Grape Lights

Hoping to find out who painted this. This image comes from the scene in The Limits of Control after the Lone Man has been admiring Madrid Desde Capitán Haya by Antonio López García. He walks past the painting of the girl in the hallway on his way out of the Reina Sofia.

From UBU

What are the chances that I would be reading about Michael Jackson in Lipstick Traces on the day he died? It freaked me out a little. Typically, the only time anyone reads about Michael Jackson nowadays is when he is in the news for having done something terrible. Just a weird coincidence, then, but still. What follows is a chunk from the book that especially stood out. Read on: By 6 July 1984, when the Jacksons played the first show of their "Victory" tour, in Kansas City, Missouri - thirty years and a day after Elvis Presley made his first record in Memphis, Tennessee - Jacksonism had produced a system of commodification so complete that whatever and whoever was admitted to it instantly became a new commodity. People were no longer consuming commodities as such things are conventionally understood (records, videos, posters, books, magazines, key rings, earrings necklaces pins buttons wigs voice-altering devices Pepsis t-shirts underwear hats scarves gloves jackets - and why...

My mind has been a pile of mush for almost a year now due to a serious misfortune that unfolded in my life. Consequently I stopped reading regularly like I had been since my teens. I don't remember completing a novel or any nonfiction since maybe last year. I don't even remember the last few books I completed. Actually, I had read most of Memoirs of My Nervous Illness at some point last year, though, but that's the only exception. Just recently a friend of mine recommended that I take a look at an excerpt from Janet Frame’s posthumously published 1963 novel Towards Another Summer . Here's a little of what I read: "Yet here, in the attic, Grace decided, little effort or encouragement would be needed to draw aside the curtains of the secret window, to smash the glass, enter the View; fearful, hopeful, lonely; disciplining one's breath to meet the demands of the new element; facing again and again the mermaiden's conflict – to go or stay; to return through th...

I remember when music was still a little bit of a threat to parents, even if more imagined than real. Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center were a big deal once upon a time. Parental advisory stickers started appearing on album covers, then they were even printed directly on the cover art (remember Jane's Addiction had released Ritual de lo Habitual with that ugly white cover because of this?), bands were protesting, parents were treating cassettes with advisory labels like they were as bad for you as a pack of cigarettes. I think Tipper Gore, her crew of Washington Wives, and all the parents that bought the PMRC argument gave us kids way too much credit. Kids might hazily listen to lyrics, but it's not until they have a Hayes Code telling them they can't hear them that they start to actually pay attention to them. Maybe it's not a good idea to overgeneralize, but I'm going to go even further. Let's be honest, any naughty lyric by any band that t...

Kunio Kato's La Maison en Petits Cubes :

It's nice to finally see this. Found it on Ubu.com today. Oursler's website: http://www.tonyoursler.com/

Go over to the J.X. Williams Archive website for more info.

Glenn O'Brien's film Downtown 81 feels like that holy grail of junk food, the green chip, that rare perfect accident that curiously leaves you unsure about consuming it while simultaneously serving as a reminder that you shouldn't be eating any junk food to begin with. There has been a glut of unnecessary documentaries coming out these days that survey rock's growth, (or perhaps its devolution) out of the late 60's into the post-punk of the late 70's and early 80's. Everyone that lived through that period, while in the cultural limelight, seems overly anxious to stake his or her claim as to who was in fact at the forefront of the movement. But they're all the same cookie cutter interviews that quickly become hard to stomach after a while. Downtown 81 is not a documentary, but a fiction-as-document, embodying its own period and place. The film follows the wanderings of an, at the time, up-and-coming Jean-Michel Basquiat, and it shows artists and music...

This is an interview I did back in January 09, 2008 for FavoriteMedia . Confused Clarity: An Interview with Andy Gonzales by Jason Devin Elephant 6er Andy Gonzales can change his mind on a whim without feeling bad about it, which might partly explain why he's managed to be all over the musical map over the years. Even if his playful and energetic pop songwriting reflects his spirited rather than spiritual view of the world, that doesn't mean he ever shies away from life's open ended mysteries. In the following interview, FM has fun getting far out with Andy. FavoriteMedia: After so many musical adventures, including Marshmallow Coast , Music Tapes and Of Montreal , were you feeling especially inspired to focus on a solo project, or was Andy from Denver more the result of creative restlessness? Andy Gonzales: I have always wanted a new band name. I was really excited about M Coast , but it was getting too complicated in that we could never organize. We had a couple tour si...

Jesus Franco Isn't it something how DVD helped usher in the new era of concern for image quality and filmic integrity while simultaneously glutting the b-movie market, including everything from European trash by the likes of Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin to thousands of other cult films such as Weasels Rip My Flesh ? Never mind that the films are total crap, they're finally presented in their correct aspect ratio and fully uncut! Take Franco's A Virgin Among the Living Dead for example, which is only one of several titles the film is known by because there are several different versions of the film, and really what difference does it make since every version is still one of the worse films ever made. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of enjoyable bad films. But let's face it, dressing up a Jesus Franco film as a pristine digitally remastered DVD is like putting a freshly pressed tuxedo on a piss-stinking bum. Skeletor in Bloody... As for those enjoyable bad films...