My Criterion Collection (currently imaginary)

If I could spend the $505 dollars it would take to purchase the items in my cart, this would be the Criterion Collection favorites I'd own. Thanks to Molly for the idea.

This list is heavily influenced by my father, and is thus filled with films seen especially in the pre-adolescent years during which he thought I needn't have a social life.

Au revoir les enfants (Louis Malle)

Wonderful cinematography that evokes a child's perspective, and one of the best World War II films. Young boys in France at a Catholic school that's harboring a Jewish refugee; a retelling of Malle's own childhood experience.



I saw this first when I was about the age of the boys in the film, and more recently gave a lecture on it to my father's Facism class at Doane College. (Yes, related to the other Doane -- Mary Ann, my undergraduate advisor -- the college was founded by her grandfather.)

Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus)

Another film I saw quite young. Carnavale in Rio becomes the setting for the myth of Orpheus, and it is a mysterious and frightening rendition.

4 by Agnès Varda (Agnès Varda), mostly for Le bonheur

I took a French film class at UN-L when I was a junior in high school. I was supposed to be taking a French language course, but I argued that there weren't any that fit in with my high school schedule, so I took the film class instead. Basically, we had screenings and then watched more films in class. There was really no discussion. I really liked Varda. Le bonheur was my introduction to feminist film.



Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir)

Another one from the French film class. I just found it funny.

Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch)

I've always liked Jarmusch. This one is so well shot it kind of makes me want to give up trying to shoot something. The film is in black & white, and the production stills from the scene in the canoe with bright green foliage all over make it clear that this is a filmmaker who can really "see" in black & white.

Imagine that's all bright green on the water.

I'll also admit I'm in it for the devastatingly attractive Tom Waits/John Lurie combo.

Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju)

I first watched this with Brian Faas after we'd both been unable to make it to the screening for our class on the close-up. We were both joking around through most of the film but then blown away by the end. Easily one of the best horror films ever.



Fishing with John (John Lurie)

John Lurie takes other hipster actors on ridiculous fishing adventures, and there's totally goofy voiceover added on.

Grey Gardens (The Maysles Brothers)

There's a good bit of documentary on this list, especially of the embedded journalist sort of variety. That's the vein of work I'd like to go for. I just wonder how they find the money for the film stock. Grey Gardens reinforced every stereotype I had about wealthy Northeasterners.



La haine (Mathieu Kassovitz)

This was also part of my French education, though this time around, it was in the context of a language class. Not the Paris you usually learn about in school.



Häxan (Benjamin Christensen)

Mathias brought this over a few months ago, and we had it playing while working on other things. I love the Nordic peoples. This is a bizzaro-documentary history of witchcraft. We may have listened to Witchcraft while watching it, but I don't really know for sure.

Hoop Dreams (Steve James, Frederick Marx & Peter)


This was one of the first documentaries I saw where I remember thinking about it being made. Another excellent example of the embedded sort of filmmaking -- it includes so much about urbanism, education, and Chicago, too.

If.... (Lindsay Anderson)

My father showed this one to me when I was probably 12 or 13 years old. Through this, Au revoir les enfants, and other films, he was trying to explain to me what his school experience as a child in Germany had been like. I think. Well, without the guns.


Also plenty of beautiful young man fodder for the imagination of a teenage girl.

La Jetée/Sans Soleil (Chris Marker)

Mathias and I watched Sans Soleil several times. It usually put me to sleep. I love the Martian children.


My Life as a Dog (Lasse Hallström)

This is another film I watched over and over as a kid. I love its simple depiction of formative sexuality, its mild humor, and its young Swedish narrator.


Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)

I mostly like this film because it makes pickpocketing and lock picking look so easy. That makes it an effective film.

You aren't even going to know your watch is gone.

