Author: Biblioklept

Todd Haynes interviewed at Slate about his film The Velvet Underground

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Sam Adams has a nice conversation with director Todd Haynes about The Velvet Underground, Haynes’ marvelous documentary about the band.

I saw the film this weekend and it’s one of the best musical documentaries I’ve seen in ages. The film is really about the art scene in New York City in the 1960s, and as such, Haynes employs a number of aesthetic conceits, all of which vibrate on just the right side of pretentiousness. There are lots and lots of clips from Warhol’s films and screen tests combined with archival footage (John Cage on teevee, for example), and old interviews interspersed with new interviews with John Cale, Moe Tucker, and a host of other musicians, artists, actors, and folks who bore witness to that whole scene. The film is its own thing—it transcends being “about” the band—indeed, that’s the best thing about The Velvet Underground: it lets you see and hear the band you discovered when you were thirteen or fifteen or thirty with fresh ears and fresh eyes. To this end, it’s possible that the film might turn off folks completely unfamiliar with the band and its influence. Haynes addresses this in his interview with Adams:

I mean, there are some people for whom this will be frustrating and not what they expect from a documentary. They kind of want that tidier oral history. If you’re interested, there’s all kinds of more stuff to find and discover for yourself. But I wanted it to be mostly that experience where the image and the music were leading you, and then it was a visceral journey through the film.

A visceral journey it is.

A highlight for me in the film is a series of late appearances by Jonathan Richman. Adams enjoyed that too:

[Adams]: As someone who’s been listening to him for a long time, the interview with Jonathan Richman is a real highlight of the movie. It makes me hope there’s a Blu-ray someday so you can just release the whole thing as an extra.

[Haynes]: Oh, it’s so fucking great. The whole thing is just, it’s a complete piece. I was crying by the end of it.

Was it your idea for him to have the guitar, or did he just bring it with him?

No, he just brought it. And I mean, come on. It was just so generous and so insightful. And he served the purposes of saying things that I had sort of decided I would not include in this movie: fans, other musicians, critics. It was just going to be about people who were there. That was the criteria. Well, he was there, in spades, and I didn’t realize to what degree.

That picture of him as a teenager with the band, I’d never seen that before.

Fucking crazy. But he could also then speak so informatively as a musician and as a critic and as a fan.

Read the interview here.

Box Picture with Plaster Busts — Wolfgang Lenz

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Box Picture with Plaster Busts, 1985 by Wolfgang Lenz (b. 1925)

Untitled (Boxer) — Francis Bacon

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Untitled (Extract from unidentified boxing magazine with photograph of Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney), 1950 by Francis Bacon (1909-1992)

The Silence — Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

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The Silence, 1895 by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer (1865–1953)

Takeout — Salman Toor

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Takeout, 2020 by Salman Toor (b. 1983)

Milestones — John Currin

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Milestones, 2006 by John Currin (b. 1962)

Arcimboldo — Enrico Donati

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Arcimboldo, 1945 by Enrico Donati (1909-2008)

The Old People (Book acquired, Sept. 2021)

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The Old People is a 2014 novel by A.J. Perry. The Old People gets a new life thanks to Carrying Woman Originals, an imprint of Cow Eye Press, which also published Perry’s novel Cow Country a few years ago.  As you can see in the photo above, Perry’s name is not on the cover. There’s no blurb on the back. Perry’s name shows up on the editions page and then on a second title page that faces the edition page (but not on the first title page).

I was under metaphorical water in September when The Old People arrived, having decided to recommit to doing a good job at my job, by which I mean trying to provide much more feedback and coaching and general mental attendance to my students than I think I was giving in the last (covid-drenched) semesters, all the while worrying about the utter idiocy of Florida Fall 2021’s Death Campaign. Anyway, I stacked it in a growing stack of other TBR copies and retreated into Barthelme’s stories I’d already read a few times when I made the time to read for pleasure.

I moved the stack around today, dropping The Old People to the floor. I picked it up, decided to read the opening pages, and then kept reading. It’s really good! I mean, it’s a really strange thing. It’s a book about tying a knot, which I guess is a metaphor, but it’s really focused on that metaphor’s concrete component. Pages and pages of digging holes and tying knots. I’m not sure exactly what The Old People reminds me of, but it taps into the intersection of myth and anthropology, all without being precious or pretentious (so far, anyway). I hunted down a blurb on Cow Eye’s site:

Since the beginnings of darkest silence the people of a mythical island have spent their days tying the ancient knot that binds them to their past. To tie this knot they must dig a hole; to dig a hole they first must have fire; and to make a fire that is hot enough for hole digging, the knot that they have been tying must finally be tied. From silence to mud to rope to knot to wood to words to fire, the Old People will work to tie their knot under the cool shade of the island’s original knotmaking.

 

“1492” — Emma Lazarus

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Work — Jeffery Edwards

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Work, 1972 by Jeffery Edwards (b. 1945)

The Artist in Her Studio — Paula Rego

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The Artist in Her Studio, 1993 by Paula Rego (b. 1935)

“Hell Pig” — Aimee Nezhukumatathil

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“Hell Pig”
by
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
To keep me from staying out late at night,
my mother warned of the Hell Pig. Black and full
of hot drool, eyes the color of a lung—it’d follow me
home if I stayed past my curfew. How to tell my friends
to press Pause in the middle of a video, say their good-byes
while I shuffled up the stairs and into my father’s waiting
blue car? How to explain this to my dates, whisper
why we could not finish this dance? It’s not like the pig
had any special powers or could take a tiny bite
from my leg—only assurances that it was simply
scandal to be followed home. When my date and I
pull into my driveway and dim the lights, we take
care to make all the small noises that get made
in times like these even smaller: squeaks in the seats,
a slow spin of the radio dial, the silver click of my belt.
Too late. A single black hair flickers awake the ear
of the dark animal waiting for me at the end of the walk.
My fumbling of keys and various straps a wild dance
to the door—the pig grunting in tune to each hurried step, each
of his wet breaths puffing into tiny clouds, a small storm brewing.

Melville’s Bartleby, but just the punctation

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Melville’s Bartleby, but just the punctuation.

The Acrobat Schulz V — Albert Birkle

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The Acrobat Schulz V, 1921 by Albert Birkle (1900-1986 )

Autumn Scenery — He Duoling

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Autumn Scenery, 1988 by He Duoling (b. 1948)

Boring Dolls — Jeanne Mammen

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Boring Dolls, 1929 by Jeanne Mammen (1890-1976)

I’m Supposed to Be Fun — Rae Klein

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I’m Supposed to Be Fun, 2021 by Rae Klein (b. 1995)