Midsummer

I guess I like living in this upside-down time when you can only show respect for a moment by not filming/photographing/documenting it. Inaction feels like progress.





We sat in the grass and thought about the movie we’d just seen, and the wind and the dark made it live for a few more minutes.

Fill in the blank

1. Breaking Bad __________
2. Buffalo Bill & The Indians __________
3. The Naked Kiss __________
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes __________
5. Sabrina __________
6. Safety Last __________
7. White Material __________
8. World on a Wire, __________

a) proceeds inevitably, as an origin story should.

b) justifies its title in the dreamy first reel, during which we (1) hear her voiceover narration; (2) follow the direction of her gaze; (3) read her suicide note; (4) inhabit her dreams; and (5) witness her beautiful performance in a rocking chair (back and forth and back and forth—long pause—and back). Also, did the film originate from a desire to know what Sunset Boulevard might have been if Norma’s estate hadn’t fallen into decay?

c) looked at another way, is not nearly long enough, considering it requires that a man re-learn what it feels like to know he is real. And yet, does it matter if we are data or atoms or irreducible? Whatever the case, we still have to confront the fact of living.

d) divides us among those who try to catch up with dreams and those who let dreams catch up with a resolute inner peace.

e) divides us among those who want the status quo and those who want change, both of which can be desired honestly, or dishonestly. The film is dedicated to the honest ones.

f) divides Americans into good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods. But the people in bad neighborhoods are free to live their bad lives; the only truly dangerous people are those who might try to unite the two worlds, or suggest evidence of cross-pollination.

g) has great fun in the big city, with its architecture and crowds and transportation, in ways that moviemakers haven’t cared to do since the invention of sound. Sad.

h) confirms with the episode called “Fly,” if it wasn’t already sufficiently evident, that it is the greatest TV drama of all time, and finds Walter White asking, “At what point (how many seasons ago) should my life have ended, before I started to make things so much worse?” A few days later I found my iPod had magically been left paused on De La Soul’s “Eye Know,” and decided during my walk that if Walter’s question was to be expanded to all of human civilization, then “Eye Know” would be his answer.

answers: 1. h; 2. d; 3. f; 4. a; 5. b; 6. g; 7. e; 8. c

Music

Mercury Rev – “Endlessly”
Mary Margaret O’Hara – Miss America
(American music, undoubtedly, but I still
can’t figure out what it’s referencing)
Mojave 3 – Ask Me Tomorrow
Yo La Tengo – Painful

Stereolab
(the latest “all I like,” to quote Radio Raheem)

Volcano Suns – The Bright Orange Years
No Doubt – “Sunday Morning”
(this really is the best song on Tragic Kingdom;
I was a pretty smart 8-year old, in certain ways)
Britney Spears – “How I Roll”
Kate Bush – “Deeper Understanding”
(more prescient than World on a Wire)

Title purge

Arch Among Us
Brainiac Amour
Everywhere is Oz
New Observations of Threadbare Morality
Metro Gnome
The Moon’s Reaching For Me
Not for Bobcat Haul
Paint Tables, Cover Screens & Net Purses
A Person Is Not A People
Thorough-Bass & Human Nature
You Zapped…

…tell me your favorite and I'll use it for the next post!

Next

To celebrate the imminent onset of double summer, I’ll digitally reseminate April’s mixtape. Technological setbacks (i.e. the circle button on my tape deck doesn’t do what its depressed status indicates it’s doing) kept physical copies from ever being made (this can also soon be rectified when I reach double summer’s Montana fulcrum), but from the perspective of many months later, the 33-song sequence of Skies still has an obvious non-ephemeral integrity that I dare not forget just yet.

Reasons I’ll miss the Twin Cities

#47

#18