"Whenever a famous movie actor, director or producer passes away, it makes front page news.  Sometimes a screenwriter's death also makes headlines.  On the other hand, it's rare when the passing of other eminent film industry professionals attracts much media attention.  All this is a roundabout way of saying that many of you might not be aware that Sven Nykvist, one of the true giants in the field of cinematography, has died.  For film aficionados across the globe, this is discouraging news indeed, though we still have Nykvist's incredible body of work to remind us of his talent.
    In his illustrious career, Nykvist was most widely celebrated for his collaborations with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and won Academy awards for 1973's "Cries and Whsipers" and 1983's "Fanny and Alexander." Nykvist's resume also includes films for American directors such as Woody Allen ("Another Woman"), Philip Kaufman ("The Unbearable Lightness of Being") and Bob Rafelson (the 1981 remake of "The Postman Always Rings Twice").  Additonally, he teamed up with fellow Swede Lasse Hallstrom for the Texas based "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

 I guess I should have included a footnote in my email about Sven Nykvist yesterday, but I was in the computer lab at school and was having a hard time collecting my thoughts, especially given the glitch I experienced the first time I tried composing the message.  Anyway, if I could add one personal thought to the original missive it would be that when I started really reading and studying a lot about movies when I was in 6th-7th grade, Nykvist was the first cinemtographer  I learned to recognize by name. Of course, it would be a few years before a jr. high kid growing up in Garland in the early 70's would get the chance to actually see a Bergman-Nykvist film...but at least I was prepared when the day finally came.  
    Anyway, cliche that it is, his passing only reminds me of my own faded youth...and how much more I've learned since then."

--M*lani* Pruit

"Morning train--
Entering the dark tunnel
Suddenly: my face"

--Marco Fratic*lli


Fathom.


2.
smackdown and national bruxism
pillow cold warn strongly opal possibly
lookout card
Jada do craving

it conspiracy finish
pallor practically Algol
smackdown passport cranch
carving you Ramadan giddy Visa rush

squall psalm nightclub warrior giddy
grassy knoll
Miniron tribulations wouldn't


'Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains..' --Marcus Aur*lius

"The silence after geese
fade from sight
part of me following"

--David 3lliott


   Rocky Mini-World 134340

1.
if Youth throughout autopsy
all twinkling history
silkworm affadavit lurch had pink
had a gnat simply a sandbag champion kill

a lion
to blackjack
shocking catacombs swimming
curb stand twistboards up digital fracas chimp

sucking wound for pools
victim frabjous it crypt to crook run
full show and truthful
blackouts brown bag a popular ramp

razor stars
solid doubting wobbly world idolatry
suspicions and rumors spliff
that polygraph python dusk

a young child assassin ring turncoat
additional crash
can commission downtown abruptly think gulls
Oak Cliff quick


Nykvist.

Ixion · oxidizing
Sisyphus pools · indigo loon
axis mists adorn · willow
tzompantli · birdtalk and aggry
ash bilk osmium · dying opt
thwart · sunlight usurp



"...the sons of bitches who killed America once & for all are walking around free. That’s what drives me crazy. And they will die comfortably in their beds. That, too, drives me crazy. But nothing drives me as fucking crazy as the fact that roughly half my countrymen inhabit the same moral hell as the torturers who rule us. That fact drives me nearly to despair."


"At heart
I am a Moslem
at heart
I am an American artist"

--Patti Smith, 3ast*r


"In truth, 'Seattle's wisdom' came from the pen of a white screenwriter from Texas, and his moving words were the single highlight of an obscure television script on pollution produced by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1972." --Playing Indian, which points to R*cov*ring th* Word: 3ssays on Nativ* Am*rican Lit*ratur* pp 497-536.

Rambl* Hous* Onlin* ! (K**l*r, Gadsby, Cadav*r of Gid*on Wyck...)

   "XXXIII.