The Tin Drum (Volker Schlöndorff)

There are tons of Fassbinder films in the Criterion Collection, and for the sake of German pride, I probably should have included one, maybe Berlin Alexanderplatz, which my parents watched in shifts while trading off taking care of my infant self. But I'm going to skip Fassbinder altogether for The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel), the film that was constantly referenced in my house when I was growing up. Whenever I'd be obnoxious or whiny, my parents would call me Oskarschen.


This slid nicely into suggesting I was trying for an Oscar.

Triggertown!

What good folks.

looks so unreal

Bet the environment is going to benefit from development like this.

David Hobcote via Gizmodo

Just an observation.

Translation, Please?

From dvblog.org:



Lucia (.mov file linked)
from the Diluvio Gallery, a collaboration of Chileans Niles Atallah, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León.

Reminiscent of the work of South African William Kentridge, whose work I first saw at an exhibition at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in the winter of 2005 on a trip with Molly, Darin, and Leksi.

Replication

...it's what the Chinese do best!

this is neat...

practice your vocabulary and donate rice through the UN World Food Program

Review of Man's Last Great Invention's first release

From indieville.com:

None is the first release from Nebraska's Man's Last Great Invention, a curious drone band whose music reminds me of Cul De Sac's more experimental offerings. Issued by Public Eyesore sub-project Eh?, this is slow-building, bass-heavy stuff that sounds almost cinematic in nature. Man's Last Great Invention makes heavy use of echoing chanted vocals, which lends the disc an Eastern feel, as well as a distinct melodic tone. The majority of the album utilizes an ambient formula that is somewhat reminiscent of Biosphere material; sparse layers of sound come together to form miraculously organized compositions. The strangely hopeful first half of the album climaxes in a haze of distant chanting on the third track; this makes way for a much darker second half which could best be termed "unsettling." Particularly disturbing is the monstrous final track; it sounds like a swarm of ghosts trying to force their way out of a metal holding cell. Although very different in spirit from the rest of the album, what it lacks in droney sonority, it makes up for in disorienting unpredictability.

Congrats, folks! Buy it here.

On Critical Mass

Excerpted and reposted from Bike Snob NYC:

People do need to see other people out there on bikes. They need to become accustomed to them so they learn to respect them, and they need to see how practical and effective they can be so they consider riding them themselves. Many cyclists illustrate this day after day, not only by riding their bikes to and from work during rush-hour but also by using them for recreation and even racing on them. A driver who sees you zip past as you ride your bike to work, and then sees you riding your bike to dinner later with a date, and then sees you going for a road ride that weekend doesn't realize he's seen only one rider—as far as he knows he's seen a bunch of riders, and he sees them using their bikes successfully. Effectively, you’re a Critical Mass of one. Meanwhile, a mob of people on crappy bikes blocking traffic one day a month isn’t a “mass” at all. At best it's a party. At worst it’s effectively just one big stupid person.

As you may have already seen, an NYPD officer rammed himself into a biker on a recent Critical Mass ride. There is nothing about this I see as proper behavior on the part of the officer -- let me make that clear -- and as a cyclist, the video is terrifying to watch.

And yet, I agree with Bike Snob NYC; Critical Mass rides, instead of raising awareness of bicycles as legal vehicles and entitled users of city streets, rather obscure the good efforts of cyclists (particularly commuters) to abide by traffic laws and operate parallel to automotive traffic.

As the "resident cyclist" in my office, I get a mixed bag of admiration, questions regarding my sanity, and laundry lists of complaints. Bikes swerve too much. Some biker cut off one driver. They don't "get" the bike lanes in Lincoln (placed in the center of the street on only two streets Downtown). They saw a bike go through a red light, and it messed them up, because they started to go, thinking the light must've turned. I've explained the fear of being doored on numerous occasions, the difficulty of building bike lanes as an afterthought rather than part of the city plan, the navigation of potholes when riding on one-inch tires, and the awful feeling of having a car zoom by six inches from your knee as you're trying to accelerate after being stopped at a red light. Do all these questions piss me off? Of course. I often walk in to work after nearly being hit, and it's not a fun way to start the day. But what pisses me off more is knowing that when cyclists are out actively trying to piss off and obstruct car traffic, it makes my life as a commuter more difficult and more dangerous. There's no denying that some drivers will always be assholes. We don't need to actively encourage more of them.

Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady just blogged on sharing the road with bikes in Lincoln, too.

I certainly don't deny the fun of riding with a group. There's something passé though, somehow, about the sort of disruptive activism at the root of Critical Mass. Sort of like the ELF burning down housing developments (again, something that really pisses me off, like having the land next to the farm turned into McMansion acreages), it seems to be showy without getting to the root of the matter. If a so-called critical mass infiltrates city council and planning commission meetings, rules can change, and the vocal are heard. Look at what happened for all-ages shows in Omaha. I digress.

I'd love for more folks to consider biking to work or just around town. Seeing a family out for a ride, a guy on his way to work, a couple hauling groceries home in panniers, or a few bikers out for an evening cruise always makes me happy. And if I see all that in a day, that's a critical mass -- that's everyday folks riding bikes. Besides, you have to be a real dick to not respect street space for a whole family lawfully biking around town.

Pastis la Finale

via dvblog.org

This is one of the best short films I've ever seen.

Pastis la Finale















by Marco and Saverio Lanza

Two brothers film their parents watching the 2006 World Cup final.

best of craigslist

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/orl/740493470.html

John: omg this is so the post we needed when anderson and i were unemployed.

50 miler to Ithaca and back

riding

becca and i did 50 miles. photos to come.

mirror

plugged

we had no internet for a week. it was a bit debilitating.

Triangle Forest, Make-Up Break-Up, & DJ Spence

Thursday, 8 PM, Spindle Basement, Dance Party

Counting!

NPR did a nice job of explaining the humorous use of the bleep awhile ago. Here's a prime example.

Go Take a Look

Photos from Santa Fe.

Garlic Scapes

My new neighbor grows garlic. Lots of it. I clearly moved to the right neighbor.

Tonight, I made garlic scape pesto.

Bunch of Garlic Scapes
Pecorino Romano
Olive Oil
Pistachios (!)

I put it on some leftover Mac&Cheese. Anders put it on some freshly made Mac&Cheese&Tuna.

Dottie was more interested in the tuna.

oh, widescreen!

Tugboat Gallery from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

Where The Goblins Live

This map shows where the goblins live.

june can be drunk on summer fun

I wish I knew how to write AppleScripts. That would make all the upconverting of files for Jake's DVD go faster. Plus it would make me even more of a computer nerd.

Friday night, Nate and Anders and I biked to Heidelberg's and watched some baseball. They couldn't manage to get the Cardinals/Red Sox game on, though, and so we left after a pitcher. Besides, while Heidelberg's was kind of fun 3 summers ago when it was empty, it was not so fun on a crowded Friday evening when the majority of people there were wearing stick-on nametags.

Billy and Liz's wedding was just excellent. Their reading was a selection from The Watchmen. On the walk home, Nate, Ande and I took some time lying in the grass in Antelope Park. There were lightning strikes and stars to be watched.

Everything in this part of Nebraska is still green, and it's almost July.

Next week, sibling road trip to Santa Fe to visit the relatives. You should read the blog of one of the relatives here.

storms

Lincolnites try to make 13-hour song

From the Lincoln Journal-Star:

By MICAH MERTES / Lincoln Journal Star
Monday, Jun 02, 2008 - 12:19:24 am CDT


They’re running a little late, so Mathias Svalina starts to strum a guitar and sing to no one, because they need to get this song started if they’re going to make it 13 hours.

The movie “Top Gun” plays on mute on a nearby TV-VCR combo.

“It’s better we do this on time rather than correctly,” Svalina says. “Although, I’m not sure what correctly would be.”

Anders Peterson (left), 27; Ande Reinkordt, 28; and Elisabeth Reinkordt, 25, play a ventilation duct, an electric guitar and a keyboard during a 13-hour improvisational song on Sunday at Box Awesome, 815 O St. (Micah Mertes)

There’s no textbook example of performing a single, uninterrupted, improvisational 13-hour-long song with no structure, no rules, no purpose. All that matters is the duration. It will take a fluctuating set of musicians — and some who aren’t musicians — to make it through the half-day-long set.

If you’re looking for a rational, you’re out of luck. It’s not supposed to make sense. It’s just supposed to last 13 hours.

Starting at noon on Sunday, a group of Lincolnites came together to tackle the senseless endeavor in the basement of Box Awesome, 815 O St. Their plan was to make it to 1 a.m. Monday, employing every conceivable sound-making instrument or device.

Guitars, computer keyboards, mandolins, voices, typewriters, balloons, mic distortion, ventilation duct, a Pat Robertson tape played in slow motion. The results are dissonant, bizarre, but not without moments of unexpected beauty.

“Well, it comes to being that everything is an instrument,” says Ande Reinkordt, the founder of local band Man’s Last Great Invention and a participant in one-song Sunday. “Everything makes some sort of sound.

There’s a visual component as well.

A drawing of Kiefer Sutherland’s vampire of “The Lost Boys” takes the stage at one point. Architect and Lincolnite Marti Gottsch sings through a big lion mask. Movies of the ’80s — “Top Gun,” “War Games,” “Willow,” “Ghost” — play on the TV.

And Elisabeth Reinkordt, Ande’s wife, has set up an old projector, which is playing 18-mm film reels of black and white documentaries about monkeys and child psychology. Elisabeth found the reels while Dumpster diving outside a local high school.

The 13-hour-long song offers a strange accompaniment to both the ’80s movies and the educational documentaries, which play simultaneously.

The volleyball scene in “Top Gun” carries new weight during the sonic distortion. And the electric-guitar-keyboard-ventilation-duct ensemble provides a rousing backdrop to the final dogfight.

“We saved Maverick,” Ande says, after the scene ends.

People come and go, doing what they can to contribute to the experimental opus.

But at the two-hour mark, the performers start to realize that, wow, they’ve still got 11 hours left. No one says so, but there’s palpable doubt on a few faces.

Can they make it?

Only those still there at the end know for sure.

Reach Micah Mertes at 473-7395 or mmertes@journalstar.com.

One Song Sunday

From Ande:

OK. It's time to start digging out your old banjos, guitars, bowls, kick drums, bongos, clapping hands, nintendos, kazoos, screams, televisions, cats, washtub basses, art, dolphins, crazy eyes, tds, feet, and anything that you might like to make sound and music with. One Song Sunday is upon us. June 1st at Box Awesome ... Starting at Noon the sound will begin and will not end until 1am...ultimate patience in collaboration. Please Join Us!

storms! storms!

warnings and touchdowns and hails and winds and tornadoes and counties being listed off and my cat's watching a mosquito killer making circles on the ceiling

Glad I mostly ride a bike

Ok, I'm Conflicted

I love that my pick for president includes smart growth and things like bicycles into his transportation platform. (Especially after the current Secretary of Transportation claimed that bikes and pedestrians "weren't actually forms of transportation.")

But making spoke cards? C'mon.

listening

The new Erykah Badu album is incredible.

memorially riding day bikes

This morning, Felice, Mathias, and I headed out on city trails for a good long ride. Near my house, we saw lots of downed trees from last night's storm.



The 60+ mph wind gusts made the trees look like this, even with a fast shutter speed. My neighbor, however, was so committed to finishing her yard work that she was out with her LEAF BLOWER.

Once we got into the suburbs, the erosive properties of new development and empty lots filled the underpasses with an inch of mud.

