The alluring bog behind the Kenneth E. Stoddard Shell Museum in Maine (2024)
Today’s the first brisk fall day we’ve had in Philadelphia, with yellow leaves on the ground. A good day to pick up my interlibrary loan, which the librarian pulled out of an evocative old red canvas zipper bag before entrusting to me. I’d been having a 2D day until then. Thank you to all libraries, very autumn. Anyway — welcome to my Q3 recap — and goodbye to a shiny boiling black hole of a summer, filled to the brim with inspirations.
Table of Contents
Elder Inspiration
In Q3 I saw many legendary elders play music live. I didn’t plan this out, it was a total lucky streak & felt like a signal coming through. We’re talkin Suzanne Ciani (79), Bob Dylan (84), Willie Nelson (92), Marshall Allen (101). Bona fide rock star Sheryl Crow barely makes the list at a sparkly 63 — and if we include just anyone older than me, the list balloons in size, as does my heart.
It makes my spirit grow big and strong to see people twice and thrice my age make music. I’m very grateful for their vision and devotion. If I sound weirdly calm right now that’s because I erased the parts where I was yelling about it all.
Electronic music pioneer Suzanne Ciani is 79 years old. Photo: Katja Ruge
Marshall Allen, leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, is 101 years old. He released his debut solo record last year at age 100. Photo: Harald Krichel
Keep going keep making forever!!! To become an old artist, this is the goal and the gift. Eyes on the prize.
Q3 Stills: Death Watch (1980)
dir. Bertrand Tavernier, cin. Pierre-William Glenn
This week [Q3], a hot new bombshell [elderly celebrity] enters the villa [Annie’s rolodex of celebrity crushes]. Welcome Harvey Keitel, who only just hit my radar. I’d seen ten of his movies before I saw him. What can I say! In every moment there exists infinite possibility for discovery, so I don’t always see a gift the first ten times I look around.
As with the rest of my celebrity crush rolodex (CCR), my aim is to observe, digest, and adopt. I shall become more like Harvey Keitel: unruffled, with a low center of gravity and a warm glow. He has a self-regard that feels French to me, like if Jean-Pierre Leaud was a former US marine from Brooklyn. [Watch: baby JPL’s audition for The 400 Blows]
Death Watch (1980). A dark full-bodied bouquet of a movie. Romy Schneider + Harvey Keitel? Plus Harry Dean Stanton & Max von Sydow? Filmed on location in Scotland? Thrilling ingredients, divine soup. Set in a near future where illness has been nearly eradicated, the world watches a woman die a rare slow death on reality TV. It’s all very prescient. There’s even a computer that writes novels in here.
I absolutely loved it, plotty yet vibey, bleak yet cozy, totally gorgeous: “very like the kind of morning dream that weighs 1,000 pounds coming out of it and ruins your day” to quote myself.
Q3 Read: Farber on Film
Who knew early American film criticism would be so fun to read? A breezy stylist, and with good thinking
I’ve been reading a little Manny Farber review or two before bed and he keeps making me LOL. He has such an attitude! Me too. In one review he laments that Gary Cooper can’t leap as fantastically as Mickey Mouse could if he were in the role. A cartoon mouse could’ve done it better is exactly the kind of critique I’m looking to be charmed by, especially since it’s true and speaks to a real yearning for more heart and energy.
When he writes about what he doesn't like, he points to the essence of what's missing, so I still absorb goodness. When he writes about what he does like, it moves me, and I feel more connected to what art is and how special it is to find some that lights me up.
I suspect good criticism holds sacred the practice of attention, and says let’s treat with reverence both the choice to look at things and the act of creating things we ask others to look at.
Q3 Concept: Past, Present, Future
Here’s something I wrote down in the middle of the night last month:
PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE = LARRY, CURLY, MOE
Does this have legs??? I’m accepting how these three keep knocking heads in my life. Pratfalls around every corner. But you know what they say: when life throws a pie in your face, lick it up, cuz the lesson inside tastes great after you befriend the indignities.
my past, my present, and my future
BTW I revisited The Three Stooges and this shit is soooo funny dude, I’m positively cackling over here, when was the last time you watched? Slapstick has healing powers.
Bonus Obsessions
Pete Drake’s little talkbox smirk as he performs “Forever”: [youtube]
Addison Rae breaking down her song “Headphones On” with her producers Elvira and Luka: [youtube]
My idea for a movie where I recreate every tiny detail of this video and it appears as a plot-relevant crux at the exact midpoint of the structure: [youtube]
Goodbye, Robert Redford
RIP to shining star, environmental activist, noted beauty, and champion of independent film Robert Redford. A true legend. His death made me write a whole thing on what even is beauty for… something about beauty as a vector… it’s too inchoate. It’s expansive, can’t you feel it? Of course it’s not the math of the face, it’s from beyond. But when you combine the math of the face with the buzz of the spirit — oh, what is there to say about it? What a gift for a star to come down to earth for a moment and make us all feel it, whatever it is.
Your fangirl friend,
Annie
✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧
