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29 September 2004
NOWHERE OR BUST
Last Monday night, about a block from the site of D. W. Griffith's old Biograph Studios on 14th Street, I hung out with
Jae Song and John Sosnovsky as they laid in the final mix of the audio track for "Hopscotch", the short film directed
by Jae and edited by John which will be showing at The Hamptons International Film Festival in October. Justin Sosnovski,
who did some visual effects for the film, was also there. I have a producer's credit on "Hopscotch", mostly for
a micro contribution to its micro budget, and did some voice-over for the film, for reasons known only to Jae.
The final mix was done by a friend of Justin's in Chicago -- the basic tracks from Final Cut were sent out there uncompressed
over the Internet (a process that takes hours), then the mix was sent back by the same route. Griffith would have been amazed,
but probably not surprised, by the way things have gone in film technology since his studios were torn down back in the last
century sometime.
I went home to find a message on the answering machine from my co-op's board president informing me that the new buyer
for my loft had been approved by the board. "You're out of the woods, brother," he said.
Well, not exactly. The logistics of finishing the packing here and getting my stuff to Las Vegas will be awesome -- almost
overwhelming. The woods ahead are still deep. In truth, I'm out of the swamp I've been slogging through, and floundering in,
for the past six months -- and that's progress enough for now. I'm on dry ground again, moving forward. There's light up ahead,
white and harsh -- desert light.
3:04 pm pdt
MURNAU EARLY AND LATE - NEW YORK EARLY AND LATE
In 1976, four years after I moved to New York, the Museum Of Modern Art presented a D. W. Griffith retrospective to mark
the 100th anniversary of the director's birth. Almost all of his surviving films were shown, including hundreds of the Biograph
shorts. I saw them all, and the experience was one of the most important of my life. At the end of it the world of silent
cinema felt like home to me and the grandeur of Griffith's achievement was firmly established in my mind and in my heart.
The retrospective was inspiring, instructive and exhilarating.
This September, at the end of my time in New York, the Film Forum presented an F. W. Murnau festival -- eleven days in
which all of Murnau's surviving features were shown in beautiful 35mm prints, with piano accompaniment at most shows. I saw
them all, except for "Sunrise", which I'd seen many times before.
The Film Forum is a short hop for me from 28th Street to Houston on the 1 or 9 trains. I'd usually show up early to be
sure of getting a ticket, then have some pulled pork barbecue at Brothers Barbecue near the theater, then get in line to be
sure of getting a decent seat (of which there aren't many in the narrow, deep auditorium where the films were showing.)
It was a pleasant routine, and I left the theater each night in a state of enchantment. I wrote this about Murnau after
one of the screenings:
"Organizing and enchanting space by the gracious and imaginative framing of a shot, marrying it with time by the
way things move through that space, are the heart of film -- mirroring the way we enchant the spaces of the real world by
the emotion we project into them. By this process, the dirt walkway behind the bleachers where you got your first kiss becomes
part of the landscape of mythology. The fact that a first kiss can do this to a dirt walkway behind some bleachers tells us
what a first kiss is.
"By a kind of reverse engineering, movies can create the illusion of spaces that are enchanted in the same way and
invite us to project onto the characters who inhabit those spaces and the events that unfold in them the same mythological
importance, the same emotional intensity.
"Murnau knew this secret at a very early age, almost, it seems, from the moment he stepped behind a camera, and we're
so lucky he was able to share some of it with us before he died at the age of 42. Those in search of the future of cinema
will always be able to find it by looking back at the work of Murnau."
The festival was inspiring, instructive and exhilarating. It reminded me of the way I felt -- exactly the way I felt --
during the weeks of the 1976 Griffith retrospective. It was a satisfying bookend -- a nice farewell from a city in which I
no longer feel at home but whose vanished grandeur is firmly established in my mind and in my heart.
11:14 am pdt
25 September 2004
A THURSDAY AFTERNOON IN NEW YORK
Maya's sister Heidi was in town last week, visiting from San Francisco. Last Thursday they came over to my loft (its current
state of epic chaos has made it a popular tourist attraction) then we wandered off for a stroll around downtown Manhattan.
Heidi is kind of a miniature version of Maya, who is herself somewhat miniature. They both have bright red hair, so following
them through the crowded streets of New York was like following two flaming torches held aloft by children.
We headed first for A Salt and Battery -- a hole-in-the-wall fish and chips place on Greenwich near 11th. Superb fresh
cod and good chips, authentically English, especially when liberally slathered with malt vinegar. Then we wandered through
the magical streets of the West Village on a sterling day. The tree-lined blocks of old townhouses were charming, and if you
squinted, blocking out the yuppies, who are the only people who can afford to live there these days, you could imagine yourself
in the primal Bohemia of 20th-Century America, with the ghosts of Edna St. Vincent Milay and Maya Deren and Bob Dylan darting
about on their way to some sort of inspired mischief or other.
We made our way to the Magnolia Bakery, famous for cupcakes -- where we indulged in a few. They are shocking things --
plain yellow or chocolate cake with a big dab of frosting on top which tastes like pure whipped butter, achingly sweet. We
sat in a shady park across the street -- I ate all I could before my teeth started to ache from the sugar -- then fed crumbs
to the pigeons, who, as Heidi noted, were shaking like vibrators, presumably from the sugar rush.
