Barcelona  by Whit Stillman – let’s choo choo!

Let’s hope that Whit Stillman’s new film Damsels in Distress is actually distributed in the UK. It’s true that he makes films with lots of words in them when that is almost a capital offence… Stillman’s films are literate and digressive [not theatrical, as in filmed theatrical dialogue] in ways that makes him a radical in contemporary English-language cinema. Yes, he films people actually talking, even discussing things; insane!

I love Whit Stillman, Continue reading “on whit stillman, back with another film on the fly [& more thoughts on filming dance steps…]” →

HAZARDS writing back #54

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Amherst 1874

Emily,

You write of and incarnate an “elegy of integrity” dear friend. It’s true that when death comes to “our own” all we can do, as you write, is remember them. Of course we make up or discover those whose integrity we identify with, don’t we? I know you mean it that way. The man you address will die soon and you may repeat yourself. The best, those who fill our lungs with their elegies, usually die first. Gil, for instance, only recently. It’s a truth from my younger days, of which I find no trace in my clear conviction now. Every year confirms a duty to burn ourselves up if we aspire to anything worthy of song. You did, I know I must too. First, I wonder if enough of “our own” will remain to sing for us! Then, do you know, I’m so vulgarly optimistic that I hear distant voices now! And so I hasten on, with something left to gamble!

g.

Fruitstore 12.6.11

on odes to mud, utopian dust and insurrectionary trees

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Francis Ponge [still taken from http://www.OnlineProductions.fr whose link is dead in 2022]

Primarily, this is a brief advertisement for CB Editions‘ irresistible bi-lingual edition of the great Francis Ponge; Unfinished Ode to Mud, translated by Beverley Bie Brahic in 2008. It’s a selection from what she has translated as The Defence of Things and Pieces, some of the latter being their first appearances in English…

So, firstly, please get hold of a copy of the book from the publishing miracle that is CB Editions whom, it’s worth knowing, work on very short print runs. I have no links etc., but urge you to take up their current offer here, while getting hold of this beautiful selection and give copies to people that you wish loved you…

‘Unfinished Ode to Mud’ itself, is also an ode to the Resistance Continue reading “on odes to mud, utopian dust and insurrectionary trees” →