Of meadows drowsy with Trinacrian bees,
Of shapes that moved a rising mist among--
Persephone between the Cypress trees--
Of lengthier shades along the woodland flung,
Of calm upon the hardly whispering seas,
Of cloud that to the distant island clung--
He made of emerald evening and of these
A holier song than ever yet was sung.

But silence and the single-thoughted night,
Hearing such music took him for their own
To that long land, where, men forgotten quite
Harpless he errs by Lethe stream alone.
He never more will know that wind-flower's white--
He never more shall hear uneasy autumn moan."

--B*lloc


"Note: Jane Dunlap is a pseudonym for Adelle Davis who is better known for her books on natural foods and nutrition."


"starting to rain
shower of petals
on last year's garden"

--M L Bittl*-D*Lapa

("Tornado Ov*r Kansas" by John St*uart Curry)


   "CI.

Angels I saw at night knock at the wine-house gate:
They shaped the clay of Adam, flung into moulds its weight.

Spirits of the Unseen World of Purities divine,
With me an earth-bound mortal, poured forth their 'wildering wine.

Heaven, from its heavy trust aspiring to be free,
The duty was allotted, mad as I am, to me.

Thank God my friend and I once more sweet peace have gained!
For this the houris dancing thanksgiving cups have drained.

With Fancy's hundred wisps what wonder that I've strayed,
When Adam in his prudence was by a grain bewrayed?

Excuse the wrangling sects, which number seventy-two:
They knock at Fable's portal, for Truth eludes their view.

No fire is that whose flame the taper laughs to scorn:
True fire consumes to ashes the moth's upgarnered corn.

Blood fills recluses' hearts where Love its dot doth place,
Fine as the mole that glistens upon a charmer's face.

    As Háfiz, none Thought's face
    Hath yet unveiled; not e'en
    Since for the brides of Language
    Combed have their tresses been."

--Háfiz (tr H Bickn*ll, in: P*rsian Lit*ratur* 1900)


Scifi stars list with maps. (via M*tafilt*r)


L*agu* of th* Militant Godl*ss.


On my victrola- Lucinda Williams: Car Wh**ls on a Grav*l Road


"moss hung trees
a deer moves into
the hunter's silence"

--Winona Bak*r

"Cambodia is a dream come true for international losers--a beautiful but badly beaten woman, staked out on an anthill for every predator in the world to do with what he wishes." --Anthony Bourdain, A Cook's Tour (2001)


    "xxii.

Mother of all my cities once there lay
   About your weedy wharves an orient shower
   Of spice and languorous silk and all the dower
That Ocean gave you on his bridal day.
And now the youth and age have passed away
   And all the sail superb and all the power;
   Your time's a time of memory like that hour
Just after sunset, wonderful and grey.

Too tired to rise and much too sad to weep,
   With strong arm nerveless on a neveless knee,
Still to your slumbering ears the spousal deep
   Murmurs his thoughts of eld eternally;
But your soul wakes not from its holy sleep
Dreaming of dead delights beside a tideless sea."

--B*lloc


The Age of Propaganda is followed by The Age of Mosquitos.

--sayings of Asmoday


Patriots.


R*d Star Rogu*.

(via flyingturtl*toys dot com)


"sharply we flower in this foul farewell" --Conrad Aik*n


   "DOWN CHANNEL

The Channel pours out on the Ebb in a river gigantic.
  There is no Moon.
The Dark is low in a cloud on the huge Atlantic.
  We'll be raising the Lizard soon.

There will be no meeting of eyes, nor any blessing,
  After the run.
The lips are still and the hand has ceased from caressing.
  There is nothing more to be done."

--Hillair* B*lloc, Sonn*ts & V*rs* (1944)


"This has to be the most handy piece of cooking instruction embedded in a cultural text since Master P's "Ghetto D"."


'Man and the unthought are, at the archaeological level, contemporaries.' --Foucault, quoted in: Robin Blas*r, "Th* Practic* of Outsid*"