2008 July 16
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In a post titled Possession, Valter from Surreal Documents writes:
- "In a beautifully written and highly interesting recent post on his interview with Mark Stewart for The Wire, Mark K-Punk writes":
- "...one link between the post-punk trio I wrote about in the July issue (Stewart, Mark E Smith, Ian Curtis) is channeling.
I have the impression, that after hauntology, channeling will be the buzzword of internet intelligentsia of late 2008.
Moon river (the blog) presents Alex Kanevsky, a figurative painter reminiscent of Bacon.
American blog Simplyfantastico reports on V-necks, what I have worn in the first two weeks of July. he says: "V is the new black! .... by V I’m refering to V-Neck T’s It’s sexy it’s sleazy it’s trashy it’s classy. ... The days of the wife beater (or boy beater) are gone..."
I'm not sure where the wife beater comes in.
Three other blogs that deserve mention are Va Jouer Avec Cette Poussière, a fabulous Francophone blog which features juxtapositions of news items with outrageous visuals, and Austrian artist Herbert Pfostl's two blogs.
Björn Berg's (1923 - 2008) recent death allows me to introduce Astrid Lindgren's short story My Nightingale Is Singing, read it and weep. Other tales in this collection are equally strong, the whole collection of bleaker short stories by Lindgren is one of the best items of cult fiction of the 20th century. My Nightingale Is Singing is cult fiction item #7.
Trevor Brown has a post on Marilyn Minter.
I watched the 1999 film adaptation of Breakfast of Champions yesterday evening. I decided to check this film - after having read the delightful novel in Spain a week ago - because I considered the novel unfilmable. Unfilmable because of the book's tone, which hovers perfectly between the surreal and the very mundane. Unfilmable also because it is an illustrated novel (with crude illustrations by Vonnegut himself, the anus illustration at the beginning sets the tone) and because the novel features many matter-of-fact explanations (what is a cow?, what is earth?, etc.).
The film was written and directed by minor American director Alan Rudolph and stars Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Nick Nolte and Barbara Hershey. The film was widely panned by critics. It is indeed painful to watch.
Some feebly redeeming elements include the score by Martin Denny, revisiting Barbara Hershey, Glenne Headly in lingerie and the over-the-top cross-dressing scene by Nick Nolte towards the end.
The only way to adapt this unfilmable novel would have been to add at least a third person omniscient voice-over, instead of trying to hide its novelish antecedents.
This [1] unidentified excerpt - from a Vonnegut documentary I presume - is exactly what I have in mind.
Breakfast of Champions (the novel) is cult fiction item #8.
