Man of the year

Crispin Glover is clearly one of the better people on the planet. I watched Charlies Angels II the other day, and was inspired, even by this shitty movie, to look further into the various manifestations of Crispin Glover on screen, in song and in writing. He uses his middle name, Hellion, when he works on his own projects because, as he told Stuff Magazine “As an interpreter of work, you’re not really the whole artist when you’re acting. So when I publish my books or my records or films, I use Hellion.” And it doesn't stop there. His father was in Diamonds Are Forever, his birthday is two days before mine (which makes him an Aries not a Taurus but still!), he collects antique gynecological equipment, he sued Steven Spielberg and won...

The projects of Crispin Hellion Glover are rather difficult to find, it seems, but all his work can be found on sale here. This includes:

His books:
Rat Catching: A study in the art of catching rats.
Oak Mot: "a tale of epic proportions involving pride and prejudice."
What it is, and how it is done: "A man's life in reverse as told in first second and third persons."

His musical debut:
The Big Problem does not equal the solution. The Solution equals Let It Be.

And, this is the most interesting, his short film:
What is it?: With a cast of actors with down syndrome and a snail, whose voice is played by Fairuza Balk.

It will be awhile before I will be able to purchase or read any of the above, given my present financial situation, but I certainly hope somebody does and that he or she reports back to us with a review. The expectations of someone with an IMDB photo like Crispin's are high. I hope he does not disappoint.

More fun facts.

More from the interview in Stuff.

STUFF: Who’s more difficult to work with: Oliver Stone or Down’s syndrome actors?
CRISPIN: Neither. Oliver Stone I liked working with very much. I played Andy Warhol [in The Doors], and it was a part that I sought out. I met Andy Warhol at Sean Penn and Madonna’s wedding. And I stood back and watched him and the way he moved, and I thought, This fellow really is an interesting person. [Stone’s] technique was almost an intimidation element of, like, “Look, a lot of people are going to see this—you’d better be good.”

Any ground rules for handling actors afflicted with Down’s syndrome?
No. All of the people with Down’s syndrome were more enthusiastic than anybody I’ve worked with. I really had zero problems working with people with Down’s syndrome.

Do you have a Hollywood nemesis?
I don’t want to call anybody in the industry my nemesis, because it’s just bad business. If something is egregiously wrong, then one must go to the legal system. But if something is minor, then it’s better just to let it go.

I don't have the internet in my house and therefore will post much more infrequently, as I feel guilty about doing so from work like I just did.

This article made me pretty sad. Lesley Thornton is a wonderful person.

Best nerd

The 2004 Ignatz Award nominees!

In the category of best online comic:

Outstanding Online Comic

American Elf, James Kochalka, americanelf.com

Apocamon, Patrick Farley, e-sheep.com

Desert Rocks, J.J. Naas, dr.ungroup.net

The Pain … When Will it End?, Timothy Kreider, thepaincomics.com

Tailipoe, Craig Boldman, craigboldman.com

Austin

Some people complained about the heat. It was so sweaty. But we all got nice suntans...

Number of stars in my eyes during their performances:
Pixies:****************************************************
Wilco:************************************************
Modest Mouse:****************************
My Morning Jacket: *****************
Cat Power:***************
Spoon:*********
Old 97s:******
Elvis Costello:****
Centro-Matic:***
Josh Rouse:**
Dashboard Confessional:--

Texas is numerically expressed by number of goatees divided by fake boobies plus cowboy hats times Whataburgers squared. The pho was delicious though.

We were trying to think up names for this, but the one chosen beats out the others indeed. Nathalie's newest blog is for Media Bistro: Galley Cat, all about books and their publishers.

And so on...

I just read Art Spiegelman's new book, In the Shadow of no Towers. I love the man, and his work, but found that he exercised a lack of restraint on this one. Naturally he was covering a difficult subject, one that caused an explosion of various emotions in everyone. But that's what this work is really, an explosion of emotion, a reflection back to us of our many reactions to September 11th. I wanted something smarter than that, a point of view that hadn't yet been taken. I don't think it is his fault, I just think that it is difficult to analyze something when you are caught in the middle of it, which he was.

Sorry I haven't been writing. I just started my new job here. It's been busy busy. I'm going to Texas for the first time in my life tonight, to go to Austin City Limits. I'm going to see the Pixies! rah rah rah

More fantasy books written for children

I bought the second Harry Potter at the grocery store and now I'm listening to the third one when I drive (it's way better on tape I think, the guy who reads it is fantastic.) I was talking to some kids here about it and they all got really excited amongst themselves, and one ran into his room and came back with three books that are another Harry Potter-like series (but better written), His Dark Materials, by Phillip Pullman. The kids in Little Rock are obsessed with them, they told me I wouldn't be able to stop reading until I'd finished all three.

They're based on Paradise Lost and the plot is essentially Kids vs. God. It's pretty dark. People die. I'm halfway through The Golden Compass, which is the first one in the series, and I can't say I'm that impressed yet, but it's full of nice animals like marmosets and basilisks who comprise people's familiars... The first one takes place in a fantasy world, the second in the real world, and the third somewhere between the two, according to the intro page. They're making a movie out of it, directed by the guy who did About a Boy.

Tarnation

Jonathan Caouette. I guess this is old news, but I just heard about this guy and his $218 movie. Dreamy.

"I think Jonathan Caouette's TARNATION is the shit," notes Van Sant. "I think I have always been waiting to see someone make something as moving as Jonathan's film with as little as he has had to make it. I knew something like this would appear, and I am glad that it finally has." This week, Gus called Jonathan about using iMovie for a possible project of his own.

