My eyesight has been bothering me today. This afternoon I was hit between the eyes by a psychedelic snowflake that grew into a painful, gyrating bowling ball sized black hole in my vision. I was unable to read my computer screen, and my office mate had already gone home, so I put my feet up and set my head back in the hopes that it would go away. Of course, the President of the company happened to walk by and glance in to my office while I was doing this.
I learned today that Stan Brakhage died nearly a month ago. Where was I? Somewhere I have Dog Star Man on tape - it doesn't really look very good that way, and I don't have any of the films which he made that I like - Reflections on Black (1955), Blue Moses (1964), eyes (1970), etc. Word has it that a DVD or two will surface shortly. Perhaps this format will be friendlier to Brakhage's work than VHS. Nonetheless, I am saddened by this news and regret that i never met Brakhage, even though I did meet many of his colleagues, most of whom are already gone by now.
This year is the first in many where NO ONE told me an April Fools Joke - save my wife and daughter, both of whom get special commendation in my book for doing so. You would expect them to come up at the office, but I guess in '03 no one was in the mood. There were several good ones on the web tho' - this one I particularly liked:
http://www.16mmfilms.com/phrm/read.php?f=1&i=23470&t=23470
The other day I tried to use the Blogger program to paste in some links so that you could click right out of here and into the related page into a new window. They didn't show up on the web, so for now you will have to cut and paste the links until I figure out what I'm doing wrong. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I heard Toshiko Akiyoshi's new CD today "Hiroshima - Rising From the Abyss" (True Life 100008) and I found it very good, a little pretentious, but nonetheless an accomplished elaboration of its theme. Lew Tabackin sounds terrific, and there are readings in Japanese taken from diaries left by J-moms who survived the blast that are touching and very effective. It's not for everybody, and even if it is for you, it is likely that you will only listen to it once. But it's a good listen, and if you have an understanding of what folks "in the old country" feel about Hiroshima and what it means, you will want to hear it.
Finally, a joke from Remy (my daughter), who claims it came from SpongeBob SquarePants:
Q: Why couldn't the little kids get into see the pirate movie?
A: Cause it was rated "arrrgh"!
Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis@hotmail.com