Went to see Andrei Arsenyvich Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice (1986), at a retrospective tonight.

Poland

(When Ivan’s Childhood shows next, I’ll have seen every Tarko pic on the big screen! Gotta catch ‘em all!)

France

I can’t think of another director whose work is so unpleasant to actually experience (especially when you’re groggy, hungover and packed in an airless cinema). Who can match his indulgence?

Germany

Even Bresson wouln’t make you watch someone walk a birthday cake across the bottom of a jacuzzi for ten minutes.

U.S.A.

And yet, once outside the theatre, you’re reeling; must be those interminable atmospherics, seeping into the subconscious.

Czechoslovakia

He is, quite simply, The Master. Even Bergman thought so.

As I sd to my friend,
because I am
always talking, — John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.

Full thesis report coming soon…

I just might pull this shit off.

‘Imagine a small device that you wear on a necklace that takes photos every few seconds of whatever is around you, and records sound all day long. It has GPS and the ability to wirelessly upload the data to the cloud, where everything is date/time and geo stamped and the sound files are automatically transcribed and indexed. Photos of people, of course, would be automatically identified and tagged as well. Imagine an entire lifetime recorded and searchable. Imagine if you could scroll and search through the lives of your ancestors.’ (Techcrunch)

My high school philosophy teacher believed that there will always be one piece of technology which, once you resolve to never use, will signal the beginning of your transition into the afterlife. (Mr. Dykes, to my knowledge, still does not use computers.) I guess I’ve found mine.

I’m performing in a benefit concert with Bette Midler. Just before the curtain goes up, I stop her and say, ‘Bette, I know that we’ve been rehearsing for weeks, but I can’t remember anything I’m supposed to say. It’s just like an actor’s nightmare, but I’m sure this isn’t a dream.’ When the curtain does go up, I lie down behind one of the set pieces and no one notices.

* * *

The sunlight coming through the window is too bright and I can’t sleep in. I go to it to lower the blinds. There’s a plant on the window sill, and its only bud blossoms into a tarantula, its legs unfolding like petals.

* * *

I kiss Laure during Mass.

David Denby’s review of ‘Inglorious Basterds’ not only reveals the film’s audacious ending (with no warning to his readers), it’s also one of the most perplexed pieces of criticism I’ve encountered. The film takes place, according to Denby, in an “uneasy nowheresville.” Is it straight or farcical? An ideal or a parody? Wish fulfillment or trashy exploitation? (Denby isn’t sure.) By endowing the Americans with a sadism usually reserved for the Germans, Tarantino “escapes the customary division between good and evil,” and his “refusal to show us how events play out comes across as sheer negligence or indifference.” Denby’s primary criticism of the film seems to be its failure to provide any clear position for him to attack, and he responds by dismissing its director as juvenile, embarrassing and inane. The only clear critique Denby can muster, by comparing ‘Basterds’ unfavorably to the Third Reich farces of Lubitsch and Chaplin, is that, as it were, they don’t make ‘em like they used to. A film may very well confound a critic, but should that be grounds for the critic to condemn it? If Denby believes that a work’s obscurity is a sure sign of its inferiority, then perhaps he should write about something besides the arts.

I believe in aristocracy, though— if that is the right word, and if a democrat may use it. Not an aristocracy of power, based upon rank and influence, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet. They represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory of our queer race over cruelty and chaos.

* * *