Saul Williams is my favorite poet, though it seems to trivialize his work, to call him just a poet. I find his work too harsh for any sort of casual listening, and he talks about a lot of things that I couldn’t possibly pretend to understand, but I empathize with that basic feeling…
Art is most universal when it’s personal.
It’s nice to know that even interesting people aren’t satisfied with their own work.
From the Guardian interview with Bill Nighy:
“I try to never watch. It takes me so long to get over it and I’m always so downcast. I find it really distressing,” he says. “Maybe when I’m very old, I’ll sit down and watch my earlier work. But it will just depress the hell out of me. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. It’s not like I’m some weirdo. You just see how far short it falls from where you might have imagined you were heading. I have a perfectly average skewed perception of myself. We often don’t know what we’re like. I hope that’s the case because otherwise I’ll kill myself.” He chuckles.
“When a movie is called ’searingly honest,’ it’s almost invariably grim and demonstrates how bad things can get. Richard Curtis (the director) likes to try to make a searingly honest movie that tells you how good things can be.” LA Times interview with Bill Nighy
Pirate Radio isn’t really a film about music, though the soundtrack is exquisitely chosen and ever present; it’s a film about people who love music… It’s about how perfect life can be when you let it take you where it will, and it’s replete with that joyous creative harmony, that amazing synergy of people coming together for a common cause. It’s really a lovely film.
Go see it! I promise, you will love it.
Carl Sagan would have been 75 today.
It’s true that his science wasn’t always all that well-founded, and it’s true that he was a bit of a sensationalist — but he made his work accessible and personally relevant to anyone who took the time to listen, and that in itself was laudable.
When I was in grade school, more than anything I wanted to get into Cornell and attend one of his classes. It sounds ridiculous now, but just believing that I could achieve anything I wanted, if only I worked hard enough, made all the difference. He made it seem possible that even someone as average as I could do great things.
Sagan taught an entire generation to think big thoughts, to believe that humanity could someday be greater than it is now; that we are capable of more, if only we strive. Say what you may about the man himself, it’s hard to fault his message.
Silent films have the tendency to turn up in the strangest places! This isn’t quite as impressive as the complete cut of The Passion of Joan of Arc that turned up in the closet of a Norwegian mental hospital, but it’s still fairly unique…
A fellow recently discovered he’d bought a previously unknown Chaplin short on Ebay for $5… It’s probably more likely that it’s not actually a Chaplin short, but a propaganda piece made with his clips, as there doesn’t seem to be a record of this film.
That said, if it is a real Chaplin short, his estate should be able to authenticate it, which will make it worth a small fortune. As is, it’s previously unseen Chaplin footage, which is the sort of thing that makes film people squeal with delight.
The onus of interviewing him fell to the editor of the LA Times book review, and he made the mistake of trying to talk politics. I’m not sure fiction would have been much better, but only a madman argues politics with Vidal. Even with rather well-researched notes, Vidal still left him totally speechless more often than not.
The poor fellow was doomed before he even began, but all things considered I thought he held his own remarkably well — I told him so as he was making a rather hasty exit — after all, he did manage to form complete sentences throughout, which seems to be rather a laudable achievement in this particular circumstance.
It wasn’t that Vidal was particularly vicious, certainly he was mild in comparison to how he behaves with people he dislikes. It’s just that he’s absolutely impossible to argue with; he’s so well-versed in history and politics that listening to him talk is rather like being hit with an encyclopedia, his replies brook no reproach.
Not to mention that he’s effortlessly venomous, intellectually terrifying, and has that natural, imperialistic grace that reduces mere mortals to dust. Even if he’s rather tired these days, and doesn’t bother to hide the fact that he’s in a wheelchair, he’s a giant of a man. There’s a reason he got a standing ovation just for coming onstage.
I really just adore these two, her voice is so sweet… and Nature Boy is awesome.
Listening to...
