Alex de Campi: Gojira!

***

WHO

FILM & TV

COMICS & BOOKS

2.5.05 The Long Weekend

A bank holiday weekend here in Blighty. I have spent it doing my favourite things: standing in dark bars listening to bands nobody's heard of yet; sitting in dark screening rooms watching films everybody's forgotten; and loafing in the park doing nothing of use at all.

(Brief self-promotional interlude: I am one of the first UK-based creators to have her comics work available via PSP.)

Saturday night was a screening of Hans Richter's DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY with live accompaniment from The Real Tuesday Weld. Richter's film is a forgotten 1940s gem encompassing short films by some of that era's greatest artists: Ernst, Leger, Duchamp, Calder, Man Ray. Music composed by Paul Bowles, John Cage, and Darius Milhaud. You can now imagine the level of artnerd-glee with which I approached this screening. And you know what? It was fucking fantastic. Weird, deeply flawed in places, but with this beat generation swing to it - presaging the Beats by a good 10 years - and the lyrics! I wanted to see the entire film again as soon as it finished, just to soak down the rhythm of its rhymes into my little red notebook.

I adored The Real Tuesday Weld so much that I bought their CD I, LUCIFER as I left. It turns out that the CD is a soundtrack to a book by Glen Duncan. After reading an excerpt in the liner notes, I ordered the book. Ladies and gentlemen, Glen Duncan's I, LUCIFER:

"I've always had a soft spot for London, the patched and tattered cloak of its history (some of my best work, obviously; I feel the same about old Byzantium), its dog-eared wisdom and inky humour. You know - you provincial British humans know - what it's like when you crack under the weight of lost love or ingested desire and Move to London: the city's ready for you. You take your precious miseries there and unpack them - only to find that the city's already assimilated them, centuries ago, along with grand Elizabethan passions and mortal Victorian sins. The assimilation's encoded now - in the chemistry lab colours of the Underground map, in Trafalgar's punk pigeons, in the thousands of ticking stilettos and caffeine yawns and downed pints and adulterous snogs. You turn up on a rainy Monday afternoon proud of all your woeful particulars - and London humbles you with its wealth of generals. You've seen your life. London, it turns out, has seen Life..."

Damn you, Glen Duncan. You rite gud.

Sunday was the Track and Field Organisation's All-Dayer at Barfly with Mr Brown, interrupted by a dash to the ICA to catch Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST. Through sheer luck, I managed to see the two best bands at the gig. Mr Brown had been talking for some time about The Broken Family Band and, as usual, he was correct. However, new group The Eighteenth Day of May was a revelation to us both. I await with unholy desire the release of their first CD in a few weeks.

And now, back to the keyboard, to toil over Issues 3 and 4 of FAUST.

( 11:22 AM )

0 Comments: