{ Wednesday, May 7, 2003 }
I will likely die regretting only this: that I was unable to read every book, see every show, listen to every record, meet every person, admire every artwork, experience every experience and watch every movie that I wanted to in this tiny lit slot between two looming darknesses. But I've been making some headway this week with these delectable distractions:
- The Believer, a new periodical out of San Francisco, which I will be reviewing for Readymade (A magazine you should also delectate!) The first issue of The Believer contains articles by Heidi Julavits (its general editor), Jonatham Lethem, Ben Marcus and Anne Carson. It is beautifully designed and printed (if a bit McSweeney'sesque). I've already sent in my subscription form. It's going to be a monthly, fancy, fancy that!
- The Ganzfeld, an annual book of pictures and prose. Comics, drawings, doodles. Work by Rick Moody, Hairy Who, Alfred Hitchcock, Jim Nutt, Fred Tomaselli and so on. I've already drooled all over this copy, which I have also been sent to review for Readymade, the drooling being a not-too-subtle strategem to hang on to my review copy. Does Readymade's Shana Berger have excellent taste or what?
- Gyorgy Ligeti's Mechanical Music. Best known for composing the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey, he has also written some delicious pieces for metronomes and barrel organs, and the delightful Nonsense Madrigals. There is one piece in particular on the Mechanical Music CD that Jocelyn Pook cribbed for the Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack. I was introduced to this music by my old friend and earcake connoisseur Forrest Norvell, who has a site full of super book and music reviews.
- Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau. After I read The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan and The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil, both about adolescent depravity, Demian suggested Les Enfants Terribles. It has a bit of the swoony homoerotic tenderness of Denton Welsh, but midway through the third paragraph I felt a pang of encroaching evil. I'm not finished with it yet, but when I am I'll give it a proper blurbing.
LINK | 4:13 PM | TB
Try to see the amazing Melville film of Les Enfants too - Cocteau narration, great acting, music mostly by Bach.
bhikku | May 8, 2003 12:29 AMLadies and gentlemen, lend me your mp3 players and have a listen to Deodata's (official site) funkee arrangement of Strauss' 'tone poem' Also Sprach Zarathustra (mp3) (what everyone remembers from 2001, and not the bits that Ligeti scored).
Stewart Butterfield | May 8, 2003 2:47 AMLadies and gentlemen, lend me your mp3 players and have a listen to Deodata's (official site) funkee arrangement of Strauss' 'tone poem' Also Sprach Zarathustra (mp3) (what everyone remembers from 2001, and not the bits that Ligeti scored).
Stewart Butterfield | May 8, 2003 2:47 AMHoney, please upgrade your MT installation ...
Stewart Butterfield | May 8, 2003 2:48 AMI'm a bigger fan of Ligeti's vocal music (for instance, what you can find on the 2001 soundtrack). But I'm a vocalist myself, so my opinion is clearly biased.
And now I'm reminded to put _Le grand macabre_ on the wish list!
James | May 8, 2003 6:24 AMEarcake... hee. Thanks for pointing out the Ligeti pieces. I've always wanted to listen to more of his work (inspired, of course, by 2001), but it never came to mind. At least now I have a few recordings saved to my wish list.
Stefanie Noble | May 8, 2003 7:12 AMLes Enfants Terribles. I didn't know there was a book. I saw the play a few years ago. Well, more of a ballet. With rock opera. And four people playing the same character. Kind of hard to follow but one of the most beautiful things I've seen. I'm going to have to get the book.
miriam | May 8, 2003 10:09 AMDear,
On http://d-sites.net/english/ligeti.htm
you will find a new text on:
‘Györgi Ligeti’s Aventures: Ode to the discrepancy between word and deed’
We felt you might be interested.
Sincerely,
Stefan Beyst.
Dear,
On http://d-sites.net/english/ligeti.htm
you will find a new text on:
‘Györgi Ligeti’s Aventures: Ode to the discrepancy between word and deed’
We felt you might be interested.
Sincerely,
Stefan Beyst.
{ Post a comment }
Gee I thought Nietzsche wrote the soundtrack for 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I liked the way it sounded when I thought of it.
Thus spoke....Chris
Chris | May 7, 2003 4:18 PM