Artistamps

Bulletproof is working on a new documentary about the history of artistamps, which are works of art made to look like postage stamps. I'm co-editing the film, and I decided to do a stamp sheet commemorating my participation.

Update: Two new stamp sheets, one made from a collage I did a few years ago, and the other in honor of my crane movie.

Six Bookmarks

In homage to par3182's addictive bite-sized blog Six Things, here are six things I'm using as bookmarks in current reads.

1. A strip of black film leader, to mark Clea, the final book in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet.

2. A latex-free sterile adhesive bandage, complete with sterile packaging, to mark H.M.S. Surprise, the third book in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series.

3. The lid from a cardboard box of bandages (possibly the same box #2 came from), to mark Semiotics: The Basics by Daniel Chandler.

4. A seven-frame chunk of the trailer for Alien: Resurrection, to mark Steve Niles and Elman Brown's graphic novelization of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, which happens to be the greatest vampire novel ever written.

5. A receipt, dated December 12, 2005 (my older sister's birthday), for a breakfast sandwich from Au Bon Pain, to mark Movie Love in the Fifties by James Harvey. It's only on page 4, but I don't remember what he's said so far, so I think I'll have to restart this one.

6. The cardboard insert from a package of Schick Xtreme3 razors, to mark A Short Guide to Writing about Film by Timothy Corrigan (I figured I'd see how I was doing).

New Season

Once Upon a Time in Goatdog's Apartment

I had never seen Sergio Leone's 1984 epic Once Upon a Time in America, and I figured it was about time to remedy that four-hour gap in my movie knowledge. I got it from Netflix, and it came on two discs. One said "Disc One" on the envelope, and the other said "Disc Two." I pulled Disc Two out of its envelope, and sure enough, it was Disc Two.

I pulled "Disc One" out of the envelope and put it in, and bang! What a jarring beginning. No opening credits; the first shot of the bullet-riddled body of a gangster in a 1930s car, then a cut to Robert De Niro and James Woods walking to their car. De Niro tells Woods he has some blood on his pantleg. Wow! What a way to start a movie! In that brief scene, and in the subsequent car ride, you learn everything you need to know about these characters: they're capable of brutal murder; they're old friends but there are tensions between them; Woods wants to go big-time but De Niro doesn't want to mix with higher-level gangsters.

Yeah, I know. I should have figured out that something was wrong, especially with the lack of opening credits. But I wasn't confused about anything that was going on, so I figured that it was just the way Leone wanted it. Suffice it to say, after two hours, the closing credits started rolling. Netflix had sent me two copies of Disc Two, despite what the envelope advertised. But what an ending! I only hope the first half is as good.

In Praise of Soul Jazz Records

It was the ugly yet distinctive packaging that first made me notice London-based Soul Jazz Records. I was in an eccentric little record store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and in the used world music section, I saw a bright yellow carboard sleeve. As Mercenárias: Brazilian post-punk, 1982–1985. It was like it was designed for my pretentious musical tastes: underground music by an all-female band in a foreign language? Where do I sign up? I bought it, and I love it. It's like a little bit of Wire mixed with a little bit of Gang of Four, with some samba influence and in Portuguese, all packaged in perfect little two-minute songs.

After that, I was seeing Soul Jazz everywhere. My favorite art historian picked up a double CD called Big Apple Rappin': The Early Days of Hip-Hop Culture in NYC, 1979–1982, filled with early rap that is surprising to someone (like me) who thought all early rap sounded like "Rapper's Delight." The highlight song, "How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise" by Brother D & The Collective Effort, shows that rap has always had its political side. Then I found New York Noise Vol. 2, a collection of music by early eighties post-punk and No Wave bands (and I learned what No Wave was). It includes a song by the Del-Byzanteens, featuring Jim Jarmusch on vocals and keyboards, which would make it worth the price even without all the other great (and greatly weird) songs included with it.

They specialize in just that sort of thing: collections of obscure music that appeals to geeks of various stripes. Perusing their catalog, you see reggae that's not Bob Marley, early dance music, lots of Latin American and Caribbean music, something called Deep Jazz, and lots of other weird discs, several of which are going on my wishlist.

Their packaging, aside from the eye-catching colors, is a little lacking. The liner notes are curious: there's often a level of detail that borders on the obsessive, but then they'll forget to include the release date of several songs. Their spelling could use some work (the Del-Byzanteens are listed as the Del Byzantines, which made googling difficult). They include a wasteful cardboard sleeve, which, you will remember, attracted me in the first place. But that's all the wrapping: it's what's inside that counts, and everything (admittedly, only three CDs) has been great so far.

Now I'm Homework

Longman, a publishing company, is including my review of A Farewell to Arms in a college-level writing texbook entitled College Writing Resources. I was suspicious when I first received the email requesting permission. I reread the review, and I'm not wild about it, so I immediately thought that they were going to point out its deficiencies in the textbook. I emailed the permissions supervisor and asked, "will it be in the 'how not to write a film review' section?" She assured me that it will be used as a positive example, so I said yes. The book will be out in October. They're printing 10,000 copies, which means that approximately 9,000 college students will neglect to read my review when it's assigned.

My Pretty Website

From Websites as Graphs.

What do the colors mean?
blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Famous People I Know

Two great film bloggers I read religiously have received deserved media attention lately. Edward Copeland of Edward Copeland on Film was mentioned in a recent Hollywood Reporter article on the state of film criticism. And the cover of the most recent issue of Stop Smiling features an interview with Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay by Nick Davis of Nick's Flick Picks.

Goodbye Hoople-Heads

My current favorite show, one of the best television shows around, Deadwood will be fed to Wu's pigs at the end of its third season. I don't have HBO, so I have to wait for the DVDs to be released to watch its abbreviated end.

It has the best ensemble cast I've ever seen; great acting all around; smart, colorful, sometimes flowery dialog ("Hickok's half-woman friend's off somewheres on a tear. The orphan squarehead's in the widow's care. The widow feels put upon. She's asked me to find her some help. I suggested the gimp."); and meticulously designed sets and costumes—all in the service of multiple, gripping storylines that tend to keep me up far past my bedtime, as I think, "Well, there's just one more episode on this disc..."

Creator John Milch had planned it as a four-season arc, but with HBO balking at the high cost and low ratings, and Milch developing a new show, it's been widely known that it's been doomed for a while. But here's the kicker: HBO offered Milch half a fourth season to finish things up, and he turned them down. "I felt the right decision creatively was to stop now and move forward with the new project," he says. Jerk. I'm sure the new project, a "surfing drama," will be good, but I sure would have liked to see how Deadwood was supposed to end.

Update: Whine, and you shall receive—HBO and Milch agreed to produce a pair of series-concluding movies in the near future.