Levels of bike gear appropriateness for conditions:

Mathias -- Kona dr. dew with disc brakes, off-road tires
Felice -- Surly cross check with fenders, cross tires
Me -- Bertoni roadie, slick tires

I managed to stay on the bike through it all, but at the end of the trail, as we walked up the 30 or so feet to the street, both Felice and I got so much mud caked to our brake calipers/fenders that our wheels no longer rotated. As we pulled off handfuls of mud, Mathias threw more at us. About a mile later, on another mud slick, we considered going mud sliding on the sidewalk along 84th street. We chose to throw mud at each other instead.

Once we got home, I was too Germanically driven to clean off my bike to take photos of the muddiness. Apologies. Here's video of the tree in my front yard, instead.


Wind Storm from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

Room for One Color

Taken at the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at SFMoMA in January.

People look nice under one color of light.

Bike to Work Day 2008

Since pretty much every day is bike to work day for me, going on over a year now, yesterday was nothing too exceptional. I did, however, have to strap some additional gear on my bag in preparation for camping.

nice

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Lunch

Egg Salad Sandwiches (to make 3)

Olive Bread from Le Quartier

3 Eggs, hard-boiled
about a 1/4 lb. of Pea Shoots
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Dash of Vinegar

Eat.

Bike to Work Week

Next week (May 12-18) is Bike to Work Week. Too bad we don't have this kind of parking...

National Bike Month

BikeSnobNYC says it all in his favorites.

This Made Me Laugh Out Loud

On my commute home today, I nearly ran over a squirrel's tail. ON A BIKE! I started giggling and said "Whoa!"

William Elliott Whitmore

Going to see an old friend tonight...



Listen on MySpace

Ernie Chambers in the NYT

weekend

There is No Excuse Called Staying Home

I just came back from seeing Tatsuya Nakatani perform with Luke Polipnick and Chris Bates at the Box. Holy wow.


Tatsuya Nakatani w/Luke Polipnick and Chris Bates @ Box Awesome 4-10-08 from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

Friday night.

Either you are going to see

Tatsuya Nakatani

at Jones Coffee (11th & H) from 8-10;

or you are going to see a fine young singer, in her final recital before moving on to graduate programs elsewhere,

Anna DeGraff

at Westbrook Recital Hall (12th & R) at 8:45.

Nice Things

Dinner

Jim Stevens

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body... but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming... Wow, what a ride!!!"

Change

Make your own.

Hmmm...

Last fall, Nate came home from Chicago for a weekend. We hung out at my parents' kitchen table late into the night, drinking whiskey. This happened along the way...

Mikesch der Osterhase

UNL Surplus Auction

More

Things I Saw On A 2-Hour Bike Ride

1. A bunch of junior high students, in the middle of the street, part the sea of their bodies, one shouting "a biker, damn she's fast!" (To be fair, I was going downhill...)

2. A mourning dove that flew about a foot in front of my face.

3. Two junior high boys, one saying "I love you," me answering "Thank you," as they got out of my way.

4. Kevin Wilkins, though since we were going in opposite directions on the bike path, by the time I realized it was him, it was too late to turn around and catch that Olympic-speed cyclist. We exchanged the obligatory nod of the helmet, though.

5. Canada Geese hanging out on the ice still left on Holmes Lake.

6. A bunch of small dogs tied to the undercarriage of an RV parked outside of Pershing Auditorium.

Böögg

In Zürich, Switzerland, a large, stuffed (with fireworks, among other things) snowman is burned in effigy to end the winter. My father burned his 20+-year-old coveralls, stuffed with hay, baggies of gasoline, sparklers, and matches. Man's Last Great Invention was on hand for a live soundtrack.


Böögg from nocoastfilms on Vimeo.

proud (if a bit frozen) face

I biked to work today on a sheet of ice covered in a bit of snow and topped off with a crusty, icy topping that had been formed by the 16mph north wind, making the 1 degree temperature feel like -18 degrees. I bike straight north, and boy I felt awesome after that.

Sign/Signifier/Signified