From the monthly archives: March 2011

Gloria Monday

On March 28, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In I don't really like myself, The Rattling Wall

I seem to have made some pretty anodyne recommendations to read/listen/see/read (in that order, please!) for The Rattling Wall‘s tumblr. For those who find the above graphic illegible, it says something like exactly this:

JAMES GREER SAYS:

READ THIS POEM: Paul Valéry, Le Cimitière Marin. One of many sources from which I [...]

I seem to have made some pretty anodyne recommendations to read/listen/see/read (in that order, please!) for The Rattling Wall‘s tumblr. For those who find the above graphic illegible, it says something like exactly this:

JAMES GREER SAYS:

READ THIS POEM: Paul Valéry, Le Cimitière Marin. One of many sources from which I stole to make Artificial Light, my first novel. I don’t know if there’s a good English translation, but probably.

LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM: Wire, Pink Flag, because out of the hundreds of thousands of albums released over the last forty years it remains one of the ten best. Or at least in the top thousand.

SEE THIS PAINTING: Paul Nash, We Are Making a New World. I don’t know anything about art. I love this painting.

READ THIS BOOK: Robert Pinget, Mahu, ou le matériau. I owe pretty much everything to the French nouveau roman, of which this is as good an example as any.

JAMES GREER is a featured contributor
in THE RATTLING WALL, Issue 1.
Hear James read on May 11 (7PM) at
The Hammer in Los Angeles. 

If I’d been asked to recommend a movie, it probably would have been Tarkovsky’s Sacrifice. Because that is how predictably pretentious I am.

 

The Rattling Wall

On March 25, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In Grace Krilanovich, Jarret Middleton, literary magazines, Los Angeles, Stories is a really great bookstore, the Hammer Museum, The Rattling Wall

Another day, another promising new literary magazine in Los Angeles to which I contributed a story about I forget what. And another launch party or reading and reception or I’m not sure exactly what, to which you (and you) are invited. More information about The [...]

Another day, another promising new literary magazine in Los Angeles to which I contributed a story about I forget what. And another launch party or reading and reception or I’m not sure exactly what, to which you (and you) are invited.
More information about The Rattling Wall and its star-studded (obviously I don’t mean me) list of contributors here.
More information about the Big Event at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles here.
I’m also reading with Grace Krilanovich and Jarret Middleton at Stories in Echo Park tomorrow night. I had previously said I wasn’t going to, but then I changed my mind, and now I’m going to. Unless I change my mind again. But you should totally go anyway, Grace’s novel rules and Jarret has a cool name (I haven’t read his book, I’m sure it’s great).
 

Belatedly Yrs

On March 22, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In fonts, inept use of typography, Jean-Luc Godard

I’ve been meaning to post this forever. And keep forgetting. For the occasion of his 80th birthday, Atelier Carvalho Bernau Design created a Jean-Luc Godard font that more or less recreates the font JLG has generally used for his titles, intertitles, and credits sequences since… forever.

You can download the font for free [...]

I’ve been meaning to post this forever. And keep forgetting. For the occasion of his 80th birthday, Atelier Carvalho Bernau Design created a Jean-Luc Godard font that more or less recreates the font JLG has generally used for his titles, intertitles, and credits sequences since… forever.

You can download the font for free here. And use it to create silly things like the hastily-composed hommage above.

 

Renato Berta

On March 20, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In cinematography, Renato Berta

If you happen to be in Paris, my good friend Renato Berta, the cinematographer behind such amazing films as Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants and Alain Resnais’ Smoking / No smoking, to name only two, is being fêted by the Cinematheque Francaise throughout the month of March. More [...]

If you happen to be in Paris, my good friend Renato Berta, the cinematographer behind such amazing films as Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants and Alain Resnais’ Smoking / No smoking, to name only two, is being fêted by the Cinematheque Francaise throughout the month of March. More information can be found here.

 

Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue

On March 20, 2011 · 2 Comments · In experiments do not always work which is why they are called experiments, michelangelo antonioni, zabriskie point is my least favorite antonioni film

If you’re at all a fan of the director Michelangelo Antonioni (and if you’re not, I would like to meet you, because you must be very strange) then you might enjoy this article in the BFI’s Sight & Sound.

Were there time and/or world enough [...]

If you’re at all a fan of the director Michelangelo Antonioni (and if you’re not, I would like to meet you, because you must be very strange) then you might enjoy this article in the BFI’s Sight & Sound.

Were there time and/or world enough I would expand on several points discussed in the article. There isn’t and I won’t. But feel free, after reading the piece, to imagine what I might have said.

 

You Are Listening to Los Angeles

On March 19, 2011 · Leave a Comment · In context makes perfect, sounds of the city, this is the modern world

Or New York, or San Francisco, or Chicago, or Montreal. Hear here.

Or New York, or San Francisco, or Chicago, or Montreal. Hear here.

 

Supermoon Alert

On March 19, 2011 · 2 Comments · In supermoon, we are all immortal now

  

Please be sure to hide your moon-related valuables.

  

Please be sure to hide your moon-related valuables.

 

The Scenario Is Bright

On March 17, 2011 · 2 Comments · In Guided By Voices, Jay Carney, White House

According to this story, the new White House spokesman, Jay Carney, is a massive Guided By Voices fan. Looking forward to random Alien Lanes references in future press conferences.

According to this story, the new White House spokesman, Jay Carney, is a massive Guided By Voices fan. Looking forward to random Alien Lanes references in future press conferences.

 

Situationist: the App

On March 17, 2011 · 3 Comments · In iPhone apps that should probably not exist, situationism, stuff that makes Greil Marcus cry

Presented without comment. More info here. North of Onhava does not endorse situationism, but also does not not endorse situationism, depending on the situation.

Presented without comment. More info here. North of Onhava does not endorse situationism, but also does not not endorse situationism, depending on the situation.

 

You Can’t Challenge Forward Progress

On March 12, 2011 · 2 Comments · In enormous changes at the last minute, p.s. i am not really writing a talking animal movie, the writer-in-residence is out

The very observant among you may have noted the disappearance of one or two events previously scheduled under the convenient heading “Events” elsewhere on this site. For reasons of logistics I have had to withdraw my participation from certain readings that I would otherwise have been delighted [...]

The very observant among you may have noted the disappearance of one or two events previously scheduled under the convenient heading “Events” elsewhere on this site. For reasons of logistics I have had to withdraw my participation from certain readings that I would otherwise have been delighted to attend. The time machine promised me by a Mr. Wells has not yet moved beyond stage alpha, or aleph (one is regrettably unfamiliar with time machine argot).

Beyond these mundane matters lie even more mundane matters. I’m working on a short review of Lydia Davis’ recent translation of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary for a new venture that promises great things: The Los Angeles Review of Books. So new is LARB, I should add, that its website, as I type these words, is laid out in lorem ipsum, which my neighbor’s cat Cicero insists is a corruption of something he? she? originally scratched or spat. The Review is scheduled to launch sometime in April.

Anyone interested enough to have continued reading this far might like to know that I am making good progress on my next novel, but I should warn you that I’m writing it in French, for no particular reason other than that I can. Working title: Mémoires d’outrecuidance. That is a joke. The working title, I mean. Joking. Admirers of Chateaubriand may now mop their brows in relief.

I don’t like to talk much about my film work, mainly because it’s not very interesting, but I see little harm in disclosing the fact that I’m currently working on the script for a talking animal movie. It’s about an animal that can talk. Just like a human. Revolutionary.

I’ll probably post a Guided By Voices story up here in the next several weeks because, you know, give the people what they want. Or something.