LOOKING FOR A PAGE-TURNER

bodyguards and assassins

all-star cast

Big alarm today. I had a long string of messages from friends saying they'd had a friend request from me, knew it was not me, saying: You've been hacked. My head went blank. I couldn't do anything. A Hong Kong film in the mail today, Bodyguards & Assassins. It rides the borderline between historical drama, year 1906, and kung fu excess, which wasn't so bad. Plenty of blood-letting, but quietly with knives and swords. Hong Kong films before Hong Kong went back to China, year 2000, had more gunshots than words in the script. They had become ridiculous. You can only do so much dramatically with continuous guns going off. Mainland China isn't a place to encourage guns. Seldom see guns in a mainland film unless it is military. I liked Hong Kong films somewhat before 2000, for the hyper-action that transcended plot. Who ever heard of a plot? Hong Kong thrillers have changed dramatically for the better since 2000. They have become more involved with mind. You have the gangsters and the detectives playing mind games, saving guns for punctuation. I've seen some that have remarkably complex mind games going back and forth. It's like they have become chess games of the mind. This film today had a number of current Hong Kong actors. Andy Lau is a superb actor, just as good a director, has made countless films. He played in The House of the Flying Daggers, among the most beautiful films of my life, with mainland actress Zhang Ziyi, who was also in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, another of the great ones made by Ang Lee. A mainland director, Zhang Yimou, has made a string of what I put up there among the most beautiful films ever, allowing that there are many. He made Raise The Red Lantern with Li Gong, an actress who steals my heart in every film I see her in.

 

li gong

in raise the red lantern

 

I sat in my home entertainment chair holding Caterpillar wondering what to do about the facebook hacking. That kind of thing puts my head in a knot and it feels like a bale of cotton between my ears. I needed Time Out. A couple hours of jumping, kicking, fighting, stabbing, slashing, mixed with beautiful Chinese clothes, a hyper-dramatic telling of an historical event I'm interested to know about, to see dramatized. It was the time of the end of the dynasty and China reduced to nothing after the Japanese, Europeans and Americans bled it dry. It was the time of revolution all over China. This was a failed attempt in Hong Kong in 1906, maybe notable for being the first of a long string of failed revolts that eventually succeeded with Mao. It was the right movie to see for the moment, an escape movie when I wanted to escape from, delay going through figuring out how to change password on facebook. It's all I can do to surf the thing. Getting down into all those boxes of doing this and that, I'm a slow learner because it's too much. I clicked here and there, all of it leading me to nowhere, except finding by chance I could not repeat, there are several people on facebook with my name. I had no idea. Even using the lower case j. Mine happened by mistake. When I saw later what I'd done, I said leave it. Stumped, I called friend Lynn, who had sent notice of the hacking and recommended changing password. She told me the trick, I thanked her, and it was easy from there on. She suggested making it complex so a robot can't find it easily and changing it every other month or so. I dislike complex passwords. It's time to get over it and join the modern world one more step. I don't mind. I feel like I have some understanding of the changes going on and embrace the changes. The changes I don't like so much have to do with how everything is done in detail now, minute, exacting, complex detail. It gets tiresome.

 

zhang ziyi and andy lau

in the house of the flying daggers

 

It makes me want to turn off the computer and read some more about Marcel Duchamp. Yesterday, driving into town for groceries, I dropped a couple of books in a plastic bag into the library's outdoor return box. They were selling a large table full of books, a dollar for as many as you can get in a bag. I'd been wanting to find something to read that is a page-turner. I wanted to dive into something that became obsessive until it's finished. I tried a Tom Clancy and John LeCarre. All I learned from first page of each one is why I've never read them. I could not read 700 pages of Tom Clancy prose unless I was in jail and there was nothing else but a Billy Graham book. I dropped them off in the return bin. Give Doug something to wonder about in the morning. I did not want to throw them away. An awful lot of people like reading these two writers, so let one find it. So much for my page-turner. I started reading in the Duchamp book by Pierre Cabanne, and it is my page-turner. I've read a little bit about Duchamp, none of it really satisfying. I like Cabanne's writing, he gives an understanding of Duchamp the man, the individual human being, people he knew, places he went. I dive in when I open it and stay there until a good stopping place. Every page has fabulous color pictures. My ultimate picture book. It really is a plus to have such good reading illustrated so profusely and profoundly. Next I'll get into a big picture book about Constantin Brancusi, Romanian artist in Paris. This book I can sit and look at pictures in without end. The text is by two Romanian artists whose apartment was above his in Paris. They painted and he did sculpture. They knew him better than anybody they knew. He was the same as family with them, expats in a foreign language. They could talk their home language together. This book, too, has good, interesting text. I've read around in it, though not yet straight through.
 

