Hellman Wyler Festival, where they’re celebrating Lillian Hellman’s plays and William Wyler’s Hollywood film versions. South means Birmingham, Alabama, and the town of Demopolis in Marengo County not far from there. Why there? If you ever saw The festival will be staging “The Little Foxes” and screening the film, along with three other Wyler-Hellman pairings: […]
Archives for February 2007
Hersh Abbreviated
Don’t have time this ayem to read Seymour Hersh’s short analysis by Ian Black in The Guardian. No time to read that, either? Here’s the lede of The Guardian’s President With His Head Up His Ass] has charged the Pentagon with devising an expanded bombing plan for Iran that can be carried out at 24 […]
‘Just Get to the Verb’
Five little words of wisdom. Robert Altman’s words. Words cited earlier this week in a tribute to the late director at the Majestic Theatre in New York. Smarter words than the old Hollywood cliché cut to the chase, which of course is what he meant. Fitting, too, given the paradox of a filmmaker who loved […]
Surging With Chomsky
Shuttling among art and “Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, and the Rest of the World,” the latest commentary at
Boris on the Bill
Are you ready for three nights of NO!-artist Boris Lurie? I am. Screenings begin this evening in Manhattan. The first one, at Hunter College, is free (followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers). The second screening, on Thursday, is at Makor ($15); the third, on Friday, is at Anthology Film Archives ($8). “Most of the […]
Cloud Nine
Norwegian master photographer Tom Sandberg’s first That’s my groundling’s take on what one expert, Yngve Kvistad, describes as the “ambiguous surfaces that do not quite reveal themselves” in Sandberg’s large-format, often painterly, black & white photographs. It’s not just in the “titanic, almost monochrome skyscapes” that there’s “an invigorating presence of visual paradoxes” or a […]
Apocalypse When
Chris Hedges was way ahead of the curve. Back in October Prez Huha‘s] administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks. Probable? Was he nuts? Three weeks? Really nuts? Well, his timing may have been off, but the clock is still running. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Emmett Williams, RIP
Another old friend is gone. We spent many a winter night together in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, keeping ourselves entertained over a bottle or two. He died in Berlin. He was 81. interview worth reading that fills in lots of details about him. And here’s an excerpt from “THE VOY AGE,” which “started out,” he once […]
John Bryan, RIP
They left 12 roses on his doorstep along with half of their kidnap victim’s California driver’s license. He was grateful for the roses. “They could have been 12 bullets,” he said. The kidnappers were the Symbionese Liberation Army. The license belonged to Patty Hearst. The year was 1974. The roses were both a warning and […]
Blogs Are Personal (in Case You Hadn’t Noticed)
Been gone. Now back. Why gone? Flew out west to see an old friend and collaborator, “Century,” a massive volume of photos from London’s Sunday Times Magazine chronicling the years 1899 to 1999. The main point of interest, however, is the partial view of Mustill’s large collage from the mid-1960s on the wall behind me. […]
Molly Ivins, RIP
Molly Ivins, who “Stand Up Against the Surge,” it was a sober, even solemn commentary without so much as a hint of the satirical wit for which she was famous. She called it part of an “old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war.” President With His Head Up His Ass as often as possible. For […]