February

First, a confession. Despite what I think was a pretty strong effort on my part, I basically didn't get through an entire book this month. In my defense, I've been pretty busy with work and writing. And I haven't had any trips involving spans of plane or train travel - the best place to catch up on reading.

This situation should iron itself out in March and April, when I will be airborne at least once (on my way to Edmonton - more details soon).

One thing I did manage to do this month was watch a lot of movies. I also finished The West Wing (en totale, for the third time). I will say that while the West Wing doesn't get FUNNIER with frequent watching, it still makes me cry. Make of that what you will.

It feels worth mentioning them here because what they are about I think is cool and important stuff.

The first was: THE UNIVERSE OF KEITH HARING by Chrstina Clausen

For those of us who have come to expect a kind of feature film quality to our documentary films, this movie will be something of a let down. It has a bit of a clunky quality to it, a kind of cut and paste mix of present day interviews with Haring's friends and family and archival footage. For some reason I felt like I could have done without the extensive interviews with Haring's family, which didn't seem to me to be as interesting as footage of Keith actually painting/working, which is a pretty hypnotic thing to watch. Like, I'm not a huge Haring fan, I had a Haring notebook as a new queer but that's about it. All the same, I could watch him paint, this long flow of zigzagging characters, for hours. Watching this film made me wish I knew more about the intersection of artists like Basquiat, Warhol, and Haring. There's something to be said there about how they all, in their different ways, connected with success, with pop culture, with the MTV, but I can't really say it because, well, if I did say it I'm sure I would sound like a blow hard. Still, you know, feel free to discuss.



The second movie I picked up (make connection to Mariko's obsession with NYC in the 70's and 80's here) was: An Englishman in New York (starring Cynthia Nixon and John Hurt as Quentin Crisp).

The coolest part of this movie, I'd have to say, is how much Quentin Crisp looks like John Hurt. If there was to be a movie about John Hurt, Crisp would have been a shoe in for the role.

(Crisp)







(Hurt as Crisp)

(Or not, you know? Maybe I've just been trained to THINK they look a lot a like...)

Englishman is about Crisp's "later years," ie the years he spent in NYC after arriving in the early1980's, where he apparently picked up a gig just hanging out and giving people his opinions on things - queer frilly witty snippets that were "gay" without being "I'm having sex with men" gay. The "conflict" in the film centres on a comment Crisp made about AIDS being "a fad." The fact that this is the kind of key moment of conflict in the film is slightly problematic because Englishman seems to have some trouble going into the nitty gritty of the reasoning behind this statement. Like, it's implied that there was some tactic and philosophy behind this idea, that it had something to do with Crisp's theory of life and homosexuality, it's also implied that Crisp was generally out of touch with the queer liberation movement and even the larger queer population of NYC. It seems a weird decision to get into that moment and then really, for the most part, just leave it there like a dirty pair of underwear lying on the floor. I feel like if your goal in a movie is to provide an aesthetic and cerebral portrait of a person, you need to do more than give us lots of shots of him looking at his fancy white hair. You need to get into it, you know? Don't just hint.

So, no, I was not a big fan of this movie.

The last movie is actually the first one I watched, lent to me by Miss and Miss Christine B. and Ali E., it's called Chris & Don: A Love Story and it's the story of famous author Chris Isherwood (who wrote The Berlin Stories - which later became the musical and film Cabaret) and portrait artist Don Bachardy. Clearly the thing that distinguishes this documentary is the AGE of the people who met, fell in love, and spent their lives together. When they met Bachardy was 16, Isherwood was 46 (the movie takes pains to make it clear that nothing HAPPENED until Bachardy was 18). Aside from the fact that this is a movie about a very specific kind of romance, it's also an incredible combination of archival footage, present day interviews, focusing on Bachardy (Isherwood passed away in 1986), and animation. Bachardy not only has film footage of the early years of their relationship, he has Isherwood's incredible diary, which provides this incredible narration for the whole movie. I, in fact, really liked that there was this balance between Isherwood's words and Bachardy's portraits, which include these incredible heart-breaking sketches of Isherwood for, I think it's, every day of the last year or so of his life.

Clear winner? Chris & Don.

Best hair? Englishman In New York. (Side note: I basically had one lightbulb moment where I realized that Crisp's hair was actually really long and he swooped it up into those little waves. )

Coming up, after a stunning bruch with literary wunder Zoe Whittall, I have a whole list of books to get into, including one by Jennifer Egan.

If you have any notions about dropping free books on my front doorstep, I would encourage you to act on those notions because I am on a bit of a budget and this love of books habit is expensive.

mx