constantin brancusi

bird in space

black marble

 

I can get used to reading texts in art books. I have several I bought for the pictures and paid the text no mind, all of them. I did read the text in The Art of Zen, by Stephen Addis. Great big Wow. Again, illustrated with sublime art on every page. I can get used to this. I have plenty I know will be excellent reading. One I know has good text is about Kurt Schwitters, whose art I love, and I know I'll love the text. One about Larry Rivers. Two about David Hockney, one by Hockney himself. I'm looking at the future of my reading. I've come to a place that fiction doesn't really do it for me like it used to. Non-fiction doesn't draw me anymore either. Even history reading doesn't draw me much in this time. Brancusi next. Every time I have laid eyes on a Brancusi in a museum I have felt in touch with the holy. I feel in touch with grace, like walking behind a good dog on deer trails through mountain forest. I've been wondering what to do about my malaise with being bored by reading largely. Feeling that way with movies too, waiting for one to astonish me and it seldom happens anymore. At this time in the life I have no interest in anything but art, to appreciate it. Another good art book I love is Minimalism, by James Meyer. No extensive text, but very informative paragraphs with each work and artist. Beautiful book. Yes, it is time to dive into my art book collection for good page-turning reading with beautiful pictures on every page. One on Robert Motherwell too. This solves my reading issues. It would be interesting to read a history of Persia, but I believe I'd like reading about Robert Motherwell's art a bit more, now, in this present mind. I've always, until today, seen my art books as picture books, uninterested in the text. I wanted the images raw without art-crit in my head. A little bit of reading, for context, Harold Rosenberg, biography of Whistler. Never even considered reading the text in the art books. I've suddenly learned they can be quite good reading, and just like in first grade, lots and lots of color pictures.      

 

zhang ziyi

in the house of the flying daggers

 

 

 

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CHANGING FOCUS OF ATTENTION

 

nude descending a staircase

marcel Duchamp

A picture book, large paperback, good quality paper and printing, has been staring at me for some time wanting to spend time on my lap. It is the works of Marcel Duchamp with text by Pierre Cabanne, whose book of interviews with Duchamp has a place in my house about like the Tao Te Ching, though not for the same reasons. Picking a random page in the Duchamp interviews is something like reading a few small verses by a Japanese monk, Ryokan, Basho. Duchamp does not wax Nineteenth Century deep about Truth and Beauty. Duchamp's art was of the mind. It takes the eyes for the mind to see it. In his found art series, "readymades," the object is divorced from its associations, like a bottle rack, a bicycle wheel, a snow shovel, basic shapes, and most famous, the urinal with its story, designs associated with function. Take away the function and see IT, the thing itself, separate from considerations of taste. This is such an over-simplification I beg you not to mistake it for information. I bought the book at a very reasonable price several years ago, had it down from the shelf recently looking at some of the images, reminding self Cabanne wrote the text. It is a book-length essay illustrated with the body of work. I picked it up today with intent to read the text. Very readable and insightful. I've been looking for something to read lately that will make me turn the pages. Thought I'd try a Tom Clancy. His stories have the reputation of page turners. The first page was enough for me. Never turned to see what page two said. Did not want to know. I could not read 700 pages of that prose. I tried a John LeCarre. Again, did not care what page two said. Cabanne has pulled me in like I hoped he would. Cabanne has studied Duchamp all along his way, knew Duchamp, his world and his language.

 

readymade

marcel duchamp

 