We sauntered on, in search of more sugar, passing the venerable White Horse Tavern, where Dylan Thomas drank himself to
death, and ended up at The Speckled Trout, which is reputed to serve the best egg cream in Manhattan. I had an egg cream when
I first moved to New York in 1972, and had never had another since until The Speckled Trout, where I remembered why there
had been such a long gap -- an egg cream, even when made with the excellent Belgian chocolate syrup used by The Speckled Trout,
is a wan sort of drink, not as bracing as a cold Coca-Cola, not as fortifying as a milk shake. I think you need childhood
memories of the beverage to love it.
Now stuffed and weary from self-indulgence we walked over to the river and lay down on a shaded patch of grass in a small
park -- and experienced an interlude of sugar-free calm, which was just as well . . . because we were headed from there straight
into deepest Soho, now a precinct of New Jersey and America's most architecturally distinguished shopping mall.
We stopped first at a sinfully decadent chocolatier -- MarieBelle -- which had remarkably decorated chocolates, like miniature
Italian tiles, and a big selection of cocoa powders, which some say are the best in the world. Then we went to visit a friend
of Heidi's who works at a classy hair salon. The friend was wearing a bright red dress with bright gold shoes which matched
her eye-shadow. She looked very cute and berated a friend of hers who walked by for being TOO cute. Heidi's cute little shopping
bag from MarieBelle elicited sighs and squeals of approval all around.
It was a mini-explosion of cuteness in Girl Land.
More wanderings around Soho, with more shopping and successful purchases of cool things at good prices. I made the mistake
of looking into the new G-Star jeans store. It was tragic. G-Star, which used to make the ultimate retro jean, shrink-to-fit,
almost black with indigo, stiff as a board when first bought, now sells pre-shrunk crap in an endless variety of "hip"
cuts. Our strain grows weaker.
Then good-byes in the subway and back home to the epic chaos.
It was all sort of dreamlike -- like a visit from the future back to a day long past and gone, in a city long past and
gone . . . 23 September 2004, a Thursday in New York.
12:42 pm pdt
22 September 2004
THANKS
Despite temperatures over 80 in the city today, this is the first day of Fall. I can't believe I'm still here, still trying
to get my stuff packed, still trying to find a buyer for my loft acceptable to my co-op board. I'd planned on being in Las
Vegas long before now, working on "Nowhere". Instead I've been stuck in a dreadful realm of the Twilight Zone, immobilized,
trapped by forces beyond my control, sick at heart.
I've found it almost impossible to do any kind of sustained writing -- though the short pieces I've written here have
kept me feeling more or less sane and productive.
All the same I count my blessings every day, and their number astonishes me. The Fall harvest looks promising this year,
the fields are white -- and though the laborers are few, as they always are, in truth, they will bring the harvest home.
Wilhelm Meister said, "If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'Thank you', that would be enough."
William Blake said, "Gratitude is heaven itself."
I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving this year, wherever it finds me. Everybody's invited . . .
2:41 pm pdt
7 September 2004
My friend Juniper and I took a train Upstate on Friday to spend the Labor Day weekend with my sister Libba and her family.
On Saturday Libba wrangled a couple of horses for us, no mean feat at the start of the hunting season in her part of the world,
and we galloped off on an awesome ride. I hadn't been up on a horse in years, but I was riding the trusty Starfire, whose
withers are high enough to take my old McClellan cavalry saddle, from 1914 but unchanged in design since the Civil War (and
in service right through the demise of the U. S. cavalry in 1942.) He's a steady, gracious horse with an easy trot which I
can manage comfortably in my deep straight-legged Western seat, and I've always had fine times in his company.
Juniper was riding B. J., a big white horse who's spent most of his working life hunting -- he's a bit snooty and aloof,
likes to take point in all situations and seemed to eye Juniper with considerable suspicion . . . but Juniper has been riding
all her life, sits a horse with authority and ease, and doesn't mind taking point herself, and they were soon in accord. They
led us in spirited gallops across wide green fields, then onto narrow twisting paths through shadowy, hilly forests filled
with fallen timber and man-made jumps for the hunters, which we mostly rode around.
As we galloped up one steep hill I was riding behind Juniper and could see B. J.'s bright steel or aluminum shoes flashing
like silver fire as B. J. ate up the ground. We came to a ridge of dirt a bit too high for the horses to run over, so they
jumped -- flying just a little bit above the ground but enough to remind me of the uncanny sensation of riding a horse over
a real jump . . . hard to describe exactly except to say that the image of Pegasus was born from it.
Since I came to horsebacking late in life, a great ride always seems dreamlike to me, slightly unreal -- a passage into
the territory of legend, where nobility and gallantry always save the day. It's not a fantasy, exactly -- because it requires
genuine nobility, of carriage and heart, and genuine gallantry, courtesy and intimate sympathy, to engage the attention and
cooperation of a good horse.
Every muscle in my body has been aching slightly since the ride -- the echo of an excellent enterprise undertaken with
high hearts on a beautiful Indian summer afternoon.
11:39 am pdt
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