Monthly Archives: May 2009

Surfs Up

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Pixies and painting with oils at 17 frost mini studio. Not to mention dropping the epoxy resin on the Cog finally and then Alex Garcia shows up and drums while it cures…. I mean he was like a jet engine and blew out the mike. You should have been in the room. Felt like making surfboards in some Zuma beach shack, or whatever.

Memorial Daze

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Back to work after a blaze of strange daze. Glad to be back at the grind stone, but here’s some memories and memorials to the strains of The Kinks, “Days”.

Reading Totally Tenderly Tragically

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A great book by Phillip Lopate. One of the more interesting chapters involves his thoughts on “the essay film”. It turns out that’s what I’ve been trying to make without knowing it… or I mean calling it that. I’ve know his brother Leonard’s voice from WNYC radio for years. It’s nice to meet more of the family. Strangely the day I found the book, I heard Phillip’s name mentioned three times in other people’s conversations and then like magic I found the book in the street. I haven’t been able to put it down. I don’t always agree with the opinions expressed, but I love how he expresses them. His style is so much more honest and coherent than all the film theory crap I had to read in college.

If You Had A Zipperhead, It Would Be Easier To Keep An Open Mind

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Spending the morning trying to do another polish pass through the Zipperhead narrations. We did two new ones in rehearsal last week and ended up changing them quite substantially in improvisation. We were supposed to be recording them, but Steve can’t see in that dark room without his glasses and so he didn’t get any of it on tape (or more accurately on chip). I am going to have to make sure we press the right buttons next time. I think I’ve figured out what I said… and anyways it’s always more concise in the writing than if I’m talking it live. Other things I’m thinking this morning: I had a strange experience watching In Treatment on HBO. I’ve found this second season very engaging and it has felt to some extent like I am involved with the characters, or as if it is some kind of substitute for actual therapy, which no doubt I could use a few years of, but who can afford it? Anyway a young character runs out of the office and down the street… what street? My street? He runs to the local playground with my favorite bar in the background (the Gate). In other words, Dr. Paul (Gabriel Byrne) lives and practices just a few houses down from me. If I start to melt down this week I’m going to knock on his door. You think he’d take art in exchange for therapy? I’ve got no health insurance and even less money! Oh crap he’s fiction.

I am enjoying Spike Jonze’s Blog for the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are movie. It is called We Love You So Much. Back at ya Spike.

Polyethylene Paris

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I just found out that my little film Polyethylene Bag is going to be shown at the Pocket Film Festival in Paris at the newly renovatedForum Des Images. I’m thinking I should go! I had to transcribe the dialogue so they could make a subtitled translation. It was interesting for me to see the words written down… as I usually improvise them off the top of my head. This way I can see the structure of my own stream of conciousness. Here is the text:

I had a really strange experience the other night.
I happened to have my camera with me, so there is something of a record.
Although, this isn’t the record of the other night, this is the record of the day after,
But I’m making no sense.
I was coming back from the bar.
I’d been out at the new Galapagos Space in Dumbo
And I was a little beery and a little weary
And then the F train turned miraculously into like the C train and swung off into the middle of nowhere Brooklyn and it took me an hour and half to get home,
But that’s not the strange part, here’s the strange part:
I came upon a guy who maybe he was homeless I couldn’t really tell,
But it had been threatening to rain all night
And somehow he’d managed to pass out inside a plastic bag.
To keep himself dry I suppose,
But aaaah it seemed tremendously unsafe
And a kind of infantile way to die and sort of sad.
So in a small act of human charity,
I cut a couple of air holes into the bag
Just so, you know, he wouldn’t die on the way home,
Or if he was homeless,
Just so he wouldn’t die on the way.

My friend brought me a souvenir of Japan. I said, oh look Kate you’ve brought me back infinity. Nice trick. But Japanese money sure is pretty and it looks like steel wheels and they have a Pocket Festival Japan too… Hmmmmm.