Julio Cortazar has found his way off the shelf again. Haven't read his beautiful writing in way too long, long enough that I've forgotten the stories and can read them freshly now as new. The first story I went to was, End of the Game. I will go back and read it again. It was like seeing a fabulous movie and wanting to see it again right away. Three young girls strike poses of well-known statues, and an attitude at the same time. Two of them dress one of them who strikes a pose in some spontaneous outfit beside the railroad track when the passenger train goes by at a certain time each day. May dive next into The Gates of Heaven, a tango dance parlor in Buenos Aires. It has a good chance of being next. I discovered Cortazar's stories after seeing Antonioni's film, Blow-Up. The film was an Antonioni remake of the story his way. It is one of the few films I must see every now and again to keep it fresh in memory. It never grows old. I had the good fortune to see it in a theater when it was making the "art house" circuit. I like Cortazar's story too. The film is not telling the story the same way. They are two entirely different versions of the same brief outline of a story. Both tell the story beautifully. Cortazar's original title for the collection was End of the Game and Other Stories. The movie created the market for a paperback, which the publisher changed to Blow-Up and Other Stories. The film has kept the volume of short stories in print. Reading today, I was getting frequent reminders of why I love his stories so much. I've taken another volume by him off the shelf, 62: A Model Kit. It is a "novel" composed of 62 unnumbered sections, stories, chapters? He recommends they be read in any order the reader chooses. Thought I'd read a few of these stories too, just read them as independent short stories. Mainly for the joy of reading his writing. I'm not going to get into it's better if you know Spanish and translations miss everything important. I'm all with translations. How else could I read Pierre Cabanne and much of the most beautiful writing I've read along the way?

 

fountain

marcel duchamp

 

Another one that found its way to the reading stack is volume one of the discourses of Upasni Maharaj. He is an enlightened master from the western part of India, inland a ways from Bombay, a place called Sakori. I'm looking for a place on the wall for a painting I made of him for myself. I think I know where I want it to go. It's just a matter of doing it. I like his discourses. He defines words breaking them down to their simplest parts. He says rock and wood are the most intelligent beings. Everything we know, we learned from rock and wood. He wore a sack-cloth draped around himself like a small toga (1870-1941). I wanted to read one of the discourses again about the City of the Dead. He talked about the spirits of the dead being among us. We don't see them. I'm wondering if these are different dimensions he is talking about. It mystifies me. Makes me think of Apollinaire's poem, La maison des morts, The House of the Dead. It's too much to even start attempting to give a brief. Mannequins step out of their showroom windows and join people passing by. I'm making a logjam for myself. Back to Maharaj, I like his perspective. It's straight-forward and clear. I'm in a time now of wanting to spend less time reading TruthOut articles online and seeing clips of Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. They are funny and I like the way they approach current events as comedy, but I'd rather read Julio Cortazar. First I let go of paying attention to the glorification of ignorance, and now want to let go of the parts I like as well as the parts I don't like. I like facebook for the personal interactions with others, friends, and don't want to give up facebook. Not that I'm a facebook junkie. I find it a fun way to keep in touch with the people I keep in touch with there. It is the political I want out of my mind. I'd rather read good writing for the sake of good writing. It will give me a change of perspective for the better.

the large glass

marcel duchamp

I'm in the middle of a Japanese film that is four fairy tales, Kwaidan, 1964, almost three hours long. I watched the first two and took a break. Will see the other two tomorrow. They are ghost stories. I was a little hesitant to put it on. The hesitation did not last. Right away I saw this is going to be something special. I flowed in the beauty of it. The visuals are constantly stunning. The scenes are like stage sets, Japanese style. The stories are tales of karma. Do somebody wrong and they come back to haunt you. Each story is uniquely itself. One of them, The Woman In The Snow, stays with me and will. They are stories of karmic self-creation. Classic old stories that director Masaki Kobayashi made into exquisite film. 1964 is half a century ago, but it is not dated. It seemed as contemporary as if made in the last decade. I cut it in half to savor it, enjoy some one day, and some more the next. It is too beautiful to watch without full attention and Caterpillar on my lap. I was wasting too much time and mind on people not worth a second's thought, even the ones I think I like. There comes a time I want less Rachel Maddow and more Julio Cortazar, less Jon Stewart and more Apollinaire. Makes me think of the UNCF ad slogan, A mind is a terrible thing to waste. It sure enough is on people like in the media spotlights. Al Sharpton is even taken seriously now. I think of a sign I saw on facebook, Stop making stupid people famous. Then I ask myself, has it ever been otherwise? Just reading what little bit I read today about Duchamp inspired something within. Reading the Cortazar story excited something within that reminded me I have several of his books I can read in any time I want. John Kerry in Ukraine telling Russia, Don't do as I do, do as I say, makes me laugh with derision. Why pay attention? I have a choice. I can flow in the story-telling mind of Julio Cortazar and I can see what Pierre Cabanne has to say about Marcel Duchamp. I don't have to worry my mind with the Koch brothers and the rule of mthe rich. I want to do like a tortoise and pull my head back closer to home.    

marcel duchamp himself

 

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