Knoxious

I am in a motel room in Knoxville, Tennessee, one of a cluster of motels surrounding an exit called "Strawberry Plains" (nothing of the sort in sight). They form a bleak bouquet of square streetlights and neon signs, interlocking driveways and chain link fences, set to the ever-present soundtrack of interstate US-40.

It poured rain all day, and if I shut my eyes I can still see puddly mack trucks out of my peripheral vision spraying my windshield. Somewhere in the mountains of Virginia I saw a pick-up truck, not too far in front of me, spin out onto the grassy highway median, losing various pieces along the way. I wasn't sure whether to try and slow down and help the guy, who I don't think would have gotten injured. I didn't though, I just kept driving. There was no way I could have safely slowed down in time, but I thought I should call someone, although I was unsure what there was to say. "Hello 911? I saw a man's near-death experience and didn't slow down. What's that? Where was it? Um... there was a mountain on my right..." If I had left my last gas stop thirty seconds sooner, he would have spun out into my car at 80 mph, but I didn't and he didn't so there was nothing to do but just pass him, his car beached lopsided in the grass, hunched over his seat, doubtless breathing heavily and incredulous, as I was, that he wasn't a mangled corpse.

You start to feel like the only person in the world, even though it's only a 24-hour period between homes, but there are just things - I haven't received an e-mail for three days, I got here and I was the only person paddling around in the motel's creepy swimming pool, falling asleep in a bed that's big enough to lie horizontally or vertically in... It makes me almost want to be some sort of business-type whose life is a series of first-class cabins and hotel lobbies because the solitude is such a particular type, one that makes you think the world doesn't exist. I was tempted to book a room at a "Christianed-themed lodge" just for the experience, but it was earlier than I wanted to stop and I had visions of falling asleep under the scrutinizing gaze of a bloody icon that scared me.

I watched this movie last night, The Happiness of the Kakaturis, the weirdest movie ever and maybe not so good. It's like a Japanese claymation/musical/horror flick about these people who own a hotel that everyone keeps dying in. It has now taken on sinister (rather than totally ridiculous) undertones.

I listened to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on tape today and part of the Metaphysical Club. I gave up on the latter early in the morning, both me in the car and the progressing Civil War in the book reaching Gettysburg, PA at the same moment, I decided it was time to succumb to Harry Potter. It's no Tolkein, or even C.S. Lewis, but it was nice.

There is a spider in the shower. But no Woody Allen to call.

When I opened the paper this morning and read about a Joanne Levy who committed suicide I thought was that it was someone else, because the description said she had red hair and was 5'8. Except that obviously every other descriptive matched up: 23, second year film student, resident of Greenwich Village... Knowing Joanne to be impulsive and rather erratic, her intensity was always translated into her amazing films and this is so very tragic.

Joanne Levy was the very first person I met at Brown. I had just gotten to school and my dad dropped me off at the employment office so I could get an on-campus job (he had priorities). She was sitting at the job computer with Lili and we started up a conversation. I was always sort of bummed that they were in another unit, because I only met a couple other people I felt like I related to as much over the course of the next year. I hung out with them a lot during orientation week. I was absolutely miserable with Brown and thought I had made a huge mistake, but them, and Mike, Meghan, Albert and Lisa, who were all good friends immediately, made me think differently.

Last summer, Joanne and Lili came to the brownstone I was house-sitting in Brooklyn Heights and they stayed over a couple nights, post-juvenile slumber party style. Joanne had just gotten the list of films she had to watch over the summer before starting film school, and we watched Band of Outsiders, which is now one of my favorite movies, and something else I can't remember. She was always something of an intense presence -- on that day she had just returned from Providence, where she had accidentally set fire to her apartment and her cat had died of smoke inhalation. She had to go home early because she wasn't feeling well. (She had diabetes and didn't always take the best care of herself it seemed).

My friend Brandon, who was good friends with her and made a movie with her in intro to video (the one with the button for those who saw it) said it was always hard to know how she was actually feeling about things because she only let you get so close, and I feel the same way. Not that I was her best friend or anything (I haven't seen her since that time last summer), but I had no idea she was in such a situation. I got the sense that she was very close with her family, even if the press says she was in an argument with her father immediately before her death.

It's very sad, she was very talented, extremely hardworking and a total character, which are the three characteristics of a person I am generally drawn to. She was someone of greater potential than most, and if her death serves a purpose it should be to remind each of us of her focus, her drive and her talent, because she was someone who truly lived for her art. I was genuinely looking forward, even if our Brown-based friendship had lapsed, to see her succeed as a filmmaker.

beep beep beep beep beep

My radar is failing me. I can't distinguish the trash in my room from my clothing. The girls I may live with in Arkansas were just described to me as "Sex in the city of the Ozarks." I can't leave soon enough. Friday to Allentown, land of my birth, then my respects to Emily in Philadelphia then back to NY then away away away...

I saw Hero last night and I was a little disappointed, but also motivated to ask what could be done in a movie with such pretty colors that had a compelling story instead of what felt like various levels of streetfighter compiled into a piece of despotic propaganda. But really so pretty, and the guards in their black cloaks that scurried en masse reminded me of one of my favorite parts of Princess Mononoke, when the soldiers scurry around disguised as boars. There is something about masses of people engaged in the act of scurrying that I quite enjoy.

I feel like I haven't slept in years. It has only been days.