The Black Isle

Factotum (2005)
Dir: Bent Hamer, based on Charles Bukowski’s writings

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Notes: Annoyingly studied (stiff, self-consciously poker-faced in the way of Aki Kaurismaski) Northern European directing style (the Norwegian director had made “Kitchen Stories”); BUT some very funny writing (Hamer + Jim Stark) and wonderful performances (Matt Dillon as wannabe writer and general fuckup Henry Chinaski, Lili Taylor as his boozy gal); surprisingly tender scenes (she flings off her heels, he gives her his shoes); surprisingly funny stuff (old sugar daddy guy playing the organ for his intoxicated honeys); surprising moral uplift (Chinaski’s upbeat VO at the end about never giving up, narrated while he’s staring at a pole-dancer); and a surprisingly unannoying Marisa Tomei.

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Wim Wenders’ EU pep talk and Vision for Europe.

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The Infinity Cat Project.

I’ll now partake in a few year-end traditions:

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FAVE MOVIES

Notes on a Scandal
Casino Royale
Brand Upon the Brain (Maddin)
Borat
Army in the Shadows (old Melville, new US release)
Little Miss Sunshine
Letters from Iwo Jima & Flags of our Fathers
Little Children
The Last King of Scotland
Flanders (Bruno Dumont)
Volver (with reservations)
Children of Men (only the direction of, the story sucked)

(I have not yet seen: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Half Nelson, Jonestown)

BOOKS I SHOULD FINISH BEFORE 2007 BUT KNOW I WON’T BECAUSE THEY’RE, LIKE, ONLY 7 DAYS LEFT

1. The Paris Review Book of Interviews, Vol. 1 — Probably the best book I’ve read (or partly read) this year next to Gilead, in terms of inspirational, instructional and entertainment value. Kind of like the Bible, for folks aspiring to the writing life, maybe. And Kurt Vonnegut expounds (playfully, perhaps untruthily) on the original meaning of the term “twerp”: Someone who puts a pair of false teeth between the cheeks of their butt.

2. The War of the World by Niall Ferguson — I won’t finish this by the new year because there are 600 pages left to go. This is a lucid, original, compelling re-casting of the twentieth century as the story of the “descent of the West.” It’s not one of those sickening “woe is me, the barbarians are knocking” polemic but an enlightened, blow by blow examination of how violence and major conflict in the early and middle parts of the century grew out of pernicious ideas about race hierarchy (and brain size) that came to the fore in the preceding 100 years. As the 20th century unfurled, events like Russia’s defeat to Japan in 1905 and the decline of the British empire in Asia and Africa proved “Western” faith in those racialist ideas wrong and history began to move in a different direction.

3. The Crimson Labyrinth by Yusuke Kishi — The American debut of a Japanese bestseller about people caught in a life or death game (a la The Running Man) set in a dusty, canyon-y, Martian landscape. The publisher (Vertical) compares it to Lost and Battle Royale, but that’s not the reason why I picked it up: I needed some other trashy pop thriller to get the lousy taste of Scott Smith’s cheap, shoddy, anticlimactic The Ruins out of my head.

(Biggest Book Disappointments: The Mystery Guest by Gregoire Bouillier, Lost Girls by Alan Moore)

THINGS I NEED TO DO NEXT YEAR

:: Write and finish my short story MR & MRS SCHADENFREUDE
:: Write (and finish?) my long novel THE BLACK ISLE
:: Unwrap the CDs I bought (The Decemberists, Stuart A Staples, Stephin Merritt, Les Georges Leningrad, Final Fantasy) and listen to them
:: Get going on one documentary idea
:: Look up old friends
:: Wait and see

LAST NIGHT’S DINNER LOG

Where: here
What: stinky cheeses & fig jam; rapini, cannellini bean & potato soup; prime rib; roast carrots with garlic; savoy cabbage cooked in its own juice; pear tart (from Europane). Soave, Dolcetto & Pinot Noir.
Who: Guy, Lise, Rachel
Talk: Film, Paris is dead, “very strange film”, Guy Maddin, David Lynch, Woodland Hills, Inland Empire, Clint, editing suites, Paris is dead, Cannes (secret routes to theatres at), film, “I have never seen a beef like this!”, Fry’s Electronics, Pigalle, Marin Karmitz, Locarno (the expensiveness of), Death Valley, Georges Delerue, Paris is not dead, drunk-driving, David Lynch, “We will wait for you in Paris, OK?”
Epiphany: Fabulous four bottle night with Francophone sound effects and occasional sign language. Superb company. Cooking-wise, we now realize that Bristol Farms is not where you go to buy the best tasting prime rib, just the priciest. I think we would have done just as well at Whole Foods. Also, ’tis not the season for rapini ($4.79 a bunch at Bristol Farms, with yellowed leaves) — soup turned out bitterer than usual.

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The Mosquito Book has a challenger: the NAVEL FLUFF COLLECTION of Graham Barker, a resident of Perth, Australia.

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Happy Holidays, from Santa Claus Lane.

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Celebrating 15 years of the Mosquito Book, created by my bite-martyr cousin Yao. 250 mosquitoes individually caught and pressed onto the pages of an exercise book over the course of a month. A sticky reminder of tropical malaise and teenage anomie in the leafy suburbs of Singapore.

Klaus Kinski, ladies and germs. Klaus Kinski.