The Painted Room: A Tale of Mantua by Inger Christensen

The Painted Room: A Tale of Mantua by Inger Christensen


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Inger Christensen does not fail me on the first day of 2010. She my patron saint of peeling paint and intrigue and loftiness. This is the plottiest plot I've ever loved and I love it for its swiftness and obliqueness and because it reminds me of Gabriel García Márquez. This is the year of the fool and foolish accounts. This is the year of sour wine that blossoms sweetly. This is the year of Maria. Call us Maria. Call all of us one name.

View all my reviews >>

Chris Burden (b. 1946)

Chris Burden (b. 1946)
A Twenty-Year Survey, Newport Harbor Art Museum - A Video Portrait (1989)



Directed and Edited by Peter Kirby
Director of Photography: Dan Zimbaldi
Co-production of
Newport Harbor Art Museum
Media Art Services
Zona Productions
length 27:45

Arabesque for Kenneth Anger (1958-61)
Marie Menken (1910-1970)


16mm, color, sound, 4 min
Original score by Teiji Ito. "A new sound version of this classic. It is a beautiful experience to see her fabulous shooting. The cutting is just as fabulous and is something for all to study; the new score by Teiji Ito is 'out of this world' with its many leveled instrumentation. Marie says 'These animated observations of tiles and Moorish architecture were made as a thank-you to Kenneth for helping to shoot on another film in Spain.' Shot in the Alhambra in one day." -- Gryphon Film Group

The Cafe At Light by Mark McMorris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
ok. solid book. certainly journaly, collecting/recovering conversations, travelogues, architectures. Certainly slipping between times/places and there was a great deal put into the caryatids. And certainly more moderny than I was prepared for, but more prosey too. won me over in the horses passages-god I loved the horse passages-and certainly ok in all other respects and felt and refreshingly informal.

View all my reviews >>

Shot by Christine Hume

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am an unwilling proponent of this book because the first poem, Incubatory, convinced me that I hated it. But as I read (forcing myself to read, really, because I like Counterpath press so much) I began to think hating this book is part of loving it. It is annoying, it blurts things out, it gets excited with itself, it overkills -- but it also sees everything (good and bad) through. The thinking is sloppy at times, but it stomps through on pure gall getting us somewhere pretty fucking original. In fact, the book does remind me of a certain type of performance whereby an actor/speaker breaks her contract with the audience, giving her the distance she needs to really freak out and do something. I think that's what happened here. I had to be really far away from the speaker to witness the full range of motion in these poems.

View all my reviews >>

"People are the same all over, cut"

Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman - Notes On Conceptualisms: eastcoast/westcoast (2009)

"...The conversation is more presence by its absence.... the fact that the book is not being talked about leads me very much to suspect that its all anyone is talking about..."



Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman - Notes On Conceptualisms: eastcoast/westcoast (2009)

Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman
with Kim Rosenfield
filmed by Coco
edited by Fred Barney Taylor


In the DIY video, Place and Fitterman pirate the original eastcoast/westcoast by Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt to ponder the coastal reception of their book "Notes on Conceptualisms."

Robert Fitterman is the author of 11 books of poetry--he lives in NYC.
Vanessa Place is a writer and a lawyer. She lives in LA.

Plaisir d'amour en Iran (1976)

Plaisir d'amour en Iran (1976) by Agnès Varda (b. 1928)





35mm, 1976
Starring: Valérie Mairesse, Ali Raffi
6min


Made at a time when Iran had a seemingly revolving door for incoming European directors and bottomless funding for their projects, Plaisir d'amour en Iran is a short, sort of love story between a handsome Iranian (Ali Raffi) and a visiting French woman (Valérie Mairesse). The film was shot at the Shah Masjed in romantic Esfehan.